by Colin Watson
Your ever affectionate friend,
Martha.
Purbright raised his eyes to see Miss Huddlestone watching him anxiously.
“Not much use, is it,” she said.
“Rather less illuminating than I could have wished. There are one or two interesting points, though.” He glanced once again over the final page. “This cottage, now...”
“She doesn’t say where it is.”
“She’s offered you a clue.”
Miss Huddlestone gave a little puff of derision. “Oh, that’s typical of Martha. Clues. She loves making mysteries of things.”
“But this one is decidedly odd. ‘Catch a Crab.’ Doesn’t it mean anything at all to you?”
She pondered, slowly shaking her head.
“It sounds rather like something to do with rowing,” persisted Purbright. “You know—boats. It’s when you fall back because the oar’s missed the water. You can’t think of an incident of that kind?”
“I’ve never rowed a boat in my life.”
That, Purbright reflected, I can believe. He said: “And what about Miss Reckitt? Did you ever go on a river with her?”
Again Miss Huddlestone looked dubious. No, she could remember nothing about rivers or boats.
“Never mind,” said Purbright at last. “But I should like you to keep having a go at it in your own mind. Something might occur to you.”
She promised to persevere.
“Now another thing,” the inspector went on. “Can you say anything about this money she mentions?”
“Well, only that it was left her by this Uncle Dan of hers. I don’t think I ever met him.”
“This was some years ago?”
“A fair while. About ten years, I should say.”
“Was it much?”
“Depends what you call much. Three hundred—perhaps four. But she kept it in the savings bank all the time, so I suppose there’ll be the interest as well now.”
Purbright nodded. There did not seem to be much else he could learn from Miss Huddlestone. He made a note of her address and said that she would be informed if and when the whereabouts of her friend became known. He said nothing of his own far from sanguine opinion of Miss Reckitt’s chances.
Miss Huddlestone trotted stumpily to the door. Purbright opened it but instead of leaving she stood looking down at one plump little hand as if wondering however she had got it into its glove.
“You know, I don’t at all like the sound of that clergyman,” she said quietly.
Purbright pushed the door nearly closed.
“You don’t?”
“Partly prejudice, actually, I’ve never cared for clergymen very much. Those awful black modesty vest things...and a smell of candles and wardrobes...” The inspector waited.
Miss Huddlestone gave a resolute sniff. “No, they’re all right really, I suppose. But I wouldn’t have thought a whirlwind courtship much in their line. And why should he want to buy a cottage? I always understood the church provided accommodation.”
“It is usual, I believe.”
“Another thing. I don’t want to sound disloyal, or anything, but let’s face it, poor old Martha was no catch. A diamond ring, for heaven’s sake...”
“Miss Huddlestone, you said earlier that your friend is keen on church work and inclined to admire the sort of people with whom that work would bring her into contact—curates, I think, you mentioned specifically.”
“Oh, yes. Soppy about them.”
“Do you know of any particular clergyman she was friendly with?”
“Not off hand.”
“Try and think.”
“Well, there is one, but I’m not sure that he counts as a proper clergyman. They do know each other, though. As a matter of fact, he’s a young chap from my own home town.”
“Not Mr Leaper?”
“That’s him. He hangs out in some tin-pot place in Northgate. I remember him as a kid in Chalmsbury—queer lad with a nose like a carrot.”
So did Purbright. Seven years before, Leonard Leaper had been the junior reporter on the Chalmsbury Chronicle, a vocation he relinquished on account of nerve trouble (the editor’s mainly, but in part his own) after his discovery of the bomb-shattered corpse of the dreadful Mr Stanley Biggadyke.1 The incident had not exactly unhinged Leonard (“He never had a lid in the first place,” averred the editor, Mr Kebble) but it had certainly aggravated an already morbid disposition and sent him, eager for fasts and flagellation, to a crash course in theology offered by an organization called Oxmove—the proprietors, if that was the word, of Northgate Mission among others, and publishers of the Preachers’ Digest.
“The Reverend Leaper,” murmured Purbright ruminatively. He recalled having seen Mr Leaper only the previous day, emerging from the building that held Mrs Staunch’s agency.
“I wouldn’t place too much reliance on what Len says, mind,” said Miss Huddlestone. “That is, if you were thinking of...”
“No, I was merely wondering whether there might be some connection. We’re still very much at the exploratory stage, I’m afraid.”
“It’s this Giles person you want to be looking for,” said Miss Huddlestone firmly. “And that’s for certain.”
“You may well be right.”
Purbright reopened the door and gave a little bow, then watched her trotting down the corridor.
“You’ll not forget,” he called after her, “about catching crabs, will you?”
