‘Mr Pomeroy,’ said Alleyn, ‘I must warn you against making statements of that sort. You might land yourself in a very pretty patch of trouble, you know. What happened next? Did you pour out Mr Legge’s brandy for him?’

‘‘Ess, I did. And Mr Watchman tuk it to him saying he’d have no refusal. Then Mr Watchman tuk his own dram over to table by dartboard. He drank ‘er down slow and then says he, “Now for it!” ’

‘And had Mr Legge been anywhere near Mr Watchman’s glass?’

Abel looked mulish. ‘No, sir, no. Not azacly. Not at all. He drank his over in ingle-nook opposite Miss Darragh. ‘Twasn’t then the mischief wurr done, Mr Alleyn.’

‘Well,’ said Alleyn, ‘we shall see. Now for the accident itself.’

The story of those few minutes, a story that Alleyn was to hear many times before he reached the end of this case, was repeated by Abel and tallied precisely with all the other accounts in Harper’s file, and with the report of the inquest.

‘Very well,’ said Alleyn. He paused for a moment and caught sight of Will’s three customers staring with passionate interest through the glass door. He moved out of their range of vision.

‘Now we come to the events that followed the injury. You fetched the iodine from that cupboard?’

‘Sure enough, sir, I did.’

‘Will you show me what you did?’

‘Certainly. Somebody—Legge ‘twas—out of the depths of his hypocrisy, says, “put a drop of iodine on it,” he says. Right. I goes to thicky cupboard which Nick Harper has played the fool with, mucking round with his cameras and squirts of powder. I opens bottom door this way, and thurr on shelf is my first-aid box.’

Alleyn and Fox looked at the cupboard. It was a double corner cabinet, with two glass doors one above the other. Abel had opened the bottom door. At the back of the shelf was a lidless tin, containing the usual first-aid equipment, and a very nice ship’s decanter. Abel removed the decanter.

‘I’ll scald and scour ‘er out,’ he said. ‘Us’ll have your sherry in this yurr, gentlemen, and I’ll join you tomorrow in fust drink to show there’s no hanky-panky.’

‘We’ll be delighted if you’ll join us, Mr Pomeroy, but I don’t think we need feel any qualms.’

‘Ax George Nark,’ said Abel bitterly. ‘Have a tell with George Nark and get your minds pisened. I’ll look after your stomachs.’

Alleyn said hurriedly: ‘And that’s the first-aid equipment?’

‘That’s it, sir. Bottle of iodine was laying in empty slot yurr,’ Abel explained. ‘I tuk it out and I tuk out bandage at same time.’

‘You should keep your first-aid box shut up, Mr Pomeroy,’ said Alleyn absently.

‘Door’s airtight, sir.’