Death at the Bar

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘I usually play my best,’ said Mr Legge, ‘when I am a little intoxicated. I must have overdone it. I shall never forgive myself, never.’

  ‘How long was it,’ Alleyn asked, ‘before you realized what had happened?’

  ‘Oh, a very long time. I thought it must be tetanus. I’ve seen a man with tetanus. You see, I had forgotten about that dreadful stuff. I had forgotten that Mr Pomeroy opened the cupboard that afternoon.’

  ‘That was for—’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Legge interrupted, again with that gesture of admonishment. ‘You’re going to remind me that he opened it to get the iodine for my face. Do you suppose that I can ever forget that? I was doubly the instrument. That’s what upsets me so dreadfully. He must have done something then, and accidentally got it on his fingers. I don’t know. I don’t pretend it’s not a mystery.’ His face twitched dolorously. ‘I’m wretchedly unhappy,’ he whispered. ‘Miserable!’

  People with no personal charm possess one weapon, an occasional appeal to our sense of pathos. There was something intolerably pitiable in Legge; in his furtiveness, his threadbare respectability, his obvious terror, and his little spurts of confidence. Alleyn had a violent desire to get rid of him, to thrust him away as something indecent and painful. But he said, ‘Mr Legge, have you any objections to our taking your fingerprints?’

  The chair fell over as Legge got to his feet. He backed towards the door, turning his head from side to side and wringing his hands. Fox moved to the door but Legge seemed unaware of him. He gazed like a trapped animal at Alleyn.

  ‘O God!’ he said. ‘O dear! O dear me! O God, I knew you’d say that!’ and broke into tears.

  II

  ‘Come now, Mr Legge,’ said Alleyn at last, ‘you mustn’t let the affair get on your nerves like this. If, as you think, Mr Watchman’s death was purely accidental, you have nothing to fear. There’s nothing very terrible in having your fingerprints taken.’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ contradicted Legge in a sort of fury. ‘It’s a perfectly horrible suggestion. I resent it. I deeply resent it. I most strongly object.’

  ‘Very well, then,’ said Alleyn placidly, ‘we won’t take them.’

  Mr Legge blew his nose violently and looked over the top of his handkerchief at Alleyn.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s all very well, but I know what tricks you’ll get up to. You’ll get them by stealth, I know. I’ve heard of the practices that go in the police. I’ve studied the matter. It’s like everything else in a state governed by capitalism. Trickery and intimidation. You’ll give me photographs to identify and take my fingerprints from them.’

  ‘Not now you’ve warned us,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘You’ll get them against my will and then you’ll draw false conclusions from them. That’s what you’ll do.’

  ‘What sort of false conclusions?’

  ‘About me,’ cried Legge passionately, ‘about me.’

  ‘You know that’s all nonsense,’ said Alleyn quietly. ‘You will do yourself no good by talking like this.’

  ‘I won’t talk at all. I will not be trapped into making incriminating statements. I will not be kept in here against my will!’

  ‘You may go whenever you wish,’ said Alleyn. ‘Fox, will you open the door?’

  Fox opened the door. Legge backed towards it, but on the threshold he paused.

  ‘If only,’ he said with extraordinary intensity, ‘if only you’d have the sense to see that I couldn’t have done anything even if I’d wanted to. If only you’d realize that and leave me in peace. You don’t know what damage you may do, indeed you don’t. If only you would leave me in peace!’

  He swallowed noisily, made a movement with his hands that was eloquent of misery and defeat, and went away.

  Fox stopped with his hand on the door knob.

  ‘He’s gone back to the garage,’ said Fox. ‘Surely he won’t bolt.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll bolt, Fox. Not in that car.’

  Fox stood and listened, looking speculatively at Alleyn.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that was a rum go, Mr Alleyn, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Very rum indeed. I suppose you’re thinking what I’m thinking?’

  ‘He’s been inside,’ said Fox. ‘I’ll take my oath that man’s done his stretch.’

  ‘I think so too, and what’s more he had that suit before he went in. It was made by a decent tailor about six years ago, or more, and it was made for Mr Legge. It fits him well enough and he’s too odd a shape for reach-me-downs.’

  ‘Notice his hands?’

