‘You asked me that the last time,’ said Durswell. ‘What did I think when Pythias gave up staying here? And when did I see him last? Well, that would have been on the Friday before the Friday he went off. He offered to take my rent in to Ma, if I wanted to get round to the Dog and Duck. As for t’other, well, I assumed he’d had a bust-up of some sort with Ma Buxton, but I can’t honestly say I thought much about it at all. Got plenty on my own plate without bothering about other people’s problems. I’m not here all that often, anyway, so I don’t know much about the other chaps.’
‘Do you mean that from the time you and he met when he offered to hand in your rent, you have never seen him again?’
‘That’s right, like I told you before. For one thing, I was not in for supper all the next week and, by the time I did come back here, he was gone. After supper, by the time I got in those nights, everybody had gone to his own pad or to the Dog and Duck for a drink, so you wouldn’t expect me to see anybody if I got in after about nine-thirty.’
Peters, the town-hall employee, questioned along the same lines, repeated his former assertions. He remembered the Friday in question for a particular reason. The mayor’s Christmas party to the councillors was looming and it had come to Peters’s notice — he did not explain how — that the mayoral drinks cupboard was in need of replenishment. At four o’clock, therefore, he had telephoned the only off-licence in the town to ask that replacements should be sent up forthwith.
‘So I had to wait at the town hall for them,’ he explained, ‘and that made me later than usual in getting home. Still, I had telephoned Mrs Buxton to tell her that I should be kept. She serves individual high teas instead of a sit-down supper on Fridays, as you have been informed, I believe. Mine is always bacon and sausages and I did not want to be presented with a dried-up plateful which had been kept hot in the oven. Anyhow, Pythias must have left the house before I got in. He was not there to pay his rent, so I suppose he had settled before he left. The last time I saw him? Well, I suppose it would have been at supper on the Thursday, wouldn’t it? I am sure he would have left the house before I got back on the Friday. I not only had to wait for the off-licence — they were very late with the delivery because they were inundated with Christmas orders — but I then had to see to the proper stowage of the bottles and sign a chit for them.
‘What kind of man was Pythias? It is quite beyond me to say. We all had our private quarters and there was never very much conversation at supper-time. Hungry, tired men are not given to loquacity at meal-times. He was quiet and a member of a respectable profession, but, of course, it would hardly do for an official in my position to become too friendly with one of the council’s schoolmasters.’
‘Oh, why not?’ asked Routh, who, with a lapse into unprofessional bias, was again finding Peters somewhat insufferable. ‘A proper Uriah Heap’ was the way he described him to Sergeant Bennett.
‘Jockeying for preferment, corruption, undue influence with regard to obtaining headships — you would be surprised, Inspector, at what people will stoop to. Was I surprised when Pythias did not come back to this house? Neither surprised nor the reverse. It made no difference whatever to my life-style and anyhow it was no business of mine. I have learnt in my journey through this uncertain world where traps and stratagems await the unwary, that to mind one’s own business and nobody else’s is the secret of a successful and problem-free career. I hope you agree.’
Routh toyed with the idea of having another go at the artist in the attic, but thought it was an interview which would keep.
5
Hounds in Leash
« ^ »
There have been developments, sir,’ said Detective-Sergeant Bennett a day or two later.
‘Wish I could say the same,’ said Routh. ‘Tell me.’
‘I went round to the lodgings again, as you suggested I should, but the day before I got there Mrs Buxton had had visitors. They came to collect the gear Pythias left behind him.’
‘She didn’t let them have it?’
‘Yes, she did, sir. They brought a note signed by Pythias authorising them to take the stuff — clothes she said it was, and a bag of golf-clubs — and she swears she recognised the writing and the signature. She showed me a letter she had from Pythias when he was on holiday last year.’
‘Did she also show you the letter these people brought?’
‘No. They had taken it away with them.’
‘Then her claim that she recognised the writing doesn’t help us at all. She ought to have insisted on keeping the note to cover herself for parting with Pythias’s property. Oh, well, it looks as though he’s alive all right. Did she get any clue as to where he is?’
‘Yes. He’s ill at these people’s place in Springdale.’
‘Did they give her any idea as to when he proposes to return to his digs?’
‘No, sir. According to what she told me, these people said that he thought Mrs Buxton might like to know that she could let his room for the time being. That’s why he had asked to have all his possessions removed out of the way. They took the clothes, the golf-clubs and a suitcase.’
‘He could have paid a retaining fee if he intended to come back. It seems a bit rash to pass up on good digs for what may be a short illness. Once his room is let, he may not find it easy to get back.’
‘Mrs Buxton is prepared to let it, but only from week to week. She says he has considered her, so she is prepared to consider him.’
‘All very nice and hotsy-totsy. You know what I think? I think Pythias has cut his stick after all and taken the money with him. Either that, or these two people who called on Mrs Buxton are criminals and have done for him and collected the boodle for themselves, but my first theory now seems more likely.’
‘Springdale is on the other side of the county, sir. Would people living there have known anything about the money for the Sir George Etherege school journey? I doubt it.’
‘Did you get a description of them?’
‘She said they were a swarthy man, younger than Pythias, and a good-looking young woman. She thinks they were foreigners.’
‘Not unlikely. Pythias is a Greek.’
‘The man was wearing a good overcoat with an astrakhan collar and he had a little round hat such as the Russians favour. The girl had on a musquash coat — real fur, Mrs Buxton thinks, not synthetic — and fancy knee-high boots.’
‘They sound a fishy couple to me. They could have stepped out of any romantic spy story. I hope Mrs Buxton wasn’t drawing on her imagination. If so, she is implicated. Anyway, I don’t like the sound of them, but perhaps I’m prejudiced. I don’t like astrakhan collars and Russian headgear and women in knee-high boots.’
‘All Englishmen are prejudiced against foreigners, sir. It’s partly because we’re islanders and partly because we’ve got a superiority complex.’
‘Both have come in very handy in the past. Well, nothing more we can do tonight. I’d like to give Mrs Buxton a rocket, but what good would it do?’
‘I could go round there and catch Buxton when he gets home from work, sir, and see what he’s got to say.’
‘It wouldn’t help. He won’t have seen these foreigners. He’s got his own job, so it seems that Mrs Buxton runs the lodgings without his help. I’ll report to Mr Ronsonby tomorrow morning and point out that it isn’t likely that Mr Pythias can still be listed as a missing person. Nothing else helpful, I suppose?’
‘No, sir. Mrs Buxton showed me this letter written to her by Pythias when he was on summer holiday a year ago, as I mentioned. Why she should think it would bolster up her claim that she recognised the writing and the signature on the note those visitors brought I don’t understand any more than you do, but women are not the most logical of creatures. It may have convinced her, but, without the other letter for comparison, it could hardly convince anybody else.’