When the Chief Constable spoke again, it was with the careful tone of a man aware of his own inadequate sense of the ridiculous and determined not to betray it by rebuking flippancy. Mr Chubb did not so much mind his subordinates being impertinent—that was, after all, a form of acknowledging inferiority; what he dreaded was that any of them might say something really funny without his recognizing it.
“Be that as it may,” said Mr Chubb. “I agree that robbery seems out. Do you suppose Periam was being threatened, then? Paying the other chap money, I mean?”
“That’s unlikely, sir. We’ve checked Periam’s accounts; there’s no indication of extortion.”
Mr Chubb gazed upwards. There came to him a thought he found difficult to express. “One doesn’t like to be uncharitable,” he began, “but perhaps we shouldn’t ignore... Well, two fellows on their own in the same house...”
Purbright rescued him. “The record leaves no doubt of Hopjoy’s having been almost aggressively heterosexual, sir.”
“Oh, was he? I’m glad to hear it. One knows that sort of thing goes on, of course...Still, I wouldn’t like to think of you having to fish in those waters.”
The inspector was glancing through his notebook record of the conversations at Brockleston. “Do you know the Neptune Hotel, sir?” he asked, without looking up.
“I think I went into the place once,” said Mr Chubb, guardedly. “A bit on the flashy side.”
“Decidedly,” Purbright agreed. “It struck me as a slightly off-key choice for a honeymoon. Periam was mother-ridden, though; perhaps the Neptune appealed as a symbol of emancipation. Also it could have been in line with his role as seducer; that was Hopjoy’s girl he married, you know.”
“Really?”
“Which is another curious feature. One would have thought that it was Hopjoy who had cause to kill Periam, not the other way round. Husbands are sometimes eliminated from triangles, but I don’t think I can recall a case of fiancécide. Anyway, it’s the rejected suitor who is apt to be violent, not his successor.”
“Do you think the girl knows what’s been going on?”
Purbright considered. “I’m not at all sure. There’s a certain ruthlessness about her. I wonder if you can imagine a bed-hopping Sunday school teacher...”
It was evident from Mr Chubb’s expression that he couldn’t.
“What I mean is that she looks almost frumpish—unfashionable clothes, no make-up, dreadful hair style—yet underneath she seems to be continually flexing and shuffling. She gives a most disconcerting impression of...well, appetite.”
“She doesn’t sound a very nice young woman. She is young, I presume?”
“Younger than her husband, certainly. I find it hard to understand why she dropped Hopjoy—very much the .accomplished buck, by all accounts—in favour of a man like Periam.”
“Women,” stated Mr Chubb, “are unpredictable.”
Purbright recognized that the Chief Constable had received as much confusing information as he could stomach at one session. He picked up the report and photographs. “Is there anything more at the moment, sir?”
“I don’t think so. We shall just have to carry on ploughing our furrow, you know. See what turns up.”
“Very well, sir.” Purbright walked to the door.
“Oh, by the way, Mr Purbright...” Mr Chubb disengaged himself from the mantelpiece and meticulously slipped his finger-ends into his jacket pockets. “I had a chat with Major Ross this morning. I suppose he and Mr Pumphrey are trained to take a rather less mundane view of these affairs. Of course, they do operate in a wider sphere than ours. I have the impression that they readily conceive of possibilities which you and I might dismiss as excessively dramatic...”
“Yes, sir?”
Mr Chubb traced a pattern on the carpet with one well-shined toecap. “Yes, well I think I ought to tell you that Major Ross and his colleague don’t share your opinion that Periam is the man responsible. In their parlance, he is described as ‘cleared’, and they are looking much farther afield.”
“I don’t think we should take exception to that, sir. I’m glad of any assistance they can give.”
“Oh, quite so. I’m sure you don’t regard their co-operation ungenerously. No, that isn’t what I’m anxious about. It’s simply that outsiders tend to underestimate our people, Mr Purbright—in the country districts particularly. We don’t want these gentlemen running into any unpleasantness, do we? After all, they are our guests, in a sense.”
Purbright nodded. “I’ll do my best to look after them.”
Mr Chubb achieved a smile. “I thought I’d better mention it. Major Ross did say something about making a few inquiries in Mumblesby, as a matter of fact.”
“Merry Mumblesby,” said Purbright, reflectively. He opened the door.
Chapter Eleven
“Ingenious,” Ross said. He lifted the narrow rectangle of paper aloft with his pipe stem, held it in draped balance a moment, then withdrew the pipe sharply. The paper side-slipped twice and floated to rest on the table by Pumphrey’s elbow.
“Chubb was perfectly correct, you see. It is a betting slip.” Ross lengthened his face in mimicry. “ ‘We collect plenty of those, Mr Ross: they are merely symptoms of one of our little local weaknesses.’ Poor old Chubb. Tretnikov or Dzarbol would have three of him for breakfast. It isn’t innocent things like bus tickets or jam labels that pass unchallenged, but the obviously illegal ones. Betting slips? Of course they are taken for betting slips. What else could they be?”
Pumphrey peered at the paper earnestly, pulling his right ear lobe as if it put him in circuit with an electronic scanner. “Five shillings each way Needlework Hurst Park 4.30 Peter Piper” he read in an unpunctuated monotone.
“Pre-selected pseudonymic code: impossible to break. We needn’t waste time on it.” Ross held out his hand.
“Hold on a minute...” Pumphrey’s ear became tauter, redder. He muttered the message again to himself, then tapped the paper. “Needlework,” he said with emphasis and looked up.
“Name of the horse. I’ve checked. It’s running in the 4.30 all right.” Ross spoke mechanically. His attention was held by the bright, blood-flooded lobe of Pumphrey’s ear. He pictured the fearful rending tongs fashioned by that Cracow goldsmith whom fate, and an ungrateful party secretariat, had made their first victim; ‘unfeatured’ was the word that had been sardonically entered in his prison hospital record.
“Yes, but needlework...examine it association-wise. Needle...sewing...thimble...Thimble Bay.”
Interest glimmered in Ross’s eye, but only briefly. He shook his head. “Attractive, Harry, but just that fraction too obvious. No, what matters is that our friends’ main communication channels are being confirmed. It’s our immediate job to follow them. I’ll say this for F.7: he left some pretty positive leads.”
Pumphrey watched Ross place the betting slip in his briefcase. “I’ve sent a screening requisition on Anderson, of course.”