“What about one for us, duckie?” the cook called out.
“Yes, do!”
“Go on, Miss T!”
Miss Teatime smiled demurely and gazed out of the window for inspiration. Purbright sidled into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. No one noticed his arrival.
“Very well,” said Miss Teatime. She folded her hands in her lap. “This is a story of the mysterious Orient. It was told me by my uncle—the missionary one, you remember—and I venture to think that you will find it as strange a tale as any to have come out of those fascinating lands.
“It concerns a poor Arab by the name of Mahmoud. One day, this Arab was crossing the great Gobi desert. He was too poor to own a camel and so he was making the journey on foot.
“Now perhaps I should explain that the place in the desert where these extraordinary events occurred was many miles from any human settlement, many miles, indeed, from the nearest oasis.
“Anyway, there was Mahmoud, patiently making his way over the endless dunes and thinking perhaps of the cup of refreshing sherbet that awaited him at journey’s end in some shady kasbah, when suddenly his big toe struck against an object in the sand. The Arab stopped and bent down, groping about in the sand where he had last put his foot. He drew something out. And do you know what it was?”
Miss Teatime paused and looked from one to another of her audience. In silence they shook their heads.
“A cricket ball!
“Poor Mahmoud stared in wonder. Allah caravamerie baksheesh! And he went on his way.
“But he had not travelled very much farther when he received in the big toe of his other foot a sensation exactly the same as before. He stopped. He bent down. He groped about. And again he drew something from the sand. Yes...another cricket ball! He stared in even greater wonder. Allah-caravanserie baksheesbbakar! And the Arab continued upon his journey.
“But he had not taken more than another twenty paces when yet again his foot encountered an object hidden in the sand. He stopped. He bent down. He groped about. He drew something from the sand...”
Miss Teatime leaned forward a fraction. She raised her brows questioningly at her audience.
“Another cricket ball?” offered the youngest of the nurses.
“Oh, no...” Miss Teatime sat back again in her chair. “A castrated cricket.”
Purbright waited until the cook, the nurses and the house-mothers had gone about their duties. Then he rose and crossed the room to where Miss Teatime was now seated at a table in the window bay, preparing to stitch a rent in a limp and grubby teddy bear. She looked up.
“Why, inspector! How very nice to see you!”
Purbright took her extended hand and made a short bow. He drew up another chair to the table and sat facing her.
“I’m told you are liable to be swooped upon by some committee or other”—he saw her wince resignedly—“so I’ll be very policemanlike and come straight to the point.”
“By all means.” Miss Teatime drew a length of cotton from a reel, snapped it expertly and at the second attempt piloted its end into her needle.
“Perhaps you have heard already of the death of Mrs Henrietta Palgrove. She was drowned the night before last in the garden of her home.”
“I did know, yes. A shocking affair. It has been quite widely discussed, of course.”
“I imagine so. She would be well known among social workers, committee members—people like that.”
“Certainly.” Miss Teatime pierced the teddy bear’s threadbare hide with the needle. “She was an exceptionally active lady, was Mrs Palgrove.”
“It might be argued,” said Purbright, “that active people are more liable to make enemies than the passive ones. Or would it be wildly unreasonable to expect this to apply in the field of good works?”
Miss Teatime raised a shrewd eye from her work. “I think you know as well as I do, inspector, that there is no more fertile soil for the burgeoning of homicide.”
“You shock me, Miss Teatime.”
“Oh no, I do not. You would not be here now if your thoughts had not been following the same line.”
“You mustn’t make too much of this. The person who killed Mrs. Palgrove is very clearly indicated by the evidence. I’ve no doubt that that person will be arrested and charged quite soon. But every other possibility must be examined thoroughly in the meantime.”
Miss Teatime drew taut the thread of another stitch. “And am I one of the other possibilities, inspector?” She was smiling.
“You received a letter yesterday from Mrs Palgrove.”
“That is correct. Have you read it?—Oh, yes, you must have done. I suppose a copy was in what I believe are called the effects of the deceased.”
“It was a very threatening letter, Miss Teatime.”
She shrugged lightly. “I can see that you are not accustomed to handling the correspondence of charitable societies, Mr Purbright. If one took seriously every hint of nefarious goings-on, one would have no time left for the collection of funds. And what would our animals do then, poor things?”
“There is no truth, I take it, in the suggestion that there has been misappropriation of funds.”
“None, of course. It is misapprehension, not misappropriation, that bedevils the work of charities. People do not realize how high is the cost of administration nowadays. Modern conditions demand the employment of all sorts of expensive devices—promotion campaigns, the public relations consultant, accountants, the business efficiency expert—even computers. My goodness, inspector, there is a great deal more to it than waving a collecting box. Which”—she raised a finger and smiled sweetly—“reminds me...”
She put the teddy bear aside and went to the fireplace, on the mantel of which was a box. She brought the box back and set it between them. “Just my little charge for allowing you to interview me!”
Purbright grinned and found some coins to drop in the box.
“Purely as a formality, Miss Teatime—you do understand that—could you just tell me where you were on the night of the twelfth—the night before last, that is? From ten o’clock onward, say.”
Her eyes widened. “In bed, inspector. Where else?”
He smiled. “It clearly would be impertinent of me to ask of whom I might seek corroboration of that.”
“Not in the least; I should take it as a compliment.” Her gaze saddened a little and fell. “But no, I have left things rather late. To tell the truth, it is regarding the physical side of marriage that I have always been apprehensive.”
He nodded, sympathetically.
“There so seldom seems to be enough of it,” said Miss Teatime.
She consulted a small silver dress watch. “Dear me, I fear that committee will be bearing down at any moment. Is there any other matter in which I may try and help you, inspector?”
His offer of a cigarette having met with a maidenly refusal, Purbright lit one himself and asked: