Death at the Bar (8 page)

Abel said: “I don’t rightly remember. Wait a bit, though. I reckon Mr. Watchman handed first round to everyone.” Abel looked anxiously at Will, who nodded. “ ’Ess, sir. That’s how ’twas.”

“You must not communicate with other persons, Mr. Pomeroy, before giving your answers,” said Dr. Mordant darkly. “And the second round?”

“Ah. I poured it out and left glasses on bar,” said Abel thoughtfully, “Company was fairly lively by then. There was a lot of talk. I reckon each man took his own, second round. Mr. Watchman carried his over to table by dart board.”

“Would you say that at this juncture the men who had taken brandy were sober?”

“Not to say sober, sir, and not to say proper drunk. Bosky-eyed, you might say, ’cepting old George Nark and he was proper soaked. ’Ess, he was drunk as a fish was George Nark.”

Two of the jury men laughed at this and several of the public. The coroner looked about him with an air of extreme distaste and silence set in immediately.

“Is it true,” said the coroner, “that you have been poisoning rats in your garage, Mr. Pomeroy?”

Old Abel turned very white and said, “Yes.”

“What did you use?”

“ ’Twas some stuff from chemist.”

“Yes. Did you purchase it personally?”

“No, sir. It was got for me.”

“By whom?”

“By Mr. Parish, sir. I axed him and he kindly fetched it. I would like to say, sir, that when he give it to me ’twas all sealed up, chemist-fashion.”

“N-n-n-yes. Do you know the nature of this poison?”

“I do believe, sir, it was in the nature of prussic acid. It’s not marked anything but poison.”

“Please tell the jury how you used this substance and when.”

Abel wetted his lips and repeated his story. He had used the rat-poison on Thursday evening, the evening of Watchman’s arrival. He had taken great care and used every precaution. A small vessel had been placed well inside the mouth of the rat-hole and some of the fluid poured into it. The hole was plugged up with rags and the bottle carefully corked. No waste drop of the fluid had escaped. Abel had worn old gloves which he afterwards threw on the fire. He had placed the bottle in a corner cupboard in the inglenook. It had stood alone on the shelf and the label
POISON
could be seen through the glass door. Everyone in the house was aware of the bottle and its contents.

“We have heard that the iodine was taken from a cupboard in the inglenook. Was this the same cupboard?”

“ ’Ess fay,” said Abel quickly, “but ’twasn’t same shelf, sir. ’Twas in a tin box in another shelf and with a different door, but same piece of furniture.”

“You fetched the iodine?”

“So I did, then, and it was snug and tight in first-aid tin, same as it always is. And, axing your pardon, sir, I used to dab of that same iodine on Bob Legge’s chin only that evening, and there the man is as fit as a flea to bear witness.”

“Quite. Thank you, Mr. Pomeroy. Call Bernard Noggins, chemist, of Illington.”

Mr. Bernard Noggins could have been called nothing else. His eyes watered, his face was pink, his mouth hung open, and he suffered from hay fever. He was elderly and vague, and he obviously went in great terror of the coroner. He was asked if he remembered Mr. Parish’s visit to his shop. He said he did.

“Mr. Parish asked you for a rat-poison?”

“Yes. Yes, he did.”

“What did you supply?”

“I — er — I had no proprietary rat-bane in stock,” began Mr. Noggins miserably, “and no arsenic. So I suggested that the fumes of a cyanide preparation might prove beneficial.”

“Might prove
what
?”

“Efficacious. I suggested Scheele’s acid.”

“You sold Mr. Parish Scheele’s acid?”

“Yes. No — I—actually — I diluted — I mean I added — I mean I produced a more concentrated solution by adding HCN. I — er — I supplied a fifty per cent solution. Yes.”

The coroner dropped his pen and gazed at Mr. Noggins, who went on in a great hurry:

“I warned Mr. Parish. He will agree I warned him most carefully and he signed the register — every formality and precaution — most particular. Full instructions. Label.”

The coroner said: “Why did you make this already lethal fluid so much more deadly?”

“Rats,” said Mr. Noggins. “I mean, Mr. Parish said it was for rats, and that Mr. Pomeroy had tried a commercial rat-bane without success. Mr. Parish suggested — suggested — I should—”

“Should what, Mr. Noggins?”