  ‘I did. And the hair, and the walk, and the eyes. I thought he was going to sob it all out on my bosom. Ugh!’ said Alleyn, ‘it’s beastly, that furtive, wary look they get. Fox, ring up Illington and ask Harper to send the dart up to Dabs. It’s got his prints. Not very nice ones, but they’ll do to go on with.’

  Fox went off to the telephone, issued cryptic instructions, and returned.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Fox, ‘who he is, and what they pulled him in for.’

  ‘We’ll have to find out.’

  ‘He behaved very foolish,’ said Fox austerely. ‘All that refusing to have his prints taken. We’re bound to find out. We’ll have to get his dabs, sir.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Alleyn, ‘on the sly, as he foretold.’

  ‘I wonder what he’s doing out there,’ said Fox.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said Alleyn. ‘I’ll have a look.’

  He stole into the passage. Legge had left the side door ajar and Alleyn could see the yard outside, flooded with moonshine. He slipped out and moved like a cat, across the yard and into the shadow of the garage door. Here he stopped and listened. From inside the garage came a rhythmic whisper interrupted at intervals by low thuds and accompanied by the sound of breathing. A metal door opened and closed stealthily, a boot scraped across stone. The rhythmic whisper began again. Alleyn stole away and recrossed the yard, his long shadow going fantastically before him.

  When he rejoined Fox in the parlour, he was grinning broadly.

  ‘What’s he up to?’ asked Fox.

  ‘Being one too many for the infamous police,’ said Alleyn. ‘He’s polishing his car.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be blooming well blowed,’ said Fox.

  ‘He must have nearly finished. Switch off the light, Fox. It’d be a pity to keep him waiting.’

  Fox switched off the light. He and Alleyn sat like shadows in the bar parlour. The Ottercombe town clock struck twelve and, a moment later, the same dragging footsteps sounded in the yard. The side door was shut and the steps went past the parlour. The staircase light clicked and a faint glow showed underneath the door.

  ‘Up he does,’ whispered Alleyn.

  Legge went slowly upstairs, turned the light off, and moved along the passage above their heads. A door closed.

  ‘Now then,’ said Alleyn.

  They went upstairs in the dark and slipped into Alleyn’s room, the first on the top landing. The upstairs passage was bright with moonlight.

  ‘His is the end one,’ murmured Alleyn. ‘He’s got his light on. Do you suppose he’ll set to work and wipe all the untensils in his room.’

  ‘The thing’s silly,’ whispered Fox. ‘I’ve never known anything like it. What’s the good of it? We’ll get his blasted dabs.’

  ‘What do you bet me he won’t come down to breakfast in gloves?’

  ‘He’s capable of anything,’ snorted Fox.

  ‘Sssh! He’s coming out.’

  ‘Lavatory?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Alleyn groped for the door and unlatched it.

  ‘What are you doing, sir?’ asked Fox rather peevishly.

  ‘Squinting through the crack,’ Alleyn whispered. ‘Now he’s come out of the lavatory.’

  ‘I can hear that.’

  ‘He’s in his pyjamas. He doesn’t look very delicious. Good Lord!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s crosse
d the passage,’ breathed Alleyn, ‘and he’s stooping down at another door.’

  ‘What’s he up to?’

  ‘Can’t see—shadow. Now he’s off again. Back to his own room. Shuts the door. Light out. Mr Legge finished for the night.’

  ‘And not before it was time,’ grumbled Fox. ‘They’ve got a nice sort of chap as secretary and treasurer for their society. How long’ll we give him, Mr Alleyn? I’d like to have a look what he’s been up to.’

  ‘I’ll give him ten minutes and then go along the passage.’

  ‘Openly?’

  ‘Yes. Quickly but not stealthily, Fox. It’s the room on the right at the end. It looked almost as if he was shoving a note under the door. Very odd.’

  ‘What age,’ asked Fox, ‘is the Honourable Violet Darragh?’

  ‘What a mind you have! It was probably young Pomeroy’s door.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that, sir. Probably.’

  Alleyn switched on the light and began to unpack his suitcase. Whistling soundlessly he set his room in order, undressed, and put on his pyjamas and dressing-gown.

  ‘Now then,’ he said. He picked up his towel and sponge-bag and went out.

