“When does she expect him back?”
“Some time this morning, she thinks.”
“All right. Well, at least we know why he isn’t here. Look, Mr Harper, you’d better get over to Can-flax and wait around in case Palgrove goes straight to his office. Break things to him gently and tell him there’ll be somebody here waiting.”
Sergeant Love was going slowly round the well, examining it. He tried to turn the crank. It was fixed, make-believe like the bucket and the few links of chain and all the rest.
“What a swizz!” said Love. Fairclough eyed him with disapproval.
“You didn’t think it was real, did you, Sid?” Purbright perched himself carefully on the edge of the wall and peered into the water. The fish, agitated, crossed and recrossed in sudden darts and swoops.
“How do you think it happened?” Purbright asked.
“She must have leaned too far over, I suppose.” Love was still suffering disenchantment.
Malley, who had been silently filling his pipe, stowed the tobacco pouch into the breast pocket of his already over-occupied tunic and lowered himself to a kneeling position against the wall. He craned forward experimentally.
“She’d have a job,” he said. “Bloody hard on the belly, this edge is.”
“Supposing your hands slipped now, Bill, wouldn’t your head and perhaps your shoulders go under?”
“Aye, they might just for a second. But I could easily enough yank them out again. Look—as long as you’ve the weight of your legs on this side of the wall, you’re anchored: you can get your head up any time you like, then push yourself back—like this.” With a heave, and some very laboured breathing, Malley lumbered to his feet.
The demonstration, though ponderous, seemed reasonable. Purbright nodded. “Then why,” he said a little later, “didn’t Mrs Palgrove push herself back?” He turned to Fairclough. “It was only the upper part of her body that was in the water, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right, sir. The lady was sort of jack-knifed across the wall. One half each side.” He took a step nearer. “I could show you if you like, sir.”
“Oh no, you needn’t do that; I quite see what you mean.” Purbright nearly added a pleasantry about the superfluity of another inquest, Malley having collected his set, but decided not to risk hurting Fairclough’s feelings.
Malley put a match to his pipe. “There’s only one explanation that I can think of...”
“Heart attack,” put in Love, eager to score.
Malley shrugged and puffed smoke. “It does happen. And she looks overweight, poor soul.”
Purbright tried not to look too pointedly at the considerable girth of the coroner’s officer, but Love was less delicate: he stared at Malley’s belly with pretended alarm.
“Don’t worry, son,” Malley told him. “I don’t go out feeding goldfish in the middle of the night.”
The inspector frowned. “Middle of the night?”
“Well, it must have been dark, anyway. The lads saw this at the bottom and raked it out.” Malley pulled away a corner of the blanket to reveal a battery lantern. When Purbright picked it up, water dripped from its casing.
“Was there anything else down there?”
“We only saw that flashlight,” Fairclough said, “but we didn’t make what you might call a proper search, sir.”
“No. Naturally.” Purbright looked back towards the road. He had glimpsed flashes of blue light through the leaves. “Here’s the ambulance now.”
Accompanying the two uniformed ambulance attendants who marched woodenly across the lawn linked by their stretcher was an alert little man with a bronzed bald head. He came tut-tutting up to Purbright and said well, he didn’t know, he was sure. The inspector was put in mind of an electrician impatiently responding to the call of some amateurish fool who’d blown a fuse.
Doctor Fergusson set down his bag, knelt and peeled back the blanket. He tutted a few more times and set fingers lightly exploring. “Dearie me; dearie, dearie me!” Then, over his shoulder to Purbright: “What the dickens had she been up to?”
“I really wouldn’t know, doctor.”
“You wouldn’t. No. Ay-ay-ay-ay... Well, there it is.” He rose, brushing his trousers, and made a sign to the ambulance men.
“Who’ll be doing the P.M., doctor?” Malley asked.
“Oh, Reynolds, probably. If he’s not too tied up. Otherwise...” Fergusson shrugged and picked up his bag. “I’ll be off then, gentlemen.” And he was.
“It’s all right,” Malley confided to Purbright. “Fergie’ll do it the minute they unload the wagon. He’s like a kid in the bath when he gets into that path, lab.” He patted his cap more firmly on his head and turned to follow the retreating stretcher party.
The inspector told Fairclough to remain where he was for the time being. He and Love began to walk back to the house.
They had almost reached the door when something small and hairy rocketted out of the shrubbery, yapped hysterically for several seconds, then attached itself by its teeth to Love’s leg. It was Rodney.
Love hopped, kicked and swore, simultaneously and with a vigour of which Purbright had not suspected him capable, but the dog hung on. The inspector came to his aid. He gripped Rodney’s neck just behind the clamped jaws, prised the animal away, and held it at arm’s length.
“Now what do I do with it for God’s sake?”
Love was too busy massaging his calf to offer suggestions. Purbright looked about him helplessly, a Perseus wondering how to dispose safely of the head of some diminutive Gorgon. He glanced up. Almost immediately overhead was the open casement window of one of the bedrooms. It seemed to offer the only hope. He made two preparatory swings, then immediately sent his arm round again, shutting his eyes and releasing his grip at the same moment. He heard a diminuendo of yapping as Rodney went aloft, succeeded by sustained but mercifully muffled sounds of frenzy.
Love, who had not seen the manner of his deliverance, straightened up and stared incredulously at the inspector. “Where the hell has it gone?”
Purbright assumed his modest-athlete expression. “Into orbit, I fancy.” He pushed open the front door and went into the house.
Chapter Eight
“Is that Dover?” asked Mr Hive. There was no immediate reply. He heard the racketty noise transmitted by a telephone when it is laid down on something hard. Then there came other sounds, one of them suggestive of a closing door.
“Hastings, I suppose?”
“Correct,” said Mr Hive.
“Look, I did tell you not to ring at lunch-time. It’s not convenient.”
“Yes, I’m sorry—but I thought you’d want to be told as soon as possible about something rather disastrous.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well—last night, naturally. I mean, contretemps is scarcely the word. As if it weren’t enough to have my camera stolen and my car sabotaged...”