“Was it light enough for you to see that?”
“Oh, yes. You’d be surprised how bright it is out in the open, even quite late.” Leaper’s tone indicated pity for the inspector’s lack of experience.
“Would you say that the window was the kind that opens? You know, like a transome window, hinged at the top, that you can push outwards?”
“That’s right. It was like that.”
“So it would have been possible to put your hand through the hole in the glass, unfasten that little bar thing with holes along it, and pull the window open?”
Leaper scowled. “I didn’t touch it.”
“I know you didn’t,” said Purbright patiently. “I just want to know if anybody else could have done so.”
“No reason why not.”
“Right. Now you said something about a shelf, or fixed table.”
“Just under the window, yes. There’d been bottles and things on it the first time. Not when I saw it again, though.”
“What was on it the second time? Anything?”
“It looked like a box. I could only make out the shape. Like a shoe box.”
“A parcel, do you think? In paper and string?”
The youth considered. “I didn’t notice if it was wrapped up. The light wasn’t all that good.” He looked defensively at Purbright, who smiled and said never mind, he’d been remarkably observant and without doubt would be most successful in his chosen career.
“Oh, there’s just one other thing, Mr Leaper”—for the second time in his life Leaper was warmed by a respectful form of address and he helpfully perked his head—“Did you happen to meet or see anyone on either of the nights when you went out to Mr Biggadyke’s caravan? Apart from the lady, of course.”
“I didn’t see anyone the second time. Not as to remember.”
“And the first time?”
‘Kebble’s boy’ hesitated for only a moment before replying: “I did meet someone then. It must have been nearly midnight. I met Mr Hoole.”
The subject of this confidence, Purbright noticed, was no longer in the office. Kebble, alone, was sharpening a pencil with slow deliberation. As each shaving fell he picked it from his waistcoat and dropped it into an ashtray. Purbright walked across and sat in the chair lately vacated by Hoole. Kebble grinned at him and shut the penknife with his perilous palm-sweeping action.
“Like some coffee?” The editor squeezed out of his seat and went to a door marked Ladies. “Put an extra cup on, ducky,” he shouted at its handle.
Nearing his desk once more, he accepted one of Purbright’s cigarettes. As he was lighting it, he made with his free hand a gesture of sudden recollection and smokily announced: “Something to show you, old chap; hang on.” He bobbed down and Purbright heard a drawer open.
“This,” said Kebble, handing him a sheet of paper on which was pasted a cutting, “went in last week’s issue. What do you make of it?”
Purbright read the five lines of verse, then shrugged. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“It’s an ‘In Memoriam’. At least, it was sent in as one. There was no name or address given but the money came with it so we printed it. I thought it was a bit odd; there seemed no harm in it, though.” He paused and added: “Now I’m not so sure.”
Purbright read the cutting again more slowly. He heard Kebble say: “Look at the date.”
“July the first.”
Kebble nodded. “The day Biggadyke blew himself up.”
“Do you mean you think he sent this in himself? A suicide proclamation, as it were?”
“What, Stan? Poetry?” The editor’s voice sounded like a skidding car.
“But you do suggest a connection?”
Kebble hitched his chair forward in a businesslike way and turned the paper sideways so that they both could read it. “I don’t know if you ever look at these ‘In Memoriam’ things,” he said, “but you can take it from me that this one’s a bit out of the ordinary. For a start, it doesn’t make sense—not that all the others do, for that matter, but at least people know what’s meant by ‘Sleep on, dear father’ provided the bloody printer hasn’t left the comma out, which has happened before now, incidentally. Then the number of lines is odd. Listen...” He intoned, with exaggerated emphasis on metre:
“The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink di-vine.
There’ll be that dark pa-rade
Of tassels and of coaches soon:
It’s easy as a sign...
“Well—you see what I mean, old chap.”
Purbright thought he did. “The thing’s curiously disjointed, isn’t it? But modern verse often is.”
“Modern?” echoed Kebble. “Oh, no; it’s not modern—not with a ’doth’ in it.”
“It’s familiar, though, somehow.” Purbright closed his eyes and murmured several times: ‘The thirst that from the soul doth rise...’
“Hoole would know,” said Kebble, watching the inspector’s face. “I should have asked him just now. He’s an expert on poetry.”
“Something to do with school,” Purbright said, his eyes still closed. “A song, surely...”
His trance was broken by the arrival of Muriel. She placed on the desk the two brimming cups she had carried carefully and silently from the place of their concoction. Purbright sniffed and opened one eye. Then he sat suddenly upright. “Drink to me only!” he exclaimed.
Muriel glanced nervously at Kebble and departed.
Purbright pointed at the cutting. “That’s it. Drink to me only with thine eyes and I’ll not ask for wine—The thirst that from the soul doth rise doth ask a drink divine. The rest doesn’t belong. It’s from something else altogether. The final rhyme is fortuitous.”
“Then why have the two been stuck together?” Kebble asked.
“We can come back to that. For the moment I think we might consider them separately. You don’t happen to have any verse anthologies handy, do you?”
Kebble, suspecting irony, at first made no reply. Then he noticed that Purbright was looking at him expectantly. “I can send Leonard round to the library,” he offered. “It’s only in Fen Street.”
Leaper, flattered by his being dispatched on so extraordinary an errand, returned within quarter of an hour bearing half a dozen volumes.
“We’ll probably find the Ben Jonson in Palgrave,” said Purbright in a manner so suggestive of familiarity with such things that Kebble stared quite rudely at him for several seconds.
“Yes, here we are.” Purbright quickly scanned the whole poem. “There seems nothing significant in the rest of it. Now why were those two particular lines chosen? Thirst—a spiritual thirst. That might be longing, a regret for someone dead. It fits the context of an epitaph, anyway. A drink divine, though...What would that represent, do you think?”
“Brandy,” responded Kebble, without hesitation.
“It could be some sort of spiritualist cliche. Contact with the departed, you know.” He shook his head. “No, they would incline more to abstentionist metaphor.”