Though unaware of having been compared so favourably with Farmer Stamper, Purbright learned a number of things about the house’s tenants in transit. There had been quarrels, for instance: not of deadly seriousness, perhaps, but the sort that suggest permanent underlying mistrust. He heard of a picture show behind a closed bedroom door and attended by men old enough to be that girl’s father and respectable enough, one might have thought, to know better. A big London lawyer, for instance, and that fat, white-haired little gentleman who was the editor of the Citizen. He was informed also of a room kept locked upstairs (she indicated which one) that was supposed to have valuable equipment in it. Valuable it might be, added Mrs Patmore, but if it hadn’t blown its nose when she was passing the door on the way to her own room she was very much mistaken. Then there was poor Mr Grail’s interest in Harry Pearce, the draper (what might a famous newspaper writer want to meet him for, for heaven’s sake?) and in the garage man, Alf Blossom, who was to be trusted about half as far as some of his hire cars could be driven.
Purbright listened and made notes and looked as if Mrs Patmore’s arrival was the nicest thing that had happened to him on that or any other day.
By this time, Sergeant Malley had piloted the coroner through the formalities of opening and adjourning the inquest. He emerged, wheezing, from his old car at almost the same moment as Love’s arrival at Miriam Lodge. They joined Purbright in the plastic annexe that Farmer Stamper’s builder had assured him was the conservatory. It was hot and stuffy, but secure from eaves-dropping.
“When can we expect the autopsy report, Bill?” Purbright asked.
Malley mistrustfully lowered himself into a canvas chair. He unfastened the top two buttons of his trousers and considered. “All the obvious things, he’ll let us have in the next hour or two, I should think. We’ll have to wait longer for the clever stuff.”
“Spenser’s fairly confident that the man was poisoned, though, isn’t he?”
“Oh, aye,” said Malley, equably. “Something cyanic and pretty quick.” He delved into a pouch of tobacco, and Purbright saw that a short, black pipe was in his fist. “Stomach contents were obvious as a menu, apparently. He must just have eaten.”
The inspector nodded. “That could be helpful, but it’s where he ate that we’d like to know.” He turned to Love. “How did you get on, Sid?”
Love was standing a little apart, looking expectantly through a plastic pane in the direction from which he had come. He spoke over his shoulder. “I can tell you better in half a minute. Harper’s getting a measurement for me. We didn’t want to look obvious.”
“Quite right, Sid,” Purbright commended. He had just seen Detective Constable Harper come round the corner of the house. Harper was reeling in a huge tape measure as he walked; he looked like a tuna fisherman in difficulties.
Love went out to confer with Harper. On his return, he gave the inspector a meaningful smirk. “Tyres,” he said, carelessly. “Track width. It all matches up.”
Purbright conferred upon Love an impressed “Ah” in the manner of a trainer presenting a lump of sugar. “I thought it might,” he added. Looking slightly perplexed, Malley ambled out.
Soon afterwards, there came a tap on the annexe door. One of the plain clothes men put his head round.
“Come in, Mr Hollis.”
“I’ve been down to that Chinky takeaway, sir.” Hollis was of the persuasion that Chinese restaurants were dedicated in the main to opium smoking and the dissection of cats.
“And?”
“I had a job to find anybody I could get any sense out of, but in the end the boss’s daughter got back from school to have her dinner and it turned out she could speak more or less proper English so there was me asking questions and her being a sort of interpreter like and everything went great—at least the Chinks keep books, if you can call them that, and they remembered there was only one order last night that would have needed eight containers so one of them turned up the record and it was something they just called ‘E’, the letter ‘E’, E for elephant, and to them it means dinner for four people, and I’ve got a description here of what goes in it, and it sounds a pretty weird lot of rubbish, and all. Sir.”
“At what time,” the inspector asked, “was this meal collected?”
“They thought about ten o’clock, sir.”
“Could they give any description of the person who came? Or persons?”
“There was only one, they thought. A woman. ‘Nice lady’ they kept calling her, but perhaps they just thought that was being co-operative. I couldn’t get a proper description out of them.”
Purbright gave a little smile. “These English ladies, they all look the same, you know, Mr Hollis.”
Hollis looked worried. “I wouldn’t have thought so, sir.”
Purbright sent him to seek out and request the attendance, as soon as it might be convenient, of retired draper Henry Pearce.
“Are our reluctant guests all managing to occupy their time pleasantly?” Purbright asked Love.
The sergeant was about to reply when he caught sight of a figure looming up to the door. “Here’s one who isn’t,” he murmured.
Sir Arthur Heckington entered. “You will forgive my intrusion, inspector,” he declared, with absolute confidence.
Purbright smiled thinly.
“I wish my clients to overlook nothing which might be of assistance in getting to the bottom of this highly regrettable affair. There does exist a tape recording. Are you aware of this tape recording, Purbright?”
The inspector said he was not, but there had not yet been time for all the relevant facts to be marshalled. He would see that the recording was not overlooked.
“Then, of course, there is the question of the film,” said Sir Arthur. It sounded like reference by a conscientious guardian to some mad and singularly unsavoury relative.
“You’ve seen the film, have you, sir?”
“I admit to that dubious privilege.”
“Is there anything about it to which you feel you should draw my attention?”
The barrister reflected briefly before replying. “No—that is what I find somewhat perplexing, and my clients have been unable to clarify the issue. You see, those sections of the film involving local people are perfectly innocuous records of public occasions. The sound-track, as I am led to understand, is itself indecent, but of course it has been added later. So have certain all-too-explicit displays of concupiscence by anonymous—indeed, unidentifiable—performers.”
“You say that the pornographic parts of the film are not contributed by local people, but how can you be sure if those taking part are not identifiable?”
Heckington frowned deeply. He clearly did not care to be on the receiving end of cross-examination.