“I didn’t know you could have a — what did you call it?”

“An idiosyncrasy.”

“It means you’d go under to a very small amount?”

“It does.” Watchman yawned and stretched himself full-length on the settle.

“I’m sleepy,” he said. “It’s the sea air. A very pleasant state of being. Just tired enough, with the impressions of a long drive still floating about behind one’s consciousness. Flying hedges, stretches of road that stream out before one’s eyes. The relaxation of arrival setting in. Very pleasant!”

He closed his eyes for a moment and then turned his head to look at his cousin.

“So Decima Moore is still here,” he said.

Parish smiled. “Very much so. But you’ll have to watch your step, Luke.”

“Why?”

“There’s an engagement in the offing.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Decima and Will Pomeroy.”

Watchman sat up.

“I don’t believe you,” he said sharply.

“Well — why not?”

“Good Lord! A politically minded pot-boy.”

“Actually they’re the same class,” Parish murmured.

“Perhaps; but she’s not of it.”

“All the same—”

Watchman grimaced.

“She’s a little fool,” he said, “but you may be right,” and lay back again. “Oh well!” he added comfortably.

There was a moment’s silence.

“There’s another female here,” said Parish, and grinned.

“Another? Who?”

“Norman’s girl-friend, of course. My oath!”

“Why? What’s she like? Why are you grinning away like a Cheshire cat, Seb?”

“My dear soul,” said Parish, “if I could get that woman to walk on the boards every morning and do her stuff exactly as she does it here — well, of course! I’d go into management and die a millionaire.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s the Honourable Violet Darragh. She waters.”

“She what?”

“She does water-colours. Wait till you hear Norman on Violet.”

“Is she a nuisance?” asked Watchman apprehensively.

“Not exactly. Well, in a way. Pure joy to me. Wait till you meet her.”

Parish would say no more about Miss Darragh, and Watchman, only mildly interested, relapsed into a pleasant doze.

“By the way,” he said presently, “some driving expert nearly dashed himself to extinction against my bonnet.”

“Really?”

“Yes. At Diddlestock Corner. Came bucketing out of the blind turning on my right, beat me by a split second, and hung his silly little stern on my front buffers. Ass!”

“Any damage?”

“No, no. He heaved his pygmy up by the bottom and I backed away. Funny sort of fellow, he is.”

“You knew him?” asked Parish in surprise. “No.” Watchman took the tip of his nose between thumb and forefinger. It was a gesture he used in cross-examination. “No, I don’t know him, and yet— there was something — I got the impression that he didn’t want to know me. Quite an educated voice. Labourer’s hands. False teeth, I rather fancy.”

“You’re very observant,” said Parish, lightly.

“No more than the next man, but there was something about the fellow — I was going to ask if you knew him. His car’s in the garage.”

“Surely it’s not — Hullo, here are the others.” Boots and voices sounded in the public bar. Will Pomeroy came through and leant over the counter. He looked, not towards Watchman or Parish, but into a settle on the far side of the Private, a settle whose high back was towards them.

“‘Evening, Bob,” said Will cordially. “Kept you waiting?”

“That’s all right, Will,” said a voice from beyond the settle. “I’ll have a pint of bitter when you’re ready.”

Luke Watchman uttered a stifled exclamation.

“What’s up?” asked his cousin.

“Come here.”

Parish strolled nearer to him and in obedience to a movement of Watchman’s head, stooped towards him.

“What’s up?” he repeated.

“That’s the same fellow,” muttered Watchman. “He must have been here all the time. That’s his voice.”

“Hell!” said Parish delightedly.

“D’you think he heard?”

“Of course he heard.”

“Blast the creature! Serves him right.”

“Shut up.”

The door into the private bar opened. Old Abel came in followed by Norman Cubitt. Cubitt took three darts from a collection in a pewter pot on the bar and moved in front of the dart board.

“I’ll be there in a moment,” said a woman’s voice from the passage. “Don’t start without me.”

Abel walked into the inglenook and put a bottle on the mantelpiece.

“Well, souls,” he said, “reckon we’m settled the hash of they vermin. If thurr’s not a corpse on the premises afore long, I’ll be greatly astonished.”

Chapter II

Advance by Watchman

i

The bottle was a small one and, as Sebastian Parish had remarked, it was conspicuously labelled. The word POISON in scarlet on a white ground, ran diagonally across an attached label. It struck a note of interjection and alarm, and focussed the attention of the five men. Few who read that warning escape a sudden jolt of the imagination.

Parish said: “Mr. Watchman thinks you are a public danger, Abel. He’s afraid we’ll all be poisoned.”

“I’m afraid he’ll poison himself,” said Watchman.

“Who, sir? Me?” asked Abel. “Not a bit of it. I be a mortal cautious sort of chap when it comes to this manner of murderous tipple, Mr. Watchman.”

“I hope you are,” said Cubitt from the dart board.

“You’re not going to leave it on the mantelshelf, Father?” asked Will.

“No fear of that, sonny. I’ll stow it away careful.”

“You’d much better get rid of it altogether,” said Watchman. “Don’t put it away somewhere. You’ll forget about it and some day someone will take a sniff at it to find out what it is. Let me take it back to the chemist at Illington. I’d very much like to have a word with that gentleman.”

“Lord love you,” said Abel opening his eyes very wide, “us’ve not finished with they bowldacious varmints yet, my sonnies. If so be they’ve got a squeak left in ’em us’ll give ’em another powerful whiff and finish ’em off.”

“At least,” said Cubitt throwing a dart into double-twenty, “at least you might put it out of reach.”

“Mr. Cubitt has a poison-phobia,” said Watchman.

“A what, sir?”

“Never mind about that,” said Cubitt. “I should have thought anybody might boggle at prussic acid.”

“Don’t fret yourselves, gentlemen,” said Abel. “Thurr’ll be none of this brew served out at the Feathers tap.”

He mounted the settle and taking the bottle from the mantelpiece pushed it into the top shelf of a double-cupboard in the corner of the inglenook. He then pulled off the old gloves he wore, threw them on the fire, and turned the key.

“Nobody can call me a careless man,” he said. “I’m all for looking after myself. Thurr’s my first-aid box in thurr, ready to hand, and if any of the chaps cuts themselves with a mucky fish-knife or any other infectious trifle of that sort, they gets a swill of iodine in scratch. Make ’em squirm a bit and none the worse for that. I learnt that in the war, my sonnies. I was a surgeon’s orderly and I know the mighty powers thurr be in drugs.”

He stared at the glass door. The label POISON still showed, slightly distorted, in the darkness of the little cupboard.

“Safe enough thurr,” said Abel, and went over to the bar.

With the arrival of the Pomeroys the private bar took on its customary aspect for a summer’s evening. They both went behind the counters. Abel sat facing the Private and on Cubitt’s order drew pints of draught beer for the company. A game of darts was started in the Public.

The man in the settle had not moved, but now Watchman saw his hand reach out for his pint. He saw the calluses, the chipped nails, the coarsened joints of the fingers. Watchman got up, stretched himself, grimaced at Parish, and crossed the room to the settle.

The light shone full in the face of the stranger. The skin of his face was brown but Watchman thought it had only recently acquired this colour. His hair stood up in white bristles, his forehead was garnished with bumps that shone in the lamplight. The eyes under the bleached lashes seemed almost without color. From the nostrils to the corners of the mouth ran grooves that lent emphasis to the fall of the lips. Without raising his head the man looked up at Watchman and the shadow of a smile seemed to visit his face. He got up and made as if to go to the door, but Watchman stopped him.