A voice, boxed and catarrhal. “Features.”
Richardson spoke. “Grail’s village blue movie story. What source?”
“Hang on.”
The answer, such as it was, came two minutes later.
“As far as we can make out, Grail was handling it pretty much on his own. A Middle East staffman ran an actual copy of the flick to earth, I believe, but only because he was asked to.”
“There’d be payment,” Purbright heard Richardson say. “Check authorizations round that time. The cashier will have a record.”
The inspector, given Richardson’s promise of a call back within the next half hour or so, prepared to use the interval as profitably as its brevity allowed. He rang the Flaxborough Citizen office and asked Mr Kebble if he would be so kind as to spare a few minutes. The editor assured him that nothing would give him greater pleasure; he forthwith donned his large, Citizen Kane-style hat, and thankfully abandoned his least favourite task of the week, the subbing of a clutch of wedding reports.
Mr Kebble knew his way to the inspector’s office on the first floor. As a billiards player always ready to accommodate himself to policemen’s unsociable hours and as an amiable and trustworthy gossip, he was already a familiar visitor to Fen Street and welcomed by all but the most misanthropic of its inmates.
“You will have heard, no doubt,” Purbright said to him, once the spherical editor had been settled, beamingly attentive, behind a mug of tea, “what has happened to your distinguished colleague from London.”
Mr Kebble’s expression changed instantly to one of grave solicitude. “They tell me,” he said, “the poor chap’s been found dead.”
“Out at Hambourne, yes. Odd place to be. You’ve no ideas on the subject, have you, Joss? Anyone said anything?”
“Not a word, old chap.”
“What does your friend Barry Hoole think about Grail?”
Kebble smiled mournfully. “As a duellist, not much.”
Purbright, too, looked amused, but the questions kept coming. “Was that just one of Charlie Hockley’s larger lunacies, or did something lie behind it, do you think?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Wistfully, “Nice little story, though.”
“The duel, do you mean? Or the indecent film? They tell me you were lucky enough to be at the premiere, Joss.”
Kebble had extracted from one of his waistcoat pockets a tiny, pearl-handled penknife, with which he now was putting the finishing touches to a pencil point. Chin tucked into chest, he interspersed speech with the gentle puffs and snorts that, for him, constituted breathing.
“God, aye,” acknowledged Mr Kebble. “Never seen anything like it, old chap. Shouldn’t think even you have.”
Purbright thanked him for his good opinion. “I still have the film to look forward to,” he said, “but I’d be interested to know now if anyone with local connections is involved.”
The editor looked up. “Dozens,” he declared.
“No—in the indecent parts, I mean. The impression I was given is that the thing is a compilation, a sort of hotch-potch with a linking commentary.”
“Aye, that’s right. The funny thing is this, though—this fellow and his tottie who provide all the acrobatics seem to be doing a kind of take-off of characters in the local operatic society.”
“That must have been a refreshing change,” Purbright remarked. Kebble went into a positive eruption of chuckles, in the midst of which he suddenly raised a finger.
“I’ll tell you something very odd about that film, old chap.” Kebble leaned forward confidentially and set the finger to work stroking his chin. “I can’t understand it at all, but I’m sure I wasn’t mistaken. It was while this pair were going through their all-in wrestling act.”
Purbright signified with a nod that he was paying attention.
“The lighting had been arranged so that their faces couldn’t be seen,” went on Kebble. “The background was dark, but there did seem to be curtains there. Curtains, or sheets of dark doth, hanging down. And this is what’s queer.
“In one corner, low down, and just for a few seconds, I could see a number. It was dim, but I could definitely make it out.” The editor glanced at the door and leaned even closer. “And do you know why I remember it now?”
The inspector refrained from spoiling such a moment. “No,” he said, simply.
“It was my own car number, old chap! That’s why.”
There was a pause.
“On the screen, do you mean—projected on it?” Purbright asked.
“Yes.”
“When I say projected, I’m thinking of the way a car number is superimposed on a cinema screen for a moment when the owner is being asked to move the car.”
Seeing the point, Mr Kebble shook his head vigorously. “No, no, not like that. This had got into the film at the time. The actual number plate. OFW 532.”
“Front plate or rear?”
Mr Kebble thought a few seconds.. “Rear—it was more square-shaped.”
“Did you see nothing of the car itself, Joss? I take it you don’t suggest the plate had been detached specially—as some sort of kinky prop, perhaps?”
“Do you remember old Alderman Dray at Chalmsbury?” asked Mr Kebble, tempted into irrelevance. “Dicky had eight daughters, all ugly. Old Dick always turned up for council meetings before anybody else. They reckoned it was the ram’s horn snuffbox on the mayor’s table that had an erotic fascination for him. He was never spotted at it, mind, but there wasn’t one councillor in Chalmsbury who would accept a pinch of snuff from that horn.”
Purbright steered the conversation out of the pleasurable backwaters of the editor’s reminiscence into a narrower channel. “If—as it seems reasonable to suppose—the number plate was in its normal position at the time, can you think of an explanation of how your car came to be in the background during the making of a pornographic film?”
If Mr Kebble admitted to his mind the possibility that a clever and determined policeman might seek to implicate him as an accessory to scandalous crime, he clearly did not suspect Purbright of any such intention. “I should think,” he said, lamely, after consideration, “that it just happened to be around and somebody chucked a cover over it.”
“More than likely,” said the inspector.
The telephone rang. It was Richardson. Purbright listened to what he had to say and made some notes. He put a couple of supplementary questions but drew nothing worth noting down. To Mr Kebble, he apologized for the interruption.