  Fox waited, his hands on his knees. He heard a tap turned on. Water pipes gurgled. In a distant room someone began to snore in two keys. Presently Fox heard the pad of feet in the passage and Alleyn returned.

  His towel was round his neck. His hair was rumpled and damp and hung comically over his eyes. He looked like a rather distinguished faun who had chosen to disguise himself in pyjamas and a dressing-gown. Between thumb and forefinger he held a piece of folded paper.

  ‘Crikey, Fox!’ said Alleyn.

  ‘What have you got there, sir?’

  ‘Lord knows. A threat? A billet dowx? Find my case, please, Fox, and get out a couple of tweezers. We’ll open it carefully. At least it may have his prints. Thank the Lord I brought that camera.’

  Fox produced the tweezers. Alleyn dropped his paper on the glass top of the washstand. Using the tweezers, he opened it delicately. Fox looked over his shoulder and read ten words written in pencil.

  ‘Implore you usual place immediately. Most important. Destroy at once.’

  ‘Crikey again,’ said Alleyn. ‘An assignation.’

  ‘Where did you get it, Mr Alleyn?’

  ‘Under the door. I fished for it with a hairpin I found in the bathroom. Luckily there was a good gap.’

  ‘Will Pomeroy’s door?’

  ‘Does Will Pomeroy wear high-heeled shoes, size four and a half, made by Rafferty, Belfast?’

  ‘Lor’,’ said Fox. ‘The Honourable Violet.’

  CHAPTER 13

  Miss Darragh Stands firm

  The summer sun shines early on the Coombe, and when Alleyn looked out of his window at half-past five it was at a crinkled and sparkling sea. The roofs of Fish Lane were cleanly pale. A column of wood smoke rose delicately from a chimney-pot. Someone walked, whistling, down Ottercombe Steps.

  Alleyn had been dressed for an hour. He was waiting for Mr Robert Legge. He supposed that the word ‘immediately’ in the note for Miss Darragh might be interpreted as ‘the moment you read this’, which no doubt would be soon after Miss Darragh awoke.

  Fox and Alleyn had been very industrious before they went to bed. They had poured iodine into a flat dish and they had put Mr Legge’s letter into the dish but not into the iodine. They had covered the dish and left it for five minutes, and then set up an extremely expensive camera by whose aid they could photograph the note by lamplight. They might have spared themselves the trouble. There were no fingerprints on Mr Legge’s note. Fox had gone to bed in high dudgeon. Alleyn had refolded the note and pushed it under Miss Darragh’s door. Four minutes later he had slipped peacefully into sleep.

  The morning smelt fresh. Alleyn leant over the window-sill and glanced to his left. At the same moment three feet away Fox leant over his window-sill and glanced to his right. He was fully dressed and looked solidly prepared to take up his bowler hat and go anywhere.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ said Fox in a whisper. ‘Pleasant morning. He’s just stirring, I fancy.’

  ‘Good morning to you, Br’er Fox,’ rejoined Alleyn. ‘A very pleasant morning. I’ll meet you on the stairs.’

  He stole to the door of his room and listened. Presently the now familiar footsteps sounded in the passage. Alleyn waited for a few seconds and then slipped through the door. Fox performed a similar movement at the same time.

  ‘Simultaneous comedians,’ whispered Alleyn. ‘Come on.’

  Keeping observation is one of the most tedious of a detective officer’s duties. Laymen talk of shadowing. It is a poetic term for a specialized drudgery. In his early days at Scotland Yard, Alleyn had hated keeping observation and had excelled at it, a circumstance which casts some light on his progress as a detective. There are two kinds of observation in the police sense. You may tail a man in such a manner that you are within his range of vision but unrecognized or unremarked by him. You may also be obliged to tail a man in circumstances that forbid his seeing you at all. In a deserted hamlet, at half-past five on a summer’s morning, Mr Legge could scarcely fail to recognize his tormentors of the previous evening. Alleyn and Fox wished to follow him without being seen.

  They reached the entrance lobby of the pub as Mr Legge stepped into the street. Alleyn moved into the private tap and Fox into a sort of office on the other side of the front entrance. Alleyn watched Mr Legge go past the window of the private tap and signalled to Fox. They hurried down the side passage in time to see Mr Legge pass the garage and make for the South Steps. Alleyn nodded to Fox who strolled across the yard, and placed himself in a position where he could see the South Steps, reflected handily in a cottage window. When the figure of Mr Legge descended the steps and turned to the left, Fox made decent haste to follow his example.