Without turning, she raised and wiggled one hand.
1 See Bump in the Night.
Chapter Twelve
Detective Constable Pook stood four square in the lane opposite the trade entrance of the Roebuck Hotel and inhaled appreciatively the breakfast smells that drifted from its kitchen. His orders were to make himself obvious and official-looking, and he was carrying them out to the letter.
Shortly before ten o’clock, Constable Pook saw movement in the open doorway of the kitchen. A woman in coat and hat was saying something to two members of the hotel staff. They laughed and made remarks in return. One of them moved aside and the woman came through the door, smiling.
Pook saw that she fitted the description with which he had been provided by Sergeant Love. He braced himself, standing well away from shadows.
Miss Teatime reached the entrance to the small yard and stood still, adjusting her glove.
Pook rocked slightly on the balls of his feet and thrust his hands into the pockets of his raincoat.
Miss Teatime glanced at him indifferently, then turned her attention to the other glove.
Pook rocked some more, hunched his shoulders once or twice, and peered with quite villainous furtiveness up and down the lane. When he looked back at Miss Teatime, she gave him a friendly little smile before looking down to see that all was well with her shoes.
With a flourish, Pook drew a card from his pocket and proceeded to glare at it and at Miss Teatime’s face in turns, as if checking a likeness. At the same time, he gave his jaw a twist suggestive of tough resolution and knowledge of a thing or two, and raised one eyebrow so high that the back of his neck began to tingle.
Miss Teatime regarded this performance with every appearance of sympathetic approval for several seconds and then stepped lightly away up the lane. Pook, appalled, stared at her retreating back. So far as he could remember, no provision had been made in his briefing for this situation. The woman was supposed to have seen him, guessed immediately his dread profession, and bolted straight back again into the approved area of Love’s vigil. But what now?
His first inclination was to plunge through the hotel and seek out the sergeant. But the lane was short and ran into another that offered half a dozen alternative routes of escape. It was essential to keep the woman in sight and that would be past hoping for once he tangled with porters and kitchen maids and the other obstructionists who were sure to be waiting inside the Roebuck. There was nothing he could do. He was stuck with her. Oh, gawd...
Miss Tea
time smiled when she heard the heavy tread of her pursuer. But what, she wondered, had happened to the nice pink one? Perhaps it was his day off.
She turned the corner and walked the whole length of Priory Lane before cutting through an alley into East Street, at least three hundred yards farther down from the Roebuck. For twenty minutes or so, she did some leisurely window shopping, gradually making her way towards the big store of Brown and Derehams.
Pook saw her enter the store and he hastened to reduce the distance between them. Inside the doorway he paused to look round the sales floor. The now familiar pink hat caught his attention from about three counters away. He moved closer in.
Miss Teatime led him to the very centre of a large yet somewhat sequestered department before Pook realized that it was given over entirely to corsetry.
He looked about him for some item of merchandise in which his pretended interest might seem even remotely legitimate. There was nothing. Nothing but great cocooned breasts and bellies and bottoms. Had Pook possessed a more poetic consciousness, he might have seen himself as being in the midst of a monstrous chrysalis collection that the central heating would eventually hatch into truncated amazons. But no such intriguing fancy arose to modify his embarrassment.
He was soon looking so guilt ridden that a supervisor went up to him and asked meaningfully if she could help him. Pook merely scowled at her.
As the supervisor passed close by Miss Teatime, she raised her brows.
“They call them fetishists, you know,” Miss Teatime said sweetly.
After a while, Miss Teatime wandered over to the lift and stood by the gates. Pook prepared to follow, but strategically allowed several women to precede him.
The gates opened. Miss Teatime got in, then the women, and finally Pook. He had to squeeze close beside the operator—a sallow, resentful girl who accused him with her eyes all the way to the fourth floor of having designs on her soft furnishings.
At the top, they alighted in reverse order and Pook was swept for some yards before he could turn and see what Miss Teatime was doing. She was still in the lift. He pushed back towards her and was just in time to hear her say something about having left an umbrella behind when the gates shut and the lift began to descend. Pook leaped for the stairs.
“Oh, silly me!” exclaimed Miss Teatime two seconds later. “I didn’t bring it today after all.”
The girl viciously threw the lever to “Stop” and then to “Up”. “I wish you’d make up your flippin’ mind!”
“I’m really terribly sorry,” said Miss Teatime.
Back on the fourth floor, she left the lift and walked briskly through the bedroom furniture department, past the cafeteria and curtainings and down another staircase to the Peel Street exit.
