The Lansdown Arms is a local pub associated with Rupert Darby and a key point in Peter Diamond’s search for him. Its landlord’s reports help establish Rupert’s movements, while a separate account of an incident there reveals that paint had reached Rupert’s beret before an art-gallery party—and that Rupert did not recognize the man responsible.

A Local in the Search

When Peter Diamond and Julie Hargreaves went looking for Rupert, the landlord at the Lansdown Arms suggested they might find him at the Paragon Bar, where he was expected later in the day. The advice redirected their search, but did not locate him. On a later visit, after ten in the evening, the Paragon’s waitress and the Lansdown Arms landlord both said they had not seen Rupert that evening. The pub thus figures first as a source of practical leads and then as one of the places whose failure to confirm his whereabouts sharpened the uncertainty around his movements.

The Beret and the Paint

An account of an earlier visit placed Rupert at the Lansdown Arms with Marlowe, his dog, at his usual early-evening time. He had gone in for a quick drink and was leaving when a man he described as a merchant banker handled what Rupert took to be a tin of hairspray. Some of its contents landed on Rupert’s beret. He later discovered that the substance was paint.

Rupert complained about the incident, but supplied no description of the man. Peter Diamond recognized the significance of that omission: Rupert had not recognized the stranger. The pub episode therefore establishes not just when the beret was marked—before the art-gallery party—but also that the person who marked it was not known to Rupert.

Role in the Investigation

The Lansdown Arms connects an ordinary feature of Rupert’s routine—a quick drink with Marlowe—to a clue whose meaning becomes apparent later. The apparent hairspray initially obscured the nature of the substance; Rupert’s subsequent discovery that it was paint made the incident relevant to the investigation. Peter Diamond’s regret that the police had not learned of it sooner underscores how a minor, unexplained encounter could acquire importance once the beret’s paint became evidence.