“My dear inspector...”—he felt behind him for the table and leaned against it with some of his weight supported upon spread fingertips—“you mustn’t take all this medical etiquette too seriously. It’s designed to give our dear old girls something to occupy them.” He grinned boyishly through the window at the Matron.
“So you’ve no objection to giving me this information, sir?”
“None whatsoever.”
Purbright waited, but Harton merely continued to regard him placidly.
“Well, sir...?”
“Well, inspector?”
“You were about to tell me the nature of the operation you performed upon Mr Trevelyan.”
“Oh, no; that is not so.”
Purbright stared. “Perhaps we’ve misunderstood each other, sir.”
“Ah, possibly we have. What I said was that I, I personally, you understand, have no objection to telling you what you wish to know. That is quite true. But I did not say that no objection existed, did I?”
The inspector sighed. Here, he reflected, was the type of man who would enjoy confusing shop assistants with pedantic pleasantries.
“The fact is, inspector”—Harton thrust a hand deep into his trousers pocket and energetically stirred some coins—“that I simply am not at liberty to follow my personal inclination to tell you what was the matter with our mutual friend.”
“Oh, you do know, then, sir?”
Harton smiled away the calculated impertinence. “Certainly I know. Surgeons do occasionally remember what they have done and why. In their own way they are possibly as methodical as policemen.”
“I suppose that what you really mean to say, sir, is that you have received instructions to divulge nothing concerning Mr Trevelyan’s stay in hospital?”
“I must say I do not much care for the word ‘instructions’ but, roughly speaking, that is the position, inspector. Dare I whisper that old cliché ‘national security’?” Elegantly, Harton drew himself erect and stepped to the door. “Incidentally, we found Mr Trevelyan a most charming fellow; I do hope your anxiety regarding him proves to have been groundless.”
Placing a hand lightly on Purbright’s shoulder, he opened the door with the other. “I am sure it will, you know.” He patted him out and jauntily gestured the procession to re-form.
Purbright drove at once to Brockleston.
Among the cars in the Neptune forecourt was Hopjoy’s Armstrong, which he had ordered to be placed again at the disposal of Mr and Mrs Periam. The honeymooners he found playing clock golf in the hotel grounds. Doreen, her coiled plaits looking like some kind of protective sporting gear, wore a long pink cardigan over a flowered dress. Her husband was in flannel trousers and the dark brown blazer of the Flaxborough Grammar School Old Boys’ Association.
When he saw the inspector, he picked up his ball and led the girl forward. “Has Brian shown up yet?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr Periam.”
“Oh. We thought that’s what you’d come to tell us.” The solemn, femininely smooth face turned to the girl. “Didn’t we, darl?”
Periam grouped three of the bright canvas chairs at the edge of the putting green. They sat.
“No, Mr Hopjoy has not returned. I rather doubt if he will. But I think it’s only right for me to relieve your minds on one point.” Purbright glanced from one to the other. “It now looks as though we were mistaken in assuming that your friend was dead.”
Doreen seized her husband’s hand. “There! What did I say?” At Purbright she pouted in mock indignation. “And fancy chasing us with that ridiculous story when we hadn’t been married five minutes? It wasn’t what I’d call tactful.”
“It wasn’t, Mrs Periam. I’m sorry. But in the circumstances we hadn’t much choice.”
Periam looked at the handle of the putter he had laid across his knee. “That’s all right, inspector. It hasn’t been very nice for us—I mean we should have felt rather responsible if anything awful had happened to Bry—we did let him down, you know, darl—but the police couldn’t be blamed for that.” He raised his head and smiled wryly at Purbright. “Now you know what sort of capers you ask for when you run off with your best friend’s young lady.”
Doreen sighed and pressed Periam’s hand to her stomach. Hastily he withdrew it. “Oh, there’s one thing, inspector...the house. You have finished there, haven’t you? You see, we...”
“If you can wait just a couple of days, sir, everything will be put straight again. We’ll see to that for you, naturally.”
“And thanks for letting us have the car back.”
“Was it covered in blood and fingerprints?”
Periam cast a quick glance of rebuke at his wife. “Doreen, really...”
“I suppose,” Purbright said, “that you’ll settle down in the house when your holiday’s over. Or are you thinking of a change now you’re married?”
“No, we shan’t move. Not yet, anyway. It’s been home for so long, you know, and I am rather a home bird. Anyway, I’m sure mother wouldn’t have wished strangers to take it over.”
“I expect you know there are various odds and ends belonging to Mr Hopjoy. We’d rather like to hang on to them for the time being, but if you do hear from him perhaps you’ll let us have a forwarding address; would you mind doing that, sir?”
“Not at all.”
“There’s one other matter I’m mildly curious about, Mr Periam. A short while ago Mr Hopjoy was in hospital. I believe I know the circumstances in which he was injured—we needn’t go into them now—but I wondered if you could tell me what his injuries actually were.”
Periam ran a finger thoughtfully round his heavy, globular chin. “Well, not in doctor’s parlance, I can’t. But he had what I’d call a gammy foot.”
“How serious was it? I mean was there any permanent effect—scars, disfigurements, anything of that sort?”
“My goodness, no. He came home right as rain. Between you and I, I think old Bry had been coming the old soldier in hospital. He’d probably been giving the glad-eye to some pretty nurse.”
“He wasn’t disabled in any sense, then?”
“Not a bit of it, inspector. It would take more than a tumble to put Bry out of action, wouldn’t it, Darl?”
“Rather,” agreed Doreen. She had coyly abstracted a packet of biscuits from Periam’s pocket and was nibbling one after having prised it open to inspect its filling.
“He’s as strong as a horse,” Periam went on. The theme seemed to intrigue him. “I shouldn’t care to tangle with Bry when he’d got his dander up.” Purbright reflected that Hopjoy must have been sadly off form on the occasion of his tangling with Farmer Croll. Or was it in the matter of danders that Croll had enjoyed a decisive advantage?
Periam grasped his putter and looked inquiringly at the inspector.
Purbright rose. “I don’t think I need interrupt your game any longer. I’m sorry if I’ve been something of a...” He faltered, suddenly averse to making even conventional apology.