“Really,” said Colonel Brammington, “I do feel a little timidly about it, I must say. Some fiendish device—”

“I don’t think so,” said Alleyn and took a pull at his beer. “It’s remarkably good.”

“You show no signs of stiffening limb or glassy eye. It is, as you say, good beer. Well now, Alleyn, I understand from Harper that you have all arrived at a decision. I, working independently, have also made up my mind. It would delight me to find we were in agreement and amuse me to learn that I was wrong. Will you indulge me so far to allow me to unfold the case as I see it?”

“We should be delighted, sir,” said Alleyn, thinking a little of his bed.

“Excellent,” said Colonel Brammington. He flattened out the crumpled report and Alleyn saw that he had made copious notes in pencil all over the typescript. “I shall relate my deductions in the order in which they came to me. I shall follow the example of all Watsons and offer blunder after blunder, inviting your compassionate scorn and remembering the observation that logic is only the art of going wrong with confidence. Are you all ready?”

“Quite ready, sir,” said Alleyn.

iii

“When first this case turned up,” said Colonel Brammington, “it seemed to me to be a moderately simple affair. The circumstances were macabre, the apparent weapon unlikely, but I accepted the weapon and rejoiced in the circumstances. It was an enlivening murder.”

He turned his prominent eyes on Harper, who looked scandalized.

“After all,” said Colonel Brammington, “I did not know the victim and I frankly confess I adore a murder. Pray, Mr. Harper, do not look at me in that fashion. I want the glib and oil art to speak and purpose not I enjoy a murder and I enjoyed this one. It seemed to me that Legge had anointed the dart with malice aforethought and prussic acid, had prepared the ground with exhibitions of skill, and had deliberately thrown awry. He had overheard Watchman’s story of his idiosyncrasy for the cyanide. He had seen Pomeroy put the bottle in the cupboard. Cyanide had been found on the dart. What more did we need? True, the motive was lacking, but when I learnt that you suspected Legge of being a gaol-bird, a sufficient motive appeared. Legge had established himself in this district in a position of trust, he handled moneys, he acquired authority. Watchman, by his bantering manner, suggested that he recognized Legge. Legge feared he would be exposed. Legge therefore murdered Watchman. That was my opinion until this afternoon.”

Colonel Brammington took a prodigious swig of beer and flung himself back in his tortured chair.

“This afternoon,” he said, “I was astonished at your refusal to arrest Legge, but when I took the files away and began to read them I changed my opinion. I read the statements made by the others and I saw how positive each was that Legge had no opportunity to anoint the dart. I was impressed by your own observation that his hands were clumsy, that he was incapable of what would have amounted to an essay in legerdemain. Yet cyanide was found on the dart. Who had put it there? It is a volatile poison, therefore it must have been put on the dart not long before Oates sealed it up. I wondered if, after all, the whole affair was an accident, if there was some trace of poison on Abel Pomeroy’s clothes or upon the bar where he unpacked the darts. It was a preposterous notion and it was smashed as squat as a flounder by the fact that the small vessel in the rat-hole had been filled up with water. I was forced to believe that the cyanide had been taken from the rat-hole immediately, or soon after, old Pomeroy put it there. Any of the suspects might have done this. But only four of the suspects had handled the darts; Legge, the Pomeroys and Parish. Only Legge controlled the flight of the darts. Watchman took them out of the board after the trial throw and gave them to Legge. Now here,” said Colonel Brammington with an air of conscious modesty, “I fancy I hit on something new. Can you guess what it was?”

“I can venture to do so.” Alleyn rejoined, “did you reflect that all the darts had been thrown into the board on the trial, and then if cyanide was on any one of them it would have been effectively cleaned off?”

“Good God!” ejaculated the Chief Constable.

He was silent for some time, but at last continued with somewhat forced airiness.

“No. No, that was not my point, but by Jupiter it supports my case. I was going to say that since Watchman removed the darts and handed them to Legge, it would have been quite impossible for Legge to know which dart was tainted. This led me to an alternative. Either all the darts were poisoned or else, or else, my dear Alleyn, the dart that wounded Watchman was tainted after, and not before, the accident” He glanced at Alleyn.

“Yes, sir,” said Alleyn. “One or the other.”

“You agree? You had thought of it?”

“Will Pomeroy suggested the second altenative,” said Alleyn.

