“But surely”—Miss Teatime looked puzzled—“there can be no suggestion of our product having been concerned in this, ah, trouble? It is altogether wholesome, I assure you.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is. The Reverend seemed to think so, anyway.”
“Brother Culpepper? Oh, yes, his judgement is very sound where the fruits of the earth are concerned. But perhaps you can tell me a little more about your inspector’s anxieties?”
Love related the facts of Alderman Winge’s death by drowning following his attempted seduction of Miss Pollock and a subsequent attack of giddiness. He repeated the assertion by Dr Meadow at the inquest that Winge had been dosing himself with Samson’s Salad, which, Love understood, was synonymous with Lucky Fen Wort, as processed and packaged at the Moldham Meres Laboratories. The sergeant forebore from cataloguing the other cases of indecent assault; nor did he mention Mrs Grope’s suspicions concerning association between Fen Wort and the recent disconcerting behaviour of her husband.
Miss Teatime listened to all this with grave and polite attention. Then she replenished his cup and helped herself to a booster shot of Friar’s Balsam.
“How very distressing,” she murmured. “But I am certain that Dr Meadow cannot have meant to blame our Samson’s Salad for what happened to his poor patient. Its action is invigorating but not in the least degree harmful. Indeed, I am only surprised—though relieved, naturally—to hear that Mr Winge did not catch the lady he was pursuing.”
“She was a good runner, by all accounts.”
“That is as well.”
There was a short pause.
“Tell me, though, Mr Love—was the criticism by Dr Meadow voiced publicly at the inquest?”
“Oh, yes. He’d been rather nettled by the deputy coroner, as a matter of fact. The inspector seems to think he was trying to to put himself in the clear.”
“I see.”
The ensuing silence sharpened a feeling in Love that his appearance at Moldham Meres must look odd and even foolish if he could think of no better justification. He had been received very kindly. Everything here seemed to be above board. Surely Purbright would not blame him for being a little more forthcoming.
He found himself saying: “Strictly between ourselves...”
Miss Teatime leaned forward. She looked concerned and very sympathetic.
“...we do have reports of another customer of yours, and it could be that he’s the same way inclined as old Winge.”
“Dear me!”
“That’s how it looks. Confidentially, of course.”
“Naturally.”
“His wife’s very worried. She says he’s taken to interfering with women in shops and collecting, well—you know—garments.”
Miss Teatime found the sergeant’s propensity for blushing most endearing. She nodded understandingly.
“According to her,” Love went on, “all this began when he started taking this herb stuff. That’s according to her,” he added defensively.
“You are being so agreeably frank, sergeant, that I wonder if you would care to divulge the gentleman’s name. I need hardly say that it would go no further.”
“Well...” He hesitated.
“Yes?”
“It’s Grope, actually.”
Miss Teatime pondered, then shook her head.
“No, I’m afraid the name is not familiar to me.” She smiled. “Perhaps I had best forget it again. Now then, is there any other matter in which you think I might be able to help you?”
Love thought not, but thanked her for asking.
When he had gone, Miss Teatime opened a drawer in one of the filing cabinets. After a brief search, she tweaked up a card. It was that of the only Grope on the mailing index. She copied the address into her little memorandum book, resumed her seat at the table, and thoughtfully lighted a slim, black cheroot.
Chapter Eleven
Brother Culpepper re-entered the office some twenty minutes later. When he saw that Miss Teatime was alone, he hauled off his habit and hung it on a hook at the back of the door. Then he slumped into the chair vacated by Sergeant Love and felt in his shirt pocket for a cigarette end and a match. The cigarette end was crumpled and very short. He lit it with his lips pouted well forward and his eyes nearly shut.
“What a nice policeman Sergeant Love is,” remarked Miss Teatime. “Did you not think so, Joe?”
“Oh, yurs. A right darlin’.” Culpepper hooked his tongue tip round the smouldering butt and shifted it to the opposite corner of his mouth. “Wot was ’e after, anyway?”
“He was making routine inquiries.”
“They always are. Lot o’ ponshus pilots.”
“Now, you must not be unjust, Joe. The sergeant is very helpful. It is not every policeman who gives warning of impending bad publicity.”
“Eh? ’Ow d’yer mean, Looce?”
“It seems that a certain Dr Meadow has been making remarks that cast reflection upon our product. As those remarks were made at an inquest, it is very likely that they will be reported in the Press—in the local Press, at all events. We must hope that his calumnies will not spread further afield.”
“Oo, ’ell!”
Miss Teatime regarded the remnant of her cheroot, then tamped it out scrupulously in an earthenware ashtray.
“Of course,” she said, “the effects will not necessarily be disastrous. On the one hand, it would be highly beneficial if the story were to gain ground that Lucky Fen Wort puts lead into the pencils of elderly gentlemen. That, after all, is what we have tried to convey in more delicate terms through the advertisement columns.”
“Shoor,” agreed Brother Culpepper. Puckering his face, he sucked a final dividend of smoke from the brown pellet in his mouth corner, then extracted it between finger and thumb and flicked it accurately into the fireplace.
“What would not be beneficial,” resumed Miss Teatime, “is the suggestion by a medical man that our product had contributed not merely to the venal foibles of this Mr Winge but to his death as well. People are very readily swayed by the prejudices of doctors, and they do not like taking things which they fear may kill them.”
“Yurs, but ahr little old Wort ’d never do that.”
“Certainly not. You know and I know and all the good country folk around here know how benign are the remedies of nature. Unfortunately, the professional medical mind admits of no such persuasion.”
“O ye stiff-necked ’ippercrits,” muttered Culpepper. He leaned forward and peered hopefully into the coffee jug, but it was empty.
Miss Teatime got up and walked once or twice from one end of the room to the other.
“There is just one thing which I find extremely puzzling,” she said, halting by the window and looking down into the yard at two cats that lay together and snoozed in the sun. “Why did our friend Dr Meadow go out of his way to mention Samson’s Salad in connection with that man’s death? Doctors generally refuse even to acknowledge the existence of what they call quack medicines. His behaviour has been most uncharacteristic. I wonder why.”