Lonelyheart 4122 f-3

by Colin Watson

  “Very trying for you, Sid.”

  “Not really. The answers were all very short. And him being so busy made it easier to get the writing samples. I just pinched three or four of the labels off his rose bushes. Of course,” Love added, nodding at the file, I trimmed them down a bit and mounted them properly.”

  “So I noticed. Most neat. Now I understand why I couldn’t make much sense out of ‘Peace Mrs Pettifer Brevitt’s Pride Lancashire Ascending’.”

  “He denied that he’d met anybody at all up to now through that matrimonial thing. There’s one lady he’s writing to after dark, but he’s not actually fixed anything up yet.”

  “After dark?”

  “When he can’t see any longer in the garden.”

  “Oh.”

  “I honestly don’t think Singleton can have done anybody.”

  “It doesn’t sound like it. What about Rowley, then? I gather he didn’t strike you as villain material either.”

  The sergeant shook his head. “I think he’s a little bit simple. He goes in for competitions. Hundreds of them. There were papers all over his front room with bits cut out. Actually, he thought I’d come to tell him he’d won some tomato soup thing that would give him a holiday for four in the West Indies or somewhere. As soon as he answered the door, he dashed back inside and brought me three empty tins and said ‘Vigo Vegetables for Vigour’. I felt a proper twat.”

  “You disabused him, of course?”

  “Well, not straight away, actually. I remembered what you’d said about being tactful.”

  Purbright regarded him sternly. “Tact should not be confused with mendacity, sergeant.”

  “Mendacity?”

  “Telling lies.”

  Love looked relieved. “Oh, I didn’t tell him any lies. I just said that I was very sorry but I didn’t seem able to put my hand on the Why-I-Always-Use-Vigo-Soup slogan that he’d submitted and could he let me have a copy.”

  Purbright’s expression did not relax.

  “Well,” Love added, “it did seem an opportunity for using initiative.”

  “How did you know about the slogan?”

  “I...I guessed.”

  The inspector gave him a shrewd stare, then looked down at the file. He read out with measured gravity: “ ‘I go with Vigo because Vigo Soups are the Stuff for the Troops’.”

  His gaze was upon the sergeant’s face once more. “I do hope,” he said, “that your entry was a bit better than that.”

  If Love blushed, the effect upon his normally rubicund complexion was not apparent.

  “I shall have to see Mrs Staunch again,” Purbright announced. “I don’t know how many clients she has, but it looks as if we shall just have to work through the lot.”

  “Couldn’t it be someone who’s just using the agency as a blind?” suggested Love, anxious to rehabilitate himself.

  “How do you mean, Sid?”

  “Well, you said there are records of all these people like Mrs Bannister and so on in the office there. I don’t expect the place is all that difficult to get into. Suppose somebody did that and jotted down a few names and then wrote to them afterwards. I mean, he would’t need to become a customer himself, would he?”

  Purbright considered.

  “You have a point. Breaking in would be simple enough—and it wouldn’t have to be obvious, either. The trouble is that in the first instance the letters have to be addressed by number for forwarding.”

  “He’d have the numbers, though. He’d send a letter to the agency and Mrs Whatsername would forward it on. She’d not know anything was wrong.”

  “True. What about the victim’s reply, though? He couldn’t go and collect it.”

  “He wouldn’t have to. Not if he’d put his address at the top of his own letter and asked the woman to write back to him direct.”

  The inspector remained silent. The argument was not helpful, but it was certainly tenable. He reached for the telephone directory.

  “Consider yourself redeemed, Sid. You might have got something.”

  With the expression of a rewarded retriever, Love watched Purbright dial and dispatch introductory civilities to Mrs Staunch. After a while he heard him come to the point.

  “Look, something has just crossed my mind—or rather it’s been led across it by my very perceptive sergeant—which could have some bearing on the matter we discussed the other day...That’s right—the two ladies we’re looking for. What I’d like you to do is to think back carefully and see if you can remember anything to suggest someone’s having got into your office—you know, broken in or sneaked in—while you weren’t there...Yes, in the last couple of months or so...”

  He hunched the phone between shoulder and ear while he lit a cigarette. Love heard the undulating squeak of whatever Mrs Staunch was saying.

  Purbright spoke. “One of the windows...Yes, I know—over the lane at the back...Nothing actually stolen, though...No, I see...No...Anyway, I’m obliged to you...Well, it may and it may not—probably not actually. Thanks all the same. Oh, just one other thing. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a look for myself at those files of yours. It really can’t be helped...Tomorrow, probably...Fine, yes. I look forward to seeing you again.”

  Thoughtfully he replaced the receiver.

  “She thinks she had a burglar, as she puts it, not very long after Christmas. She can’t remember exactly. It was during cold weather, though, because that is why she particularly noticed that this window at the back had been left open slightly. Nothing was missing, as far as she knows, but she did get the impression that the stuff in the filing cabinet had been rummaged a bit.”

