After a few minutes, however, he could have given a neat drawing, with nice attention to detail, of the private taproom. He noticed the relative positions of the dart-board, the bar and the settle. He paid attention to the position of the lights, and remarked that the spot, chalked on the floor by Oates, where Legge had stood when he threw the darts, was immediately under a strong lamp. He saw that there was a light switch inside the door and another by the mantelpiece. He walked over to the corner cupboard.

‘Nick Harper,’ said Abel, ‘took away that theer cursed pison bottle. He took away the bits of broken glass and brandy bottle and iodine bottle. He took away the new darts, all six of ‘em. All Nick Harper left behind is dirt and smell. Help yourself to either of ‘em.’

‘Don’t go just yet,’ said Alleyn. ‘We want your help, Mr Pomeroy, if you’ll give it to us.’

‘Ready and willing,’ Abel said with emphasis. ‘I’m ready and willing to do all I can. By my way of thinking you two gentlemen are here to clear my name, and I be mortal set on that scheme.’

‘Right. Now will you tell me, as well as you can remember, where everybody stood at the moment when you poured out the second round of brandies. Can you remember? Try to call up the picture of this room as it was a fortnight ago tonight.’

‘I can call it to mind right enough,’ said Abel slowly. ‘I been calling it to mind every night and a mighty number of times every night, since that ghassley moment. I was behind bar—’

‘Let’s have those shutters away,’ said Alleyn.

Fox unlocked the shutters and rolled them up. The private tap proper was discovered. A glass door, connecting the two bars, was locked and through it Alleyn could see into the Public. Will Pomeroy was serving three fishermen. His shoulder was pressed against the glass door. He must have turned his head when he heard the sound of the shutters. He looked at Alleyn through his eyelashes and then turned away.

Alleyn examined the counter in the private tap. It was stained with dregs fourteen days old. Abel pointed to a lighter ring.

‘Thurr’s where brandy-bottle stood,’ he said. “Ess fay, thurr’s where she was, sure enough.’

‘Yes. Now, where were the people? You say you stood behind the bar?’

‘‘Ess, and young Will was in corner ‘twixt bar and dart-board. Rest of ‘em had just finished round-the-clock. Bob Legge had won. They used the old darts and when he ran home he put ‘em back in that thurr wooden rack by board. Yurr they be. Nick Harper come over generous,’ said Abel with irony, ‘and left us they old darts. He collared the new ‘uns.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Alleyn hurriedly. ‘What about the rest of the party?’