‘Summer,’ said Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn moodily, ‘is acomyng in and my temper is a-going out. Lhude sing cuccu. I find that the length of my patience, Fox, fluctuates in an inverse ratio with the length of the days.’

‘Don’t you like the warm weather?’ asked Detective-Inspector Fox.

‘Yes, Fox, but not in London. Not in the Yard. Not in the streets where one feels dirty half an hour after one has bathed. Not when one is obliged to breathe the fumes of petrol and the body-odour of those who come to make statements and remain to smell. That creature who has just left us stank abominably. However, the case is closed, which is a slight alleviation. But I don’t like summer in London.’

‘Ah well,’ said Fox shifting his thirteen stone from one leg to the other, ‘chacun à son gôut.’

‘Your French improves.’

‘It ought to, Mr Alleyn. I’ve been sweating at it for two years now but I can’t say I feel what you might call at home with it. Give me time and I can see my way with the stuff but that’s not good enough. Not nearly good enough.’

‘Courage, Fox. Dogged as does it. What brought you up here?’

‘There’s a chap came into the waiting-room an hour ago with rather a rum story, sir. They sent him along to me. I don’t know that there’s much in it, but I thought you might be interested.’

‘Why?’ asked Alleyn apprehensively.

‘I nearly sent him off,’ continued Fox who had his own way of imparting information. ‘I did tell him it was nothing to do with us and that he’d better go to the local Super, which is, of course, what he’ll have to do anyway if there’s anything in it.’

‘Fox,’ said Alleyn, ‘am I a Tantalus that you should hold this beaker, however unpalatable, beyond my reach? What was this fellow’s story? What prevented you from following the admirable course you have outlined? And why have you come in here?’

‘It’s about the Watchman business.’

‘Oh?’ Alleyn swung round in his chair. ‘What about it?’

‘I remembered you’d taken an interest in it, Mr Alleyn, and that deceased was a personal friend of yours.’

‘Well—an acquaintance.’

‘Yes. You mentioned that there were one or two points that were not brought out at the inquest.’

‘Well?’

‘Well, this chap’s talking about one of them. The handling of the darts.’

Alleyn hesitated. At last he said. ‘He must go to the local people.’

‘I thought you might like to see him before we got rid of him.’

‘Who is he?’

‘The pub-keeper.’

‘Has he come up from Devon to see us?’

‘Yes, he has. He says the Super at Illington wouldn’t listen to him.’

‘None of our game.’

‘I thought you might like to see him,’ Fox repeated.

‘All right, blast you. Bring him up.’