  “There you are, then,” said Love.

  “Oh, yes. Here we are, indeed. But you can see what dismal prospect this opens up. Instead of a few dozen suspects, nicely docketed with addresses provided, we now have the entire male population to choose from.”

  Love swallowed and glanced down at his shoes. He looked like a man who has flicked away a cherry stone and derailed an express.

  “Never mind,” Purbright told him. “It may be simpler to go about things in a different way. The opposite way, actually. So far, we’ve worked on the assumption that the man we want must be one of those who have registered with the agency. We can’t assume that any more. But unless we can find him by another means—and remember that we don’t know the first thing about his appearance or movements or where he lives—all we can do is wait for him to go into operation again.”

  “What, kill another woman!”

  “Of course not. In any case, we don’t know yet that anybody’s been killed; he may be just laying in a harem, like some of those farmers down on the marsh. No, what I mean is that if we stop chasing round after the hunter and keep watch on the quarry instead, we’ll probably stand a much better chance of nabbing him.”

  “You think he’ll have another go, then?”

  “Unless he’s moved on, yes. There invariably enters an element of habit into these things, Sid. And it isn’t as if the profits so far have justified retirement. Four hundred pounds doesn’t last long these days, and I can’t see that Miss Reckitt would have had much in the way of realizable assets.”

  “I feel sorry for them,” said Love, firmly. It sounded as though he had just made up his mind about something slightly embarrassing.

  Purbright gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “So do I. Very sorry. Not because they were robbed. Or murdered, even. It’s the insult that must have really hurt.”

  Chapter Nine

  Mrs Staunch met the inspector with an expression of repressed excitement and annoyance. Without a word, she admitted him to her office and went straight to the window.

  “Now, then—what do you think of that?”

  She pointed to the small gap between the sill and the bottom of the frame. Purbright saw marks on the woodwork that suggested the insertion of a screwdriver or chisel. They were fresh marks.

  He raised his brows. “Last night?”


  “And to think it was just yesterday afternoon that you rang up and I told you about that other time. I don’t know what to think, really!”

  “It is odd, isn’t it?” Purbright agreed. He peered at the marks, then examined the rest of the window. The catch was old and loose; it would have slipped off with very little persuasion.

  “Anything missing?”

  “They’ve been in there again.” Mrs Staunch indicated the filing cabinet.

  Purbright took out his handkerchief and eased forward the top drawer. Its contents did seem less tidy than when he had glanced at them on his previous visit.

  The significance of the handkerchief was not lost on Mrs Staunch. “I’m afraid I can’t say that I haven’t touched anything, inspector. I didn’t notice the window straight away.”

  “No, I shouldn’t have expected you to. It would be as well, though, if we observe the Agatha Christie rules from now on. I’ll get someone over.” He reached for the telephone. “May I?”

  In less than ten minutes there arrived Detective Constable Harper, bearing a leather case and a camera the size of a hurdy-gurdy.

  The outing was clearly a treat for him. He loped around the little room like an exploring Gibbon and happily spooned great quantities of grey powder on all accessible surfaces, including several that took account of the possibility of the intruder’s having been eight feet tall.

  “He won’t hurt anything, you know,” Purbright said to Mrs Staunch in a murmured aside. She did not appear convinced.

  “No—those are very private,” she called. Harper had been in the act of lifting some of the folders out of the filing cabinet. He looked inquiringly at Purbright.

  “Just the covers, Mr Harper...no, on second thoughts, you’d better leave them alone altogether. If he wore gloves, you’ll be wasting your time, and if he didn’t, there’ll be better prints on what you’ve got already.”

  Mrs Staunch gave him a small smile of gratitude. From that point, Harper’s inspiration rapidly evaporated and soon he was dismantling his props and packing lenses and bottles and plates and brushes back in their compartments of the leather case.

  “It’s quite a business, isn’t it?” observed Mrs Staunch, rather nervily. The worst part of the ordeal, although she did not say so, had been Harper’s habit of continuously whistling one tune—the March of the Toreadors—through closed teeth while he worked.

  Almost immediately after his departure, a buzzer sounded. Mrs Staunch glanced up at an indicator on the wall. One of its pair of electric bulbs flickered for several seconds.

  “I’m afraid a client has just come in,” she explained. “Would you mind if I left you now, inspector?”

  “Not in the least,” Purbright assured her. “I shall be busy myself for a little while.” He patted the cabinet in explanation. Mrs Staunch hesitated, frowning. Then she shrugged and opened the door. “You will remember what I said, won’t you? About confidences? I mean, they’re the whole essence...” She left the sentence unfinished, but there was a plea in her eyes.

  “Of course, Mrs Staunch. I really do understand.”