“That I should ginger it up a bit, as he put it.” Mr. Noggins, in the excess of his discomfort, uttered a mad little laugh. The coroner turned upon him a face sickly with disapprobation and told him he might stand down. Dr. Mordant then addressed the jury.

“I think, gentlemen, we have heard enough evidence as to fact and circumstance surrounding this affair and may now listen to the medical evidence. Dr. Shaw, if you please.”

Dr. Shaw swore himself in very briskly and, at the coroner’s invitation, described the body as it was when he first saw it. The coroner’s attitude of morbid introspection increased but he and Dr. Shaw seemed to understand each other pretty well.

“The eyes were wide open and the pupils widely dilated, the jaws tightly clenched…” Dr. Shaw droned on and on. Parish and Cubitt, who had remained in court, both looked rather sick. Legge eyed Dr. Shaw with a sort of mesmerized glare. Will Pomeroy held Decima’s hand, and old Abel stared at his boots. Mr. Nark, who had expected to be called, looked alternately huffy and sheepish. A large, bald man, who looked as if he ought to be in uniform, seemed to prick up his ears. He was Superintendent Harper of the Illington Police Force.

“You have performed an autopsy?” asked the coroner.

“Yes.”

“What did you find?”

“I found the blood much engorged and brilliant in colour. I found nothing unusual in the condition of the stomach. I sent the contents to be analyzed, however, and the report has reached me. Nothing unexpected has been found. I also sent a certain quantity of the blood to be analyzed.”

Dr. Shaw paused.

“N-n-yes?”

“In the case of the sample of blood, the analyst has found definite traces of hydrocyanic acid. These traces point to the presence of at least a grain and a half of the acid in the blood stream.”

“And the fatal dose?”

“One may safely say less than a grain.”

“Did you send the brandy bottle and the iodine bottle, which was found under the bench, to the analyst?”

“Yes.”

“What was the result, Dr. Shaw?”

“The test was negative. The analyst can find no trace of hydrocyanic acid in either bottle.”

“And the dart?”

“The dart was also tested for traces of hydrocyanic acid.” Dr. Shaw looked directly at the coroner and said crisply, “Two tests were used. The first was negative. The second positive. Indications of a very slight trace of hydrocyanic acid were found upon the dart.”

iii

There was only one other witness, a representative of the firm that made the darts. He stated with considerable emphasis that at no stage of their manufacture did they come in contact with any form of cyanide, and that no cyanic preparation was to be found in the entire factory.

The coroner summed up at considerable length and with commendable simplicity. His manner suggested that the jury as a whole was certifiable as mentally unsound, but that he knew his duty and would perform it in the teeth of stupidity. He surveyed the circumstances surrounding Watchman’s death. He pointed out that the only word spoken by the deceased, the word “poisoned,” overheard by one witness alone, should not weigh too heavily in the minds of the jury. In the first place the evidence might be regarded as hearsay, and therefore inadmissible at any other court. In the second, there was nothing to show why the deceased had uttered this word or whether his impression had been based on any actual knowledge. They might attach considerable importance to the point that the post-mortem analysis gave positive signs of the presence of some kind of cyanide in the blood. They might, while remembering the presence of a strong solution of hydrocyanic acid in the room, also note the assurance given by several of the witnesses that all reasonable precaution had been taken in the use and disposal of the bottle. They would very possibly consider that the use, for domestic purposes, of so dangerous a poison, was extremely ill-advised. He reminded them of Watchman’s idiosyncrasy for the acid. He delivered a short address on the forms in which this, the most deadly of the cerebral depressants, was usually found. He said that, since hydrogen cyanide is excessively volatile, the fact that none was found in the stomach did not preclude the possibility that the deceased had taken it by the mouth. He reminded them again of the expert evidence. No cyanide had been found in the brandy bottle or the iodine bottle. The fragments of the broken brandy glass had also given a negative result in the test for cyanide, but they might remember that as these fragments were extremely minute, the test, in this instance, could not be considered conclusive. They would of course note that the point of the dart had yielded a positive result in the second test made by the analyst. This dart was new, but had been handled by three persons before Mr. Legge used it. He wound up by saying that if the jury came to the conclusion that the deceased died of cyanide poisoning but that there was not enough evidence to say, positively, how he took the poison, they might return a verdict to this effect.

