Superintendent Harper uttered a vulgar and incredulous word.

‘I know,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘Of course it was. But if Fox and (or) I had popped off, you’d have had a devil of a job proving it was murder. Oh, it’s a blunder, all right. It shows us two things. The murderer must have kept a bit of cyanide up his sleeve and he must have visited the private bar after Abel decanted the sherry at a quarter to one this afternoon. We will now search their rooms. We won’t find anything, but we’d better do it. I’ll just see how Fox is getting on.’

Fox, white and shaken, was sitting on the edge of the bath. Dr Shaw was washing his hands.

‘He’ll do all right now,’ said Dr Shaw. ‘Better go to bed and take it easy.’

‘I’m damned if I do,’ said Fox. ‘Excuse me, sir, but I’m damned if I do.’

Alleyn took him by the elbow.

‘Blast your eyes,’ he said, ‘you’ll do as you’re told. Come on.’

Fox consented with a bad grace to lying on his bed. Alleyn and Harper searched the rooms.

II

At first Harper said that the rooms, in all essentials, were as he had found them on the day after Watchman’s death. In Cubitt’s they found an overwhelming smell of studio and the painting gear that had engendered it. There were bottles of turpentine and oil, half-finished works, Cubitt’s paint-box, and boxes of unopened tubes. Alleyn smelt the bottles and shook his head.

‘We needn’t take them,’ he said, ‘their stink is a lawful stink. You can’t put turpentine or oil into vintage sherry and get away with it.’

‘What about prussic acid? It smells strong enough.’

‘Of almonds. A nutty flavour. Do you remember the account of the murder of Rasputin?’

‘Can’t say I do,’ said Harper.

‘Youssoupoff put cyanide in the wine. Rasputin drank several glasses, apparently with impunity.’

‘But—’

‘The theory is that the sugar in the wine took the punch out of the poison. That may account for Fox’s escape. No doubt the sherry had a fine old nutty aroma. By God, I’ll get this expert.’

‘What are we looking for?’

‘For anything that could have held the stuff he put in the decanter. Oh, he’ll have got rid of it somehow, of course. But you never know.’

They went into the bathroom. In a cupboard above the hand-basin they found Abel’s second first-aid outfit. Alleyn asked Harper if there had been a bottle of iodine there on the day after the murder. Harper said no. He had checked the contents of the cupboard. They separated and took the rest of the rooms between them, Alleyn going to Legge’s and Parish’s, Harper to the others. Alleyn took a small empty bottle from Parish’s room. It had held pills and smelt of nothing at all. On Legge’s dressing-table he found a phial half-full of a thick pinkish fluid that smelt of antiseptic. Mr Legge’s ear lotion. He kept it and searched all the drawers and pockets but found nothing else of interest. Abel’s room was neat and spotless, Will’s untidy and full of books. The wearisome and exacting business went on. Down below, in the private bar, Oates and his mate kept company with the patrons of the Plume of Feathers. They were very quiet. Occasionally Alleyn heard the voices of Parish and of Mr Nark. Ottercombe clock struck ten, sweetly and slowly. There was a moment of complete quiet broken by a violent eruption of noise down in the bar. Alleyn and Harper met in the passage.