Purbright levered himself out of his chair. “It there’s nothing else, sir...”
The door opened a little way and Mrs Chubb’s rubicund face appeared. “I think,” said directly to Purbright, “that there may be one cup left in the pot, Mr er...”
The inspector raised his hand with the polite dignity of a man declining an earldom, “No, ma’am, really. But thank you all the same.” He began puling papers into his briefcase.
Mrs Chubb’s smile faded. “It’s very cold outside,” she said.
Purbright felt vaguely that he had failed to discharge some sort of obligation. He sallowed and sought a suitable platitude with which Mrs Chubb might be recompensed.
Seizing on the first that came to mind, “A very nice old table,” he murmured, appreciatively stroking the elaborate and hideous graving of its brass top.
Reaction was unexpected. “You shall have it, Mr er...” Mrs Chubb instantly and warmly proclaimed.
“Oh, no...really...”
“We insist.” She looked imperiously at her husband. “Don’t we, Harcourt?”
Mr Chubb made a vague noise suggestive of assent.
“As a matter of fact,” his wife continued pleasantly, “we aren’t all that fond of it ourselves—polishing brass isn’t my idea of pleasure—so Mr Chubb has been after a replacement. There was one he went to see the other week, but he left it until rather late in the evening and it had gone. It sounded awfully attractive in the advert.—Japanese ebony, or something, I think it was—do you remember, Harcourt?”
Mr Chubb stared gravely at his nails, then at the ceiling. “Sorry, my dear...it’s gone clean out of my head.”