“Damn! However! Legge, I had decided, was not capable of anointing one, much less six, darts during the few seconds he held them in his hand before doing his trick. Legge would scarcely implicate himself by anointing the dart after he had seen Watchman die. Therefore someone had tried to implicate Legge. I was obliged to bow to your wisdom, my dear Alleyn. I dismissed Legge. I finished your report and I considered the other suspects. Who, of these seven persons, for they are seven if we include Miss Darragh and Miss Moore, could most easily have taken cyanide from the small vessel in the rat-hole? One of the Pomeroys, since their presence in or about the out-houses would not be remarked. Abel Pomeroy’s finger-prints, and only his, were found on the small vessel. Who of the seven had an opportunity to smear cyanide on the dart? Abel Pomeroy, since he unpacked the darts. Who, in the first instance, had cyanide brought into the premises? Abel Pomeroy. Putting motive on one side, I felt that Abel Pomeroy was my first choice. My second fancy — and don’t look so wryly upon me, Harper, a Chief Constable may have fancies as well as the next man — my second fancy fell upon Will Pomeroy. Your interview with the unspeakable Nark, my dear Alleyn, was not barren of interest. Amidst a plethora of imbecilities, Nark seemed to make one disclosure of interest. He said, or rather from your report I understood him to hint, that he had, on the occasion of Watchman’s first visit to Ottercombe overheard an amorous encounter between Watchman and Miss Moore. He hinted, moreover, that as he crept farther along Apple Lane, he came upon Will Pomeroy, lurking and listening in the hedge. Now, thought I, if this were true, here is the beginning of motive; for, in the interim, the courtship between young Pomeroy and Miss Moore ripened. Suppose, on Watchman’s return, that the rustic lover thought he saw a renewal of attentions? Suppose Parish or Cubitt hinted at the scene they interrupted by the furze-bushes? But ignoring motive, what of opportunity? Will Pomeroy handled the darts after they were unpacked by his father. Could he have had a phial of cyanide-solution in his pocket? Nobody watched Will Pomeroy with the close attention that they all gave to Legge. Your observation on the trial throw shatters this theory… Do I see another bottle of this superb beer? Thank you…

“On the whole I preferred Pomeroy senior. There seemed no reason to doubt young Pomeroy’s violent defence of Legge. He would not have thrown suspicion on Legge and then vehemently defended him. Old Pomeroy, on the other hand, detests Legge and has, from the first, accused him of the murder. But I was determined to look with an equal eye upon the field of suspects. I turned, with, I hope, becoming reluctance, to the ladies. On Miss Darragh I need not dwell. Harper has told me of your discovery of her link with Legge and it is obvious that she merely took what may be described as a family interest in him. The family tree in this instance being unusually shady… Ha! But Miss Moore, if Nark is to be believed, cannot be so dismissed. There had been amorous passages between Miss Moore and Watchman. Miss Moore denied this in the course of your interview. Could love have turned into the proverbial hatred? What happened when those ambiguous heelmarks were printed in the turf behind the furze-bush? A quarrel? Was she afraid her lover would betray her to her fiancé? And opportunity? Could she have introduced poison into the glass? Who better, since she poured out the brandy? But here, as with young Pomeroy, I had to pause. Whoever poisoned Watchman took peculair pains to implicate Legge, but ever since the investigation began, Miss Moore has been ardent to the point of rashness in her defence of Legge. She has braved everything for Legge, and there is a ring of urgency in her defence that bears the very tinct of sincerity. I dismissed Miss Moore. I turned, at last, to Sebastian Parish and Norman Cubitt. Here it was impossible to ignore motive. Motive in the form of handsome inheritances was as conspicuous as a pitchfork in Paradise. What of fact? Cubitt did not handle the darts but, on my second alternative, he could have tainted the poisoned dart after Watchman threw it down. But if the dart was a blind and didn’t kill Watchman, what did? The brandy? We are told that criminals repeat the manner of their crimes and this attempt upon you and Fox supports the theory. The murderer had killed Watchman by the method of putting cyanide in his brandy? The murderer hoped to kill you by putting cyanide in your sherry? To return. The fingerprint and rat-hole objection applies to Cubitt and Parish, as it does to everyone but Pomeroy senior. Of course it is possible that the murderer drew the poison off with some instrument and without touching the vessel. This brings me to Parish.”