“All I can remember,” he said, “is a sound like somebody trying to open a door. But it came from there, right there.” He pointed to the back of his head.
“When you say door...” Purbright frowned, and with a gesture invited Love to elucidate.
The sergeant said merely: “Yes, well...” and looked sulky.
Purbright tried other lines of questioning. “You’re sure, are you, Sid, that you saw no one in or near the Volunteers’ Hall who might have a grudge against you?”
“Against me?”
“A misconceived grudge, naturally.”
“I didn’t see anybody I knew—apart from Mr Harrap and one or two of the saleroom people,” Love said. “There were plenty outside who looked pretty villainous, mind you.”
Purbright recognized that one of Love’s infrequent jokes was on the way.
“You know—dealers,” explained the sergeant.
The inspector drew a rough sketch in his notebook. “If that’s the saleroom, with the auctioneer’s stand there, whereabouts were you?”
Love put a cross. He thought a moment. “The stuff I was looking at was lot number thirty-four,” he said. “You’ll find the place from that, if the sale hasn’t started.”
The sale had not started, but more than a hundred people had taken their seats.
Purbright sought out the auctioneer.
Mr Hector Durham, the senior—indeed, the sole surviving original partner in Walker, Durham and Tait, was known as Old Noddy by reason of the sympathetic reflex movement that had begun simply as an encouragement of bidders but now was involuntary and permanent.
Oh, yes, nodded Mr Durham, the inspector was welcome to make what investigations he liked. Would he mind, though, if the first lot were put up at eleven o’clock? There were more wardrobes than usual this week and wardrobes did drag a bit.
“Sorry to hear about young Love,” said Mr Durham, his big, kindly head going up and down like a beam engine. “Was he trying to arrest somebody or what? Nobody here saw what happened.”
The inspector was directed to what Old Noddy understood to be the area in which the sergeant had been attacked.
“I’m going for my breakfast now,” said Mr Durham, “but Mr Harrap will look after you.”
The inspector crossed the hall. Nearly all the front six rows of seats were occupied, three-quarters of them by women. Most of them seemed to know one another. There was quite a festive air. A policeman in uniform, Constable Hooley, marked the scene of the assault as surely as a lighthouse amidst a shoal of rocks. The inspector told him that he might take his helmet off if he liked. Hooley did so but he continued to hold it, like a chalice, perhaps for fear that setting it down would invite its being swept into the sale.
Purbright stopped and surveyed lot thirty-four. He saw Love’s cottage. It was inscribed in one corner: “At the End of Life’s Lane”. He turned it over. Nothing. Plaster, was it? He scratched at one of the roses round the cottage door. The red flaked off, leaving chalky whiteness.
“Quite artistic, isn’t it?”
Purbright turned. Lewcock, Mr Durham’s clerk, was behind him. The probability was that Harrap had sent him to see that nothing was messed about with; Mr Harrap’s distrust of humanity did not exclude police inspectors.
He replaced the cottage and looked over the other items in the tray. Lewcock offered no further opinions but kept close.
Purbright examined the floor. He saw the table that Love had pulled down with him. It had since been replaced. Purbright strolled past it. He looked to his left. A door, marked Emergency Exit. It opened easily enough. Beyond it was a narrow lane. No one was in the lane.
Purbright returned to lot thirty-four. Nearby were six or seven similar collections of miscellaneous articles. He began methodically to search through those that were within reasonable reaching distance of where Love had stood.
Lewcock and PC Hooley watched. They noted with due solemnity that he did his poking around with a pencil. “Prints,” breathed Mr Hooley to his companion.
Suddenly Purbright paused. He draped a handkerchief over something in one of the trays and carefully withdrew it. The others saw first the shape, then the object, as the inspector shook back the folds of the handkerchief. He held a heavy, cast-iron door-knob, connected by a square spindle to its smaller fellow.
The assembly rattled when shaken. But there was no doubt that it would have served tolerably well as a club.
“I’m afraid,” said Purbright to Lewcock, “that I’m going to have to take charge of this for a while. Mr Durham will understand when you explain. Now then—a box, perhaps? Nothing elaborate...”
When PC Hooley had departed for Fen Street with the parcelled evidence and some simple but careful instructions, Purbright moved into the main body of the hall and found himself a seat.
The early part of the sale, the “warming up” in the language of auctioneers, was being conducted by the ascetic Mr Harrap. He took bids with great condescension. Some starters he refused to countenance, treating them either as feeble jokes or as the interjections of lunatics.
Two pounds fifty was offered for a tin box containing a soup tureen, a pair of spanners and assorted curtain rings. “Doesn’t anyone realize,” asked Mr Harrap with censorious surprise, “what a collectable item today is the Victorian curtain ring?”
No one did, it seemed, for the two-fifty went untopped. Mr Harrap eyed the next item anxiously. It was a child’s toy baking set, circa 1949, almost complete, in original box, very collectable. Ten pence was offered. Mr Harrap declined to hear.
Lot thirty-four was reached after about half an hour.
The tray was brought for display to the audience. The porter held it as if it contained a selection of rare gems. He swung it slowly before him, so that everyone might have a view.
Purbright could see the plaster representation of the cottage in the centre of the other things. It was propped up slightly. Probably by one of the decanter stoppers. The mauled golf balls had settled into a corner of the tray.
“There is in this lot,” explained Mr Harrap, “an item that is much sought after these days. I do not have to tell you what it is.” The porter did not need telling, either. He reverently shifted the meat mincer to a more prominent position.
“Do I hear five pounds?” inquired Mr Harrap. His expression implied that it might have been fifty but he was playing safe. Someone laughed. The auctioneer looked shocked.
There was a long silence.
“Four pounds.”
The bidder was a sturdy, compact woman with a much-lined face and an air of authority. In her seventies, perhaps, she still conveyed an impression of indifference to wear and tear. Her rather dingy woollen coat was belted determinedly. She wore an outsize hat, not unlike a lifeboatman’s in style.