Upon this hint the jury retired for ten minutes and came back to deliver themselves, as well as they could remember them, in Dr. Mordant’s own words. They added a shocked and indignant remark on the subject of prussic acid in the home.

The inquest on Luke Watchman was ended and his cousin was free to bury his body.

i

“Summer,” said Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn moodily, “is acoming in and my temper is agoing out. Lhude sing cuccu. I find that the length of my patience, Fox, fluctuates in an inverse ratio with the length of the days.”

“Don’t you like the warm weather?” asked Detective-Inspector Fox.

“Yes, Fox, but not in London. Not in the Yard. Not in the streets, where one feels dirty half an hour after one has bathed. Not when one is obliged to breathe the fumes of petrol and the body-odour of those who come to make statements and remain to smell. That creature who has just left us stank abominably. However, the case is closed, which is a slight alleviation. But I don’t like summer in London.”

“Ah well,” said Fox, shifting his thirteen stone from one leg to the other, “
chacun à son goût
.”

“Your French improves.”

“It ought to, Mr. Alleyn. I’ve been sweating at it for two years now, but I can’t say I feel what you might call at home with it. Give me time and I can see my way with the stuff but that’s not good enough. Not nearly good enough.”

“Courage, Fox. Dogged as does it. What brought you up here?”

“There’s a chap came into the waiting-room an hour ago with rather a rum story, sir. They sent him along to me. I don’t know that there’s much in it but I thought you might be interested.”

“Why?” asked Alleyn apprehensively.

“I nearly sent him off,” continued Fox, who had his own way of imparting information. “I did tell him it was nothing to do with us and that he’d better go to the local Super which is, of course, what he’ll have to do anyway if there’s anything in it.”

“Fox,” said Alleyn, “am I a Tantalus that you should hold this beaker, however unpalatable, beyond my reach? What was this fellow’s story? What prevented you from following the admirable course you have outlined? And why have you come in here?”

“It’s about the Watchman business.”

“Oh?” Alleyn swung round in his chair. “What about it?”

“I remembered you’d taken an interest in it, Mr. Alleyn, and that deceased was a personal friend of yours.”

“Well — an acquaintance.”

“Yes. You mentioned that there were one or two points that were not brought out at the inquest.”

“Well?”

“Well, this chap’s talking about one of them. The handling of the darts.”

Alleyn hesitated. At last he said: “He must go to the local people.”

“I thought you might like to see him before we got rid of him.”

“Who is he?”

“The pub-keeper.”

“Has he come up from Devon to see us?”

“Yes, he has. He says the Super at Illington wouldn’t listen to him.”

“None of our game.”

“I thought you might like to see him,” Fox repeated.

“All right, blast you. Bring him up.”

“Very good, sir,” said Fox, and went out.

Alleyn put his papers together and shoved them into a drawer of his desk. He noticed with distaste that the papers felt gritty and that the handle of the drawer was sticky. He wished suddenly that something important might crop up somewhere in the country, somewhere, for preference, in the South of England; and his thoughts switched back to the death of Luke Watchman in Devon. He called to mind the report on the inquest. He had read it attentively.

Fox returned and stood with his hand on the door.

“In here, if you please, Mr. Pomeroy,” said Fox.

Alleyn thought his visitor would have made a very good model for the portrait of an innkeeper. Abel’s face was broad, ruddy and amiable. His mouth looked as if it had only just left off smiling and was ready to break into a smile again; for all that, at the moment, he was rather childishly solemn. He wore his best suit and it sat uneasily upon him. He walked halfway across the floor and made a little bow.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said Abel.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Pomeroy. I hear you’ve come all the way up from the West Country to see us.”

“I have so, sir. First time since Coronation and not such a pleasant errand. I bide home-along mostly.”

“Lucky man. Sit down, Mr. Pomeroy.”

“Much obliged, sir.”

Abel sat down and spread his hands on his knees.

“This gentleman,” he said, looking at Fox, “says it do be none of your business here, sir. That’s a bit of a facer. I got no satisfaction along to Illington, and I says to myself: ‘I’ll go up top. I’ll cut through all their pettifogging, small-minded ways, and lay my case boldly before the witty brains of those masterpieces at Scotland Yard.’ Seems like I’ve wasted time and money.”

“That’s bad luck,” said Alleyn. “I’m sorry, but Inspector Fox is right. The Yard only takes up an outside case at the request of the local Superintendent, you see. But if you’d care to tell me, unofficially, what the trouble is, I think I may invite you to do so.”

