The Chief Constable shifted his position slightly and rubbed his chin with two fingers. “We realize,” he said, “that Mr Hopjoy was engaged on somewhat delicate work involving matters that do not concern us as ordinary policemen. What does concern us, though, is the probability of a crime having been committed. Let me be quite frank, gentlemen: to what extent are we going to be able to collaborate in sorting this business out?”
Ross looked a little surprised. “Fully I trust, Mr Chubb. That is why Mr Pumphrey and I are here—to be kept informed with the least inconvenience to you.”
It was Chubb’s turn to raise his brows. “I had hoped for something rather more reciprocal, Mr Ross.” He looked meaningfully at the Hopjoy file. “If it turns out that your man was done away with, the answer might very well lie there.”
“That’s true.” There was a note of doubt in Ross’s voice. “The trouble is that this stuff hasn’t been processed thoroughly yet. Our people gave it a preliminary feed through R Section but the report wasn’t terribly suggestive. All Hopjoy’s leads are green. Linkage negative. Well...” He shrugged and gave Pumphrey a glance that invited confirmation of their difficulties. Pumphrey responded with a judicial nod.
The inspector, who had been listening with polite attention, asked: “What are green leads, Mr Ross?”
“And negative linkages?” threw in Chubb, without sounding in the least curious.
Ross beamed. The sudden smile invested his large, rather lumpishly cast face with a charm that was the greater for being unexpected, like greenery on a pit heap. “I’m sorry about the technicalities,” he said. “A green lead is what you might call a new suspect, someone with no history of unreliability.”
“Very tricky,” observed Pumphrey, joining the tips of his long, hair-backed fingers.
“And by linkage negative,” Ross went on, “we mean that the person in question can’t be shown to have contact with any other bad security risks. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before we put that right: no one can keep to himself indefinitely. There’s the chance meeting in a pub, membership of the same library, connexions dating back to schooldays...oh, lord, we can trace them, don’t you worry.”
Ross pressed out the stub of his cigarette, on which he had drawn scarcely at all since lighting it, and took from his pocket a long, slim pipe with a squat, highly-polished bowl. This he filled carefully, holding it close against his stomach, from a pouch of Andalusian doeskin (which honey curing makes the softest hide in the world.) Between studied applications of the match flame, he tamped down the pure Latakia with a small metal ram. Seeing Purbright’s interest, Ross waited until the tobacco glowed securely then tossed the object across to him.
Purbright rolled the still hot cylinder around his cupped palm. It was a little under an inch long and consisted of half a dozen tiny discs or washers clamped together by a central screw. Half the discs were copper and the remainder of some white metal. The two kinds were set alternately.
“A memento of the Lubianka,” Ross said. He stared straight ahead over the pipe bowl and rhythmically released portentous pops of smoke from the corner of his mouth. Then he stretched to reclaim the cylinder from Purbright.
“When this,” he said, “is slipped into a hole drilled in one of a man’s vertebrae, a galvanic reaction is set up between the dissimilar metals. By the time the wound heals, a constant electric current is being fed into his spinal cord. The secret police call the spasms of his death agony the Gold and Silver Waltz.”
The strained silence that ensued was broken by the Chief Constable, who enquired if Mr Ross was prepared to do any interviewing in Flaxborough in pursuit of whatever line of investigation seemed suggested in the reports of the missing agent.
Ross squeezed a noise of assent past his pipe stem then removed and examined it. “I was going to ask you,” he said, “just how amenable to questioning I might expect to find the people around here.”
“What is their co-operation-potential?” Pumphrey translated.
“A very decent lot, by and large,” replied Mr Chubb, “if you know how to handle them.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right, then.” Ross decided against citing the unencouraging example of the man he had asked the way to the police station. “For a start, perhaps you’d better tell us how you see this business, Purbright. Any ideas?”
The inspector, answering without haste, gazed directly but mildly at Ross’s face. This now wore an expression of eager courtesy—that look which is only a polite version of imperiousness.
“Beyond the not particularly intelligent deduction that someone was murdered in that house and his body disposed of,” Purbright began, “I can’t pretend to having much to offer. Not even the fact of murder can be confirmed until the laboratory reports come through although, as I say, I haven’t much doubt of it. Then the question of identity will have to be settled. We are in no position at the moment to say who killed whom. Naturally, we assume the choice lies between the owner of the house, Periam, and your man Hopjoy. You, sir, might have reasons of your own for supposing Hopjoy to be the more likely candidate...”
“Not necessarily,” Ross broke in. “Our chaps are fairly adept at looking after themselves, you know. We give them credit for that.”
“You mean you would not be surprised to find that it was Periam who was killed?”
“In my job, Purbright, we soon lose all capacity for being surprised.”
“But if Hopjoy was responsible...”
“Then he must have had some very compelling reason.” Ross removed his pipe and squinted along its stem. “Mind you, I think that possibility is unlikely. I’m not aware that Hopjoy had any general authorization to take executive decisions. On the other hand, I shouldn’t necessarily have been informed if he had.”
“Well, that’s helpful, I must say,” said the Chief Constable. “Don’t any of you chaps know what you’re up to?” Flushing slightly, he straightened and stood clear of the mantelpiece. “Four years ago I received a confidential request to give this fellow Hopjoy co-operation if he asked for it and not to bother him if he didn’t. Fair enough. As it happens, he never came to us for anything. But there were one or two occasions when we were able to smooth things out for him in little ways behind the scenes. There was no fuss, no gossip, nothing.” Chubb spread his hands and nodded. “All right, we were just doing our duty. But now”—he jabbed a finger in Ross’s direction—“it looks as if something has happened that can’t be glossed over. Something absolutely intolerable. And you must realize, Mr Ross, that I have no intention of allowing my officers to temper their efforts to solve this crime with consideration for what you may regard as higher policy.”
Purbright, who had been examining his finger-ends while marvelling at the length and vehemence of Chubb’s speech, looked up blandly at Ross. It was Pumphrey, though, who spoke first.
“It seems to me, Mr Chubb, that you don’t quite understand that this business involves security.” The final word leaped from the rest of the tightly controlled sentence like a whippet trying to break its leash.
Ross, still amiable and matter-of-fact, gave a quick, chairman-like glance round the others, reserving for the Chief Constable a smile that promised concession. “No,” he said, “that’s not altogether fair. Mr Chubb appreciates that this affair has certain delicate features, but a crime’s a crime and he’s perfectly right to view this one from the standpoint of the very good policeman we all know him to be. Of course the investigation must proceed in the way he thinks best. Major Pumphrey and I ask only that we be allowed to assist with what specialized knowledge we have.”