“The husband and a girl friend?”
“The inference is invited, certainly.”
“She could have been snooping on them.”
“It’s more likely that he was careless over some telephone conversation. As you probably noticed, he has a very penetrating voice.”
“Are you going to tackle him about the letter?”
“It will have to be put to him sooner or later.”
“And the girl friend? If there is one.”
“Ah, now that’s a question that must be pursued straight away. And very diligently.”
Love seemed to have run out of observations. Humming quietly to himself, he wandered round the room. He paused by the cocktail cabinet, tempted to set it playing its tinkly music again. Better not. He examined the opulently tubed television set, fashioned in mock Jacobean. Over to the window. Nice curtains. Very nice. If he had a house like this he’d not want to spoil everything by murdering somebody. Whatever got into people to...
“What I cannot for the life of me understand,” said Purbright, “is what good she thought this letter was going to do her. She didn’t even sign it, and she obviously changed her mind about enclosing a photograph.”
“Yes, but doesn’t it say something about writing again?”
“True. Soon I shall send you details of how you can help. A coroner. A chief constable. A newspaper editor. Why those three? Why not just the chief constable? He seems the most appropriate, in the circumstances.”
“We don’t know that she didn’t send letters to other people,” Love said. “Maybe they just threw them away. I should.”
Purbright turned and regarded him sternly. “A fine confession from a detective sergeant.”
“Well, you must admit she sounds nutty.”
“Oh, I do,” said Purbright. He swung round again and began leafing through some letters and copies of letters that he had found. Love settled himself into an armchair and gazed dreamily out of the window. Five minutes went by.
“Hello,” the inspector said suddenly, “here’s an old friend.” He separated a sheet of paper from the rest and leaned back to study it. “Remember Miss Teatime, Sid?”
“What, the old girl from London?”
“Don’t make her sound decrepit; she’s fifty-two, actually, I believe. And very well preserved.”
Love pouted dubiously but did not argue: the inspector, he happened to know, was fifty-one. “What’s she been up to now?”
“Sabotaging a dog shelter, if we are to believe Mrs Palgrove. Mrs P seems to have sent her one of those if-the-cap-fits letters.”
“She’s pretty hot on letter-writing. Was, rather.”
“How long has Miss Teatime been concerned with Good Works, Sid?”
“No idea. All I heard was that she’d taken some sort of secretarial job in St Anne’s Gate. They reckon she has private means.”
“It’s a very sharp letter,” Purbright. said, thoughtfully. “Listen...It may be of interest to know that certain information has reached me privately concerning the disposal of funds raised not a hundred miles from here in the name of so-called ‘charity’. I am reluctant to pass this information to the authorities, but I shall not hesitate to do so if the need arises?”
“You did mention,” said Love, after a pause, “that Miss Teatime is well preserved...”
“Oh, come, Sid—you mustn’t jump too far ahead. Anyway”—he looked at the date on the letter—”this was only written yesterday. It wouldn’t have reached the lady until this morning—always assuming that it was posted at all.”
Love listened, but not very attentively. He pursued his theme. “She was more than a match for that chap over at Benstone, remember.” 1
They heard the thrum of an approaching sports car.
“Pally’s back, by the sound of it,” said Love.
1 related in Lonelyheart 4122
Chapter Ten
The news of Henrietta Palgrove’s untimely end had coursed by mid-day to the furthest tendrils of the Flaxborough social grapevine. And within three hours of Dr Fergusson’s laying down his scalpel, and trotting fussily to the telephone, there had followed along those same mysteriously efficient channels the assertion that she had died of a felonious up-ending.
Not everyone believed it. Such stories had gone the rounds before and had proved to be the sanguine embroideries of a succession of citizens devoted to the dogma of No Smoke Without Fire. Scepticism was greatest in the immediate neighbourhood of Dunroamin. The Palgroves’ fellow residents were not to be deceived by the arrival of the police, an ambulance, nor even a detachment of firemen. They recognized in this latest rumour yet another malicious attempt to depress property values in the area and were ready to combat it.
It was only to be expected, then, that detectives Pooke and Broadleigh should find not a single householder in Brompton Gardens who could recall anything heard or seen during the past twenty-four hours that might have a bearing on what they all persisted in calling ‘poor Mrs Palgrove’s accident’.
Nor was anyone unwary enough to admit knowledge of any aspect of the Palgroves’ private life that did not reflect credit on both partners. They were comfortably off. They were quiet. One or both went, it was thought, to church. Their lawns were kept mown. What more could be desired of neighbours?
“We’re just wasting our time; you know that, don’t you?” Broadleigh said at last to Pooke as he closed behind them the gate of Red Gables.
Pooke said he did know, he’d had experience of this lot before.
“It’s the tradesmen we ought to be talking to,” said Broadleigh. “Especially the ones who haven’t been paid for a bit. They’re the boys for information.”
“Not half,” Pooke said.
They crossed the road and sauntered slowly towards their final call, the house next door to Dunroamin.
A boy with a deep canvas bag of newspapers slung from one shoulder emerged from a drive further back. He hurried after the two men, staring fixedly at their backs. He reached them just as Pooke was stooping to open a gate.
“You policemen?” the boy asked, not disrespectfully.
They viewed him carefully, up and down, keeping their distance. Then, having decided apparently that he was neither wired nor fused, they nodded to signify that he might speak again.
The boy did so. “You asking questions about that lady that got drowned?” He jerked his head. “Next door?”
“We might be,” said Broadleigh, limbering up his jaw muscles a little.
From Pooke: “Why? What can you tell us about it, son?” He made his voice friendly.
The boy swallowed and gave his bag a hitch. “Just that they were having a row last night.”
“Who?”
“Her and her old man.”