“Better than nothing, sir, and thank you very kindly.” Abel moistened his lips and rubbed his knees. “I’m sore troubled,” he said. “It’s got me under the weather. First time anything of a criminal nature has ever come my way. The Feathers has got a clean sheet, sir. Never any trouble about after-hours in my house. Us bides by the law and now it seems as how the law don’t bide by we.”

“A
criminal
nature?” said Alleyn.

“What else am I to think of it, sir? ’Twasnt’ accident! ’Twasn’t neglect on my part, for all they’re trying to put on me.”

“Suppose,” said Alleyn, “we begin at the beginning, Mr. Pomeroy. You’ve come to see us because you’ve information—”

Abel opened his mouth but Alleyn went on: “Information or an opinion about the death of Mr. Luke Watchman”

“Opinion!” said Abel. “That’s the word.”

“The finding at the inquest was death by cyanide-poisoning, with nothing to show exactly how it was taken.”

“And a proper fidgeting, suspicioning verdict it was,” said Abel warmly. “What’s the result? Result is George Nark, so full of silly blusteracious nonsense as an old turkey-cock, going round ’t Coombe with a story as how I killed Mr. Watchman along of criminal negligence with prussic acid. George Nark axing me of an evening if I’ve washed out glasses in my tap, because he’d prefer not to die in agony same as Mr. Watchman. George Nark talking his ignorant blusteracious twaddle to anyone as is stupid enough to listen to him.”

“Very irritating,” said Alleyn. “Who is Mr. Nark?”

“Old fool of a farmer, sir, with more long words than wits in his yed. I wouldn’t pay no attention, knowing his tongue’s apt to make a laughing-stock of the man, but other people listen and it’s bad for trade. I know,” said Abel steadily, “I know as certain-sure as I know anything in the life, that it was no fault of mine Mr. Watchman died of poison in my private tap. Because why? Because so soon as us had done with that stuff in my old stables, it was corked up proper. For all there wasn’t a drop of wetness on the bottle, I wiped it thorough and burned the rag. I carried it in with my own hands, sir, and put it in cupboard. Wearing gas mask and gloves, I was, and I chucked the gloves on the fire and washed my hands afterwards. And thurr that bottle stood, sir, for twenty-four hours; and if any drop of stuff came out of it, ’twas by malice and not by accident. I’ve axed my housekeeper and li’l maid who works for us, and neither on ’em’s been near cupboard. Too mortal scared they wurr. Nor has my boy, Will. And what’s more, sir, the glasses Mr. Watchman and company drank from that ghastly night was our best glasses, and I took ’em special, out of cupboard under bar. Now, sir, could this poison, however deadly, get itself out of stoppered bottle, through glass door, and into tumbler under my bar? Could it? I ax you!”

“It sounds rather like a conjuring trick,” agreed Alleyn with a smile.

“So it do.”

“What about the dart, Mr. Pomeroy?”

“Ah!” said Abel. “Thicky dart! When George Nark don’t be saying I did for the man in his cups, he be swearing his soul away I mussed up thicky dart with prussic acid. Mind this, sir, the darts wurrn’t arrived when us brought in poison on Thursday night, and they wurr only unpacked five minutes before the hijjus moment itself. Now!”

“Yes, they were new darts, weren’t they? I seem to remember—”

“ ’Ess fay, and never used till then. I opened ’em up myself, while company was having their last go Round-the-Clock. I opened ’em up on bar counter. Fresh in their London wrappings, they wurr. Mr. Parish and my boy, Will, they picked ’em up and looked at ’em, casual-like, and then Bob Legge, he scooped ’em up and took a trial throw with the lot. He said they carried beautiful. Then he had his shot at Mr. Watchman’s hand. They wurr clean new, they darts.”

“And yet,” said Alleyn, “the analyst found a trace of cyanide on the dart that pierced Mr. Watchman’s finger.”

Abel brought his palms down with a smack on his knees.

“ ’Od rabbit it,” he shouted, “don’t George Nark stuff that-thurr chunk of science down my gullet every time he opens his silly face? Lookee yurr, sir! ’Twas twenty-four hours, and more, since I put a bottle o’ poison in cupboard. I’d washed my hands half a dozen times since then. Bar had been swabbed down. Ax yourself, how could I infectorate they darts?”

