Three emphatic nods from Spratt-Cornforth.
“Precisely. And may we say how refreshing it is to find a police officer with a sense of economy in this matter of presenting a case. More prosecutions are weakened by too much evidence than by too little.”
Purbright modestly inclined his head.
“Incidentally,” added Spratt-Cornforth, “we must hope that it will not occur to the defence to try and depict this woman as too jealous, and subsequently too vengeful, for her testimony to carry weight. It would not be difficult, you know.”
The inspector agreed.
“She certainly spared no effort to attract the maximum unwelcome publicity to the Coven and its Masters. We found a little notebook at her house. It had in it the telephone numbers of half the national newspapers. In addition, I suspect that she pestered the defendant himself a good deal by phone.”
“Yes, well, we shall keep clear of all that,” said the solicitor, selecting another sheaf of typescript. “It would not do for a crown witness to appear to have known the murderer’s identity all along.”
For a while he read in silence. Then, “Ah.” He flicked the corner of the statement with long, white fingers.
“Our old friend. The blank memory. But well enough to go into court for us? Has she recovered that far?”
“She will have done by the time the case comes on at the Crown Court, I think, sir.”
“Lucky girl, Miss Hillyard, wouldn’t you say?”
“To be still alive? Extremely.”
“The treatment of her shows ruthlessness. The jury won’t like that. Good point for us. Provided, of course, the defence don’t make a song and dance about her promiscuity. That always works the other way. Or is your society permissive in this county?”
“That is a question the press appeared to consider of enormous importance. Certainly, Harry Bird used to talk about it a good deal on the Bench when he was sentencing people.”
“Really?”
Purbright glanced to see if Love was showing signs of boredom, but he appeared to be lost in admiration of the London solicitor’s rapid digestion and arrangement of their paperwork.
Spratt-Cornforth leaned back in his chair, tapped a thumbnail ruminatively against his lower teeth, and closed his eyes.
“Let us see,” he said, “if we have a general picture of the case. Stop us at once if we go wrong.
“For some time past, a group of people living in Flaxborough and its surrounding area had indulged in what may loosely be termed Pagan religious practices under cover of a pretended interest in folklore. The central ceremony was a so-called Revel, held in the grounds of one of the members, witness Gertrude Gloss, four times a year on dates associated with the witches’ Sabbaths of the Middle Ages.
“The climax of the Revel, or Sabbath, which involved dancing, drinking and probably a deal of licentiousness, was the appearance of the President, or Master. He was a sort of Minotaur figure, believed by some at least of the members to be the devil, and his prerogative was to summon the female of his choice from among the company and to possess her in an altar ritual.
“Whereas it was important for the ordinary members of the Coven, as we must call it, to shield their respectability behind the spurious title of Folklore Society; it was of double—indeed, of three-fold—importance to preserve the anonymity of the Master.”
Spratt-Cornforth opened one eye with which to regard Purbright.
“All right so far?”
“Absolutely.”
The eye closed again.
“We now know the clever and extremely confusing device whereby this was achieved. The Master of the Coven was not one person at all, but a triumvirate of lecherous worthies masquerading as—of all things—an anti-witchcraft action group that enjoyed the innocent patronage of the Vicar of Flaxborough. An Unholy Trinity, eh, sergeant?”
This quite unexpected acknowledgement of his continued presence left Love gratified but wordless.
The solicitor continued at once with his summary.
“There would appear, nevertheless, to have been some rudimentary sense of honour among these three. They observed a rota system, for example, as we may infer from the evidence of the witness Bollinger. It was she, was it not, who heard Persimmon say on the telephone that ‘he could not make it that night’ and that someone ‘would get an extra turn’.
“But that ‘someone’—and we may take it that Mrs Pentatuke was the woman referred to—did not get her turn, after all. The female Pearce will testify that it was Edna Hillyard’s good fortune to be chosen.
“There followed the call to Persimmon, his furious drive—witnessed by...”
Purbright waited a moment, then supplied the name. Spratt-Cornforth snapped his fingers.
“...Doris Periam. Of course. As we said, the furious drive, confrontation, attack. And murderous counter-attack by the man in that fearfully-armed mask. Then the loading of Persimmon’s body into his own car and its disposal in the river less than quarter of a mile away. All conjecture, but supported by a certain amount of circumstantial evidence. We have known success in cases much more perforated than this one.”
The solicitor opened his eyes and hitched himself forward.
“One wonders,” he said, “whether one might have some coffee. Nothing fancy. Lubrication is all.”
Purbright addressed Love immediately. “Sergeant, would one fetch some, please?”
“Is there any hope,” Spratt-Cornforth asked, when Love had gone, “of a voluntary statement from the defendant? It would make things easier for us, a lot easier.”
“Oh, I’m sure there is. His counsel is certain to advise him to rely on a plea of self-defence. For this to be convincing, he will have to explain what made Persimmon so violently jealous. A statement well in advance of the trial would help forestall suspicion of the story having been cooked up at the last minute.”
“Good. Encourage him, Purbright. We are not altogether happy that the authorship of this crime has been established beyond doubt. The only person we know to be able actually to identify the murderer is the Hillyard woman and she obviously will stick to her loss of memory, genuine or not, in her own interests.”
“In justice to the girl, I think she co-operated after the killing only because she was terrified. The fact that she was heavily doped with barbiturate and locked up proves that they didn’t trust her.”
“They?”
“Certainly. The two surviving members would collaborate for the sake of their mutual safety just as the original trio always had done to protect their respectability.”