Cheerily, he addressed the horse.
“Now, then, old chap. And what does your mistress call you? Trigger?”
Whether it was the horse that jumped, or Mrs Moldham-Clegg, was not clear, but only the prompt reaction of Mr Benton, who seized the bridle, restored calm.
The rider, her face very tight, climbed down.
“All right, Benton; you may take Churchill back to his box.”
The old man hesitated. “Beggin’ your pardon, but there’s some fellers round the back pokin’ about.”
Purbright intervened. “Those are police officers, Mrs Moldham-Clegg, and they do have authority to be here.”
“Not mine, Mr Purbright.”
“In the present circumstances, it is your co-operation rather than your authority that we shall value, ma’am. I am sure that Colonel Moldham, as a magistrate, would appreciate that.”
To Benton, Mrs Moldham-Clegg gave a dismissive nod. He ambled off, leading Churchill. She took a latchkey from the pocket of her riding jacket and made for the door.
“My nephew is elsewhere on the estate. Perhaps you had better come in and explain what all this nonsense is about.”
Instead of the big white-painted room to which Purbright had been admitted on his former visit, he and Bradley now found themselves in one that was only slightly smaller but a good deal darker and more shabby. The walls were papered in a churchyard green, marked off in panels by faint gold lines. One wall was disfigured by a mould-dappled patch of damp shaped like a map of India. The recess at each side of the broad chimney-breast had been sealed off with panelled doors painted dark brown. There was a very old harmonium in the room; also a squat square safe, the indentations in whose green paint showed it to be an eighth of an inch thick.
Mrs Moldham-Clegg seated herself on a music stool with her back to the harmonium. She did not take off her hat. Purbright and Bradley selected seats for themselves from half a dozen Victorian dining chairs ranged along one wall, and brought them forward.
Purbright made formal introduction of his London colleague, who was forthwith stared at and asked: “And which Bradleys would they be?” rather as if he had cropped up in a seed catalogue.
“Hounslow,” proclaimed Bradley, loudly and without hesitation.
The old woman’s lip twitched with the briefest of smiles and the parchment-like lid lowered a fraction over one eye. She hmm’d reflectively and said: “Your conversation with Churchill led me to suppose it would be somewhere like Arizona. However...”
Stern once more and erect, she turned to Purbright.
“Now, inspector, your explanation, please.”
The chair seat was covered in a sort of woven horse-hair; it was glassily cold and as yielding as a slab of anthracite. Even the furniture, Purbright thought to himself, was under instruction to be inhospitable until further notice.
“I think,” he began, “that your best way of receiving an explanation is to let it emerge in the course of our putting questions to you.
“For instance, when I ask if you have any personal knowledge of the man Francis Dean O’Dwyer, it will be clear to you that a connection of some kind between O’Dwyer and this place does, in our opinion, exist. Shall we proceed from that point?”
“I have never heard of a man of such a name,” declared Mrs Moldham-Clegg.
Purbright nodded. “The name perhaps does not matter. He had others. Mr Bradley will show you a photograph.”
Silently, Bradley passed a print. The old woman regarded it stonily and handed it back. “No one of my acquaintance,” she said.
A smile from Purbright. “Not in a social sense, perhaps. But are you sure you have never seen the man before? At the auction sale on Thursday, for instance? Or in the early hours of the following morning when he was engaged in breaking into your house?”
“Again this nonsense about a burglary. There has been no burglary, Mr Purbright. No one has broken into the house. If anyone had, I assure you the police would have been notified.”
“And if I were to tell you that fingerprints of the man O’Dwyer have been found on pieces of glass from the window on the ground floor here that was broken Thursday night, would you be surprised, ma’am?”
“Not particularly.”
There was a pause. Then Bradley spoke.
“Why not, Mrs Moldham-Clegg?”
“Because I have better things to do than express surprise for the edification of policemen. I know nothing about fingerprints. For all I know, they blow about like dandelion clocks.”
“Mr Benton,” said Purbright, “was in no uncertainty regarding a break-in. He spoke of ‘the burglar’ almost familiarly.”
“Mr Benton,” retorted Mrs Moldham-Clegg, “is not always a very reliable old gentleman. You would probably find, if you were to speak to him today, that he has a completely different set of fancies.”
“Yet you keep him on?” Bradley remarked.
“Certainly, inspector. One does not dispense with one’s people’s services simply on account of age or even a little eccentricity.”
Bradley seemed to find the point interesting. He leaned a little forward. “Mr Arnold, though—he went into retirement pretty early, didn’t he? Or so I understand.”
Mrs Moldham-Clegg looked bewildered. Nothing was said for several moments. Then she frowned angrily, not at Bradley but at Purbright.
“I cannot imagine what relevance your friend’s question is supposed to bear to the matter in hand. Perhaps you could enlighten me, Mr Purbright?”
Purbright spoke soothingly. “We are just trying to assemble a number of loose ends; I’m sorry if you find some of them confusing. Let us first dispose of the man whose photograph Inspector Bradley showed you. Did you not see him during Thursday’s auction sale?”
“I did not. On these occasions, one is too busy watching the auctioneer to stare around at other bidders.”
“We did not say he was bidding,” observed Bradley.
The old woman stared at him. “Of course you did. Don’t be so Agatha Christie.”
Purbright patiently assembled another question. “Early on Friday morning—round about one o’clock, perhaps, were you awakened by an unusual noise, the sounds of a crudely conducted search downstairs, one that involved the forcing of locks?”
“I was awakened by nothing, Mr Purbright. If you did more riding, you would sleep better, I’ve no doubt.”
“Not by the discharge of a firearm?” Purbright persisted.
“Twice?” added Bradley.
Mrs Moldham-Clegg murmured a cross “Of course not!” The tone expressed her opinion that the inquisition was in danger of passing from the merely tiresome stage to one of actual bad taste.