That evening Inspector Grime, at Powerscourt’s suggestion, was taking dinner with Lady Lucy at the Crown Hotel in Fakenham. The Inspector was wearing his best suit for the occasion. But he, like the headmaster, was in despair. He was not making any progress, he told her sadly. His principal suspect, Jude the stonemason, seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. The boys of Allison’s School would tell him nothing. His Chief Constable was making ominous noises, threatening, so Grime had heard on the grapevine, to take him off the case altogether. When Lady Lucy moved the conversation on to Inspector Grime himself, a sad picture emerged. His wife had died some years before. There had been no children. He had his aged mother living with him and her memory had gone, she was liable to wander off into the fields or on to the main road if she was not watched twenty-four hours a day. The Inspector paid a woman to look after the old lady when he was at work. At weekends he did it himself. It was, he said, running his fingers through the remains of his dark hair, getting him down. Lady Lucy listened with a sympathetic ear and congratulated the Inspector on caring for his mother. Apart from expressions of sympathy, she felt there was little she could do. To tell Inspector Grime about her one tiny glimmer of good news would, she thought, give him false hope and, perhaps, false optimism. The boy who had followed her to the hotel might be sufficiently besotted to tell her something important. But she would certainly tell Francis when he came the following day. The tiny glimmer would come, if it was going to come, the following afternoon shortly after four o’clock.
Inspector Fletcher checked once more the polish on his boots. He fiddled yet again with his tie. He and Sergeant Donaldson were in the reception of Sir Peregrine’s vast headquarters in the City of London. Teams of secretaries and stenographers and dark-coated financiers hurried in and out of the building with an air of great purpose. Sergeant Donaldson thought to himself that he much preferred the quiet backwater of Maidenhead where the police knew most of the people and life passed by at a much slower pace. Here everything moved so quickly.
Earlier that day the policemen had received a valuable piece of ammunition for their interview with Sir Peregrine. Warden Monk had replied to their messages and presented himself at the police station. Yes, he admitted readily enough, he had been seeing Sir Peregrine at the hotel, late the other evening. He had met him there before at that time. It was, he said belligerently, a free country, wasn’t it? A man could go where he wanted and talk with whomever he wanted, couldn’t he? As far as he, Thomas Monk, was aware, there weren’t any laws against any of that, were there? Not yet at any rate. He and Sir Peregrine had been discussing Jesus Hospital business. No, he did not want to tell the officers exactly what had been discussed. That was private. Both Inspector Fletcher and his sergeant were sure that Monk was hiding something, but they could not tell what it was. Inspector Fletcher felt sure that news of the interview would reach Sir Peregrine long before he and Sergeant Donaldson crossed the portals of his domain. Not for the first time he cursed the invention of the telegraph.
A tall slim young lady in a fashionable trailing skirt brought them up to Sir Peregrine’s office on the top floor. The room was huge, with spectacular views over the City of London. Many of these captains of industry filled their walls with hunting prints or views of English cathedrals. Sir Peregrine’s walls were hung with battles. Before he sat down, Inspector Fletcher caught a glimpse of a sweaty Leonidas holding the pass at Thermopylae.
‘Thank you, Miss Davis,’ boomed Sir Peregrine, as the young lady ushered the policemen on to a couple of chairs. ‘Tea, Miss Davis.’ She had almost reached the door when the qualification came, ‘For one.’
Bloody rude, thought Inspector Fletcher. Bloody rude.
‘Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?’ Sir Peregrine addressed his visitors as if they were the lowest variety of office boy in his employ.
Inspector Fletcher had agreed with Inspector Devereux that the Marlow police would confine themselves to the murder at the Jesus Hospital. The complicated questions of the authenticity of the codicil could be left to Devereux and Powerscourt. Now Inspector Fletcher could feel his nerves rising. No pauses between sentences, he said to himself. No hesitations. He thought he might start to shake quite soon if he didn’t get a grip on himself. He began taking a series of deep breaths as his wife advised.
‘We would like to know,’ he began hesitantly, ‘what you were doing in the Elysian Fields Hotel outside Marlow the other evening.’
The Inspector had gained in strength as his question progressed. He felt slightly better. Maybe it was going to be all right.
‘Who says I was there?’ Sir Peregrine remembered Inspector Fletcher from the day of the murder at the Jesus Hospital. He had thought little of him then. He saw nothing to make him change his mind.
‘Your car was seen on the road leading to the hotel, Sir Peregrine. And the hotel manager confirmed your presence.’
‘What if I was? I’m a director of the damned hotel. Man can visit any damned hotel he likes, especially if he’s on the board.’
‘Could we ask who you saw when you were there, Sir Peregrine. At the hotel, I mean.’
‘That’s none of your damned business either.’ Sir Peregrine paused while Miss Davis placed an ornate tea tray in front of her master. As a further insult to the visitors, it was laden with scones and sandwiches and three alluring slices of cake. ‘Man can see who he likes, damn your eyes.’
‘I put it to you, Sir Peregrine,’ Inspector Fletcher was feeling almost confident now, ‘that the man you went to see was Thomas Monk, Warden of the Jesus Hospital which, as you know as well as I do, is run by your own livery company the Silkworkers.’
‘I do wish you would mind your damned business. Monk or no Monk, it’s got nothing to do with you.’ Sir Peregrine paused to eat an enormous mouthful of chocolate cake. For some reason, Fletcher was to tell his sergeant later, the sight of the chocolate cake made him very angry indeed.
‘I do not feel, Sir Peregrine,’ he said firmly, happy in the knowledge that he had not paused for the last five minutes or so, ‘that you are taking our questions as seriously as you should. There was a murder at the Jesus Hospital a matter of hours after your car was seen at the nearby hotel. We have no reports of anybody seeing the car leave. For all we know, it, and you, could still have been there at the time of the killing. There was a second murder at the Silkworkers Hall in the City of London. You were the last person to see the victim alive. Your position is more serious than you seem to think, Sir Peregrine.’
‘Are you saying that I am a murderer? Am I a suspect?’
‘I am not saying that you are the murderer. As to whether you are a suspect or not I leave that up to you to decide for the moment. Now, if we could return to the business in hand, perhaps you could tell us, Sir Peregrine, when you left the Elysian Fields the night before the murder?’
‘Are you deaf as well as stupid? It’s none of your damned business!’
‘Then we can assume, can we, Sir Peregrine, that you were still there on the morning of the murder?’
Sir Peregrine made a mighty noise that sounded like a cross between a howl of pain and a yell of triumph. He rose to his feet. His face had turned purple. He was pounding his enormous fist on the table. ‘Get out! Get out now! You insult me in my own office! How dare you? A couple of failed police officers from the back of beyond! Ignorant clodhoppers! Get out! Go on! Clear off!’
Oddly enough it was Sergeant Donaldson who had the last word in the interview. ‘Good day to you, Sir Peregrine,’ he said, opening the door. ‘So glad you enjoyed your tea.’