“That message you left for Clive...” she said. “He hasn’t rung you, has he? And now you’ve come to be cross with me.”
“No, he has not rung,” said the inspector, quietly. “But being cross is not my object in coming here.”
“Oh, goodikins. May I reward you with coffee?”
Purbright took notice neither of the question nor of the laboured coyness with which it was asked. “Where is Mr Grail do you suppose, Miss Clemenceaux?” he asked, in the same gentle tone.
“In London,” she replied simply. “We’ve had a call from him.”
The inspector thought he saw a slight shift in the barrister’s regard, a warning perhaps; and a tightening of his mouth. Grail, obviously, had been the subject of their conferring.
“When was that call?”
“Last night. Quite late. Possibly after midnight.” She looked at him wonderingly.
“And he sounded as usual, did he? In normal health, and so on?
“Sure. Why, shouldn’t he have done?”
A cough, noble as a Wordsworth stanza. Purbright recognized the signal for intervention from the Bar.
“Forgive me, inspector, but may I, also, ask the purport of this line of questioning?”
“You may, Sir Arthur. I am simply seeking elucidation of a problem. If Mr Grail was in good health at around midnight in London, how did he come to be lying dead in a derelict railway station some miles north of Flaxborough eight hours later?”
It took all Heckington’s considerable powers of self-possession to field this one. He registered neither surprise nor shock in any visual form, but instead froze in an attitude of keen attention. It was rather like the sudden stopping of a film.
The girl, on the other hand, made no attempt to hide what Purbright felt to be genuine astonishment and dismay. Grief? he wondered. No, not that...alarm, rather—a mixture of fright and resentment.
“Clive dead?” she murmured. “Up here, you say? But he can’t be.” She slowly turned her head and looked at Lanching, then at Becket, as if in appeal.
“At a place called Hambourne, Miss Clemenceaux,” Purbright told her. “It is on a disused section of railway line. Some boys found Mr Grail’s body in the old station building.”
Quickly and unobtrusively, the inspector glanced at the faces of Birdie’s companions. Becket’s was blank. Lanching looked bewildered but solemn.
Sir Arthur addressed Purbright. “As I believe you know, inspector, I am retained by the employers of Mr Grail and his colleagues, on behalf of one of whom—Mr Becket—I shall be appearing in your magistrates’ court tomorrow. In view of the tragic and, on the face of it, mysterious development of which we have just learned, I am confident that my clients would desire me to act in an advisory capacity during the course of whatever investigations the police deem proper.”
Purbright gave a small bow. “That seems perfectly reasonable, sir, so long as this lady and the two gentlemen have no objection.”
“No, none,” said Lanching.
Becket shrugged and looked at Birdie. “I think,” she said, “that Sir Arthur’s advice will be very welcome.”
“May I, then, suggest,” the barrister pressed on without delay, “that at the outset I have a word in private with our friends so that we may establish the kind of mutual confidence which will be to the advantage of everybody, the police included?”
Purbright rose. Birdie noticed the tendency to stoop, characteristic of a tall man who does a lot of listening to others, “May I wait in the next room?” he asked her, making it a personal question, addressed to a hostess.
“Of course. I’m sure it will only be for a minute. You must think it awful cheek.”
He smiled at her without comment. From the door, he spoke to the barrister. “You’ll make it brief, will you, sir? There are many inquiries to be made.”
Sir Arthur waited for several seconds after the closing of the door behind Purbright. He adopted a presiding attitude, looked fixedly at each of the others in turn, then spoke with quiet gravity. “You realize, of course, that Mr Grail’s death makes it impossible—indeed, pointless, alas—to contemplate any further negotiation with those responsible for his abduction. This cannot now be regarded as a private matter in any sense. Even if—as I cannot believe—your employers might wish to preserve a position of non-involvement, the law of the land clearly requires them and you to co-operate with the police. I must so advise you now. Furthermore, I must tell you that my own duty lies in helping you to put before that inspector all the facts without further delay.”
There was a pause. Then, just as Sir Arthur made a businesslike movement suggestive of his being about to wind up the proceedings before anyone else could say anything, Becket interposed: “Hey, that’s all very well, but what if these characters never get caught? It’s ten to one they won’t, and we shall be left holding a damned unpleasant baby. Compounding a felony—isn’t that what they call it?”
“There are precedents,” the barrister replied. “I do not think the director would move without very sympathetic consideration.”
“But we should be liable to prosecution. That’s so, isn’t it?”
“I cannot add to what I have said already, Miss Clemenceaux. And we really have no choice in the matter.”
She gestured impatiently. “I don’t agree. Nothing need now be said about this kidnapping nonsense. The money no longer enters into it. It can go back.”
Sir Arthur’s impeccably groomed eyebrows rose a fraction. “Nonsense is scarcely a word I expected you to apply to action by people you declared only yesterday to be of homicidal capability.”
“I could have been wrong. This place is packed with eccentrics. Good heavens, they even offer to fight duels. Clive had been challenged, did you know that?”
“My understanding of that affair was that it had been largely contrived for the purposes of publicity,” replied Heckington archly.
“The same argument,” suggested Lanching, “might be applied to the so-called kidnapping, wouldn’t you say?”
“No, Mr Lanching, I should not. A very important point seems to be in some danger of being forgotten. Grail is dead. For all we know, this can now be a murder case.”
Becket who had been leaning forward attentively in his chair, suddenly lounged back. “Rubbish. He had a heart attack.”
The barrister impaled him with a steely stare. “I have heard no mention of heart attacks.” He looked round at the others. “Is there some source of information which I have not yet been privileged to share?”
Birdie answered at once. “Of course not, Sir Arthur. I think Bob was simply coming out with the obvious assumption.” She smiled. “We aren’t lawyers, you know.”
“Being kidnapped must be extremely frightening,” Lanching said. “Clive wasn’t what I should call fit. These things happen. People collapse.”