Death at the Bar (15 page)

“Ah, don’t worry yourself,” said Miss Darragh. She took the armchair that Fox wheeled forward, wriggled into the deep seat, and tucked her feet up.

“It’s more comfortable here,” she said, “and I’m a bit tired. I was out at the crack of dawn at me sketching. Down on the front, ’twas, and those steps are enough to break your heart.”

“There must be some very pleasant subjects down there,” murmured Alleyn. “At the end of the jetty, for instance.”

“You’ve a good eye for a picture,” said Miss Darragh. “That’s where I was. Or perhaps you saw me there?”

“I think,” said Alleyn, “that you passed me on your way out. I was in the garage yard.”

“You were. But the garage yard does not overlook the jetty.”

“Oh, no,” said Alleyn vaguely. “Now, Miss Darragh, may we get down to what I’m afraid will be, for you, a very boring business. It’s about the night of this affair. I’ve seen your statement to the police, and I’ve read the report of the inquest.”

“Then,” said Miss Darragh, “I’m afraid you’ll know all I have to tell you and that’s not much.”

“There are one or two points we’d like to go over with you if we may. You told the coroner that you thought the wound from the dart had nothing to do with Mr. Watchman’s death.”

“I did. And I’m positive it hadn’t. A little bit of a puncture no bigger than you’d take from a darning needle.”

“A little bigger than that surely?”

“Not to make any matter.”

“But the analyst found cyanide on the dart.”

“I’ve very little faith in ’um,” said Miss Darragh.

“In the analyst? It went up to London, you know. It was the very best analyst,” said Alleyn with a smile.

“I know ’twas, but the cleverest of ’um can make mistakes. Haven’t I read for myself how delicut these experiments are, with their fractions of a grain of this and that, and their acid tests, and their heat tests, and all the rest of it? I’ve always thought it’s blown up with their theories and speculations these fine chemists must be. When they’re told to look for prussic acid, they’ll be determined to find it. Ah, well, maybe they did find poison on the dart, but that makes no difference at all to me theory, Mr. Alleyn. If there was prussic acid or cyanide, or Somebody’s acid on the dart (and why for pity’s sake can’t they find one name for ut and be done with ut?), then ’twas put on in the factory or the shop, or got on afterwards, for ’twas never there at the time.”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Alleyn apologetically. “I don’t quite—”

“What I mean is this, Mr. Alleyn. Not a soul there had a chance to play the fool with the darts, and why should they when nobody could foretell the future?”

“The future? You mean nobody could tell that the dart would puncture the finger?”

“I do.”

“Mr. Legge,” said Alleyn, “might have known, mightn’t he?”

“He might,” said Miss Darragh coolly, “but he didn’t. Mr. Alleyn, I never took my eyes off that ’un, from the time he took the darts till the time he wounded the poor fellow, and that was no time at all, for it passed in a flash. If it’s any help I’m ready to make a sworn statement — an affidavit isn’t it? — that Legge put nothing on the dart.”

“I see,” said Alleyn.

“Even Mr. Pomeroy, who is set against Mr. Legge, and Mr. Parish, too, will tell you he had no chance to infect the dart.”

Miss Darragh made a quick nervous movement with her hands, clasping them together and raising them to her chin.

“I know very well,” she said, “that there are people here will make things look black for Mr. Legge. You’ll do well to let ’um alone. He’s a delicut man and this affair’s racking his nerves to pieces. Let ’um alone, Mr. Alleyn, and look elsewhere for your murderer, if there’s murder in ut.”

“What’s your opinion of Legge?” asked Alleyn abruptly.

“Ah, he’s a common well-meaning little man with a hard life behind ’um.”

“You know something of him? That’s perfectly splendid. I’ve been trying to fit a background to him and I can’t.”

For the first time Miss Darragh hesitated, but only for a second. She said: “I’ve been here nearly three weeks and I’ve had time to draw my own conclusions about the man.”

“No more than that?”

“Ah, I know he’s had a hard time and that in the end he’s come into harbour. Let ’em rest there, Mr. Alleyn, for he’s no murderer.”

“If he’s no murderer he has nothing to fear.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t understand.”

“I think perhaps we are beginning to understand. Miss Darragh, last night I asked Mr. Legge if, as a matter of routine, he would let us take his fingerprints. He refused. Why do you suppose he did that?”

“He’s distressed and frightened. He thinks you suspect ’um.”

“Then he should welcome any procedure that is likely to prove our suspicions groundless. He should rather urge us to take his prints than burst into a fit of hysterics when we ask for them.”

