Mrs Gloss stared sternly at Brevitt. “That is the most preposterous suggestion, constable. You seem to have forgotten that I am the owner of this property. People who come here do so at my invitation and for perfectly respectable purposes. What on earth do you think goes on here? Nudist conventions?”
Flustered and contrite, Brevitt mumbled scraps of a formula about “routine inquiries”. He was relieved—and not a little surprised—when Mrs Gloss’s tightly-set lips twitched and then parted in mischievous amusement.
“Pulling your leg, laddie,” she confided gently, leaning very close and giving his thigh a playful tap with the backs of her fingers. At once she stepped away again to watch Palethorp’s exploration of the back seat of the car, but not before Brevitt had caught a whiff of liquor of one of the more boudoir-ish kinds. Sherry, he thought. Or maybe raisin wine.
“I think,” Palethorp said when he had emerged from the car, “that we had better leave everything as it is, Mrs Gloss. We’ll have to make a report, of course...” He paused. “The lady’s shoes, by the way—they don’t seem to be here.”
“Why should they be? People don’t take shoes to the laundry.”
“No, of course not.” He left it at that.
They walked back to the house, where the policemen declined Mrs Gloss’s offer of a cup of tea “or something”. She promised to telephone as soon as the car was collected by its owner, and stood between them at the porch to give the arm of each a parting squeeze.
“Funny,” ruminated Palethorp on their way back to the station, “how you can be wrong about somebody. I thought at first she was going to be very upstage. ‘Orficer’, he mimicked, remembering. “Yet she turned out quite nice, really.”
Brevitt loudly sucked air between his lip and a couple of teeth in an attempt to dislodge a remnant of breakfast bacon. “I know what she wants...” He explored the teeth with the tip of his tongue while he reached for the pocket in which his match end was kept. “...and I don’t reckon I’d mind giving it her, either.”
Palethorpe took his eyes off the road long enough to give Brevitt a look of wondering disapproval.
In the lounge of Aleister Lodge, Mrs Gloss poured herself a tumbler of wine, drank a quarter of it and carried the rest to where a plum-coloured telephone stood in a window embrasure. She dialled a Flaxborough number.
“Have you,” she asked someone she addressed as Amy, “any idea of where our prize-winner got to last night? After the presentation, I mean.”
Amy said she personally had been too busy searching for a lost recorder to notice the comings and goings of others, but why the concern?
“She has not collected her motor-car and some policemen have called about it.”
This evinced an awed echo of the word “policemen”. Mrs Gloss described the visit in greater detail.
“Of course I remember she was there at roll-call,” Amy said slowly after a pause, “and I did see her taking part in the last dance before my instrument was mislaid but... Oh, dear, I wish I could be more helpful. I suppose she could not have...”
“Yes?” prompted Mrs Gloss.
“Well, gone home with... You know—afterwards, I mean...”
“Now that is out of the question. Completely and utterly.”
Amy had to agree. She suggested two or three alternative escorts. Mrs Gloss said she would call them. She did not sound enthusiastic.
When she had rung off, she poured more wine and propped herself against a pile of cushions in the largest armchair. Soon there entered the room a cinnamon-coloured cat so plump that it appeared to be wearing an extra fur. It crossed the carpet with a condescending waddle and heaved itself up beside Mrs Gloss.
“Hello, Hecate,” said Mrs Gloss. She rubbed the cat’s chin and gazed at its all but closed eyes.
“And where the devil has Sister Edna flown off to, eh?”
For a second, Hecate opened topaz eyes wide and stopped purring. Then it settled again into somnolent contemplation of Mrs Gloss.
Chapter Three
“If Lucillite is in your home, I’ve brough good news from Dixon-Frome!”
Detective Inspector Purbright looked at the apparition on his doorstep and tried to relate it to the more familiar aspects of life in Tetford Drive at a quarter to nine on a Friday morning.
Standing before him was a young woman dressed in a costume of what appeared to be white plastic. Basically a doublet, tightly belted and flaring below the waist, the garment was stiffened at the shoulders into what Purbright could only compare to aeroplane engine cowlings. From these a short cape hung at the girl’s back. She wore white tights and white plastic boots and carried a white plastic satchel.
“You’re not Supergirl?” inquired the inspector, with what he judged to be the appropriate blend of humility and hopefulness.
For reply, the girl pointed to her chest. The name LUCILLITE in pale blue lettering was surrounded by a representation of golden rays.
“Have you got the three packets like the advert said on telly?” asked the girl. Her large, very earnest eyes made the question sound extremely important.
Purbright abashedly shook his head.
“You sure? I mean, you’ll not get the Gift, unless. Hadn’t you better ask the wife?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think that would do any good. We don’t happen to have bought any”—he glanced again at her name-plate—“Lucillite”.
“What, not the Introductory Offer?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Don’t you want the Gift?”
“Perhaps the opportunity will come again one day.” Purbright smiled and edged back in preparation for shutting the door.
“But the Lucies are only here for today. We go on to some other roads tomorrow.”
“Lucies?”
“Yes—us.” The girl gestured towards the road. Purbright stepped out from the doorway and saw with something of a shock that his caller was but one unit of a whole cadre. Girls in exactly similar garments were standing at doors, opening and shutting gates, or staring up at windows from one end of Tetford Drive to the other. The scene had something about it comparable with the discovery of the overnight infestation of one’s garden by a colony of cabbage whites, creatures individually engaging but collectively intimidating.
“I tell you what,” said the girl. “Never mind about the packets—see if you can get the answer to one of the Simple Questions.”
Purbright looked at his watch. “I think I’d rather finish my breakfast, if it’s all the same to you.”
The girl treated this observation with the indifference it deserved. She glanced at a card she had taken from her tunic pocket and recited carefully: