‘Well,’ said Abel tartly, ‘what’s wrong with it? You’m not pisoned this time, I suppose?’

‘I dessay it’s all right,’ said Mr Nark. ‘New barrel bain’t it?’

Abel disregarded this inquiry. The ship’s decanter that they had been seen in the cupboard now stood on the bar counter. It was spotlessly clean. Abel took the bottle of Amontillado from a shelf above the bar. He put a strainer in the neck of the decanter and began, carefully, to pour the sherry through it.

‘What jiggery-pokery are you up to now, Abel?’ inquired Mr Nark. ‘Why, Gor’dang it, that thurr decanter was in the pison cupboard.’

Abel addressed himself exclusively to Alleyn and Fox. He explained the various methods used by Mrs Ives to clean the decanter. He poured himself out a glass of the sherry and invited them to join him. Under the circumstances they could scarcely refuse. Mr Nark watched them with extraordinary solicitude and remarked that they were braver men than himself.

‘Axcuse me for a bit if you please, gentlemen,’ said Abel elaborately to Alleyn and Fox. ‘I do mind me of summat I’ve got to tell Mrs Ives. If you’d be so good as to ring if I’m wanted.’

‘Certainly, Mr Pomeroy,’ said Alleyn.

Abel left them with Mr Nark.

‘Fine morning, sir,’ said Mr Nark.

Alleyn agreed.

‘Though I suppose,’ continued Mr Nark wooingly, ‘all weathers and climates are one to a man of your calling. Science,’ continued Mr Nark, drawing closer and closer to Alleyn, ‘is a powerful high-handed mistress. Now, just as a matter of curiosity, sir, would you call yourself a man of science?’

‘Not I,’ said Alleyn, good-naturedly. ‘I’m a policeman, Mr Nark.’

‘Ah! That’s my point. See? That’s my point. Now, sir, with all respect you did ought to make a power more use of the great wonders of science. I’ll give in your fingerprints. There’s an astonishing thing, now! To think us walks about unconscious-like, leaving our pores and loops all over the shop for science to pick up and have the laugh on us.’

It was a peculiarity of Mr Nark’s conversational style that as he drew nearer to his victim he raised his voice. His face was now about twenty inches away from Alleyn’s and he roared like an infuriated auctioneer.

‘I’m a reader,’ shouted Mr Nark. ‘I’m a reader and you might say a student. How many printed words would you say I’d absorbed in my life? At a guess, now?’

‘Really,’ said Alleyn. ‘I don’t think I could possibly—’