‘It don’t seem very much,’ said Thackeray. ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t be taken in by anyone in a nightshirt.’
‘Don’t count on it,’ warned Cribb. ‘Suggestion is a powerful thing, Thackeray. They’d seen one apparition already that night, in the shape of a disembodied hand. They were sitting in near-darkness waiting for the next. I believe some of ’em took me for a ghost when I walked in-and I wasn’t wearing a nightshirt. Take my word for it, you’d have been shaking in your boots like the rest of ’em.’
‘I usually do if I meet you unexpected, Sarge.’
‘Really?’ said Cribb, momentarily disturbed. ‘I can’t think why. The point I was coming to is that if Brand knew in advance that he was going to be seated in this chair for an experiment, he would surely have devised some way of cheating.’
‘How would he go about it, Sarge?’
‘That’s a question I’d rather not answer before I know whether the first assumption is correct. The way to find out whether Brand inspected this apparatus before last Saturday is to ask the Proberts.’
They were in the drawing-room across the hall where Cribb had first met them. Mrs Probert, whom he noticed first because he was determined not to overlook her this time, was seated in her favourite place under the palm. Dr Probert was standing at the window looking out at the nannies doing perambulator duty on the Terrace. At the fireplace was Alice, dressed to go out in a dark green coat with a frogged front, and a large plush hat of the same colour with a dash of white in the trimming. She was adjusting it at the mirror.
‘What do you want, man?’ demanded Probert, without taking his eyes off the nannies.
‘A little of your time, if it can be spared, sir-and ladies.’
‘My daughter’s just going out,’ said Probert. ‘It’s a damned fool thing to be doing on a day like this, but she won’t be told. Charity can’t study the weather, she says. She’ll die of pneumonia before she’s twenty-five, while the great unwashed of Richmond grow old and get fat on the fruit and veg. she’s given ’em.’
‘It’s not like that at all, Father,’ said Alice, glancing into the mirror at Cribb. Her face had a doll-like neatness, with large blue eyes and high cheek-bones that gave the permanent promise of a smile. ‘They certainly won’t get fat on the meagre amount provide. Letting them know that someone cares is what really matters. The food is a mere gesture.’
‘If that’s all it is, let’s keep the five shillings a week and have a bottle of champagne on Saturdays,’ said Mrs Probert.
‘Mama, that’s a dreadful thing to say in front of the sergeant!’ Alice chided her. ‘Don’t take any notice, Mr Cribb. You can’t rely upon a quarter of the things she says.’
‘If my arithmetic is right, that means three-quarters of the things I say are reliable,’ said Mrs Probert without a glance in her daughter’s direction. ‘If the words of other people in this house-not to say their conduct-could be relied upon to that extent, the sergeant would have an easier task.’
Alice turned from the mirror to look at her mother, an action insignificant in normal circumstances, but noteworthy in this family, whose members seemed to have evolved monolithic existences based on the least possible acknowledgement of each other’s presence. ‘What are you insinuating by that remark, Mother?’
Mrs Probert continued to look at the carpet. ‘That’s a bold new hat you are taking so much care over arranging, my dear. If the hat fits, wear it, I say,’ she said mysteriously.
Alice indulged in another long look at Mrs Probert, a look singularly devoid of the regard a daughter might be expected to feel for her mother. Then she addressed Cribb. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to speak to Papa in private?’
‘Not at all, miss, but if I’m delaying you-’
‘I can wait a few minutes.’
‘In that case, miss, I’ll presently escort you down the hill. I’ve got a constable sitting in the hall who can carry your gifts for the poor.’
‘That’s very obliging of you. It’s a shopping-basket, you know, not the sort of thing one generally sees a policeman carrying.’
‘Don’t concern yourself, miss. I’ll see that he keeps a respectable distance behind us. Now, Doctor, if I may. .’
Probert turned at last from the window. ‘What is the trouble then?’
The phrase came so readily that Cribb suspected it was the one the doctor used in consultations.
‘No trouble at present, sir. I’m merely wanting to establish certain facts touching on the death of Mr Brand. That apparatus in the library, sir: when did you get it ready?’
‘The chair, you mean? On Wednesday of last week, I believe. Strathmore came to help me. It didn’t take long. We had to screw on the brass handles and connect the various wires, but to a scientist it’s a very elementary piece of wiring. There really wasn’t much to go wrong, which makes the accident all the more baffling.’
‘It’s a puzzle indeed, sir. Mr Strathmore helped you, you say?’
‘Helped him drink his claret,’ put in Mrs Probert.
‘That was after we had set up the experiment,’ said Probert, sensitive, for once, to an interruption from his wife. ‘It is not done to offer muffins and tea to a professional acquaintance. The answer, Sergeant, is yes. Mr Strathmore helped me. It was fortunate as it turned out. We can both vouch for the safety of the apparatus. I believe your expert from the Home Office was unable to detect any fault in the wiring.’
‘That’s correct, sir.’
‘The transformer was found to be in good order?’
‘Perfect, sir.’
‘I thought so. The wire and the galvanometer were new. I purchased them from Mr Cooper, who owns the supply station. It’s a rum go, is all this. You know, I’ve been trying to decide whether it was Brand’s dickey heart that did for him. He looked as though he’d been subjected to a powerful shock. I’d have staked my reputation on that, but I suppose twenty volts or so of electricity could be just as destructive to a chap in his condition as several hundred to you or me.’
‘That may be so, sir, but it doesn’t account for the fracturing of several of his bones. Do you mind if I continue with my questions? Did Mr Brand by any chance inspect the apparatus before Saturday night?’
‘No,’ said Probert firmly.
Alice turned from the mirror. ‘But Papa-’
‘Brand did not inspect the apparatus before Saturday night,’ Probert insisted in a way that brooked no challenge from his daughter. ‘Without wishing to denigrate Mr Brand, I think it must be obvious that he was not the class of person one invites to one’s house except in a professional capacity.’
‘I was thinking that for professional reasons he would have wished to come in advance, to view the room where the seance was to be held,’ said Cribb.
‘You have obviously forgotten that Brand came here previously for a seance,’ said Probert. ‘It was on October 31st, the night the vase was stolen from Miss Crush’s residence. He had an ample opportunity then to inspect the room.’
‘But he didn’t see the chair before Saturday?’
‘That is so. If we’d given the fellow a chance to make preparations, it would have invalidated the blasted experiment. Is the interrogation over?’
‘For the present, sir, I’m obliged to you,’ said Cribb as if it was a wrench to take himself away from such congenial company. ‘Now, Miss Alice, where’s that basket?’
Half way down Richmond Hill, with Thackeray ten yards in the rear carrying a shopping basket topped with oranges, Alice Probert said to Cribb, ‘You believe Peter Brand was murdered, don’t you?’
‘It’s a possibility, miss.’
‘Papa thinks so, too. He thinks Professor Quayle did it.’
‘I thought he put it down to the weakness of Peter Brand’s heart,’ said Cribb.
‘Oh, he wants to. That’s the explanation that will cause the least offence all round. He doesn’t want the opprobrium of a public murder trial, with us all appearing as witnesses, but he is not such a fool as he seemed this morning, Sergeant. He knows very well that the shock that killed Mr Brand would have killed anyone sitting in that chair at that moment. He is quite convinced that somebody tampered with the apparatus.’