'Why not?' she said with a smile. 'How are you at carving? Hartley's a near-vegetarian and doesn't take kindly to sawing up chunks of dead animals.'
'Are you interested in porcelain?' asked Culpepper when the two men were alone.
'I know little about it,' answered Pascoe cautiously. More therapy? he wondered. From Dalziel's burglars to Culpepper's culture. I must appear all things to all men.
'My own knowledge is very limited,’ said Culpepper modestly. 'Come and see my few pieces.'
He rose, led Pascoe across the entrance hall and unlocked a solid-looking oak door. When he opened it, Pascoe was surprised to see a metal grille, rather like the expanding doors used in old-fashioned lifts. Culpepper inserted another key and the grille slid back of its own accord.
Whether the value of the collection justified these elaborate precautions Pascoe could not say. The pieces were magnificently displayed. There were no windows in the room and the walls were broken by a series of different sized niches which held the porcelain. Each niche had its own light, controlled separately so that it was possible to centre the attention completely on each of the pieces in turn. The only free-standing pieces were two large capped urns which occupied plinths in the middle of the room. They were decorated in the Chinese style but Culpepper assured Pascoe that they were late eighteenth-century English imitations.
'Out of place here, really,' he said. 'But they were the first things I ever bought when I discovered I had enough money to start buying.'
'How much is it all worth?' was all Pascoe could find to say.
'Oh, several thousands,' said Culpepper vaguely. 'Much of it is not what the experts might call first-rate. But to me it is irreplaceable and therefore invaluable.'
He led the way out, crashing the grille door locked behind him.
'Valuable or not, I wish more people would take the precautions you do with their property,' said Pascoe, thinking of the ease with which his current burglar had been helping himself to small fortune. This time last night he had been working on the case. It seemed barely credible.
Dinner went quite well. Ellie and Marianne seemed to have taken to each other, though Pascoe would not have seen either as the other's 'type'. The guests, John and Sandra Bell, were a pleasant enough couple in their mid-thirties, he extrovert, outspoken, nearly hearty; she pretty, much quieter but far from subdued. The name touched a chord in Pascoe's mind. But it was only when the conversation, carefully vetted and censored for his and Ellie's benefit, came round to the local water pollution controversy that he recalled noticing Bell's name in the Amenities Committee minutes. He was a staunch down-streamer, and complained bitterly that the village brook was being polluted upstream by careless management of the cesspool drainage which many of the local properties still relied on. Culpepper, eating an egg mayonnaise with green salad, pushed his plate away from him with an expression of distaste.
'John, please,' said Mrs Bell. 'You're making Hartley nauseous and must be boring his visitors stiff.'
'I'm sorry,’ said Bell, grinning at Ellie. 'Forgive me. It's all right for the idle rich on this side of the village. They can be objective. But that stream runs at the bottom of my garden and I've got a young son. He catches enough without getting typhoid. But never fear. I have a plan. The next Amenities Committee meeting may get a surprise.'
He winked conspiratorially as Marianne began clearing away the plates.
The first after-dinner guest arrived as they were drinking their coffee. Marianne let him in. There was a perceptible interval before she returned with Angus Pelman. Pascoe assumed the time was spent in warning the man about the strangers in the house.
Pelman made no attempt to avoid the subject of the killings.
'Any news of Hopkins?' he asked brusquely after being introduced.
'I think not,' intervened Culpepper diplomatically. 'I wonder, Miss Soper, if you would care to see my collection of porcelain?'
'Oh, blast your porcelain, Hartley. Miss Soper isn't a child to have her mind diverted by a bag of sweets.'
Culpepper turned away and busied himself removing the foil cap from a fresh bottle of scotch. One two-thirds full stood in full view on the sideboard. Marianne glanced over at him with a faint pucker of worry between the eyes.
'We're all shocked by what's happened,' Pelman continued. 'They were nice people, our neighbours, members of our community.'
'Which not everybody made them particularly welcome to,' murmured Culpepper. 'Let me freshen your drink, Mr Pascoe.'
'Meaning?' demanded Pelman.
'That business at the Eagle, for a start,' replied Culpepper.
'That was between JP and the Hopkinses,' intervened Bell. 'Nothing to do with anyone else. They were well out of it. It's a much better pint at the Anne, and cheaper too.'
He grinned amiably, the pourer of oil on troubled waters.
'Who's JP?' asked Ellie.
'Palfrey, the owner of the Eagle and Child,' said Marianne Culpepper.
'Who, blameworthy though he is, should not be allowed all the blame,' said her husband blandly. 'And there were other things besides. Eh, Pelman?'
There was a ring at the front door bell.
'Hartley, would you answer that?' said Marianne, separating the antagonists. She tried to consolidate the forced armistice by-changing the conversation and Pelman seemed much readier to accept this from her.
'If this weather keeps up, we'll get some good riding tomorrow. Are you going out, John?'
'No such luck. I haven't reached Hartley's stage of executive elevation yet. I still have to bring my work home with me. Besides, Sandra says riding gives you a big bum.'
'John!' protested his wife. But she met Marianne's quizzical gaze with the unruffled smile of one whose own buttocks were as compact as a boy's.
'What is your job, Mr Bell?' asked Pascoe, trying to sound unlike a policeman. Nowadays he was never sure when he succeeded.
'I'm sales director of Nuplax, the kitchen utensil people. In Banbury.'
'That sounds very high-powered.'
'Oh, it'll do. But it's small time compared with Hartley. He's a top finance man with the Nordrill group.'
Pascoe looked impressed to conceal his ignorance. Nordrill he had heard of. An up-and-coming oil and mining consortium often in the news. But just what such a job meant in terms of responsibility and reward he could not conceive.
'That must be worth a few bob,' he said knowingly.
'It keeps him comfortable. Eh, Marianne?'
Bell's gesture included the woman as well as the unostentatious luxury of the room. Marianne smiled, but with little humour.
'I didn't realize Nordrill were centred in the Midlands,' said Ellie.
'Oh, they're not. But London's no distance with a decent car and a pied-a-terre if you don't fancy the drive back.'
Lucky old Hartley, thought Pascoe.
Lucky old Hartley re-entered accompanied by Dr Hardisty who, from the length of time they had taken, must have been giving as well as receiving information. With him was his wife, either younger or better preserved, with the brisk movements and reassuring smile that Pascoe associated with the nursing profession. It seemed a probable guess.
They hardly had time to express anxiety over Ellie's well-being and regret over Rose's death, at the same time studiously avoiding any reference to Colin, before the bell rang once more. This time Marianne went and after the inevitable delay, reappeared by herself.
'Hartley,' she said quietly. 'Do you have a moment?'
Culpepper left the room. Pascoe wandered over to the sideboard and freshened his drink generously. He was a firm believer in the social maxim from each according to his ability and there was evidence of a great deal of ability here.
Bell joined him.
'Does Palfrey do most of the social liquor trade round here?' Pascoe asked, holding the bottle of scotch like a conversation piece.