Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,15

it.’

The barman looked at his stock, but shook his head.

‘Perhaps it’s in the restaurant,’ I said. ‘I think he did mention drinking it after dinner. Perhaps it’s on the drinks trolley.’ I pulled out my wallet and opened it expectantly, and with a considering glance at the notes in sight the barman decided to go on the errand. He returned quite soon with a genuine Laphroaig bottle and charged me outrageously for a nip, which I paid without demur, giving him a tip on top.

I carried the glass to the far table to join Ridger.

‘What do you do now?’ I asked. ‘Pray?’

‘Taste it,’ he said tersely.

I smelled it first, however, and tasted it slowly as before, Ridger sitting forward tensely in his chair.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

‘It’s not Laphroaig.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘Absolutely positive. Laphroaig is as smoky as you can get. Pure malt. There’s almost no malt at all in what I’ve just tasted. It’s the same whisky as before.’

‘Thanks very much, Mr Beach,’ he said with deep satisfaction. ‘That’s great.’

He stood up, walked over to the bar and asked to see the bottle from which his friend had just drunk. The bartender obligingly pushed it across the counter, and Ridger picked it up. Then with his other hand he pulled out his identification, and the barman, angry, started snouting.

Ridger proved to have a radio inside his jacket. He spoke to some unseen headquarters, received a tinny reply, and told the bartender the police would be prohibiting the sale of all alcohol at the Silver Moondance for that day at least, while tests were made on the stock.

‘You’re barmy,’ the bartender yelled, and to me, viciously, ‘Creep.’

His loud voice brought colleagues in the shape of a worried man in a dark suit who looked junior and ineffective, and a girl in a short pert waitress uniform, long fawn legs below a scarlet tunic, scarlet headband over her hair.

Ridger took stock of the opposition and found himself very much in charge. The ineffective junior announced himself to be the assistant manager, which drew looks of scorn and amazement from the waitress and the barman. Assistant to the assistant, I rather gathered. Ridger explained forcibly again that no liquor was to be sold pending investigations, and all three of them said they knew nothing about anything, and we would have to talk to… er… talk to…

‘The management?’ I suggested.

They nodded dumbly.

‘Let’s do that,’ I said. ‘Where’s the manager?’

The assistant to the assistant manager finally said that the manager was on holiday and the assistant manager was ill. Head office was sending someone to take over as soon as possible.

‘Head office?’ I said. ‘Didn’t Larry Trent own the place?’

‘Er…’ said the assistant unhappily. ‘I really don’t know. Mr Trent never said he didn’t, I mean, I thought he did. But when I got here this morning the telephone was ringing, and it was head office. That’s what he said, anyway. He wanted to speak to the manager, and when I explained he said he would send someone along straight away.’

‘Who ran things last night?’ Ridger demanded.

‘What? Oh… we’re closed, Sunday nights.’

‘And yesterday lunchtime?’

‘The assistant manager was here, but he’d got ‘flu. He went home to bed as soon as we closed. And of course Mr Trent had been here until opening time, seeing that everything was all right before he went to Mr Hawthorn’s party.’

All three looked demoralised but at the same time slightly defiant, seeing the policeman as their natural enemy. Relations scarcely improved when Ridger’s reinforcements rolled up: two uniformed constables bringing tape and labels for sealing all the bottles.

I diffidently suggested to Ridger that he should extend his suspicions to the wines.

‘Wines?’ he frowned. ‘Yes, if you like, but we’ve got enough with the spirits.’

‘All the same,’ I murmured, and Ridger told the assistant to show me where they kept the wine, and to help me and one of his constables bring any bottles I wanted into the bar. The assistant, deciding that helpfulness would establish his driven-snow innocence, put no obstacles in my way, and in due course, and after consulting the wine list, the assistant, the constable and I returned to the bar carrying two large baskets full of bottles.

The spirits bottles all having been sealed, there was at our return a lull of activity in the Silver Moondance Saloon. I unloaded the bottles onto two tables, six white wine on one, six red on another, and from my jacket pocket produced my favourite corkscrew.

‘Hey,’ the barman protested. ‘You can’t do