by Colin Watson
The inspector frowned. “I wasn’t thinking of murder, sir.”
“Sorry. My mistake.”
“The question I had in mind was whether your wife could have done what she did otherwise than by accident. You must know her personality, her state of mind, if she was worried about anything...Any eccentricities of behaviour, for instance.”
“I don’t know. I’d have to think about that.”
“Yes, do, sir.”
Purbright leaned back a couple of inches and gazed blandly at his tumbler. He tipped it gently to one side, then the other, and watched the fine oily rivulets of spirit creep down the glass.
“It’s funny, you know,” Palgrove said at last, “but I shouldn’t be surprised if there was something in what you say.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean you to...”
Palgrove held up his hand. “No, I know you didn’t. Facts are facts, though. And I can’t pretend that Henny’s attitude to things was altogether normal. She had these terrific enthusiasms, you know. It seemed sometimes that animals meant more to her than human beings. It was her kindness, really, I suppose. I mean, I wouldn’t knock her for that. Not now. But she got so worked up about these things. Perhaps I should have seen that there was a danger of her—you know—sort of going over the top.”
“Did Mrs Palgrove do much letter writing, sir?”
“Lord, you can say that again. You certainly can. She was forever writing letters. Mind you, she was on committees galore.”
“So I understand. I wasn’t thinking so much of formal correspondence, though. Have you ever known her to write a—what shall I say?—an excitable sort of letter?”
“To be quite honest, I never took that much interest. She’d be capable of it, though. I’m sure she would. She was an excitable sort of woman.” Palgrove paused to eye the inspector carefully. “Why, has something of that kind...?”
“It was a hypothetical question, sir. I’m just trying to get a general idea of your wife’s temperament.”
Palgrove looked at his glass, empty now. He stretched and flexed his shoulders. “Can I get you another drink, Inspector?”
“No, thank you, sir. We’ll have to be getting back.”
Palgrove went to pour a second whiskey for himself. He spoke over his shoulder. “This inquest thing...”
“Yes, sir?”
“I suppose I ought to get my solicitor on the job.”
“That’s a matter for you to decide, Mr Palgrove. He would accompany you if you wished, I’m sure.”
“I’ll have to think about it.” He drank his whiskey at one steady tilt, then smacked his lips. He stood the glass on the top of the cabinet, paused, picked it up again and walked with it in his hand to the door, where the two policemen were already waiting. He smiled wryly at them, showed them the glass. “My own washer-up from now on, I suppose.”
Seated in The Widow on its sedate return run to the police station, Love said to the inspector: “What do you make of Pally, then?”
“What do you think I should make of him?”
“I reckon he’s a bit of a rum bugger.”
“You could be right.”
“They say he’s rattling some tottie from Jubilee Park way.”
“That’s one thing I admire about you, Sid—you have an eye for geographical detail.”
“You don’t really believe his wife did herself in, do you?”
“No, I don’t. But it was very interesting to see how appealing a theory Mr Palgrove found it, once it was suggested.”
Chapter Nine
The offices of the Flaxborough and Eastern Counties Charities Alliance were on the first floor of what once had been the town house of a Georgian wine merchant. They were reached by narrow stairs from a door between a chemist’s shop and an ironmonger’s. The door was surmounted by a semi-circular fanlight and flanked by narrow fluted pillars; traces of its original mouldings were just discernible as depressions and swellings in the build-up of countless layers of paint.
Mr Hive sniffed as he climbed the steep, uneven stairs. The smell of kerosene from the hardware shop contended with whiffs of cosmetics and cough syrup from the chemist’s. Near the top, though, another, more pungent, aroma asserted itself. Hive paused to savour it. He smiled.
He arrived at a broad landing flooded with light from a ten-feet-high window. There were three doors. On one of them he read: FECCA—Secretary and Accounts. He knocked, then softly pushed it open a few inches, enough to introduce one cautious, reconnoitring eye. This he withdrew after a moment or two.
“I said come in.” A woman’s voice, querulous, refined.
Hive reached something from his pocket—a small squat bottle—and, remaining himself out of sight, dangled it between finger and thumb just inside the room.
Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime pushed her basket chair back from the table and half rose, staring at the quartern-sized apparition that had floated through the door. She read its label. Highland Fling. Resolutely, Miss Teatime walked to the door and pulled it fully open.
“Mortimer!”
“Lucy!”
The bottle of whiskey hung disregarded on the periphery of their embrace. Then, stepping back, Mr Hive presented it to Miss Teatime with a deep bow.
She stood regarding him fondly. “How sweet of you, Mortimer, to remember my little twinges.”
“Nonsense. Any doctor would have done the same.”
She laughed, as if at a distant memory. “Poor Mortimer, that did not last very long, did it?”
