“I wouldn’t know. The police don’t appear to share your view.”
“You will be wise, Mr Charles, not to underestimate the intelligence of our local constabulary. They are accustomed to dealing with far more devious individuals than the brash yokels who rank as criminals in the metropolis.”
“That remains to be seen.” He made as if to rise to his feet, but Miss Teatime held up her hand. She looked stern.
“Why did you follow me this morning?” she asked. “Why, for that matter, did your colleague make it his business to spy upon an old friend of mine when he came to call? If you wish to enjoin silence upon me, pray do so forthwith and we shall know where we stand. I do know something about pressure, Mr Charles. I can just as readily recognise it when it is dressed as sweet reasonableness.”
He gave an awkward, cheek-puffing laugh. “Pressure? You’re really being very silly, you know. Respectable business organisations don’t go round applying pressure on people. What do you think we are—the Mafia or something?”
Miss Teatime nodded. “Very well.” She selected a fresh cigar and regarded it thoughtfully. “If you and your friend are as innocent in matters of persuasion as you contend, I must tell you how it is done. Listen carefully, Mr Charles. Unless”—she struck a match—“you dismantle at once whatever fabricated evidence has been assembled to suggest Julia Harton’s guilt of killing Robert Tring...” Unhurriedly, she lit her cigar and inhaled. “...I shall personally ensure that there will be instituted without further delay precisely that series of scandalous events that Tring’s removal was designed to forestall.”
Quite suddenly, her visitor underwent a striking change. The jollity drained completely away; the rosiness of his complexion was empurpled by the eruption of a fine vein pattern; the mouth hardened and was very pale.
“Namely?” The voice was different, too. Thin, cold.
“Namely,” pursued Miss Teatime, “the discovery in a tin of your firm’s dog food of a very un-nutritious metal disc; its reporting to the local health authority by the outraged purchaser; and the subsequent tracing of the owner of a dog that disappeared in August while being boarded at the Four Foot Haven; and finally... Ah, now what to end up with? A public inquiry? It could scarcely be avoided.”
She smiled sweetly, leaning back in her chair. “And how is that for pressure, Mr Charles?”
“Stop calling me that, woman! My name is Blore, for Christ’s sake. Colonel Blore.”
“Ah, a military man. Splendid. You doubtless will take a straightforward tactical view of my proposal. After you have consulted general headquarters, of course. May I then expect your reply by tomorrow?”
He stood. “I probably shall ring you in the morning.” He bent to look at the telephone dial, then wrote the number on a piece of paper.
Without further comment, he strode to the door and opened it.
“Oh, Colonel Blore...”
He halted, but did not turn.
“One small addendum. The Eastern Counties Charities Alliance confidently expects a token contribution from the Cultox Corporation. One thousand, I think, would be a nice gesture. Made out to cash.”
Blore made no move.
She added: “The cheque would not be presented, naturally, until after Mrs Harton had been cleared of suspicion and delivery made to you of that little disc you are so anxious to possess.”
The door closed very quietly.
“No one is all bad,” reflected Miss Teatime.
Chapter Nineteen
Into Flaxborough Police Headquarters two days later walked a Mr Simon Bollinger, wholesale trading representative, of Wimbledon, London. He asked if he might see the officer in charge of inquiries into a fairground accident the previous Saturday—no, not that Saturday, the Saturday before—yes, September 6th, that would be it.
Because Inspector Purbright had gone out in hopes that a talk to the nephew of the former owner of the Flaxborough Citizen might settle a certain nagging curiosity concerning the disposal of the contents of his uncle’s cellar, Sergeant Love was sent for.
Not even the open-countenanced friendliness of the very youthful-looking sergeant could put Mr Bollinger entirely at his ease. He confessed at the outset that he wasn’t at all sure whether he had done right to come.
The sergeant thought, oh dear, it was one of those interviews, was it, and he said Mr Bollinger wasn’t to worry: that’s what the police were paid to do and would he like a cup of tea?
“About this accident...” said Mr Bollinger, having shaken his head to the tea suggestion.
“Yes, sir?”
“I read when I was home at the weekend that you wanted to ask a lady called Mrs Julia Harton some questions about it.”
“We did, that’s right.”
“Does that mean you think she was with the young man who was killed?”
Love thought, who’s asking the blessed questions, me or him, and he said, well that was a possibility but inquiries were still being made.
“Yes, well, you see when I read that piece in the paper I knew at once that somebody had got things wrong and the more I thought about it the more I was worried in case an innocent person might get blamed.”
“Blamed for what, sir?”
“For the accident. If that’s what it was, I mean. Things don’t get put in that way in papers as a rule if it’s just an accident, do they? And my wife said when she saw it, hello, there’s something funny there. Of course, she knew I’d been doing calls in the area, so naturally it caught her eye.”
“Yes, I suppose it would.”
Simon’s nervousness seemed on the increase. He leaned forward. “My name wouldn’t get mentioned in court, would it, if I were just to leave you with a bit of information and then go away? I don’t want to be a witness, or anything.”
Love said that everything would depend on the nature of the information. If it was important as evidence, Mr Bollinger might be asked to give testimony at the inquest.
“The point is,” Simon said, unhappily, “my wife is going to think—well, God knows what she will think if she gets to know what I was doing that night.”
The sergeant sought to adopt an expression at once sympathetic and encouraging. He succeeded only in looking brazenly curious.
“You see, I’d picked up this girl—well, not picked up, I don’t mean anything like that, but she was just someone to talk to, and we were having a look round the fair.”
“And what girl would that have been?” Love inquired.
The question seemed to surprise Mr Bollinger, who shrugged and said he’d no idea—just a girl in the fair; he hadn’t even asked her name. They’d had a cup of coffee together and shared a ride, that’s all. “It was on the Moon Shot thing,” added Mr Bollinger. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here now. It was when we were on it that the accident happened.”