“I’m not sure that I know what you mean by permissive,” Purbright said. “The police certainly don’t go around harassing people in deference to the morally pretentious. We don’t believe that citizens can be sorted back into the right beds by rule of truncheon. We do, on the other hand, try to dissuade them from raping one another—galloping their maggots in public—that sort of thing. Or is it something else you have in mind? Something more sophisticated, perhaps?”
A constable, dispatched earlier to fetch coffee from the canteen, appeared with a tray. Cups were distributed. One of the two journalists who declined, the Daily Herald man, put another question.
“Is it true that people are afraid to go out after dark because of black magic rites?”
“Not as far as I’m aware.”
“But we have been told”—the Herald man glanced round at the others—“by four or five people in the town that they’ve either been bewitched themselves at some time or they know of others who have.”
There were murmurs of agreement, although a lanky grizzle-haired man from the News Chronicle, older than the rest, interposed the remark that free drinks would buy testimony to anything.
Purbright, who saw that direct confirmation of the truth of this opinion would not be popular, observed instead that strangers might be forgiven if they mistook for veracity that eagerness to please which was so notable a canon of Flaxborough hospitality.
“I’m very sorry,” he went on, “if it seems to you that I could be a little more eager to please in this matter, but I’m sure that such experienced journalists as yourselves would prefer me to be absolutely prosaic and factual. Policemen who make conjectures, however attractive they may be from a news editor’s standpoint, are really of no more use to you than those who sit on facts.”
The reporter from the Dispatch had begun to put a question about pin-stuck images when there came through the door a man of about sixty wearing a light grey overcoat and carrying a walking stick and yellow washleather gloves. His bearing was careful, his expression one of courteous inquisitiveness. Purbright greeted and introduced him as Mr Harcourt Chubb, the chief constable of Flaxborough.
“This lady and these gentlemen,” the inspector explained, “are journalists”—Mr Chubb raised one eyebrow—“and they are here to ask questions about witchcraft.” Mr Chubb’s second eyebrow went up and he gazed disbelievingly at the girl from the Sunday Pictorial.
Purbright turned to the pressmen. “Is there anything you’d care to put to the chief constable while he’s here?”
Mr Chubb instantly pursed his lips and shook his head. “My dear Mr Purbright, I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your prerogatives.” He took a step towards the door. “Just you carry...” Sudden comprehension of the enormity of what the inspector had said pulled him short. “Questions about what?”
“Witchcraft, sir. Black magic. Necromancy.”
“Good gracious me. Where?”
“Here, sir. In Flaxborough.”
There was silence. Then the chief constable said “I see.” He gave the pressmen a bleak, puzzled little smile of farewell and departed.
The man from the News Chronicle said it appeared that anxiety about the alleged instances of satanism had not spread to the upper ranks of the police force.
“It hasn’t, actually,” said Purbright.
“Not even when they know that a girl has disappeared and may have been used as a human sacrifice?”
Four journalists snapped attention to the fifth. He was the floridly attired Empire News reporter and he was blushing partly with triumph, partly with annoyance at the impetuous discard of his own advantage.
Purbright knew that nothing excites deeper suspicion and resentment in a newspaperman than the countering of an awkward question with the retort: Who told you that? He considered, then replied carefully:
“It is true that a young woman of thirty-four has been missing—in the sense of being absent from both her work and her lodgings—for the past two days. We have no reason to suppose that she has come to any harm, although, naturally enough, we shall feel easier when she reappears.
“The suggestion by your colleague that this woman has been the victim of, what, a ritual murder—is that your meaning, sir?”—the Empire News man nodded—“Yes, well, that suggestion is unsupported by any evidence known to me.”
There was a rattle of conversation, from which, after a few moments, intelligible questions separated.
“What’s the girl’s name, inspector?”
“Edna Hillyard.”
“Married?”
“We don’t think so.”
“Address?”
“Cheviot Road. Number eighteen. Incidentally, if you do wish to question her landlady, who is inoffensive and knows singularly little, I rely on you not to embarrass her.”
In reply to another question, Purbright added that the landlady was called Mrs Lanchester.
“Has the girl no family?”
“Not in this area. She moved here with her mother some years ago, but the mother is now dead. There are relations in Scotland, I believe, and we are trying to get in touch with them.”
The Sunday Pictorial girl spoke. “Look, if you don’t think anything’s happened to this Hillyard person—I mean, you don’t sound terribly concerned—not that one expects policemen to wax hysterical or anything...but after all she is missing, and one can’t help wondering why the sangfroid, as it were. You do see what I mean?”
“Oh, certainly. And there is a reason, as you’ve obviously guessed already. Miss Hillyard is an independent sort of young woman. She gets around. Her reputation is one of unpredictability.”
“You mean she’s disappeared before?” asked the Dispatch.
“I mean she gets around, as I said. Disappear is a rather Gothic way of putting it.”
“A good-time girl?” brightly suggested the Herald.
Purbright gave a worldly shrug.
“And you don’t think she takes part in this Voodoo Cult you’ve got here?”
“Miss Hillyard,” Purbright said patiently, “is employed in the department of the Medical Officer of Health. She is also, I understand, a member of the Presbyterian Church. Of those facts, gentlemen, you are at liberty to make what you will.”
After the press conference, Purbright made his way to the chief constable’s office, where Mr Chubb was in recuperative retreat in the interval between exercising six of his Yorkshire terriers and attending a Rotary lunch.