“I suppose so. When?”
“It’s stupid of me not to have mentioned it earlier, but I believe he hoped you would call this morning. Look, if you’ve nothing urgent on hand you can come over with me now.”
Lintz shrugged and reached down his hat and coat.
As he followed the inspector down the narrow, uncarpeted stairs, he asked: “Who’s this Sergeant Malley, anyway?”
“He’s the Coroner’s Officer,” replied Purbright, “and the best baritone in the county, they tell me. You don’t happen to be a singer, do you, sir?”
“No,” said Lintz, “I don’t.”
Chapter Two
Limtz found Sergeant Malley awaiting him in the dark, file-cluttered little office that served as a clearing house for Flaxborough’s uncertificated deaths.
The Coroner’s Officer was florid, fat, catarrhal and kindly. He greeted the editor rather in the manner of a butcher anxious to placate a good customer for whom he had forgotten to reserve some kidneys.
“A bit of a nuisance, but there it is,” he said comfortingly as he turned a sheet of fresh paper into the typewriter before him. “Now, sir, this is what the Coroner will have to refer to when you give your evidence tomorrow. What he’ll do is just to ask the questions to guide you into saying the same as you’re going to say now. Compree?”
Lintz replied somewhat coolly that he knew the procedure at inquests and was ready to help the sergeant prepare his deposition.
Malley began to type the formal introduction to the statement, muttering as he jabbed the keys and backspacing now and then to correct an error with vicious superimposition. The machine seemed to have the durability of a pile-driver.
“First he’ll want you to say when you last saw your uncle alive. When will that have been, sir?”
“About six o’clock yesterday evening. I drove him back from the office in my car and left him at his home soon afterwards.”
Malley attacked the typewriter again. “I drove...deceased...”
Lintz gazed round the tiny office and nibbled, quite fastidiously, the corner of a finger nail.
“And how did Mr Gwill strike you then, sir? In what sort of health, would you say?”
“The same as usual. I didn’t notice anything wrong with him.”
Malley thought about this and fed his own version into the machine. “...usual good health...” he murmured. Then: “I suppose he’d never given you cause to expect he might do anything a bit rash?”
“That he might commit suicide, you mean?”
“Well, you could put it that way. Had he been depressed? Worried?”
“If he had, he didn’t confide in me.”
“Perhaps not, sir. But you could have formed an opinion of your own about his general mood.”
Malley, Lintz realized, was neither as simple as he looked nor likely to leave questions half answered for the sake of peace. “My uncle was never particularly cheerful,” he conceded. “He was an easily irritated man.”
“And had he been more touchy in recent weeks, or months?”
“For the last half year or so, yes, I think he had.”
“But you know of no special reason for that?”
“None. I didn’t share his life at all outside the office and things have run perfectly smoothly there.”
“No bereavements of any kind, sir? Relatives? Friends?”
Lintz shook his head.
“Neighbours?” the sergeant persisted.
Lintz frowned, then gave one of his lop-sided smiles. “Certainly a neighbour of his died a few months ago. It would be remarkable if one hadn’t. They’re nearly all over seventy round there.”
“Mr Carobleat wasn’t very old, sir?”
“I really couldn’t say.”
“Were they friendly, he and your uncle?”
“They were next-door neighbours.”
“Nothing beyond that?”
“I don’t know.” Lintz knew the effectiveness of an unqualified negative.
“What it all amounts to, then, is that Mr Gwill appeared rather moodier than usual over the past six months but that he didn’t tell you what was on his mind. Can I put it like that, sir?”
“For what it’s worth, yes.”
Malley nodded and began to type again. At the end of a few more lines he read back to himself all he had put down so far. He looked up at Lintz. “I’m not sure there’s much more you can say that would help.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Of course, there’s the identification. We might as well add that now.” The onslaught on the typewriter was resumed. “...a body...been shown...now identify...”
Lintz felt he might be permitted a question for a change. “What sort of a verdict is possible in a case like this?”
Malley shrugged. “I can’t say what view the Coroner will take, of course, sir,” he replied guardedly. “He’ll sit without a jury, otherwise heaven knows what the verdict would be. Last week, a bunch wanted to return ‘found drowned’ on a bloke who propped himself up against the harbour wall with half a pint of disinfectant inside him.”
“And the Coroner?”
“Oh, Mr Amblesby, you know, sir. Quite a character.” Malley left Lintz to interpret that for himself.
“The inspector came round to see me this morning. That’s a little unusual, isn’t it?”
“Bless you, no, sir.” Malley seemed amused. “Mr Purbright’s a conscientious gentleman. But you mustn’t go thinking he’s Scotland Yard or something. It’s just that we have to look into these things, that’s all.”
Lintz did not pursue the point. “Anything more you want to ask me, sergeant?” He offered a cigarette.
“I don’t think so, sir.” Malley accepted a light and pushed across the paper he had pulled from the typewriter. “Read it over and see if you can think of anything we ought to add.”
Both men smoked in silence a while. Then Lintz drew out a fountain pen and signed the statement without further comment.
“Oh, there’s one other thing while you’re here, sir.” Malley was heaving himself from his chair. “You’d better take these now and sign for them.”
He groped along a shelf high on the wall and reached down a canvas bag. Carefully he shook its contents on to the desk. “We took these from his pockets,” he explained.
Lintz saw two or three envelopes, a little money, keys and a few other oddments. The sergeant gave the canvas a final shake. Unexpectedly, a paper bag hit the desk and burst, scattering several white, round objects soundlessly over its surface. Lintz picked one up, felt and sniffed at it. “Marshmallow,” he said, lamely.
“Oh, that’s what they are.” Malley peered at the sweets and took an envelope from a drawer. “I’d better put them in this.” He sat down and gathered the marshmallows into a pile.
When Lintz had pushed the filled envelope with the other things into his overcoat pocket he wrote his name quickly on the slip the sergeant had handed him and stood up.