Love would have liked to believe that Hatch’s sudden tetchiness was a sign that he was about to crack beneath shrewdly applied pressure. He tried the line that always disconcerted criminals on television:
“Why don’t you tell me, sir?”
“Don’t be bloody silly,” said Hatch, and very effectively left it at that.
Amis brought in the coffee. It seemed that he had made it himself. Love peeped over the rim of his cup before Amis handed it to him from the tray. Very milky-looking. And not a sign of those wrinkles that warned of a skin that would stick to his upper lip.
“Mmm,” said Love appreciatively when he had stirred in four spoonsful of sugar and taken a sip.
Hatch noticed. “Good lad, that,” he said, nodding in the direction his secretary had taken. “He’s what I call an instant expert, is Amis. Mention anything you like and he’d be able to write a book about it straight off. I got him from a proper university, you know, not from an advert in the Citizen.”
Love drank his coffee rapidly and with evident enjoyment. Until it was finished he said nothing but looked about him in methodical appraisal of the room’s furniture and decorations. The wallpaper, cleverly imitative of tapestry, showed Chinese scenes, with pagodas and junks and dinky little Chinese bridges. There were some oriental-looking things, too, in the big glass-fronted display cabinet on one side of the fireplace: a paper fan, some little ivory coolies, tea cups without handles (or were they slop basins?) and a slinky-eyed gent with a great pot belly.
It was this character—Buddha, Love supposed—that served as a memento venerei to bring him back to the subject of his inquiries.
“The complaint, sir—the one I came about—was to the effect that unclothed persons were exposing themselves at one of the windows upstairs. The complainant spoke of two males and two females.”
“Rubbish,” said Hatch.
“You mean there couldn’t possibly have been any truth in the story, sir?”
“That is exactly what I mean.”
“And the other reports. They were all wrong as well, were they, sir?”
“Obviously.”
For some moments, the two men looked at each other in silence. Love’s expression was a bland compound of politeness, patience and, Hatch thought, utter disbelief.
Suddenly Hatch raised a finger and said “Ah.” He appeared to be thinking hard about something that had just at that very second occurred to him. “I wonder.” He smiled wrily.
“Sir?”
“I think I’ve solved your little mystery, sergeant.”
Love frowned. His little mystery? Who said it was his, for goodness sake?
“Yes, Mr Baxter did mention this morning before he and his wife left that they’d had a slightly embarrassing moment last night. Nothing serious, but I can see that it could have been the cause of these tales that you’ve heard.”
“Who’s Mr Baxter?”
“Of Sucro-wip. The big confectionery people. He’s a director, and quite an old friend of mine. He and his wife were my guests at the race meeting yesterday. They came over here afterwards to stay the night. It was a last minute arrangement as a matter of fact—their car had broken down in Newmarket.
“Now then, what actually happened, as I understand it from what he told me this morning, was this. Oh, and I should explain first that Mrs Hatch was away on an overnight visit so I slept in one of the spare rooms and let the Baxters have the main bedroom. You follow? Good lad. What I’d forgotten unfortunately, was that we’d just had this new Autodrape system installed—you know, it works with photo-electric cells and all that sort of thing—saves you having to draw the curtains and switch the lights on when it gets dark...”
Love was so impressed by Hatch’s easy acceptance of such marvels of moneyed living that he almost forgave him that “good lad”.
“Anyway,” Hatch went on, “it seems that Mrs Baxter felt too warm during the night and instead of doing what you or I would do and altering the air conditioner controls, she got up and tried to open a window. She called Mr Baxter to help her, but all they managed to do was to short-circuit something or other so that the curtains drew back and the lights went on. I suppose that anybody walking about outside would see whatever there was to see. Well that’s why such people go out on the prowl, isn’t it? In hope of spotting something. They’re more to be pitied than blamed, I expect.”
With which charitable sentiment, Hatch rose in intimation that he now had much more important things to do elsewhere.
Love, too, got to his feet, but not so briskly. He scratched his nose with his pencil. “There were only two people in the bedroom, then, were there, sir?”
“Two,” said Hatch, decidedly.
“Oh.” The sergeant lingered a moment before setting off towards the door. There he turned.
“Do you happen to know,” he asked, “whether Mr and Mrs Baxter were wearing night clothes?”
A tremor of exasperation was quickly suppressed by Hatch, who stroked his chin and said: “Ah, a shrewd point, sergeant. I see what you mean.” He considered. “Obviously, I can’t say for certain, but now that you mention it, I shouldn’t be surprised if they’re the kind of couple who might be a bit unconventional in that way.”
“Like sleeping in the altogether?” prompted Love, emboldened to raciness by Hatch’s compliment.
“Aye,” said Hatch. “As I say, I shouldn’t be surprised. Not that I’m being critical, you understand. How people go on when they’re married is their own business. I hope we haven’t got to the stage in this country where it’s a crime not to wear pyjamas.”
Love indicated by a cat grin that he hoped so, too.
“Nice to have met you, sergeant,” Hatch said, as he held open the front door. “And I’m glad you’ve been clever enough to clear up this little misunderstanding.”
Back in his office, Hatch found Amis at the tail end of a telephone conversation. He sat behind the big lemon and ebony desk and gloomily watched his secretary.
Amis was a good phone performer. His manner was elegant yet precise. He could, as the occasion required, sound friendly or authoritative, but in neither case did he waste words. The present call, Hatch gathered, was to Mackintosh-Brooke. And it seemed that all Amis’s skill in keeping negotiations to the point was having to be deployed.
“That was a wordy gentleman,” Amis commented as he put down the telephone. “If he’s an example of their ideals of business efficiency, they ought to be a sure-fire firm to sick on to your rivals.”
“When are they sending somebody?” Hatch asked brusquely. He looked annoyed.
“Monday. Some characters they describe as Preliminary Prioritisers, for God’s sake.”