“Where on earth did you get that one from?”
“It was mentioned during the inquest on Winge. I can’t vouch for my pronunciation. Nor for lawyer Scorpe’s.”
“Scorpe—he asked about it, did he?”
“Yes. He put it to Meadow.”
After a pause, Bruce said: “No, I don’t know what it is, but I suppose the old man’s family must have nosed around and found that Meadow had been prescribing it for Winge.”
“That was my impression.”
“I know those vultures. I smell a lawsuit.”
“So did Meadow, I think. He dragged in a red herring right away. He told Scorpe that Winge had been going against his advice and dosing himself with a herbal remedy called Samson’s Salad. You haven’t heard of that, I suppose?”
“Good God, no. What’s it supposed to do?”
“Impart the sexual virility of the Ancient Britons.”
Bruce took a little time to digest this promising specification. Then he said, half in wonder, half in pride:
“We don’t half have some goings-on in this little old town.”
“Don’t we?”
The inspector stood and buttoned his raincoat. At the door, he raised his hand.
“Ring me if you get any ideas.”
Chapter Fourteen
Miss Teatime paused at the little Georgian doorway that led to her rooms in the Church Close, and, while feeling for her key, looked up at the gothic wedding cake tiers of the great tower of St Laurence’s. That miraculous stone confection never failed to please her. She loved in particular its ever-changing response to weather and time of day. In the first light of morning, its buttresses, lancets and galleries had a metallic sharpness; they looked to be fashioned in pewter. Then, as the sky brightened, silver facets appeared. Summer noons turned the traceries to honeycomb. In storm, the tower was a monochrome of granite; in mist, a long brown sail, becalmed. As Miss Teatime gazed at it now, an hour after sunset on a damp, still evening, the soaring stone was tinged with green, as if it had caught and thrown down to her a reflection of the fields and woods beyond the town.
She sighed and faced about to open the door.
In her sitting-room at the head of the first flight of narrow, sharply twisting stairs, she switched on the light and enjoyed for a moment its revelation of pale lavender colour-washed walls and the gleam of fresh grey paint from deep, classically simple window frames. She had decorated the room herself, transforming it from the dinginess of long neglect (which had made it a gratifyingly cheap buy) into what she imagined—probably rightly—would have pleased those Flaxborough contemporaries of Jane Austen who had been its first occupants.
She took off her hat and coat, made tea in the tiny adjoining kitchen, and drew up a chair to the slender-legged table beneath one of the wall lamps. Among the contents of the tea tray, which she had set down at the end of the table away from typewriter and stationery, was a small whiskey bottle, half full.
When she judged the tea to be properly infused, she poured some out and added a little sugar, a very little milk, and as much whiskey as would still allow the mixture to be stirred without slopping over into the saucer. She took a sip, then, with an increasing approval, another, and a third. She did not care for over-hot tea: blowing it was vulgar—it also wastefully evaporated the whiskey.
Not until she had finished her first cup and poured and laced her second, did Miss Teatime turn her attention to a clip of correspondence which she had laid ready beside the typewriter.
There were nearly a dozen letters, all addressed to Moldham Meres Laboratories. Although most were from individual customers, four had been written by the managers of health food stores in various parts of the country.
They related to Press reports of the Winge inquest. Some enclosed newspaper cuttings. Drowned Alderman was Herb Eater...Reservoir Death after “Salad”, Court Told...Doctor Blames Nature Cure.
Every writer declared, in terms ranging from the abrupt and offensive to the politically ingenious (a customer in Leamington Spa suggesting that Samson’s Salad was a paralysing nerve weed cultivated on Siberian state farms), that no further supplies were required. Some of the shopkeepers demanded a refund on current stocks.
It was this last category of complaint that Miss Teatime considered particularly wounding, indicative as it was of a degree of cupidity that she had scarcely expected to find in the protagonists of Natural Goodness.
She lit a cheroot and considered how best a reply could be framed. It would have to be in the nature of a duplicated circular, she feared: these letters were doubtless but harbingers of flocks to come.
After a while, she began to type. Her typing, though punctuated by periods of thought, had the grace, speed and accurary typical of an old and hard school of secretarial training. Ah, yes, the Bishop (she would have explained to an admiring onlooker) had always insisted upon his pastoral letters being absolutely clean.
Friend, (her manifesto ran)
I am extremely sorry that you have been disturbed by certain newspaper references to Our Product. Our legal advisers, needless to say, are already taking certain action, in the outcome of which we have complete confidence; but I am writing to you in the meantime to point out certain facts which you, as an intelligent person, are fully entitled to interpret for yourself.
Firstly, I must reveal to you that the medical practitioner who saw fit to make the disparaging remarks in question has since died suddenly. We do not, of course, claim this ununfortunate occurrence to have been divinely engineered in vindication of Nature’s Way. You might well wonder, however, whether a man so signally unsuccessful in maintaining his own life span was qualified to throw doubt upon the health-winning methods of others.
Secondly, I would point out that Moldham Meres Laboratories have never pretended that Our Product is incapable of being misused. There is no Gift of Nature which cannot be turned to a wrongful purpose. Our Product is a natural concentrate of the Life Force. Therefore it cannot fail to increase the Vitality of the user and thus greatly to improve the performance of all Natural Functions.
You will readily appreciate, of course, that only those who temper their enjoyment of life with Self Control and respect the confines of Matrimony are suitable candidates for the advantages offered by Our Product.
If, for any reason, you feel that your own Personal Standards do not meet this condition, we shall be happy to refund your money on receipt of Proof of Purchase.
Miss Teatime withdrew the sheet from the machine and carefully read it through. From time to time she nodded to herself. Plenty of capital letters. Excellent. Devotion to upper case, she had noticed, was one of the more consistent characteristics of Life Force enthusiasts.
She put the letter aside. She would make the stencil later, then Florrie could start running off some copies.
It was now quite dark outside in the Close. There stood out from the blackness opposite an arched multi-coloured glow. It was the stained glass window of the chapel where choir practice was usually held. Miss Teatime gazed fondly at the night-framed mosaic of indigo, ruby and saffron. How timelessly dependable it looked, this lovely survival of mediaeval self-confidence.