No, it was natural enough for people to get frightened while this sort of thing was going on in the town. It was also reasonable—and proper—for them to demand what their police force was doing about it.
The trouble was, as Purbright well knew from past experience of Flaxborough’s endemic sexual impetiuosity, that the offender invariably was unpredictable as well as wily. He also seemed to have a complacent wife, acquaintances who had the greatest difficulty in recognizing him at a distance of more than three feet, and a genius for picking victims with delayed reactions and bad memories.
The inspector’s mood was not lightened when his telephone rang and he heard the eagerly inquisitive voice of young Henry Popplewell.
“Now then, chiefy, what’s all this about the Flaxborough Crab?”
Henry, the son of Mrs Popplewell, Justice of the Peace, was the Flaxborough Citizen’s most recently acquired and already regretted junior reporter.
“Crab?” echoed Purbright, in genuine bewilderment.
“That’s right. The whole town’s talking about him. You know—all this peeping through curtains and chasing women. We’ve got no end of stories. I’m just tying them up.”
Henry delivered this final information with the pride of some embryo Northcliffe packed umbilically with newspaper jargon.
“I think,” Purbright said, “that you’d better come along and see me, Mr Popplewell.”
“Will do,” chimed Henry.
Purbright replaced the receiver. He looked pained. He was very much afraid that Henry’s “Will do” was but a foretaste of even heartier abbreviations to come. He waited, nerves tingling, for the door to open and admit Mr Popplewell and his “Long time no see!”
At last there was a knock and Henry’s head appeared.
“Chow!”
The inspector winced.
Henry came in. Purbright pointed invitingly to a chair. Instead of sitting, Henry twirled the chair round behind him and leaned against its back in the manner of a sportsman resting on his shooting stick. He gazed jauntily round the shabby little office.
“And how’s tricks?” he asked.
It’s coming, thought Purbright, it MUST be coming.
Henry stared with open curiosity towards the papers on the inspector’s desk. He scratched under his left armpit, yawned, glanced out of the window, then fished a cigarette from the breast pocket of his jacket and lit it, frowning. He expelled smoke as if trying to blow out a candle from ten feet. This seemed to do him a lot of good. He smiled.
“Well, well—long time no see!”
Purbright swallowed and visibly relaxed.
“Mr Popplewell, you mentioned on the telephone someone or something called the Flaxborough Crab.”
“Right.”
“Who calls him that?”
“Everybody. Either that, or the Flaxborough Strangler.”
The inspector raised his brows.
“I don’t recall any reports of stranglings, Mr Popplewell.”
“Ah, you’ve not heard from that woman in Windsor Close, then? Half a tick...” Henry consulted the back of an empty cigarette packet. “Mrs Cowper, husband on the buses. No joy?”
“She’s not complained to us.”
“That figures,” said Henry cheerfully. Purbright had no idea what he meant.
“Or Mavis what’s-her-name, the waitress at the Roebuck?”
“Another strangling?”
“Do me a favour! No—knicker-snatching, that one.”
Purbright tried to resist the growing sense of confusion that was imparted by the substance and, more particularly, the manner of Henry’s conversation. He lit himself a cigarette, examined it carefully, and began:
“I gather that what you are...”
“Look,” Henry interrupted, “can you give me the dope on this peeping angle?”
“Peeping?”
“Natch. All over the place. Women daren’t go to bed.”
“Somebody looks through their windows?”
“That’s the drill. No one’s slept for a fortnight down Edward Crescent or Abdication Avenue. Hey, but you know all this! You have to know. Come on—impart!”
Henry had unpropped himself and was now pacing restlessly up and down, immediately in front of Purbright’s desk.
“I’m very much afraid that there is nothing that I can impart. It is you who seem to have all the information. There have been two assaults recently. The sergeant downstairs will give you the details of those. But as far as the other things are concerned, it seems that you have a—what should I say?—a scoop. Congratulations.”
Henry stopped pacing and eyed Purbright speculatively. Then he nodded.
“Fair enough. Sergeant downstairs? Will do.”
He made for the door.
“Oh, by the way, Mr Popplewell...”
Henry turned.
“This soubriquet you say everybody is using. The Flaxborough Crab. I don’t quite get the significance.”
For answer, Henry took three or four lurching steps sideways, as if the floor had suddenly become the deck of a ship in heavy seas.
“Runs away like that. So they say.”
“Oh, I see. Thank you very much.”
“Don’t mensh.” Henry opened the door and gave a sprightly salute of farewell. “Chow!”
“Good morning,” said Purbright.
Chapter Four
Mr Harcourt Chubb, the chief constable, listened courteously to his inspector’s summary of the activities to date of the Flaxborough Crab.
He had adopted his inevitable audience-giving stance of leaning elegantly against the corner of the fireplace in his office while Purbright sat (at Mr Chubb’s insistence) on a rather low chair six feet away.
Purbright outlined the experiences of Miss Butters and Brenda Sweeting; then added the gleanings of the Flaxborough Citizen from the troubled fields of Edward Crescent, Windsor Close and Abdication Avenue.
“I’ve sent two men over to make inquiries in the area, sir. They have a few addresses. Mr Lintz, the editor of the Citizen, was kind enough to let me have a proof of the story that they’re running on Friday.”
The Chief Constable pursed his lips. “Mind you, Mr Purbright, I should be inclined to treat that sort of tiling with great reserve. Newspapers, you know...” He shook his head sadly.
Purbright was well aware of Mr Chubb’s distrust of the Press. Only two weeks previously, in its report of the annual Flaxborough Kennel Club Show, the Citizen had emasculated in print his prize-winning Yorkshire Terrier, ‘Six-shot Rufus of Swaledale’, by contriving to substitute its name for that of the Bitch with the Most Appealing Eyes.