Death at the Bar Read Free

Group.”
    “Will and Decima together,” said Cubitt. “I’ve suggested they call themselves the Decimbrists.”
    “Where are the lads of the village?” demanded Watchman. “I thought I heard the dart game in progress as I went upstairs.”
    “Abel’s rat-poisoning in the garage,” said Parish. “They’ve all gone out to see he doesn’t give himself a lethal dose of prussic acid.”
    “Good Lord!” Watchman ejaculated. “Is the old fool playing round with cyanide?”
    “Apparently… Why wouldn’t we have a drink?”
    “Why not, indeed,” agreed Cubitt, “Hi, Will!”
    He went to the bar and leant over it, looking into the Public.
    “The whole damn place is deserted. I’ll get our drinks and chalk them up. Beer?”
    “Beer it is,” said Parish.
    “What form of cyanide has Abel got hold of?” Watchman asked.
    “Eh?” said Parish savagely. “Oh, let’s see now. I fetched it for him from Illington. The chemist hadn’t got any of the stock rat-banes but he poked round and found this stuff. I think he called it Scheele’s acid.”
    “Good God!”
    “What? Yes, that was it — Scheele’s acid. And then he said he thought the fumes of Scheele’s acid mightn’t be strong enough so he gingered it up a bit.”
    “With what, in the name of all the Borgias?”
    “Well — with prussic acid, I imagine.”
    “You imagine! You imagine!”
    “He said that was what it was. He said it was acid or something. I wouldn’t know. He warned me in sixteen different positions to be careful. Suggested Abel wear a half-crown gas mask, so I bought it in case Abel hadn’t got one. Abel’s using gloves and everything.”
    “It’s absolutely monstrous!”
    “I had to sign for it, old boy,” said Parish. “Very solemn we were. God, he was a stupid man! Bone from the eyes up, but so, so kind.”
    Watchman said angrily: “I should damn’ well think he was stupid. Do you know that twenty-five drops of Scheele’s acid will kill a man in a few minutes? Why, good Lord, in
Rex v. Bull
, if I’m not mistaken, it was alleged that accused gave only seven drops. I myself defended a medical student who gave twenty minims in error. Charge of manslaughter. I got him off but— how’s Abel using it?”
    “What’s all this?” inquired Cubitt. “There’s your beer.”
    “Abel said he was going to put it in a pot and shove it in a rat-hole,” explained Parish. “I think he’s filled with due respect for its deadliness, Luke, really. He’s going to block the hole up and everything.”
    “The chemist had no business to give you Scheele’s, much less this infernal brew. He ought to be struck off the books. The pharmacopœial preparation would have been quite strong enough. He could have diluted even that to advantage.”
    “Well, God bless us,” said Cubitt hastily, and took a pull at his beer.
    “What happens, actually, when someone’s poisoned by prussic acid?” asked Parish.
    “Convulsion, clammy sweat, and death.”
    “Shut up!” said Cubitt. “What a filthy conversation!”
    “Well — cheers, dears,” said Parish raising his tankard.
    “You do get hold of the most repellent idioms, Seb,” said his cousin. “
Te saluto
!”
    “But not
moriturus
, I trust,” added Parish. “With all this chat about prussic acid! What’s it look like?”
    “You bought it.”
    “I didn’t notice. It’s a blue bottle.”
    “Hydrocyanic acid,” said Watchman with his barrister’s precision, “is, in appearance, exactly like water. It is a liquid miscible with water, and this stuff is a dilution of hydrocyanic acid.”
    “The chemist,” said Parish, “put a terrific notice on it. I remember I once had to play a man who’s taken cyanide. ‘Fool’s Errand,’ the piece was; a revival with whiskers on it but not a bad old drama. I died in a few seconds.”
    “For once the dramatist was right,” said Watchman. “It’s one of the sudden poisons. Horrible stuff! I’ve got cause to know it. I was once