“He was still pretty handy with the darts, though,” observed Fox.

“So he was, then, sir. But I reckon, sir, that’s second nature to the man, drunk or sober. He smelt something wonderful of tipple. And after I left, sir, he had two brandies. He must have been drunk.”

“But sobered by shock?” suggested Alleyn.

“That’s what I reckoned, sir.”

“Did you notice anything in Legge’s manner or in the manner of any of the others that led you to think the thing wasn’t an accident?”

Oates fixed his knees, in the classic tradition, and eased his collar.

“Legge,” he said, “was rather put about. Well, sir, that’s natural, he having seemingly just killed a man and got over a booze, in one throw of a dart if you want to put it fanciful. Yes, he was proper put out, was Bob Legge. White as a bogey and trimbling. Kept saying the deceased gentleman had taken tetanus. Now that,” said Oates, “might of been a blind, but it looked genuine to me. That’s Legge. There wasn’t anything unusual in Abel Pomeroy. Worried, but there again, who isn’t with a fresh corpse on the premises? Young Will had his eye on Miss Dessy Moore. Natural again. She’s so pretty as a daisy and good as promised to Will. Staring at him, with eyes like saucers, and ready to swoon away. Kind of frightened. Bore up all right, till she’d told me how she give the deceased brandy, and then seemed, in a manner of speaking, to cave in to it, and went off with Will, scared-like and looking at him kind of bewildered. Will give me the clearest answers of the lot, sir. Kept his head, did Will.”

“And the two friends?”

“Two gentlemen, sir? Mr. Parish looked scared and squeamish. Very put out, he was, and crying too, something surprising. Answered by fits and starts. Not himself at all. Mr. Cubitt, the straight-out opposite. Very white and didn’t go near the body while I was there. Wouldn’t look at it, I noticed. But cool and collected, and answered very sensible. It was Mr. Cubitt fetched the doctor. I got the idea he wanted to get out into the open air, like. Seemed to me, sir, that Mr. Parish kind of let hisself go and Mr. Cubitt held hisself in. Seemed to me that, likely, Mr. Cubitt was the more upset.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “I see. Go on.”

“The rest, sir? I didn’t see the Honourable Darragh till the morning. The Honourable Darragh, sir, behaved very sensible. Not but what she wasn’t in a bit of a quiver, but being a stout lady, you noticed it more. Her cheeks jiggled something chronic when she talked about it, but she was very sensible. She’s a great one for talking, sir, and it’s my belief that when she got over the surprise she fair revelled in it.”

“Really? And now we’re left as usual with Mr. George Nark.”

“Nothing but vomit and hiccough, sir. Drunk as an owl.”

“I see. Well, Oates, you’ve given us a clear enough picture of the actors. Now for the dart. Where was the dart when you found it?”

“Legge found it, sir. I asked for it almost imediate, sir, but they was all that flustered they paid no heed to me. ’Cepting Legge who had been going on about ‘Was it the dart that did it?’ and ‘Had he killed the man?’ and ‘Wasn’t it lockjaw?’ and ‘He must have shifted his finger,’ and so forth; and so soon as I asked for the dart he stooped down and peered about and then he says ‘There it is!’ and I saw it and he picked it up from where it had fallen. It was stained and still looked damp, sir. Blood. And I suppose, sir, the poison.”

Oates paused and then said: “If I may take the liberty, sir.”

“Yes, Oates?”

“They all says, sir, that Mr. Watchman threw that there dart down, sir. They say he threw it down t’other side of the table.”

“Yes.”

“Well now sir, it was laying on the floor.”

“What?” exclaimed Fox.

“It was,” repeated Oates, “alaying on the floor. I saw it. Ax Legge, he’ll bear me out.”

“Whereabouts?” asked Alleyn sharply.

“Behind the table, sir, like they said, and well away from where they had been standing. The table was betwixt the settle and the board.”

“I see,” said Alleyn. And then the wildest hopes of Dick Oates were realized. The words with which he had soothed himself to sleep, the words that he heard most often in his dearest dreams, were spoken unmistakably by the Man from Higher Up.

“By George,” said Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, “I believe you’ve got it!”

Chapter XII

Curious Behavior of Mr. Legge

i

On that first night in Ottercombe, from the time Oates left them until half-past eleven, Alleyn and Fox thrashed out the case and debated a plan of action. Alleyn was now quite certain Watchman had been murdered.

“Unless there’s a catch, Br’er Fox, and I can’t spot it if there is. The rat-hole, the dart, the newspaper, and the general evidence ought to give us ‘Who,’ but we’re still in the dark about ‘How.’ There are those bits of melted glass, now.”

“I asked old Pomeroy. He says the fireplace was cleared out the day before.”

“Well, we’ll have to see if the experts can tell us if it’s the same kind as the brandy glass. Rather, let us hope they can say definitely that it’s not the same. Oh, Lord!”

He got up, stretched himself, and leant over the window-sill. The moon was out and the sleeping roofs of Ottercombe made such patterns of white and inky black as woodcut-draughtsmen love. It was a gull’s eye view Alleyn had from the parlour window, a setting for a child’s tale of midnight wonders. A cat was sitting on one of the crooked eaves. It stared at the moon and might have been waiting for an appointment with some small night-gowned figure that would presently lean, dreaming, from the attic window. Alleyn had a liking for old fairy tales and found himself thinking of George Macdonald and At the Back of the North Wind. The Coombe was very silent in the moonlight.

“All asleep,” said Alleyn, “except us, and Mr. Robert Legge. I wish he’d come home to bed.”

“There’s a car, now,” said Fox, “up by the tunnel.”

It was evidently a small car and an old one. With a ramshackle clatter it drew nearer the pub and then the driver must have turned his engine off and coasted down to the garage. There followed the squeak of brakes. A door slammed tinnily. Someone dragged open the garage door.

“That’s him,” said Fox.

“Good,” said Alleyn. “Pop into the passage, Fox, and hale him in.”

Fox went out, leaving the door open. Alleyn heard slow steps plod across the yard to the side entrance. Fox said, “Good evening, sir. Is it Mr. Legge?”

A low mumble.

“Could you spare us a moment, sir? We’re police officers. Chief Inspector Alleyn would be glad to have a word with you.”

A pause, another mumble, and then approaching steps.

“This way, sir,” said Fox, and ushered in Mr. Robert Legge.

Alleyn saw a medium-sized man who stooped a little. He saw a large head, white hair, a heavily-lined face and a pair of callused hands. Legge, blinking in the lamplight, looked a defenceless, rather pathetic figure.

“Mr. Legge?” said Alleyn. “I’m sorry to bother you so late in the evening. Won’t you sit down?”

Fox moved forward a chair and, without uttering a word, Legge sat in it. He was under the lamp. Alleyn saw that his clothes, which had once been good, were darned and faded. Everything about the man seemed bleached and characterless. He looked nervously from Alleyn to Fox. His lips were not quite closed and showed his palpably false teeth.

“I expect,” said Alleyn, “that you have guessed why we are here.”

Legge said nothing.

“We’re making enquiries about the death of Mr. Luke Watchman.”

“Oh yes?” said Legge breathlessly.

“There are one or two points we would like to clear up and we hope you will be able to help us.”

The extraordinarily pale eyes flickered.