Chapter V

Failure of Mr. Legge

i

P.C. Oates had gone as far as the tunnel, had returned, and had descended the flight of stone steps that leads to the wharf from the right-hand side of the Feathers. He had walked along the passage called Fish Lane, flashing his lamp from time to time on steaming windows and doorways. Rain drummed on Oates’s mackintosh cape, on his helmet, on cobblestones, and on the sea, that only a few feet away in the darkness, lapped at the steaming waterfront. The sound of the rain was almost as loud as the sound of thunder and behind both of these was the roar of surf on Coombe Rock. A ray of lamplight from a chink in the window-blind shone obliquely on rods of rain and, by its suggestion of remote comfort, made the night more desolate.

Far above him, dim and forlorn, the post office clock told a quarter past nine.

Oates turned at the end of Fish Lane and shone his light on the second flight of Ottercombe Steps. Water was pouring down them in a series of miniature falls. He began to climb, holding tight to the handrail. If anyone could have seen abroad in the night, lonesome and dutiful, his plodding figure might have suggested a progression into the past, when the night-watchman walked through Ottercombe to call the hours to sleeping fishermen. Such a flight of fancy did not visit the thoughts of Mr. Oates. He merely told himself that he was damned if he’d go any farther, and when the red curtains of the Plume of Feathers shone through the rain, he mended his pace and made for them.

But before he had gone more than six steps he paused. Some noise that had not reached him before threaded the sound of the storm. Someone was calling out — shouting — yelling. He stopped and listened.

“O-O-Oates! Hullo! Dick! D-i-i-ick! O-O-Oates!”

“Hullo!” yelled Oates, and his voice sounded very desolate.

“Hullo! Come — back — here.”

Oates broke into a lope. The voice had come from the front of the pub. He crossed the yard, passed the side of the house and the door into the Public, and came in sight of the front door. A tall figure, shading its eyes, was silhouetted against the lighted entry. It was Will Pomeroy. Oates strode out of the night into the entry.

“Here!” he said, “what’s up?” And when he saw Will Pomeroy’s face: “What’s happened here?”

Without speaking Will jerked his thumb in the direction of the private top. His face was the colour of clay and the corner of his mouth twitched.

“Well, what is it?” demanded Oates impatiently.

“In there. Been an accident.”

“Accident. What sort of a accident?”

But before Will could answer, Decima Moore came out of the tap-room, closing the door behind her.

“Here’s Dick,” said Will.

“Will,” said Decima, “there’s no doubt about it. He’s dead.”

“My Gawd, who’s dead?” shouted Oates.

“Watchman.”

ii

Oates looked down at the figure on the settle. He had remembered to remove his helmet but the water dripped off his cape in little streams. When he bent forward three drops fell on the blind face. Oates dabbed at them with his finger and glanced round apologetically.

He said, “What happened?”

Nobody answered. Old Pomeroy stood by the bar, his hands clasped in front of him. His face spoke only of complete bewilderment. He looked from one to another of the men as if somewhere there was some sort of explanation which had been withheld from him. Sebastian Parish and Norman Cubitt stood together in the inglenook. Parish’s face was stained with tears. He kept smoothing back his hair with a nervous and meaningless gesture of the right hand. Cubitt’s head was bent down. He seemed to be thinking deeply. Every now and then he glanced up sharply from under his brows. Mr. Nark sat on one of the bar stools clenching and unclenching his hands and struggling miserably with intermittent but profound hiccoughs. Legge, as white as paper, bit at his fingers and stared at Oates. Decima and Will stood together in the doorway. Miss Darragh sat just outside the inglenook on a low chair. Her moonlike face was colourless but she seemed composed.

Watchman lay on a settle near the dart board and opposite the bar. His eyes were wide open. They seemed to stare with glistening astonishment at the ceiling. The pupils were wide and black. His hands were clenched; the right arm lay across his body, the left dangled, and where the knuckles touched the floor they, like the back of the hand, were stained red.

“Well,” repeated Oates violently, “can’t any of you speak? What happened? Where’s your senses? Have you sent for a doctor?”

“The telephone’s dead,” said Will Pomeroy. “And he’s past doctoring, Dick.”

Oates picked up the left wrist.

“What’s this? Blood?”

“He got a prick from a dart.”

Oates looked at the clenched hand and felt the wrist. In the third finger there was a neat puncture on the outside, below the nail. It was stained brown. The nails were bluish.

“I did that,” said Legge suddenly. “It was my dart.”

Oates laid the hand down and bent over the figure. A drop of water fell from his coat on one of the staring eyes. He fumbled inside the shirt, looking over his shoulder at Will Pomeroy.

“We’ll have to fetch a doctor, however,” he said.

“I’ll go,” said Cubitt. “Is it Illington?”

“Dr. Shaw, sir. Main road in and the last corner. It’s on the left after you pass the police-station. He’s police surgeon. I’d be obliged if you’d stop at the station and report.”

“Right.” Cubitt went out.

Oates straightened up and unbuttoned his cape.

“I’ll have to get some notes down,” he said and felt in the pocket of his tunic. He stepped back and his boots crunched excruciatingly.

“There’s glass all over the floor,” said Will.

Decima Moore said: “Can’t we — cover him up?”

“It would be better, don’t you think?” said Miss Darragh, speaking for the first time. “Can I—?”

Will said: “I’ll get something,” and went out. Oates looked round the group and at last addressed himself to Sebastian Parish.

“How long ago was this, sir?” he asked.

“Only a few minutes. It happened just before you came in.”

Oates glanced at his watch.

“Half-past nine,” he said, and noted it down.

“Let’s hear what happened,” he said.

“But it’s not a case for the police,” said Parish. “I mean because he died suddenly—”

“You called me in, sir,” said Oates. “It’s no doubt a case for the doctor. Leave it, if you wish, sir, till he comes.”

“No, no,” said Parish, “I don’t mean that I object. It’s only that your notebook and everything — it’s so awful, somehow.” He turned to Abel Pomeroy. “You tell him.”

“It was like this, Dick,” said old Abel. “Mr. Legge, here, had told us how he could throw the darts like a circus chap between the fingers of a man’s hand stretched out on board. You heard him, Mr. Watchman, in his bold way, said he’d hold his hand out and Mr. Legge was welcome to have a shot at it. ’Twouldn’t do no great damage, Mr. Watchman said, if he did stick him. Us all said it was a silly rash kind of trick. But Mr. Watchman was hellbent on it.”

“He insisted,” said Will.

“So he did, then. And up goes his hand. Mr. Legge throws the first three as pretty as you please, outside little finger, atween little and third, atween third and middle. Then he throws the fourth, and ’stead of going atween middle and first finger it catches little finger. ‘Got me’, says Mr. Watchman, and then — then what?” asked Abel.

“It was curious,” said Miss Darragh slowly. “He didn’t move his hand at once. He kept it there against the board. The blood trickled down his finger and spread like veins in a leaf over the back of his hand. One had time to wonder if the dart had gone right through and he was in a way, crucified.”