“You didn’t happen to know Mr Hatch, I suppose,” he said.
“Only as a regular contributor to one or another of our charities. It would not be kind to draw from that the inference that he had a troubled conscience, of course.”
“Certainly not,” Purbright agreed. He thought he had never heard a charge of turpitude more delicately framed.
There was a folder by his elbow. He opened it and sorted through papers until he found the letter that Hatch had received, the letter threatening his life.
“Do you think,” he asked Miss Teatime, “that Tudor knew Hatch to be the man whose murder was intended?”
She considered.
Purbright spoke again before she could reply. “Or was his attendance at the banquet here last night purely fortuitous? I ask you that because I recall that you provided him with the ticket.”
She nodded. “True. I have been wondering ever since if he had precise knowledge of what was going to happen. I am inclined to doubt it.”
“Might he not, in fact, have been less concerned to stop a murder than to take over for himself the protection—as he would understand the word—of a profitable sub-legal enterprise?”
The inspector saw the slightly pained expression on Miss Teatime’s face and added hastily: “The argument is purely hypothetical, naturally.”
She brightened at once. “I always try to adopt a balanced view, Mr Purbright. Especially when there exists a personal commitment of the kind, for instance, that a ticket agency implies. However, I do not quarrel with your assessment of Mr Tudor’s capabilities. Hypothetically speaking, if he were to pass wind it would rain granite chips.”
When Miss Teatime had gone, a young uniformed constable who was acting as doorman and messenger was sent by the inspector to fetch coffee. Purbright felt a trifle mean at having delayed the order. The Floradora coffee was so odd though (it conformed to a prescription of Mrs Hatch’s own devising and contained the salt and soda that she warmly declared made “all the difference”, as, indeed they did) that he had lacked courage to ask Miss Teatime to share it. In any case, there was no whisky available, the club’s entire stock having been distributed by the raiding party from Brocklestone.
The young constable tip-toed with great care and respect across the office and set the cup down by Purbright’s arm. The inspector murmured his thanks and continued to read a transcript of his earlier tape-recorded interview with a member of the Mackintosh-Brooke team—the one who had discovered in the books some astonishing figures relating to meat extract.
Suddenly Purbright heard the young constable gasp “Oh, sir!”
He looked up.
The constable was staring at the anonymous letter that Hatch had received from America. No, not at the letter, Purbright realised; at the envelope. The constable’s face registered surprise, delight and trepidation, all at once.
“Oh, sir!” he said again. Purbright recognised the kind of voice in which schoolboys acknowledge the autographs of footballers.
“Well?” Purbright prompted, trying to recall the constable’s name. Candle? Cornell?
“It’s a first day cover, sir,” declared the young constable, husky with awe. “Excuse me, sir, but do you think I...do you think it would be...”
“Hold on a minute.” Cordwell—that was it. “Hadn’t you better tell me, Mr Cordwell, just what you have seen that is so exciting?”
Cordwell swallowed, blushed and swallowed again. He leaned closer and pointed to the envelope, then at the stamp and the postmark.
“First day cover, sir,” he repeated. “That means it was posted on the first day of a new issue. The postmark—there, you see, sir—is June the eighth. And that is when this stamp was first on sale. Sir, if it would be possible—I mean when this envelope isn’t needed any more...”
“May I,” the inspector interrupted, “ask how you come to know these fascinating things?”
“Well, philately happens to be my hobby, sir. I’ve been collecting stamps for quite a while.”
“I see.” Purbright undipped the envelope from its letter. “And is there anything particularly notable about this stamp, apart from the date of cancellation?”
“Oh, yes, sir. This is the very first American issue showing a president during his lifetime. I’m not sure, but I believe Mr Nixon had the rules changed himself. Anyway, it’s a very collectable item.”
Purbright smiled. “In other words, you want me to purloin this for you when it’s not wanted any more as evidence.”
Another blush spread upwards from Constable Cordwell’s collar. “That would be really very good of you, sir.” He added after a pause. “My wife would be a lot happier, too.”
Purbright had a fleet vision of the Cordwells’ connubial couch, littered with Cape of Good Hope Triangulars during a joint session with the stamp album. “Don’t tell me she’s a philatelist?”
“Oh, no, sir. But she forgot to post the letter containing our self-addressed envelopes that I was supposed to be sending a dealer in New York for him to get stamped for us and put in the mail. I’m afraid I was a bit cross with her.”
“That is a usual arrangement is it—for stamp firms to post letters for clients on particular days?”
“Quite usual, sir.”
For a while, Purbright was silent. As he pondered, his eye strayed to the heap of flimsy little rectangles. A few had been blown across the desk by the movement of air occasioned by Cordwell’s arrival.
The constable noticed them too.
“They’re called hinges, aren’t they?” Purbright said to him.
“That’s right, sir. Or mounts. For mounting stamps on the page.” Cordwell gave the explanation with a trace of puzzlement in his voice. A deep one, this bloke Purbright.
“Sit down, Mr Cordwell.” Purbright indicated the chair vacated by Miss Teatime. “I want you to look at something and tell me if it means anything to you.” He took from his folder the copy of the cablegram that had been brought him by Miss Ryland.
Sitting very straight, and with the paper held before him like a hymn book, the constable slowly and conscientiously read the message through. And once again, the inspector observed, Cordwell was being stirred by some strange inner enthusiasm.
“Good lord!” Cordwell exclaimed at last, adding “sir” as a merely reflexive concession. He looked with shining eye at Purbright. “They’re fearfully rare, you know.”
“Indeed?”
“Not half, sir. They reckon there are only five in existence—apart from the one at the Vatican, and that isn’t likely to get into circulation, is it, sir?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Purbright, momentarily depressed by Cordwell’s esoteric zeal. He recovered. “Look,—I want you to treat me as un untutored child for a while and explain in simple terms what this is all about. Don’t be nervous, but I believe you have the key to something extremely important.”