‘Fifty-eight million!’ bawled Mr Nark. ‘Nigh on it. Not reckoning twice overs. I’ve soaked up four hundred words, some of ‘em as much as five syllable, mind you, every night for the last forty years. Started in at the age of fifteen. “Sink or swim,” I said, “I’ll improve my brain to the tune of four hundred words per day till I passes out or goes blind!” And I done it. I don’t suppose you know a piece of work called The Evvylootion of the Spices?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s a tough masterpiece of a job. Took me a year and more, that did. Yes, I’ve tackled most branches of science. Now the last two years I’ve turned my eyes in the direction of crime. Trials of famous criminals, lives of murderers, feats of detection, all the whole biling of ‘em. Can’t get enough of ‘em. I’m like that. Whole hog or nothing. Reckon I’ve sucked it dry.’

Mr Nark emptied his pint-pot and, perhaps as an illustrative gesture, sucked his moustache. He looked at Alleyn out of the corners of his eyes.

‘This is a very pretty little case now,’ he said. ‘I don’t say there’s much in it but it’s quite a pretty bit of an affair in its way. You’ll be counting on knocking it off in a day or two, I suppose?’

‘I don’t know about that, Mr Nark.’

‘I was a witness.’

‘At the inquest? I thought—’

‘Not at the inquest,’ interrupted Mr Nark in a great hurry. ‘No. Superintendent Nicholas Gawd-Almighty Harper had the running of the inquest. I was a witness to the event. More than that I’ve made a study of the affair and I’ve drew my own deductions. I don’t suppose they’d interest you. But I’ve drew ‘em.’

Alleyn reflected that it was extremely unlikely that Mr Nark’s deductions would be either intelligible or interesting, but he made an agreeable noise and invited him to have another drink. Mr Nark accepted and drew it for himself.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I reckon I know as much as anybody about this affair. There’s criminal carelessness done on purpose, and there’s criminal carelessness done by accident. There’s motives here and there’s motives there, each of ‘em making ‘tother look like a fool, and all of ‘em making the biggest fool of Nicholas Harper. Yes. Us chaps takes our lives in our hands when we calls in at Feathers for a pint. Abel knows it. Abel be too mortal deathly proud to own up.’

‘Carelessness, you said? How did it come about?’