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       “So the availability to Cropper, as a council health official, of both the keys and—we assume—the drugs, does not much help to incriminate him on the capital charge as such.”

       “No, sir. Not specifically.”

       “In that case...”—Spratt-Cornforth examined a typed list—“...I shall be interested to listen to these famous tapes of your Sergeant Love—numbers, what?—four and six—are we right?”

       The door opened and Love entered with a tray. To commemorate the visitor’s eminence he had brought cups instead of mugs and provided not only saucers in addition but the private sugar basin of the chief constable himself.

       For the next ten minutes the case was set aside in favour of what Love considered a brilliant and daringly irreverent disquisition by Spratt-Cornforth on such matters as the state of Old Dicky Padstowe’s chambers, Young Somebody Else’s scrape with the Queen’s Proctor, and the rumoured sitting stone dead for three hours of the learned judge in Number Two Court at the Bailey.

       Then Purbright signalled the replacement of the tray with the Sergeant’s recording machine.

       They listened.

...

fact, but the situation’s so delicate. Quite frankly, I didn’t think he’d understand

. Why, sir?

Well, good heav

...

       Love raced the tape forward a little.

       “Bird,” murmured Purbright for Spratt-Cornforth’s benefit. The solicitor nodded.

...enough to tell me about the call that Mr Persimmon did take, sir.

I can’t tell you anything about it. I don’t know anything

. Look, sir, I’m sorry, but this time I must insist.

Insist all you like. I just cannot help you. And this time it is not a case of respecting confidences. The phone rang—at about midnight, as I told you—and Persimmon answered it. He listened, not saying a word himself, and then slammed the phone down and rushed out straight away. We both heard his car start off and that was that. He didn’t

...

       Love switched off the machine and removed the cassette. He slipped another one in.

       “This one’s Cropper,” said Purbright.

...get up to, sir?

I know perfectly well, Mr Purbright, that Miss Hillyard associated—that is the word, I believe—with Bertie Persimmon

. Do you know who made the call last Wednesday night that resulted in Persimmon going out?

I have no idea

. What is your recollection of that call, doctor?

None, naturally

.

I didn’t take it

. Persimmon did?

Yes. We’d had one or two earlier but they were—well, relatively trivial. Then this one came through about midnight

. Did he not say anything that might suggest who the caller was?

Not a single word. He scarcely looked at me. Just slammed the receiver down and went straight out. Then I heard his car start up

. That was the...

       Love pressed the “off” key. He waited.

       Spratt-Cornforth remained a while in thought. He shrugged.

       “We seem to have missed it. Perhaps we are not at our brightest this morning.”

       “In the first recording,” began Purbright, “he...”

       “No, no.” The solicitor had raised his hand. “Let the sergeant enlighten us. It was his discovery.”

       Pink as a raspberry soda, Love looked at Purbright.

       “Go on, then, Sid.”

       “Well, sir...” Love shuffled ecstatically in his seat. “It’s fairly simple, really. Just a couple of words. ‘We’ in one recording. ‘I’ in the other one. Bird said ‘We both heard his car start off’. Cropper said ‘Then I heard his car start up’. But once this bloke Persimmon had gone, there could have been only one left in the room, sir. So I reckoned that when Bird talked about ‘we’ it was because he was being careful not to break that old alibi of theirs—the three-pals-together one.”

       “Very succinctly put, sergeant,” said Spratt-Cornforth. “We congratulate you. And of course we take your point. Bird was imagining the scene and so was fastidious about detail. Cropper, on the other hand, although equally concerned to thwart inquiry, was being prompted all the time by actual memory. Oh, yes, even a jury ought to be able to see the logic of that. What do you think, Purbright?”

       “We must hope that you are right, sir,” the inspector said.

       “Has one a date in mind for the committal proceedings?”

       “I thought perhaps a week on Thursday, sir. If that is convenient to you.”

       Spratt-Cornforth consulted a pocket diary and nodded. He looked at his watch.

       “An adjournment, gentleman, would now be appropriate. We have a luncheon appointment with your chief constable.”

       For the briefest of moments, Love’s mood of buoyancy tricked him into the dizzy supposition that he, too, was embraced within the solicitor’s royal plural.

       When the delusion had passed, and as soon as Spratt-Cornforth had briskly departed, running his rapier-like umbrella up and down in his gloved fist as if to wipe blood off it, the sergeant began to collect the cups.

       “Thanks for the coffee, Sid,” Purbright said.

       “Oh, and don’t forget to put Mr Chubb’s sugar basin back, will you?”