“He’s not the same man now,” said Mrs Grope. “Oh, I don’t just mean this conjuggling rights business. I can deal with that. But it’s the other things. Just look what I found in the boot cupboard the other morning.”
She pulled from her bag a multi-coloured bundle and thrust it into Purbright’s lap, where it unfurled into a miscellany of pairs of knickers.
“Where did he get them, I’d like to know!”
“Where, indeed,” murmured Purbright, much impressed.
“From clothes lines, I should think,” Love said, after looking critically at some of the garments. He glanced at the inspector and lowered his voice. “There have been reports.”
Purbright put the clothing in a heap on the table.
“You’d better let the policewomen take charge of these for the time being,” he told Mrs Grope. “Now is there anything else you feel you ought to tell us?”
She pondered darkly.
“He stays out very late some nights.”
“How late?”
“Oh, eleven and after. Once it was nearly one in the morning.”
“Doesn’t he tell you where he’s been?”
“Pardon?”
“Where he’s been. Does he tell you?”
“Never ask.”
“I see. All right. Anything else, Mrs Grope?”
“Well, just that business with the woman in the supermarket.”
“Oh?”
“He’s supposed to have interfered with her behind the Shredded Wheat, but there was only her word against his and I’d never known him do that before.”
“Ah, well we mustn’t make too much of it, men, must we?” Purbright, hating himself, gave Mrs Grope a reassuring smile. “I wonder,” he said, “if it might not be a good idea to have a word with his doctor?”
She shook her head. “He’s not a man you can talk to, Dr Meadow isn’t. Very proud. Mr Grope sees him once a week, regular, but I won’t go. Not to him.”
“Never mind—why don’t you talk things over with your husband and persuade him to ask the doctor for advice? You don’t really want him to be in trouble with the law, I’m sure.”
Purbright cast a worried glance at the heap of underclothes and hoped that their assorted owners would not complicate his life further by positively identifying them. Larceny charges were the last things he wanted to be bothered with at the moment.
Love saw Mrs Grope out. He returned to find the inspector with an unwontedly wild look in his eye.
“My God, Sid! The whole bloody town’s infested with sexual maniacs! What the hell are we going to do?”
The sergeant, who could not remember ever before having received so direct a plea for his opinion, did his best to convey an impression of urgent intelligence.
Purbright patted his shoulder.
“Look, before we try and organize anything else, I think we should try and find out all we can about two factors that are common to the only people we’ve so far been able to connect with this business. Meadow’s practice is one factor—both Winge and Grope were his patients. And the second is the stuff in that packet.”
“Did Winge take it as well, then?”
“Meadow said so at the inquest.”
Love held the envelope open and sniffed.
“Smells like lawn clippings.”
“You notice where it’s made.”
“Moldham Meres, I suppose. Queer sort of place to find laboratories.”
“I fancy,” said Purbright, “that ‘laboratories’ will turn out to be huts. Or one hut. Pretentious terms are the very breath of commerce nowadays, Sid.”
“The only sign of life I ever saw out there was a postman taking a short cut from Strawbridge to Moldham Halt.”
“Oh, you do know that part of the world, then?”
Love confessed to having an aunt at Strawbridge whom he visited occasionally.
“In that case, you may mix business with pleasure tomorrow and see what you can learn about Moldham Meres Laboratories. Tactfully, of course. Perhaps your aunt will be able to give you a start. People in country districts are very well informed.”
Purbright looked about him. “Where’s Harper?”
“Probably in the canteen. Shall I find him for you?”
Detective Harper having been traced and summoned, the inspector entrusted him with the surveillance until further notice of Mr Grope.
“Not all the time, you know. I doubt if he will get up to anything during daylight. But watch for him going out in the evening and keep him in sight until he gets back home again. If he does anything really naughty, pull him in, naturally.”
“Mind you,” Purbright confided to Love when Harper had gone, “I can’t imagine dozy old Walter as a rapist, somehow. The trouble is that we can’t be sure of anybody any more. Something or other is sending half the over-sixties round the twist. Until we know what it is and who’s behind it, there’s precious little we can do.”
The sergeant was examining again the packet left by Mrs Grope. He moistened the tip of his little finger and touched the powdery grey-green contents. Then, very cautionsly, he licked the grains that had stuck to the finger end. Eyes closed, he made rabbity little movements with his mouth, then remained quite still for several seconds as if hopeful of a Dracula-like transformation. The only outcome, however, was a sneeze.
“Bless you,” said Purbright.
Chapter Nine
The door of Dr Meadow’s house was opened by a girl of about eighteen who wore upon her head something white and lacy. Purbright’s first thought was that the girl was a patient, visiting the doctor in his off-hours, and that the white object was a lightweight bandage of some kind. But would a patient say “Good morning, sir” and just stand there?
He realized with something of a shock that the bandage was in fact what used to be called a ‘maid’s cap’ (he had last seen one on a café waitress in Bournemouth in 1949) and that the girl was a domestic servant.
“Is the doctor at home?”
“I’ll just go and see, sir.”
“But don’t you know?” (The house couldn’t be all that big.)
She reddened and he was sorry to have embarrassed her.
“I’ll see, sir,” she said again.
After a while, he heard someone cry “Yes?” It sounded impatient, hostile. From a doorway down the hall the face of Mrs Meadow looked out. She kept the rest of herself out of view. (Bad payer, thought Purbright.)
He called to her, genially. “Good morning, Mrs Meadow.”
No sign of recognition. “Yes? What is it you want? Who are you?”
He wanted very much to bellow: I am a DEBT COLLECTOR, madam! but restrained himself.
“We have met, Mrs Meadow. I am (up, irresistibly, went his voice, after all) A POLICE INSPECTOR. Purbright is my name.”