  Alleyn opened the garage and backed the police Ford into the yard. He then removed his coat and hat, let a good deal of air out of his spare tyre and began, in a leisurely manner to pump it up again. He had inflated and replaced the spare tyre and was peering into the engine, when Miss Darragh came out of the pub.

  Alleyn had not questioned the superintendent at all closely about Miss Darragh, nor was her appearance dwelt upon in the files of the case. He was therefore rather surprised to see how fat she was. She was like a pouter-pigeon in lavender print. She wore an enormous straw hat, and carried a haversack and easel. Her round face was quite inscrutable but Alleyn thought she looked pretty hard at him. He dived farther inside the bonnet of the car and Miss Darragh passed down the South Steps.

  Alleyn gave her a good start and then put on his coat and hat.

  When he reached the foot of the steps he looked cautiously round the corner of the wall to the left. Miss Darragh had reached the south end of Fish Lane and now plodded along a stone causeway to the last of the jetties. Alleyn crossed Fish Lane and followed under the lee of the houses. At the end of Fish Lane he behaved with extreme caution, manoeuvring for a vantage point. There was nobody about. The fishing fleet had gone out at dawn and the housewives of Ottercombe were either in bed or cooking breakfast. Alleyn paused at Mary Yeo’s shop on the corner of Fish Lane and the causeway. By peering diagonally through both windows at once, he had a distorted view of the jetty and of Miss Darragh. She had set up a camp-stool and had her back to Ottercombe. Alleyn saw her mount her easel. A sketching block appeared. Presently Miss Darragh began to sketch.

  Alleyn walked down an alley towards the jetty, and took cover in an angle of one of the ramshackle cottages that sprawled about the waterfront. This is the rough quarter of Ottercombe. Petronella Broome has a house of ill-repute, four rooms, on the south waterfront; and William Glass’s tavern was next door until Superintendent Harper made a fuss and had the licence cancelled. This stretch of less than two hundred yards is called the South Front. At night it takes on a sort of glamour. Its lamps are reflected redly in the water. Petronella’s gramop
hone advertises her hospitality, bursts of laughter echo over the harbour, and figures move dimly to and fro across the lights. But at ten to six in the morning it smells of fish and squalor.

  Alleyn waited for five minutes before Legge appeared from behind a bollard at the far end of the jetty. Legge crossed the end of the jetty and stood behind Miss Darragh who continued to sketch.

  ‘Damn,’ said Alleyn.

  The tide was out and three dinghies were beached near the jetty. A fourth was made fast to the far end and seemed to lie, bobbing complacently, directly under Miss Darragh. Alleyn thought the water looked fairly shallow for at least half-way down the jetty. He groaned and with caution, moved towards the front. Miss Darragh did not turn, but from time to time Legge glanced over his shoulder. Alleyn advanced to the foreshore under cover of boats, fishing gear, and the sea wall. To an observer from one of the windows, he would have seemed to be hunting for lost property. He reached the jetty.

  For half-way along the jetty the water was about two feet deep. Alleyn, cursing inwardly, rolled up his trousers and took to it, keeping under the jetty. The water was cold and the jetty smelt. Abruptly the bottom shelved down. Alleyn could now hear the faintest murmur of voices and knew that he was not so very far from his objective. The dinghy was hidden by posts but he could hear the glug-glug of its movement and the hollow thud it made when it knocked against the post to which it was made fast. Just beyond it was a flight of steps leading up to the jetty. Alleyn mounted a crossbeam. It was slimy and barnacled but he found handholds to the end. If he could reach the dinghy! His progress was hazardous, painful, and maddeningly slow, but at last he grasped the post. He embraced it with both arms, straddled the crossbeams and wriggled round until he reached the far side.

  Underneath him was the dinghy and lying full-length in the dinghy was Inspector Fox. His notebook lay open on his chest.

  Fox winked at his superior and obligingly moved over. Alleyn pulled the dinghy closer, and not without difficulty lowered himself into the bows.

  ‘Two minds with but a single thought,’ he whispered. ‘Simultaneous comedy again.’