A faint line appeared between Miss Darragh’s eyes. Her brows were raised and the corners of her mouth turned down. She looked like a disgruntled baby.

“I don’t say he’s not foolish,” she said. “I only say he’s innocent of murder.”

“There’s one explanation that sticks out a mile,” Alleyn said. “Do you know the usual reason for withholding fingerprints?”

“I do not.”

“The knowledge that the police already have them.”

Miss Darragh said nothing.

“Now if that should be the reason in this case,” Alleyn continued, “it is only a matter of time before we arrive at the truth. If, to put it plainly, Legge has been in prison, we shall very soon trace his record. But we may have to arrest him for manslaughter, to do it.”

“All this,” exclaimed Miss Darragh with spirit, “all this to prove he didn’t kill Watchman! All this disgrace and trouble! And who’s to pay the cost of ut? ’Twould ruin him entirely.”

“Then he would be well advised to make a clean breast and tell us of his record, before we find it out for ourselves.”

“How do you know he has a record?”

“I think,” said Alleyn, “I must tell you that I was underneath the south jetty at six o’clock this morning.”

She opened her eyes very wide indeed, stared at him, clapped her fat little hands together, and broke into a shrill cackle of laugher.

“Ah, what an old fule you’ve made of me,” said Miss Darragh.

iii

But although she took Alleyn’s disclosure in good part, she still made no admissions. She was amused and interested in his exploit of the morning, didn’t in the least resent it, and exclaimed repeatedly that it was no use trying to keep out of his clutches. But she did elude him, nevertheless, and he began to see her as a particularly slippery pippin, bobbing out of reach whenever he made a bite at it.

Alleyn was on difficult ground and knew it. The notes that he and Fox had made of the conversation on the jetty were full of gaps and, though they pointed in one direction, contained nothing conclusive.

Detective officers are circumscribed by rules which, in more than one case, are open to several interpretations. It is impossible to define exactly the degrees of pressure in questions put by the detective. Every time an important case crops up he is likely enough to take risks. If he is lucky, his departure from rule of thumb comes off, but at the end of every case, like a warning bogey, stands the figure of defending counsel, ready to pounce on any irregularity and shake it angrily before the jury.

Miss Darragh had not denied the suggestion that Legge had a police record and Alleyn decided to take it as a matter of course that such a record existed and that she knew about it.

He said: “It’s charming of you to let me down so lightly.”

“For what, me dear man?”

“Why, for lying on my back in a wet dinghy and listening to your conversation.”

“Isn’t it your job? Why should I be annoyed? I’m only afraid you’ve misinterpreted whatever you heard.”

“Then,” said Alleyn, “I shall tell you how I have interpreted it, and you will correct me if I am wrong.”

“So you say,” said Miss Darragh good-humoredly.

“So I hope. I think that Legge has been to gaol, that you know it, that you’re sorry for him, and that as long as you can avoid making a false statement you will give me as little information as possible. Is that right?”

“It’s right in so far as I’ll continue to hold me tongue.”

“Ugh!” said Alleyn with a rueful grin. “You
are
being firm with me, aren’t you? Well, here we go again. I think that if Mr. Legge had not been to gaol, you would laugh like mad and tell me what a fool I was.”

“You do, do you?”

“Yes. And what’s more I do seriously advise you to tell me what you know about Legge. If you won’t do that, urge Legge to come out of the thicket, and tell me himself. Tell him that we’ve always got the manslaughter charge up our sleeves. Tell him that his present line of behaviour is making us extremely suspicious.” Alleyn paused and looked earnestly at Miss Darragh.

“You said something to this effect this morning, I know,” he added. “Perhaps it’s no good. I don’t see why I should finesse. I asked Legge to let me take impressions of his fingerprints. Good prints would have been helpful but they’re not essential. He picked up the dart, it had been tested and we’ve got results. I asked him for impressions because I already suspected he had done time and I wanted to see how he’d respond. His response convinced me that I was right. We’ve asked the superintendent at Illington to send the dart to the Fingerprint Bureau. Tomorrow they will telephone the result.”

“Let ’um,” said Miss Darragh cheerfully.

“You know, you’re withholding information. I ought to be very stiff with you.”

“It’s not meself, I mind,” she said. “I’m just wishing you’d leave the poor fellow alone. You’re wasting your time and you’re going to do ’um great harm in the end. Let ’um alone.”

“We can’t,” said Alleyn. “We can’t let any of you alone.”

She began to look very distressed and beat the palms of her hands together.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” she said. “I’ll accuse no one; but look further and look nearer home.”

