Bradley took a turn. ‘Why was Chubb so mad at you, Mr Anderson? Did he blame you for not having got hold of the picture—as we know you didn’t—and keeping it for him?”
“Ah, that’s about it, matey. I reckon you’re right.”
“Have you no idea,” Purbright resumed, “what Chubb was to your friend Arnold? Was he a relative? Had Arnold ever talked about him?”
One of Cratchy’s eyes had begun to close. Bradley took a pound note from his trouser pocket and examined it. The eye snapped wide open again.
“Talked about him...ah, well, no, not to say talk. But Whippy sometimes sent letters to him. I thought perhaps he was his nevvy. He didn’t have no fambly, did Whippy.”
“Did no one ever come to see him?” Purbright asked.
Crutchy shook his head, feebly. “Can’t say as they did. Not while I’ve been here.”
“This man Arnold...” Bradley was reflectively rubbing his lower lip with the pound note. “What did you know about him, Mr Anderson? He seems to have been something of an enigmatic character, doesn’t he?”
“You wot?”
“Bit of a dark horse, wasn’t he, your friend Whippy?” Purbright translated.
Crutchy gave the question thought for so long that Bradley feared the sedative had triumphed over hopes of reward. But then the old man gave a sniff followed by the opinion that Arnold had been for some time before his death “a point or two off his bearings”.
“Why do you think that, Mr Anderson?”
“Well, for one thing, Gilly Gully was always in and out, wasn’t he? And you’ve got to be pretty low in the water before he bothers to come aboard.”
Again Purbright played interpreter. “He says that Arnold was often attended by Dr Gule, who does not normally visit a patient unless he is very ill.” He turned again to Anderson. “Perhaps you can tell Mr Bradley and me a little bit more about what happened here on Thursday night.”
“Not here, skipper. I was in my cabin. They’d just brought supper round, and I hear this knock at the door and I think, funny, they’re smart off the mark with seconds, but it’s not seconds, it’s a pussy-footed cove with a grin and sticky-out teeth, and he pushes in and shuts the door behind him and says, You Anderson? he says, and I says, Mister Anderson to you or you’ll be over the side, matey, and then he takes his hand out of his overcoat pocket and he doesn’t stop smiling but just leans over and touches the side of my face with his hand and it’s like walking into the boom on a dark night, not a word of a lie, and he says very smarmy but very nasty as well, ’Ow’d you like your hartificial limb up your arse, Mister Anderson? and I know as this isn’t a cove I can monkey with, for all his soppy looks.
“So anyway, he says, Wot you got for me from Mister Arnold, and I says, Nothing can’t you read a letter? and he leans over and I walk into the boom but with the other side of my face this time. And then he asks who’s this old pussy with a double-barrelled name who goes round—and this is what he says, not me, skip—who goes round buying what belongs to somebody else, and I says, how the hell and high water do I know? but he starts leaning over again and I remember something Whippy said once about working for these harris...”
The old sailorman’s eyes had been slowly dosing for some time, but without diminution of speech. Now, though, the words began to present difficulties.
“...these harristocro...” He smiled as if in sleep. “...tocrofats...remembered what he said...”
“You told the man who was threatening you that Arnold used to work out at Moldham Hall, did you, Crutchy?” Purbright prompted.
Anderson half opened his eyes. Some of the old craftiness was in them as he tried to shake his head with some show of indignation. They closed completely. “Arrh,” he said, and slid into peaceful sleep.
The two policemen sought out the young nurse. She was seated drinking a cup of coffee in the dispensary-cum-office and staring out of the window. As they came through the door from the ward, she turned and rose.
“He’s asleep,” Purbright said, softly.
She looked relieved. “I wasn’t sure that you ought, really...I suppose it’s all right, though.”
“Is he very ill, then?” asked Bradley.
“Oh, no, not ill,” she said at once. Then, “Of course, he did get a bit of a fright, but you’ll know all about that.”
Purbright smiled at her. “Your knock-out drops certainly seem effective, nurse.”
She smiled back, but not with ease. “Dr Gule had a little trouble with him at first. He’s a very wilful old gentleman. They don’t realize how important rest can be in getting better.”
Purbright said, “How true,” and they took their leave pleasantly enough.
Outside, he frowned at his companion and said: “How can he be getting better when he hasn’t been ill? I know Crutchy of old. It would take more than Mr O’Dwyer to put him out for long.”
“The people who run this place—the local authority, presumably—must be feeling nervous. Authorities always do when something happens that they haven’t bargained for.” Bradley smiled at a recollection. “I received the impression from Mr Wellbeloved that we should have qualified for sedatives if it had been up to him.”
Purbright glanced back at the infirmary building. “The girl wasn’t altogether happy about doping old Anderson. She must know it was a pretty stiff dose.”
They walked on in silence for a while. “I wonder,” Bradley said at last, “if it is simply a question of an institution’s good name—of its administrators wishing to avoid unwelcome publicity concerning what I suppose would be called today a ‘security issue’. One could sympathize with their trying to bamboozle the Press. Bamboozling the police, though—that is not a sensible course.”
“Wellbeloved is not a stupid man,” Purbright said.
“No, I did not think so.”
“Of Gule, I know very little. He has a reputation for imposing upon susceptible young women and also for owing a lot of money to tradesmen, but in Flaxborough these are not accounted disqualifications from high office.”
“Nor in London,” Bradley assured him.
They reached the car. Purbright opened the door on the passenger’s side, then, got in himself. There had been no unlocking. Bradley remarked upon his faith in the honesty of Flaxborough folk.
Purbright shook his head. “Not honesty. Discrimination.”
He hesitated. “I was wondering if we ought to use what is left of the afternoon to introduce you to the harristocrofats. On second thoughts, though“—he pressed the starter—“we’d better leave them until we know more about the picture they are so eager to acquire.”
By the time they reached Fen Street, the town had a dusty, slightly somnolent air, enriched in the area of the market by the scent of warm fruit. The police headquarters, built by late Victorians out of authoritative red brick and ornamental tile, looked over-baked.