In the Garden of Remembrance, Miss Teatime found Commander Trelawney (he had reluctantly divulged his rank during their first meeting, but only when he saw how truly interested she was) slewed round in the seat so that he could look at the flowers in the border.
“It’s funny,” he said, “but already I’m thinking of that one as Our Plant.”
He nodded towards the clump of polyanthus that he had pushed back in the soil. It was distinguishable by the shrunken, droopy appearance of its blooms.
“I think it’ll pick up all right.”
“Oh, I do hope so,” said Miss Teatime. “I’m not late, am I?”
“No, I came a little early today. Business before pleasure. The sooner I can get done with people like bank managers, the brighter the rest of the day looks.”
“They are a bit of a bore,” Miss Teatime agreed. “And so dilatory these days. Don’t you think so, or is it just my imagination?”
“I shouldn’t call them clippers, certainly. Mind you, one bank can be much nippier than another. And so long as you’ve got hard cash in the hold, it’ll answer the helm quickly enough.”
Miss Teatime smiled and said she supposed he was right. Not that it mattered all that much to her; she never needed to call on big sums and was quite content to leave everything as it was—neatly tied up in “securities”, whatever they were.
Trelawney looked amused. “And do you really not know anything about them?”
“Only that I can’t get at them without a fearful amount of bother. A trip to London, for one thing. I have to sign things in person on the spot. And then there’s always a teeny glass of Madeira afterwards and everybody is referred to as Mister James or Mister Charles. Oh, you’ve no idea...”
“But I have, my dear. One of my own companies is just like that. To this day they still hold their annual general meeting in a chop house, with tankards of porter all round and something they call the Chairman’s Gammon....”
“Oh, lovely.!” cried Miss Teatime.
“...and, of course, a quill to sign the minutes...”
“Yes, of course!”
“...and would you believe it, nobody can cash a single share without filling in a special requisition that has to be signed by a clerk in holy orders, the headmaster of Eton and the editor of The Times!”
“Marvellous!” laughed Miss Teatime. “Absolutely marvellous!” (Within her merriment was a tiny doubt: the headmaster of Eton...was that quite the correct title? Never mind, the point was rather trivial.)
They chatted for a while in sustained good humour until Trelawney suggested that a stroll by the river might be a pleasant way of working up an appetite for lunch. Miss Teatime agreed and they entered the series of gently descending streets, lined with old fashioned shops, that led to the Sharms—Flaxborough’s harbour district.
This had been once the residential preserve of successful shipping merchants and retired master mariners, but with the ebb of the port’s prosperity their big, rather severe looking homes had become tenements or lodging houses. Here and there was one of those depressing English institutions at whose doors and windows can always be glimpsed men in vests and women in curlers and bad tempers, that on the continent would be called brothels.
“Pretty hard tack, this lot,” the commander remarked of a group of inhabitants taking their ease outside a betting shop on the other side of the street. “That’s one reason why I like the country. If you want to leave your doors open, you can, and there’s nothing worse than good fresh air can get in.”
Miss Teatime commended his philosophy, but ventured to suggest that there was an even more secure refuge.
“And what’s that, Lucy?”
“You ought to know,” she said, giving his arm a gentle squeeze.
“Tell me.”
“A boat. A little ship.” No expectant mother could have referred more coyly to her own embryo.
Trelawney frowned but managed to look indulgent at the same time.
“Oh, but there are lots of practical difficulties, you know. You’d have to have a crew. And, my word, you have to be careful there. Then there are things like...oh, port dues and so on. And navigation. Have you thought about navigation?”
“Oh, I don’t mean a big boat. It was what I believe they call in the trade a forty-footer that I had in mind.”
“I say! You have picked up the lingo, haven’t you! I should ima...” He stared at her. Their walking slowed to a halt. They had reached the quay and the stern of a rusty old coaster towered above them.
What Miss Teatime readily identified as a roguish smile appeared on her companion’s face as he leaned against a bollard and continued to regard her intently.
“Do you know, I believe you’ve been up to something!” declared the commander.
She smiled up at the coaster’s limp red flag. “I suppose I shall have to tell you. But you mustn’t laugh. I won’t have you laughing at me, even if I am a poor landlubber.”
Trelawney clapped a hand to one eye. “Nelson’s honour!” he declared, looking more roguish than ever. Then suddenly his face was serious, perhaps even a little anxious. “Go on.”
“Well,” said Miss Teatime, polishing the clasp of her handbag with one gloved hand, “it s
tarted with father, really. He used to keep a very nice cabin cruiser—a forty-footer, I think he called it—moored on the Thames at home. Of course, during his illness it wasn’t used and then when he passed on and there was all that business of the estate being settled I really wasn’t in the mood to think about things like pleasure boats.”