And when he asked her what she meant she only repeated very earnestly: “Look further and look nearer home. I’ll say no more.”

i

“Fox,” said Alleyn. “Get your hat. We’ll walk to Cary Edge Farm and call on Miss Moore. Miss Darragh says it’s a mile and a quarter over the downs from the mouth of the tunnel. She says we shall pass Cubitt painting Parish on our way. An eventful trip. Let us take it.”

Fox produced the particularly rigid felt hat that appears when his duties take him into the country. Will Pomeroy was in the front passage and Alleyn asked him if he might borrow one of a collection of old walking sticks behind the door.

“Welcome,” said Will, shortly.

“Thank you so much. To get to Cary Edge Farm we turn off to the right from the main road, don’t we?”

“Cary Edge?” repeated Will and glared at them.

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “That’s where Miss Moore lives, isn’t it?”

“She won’t be up-along this morning.”

“What’s that, sonny?” called old Abel, from the private tap-room. “Be the gentlemen looking for Miss Dessy? She’s on her way over by this time for Saturday marketing.”

Will moved his shoulders impatiently.

“You know everyone’s business, Father,” he muttered.

“Thank you, Mr. Pomeroy,” called Alleyn. “We’ll meet her on the way, perhaps.”

“Less she do drive over in old car,” said Abel, coming to the door. “But most times her walks.”

He looked apprehensively at Will and turned back into the bar.

“We’ll risk it,” said Alleyn. “Back to lunch, Mr. Pomeroy.”

“Thank’ee, sir.”

Alleyn and Fox walked up to the tunnel mouth. When they reached it Alleyn glanced back at the Plume of Feathers. Will stood in the doorway looking after them. As Alleyn turned, Will moved back into the pub.

“He will now telephone Cary Edge in case Miss Moore has not left yet,” observed Alleyn. “No matter. She’ll have been expecting us to arrive sooner or later. Come on.” They entered the tunnel.

“Curious, Fox, isn’t it” said Alleyn, and his voice rang hollow against the rock walls. “Ottercombe must have been able to shut itself up completely on the landward side. I bet some brisk smuggling went forward in the old days. Look out, it’s slippery. Miss Moore must be an intrepid driver if she motors through here in all weathers.”

They came out into the sunshine. The highway, a dusty streak, ran from the tunnel. On each side the downs rolled along the coast in a haze of warmth, dappled by racing cloud shadows. Farther inland were the hills and sunken lanes, the prettiness of Devon; here was a sweep of country where Englishmen for centuries had looked coastwards, while ships sailed across their dreams, and their thoughts were enlarged beyond the seaward horizon.

“Turn to the right,” said Alleyn.

They climbed the bank and rounded a furze-bush, in a sunken hollow.

“Good spot for a bit of courting,” said Fox, looking at the flattened grass.

“Yes, you old devil. You may invite that remarkably buxom lady who brought our breakfast, to stroll up here after hours.”

“Mrs. Ives?”

“Yes. You’ll have to get in early, it’s a popular spot. Look at those cigarette butts, squalid little beasts. Hullo!”

He stooped and picked up two of them.

“The cigarette butt,” he said, “has been derided by our detective novelists. It has lost caste and now ranks with the Chinese and datura. No self-respecting demi-highbrow will use it. That’s because old Conan Doyle knew his job and got in first. But you and I, Br’er Fox, sweating hacks that we are, are not so superior. This cigarette was a Dahabieh, an expensive Egyptian. Harper said they found some Egyptian cigarettes in Watchman’s pockets. Not many Dahabieh-smokers in Ottercombe, I imagine. Parish and Cubitt smoke Virginians. This one has lip stick on it. Orange-brown.”

“Not Miss Darragh,” said Fox.

“No, Fox. Nor yet Mrs. Ives. Let’s have a peer. There’s been rain since the Dahabiehs were smoked. Look at those heel marks. Woman’s heels. Driven into the bank.”

“She must have been sitting down,” said Fox. “Or lying. Bit of a struggle seemingly. What had the gentleman been up to?”

“What indeed. What did Miss Darragh mean by her ‘Look further and look nearer home’? We’ve no case for a jury yet, Fox. We mustn’t close down on a theory. Can you find any masculine prints? Yes. Here’s one. Not a very good one.”

“Watchman’s?”

“We may have to find out. May be nothing in it. Wait a bit though. I’m going back to the pub.”

Alleyn disappeared over the ridge and was away for some minutes. He returned with two stones, a bit of an old box, and a case.

“Better,” he said, “in your favourite phrase, Br’er Fox, to be sure than sorry.”

