Tether's End by Margery Allingham

Author:Margery Allingham [Allingham, Margery]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Private investigators, London (England), Mystery & Detective, General, Fiction, Campion; Albert (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 9780786703838
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
Published: 1996-10-14T23:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 12

AT THE ROSE AND CROWN

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At just about the same time as Richard was asking for Jeremy Hawker at Rolf’s Dump, the man who called himself by that name when it suited him was standing against the round bar in the Rose and Crown. This public house stands directly behind the old Royal Albert Music Hall, a famous vaudeville theatre before the war and later the home of lavish musical shows. On this particular evening Morris Moorhen was appearing there in Bowl Me Over. The performance had been on for forty minutes and the long interval was due in five.

Mr. Vick, who was standing next to Gerry, bright spots of colour on his cheekbones and his elegant black hat well on the back of his head, was having a much better time than anyone who merely saw the scene could possibly have supposed. The Rose and Crown was never a place of gaiety. Its main trade was done at lunch time and in the evening it was apt to present an ill-lit and deserted appearance.

At the moment the only other two people in the place at all were behind the bar. There was the tender, a solid youngster who looked as if he had troubles of his own, and the manager, who was a white-faced, gloomy-eyed man, who sat aloof in an alcove built into the mahogany and looking-glass contraption, part sideboard, part office, which stood in the centre of the bar like a hub in the centre of a wheel. He was taking no notice of anybody but was reading an evening paper which he had folded into a narrow strip like a harlequin’s wand.

Mr. Vick was drinking large dark glasses of unidentified sherry with a recklessness either of ignorance or insanity, and by now he was garrulous, affectionate, and noisy as a macaw, which he was beginning to resemble. His drawing-room scream became more and more frequent and the arch hero worship which he lavished on the man in the raincoat was mounting.

Yet the principal change which had occurred during the evening had taken place in Gerry. In the three hours since his carefully prepared alibi had been destroyed at the very moment of its success by the chance meeting with the inquisitive little barber, he had altered in appearance. His flesh seemed to be clinging more tightly to his bones. There was a slight stiffness in his body and the muscles of his face, while the blank expression in his flat eyes, normally infrequent, had become almost habitual. Moreover, his normal casualness of manner had become exaggerated, so that the barman, who was not bothering to give serious consideration to the matter, would have sworn offhand that he was the more drunk of the two.

This was an assumption which could not have been more wrong. By pleading that he was driving, Gerry had avoided alcohol all the evening and had achieved an icy sobriety in which his mind was working with unusual clarity. He had arranged many alibis in his life.

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