“A fill-gap. Not one of my best ideas.”
“You are intrinsically too honest, my dear. That bravura of yours was bound to let you down.”
“You said so, Lucy. You said so at the time.”
“I think your present occupation suits you much better.”
He raised his brows. “You know what it is, then?”
“But of course. Kitty keeps in touch with me, you know. And Uncle Macnamara.”
She turned and walked to a small cupboard set in the wall. “I do hope you do not object to drinking from a tea cup.” She arranged cups and saucers on a tray, together with a sugar basin and a milk jug. The china was white, patterned delicately with tiny clusters of forget-me-nots. Miss Teatime sluiced a substantial slug of Highland Fling into each cup.
Mr Hive sat down at the table. Miss Teatime pushed a pile of papers aside to make room for his cup and saucer. He sighed happily. “How nice it is to see you again...”
“Are you here for long? I suppose I cannot prevail upon you to follow my example and leave London? This altogether charming town has been a revelation to me.”
“It certainly has its attractions,” conceded Mr Hive, barmaidenly blushes in mind.
“I fancy I should find Town somewhat dull now. Londoners are so parochial. Anyway, they spend most of their lives sealed up in little containers of one kind or another.”
Hive glanced round the bright, spacious room. The panelled walls had been painted a pale dove grey. In the centre of one was an oil painting of a great fenland church with sheep huddled in complacent possession of the graveyard. Upon another hung four framed coloured prints depicting, Hive supposed, specimen candidates for compassion: a pinafored child asleep on the steps of a public house, an emaciated greyhound, two sorrowful donkeys being belaboured by a man with a black beard and leggings, and a puppy cornered by three villainous looking surgeons holding an assortment of cutlery behind their backs.
“You’re making out all right, then, Lucy, are you?”
“I am being kept nicely occupied, and that is the main thing. You can have no idea, Mortimer, of how much room there is in the charities field for proper organization. I confess I have found the work quite exciting.”
“It’s not the sort of thing I would have thought easy to corner.”
“There is, unfortunately, a long tradition of rivalry between the various endeavours. The animal factions are especially difficult to reconcile, but once they see the wastefulness of dissipated effort I a
m sure the situation can be—what is the modern jargon?—rationalized.”
Miss Teatime reached for her handbag, opened it, and produced a slim, brown cardboard pack. “May I tempt you?”
Hive slapped his knee. “I knew it! I knew I was right...I could smell those damn things from halfway down the stairs. D’you remember what the Cullen boys used to call them in the old days at Frascati’s?”
Miss Teatime smiled dreamily as she put a match to the slim black cheroot. “Tadger Cullen...dear me, yes...and little Arnold...”
“Lucy’s gelding sticks, Tadger used to call them. Remember he had that weird theory about cigars and sterility.”
“The Cullens could be a little embarrassing on occasion, but I do not think they meant any real harm.” She regarded the tip of her cheroot awhile, then looked up perkily. “Guess with whom I have been in correspondence during the past few days.”
Hive shook his head.
“Your old friend Mr Holbein.”
“Fruity Holbein? Don’t tell me you’re going to bring one-armed bandits into the good cause.”
“Indeed, no. Let me explain. It happens that I am blessed with a very progressive committee. I have convinced its members that the efficiency of the organization would be increased enormously by the installation of a computer...”
“Good God!”
“...to say nothing of the prestige such a contrivance would bestow upon them personally. They were very pleased indeed to learn that a computer of modest capacity could be purchased through a friend of mine in the trade for as little as two hundred and fifty pounds. The sum has now been allocated and Mr Holbein has set to work.”
“What on earth does Fruity know about computers?”
“He has assured me,” said Miss Teatime, “that he can produce a very persuasive article. I am not myself mechanically minded, but he did tell me that it was a simple matter of something called pin-table cannibalization.
“But, there”—she uncorked the bottle and replenished their teacups—“we have talked sufficiently about my little interests. Now you must tell me of yourself. How goes”—her voice dropped significantly—“the Case?”
“Oh, it’s over,” said Mr Hive breezily. “All but the fellow paying the bill, anyway.”
“A successful termination, of course?”
“By no means—although I don’t blame myself. The parties are reconciled.”
“Oh, what a waste of your time, Mortimer. I hope they are thoroughly ashamed of themselves.”
“I doubt it. One thing I’ve learned—the private eye gets precious little consideration in this country. He’s been given what they nowadays call a bad image.”
“Public ignorance, Mortimer. Public ignorance. What can you expect”—Miss Teatime gazed sternly out of the window—“of a generation brought up to think that life is all cock and candyfloss?”
Over the telephone to Purbright came the impatient, matter-of-fact voice of Dr Fergusson.
“This woman from what-d’you-call-it, Brompton Gardens...”
