by Colin Watson
“I second that,” called out Councillor Roger Crispin. “Not,” he added, “that I approve of ‘Iron Curtain’ tactics in this council, but I’m prepared to believe that Councillor Linnet has good grounds for wanting privacy.”
There was a brief silence while the chairman looked questioningly at each in turn of those members who could usually be depended upon to take the opposite line to anything sponsored by Messrs Linnet and Crispin. On this occasion they remained unresponsive.
“All those in favour?” Councillor Pointer asked tonelessly. There was a murmur of assent. He turned towards Mr Kebble and gave him a faint smile of dismissal.
Kebble pocketed his four pencils, picked up his notebook and made for the door. More than one of the watching committeemen felt something of the embarrassment of the after-dinner speaker who arrests the denouement of a dirty story during the slow departure of a waitress.
Then cigarettes and pipes were lighted, someone having noticed that nine o’clock had brought the expiry of the standing order against smoking. Councillor Linnet again addressed the chair.
“Now that we can speak plainly, I’ll come straight to the point in regard to this bombing business. A whole lot of people have told me—they’ve stopped me in the street, rung me up at the shop, called at my home even—they’ve told me that they think the police here in Chalmsbury haven’t made an arrest because somebody—I repeat, somebody—doesn’t want an arrest. A certain name’s been mentioned a good deal, but I don’t propose to repeat it here. I think the chairman will have a fair idea of what I’m...”
“Oh, no, he hasn’t,” growled Pointer, “and I think you’d better explain that insinuation before you say any more.”
Linnet rolled his head from side to side. “Now, Mr Chairman, don’t go off with the idea that I’m getting at you personally. I’m dying to do my duty in regard to the public interest and if it’s got to be said that Chief Inspector Larch is a member of your family, so to speak, then it’s got to be said, that’s all. I was only hoping that you might be in a special position to help us understand what’s going on.”
“There’s no question of anything ‘going on’, as you put it,” Pointer, flushed with anger, glowered at his inquisitor. “My personal relationships are no concern of any member of this council and I think that this attempt to drag them into a distasteful and perfectly pointless argument is monstrous.”
Some ‘hear, hears’ were heard.
Alderman Haskell had begun to make the cud-chewing motions that always showed when he was about to be statesmanlike. “The point with me, Mr Chairman,” he announced, looking round at his colleagues, “is that nobody here wants to cast any reflection on your good self. Let us forget that our police chief happens to be related to you by marriage—a proper and, I trust, happy marriage. The fact remains that a dangerous criminal, perhaps a lunatic, is at large in the town and for nearly a month nothing seems to have been done about it.”
He paused to champ ominously once or twice. “I have myself heard on good authority that the police have received a confession. Yet no one has been taken into custody. There are other rumours in the town, no less disturbing, but I do not think we should form any judgment upon them ourselves.
“What I do suggest—and I should like to propose it formally now—is that we appoint a small deputation to see the Chief Constable of the county and ask him to look into the whole affair in the light of the public disquiet it has aroused.”
There were nods and hrrmphs of assent when Alderman Haskell sat back in his chair and stroked his large nose.
Further contributions were made but they consisted merely of the repetitive sentiments, truisms, irrelevancies and other exercises in the enjoyment of the sound of one’s own voice that passed in Chalmsbury for debate. No one suggested an alternative to Alderman Haskell’s resolution and it was ultimately carried with nicely calculated allowance for a drink in the adjoining Mason’s Arms, where Mr Kebble had been quietly celebrating his expulsion for the past three-quarters of an hour.
Kebble very quickly learned and stored away for reference all that had been deemed too delicate for his ears. Then he drained the last of his brandy and water, guilelessly wished his informants good night, and set off for his office.
As he was walking past the Rialto, Mr Grope emerged to bolt back the doors in readiness for the nightly rush to dodge the national anthem.
“Ah, I was wondering if I might spot you,” said Grope. “It’s come to me.”
Kebble pushed back his hat and looked sympathetic. “Has it, old chap?” Although he had no notion of what Grope was talking about he was conditioned to Chalmsbury conversation, which invariably began at the very point at which a previous exchange, however remote in time, had left off.
“That poem—it was a song; and so you see I wasn’t wrong,” intoned Grope. In mournful monotone he proved his point. “Drink to me o-o-only, wi-ith thine ey-ey-es...”
“...And I’ll not look for wine,” responded Kebble. “Yes, of course. The first two lines of the ‘Mem’ follow straight on, don’t they?”
Grope nodded and went on with his door bolting.
“But the rest of the thing—tassels and all that—I don’t remember that coming into ‘Drink to Me Only’. Why should...”
“Look out,” said Grope. “Here they come.”
Chapter Nine
The Deputation Appointed by the General Purposes Committee to call upon the County Chief Constable consisted of three members. The choice of Alderman Haskell was obvious enough. It was sanctified by his long service, his patriarchal rectitude and his inability to recognize a can when one had been passed to him. He was accompanied, for the sake of appearances and in order to meet any legal snags that might be encountered, by the Town Clerk, Mr L. C. Hooper-Dwyer. The third member—none other than Councillor Pointer—had been selected ostensibly by virtue of his chairmanship of the committee. The real reason was his enemies’ confidence that so heavily compromised a spokesman could not fail to take the opposite line to his personal inclination.
