“I quite understand that, sir,” said Worple, unruffled. “Logic’s a great help, even in these days.” He paused to let Purbright make what he could of this obliquity and went on: “I thought you might be interested to know that wherever Mr Payne is he hasn’t taken his car. It was outside his shop.”
“Really?”
“Yes sir. You possibly have never noticed it yourself, but it’s quite an old-fashioned model with what they call a sunshine roof. A sliding panel in the top. I mention that because it explains something that has probably been puzzling you.”
Purbright relieved his feelings by glaring cross-eyed at the telephone mouthpiece and sticking out his tongue.
The unhurried, provocatively respectful voice droned on.
“You see, sir, it’s quite clear now that Mr Payne was able to fix his explosive devices on the statue and the shop sign by taking his car right up to the target, as you might call it, and standing up on the driving seat through the sunshine roof. It wouldn’t take him a minute; then he could sit down again and drive off. All unbeknown,” Worple added extravagantly.
“He could have used the same method to get over the park railings, couldn’t he, Sergeant?”
“Undoubtedly, sir.”
“Did the Chief Inspector work all that out?”
There was a brief silence. “He gave me that impression, sir.” Worple sounded like a man counting short change.
“Well, well. It does him credit. I’ll give you a call if there are any further developments at this end.”
It was some time after ten o’clock when the telephone rang for the fourth time.
“Purbright speaking.”
He heard a resonant click as the button in a public call box was pressed.
“It’s Payne here.”
Purbright swallowed. This he had not expected.
“Oh, yes, Mr Payne?” Did one deliver a formal caution when a man whose arrest one had been trying to contrive suddenly popped up on the telephone?
“Look,” the faint, strained voice was saying, “I rather feel I owe you something?”
“Yes?” I must sound like a deaf charlady offering to take a message, Purbright thought.
“I was going to leave you a note, but the idea seemed far from satisfactory. Awfully impersonal, and I’d probably have left out just the things you wanted to know...”
“Where are you speaking from, Mr Payne?”
“Where? Oh, I don’t think that matters, does it? You can hear me all right, I suppose.”
“Yes, I can hear you...” Purbright looked up to see Mrs Crispin, hatted and mildly Guinness-glad, closing the front door behind her. He beckoned and began writing quickly on the pad by the phone. She came and stood amiably at his side, like a lama waiting for a sugar lump.
“You know what happened, of course,” Payne was saying. “Those questions of yours last night were far too inspired to be passed off as what I believe policemen call routine inquiries. It was decent of you to give me a start like that, but I don’t want to get away. I don’t think I ever did, really. All that elaboration...oh, I can’t think why I bothered.”
“It was rather well done,” Purbright said quietly. He pulled the sheet from the pad with his free hand and gave it to Mrs Crispin. Her grin faded as she read the message. Then she glided with surprising speed off to the kitchen and squawked for Phyllis.
“The notice in the paper was silly, wasn’t it,” Payne said. He sounded tired and the words had a flat clumsiness like those of a man whose tongue is thickened with thirst. “I’m rather ashamed of it now. Pure exhibitionism. Criminals are supposed to find that sort of thing irresistable. Does justice become a crime when it’s put on a do-it-yourself basis? I don’t know...”
Purbright could hear fast, interrupted breathing, as if Payne was opening and closing his mouth, trying to find the right way to say something. Then, almost conversationally, Payne spoke again. “You know about Celia, I expect?”
“A certain amount. I’ve guessed, too. There was that photograph in your room.”
“It’s the only one I have. Old Grope took it a long time ago and let me have a print. He’s always been very decent to both of us. He used to send the kid along to the shop on some specious errand or other so that I could keep seeing her.”
Purbright glanced at his watch. “Tell me, Mr Payne...”
In the house next door Phyllis had replaced a phone and was trying to explain to its anxious owner the reasons (which she did not understand herself) for the 999 call she had just made.
At Fen Street Chief Inspector Larch was demanding from a night operator at Chalmsbury exchange the location of the kiosk connected with Chalmsbury 4116.
Within that kiosk, which Larch was about to be told was a few yards from the entrance to the municipal cemetery, a tall man clutching a parcel under his left arm bowed his head wearily as he listened to the question that was being put to him.
“How did I know?” he repeated. “By much the same process as Kebble’s young reporter adopted, I suppose. It wasn’t too difficult to establish Biggadyke’s habits. They were”—he smiled faintly in the dusk—“remarkably regular in their way.”
Again he listened. The man at the other end of the wire was asking something else and taking his time in doing so. Two minutes went by. Payne leaned against the side of the kiosk. Now and again he glanced at the parcel he held.
“You’re quite right,” he said. “Hilda told you about that call, did she? It seemed the most effective means of keeping her away that night. I only hope...”
He broke off and stared through the glass. The headlamp beams of an approaching car swept the roadside colonnade of trees fifty yards away, swung round and bore upon the kiosk. He heard the plunging tone of the engine as the driver braked.
Payne slammed the receiver clumsily on its rest, heaved open the door and ran for the cemetery drive. Larch and a uniformed constable raced after him.
The pursuit was short. After two turns along paths that he seemed to know well, Payne leaped a low box border hedge, took a few staggering steps across turf in which buttercups glimmered, and sank down upon a year-old grave. He clutched the parcel high up against his chest...Purbright was still holding the dead phone when the sound of the explosion reached him.