“Oh, yes, doctor?”
“I thought I’d better give you a tinkle. Something a bit odd. It’ll be in the report, of course, but it might be as well for you to know straight away.”
“I see.”
“She did drown. No doubt about that. No evidence of organic disease—nothing significant, anyway. Time of death—hang on a minute...yes, eleven last night, give or take a bit—before midnight, certainly, but not more than an hour or an hour and a half before...”
“Between ten-thirty and twelve, then?”
“That’s what I said. Yes. Now, then—here’s the queer thing. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Right. Well, there’s quite definite bruising on both ankles. A set, a distinct set of five bruises on each. Just at the bottom of the lower leg. And both sets match.”
“Fingers?”
“I’d say there’s not a doubt of it.”
The inspector waited a moment, but Fergusson did not elaborate.
“Any other marks, doctor?”
“Well, I didn’t intend to give you the full report over the phone, you know.”
“Naturally not. I do appreciate your having told me this much. It was just that I wondered if the body showed signs of injury.”
“Bruises are injuries, old man. No, it’s all right, I see what you mean. There were other marks, actually. Knuckles, elbows—abrasions, you know. If what we’re both thinking is true, she must have flayed about a bit, poor soul. And there was a broad bruise just over the diaphragm.”
“Where she hit the wall when she was pushed over...”
“Speculation’s your job, not mine. I don’t think I’d argue on that one, though. Not really.”
Click. Fergusson had quit the line.
Purbright took his tidings to the office of the chief constable. Mr Chubb, gravely nibbling the last of the three wholemeal biscuits that came with his afternoon pot of tea, heard him out in silence. Then, as Purbright had known he would, he shook his head slowly and said: “It sounds an unpleasant business, Mr Purbright.”
“I’m afraid it does, sir.”
“Mind you, I must say it’s very hard to credit. She’s done some splendid work, you know, this woman. My wife knows her well. They were on several committees together. She’ll be upset about this.”
“She was popular, was she—Mrs Palgrove?”
“Oh, I don’t know about popular, exactly—all these good ladies squabble a bit at times, you know. I’ve heard she was inclined to rule the roost. But, good gracious, that’s no reason why anyone should...Brompton Gardens...No, I can’t understand it at all.”
“You remember that letter you received, sir? The unsigned one.”
“Letter?” Mr Chubb looked politely bemused.
“Yes, sir. The one beginning ‘My Dear Friend’ and making some rather dramatic allegations...”
“Ah, that one—well, of course, it came to me in error, didn’t it. If you remember, Mr Purbright, you sent a man over especially to collect it.”
“You recall its terms, though?”
“Vaguely. Are you suggesting it might have some relevance? Whoever it was meant for, it did seem a rather wild letter.”
“I think it was meant for you, sir, and I think that we shall find that Mrs Palgrove wrote it.”
Mr Chubb counted his fingernails. Satisfied that they were all there, he said: “I suppose you’ll be wanting to cast around to see if any of the neighbours noticed what was going on last night.”
“I was going to propose that Pooke and Broadleigh start on that straight away, sir. I shall go back to the house. The husband will be either there or within call, I imagine. Perhaps a search warrant, sir, just in case...?”
Mr Chubb nodded gloomily.
Purbright went on: “I shouldn’t imagine this has anything to do with Mrs Palgrove’s death, but there has been a rather curious feud lately between the organizers of some of the local charities. They’ve been busy sabotaging one another’s efforts—or that’s what it looks like. As you know, Mrs Palgrove was a good deal involved in charity work. We shall have to satisfy ourselves that personal antagonism on somebody’s part did not sharpen into actual violence.”
The chief constable was quite shrewd enough to divine behind Purbright’s careful form of words a distinct eagerness to see this bizarre theory confirmed by events. In such a mood, the inspector tended to make him nervous.
“You must do as you think fit, Mr Purbright,” he said coolly.
Purbright remained at headquarters only long enough to acquaint Sergeant Malley with the new situation and to brief detectives Pooke and Broadleigh. Then, accopanied by Love, he drove to Brompton Gardens.
The uniformed man, Fairclough, had been rejoined by Harper and both were leaning disconsolately against the posts of the well, looking, from a distance, a little like the lion and the unicorn on the royal coat of arms.
Fairclough said that Palgrove had left
an hour or so previously for his office. Purbright sent him into the house to telephone a request for Palgrove’s return. “Tell him you understand it’s fairly urgent—just fairly, mind; don’t frighten the poor man.”
To Harper, he explained a different errand. “I want this thing completely drained. You’d better go down personally to Fire Service headquarters and see Budge. One of their small pumps should be adequate. How many gallons would you say there are in that thing?”
Harper pursed his lips and scowled. He hadn’t the faintest idea.