“Ah, you’ll end in a cocked hat with a plume in ut,” said Miss Darragh, “if ’tis cocked hats they give to Chief Commissioners. That’s ut, sure enough. Me poor cousin Bryonie always felt he’d been responsible for the crash. He was very indiscreet, it seems, and might have helped to patch things up if he’d kept his wits about ’um. But he didn’t. He’d no head for business and he only half-suspected there was anything illegal going on. But he said he’d only learned one kind of behaviour and when it didn’t fit in with finance he was entirely at sea and thought maybe he’d better hold his peace. But it wasn’t in his nature not to talk and that was the downfall of ’um. The jury saw that he’d been no more than a cat’s-paw, but when he got off with the lighter sentence there was a great deal of talk that ’twas injustice and that his position saved him. Thringle felt so himself, and said so. Me cousin never lost his faith in Thringle, who seemed to have cast a kind of spell over ’um, though you wouldn’t think ut possible, would you, to see Thringle now? But in those days he was a fine-looking fellow. Dark as night, he was, with a small imperial, and his own teeth instead of those dreadful china falsehoods they gave ’um in prison. It’s no wonder, at all, you didn’t know ’um from Adam when you saw ’um. Well, the long and short of ut ’twas that, before he died, the family promised poor Bryonie they’d look after Mr. Thringle when he came out of gaol. He was on their conscience and I won’t say he didn’t know ut and make the most of ut. We kept in touch with ’um and he wrote from here saying he’d changed his name to Legge and that he needed money. We’ve not much of that to spare, but we had a family conference and, as I was planning a little sketching jaunt anyway, I said I’d take ut at Ottercombe and see for meself how the land lay. So that was what I did. Don’t ask me to tell you the nature of our talks for they were in confidence and had nothing to say to the case. I wish with all me heart you could have left ’um alone, but I see ’twas impossible. He fought those two big policemen like a Kilkenny cat, silly fellow. But if it’s a question of bailing him out I’ll be glad to do ut.”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn, “I’ll see that the right people are told about it. Miss Darragh, have you done any sketching along the cliffs from the tunnel to Coombe Head?”

Miss Darragh looked at him in consternation. “I have,” she said.

“In the mornings?”

“ ’Twas in the mornings.”

“You were there on the morning Mr. Watchman arrived in Ottercombe?”

She looked steadily at him. “I was,” said Miss Darragh.

“We saw where you had set up your easel. Miss Darragh, did you, from where you were working, overhear a conversation between Miss Moore and Mr. Watchman?”

Miss Darragh clasped her fat little paws together and looked dismally at Alleyn.

“Please,” said Alleyn.

“I did. I could not avoid it. By the time I’d decided I’d get up and show meself above the sky-line, it had gone so far I thought I had better not.”

She gave him a quick look and added hurriedly, “Please, now, don’t go thinking all manner of dreadful things.”

“What am I to think? Do you mean it was a love-scene?”

“Not in — no. No, the reverse.”

“A quarrel?”

“It was.”

“Was it of that scene you were thinking when you told me, this morning, to look further and look nearer home?”

“It was. I wasn’t thinking of her. God forbid. Don’t misunderstand me. I was not the only one who heard them. And that’s all I’ll say.”

She clutched her bag firmly and stood up. “As regards this searching,” added Miss Darragh, “the Superintendent let me off. He said you’d attend to ut.”

“I know,” said Alleyn. “Perhaps you won’t mind if Mrs. Ives goes up with you to your room.”

“Not the least in the world,” said Miss Darragh.

“Then I’ll send for her,” said Alleyn.

ii

While he waited for Harper and the chief constable, Alleyn brought his report up-to-date and discussed it with Fox, who remained weakly insubordinate, in his chair by the fire.

“It’s an ill wind,” said Fox, “that blows nobody any good. I take it that I’ve had what you might call a thorough spring-clean with the doctor’s tube taking the part of a vacuum cleaner, if the idea’s not too fanciful. I feel all the better for it.”

Alleyn grunted.

“I don’t know but what I don’t fancy a pipe,” continued Fox.

“You’ll have another spring-clean if you do.”

“Do you think so, Mr. Alleyn? In that case I’ll hold off. I fancy I hear a car, sir. Coming through the tunnel, isn’t it?”

Alleyn listened.

“I think so. We’ll get the C.C. to fix up a warrant. Well, Br’er Fox, it’s been a short, sharp go this time, hasn’t it?”

“And you were looking forward to a spell in the country, sir.”

“I was.”

“We’ll be here yet awhile, with one thing and another.”

“I suppose so. Here they are.”

A car drew up in the yard. The side door opened noisily, and Colonel Brammington’s voice sounded in the passage. He came in, with Harper and Oates at his heels. The Colonel was dressed in a dinner suit. He wore a stiff shirt with no central stud. It curved generously away from his person and through the gaping front could be seen a vast expanse of pink chest. Evidently he had, at some earlier hour, wetted his hair and dragged a comb through it. His shoe-laces were untied and his socks unsupported. Over his dinner-jacket he wore a green Tyrolese bicycling cape.

“I can’t apologize enough, sir,” Alleyn began, but the Chief Constable waved him aside.

“Not at all, Alleyn. A bore, but it couldn’t be helped. I am distended with rich food and wines. Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age. I freely confess I outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine. It was, I flatter myself, a good dinner, but I shall not taunt you with a recital of its virtues.”

“I am sure it was a dinner in a thousand,” said Alleyn. “I hope you didn’t mind coming here, sir. Fox was still—”

“By heaven!” interrupted Colonel Brammington. “This pestilent poisoner o’er-tops it, does it not? The attempt, I imagine, was upon you both. Harper has told me the whole story. When will you make an arrest, Alleyn? May we send this fellow up the ladder to bed, and that no later than the Quarter Sessions? Let him wag upon a wooden nag. A pox on him! I trust you are recovered, Fox? Sherry, wasn’t it? Amontillado, I understand. Double sacrilege, by the Lord!”

Colonel Brammington hurled himself into a chair and asked for a cigarette. When this had been given him, he produced from his trousers pocket a crumpled mass of typescript which Alleyn recognized as the carbon copy of his report.

“I have been over the report, Alleyn,” said Colonel Brammington, “and while you expended your energies so happily in resuscitating the poisoned Fox (and by the way, our murderer carries the blacker stigma of a fox-poisoner) I read this admirable digest. I congratulate you. A masterly presentation of facts, free from the nauseating redundancies of most bureaucratic documents… I implored you to allow me to be your Watson. You consented. I come, full of my theory, ready to admit my blunders. Is there by any chance some flask of fermented liquor in this house to which cyanide has not been added? May we not open some virgin bottle?”

Alleyn went into the bar, found three sealed bottles of Treble Extra, chalked them up to himself and took them with glasses into the parlour.

“We should have a taster,” said Colonel Brammington. “Some Borgian attendant at our call. What a pity the wretched Nark is not here to perform this office.”

“There are times,” said Alleyn, “when I could wish that Mr. Nark had been the corpse in the case. I don’t think we need blench at the Treble Extra and I washed the glasses.”

He broke a paper seal, drew the cork, and poured out the beer.