  The door closed.

  Purbright soon found that what the proprietress would have called her “ladies’ section” was less crowded than the reference numbers—three hundred and upwards—suggested. The system was doubtless based on the same psychological principle as that employed by newspapers to make the volume of box advertising seem bigger than it really was.

  The number of recent registrations—and only in these was he interested—was about a dozen. He removed them from the file and read them through carefully.

  Nearly all told the same story, though it had to be reached through a terminology of cheerful cliché which had been obviously adopted at Mrs Staunch’s dictation. It was an ordinary, if saddening, tale of women whose lack of youth, money and social graces threatened a lonely and comfortless future. Purbright suspected that most of the applicants could have ill afforded the twenty guinea fee. Three, he noticed, were old age pensioners; two others, the widows of farm labourers. A sixth, who hopefully offered “careful housekeeping and good cooking in home of Suitable gentleman”, was a school canteen helper. Under “Means (for office use only)”, one woman had written: “Maintenance money, four pounds per week“.

  Not exactly a rich field, Purbright reflected, for criminal exploitation.

  There were two forms, however, whose promises were distinctly above average.

  The first of these had been filled in by a woman called Rose Prentice, age 58, divorcée. Her occupation was described as stock breeding and farm management; her hobbies, not unexpectedly, as riding, shooting and dog showing. She had written in the Personal Appearance section simply “Good seat” and through “Means” had dashed a short, heavy line. Purbright did not doubt that this was an intimation of land ownership and the firm resolve to hang on to it.

  The qualities for which Mrs Prentice looked in a mate were expressed with equal bluntness. He would have to be strong, energetic, used to stud work and willing to muck out. A tolerance of children would not come amiss: the farm was always being visited by one batch or another of the many grand-children in the family.

  Purbright made the experiment of thinking of himself as a confidence man and of Mrs Prentice as his victim. Rose, I love you, how about making the farm deeds over to me. I’m awfully good at managing things—Have you done the mucking out yet?—Not yet, could I have five hundred pounds for that tractor I told you about which is such a bargain?—We’ve a tractor already, if you’re really hard up there’s three and six egg money in the cash box in the bread pippin—Please let me handle your insurance, dear Rose, and I will devour you with kisses—Here’s my card and this week’s stamp; now then, are you used to stud work?—What with twenty-seven kids hanging about? You’re jo...

  Purbright started, as if from a dream that had begun to lead him down sinister by-ways. He shut the folder and added it to the rejects.

  One candidate remained. A second perusal of her form left the inspector in no doubt of his having discovered an almost perfect bait. He quickly copied the details into his notebook, then put all the folders away in their proper order in the drawer.

  Before finally closing it, he made a rapid scrutiny of the record of Mrs Staunch’s male clients, but found none that seemed any more worthy of close investigation than the five on whom time had been wasted already.

  Quietly he let himself out of the back door.

  Sergeant Love greeted the name of Purbright’s find with sceptical amusement.

  “Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime...oh, cripes! No wonder she wants to change it.”

  “At least it’s memorable. That should help you a bit, Sid.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You are hereby assigned to her. If she were a mere Miss Smith or Miss Jones, you might forget whom you were supposed to be following, or at least grow lax in observation. But let me tell you about Miss Teatime.

  “She admits to being forty-three years old, but her middle names suggest birth during the first world war, so fifty is probably nearer the mark. What she looks like you will have to find out for yourself. She is staying at the Roebuck, so Jim Maddox might be helpful to you. Or there’s that tottie who used to fancy you—the one in the tap...”

  “Phylh’s Blow?” Love looked alarmed.

  “Oh, I don’t know her name,” Purbright said in a way that implied fornication to be a triviality with which those above the rank of sergeant were not concerned. “Anyway, how you get in tow in the first place is up to you; what I want is a report of where the Teatime goes and—more important whom she meets. Do you think you can do that?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Love. “She can’t trot round much if she’s all that old.”

  “What do you mean—all that old?”

  “You said you thought she was fifty.”

  Purbright turned upwards an expression of pious resignation. “Yes, Sid. But might I offer a word of advice? Don’t assume t
hat extreme old age necessarily brings deafness and failing eyesight. I’m asking you to follow this woman unobtrusively—not like a porter in a geriatric ward.”

  “She’ll not spot me,” declared Love, unabashed.

  He thought a moment.

  “But why do we have to follow her? Can’t you sort of confide in her and get her to let us know what happens? I mean, it would save a lot of...” he nearly said “buggering about” “...duplication.”

  Purbright shook his head. “She’s probably a pretty timid soul, remember. We couldn’t say anything to her without letting on that it might be a crook she’s going to meet. Even if she agreed to help, she’d be too nervous to be of any use.”

  The sergeant acknowledged the logic of this and set off at once for the Roebuck Hotel.