The trio was received by Mr Hessledine, the Chief Constable, with promptitude and affability. The good impression made by this energetic attentive man in his neat grey suit was strengthened by his remembering and using the name of each of his visitors throughout the interview. ‘Elsie’ Hooper-Dwyer expressed the general feeling when he declared in the train on the homeward journey: “I do like a gentleman who never calls you ‘Er’, don’t you?”
Elsie it was who introduced the delicate subject of the meeting.
“You will be aware, sir,” he said, “of the disturbing and inexplicable series of crimes which our community has suffered during the past few weeks.”
The Chief Constable nodded. “I have seen reports of the incidents, Mr Hooper-Dwyer. I agree that they must have been most alarming.” He was watching Elsie’s face, which was intriguingly akin to that of a wax model in an old-fashioned hairdressing saloon: a smooth, translucent, flawless face that bore a silky little moustache. As the Town Clerk’s precisely enunciated words popped forth, his little jaw was thrust forward to display a row of tiny, very white teeth. “How vicious he looks,” thought Mr Hessledine.
After describing the bomb damage in somewhat tiresome detail, Elsie drew from his brief-case the minutes of the committee meeting and read a carefully condensed account of what members had had to say about the turning of blind eyes and the standing out of sore thumbs.
When he had come to the end of this document, he said: “Of course, I need hardly point out, Mr Chief Constable, that our reference today to the allegations is in the strictest confidence. Some of them may well be actionable. We quote them solely to give you an idea of public feeling, however unwisely you may think it has been expressed.”
“I quite understand,” replied Mr Hessledine. He paused for a few moments and said with a faint smile: “It all sounds rather sinister, doesn’t it, gentlemen? One thing—your committee has been very sensible, I think, in decidi
ng to be frank with us—with the police, I mean.”
Councillor Pointer glanced up from a survey of his shoes to see the Chief Constable looking at him with polite concern. “Tell me, Mr Pointer, as the target of some of these unfortunate innuendoes, what do you feel about the affair? I must say, incidentally, that I much admire your courage in coming along here and taking the bull by the horns, so to speak.”
Pointer gave no sign of being cheered by the compliment. “All I want,” he said harshly, “is the scotching of these damnable rumours. Make what investigations you like. I’ve nothing to hide. Fire away and see if I care!”
“But I’ve no intention of firing at anybody, Mr Pointer. I was under the impression that you and your colleagues had come to fire at me.”
Alderman Haskell champed portentously three times and spoke. “The point with me, Mr Chief Constable, is this. Chalmsbury, as you doubtless know is not a big town and the police have a very fair idea of who’s who. In the ordinary way of wrong-doing, they never have much difficulty in putting their hands on the person responsible. Quite often someone will come along and tell them; we’re quite neighbourly, you know. Well, we’ve certainly never before had the same trick played three times in a row and nobody under lock and key at the end of it.”
“There must be a first time for everything,” the Chief Constable observed.
“Yes and no,” said the alderman, who tried always to see both sides of a question. “But be that as it may, our committee is far from satisfied that everything possible is being done in this case.”
Elsie, who had been perched on the edge of his chair in readiness to extinguish with lawyer’s qualifications any indiscretion that his companions might drop, shifted to a more comfortable position. “I think,” he said, “that I should respectfully advise these gentlemen to regard their points as made and to elaborate no further. Unless, of course, the Chief Constable wishes to put any questions.”
Giving him a little bow, Mr Hessledine glanced at a piece of paper on which he had been unobtrusively pencilling a few notes.
“There has been mention of a confession, gentlemen,” he began. “That, I admit, is news to me. I shall have inquiries made, but I shall not be at all surprised to learn that my officers at Chalmsbury had good reason to ignore this confession, or whatever it was. Jokers and half-wits are forever giving themselves up for things that happen to have caught their imagination.
“The rest of what you say is rather more serious, isn’t it?”
He folded his arms and looked briefly at each of the deputation. Then he swung his chair through a quarter turn, fixed his gaze on the ceiling and continued talking quietly, like a tutor recapitulating for the benefit of tiresomely zealous students.
“You naturally will understand that I cannot accept the implied criticism of Chief Inspector Larch and that my position obliges me to refute, in the absence of evidence, the suggestion that he has some ulterior motive for leaving this dynamiter of yours at large. I might reasonably feel very angry about what you have said, but I recognize that you are doing an official duty, as you and your colleagues see it, and also that these crimes must have put you all under a considerable strain.
“Now this is what I propose.
“Officially, I must send you away with a flea in your ear, so to speak. Unofficially, though, I shall do what I can to give our fellows over in Chalmsbury a little help in running this character to earth. You mustn’t ask me to be more explicit, gentlemen. The less that’s known, the more effective the help I have in mind will be.”