Alleyn looked at the sweaty, earnest countenance before him, and whistled soundlessly.

“Yes,” he said at last, “it seems unlikely.”

“Unlikely! It’s slap-down impossible.”

“But—”

“If pison got on thicky dart,” said Abel, “ ’twasn’t by accident nor yet by carelessness. ’Twas by malice. ’Twas with murderacious intent. Thurr!”

“But how do you account…?”

“Account? Me?” asked old Abel, agitatedly. “I don’t. I leaves they intellectual capers to Superintendent Nicholas Harper, and a pretty poor fist he do be making of it. That’s why—”

“Yes, yes,” said Alleyn hurriedly. “But remember that Mr. Harper may be doing more than you think. Policemen have to keep their own counsel, you see. Don’t make up your mind that because he doesn’t say very much—”

“It’s not what he don’t say, it’s the silly standoffishness of what he do say. Nick Harper! Damme, I was to school with the man, and now he sits behind his desk and looks at me as if I be a fool. ‘Where’s your facts’ he says. ‘Don’t worry yourself,’ he says, ‘if there’s anything fishy, us’ll fish for it.’ Truth of the matter is, the man’s too small and ignorant for a murderous matter. Can’t raise himself above the level of motor licenses and after-hour trade, and more often than not he makes a muck of them. What’ll come to the Feathers if this talk goes on? Happen us’ll have to give up the trade, after a couple of centuries.”

“Don’t you believe it,” said Alleyn. “We can’t afford to lose our old pubs, Mr. Pomeroy, and it’s going to take more than a week’s village gossip to shake the trade at the Plume of Feathers. It is just a week since the inquest, isn’t it? It’s fresh in Mr. George Nark’s memory. Give it time to die down.”

“If this affair dies down, sir, there’ll be a murder unhung in the Coombe.”

Alleyn raised his brows.

“You feel like that about it?”

“ ’Ess, I do. What’s more, sir, I’ll put a name to the man.”

Alleyn lifted a hand but old Abel went on doggedly:

“I don’t care who hears me, I’ll put a name to him, and that-there name’s Robert Legge. Now!”

“A very positive old article,” said Alleyn, when Fox returned from seeing Abel Pomeroy down the corridor.

“I don’t see why he’s made up his mind this chap Legge is a murderer,” said Fox. “He’d only known deceased twenty-four hours. It sounds silly.”

“He says Watchman gibed at Legge,” said Alleyn. “I wonder if he did. And why.”

“I’ve heard him in court, often enough,” said Fox. “He was a prime heckler. Perhaps it was a habit.”

“I don’t think so. He was a bit malicious, though. He was a striking sort of fellow. Plenty of charm and a good deal of vanity. He always seemed to me to take unnecessary trouble to be liked. But I didn’t know him well. The cousin’s a damn’ good actor. Rather like Watchman, in a way. Oh well, it’s not our pidgin, thank the Lord. I’m afraid the old boy’s faith in us wonderful police has been shaken.”

“D’you know the Super at Illington, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Harper. Yes, I do. He was in on that arson case in South Devon in ’37. Served his apprenticeship in L. Division, You must remember him.”

“Nick Harper?”

“That’s the fellow. Devon, born and bred. I think perhaps I’d better write and warn him about Mr. Pomeroy’s pilgrimage.”

“I wonder if old Pomeroy’s statement’s correct. I wonder if he did make a bloomer with the rat-poison and is simply trying to save his face.”

“His indignation seemed to me to be supremely righteous. I fancy he thinks he’s innocent.”

“Somebody else may have mucked about with the bottle and won’t own up,” Fox speculated.

“Possible. But who’d muck about with hydrocyanic acid for the sheer fun of the thing?”

“The alternative,” said Fox, “is murder.”

“Is it? Well, you bumble off and brood on it. You must be one of those zealous officers who rise to the top of the profession.”

“Well, sir,” said Fox, “it’s funny. On the face of it, it’s funny.”

“Run away and laugh at it, then. I’m going home, Br’er Fox.”

But when Fox had gone, Alleyn sat and stared at the top of his desk. At last he drew a sheet of paper towards him and began to write.

Alleyn sealed and stamped this letter. He took his hat and stick from the wall, put on one glove, pulled it off again, cursed, and went to consult the newspaper files for the reports on the death of Luke Watchman.