He opened the case. It contained a rubber cup, a large flask of water, some plaster-of-Paris, and a spray-pump. Alleyn sprayed the footprints with shellac, and collected twigs from under the furze-bushes, while Fox mixed plaster. They took casts of the four clearest prints, reinforcing the plaster with the twigs and adding salt to the mixture. Alleyn removed the casts when they had set, covered the footprints with the box, weighted it with stones, and dragged branches of the furze-bush down over the whole. The casts, he wrapped up and hid.

“You never know,” he said, “let’s move on.”

They mounted the rise and, away on the headland, saw Cubitt, a manikin, moving to and fro before his easel.

“We’ll have to join the infamous company of gapers,” said Alleyn. “Look, he’s seen us. How eloquent of distaste that movement was! There’s Parish beyond. He’s doing a big thing. I believe I’ve heard Troy [Mrs. Roderick Alleyn, R.A.] speak of Norman Cubitt’s work. Let’s walk along the cliffs, shall we?”

They struck out to the right and hadn’t gone many yards before they came to a downward slope where the turf was trampled. Alleyn stooped and examined it.

“Camp-stool,” he muttered. “And here’s an empty tube. Water-colour. The Darragh spoor, I imagine. An eventful stretch of country, this. I wonder if she was here on that Friday. You can’t see the other place from here, Fox. You might hear voices though.”

“If they were raised a bit.”

“Yes. Angry voices. Well, on we go.”

As they drew nearer Cubitt continued to paint, but Parish kept turning his head to look at them. When they came within earshot, Cubitt shouted at them over his shoulder.

“I hope to God you haven’t come here to ask questions. I’m busy.”

“All right,” said Alleyn. “We’ll wait.”

He walked beyond them, out of sight of the picture. Fox followed him. Alleyn lay on the lip of the headland. Beneath them, the sea boomed and thudded against a rosy cliff. Wreaths of seaweed endlessly wove suave patterns about Coombe Rock. A flight of gulls mewed and circled, in and out of the sunlight.

“What a hullabaloo and a pother,” said Alleyn. “How many thousands of times, before they come adrift, do these strands of seaweed slither out and swirl and loop and return? Their gestures are so beautiful that it is difficult to realize they are meaningless. They only show us the significance of the water’s movements but for themselves they are helpless. And the sea is helpless too, and the winds which it obeys, and the wider laws that rule the winds, themselves are ruled by passive rulers. Dear me, Fox, what a collection of ordered inanities! Rather like police investigations. I can’t look over any more, I’ve no head for heights.”

“Here comes Mr. Cubitt, sir,” said Fox. Alleyn rolled over and saw Cubitt, a vast figure against the sky.

“We’re resting now,” said Cubitt. “Sorry to choke you off but I was on a tricky bit.”

“We are extremely sorry to bother you,” said Alleyn. “I know it is beyond a painter’s endurance to be interrupted at a critical moment.”

Cubitt dropped down on the grass beside him. “I’m trying to keep a wet skin of paint all over the canvas,” he said. “You have to work at concert pitch for that.”

“Good Lord!” Alleyn exclaimed. “You don’t mean you paint right through that surface in three hours?”

“It keeps wet for two days. I’ve got a new brand of slow-drying colours. Even so, it’s a bit of an effort.”

“I should think so, on a thing that size.” Parish appeared on the brow of the hill.

“Aren’t you coming to see my portrait?” he cried.

Cubitt glanced at Alleyn and said: “Do, if you’d like to.”

“I should, enormously.” They walked back to the easel. The figure had come up darkly against the formalized sky. Though the treatment was one of extreme simplification, there was no feeling of emptiness. The portrait was at once rich and austere. There was no bravura in Cubitt’s painting. It seemed that he had pondered each brushmark, gravely and deeply, and had then laid it down on a single impulse and left it so.

“Lord, it’s good,” said Alleyn. “It’s grand, isn’t it?”

Parish stood with his head on one side and said, “Do you like it?” but Cubitt said: “Do you paint, Alleyn?”

“No, not I. My wife does.”

“Does she exhibit at all?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “Her name is Troy.”

“Oh God!” said Cubitt. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s good, isn’t she?” said Alleyn humbly.

“To my mind,” answered Cubitt, “the best we’ve got.”

“Do you think it’s like me?” asked Parish. “I tell Norman he hasn’t quite got my eyes. Judging by my photographs, you know. Not that I don’t like it. I think it’s marvellous, old boy, you know that.”

“Seb,” said Cubitt, “your price is above rubies. So long as you consider it a pretty mockery of nature, I am content.”

“Oh,” said Parish, “I’m delighted with it, Norman, really. It’s only a suggestion about the eyes.”