This pleasantly mysterious undertaking having been won, the trio took leave. Even Councillor Pointer felt that things could have gone far worse.
When he was alone once more, the Chief Constable allowed his expression to lapse into something a good deal more like anxiety than he would have permitted his visitors to see. He stared moodily at the telephone, then suddenly picked it up and asked to speak to Mr Chubb on his private line.
Harcourt Chubb was the Chief Constable of Flaxborough, the county town. He was a tall, ascetic-looking man who had scarcely ever been seen by his subordinates to sit down. This was not because he was energetic: his devotion to a quiet life was almost religious; but because he had learned that his insistence on standing in the seated presence of callers disheartened petitioners, frustrated complainants and generally reduced interviews to a minimum.
The system did not work over the telephone, of course.
“Harcourt! My dear fellow, how are you?” The County Chief Constable’s swift injection of bonhomie left Mr Chubb paralysed, as though by a curare-tipped arrow.
“I’m in something of a fix, Harcourt. A very delicate matter, as it happens... No, I’m sorry, it must be over the phone: I simply can’t get round at the moment and things won’t wait. Most of the explaining I’ll do later, of course... Yes, it would be nice to get together again. Dogs all well?... Fine. And Mrs Chubb?... Anyway, to get down to brass tacks I want to borrow one of your men for a spell. One who’s unlikely to be known in Chalmsbury...Chalmsbury, yes. And I want someone a cut above those layabouts in dirty raincoats who can do nothing but harrass bookies for free bets. A real detective, old man. Now then, can you run to one?”
Mr Chubb explained icily that all his detectives were real.
“Naturally, my dear fellow. I was just pulling your leg. You know the man I want—cleared up that fearful brothel and butchery business of yours last year1...Purbright, yes, that’s the chap... Hard to say; two or three weeks possibly. Depends how lucky or good he is...I say, that really is uncommonly obliging of you, Harcourt... You will? Fine! And I’ll tell you the whole story when we meet. Keep your powder dry, old man!”
Hessledine replaced the phone with a God-forgive-me expression. The affectation of heartiness pained him a good deal, but he knew it was the only weapon to use upon Chubb, who would have parried any reasonably delivered request with courteous obtuseness and painstaking prevarication.
1 Reported in Coffin Scarcely Used
“Chief Inspector Larch? My name is Purbright. Flaxborough C.I.D. I expect the Chief Constable...”
“Of course, Mr Purbright.” Larch coldly appraised the man whose hand he shook. He was nearly as tall as himself, of slightly diffident manner and with a quick, apologetic smile. The fresh-complexioned face had a touch of foolish amiability about the mouth. Above grey eyes, steadily interested, it seemed, in what they saw, the high forehead was crowned with short but unruly hair of preposterous king-cup yellow.
“Yes, I’d heard you were being loaned to us in our distress.” Larch resumed his seat and waved Purbright to another. “I only hope someone’s told you what you’re supposed to do. We”—he gestured largely with his hand—“are baffled.”
“Perhaps the best arrangement,” said Purbright, cheerfully ignoring the irony, “would be for me—the interloping damn nuisance—to be hived off where I shan’t be always getting in your hair. The Chiefs idea, apparently, is that my not being a local man might make me useful as a...” He shrugged; the suggestion had come out clumsily.
“As a Special Investigator,” Larch maliciously provided.
“Sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? Seriously, though, you don’t want me cluttering up this place, do you. Let me go snooping in the open air.” Purbright stared enviously at the sun-slaked pantiles of an old warehouse opposite the window.
“You are free to do what you please, Mr Purbright. I shouldn’t be so childish as to try and make you feel uncomfortable. You’re only carrying out instructions—however goddam stupid I happen to think them.”
“I was rather afraid that you’d kick me out.”
“So I should if I thought you’d have any success in making me look small. But you’re just wasting your time.”
“Nothing could be a waste of time in weather like this.” Purbright was still looking out of the window.
“All right. Make it a holiday. You might as well. Because this much I will tell you. The town’s chock-a-blo
ck with lunatics. They’ll chatter and natter for as long as you’ve a mind to listen. You’ll get your criminal all right—a dozen times over. I only hope you’ve brought a cart.”
Purbright smiled appreciatively. “Tell me, Mr Larch: what would be your own selected cart-load?”
“Oh, no. You’ve copies of the reports up to now. You go and play your own game.”
“As you like. I was just showing a little friendly interest.”
Larch regarded him narrowly, then grinned. “I’m a bit of a bastard, aren’t I ? Don’t take it to heart, Mr Purbright.” He reached for a folder at the side of the desk. “We’ll go through them, shall we?
“My own favourite is a cocky, sarcastic little goggle-hawker called Hoole. You’ll find his shop next to the Rialto. Unmarried; middle-aged but perky; likes taking the mickey—out of local institutions especially. Statues and memorials would be right up his alley. He’s quite clever in his own way—academic honours and all that. Making bombs wouldn’t present any great difficulty to him, I imagine.”