“Not precisely, sir,” said the inspector.
“Beastliness, Purbright. Beastliness. Quite indescribable.”
“Yes, sir. And these dates?”
Bird looked him in the eye. “The second of February, the last day of April, August the first, and the thirty-first of October.”
Purbright considered. He shook his head.
“You don’t recognize them?”
“I can’t say that I grasp their special significance.” Purbright turned to Love. “Do you, sergeant?”
“One’s Mischief Night,” Love declared. “I know that.”
For the first time Bird’s face registered a flicker of amusement.
“That is what children call it. A much older name is the Eve of Hallowtide. Last day of October. Let me identify the others. February the second, Candlemas. The first of August, Lammas. And perhaps the most sinister of all—the thirtieth day of April. That’s May Day Eve.
“Now then, inspector, you see what I’m getting at, don’t you?”
“I think so, sir. You mean that these dates are all associated with a belief in magic.”
Bird regarded him for several seconds.
“No, Purbright, I mean a lot more than that. I mean that the times of the year when evil is let loose upon this town in a very special and terrifying way are the ancient festivals of witchcraft. They are the nights of the great Sabbaths.”
There was a long pause.
“Do you believe in withcraft, sir?”
Another silence, but shorter.
“Let me put it this way. I believe in the belief in witchcraft. And I believe in the effects it has had. Because”—Bird’s normally rich-toned voice rose, as it was apt to do either when he was nervous or when he asserted something with special emphasis, to a momentary treble—“I have seen them. We have all seen them, all three of us on this little vigilante committee of ours. Do you suppose me gullible? Or Dr Cropper? An important council official? Or a businessman like poor old Persimmon? I tell you we acted on evidence, Purbright, not on superstition.”
“I accept that, of course, sir. But I cannot yet quite see in what way you and your colleagues were able to help these people. I would have thought that exorcism or something in that line was indicated.”
“It is, sometimes. There is nothing wrong with incantation, Purbright, provided it works.
“Be that as it may, though, the first thing you have to do if you want to help people in trouble is to be available. You see what I mean? So this is what we did. Grewyear let us have a little room at the back of the church hall. We had the phone put in and we gave the number of that phone to everyone who knew about our work and might hear of cases. Cases—that’s what we called them, you see? In the Middle Ages, they would have been described simply as ‘bewitched’, of course, but that won’t do now.
“So...” Sir Henry shrugged, spread his hands, and directed a look of hospitable inquky at the policemen’s drinks. “There you have the truth about what Mary Persimmon called poor Bertram’s ‘samaritan’ nights. Watchnights are what they were, Purbright. Or vigils, if you like.”
The inspector declined a whisky refill, but remained sitting silent as if in expectation of the climax to the story.
Bird seemed to have nothing more to say.
Purbright prompted him.
“The dates of these watchnights...”
“I told you, inspector. Your man can produce them again on his machine, can’t he?”
“I know those dates,” said Purbright. “But I presume there were others.”
“Certainly. Those were the vital ones, though, the productive ones. We met on other occasions, of course, but not to remain on call throughout the night.”
“Is that what you did—all three of you—on what you called the Sabbath nights?”
“Invariably.”
“And if there was a call, sir?”
“We gave what reassurance or advice we could. It seemed sufficient in some cases. Not in all. Whenever we believed the caller to be in real and immediate danger, one of us went over at once.”
“Last Wednesday night, sir...”
Bird looked up, attentive. “Yes?”
“It was the thirtieth of April. What you called May Day Eve.”
“It was, yes.”
“Did you and the other gentlemen undertake your stand-by duties at the Church Hall that night?”
“Certainly we did. And I’m well aware of what you’re going to ask next, Purbright.”
Bird busied himself with the flat silver cigarette box on the little table by his chair. The lighter he used was yellow, presumably gold-plated. As an afterthought, he pushed the box towards the inspector, who shook his head.
“Sir Henry, surely, as a magistrate...”
Bird held up his hand. “All right. I know. Bert’s death. You think I should have got in touch with you earlier. I did consider having a word with Chubb, as a matter of fact, but the situation’s so delicate. Quite frankly, I didn’t think he’d understand.”
“Why, sir?”
“Well, good heavens—witchcraft! Can you imagine your chief constable’s reaction to that sort of suggestion?”
Love, who could, turned his face aside and smirked.
“Perhaps,” Purbright said coolly, “we’d better try now to make up for lost time, sir. First of all, how long did Mr Persimmon remain with you and Dr Cropper?”
“From about nine o’clock until, oh, shortly after midnight.”
“You were together in the room in the church hall.”
“That’s so.”
“Were there any telephone calls?”
Bird thought. “Three. And then this one just about midnight.”
“Would you care to tell me the names of the first three callers, sir?”
“I’m sorry, that’s quite impossible.”
“You don’t know them?”
“I cannot divulge them. They were people in distress who had been promised secrecy. You must see that I am in exactly the same position as a doctor or a priest.”
“Can you tell me what kind of trouble the calls referred to? Was Mr Persimmon involved in any way?”
“They had nothing to do with him. He didn’t even take one. Cropper and I dealt with all three. As I remember, they were similar. Mild cases of possession. A lot of sex mixed in, of course. You know what I mean?”
“People you knew, sir?”
“Cases I knew, Purbright.”