‘Crowded round Mr Watchman. Will stepped out of corner. I come through under counter. Miss Darragh stood anigh us and Dessy by Will. Legge stood staring where he wurr. Reckon Mr Parish did be closest still to glass, but he stepped forward when Mr Watchman flopped down on settle. I be a bit mazed-like wurr they all stood. I disremember.’

‘Naturally enough. Would you say anybody could have touched that glass between the moment when the dart struck and the time Miss Moore poured out the brandy?’

‘I don’t reckon anybody could,’ said Abel, but his voice slipped a half-tone and he looked profoundly uncomfortable.

‘Not even Mr Parish.’

Abel stared over Alleyn’s head and out of the window. His lower lip protruded and he looked as mulish as a sulky child.

‘Maybe he could,’ said Abel, ‘but he didn’t.’

CHAPTER 10
The Tumbler and the Dart

‘We may as well let him have this room,’ said Alleyn, when Abel had gone. ‘Harper’s done everything possible in the way of routine.’

‘He’s a very thorough chap, is Nick Harper.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘Except in the matter of the rat-hole jar. However, Fox, we’ll see if we can catch him out before we let the public in. Let’s prowl a bit.’

They prowled for an hour. They kept the door locked and closed the bar shutters. Dim sounds of toping penetrated from the public taproom. Alleyn had brought Harper’s photographs and they compared these with the many chalk marks Harper had left behind him. A chalk mark under the settle showed where the iodine bottle had rolled. The plot of the bottle of Scheele’s Acid was marked in the top cupboard. The shelves of the corner cupboard were very dusty and the trace left by the bottle showed clearly. Alleyn turned to the fireplace.

‘He hasn’t sifted the ashes, Br’er Fox. We may as well do that, I think.’

Fox fetched a small sieve from Alleyn’s case. The ashes at first yielded nothing of interest, but in the last handful they found a small misshapen object which Alleyn dusted and took to the light.

‘Glass,’ he said. ‘They must have had a good fire. It’s melted and gone all bobbly. There’s some more. Broken glass half melted by the fire.’

‘They probably make the fire up on the old ashes,’ said Fox. ‘It may have lain there through two or three fires.’

‘Yes, Fox. And then again it may not. I wonder if those fragments of the brandy glass were complete. This has been a thickish piece, I should say.’

‘A bit of the bottom?’

‘We’ll have to find out. You never know. Where was the broken glass?’

The place where most of the broken glass had been found was marked on the floor.