“How long have you been at it?” asked Alleyn.

“This is the sixth day. I had two mornings before the catastrophe. We shelved it for a bit after that.”

“Naturally,” added Parish solemnly. “We didn’t feel like it.”

“Naturally,” agreed Cubitt drily.

“Tell me,” said Alleyn, “did you ever pass Mr. Watchman on your way to or from this place?”

Cubitt had laid a streak of blue across his palette with the knife. His fingers opened and the knife fell into the paint. Parish’s jaw dropped. He looked quickly at Cubitt as if asking him a question.

“How do you mean?” asked Cubitt. “He was only here one day. He died the night after he got here.”

“That was the Friday,” said Alleyn. “Did you work here on the Friday morning?”

“Yes.”

“Well, was Mr. Watchman with you?”

“Oh no,” said Cubitt quickly, “he was still in bed when we left.”

“Did you see him on the way home?”

“I don’t think we did,” said Parish.

“In a little hollow this side of a furze-bush and just above the main road.”

“I don’t think so,” said Parish.

“No,” said Cubitt, a little too loudly. “We didn’t. Why?”

“He was there some time,” said Alleyn vaguely.

Cubitt said: “Look here, do you mind if I get going again? The sun doesn’t stand still in the heavens.”

“Of course,” said Alleyn quickly.

Parish took up the pose. Cubitt looked at him and filled a brush with the colour he had mixed. He raised the brush and held it poised. Alleyn saw that his hand trembled.

“It’s no good,” said Cubitt abruptly, “we’ve missed it. The sun’s too far round.”

“But it’s not ten yet,” objected Parish.

“Can’t help it,” said Cubitt and put down his palette.

“For pity’s sake,” said Alleyn, “don’t go wrong with it now.”

“I’ll knock off, I think.”

“We’ve been a hell of a nuisance. I’m sorry.”

“My dear chap,” said Parish, “you’re nothing to the modest Violet. It’s a wonder she hasn’t appeared. She puts up her easel about five yards behind Norman’s and brazenly copies every stroke he makes.”

“It’s not as bad as that, Seb.”

“Well, personally,” said Parish, “I’ve had quite as much as I want of me brother Terence and me brother Brian and me unfortunate cousin poor Bryonie.”

“What!” exclaimed Alleyn.

“She has a cousin who is a noble lord and got jugged for something.”

“Bryonie,” said Alleyn. “He was her cousin, was he?”

“So it seems. Do you remember the case?”

“Vaguely,” said Alleyn. “Vaguely. Was Miss Darragh anywhere about on that same morning?”

“She was over there,” said Parish. “Back in the direction you’ve come from. She must have stayed there for hours. She came in, drenched to the skin and looking like the wrath of Heaven, late in the afternoon.”

“An enthusiast,” murmured Alleyn. “Ah well, we mustn’t hang round you any longer. We’re bound for Cary Edge Farm.”

Something in the look Cubitt gave him reminded Alleyn of Will Pomeroy.

Parish said: “To call on the fair Decima? You’ll be getting into trouble with Will Pomeroy.”

“Seb,” said Cubitt, “pray don’t be kittenish. Miss Moore is out on Saturday mornings, Alleyn.”

“So Will Pomeroy told us, but we hoped to meet her on her way to Ottercombe. Good luck to the work. Come along, Fox.”

ii

A few yards beyond the headland they struck a rough track that led inland and over the downs.

“This will take us there, I expect,” said Alleyn. “Fox, those gentlemen lied about Watchman and the furze-bush.”

“I thought so, sir. Mr. Cubitt made a poor fist of it.”

“Yes. He’s not a good liar. He’s a damn good painter. I must ask Troy about him.”

Alleyn stopped and thumped the point of his stick on the ground.

“What the devil,” he asked, “is this about Lord Bryonie?”

“He’s the man that was mixed up in the Montague Thringle case.”

“Yes, I know. He got six months. He was Thringle’s cat’s-paw. By George, Fox, d’you know what?”

“What, sir?”

“Luke Watchman defended Bryonie. I’ll swear he did.”

“I wouldn’t remember.”

“Yes, you would. You must. By gum, Fox, we’ll look up that case. Watchman defended Bryonie, and Bryonie was Miss Darragh’s cousin. Rum. Monstrous rum.”

“Sort of fetches her into the picture by another route.”

“It does. Well, come on. We’ve lots of little worries. I wonder if Miss Moore uses orange-brown lipstick. I tell you what, Fox, I think Cubitt is catched with Miss Moore.”

“In love with her?”