“That one, sir. It’s mine.”
Purbright watched him point to the set that Booker had laid on the bench before him.
“That,” said Booker, “was in the possession of Holly. He was misbehaving and suffered the penalty. It is confiscated.”
“But it isn’t Holly’s, sir. He was just looking at it. It’s mine.”
“It is confiscated.”
“But, sir...”
“I really don’t see that I can put the matter any more plainly, Wagstaff. We all must pay for our transgressions. If you feel that you are the victim of injustice—and I cannot understand why you should—you will just have to thrash it out with your friend Holly.”
The boy stood a few moments longer in tearful perplexity, but Booker had swivelled round in his chair and was now staring thoughtfully at Mr Hive, who had abandoned his posture of grief and was searching for something. Wagstaff took a last lingering look at his radio and slouched away.
“Where’s my camera?” demanded Mr Hive, a little sobered by alarm.
Mr Hideaway and Mr Barnstaple looked under chairs. Mr O’Toole shrugged and picked at one of his back teeth with his little fingernail. “Now what’s he want?” the headmaster inquired irritably of Mr Booker.
Hive began to feel through his pockets.
“He says he’s lost his camera.”
“I saw no camera,” said Mr Clay. “He was carrying a sort of suitcase when we were in that hotel.”
“He hasn’t got it now.”
“Well I cannot help that. He must be got out of the school. I rely on you to see to it. Oh, and Booker...a word with you before assembly in the morning, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Mr Clay turned away and put a hand on Purbright’s arm. “A little refreshment before you leave, Inspector? One of Mrs Wilson’s excellent concoctions is doubtless awaiting us in the common room.”
The headmaster herded into the corridor all his guests save Mr Hive. He, watched by Booker from the doorway, continued for several minutes to wander up and down, peering under desks.
“You must have left it in the pub.”
Hive stood still. “Pub?” He looked immensely grateful. Even the most mystifying losses could, he knew, be made good if only one could find again the right pub.
“The Three Crowns,” said Booker. “Just around the corner. I’ll show you.”
At the gates of the school, Booker pointed to a street lamp about twenty yards away that marked the opening of a narrow lane. “In that lane. You’ll see it as soon as you get to the corner.”
Hive strode off resolutely towards his objective. Some small trouble with one of his legs gave him a tendency to veer off course, but he corrected this at intervals so that his progress was a series of arcs. Booker watched him reach the corner lamp, swing round it twice and shoot off at a nicely judged tangent into the lane’s mouth.
The barmaid at the Three Crowns showed great concern on hearing of the loss of Mr Hive’s case. She even left the bar long enough to search beneath every table, parting the customers’ legs as though they were stems of undergrowth. Hive hovered close by, and gained some compensation from his new and very advantageous viewpoint of the girls’ bosom. Of the camera, however, there was no sign.
Hive loitered only for one double brandy before making his way back to the school gates. These he was chagrined to find locked. He shook them and shouted several times, but to no avail. He tried to climb one of the gates and succeeded only in getting one shoe wedged in some scrollwork. By the time he had unlaced it, withdrawn his foot, extricated the shoe and put it on again, all notion of getting back into the school had evaporated. Camera or no camera, the task of the night was waiting to be done. A man of resource could be disarmed but never dismayed. Have at them, Hive! Forward to...to...Ah, yes—Hambourne Dyke—Forward to Hambourne Dyke! (First left after level crossing, second cottage, bedroom at back, window by water-barrel.) Moment of truth. Moment of Hive!
He lurched from the gates and returned at a lumbering, weaving trot to the cobbled yard of the Three Crowns.
For nearly ten minutes, the customers within heard the spasmodic labour of a starter motor gradually become slower and feebler as it vainly contended with the engine of an elderly car from which the distributor had been removed.
Chapter Seven
“Looks like number three. It looks very like number three.”
Such was Sergeant Malley’s comment the following morning—made not gleefully but with a certain sense of relief—when the constable on switchboard duty rang through to tell him that a lady had just been found dead in Brompton Gardens. Fate, the sergeant knew from his long experience, worked in triples. Waiting for the completion of each set always made him fidgetty: it was like straining an ear to catch the note necessary for a perfect cadence.
“Not likely to be a natural causes, is it?”
“I don’t think so, sergeant. The woman who rang in said something about the body being in some water.”
“What, in a bath, you mean?”
“No...” The constable’s voice faltered. “In a well, actually.”
“A well! In Brompton Gardens?”
“That’s what I thought she said. Harper and Fairclough have gone over there. I expect they’ll be able to tell you more about it.”
“Have you got the name?”
“It’s a lady called Mrs Palgrove.”
“Good lord,” said Malley, “it isn’t!”
He went along at once to Inspector Purbright’s office.
“Guess who’s been found down a well.”
Purbright looked up wearily from a file that was beginning to show signs of long and fruitless perusal. “Some bloody charity organizer, I expect. That would be all I needed.”
For a moment Malley gaped, as at a miraculously speaking statue. Then his expression was restored to plump, bland normality, tinged with disappointment. “Oh, so you’ve heard already.”
“Heard? Heard what?”
“This business about a woman in a well. It’s Mrs Palgrove. ‘Pally’ Palgrove’s missus. Brompton Gardens.”
“Good God!”
“Well, when you said...”
“That?—no—I was just being...Here, you’re sure about this?” Purbright was on his feet.
“We’ve only had a phone report up to now. It seems right, though. A couple of the lads have gone to the house.”
The inspector pulled his coat straight and picked up a packet of cigarettes from the desk. “I think we’d better join them. I’ll want Sergeant Love as well. See if he’s in the canteen, will you, Bill?”
Purbright drove the car. It was one of a pair reserved for journeys within the borough boundaries. Both were black, stately, and second-hand. The upholstery was real leather. Grey silk blinds with fringes could be drawn down over the rear windows. The highly burnished radiator of each car was surmounted by a temperature gauge like a little monument. Among the Flaxborough policemen the cars were known as The Widows. Purbright had chosen the one less favoured by the chief constable; its smell of Yorkshire terrier was not so strong.