“But perhaps we can prove it. Was anyone near the table? Did anyone watch you pour the brandy?”

“Oh God!” said Decima wearily. “How should I know? Sebastian Parish was nearest to the table. He may have noticed. I don’t know. I took the glass to Luke. I waited for a moment, while Abel Pomeroy put iodine on Luke’s finger, and then I managed to pour a little brandy between his lips. It wasn’t much. I don’t think he even swallowed it, but I suppose you won’t believe that.”

“Miss Moore,” said Alleyn suddenly, “I can’t tell you how pathetically anxious we are to accept the things people tell us.” He hesitated and then said: “You see, we spend most of our working life asking questions. Can you, for your part, believe that we get a kind of sixth sense and sometimes feel very certain indeed that a witness is speaking the truth, or, as the case may be, is lying? We’re not allowed to recognize our sixth sense, and when it points a crow’s flight towards the truth we may not follow it. We must cut it dead and follow the dreary back streets of collected evidence. But if they lead us anywhere at all it is almost always to the same spot.”

“Eminently satisfactory,” said Decima. “Everything for the best in the best of all possible police forces.”

“That wasn’t quite what I meant. Was it after you had given him the brandy that Mr. Watchman uttered the single word ‘poisoned’?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get the impression that he spoke of the brandy?”

“No. I don’t know if your sixth sense will tell you I’m lying, but it seemed to me he tried to take the brandy, and perhaps did swallow a little, and that it was when he found he couldn’t drink that he said— that one word. He said it between his clenched teeth. I had never seen such a look of terror and despair. Then he jerked his hand. Miss Darragh was going to bandage it. Just at that moment the lights went out.”

“For how long were they out?”

“Nobody knows. It’s impossible to tell. I can’t. It seemed an age. Somebody clicked the switch. I remember that. To see if it had been turned off accidentally, I suppose. It was a nightmare. The rain sounded like drums. There was broken glass everywhere — crunch, crunch, squeak. And his voice. Not like a human voice, like a cat, mewing. And his heels, drumming on the settle. And everybody shouting in the dark.”

Decima spoke rapidly and twisted her fingers together.

“It’s funny,” she said, “I either can’t talk about it at all, or I can’t stop talking about it. Once you start, you go on and on. It’s rather queer. I suppose he was in great pain. I suppose it was torture. As bad as the rack, or disembowelling. I’ve got a terror of physical pain. I’d recant anything first.”

“Not,” said Alleyn, “your political views?”

“No,” agreed Decima, “not those. I’d contrive to commit suicide or something. Perhaps it was not pain that made him cry like that, and drum with his heels. Perhaps it was only reflex-something. Nerves.”

“I think,” said Alleyn, “that your own nerves have had a pretty shrewd jolt.”

“What do you know about nerves?” demanded Decima with surprising venom. “Nerves! These things are a commonplace to you. Luke Watchman’s death-throes are so much data. You expect me to give you a neat statement about them. Describe, in my own words, the way he clenched his teeth and drew back his lips.”

“No,” said Alleyn. “I haven’t asked you about those things. I have asked you two questions of major importance. One was about your former relationship with Watchman and the other about the brandy you gave him before he died.”

“I’ve answered you. If that’s all you want to know you’ve got it. I can’t stand any more of this. Let me—”

The voice stopped as if someone had switched it off.

She looked beyond Alleyn and Fox to the brow of the hillock. Her eyes were dilated.

Alleyn turned. Norman Cubitt stood against the sky.

“Norman!” cried Decima.

He said: “Wait a bit, Decima,” and strode down towards her. He stood and looked at her and then lightly picked up her hands.

“What’s up?” asked Cubitt.

“I can’t stand it, Norman.”

Without looking at Alleyn or Fox, he said: “You don’t have to talk to these two precious experts if it bothers you. Tell ’em to go to hell.” And then he turned her round and over her shoulder grinned, not very pleasantly, at Alleyn.

“I’ve made a fool of myself,” whispered Decima.

She was looking at Cubitt as though she saw him for the first time. He said: “What the devil are you badgering her for?”

“Just,” said Alleyn, “out of sheer wanton brutality.”

“It’s all right,” said Decima. “He didn’t badger, really. He’s only doing his loathsome job.”

Her eyes were brilliant with tears, her lips not quite closed, and still she looked with a sort of amazement into Cubitt’s face.

“Oh, Norman!” she said, “I’ve been so inconsistent and fluttery and feminine. Me!”

“You,” said Cubitt.

“In a moment,” thought Alleyn, “he’ll kiss her.” And he said: “Thank you so much, Miss Moore. I’m extremely sorry to have distressed you. I hope we shan’t have to bother you again.”

“Look here, Alleyn,” said Cubitt, “if you do want to see Miss Moore again I insist on being present, and that’s flat.”

Before Alleyn could answer this remarkable stipulation Decima said: “But my dear man, I’m afraid you can’t insist on that. You’re not my husband, you know.”

“That can be attended to,” said Cubitt. “Will you marry me?”

“Fox,” said Alleyn, “what are you staring at? Come back to Ottercombe.”

iii

“Well, Mr. Alleyn,” said Fox when they were out of earshot, “we see some funny things in our line of business, don’t we? What a peculiar moment, now, for him to pick on for a proposal. Do you suppose he’s been courting her for a fair while, or did he spring it on her sudden?”

“Suddenish, I fancy, Fox. Her eyes were wet and that, I suppose, went to his head. I must say she’s a very lovely creature. Didn’t you think so?”

“A very striking young lady,” agreed Fox. “But I thought the Super said she was keeping company with young Pomeroy?”

“He did.”

“She’s a bit on the classy side for him, you’d think.”

“You would, Fox.”

“Well, now, I wonder what she’ll do. Throw him over and take Mr. Cubitt? She looked to me to be rather inclined that way.”

“I wish she’d told the truth about Watchman,” said Alleyn.

“Think there’d been something between them, sir? Relations? Intimacy?”

“Oh Lord, I rather think so. It’s not a very pleasant thought.”

“Bit of a femme fatale,” said Fox carefully. “But there you are. They laugh at what we used to call respectability, don’t they? Modern women—”

Alleyn interrupted him.

“I know, Fox, I know. She is very sane and intellectual and modern, but I don’t mind betting there’s a strong dram of rustic propriety that pops up when she least expects it. I think she’s ashamed of the Watchman episode, whatever it was, and furious with herself for being ashamed. What’s more, I don’t believe she knew, until today, that Legge was an old lag. All guesswork. Let’s forget it. We’ll have an early lunch and call on Dr. Shaw. I want to ask him about the wound in the finger. Come on.”

They returned by way of the furze-bush, collecting the casts and Alleyn’s case. As they disliked making entrances with mysterious bundles, they locked their gear in the car and went round to the front of the Feathers. But here they walked into a trap. Sitting beside Abel Pomeroy on the bench outside the front door was an extremely thin and tall man with a long face, a drooping moustache, and foolish eyes. He stared very fixedly at Fox, who recognized him as Mr. George Nark and looked the other way.

“Find your road all right, gentlemen?” asked Abel.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Pomeroy,” said Alleyn.