“So the bottle may have been uncorked for a minute or two?”

“I suppose so. He plugged up the hole with rag, before he did anything else. He had the bottle on the floor beside him.”

“And then?”

“Well, then he took up the bottle and corked it. I suppose,” said Harper, “I should have had the stuff analyzed, but we’ve no call to suspect Abel Pomeroy. There was none missing from the jar and there are only his prints on it, and there’s the extra quarter-ounce missing from the bottle. No, it’s gone from the bottle. Must have. And, see here, Mr. Alleyn, the stuff was found on the dart and nowhere else. What’s more, if it was the dart that did the trick, and it’s murder, then Legge’s our bird, because only Legge controlled the flight of the dart.”

“Silly sort of way to kill a man,” said Fox, suddenly. “It’d be asking for a conviction, Super, now wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe he reckoned he’d get a chance to wipe the dart,” said Harper.

“He had his chance,” said Alleyn, quickly. “Wasn’t it brought out that Legge helped the constable— Oates, isn’t it? — to find the dart? He had his chance, then, to wipe it.”

“And if he was guilty, why didn’t he?” ended Fox.

“You’re asking me,” said Superintendent Harper. “Here’s the Colonel.”

iii

The Chief Constable was an old acquaintance of Alleyn’s. Alleyn liked Colonel Brammington. He was a character, an oddity, full of mannerisms that amused rather than irritated Alleyn. He was so unlike the usual county-minded chief constable, that it was a matter for conjecture how he ever got the appointment for he spent half his life in giving offence and was amazingly indiscreet. He arrived at Illington Police Station in a powerful racing-car that was as scarred as a veteran. It could be heard from the moment it entered the street and Harper exclaimed agitatedly:

“Here he comes! He knows that engine’s an offence within the meaning of the Act and he doesn’t care. He’ll get us all into trouble one of these days. There are complaints on all sides. On all sides!”

The screech of heavy tyres and violent braking announced Colonel Brammington’s arrival and in a moment he came in. He was a vast red man with untidy hair, prominent eyes, and a loud voice. The state of his clothes suggested that he’d been dragged by the heels through some major disaster.

He shouted an apology at Harper, touched Alleyn’s hand as if it was a bomb, stared at Fox, and then hurled himself into a seagrass chair with such abandon that he was like to break it.

“I should have been here half an hour ago,” shouted Colonel Brammington, “but for my car, my detestable, my abominable car.”

“What was the matter, sir?” asked Harper.

“My good Harper, I have no notion. Fortunately I was becalmed near a garage. The fellow thrust his head among her smoking entrails, uttered some mumbojumbo, performed suitable rites with oil and water, and I was enabled to continue.”

He twisted his bulk in the creaking chair and stared at Alleyn.

“Perfectly splendid that you have responded with such magnificent celerity to our cri du coeur, Alleyn. We shall now resume, thankfully, the upholstered leisure of the not-too-front front stall.”

“Don’t be too sure of that, sir,” said Alleyn. “It looks as if there’s a weary grind ahead of us.”

“Oh God, how insupportably dreary! What, hasn’t the solution been borne in upon you in a single penetrating flash? Pray expect no help from me. Have you got a cigarette, Harper?”

Alleyn offered his case.

“Thank you. I haven’t even a match, I’m afraid. Ah, thank you.” Colonel Brammington lit his cigarette and goggled at Alleyn. “I suppose Harper’s given you the whole tedious rigmarole,” he said.

“He’s given me the file. I suggest that Fox and I take it with us to Ottercombe and digest it.”

“Oh Lord! Yes, do. Yes, of course. But you’ve discussed the case?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Harper has given me an excellent survey of the country.”

“It’s damned difficult country. Now, on the face of it, what’s your opinion; accident or not?”

“On the face of it,” said Alleyn, “not.”

“Oh Lord!” repeated Colonel Brammington. He got up, with surprising agility, from his tortured chair and moved restlessly about the room. “Yes,” he said, “I agree with you. The fellow was murdered. And of all the damned unconscionable methods of despatching a man! An envenom’d stick, by God! How will you hunt it home to this fellow?”

“Which fellow, sir?”

“The murderer, my dear man. Legge! A prating, soap-box-orator of a fellow, I understand — some squalid little trouble-hatcher. Good God, my little Alleyn, of course he’s your man! I’ve said so from the beginning. There was cyanide on the dart. He threw the dart. He deliberately pinked his victim.”

“Harper,” said Alleyn, with a glance at the superintendent’s shocked countenance, “tells me that several of the others agree that Legge had no opportunity to anoint the dart, with cyanide or anything else.”

“Drunk!” cried Colonel Brammington. “Soaked in a damn’ good brandy, the lot of ’em. My opinion.”

“It’s possible, of course.”

“It’s the only answer. My advice, for what it’s worth, is, haul him in for manslaughter. Ought to have been done at first, only that drooling old pedagogue Mordant didn’t put it to the jury. However, you must do as you think best.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Alleyn gravely. Brammington grinned.

“The very pineapple of politeness,” he quoted. “Come and dine with me to-morrow. Both of you.”

“May I ring up?”

“Yes, yes,” said Colonel Brammington impatiently. “Certainly.”

He hurried to the door as if overcome by an intolerable urge to move on somewhere. In the doorway he turned.

“You’ll come round to my view,” he said, “I’ll be bound you will.”

“At the moment, sir,” said Alleyn, “I have no view of my own.”

“Run him in on the minor charge,” added Colonel Brammington, raising his voice to a penetrating shout as he disappeared into the street, “and the major charge will follow as the night the day.”

A door slammed and in a moment the violence of his engines was reawakened.

“Well, now,” said Alleyn. “I wonder.”

Chapter IX

Alleyn at the Feathers

i

The sun had nearly set when Alleyn and Fox drove down Ottercombe Road towards the tunnel. As the car mounted a last rise they could see Coombe Road, a quarter of a mile away across open hills. So clear was the evening that they caught a glint of gold where the surf broke into jets of foam against the sunny rocks. Alleyn slowed down and they saw the road sign at the tunnel entrance.

“Ottercombe. Dangerous corner. Change down.”

“So I should think,” muttered Alleyn, as the sheer drop appeared on the far side. He negotiated the corner and there, at the bottom of the steep descent, was the Plume of Feathers and Ottercombe.

“By George,” said Alleyn, “I don’t wonder Cubitt comes here to paint. It’s really charming, Fox, isn’t it? A concentric design, with the pub as its axis. And there, I fancy, is our friend Pomeroy.”

“On the look-out, seemingly,” said Fox.

“Yes. Look at the colour of the sea, you old devil. Smell that jetty-tar-and-iodine smell, blast your eyes. Fox, murder or no murder, I’m glad we came.”

“So long as you’re pleased, sir,” said Fox, drily.

“Don’t snub my ecstasies, Br’er Fox. Good evening, Mr. Pomeroy.”

Abel hurried forward and opened the door.

“Good evening, Mr. Alleyn, sir. We’m glad to see you. Welcome to the Feathers, sir.”

He used the same gestures, almost the same words, as those with which he had greeted Watchman, fourteen days ago. And Alleyn, if he had realized it, answered as Watchman had answered.

“We’re glad to get here,” he said.