Mr Legge was understood to say he was willing.

Watchman pulled the darts out of the board.

‘Come on now,’ he said. ‘I’m equal to the lot of you. Even Mr Legge. Round-the-clock it is, and if he beats me this time, we’ll have the other half and he can do his circus trick with my hand. Is it a bargain, Mr Legge?’

‘If you’re not afraid,’ said Legge indistinctly, ‘I’m not. But I’d like a new set of darts.’

‘Afraid? With a brandy like this on board, I’d face the devil himself.’

‘Good old Luke,’ cried Parish.

Abel fished under the shelves and brought up a small package which he clapped down on the bar counter.

‘Brand new set o’darts, my sonnies,’ said Abel. ‘Best to be bought and come this evening from London. I’ll fix the flights in ‘em while you play round-the-clock with the old ‘uns. Bob Legge can christen ‘em with this masterpiece of an exhibition.’

He broke the string and opened the package.

‘Come now, Mr Legge,’ said Watchman. ‘Is it a bargain?’

‘Certainly,’ said Legge. ‘A bargain it is.’

CHAPTER 5
Failure by Mr Legge

PC Oates had gone as far as the tunnel, had returned, and had descended the flight of stone steps that leads to the wharf from the right-hand side of the Feathers. He had walked along the passage called Fish Lane, flashing his lamp from time to time on streaming windows and doorways. Rain drummed on Oates’s mackintosh cape, on his helmet, on cobble-stones, and on the sea that, only a few feet away, in the darkness, lapped at the streaming waterfront. The sound of the rain was almost as loud as the sound of thunder and behind both of these was the roar of surf on Coombe Rock. A ray of lamplight from a chink in a window-blind shone obliquely on rods of rain, and by its suggestion of remote comfort made the night more desolate.

Far above him, dim and forlorn, the post-office clock told a quarter past nine.

Oates turned at the end of Fish Lane and shone light on the second flight of Ottercombe Steps. Water was pouring down them in a series of miniature falls. He began to climb, holding tightly to the handrail. If anyone could have seen him abroad in the night, lonesome and dutiful, his plodding figure might have suggested a progression into the past when the night-watchman walked through Ottercombe to call the hours to sleeping fishermen. Such a flight of fancy did not visit the thoughts of Mr Oates. He merely told himself that he was damned if he’d go any farther, and when the red curtains of the Plume of Feathers shone through the rain he mended his pace and made for them.