The chief constable was only too well aware that this was true. It added to his annoyance at having chosen so lamentably ill-timed a moment to “pop in”, as he expressed it to Mrs Chubb, “and see how things are” at the Fen Street police headquarters. Market days were generally safe. But now the impossible Cowdrey had ruined the record.
“Of course, you realize that there isn’t a magistrate to be found in the town,” said Mr Chubb gloomily.
Purbright knew that he was going to be asked a favour. He recognized the off-hand, tendentious way in which the chief constable tried to disguise a sense of dependence upon the good offices of an inferior.
“Yes, sir, I do see what you mean. The special market-day licensing hours. Pubs open all day.”
“That is not what I meant, Mr Purbright. Really, you make the members of the bench sound like a lot of dipsomaniacs.”
“Have you...” Purbright paused and appeared to be thinking very hard. “Have you tried Mrs Popplewell?”
“She’s on holiday.”
“Ah.” Another pause, then, “What about old Austin Kelsey, sir? He doesn’t need to stay in that shop of his all the time now that he’s re-married, and he can manage to keep sensible just about long enough for a quick remand job.”
Mr Chubb’s ill-ease deepened. He had an abiding dislike for irreverent phraseology. A “quick remand job” indeed. It was not the inspector’s style to be flippant—not in his, the chief constable’s hearing—and this present lapse could only mean that Purbright was enjoying the situation and intended to exacerbate it if he could.
“No, no.” The chief constable shook his head and prepared to accept a petitioner’s role with as much dignity as he could preserve. “Kelsey’s hopeless, poor old chap, as we all know. And this business could prove delicate. There are journalists involved—London journalists of some standing, I understand—and they can be very tricky fellows.”
“They can, indeed, sir,” confirmed Purbright.
“The trouble is, Mr Purbright, that the affair got rather out of hand. Cowdrey was upset—understandably— and formed the view that it was a case not of careless—nor even of dangerous-driving, but of deliberately attacking an officer in uniform. He arrested the man and told him before witnesses that he would be charged. Very serious, you know.”
“Very.”
Mr Chubb reflected unhappily that his inspector was never more anxious to echo his opinion than at those moments when he ardently desired the reassurance of a rebuttal.
“Naturally, I had no choice but to back up my own officer. I don’t like it, but there you are.”
Purbright shrugged and smiled a melancholy, fatalistic smile. Mr Chubb looked away.
“There will have to be a special court, so we shall have to find a magistrate,” he went on. “I don’t mind looking after things, of course, but your preliminary assistance...you know—actually locating a JP...I mean, that really would be appreciated.”
Involuntarily, Purbright gave a little half-gape of surprise. The chief constable had never, in the many years of their association, made so abject a plea.
“Well, I can’t promise anything, sir, but I’ll certainly have a word with my sergeant and see what we can do.” At the door, Purbright glanced back. “The gentleman in question—Mr Cowdrey’s alleged assailant—he’s in the cells, I suppose?”
By this final provocation, Mr Chubb’s sorely-tried composure was very nearly broken. “No, he is not,” he said sharply. “As a matter of fact, he struck me as being a fairly personable sort of chap. I’m having him wait in that little room at the end that Policewoman Bellweather uses sometimes.”
“Ah,” said the inspector, in the extravagantly understanding manner wherewith collusion in crime is acknowledged by one hopeful of a cut of the proceeds.
As the door closed, Mr Chubb drew slow breaths and tried to think of the world as a great Cruft’s. It was a long time before even this image began to yield its customary comfort.
By mid-afternoon, evidence of the exciting events in the Market Place had disappeared. The cloth salesman’s stall had been re-erected, his scattered wares collected, brushed down, and put back more or less tidily on display. The constable had not, however, returned. The woman at the home produce stall whose turn it had been to render tribute unto Cowdrey glanced from time to time at the small parcel she had prepared and wondered if she should accept one of the more optimistic rumours (which ranged from the policeman’s suspension from the Force to his actual demise) and let the contents go to some money-paying customer.
Four o’clock sounded from the great tower of St Lawrence’s church. The stream of shoppers had thinned and now flowed more sluggishly between the rows of stalls.
A short, shiny-cheeked man in rimless spectacles strolled across the south-eastern corner of the square and entered a shop in whose window was a group of choice antique furniture pieces, some cut crystal and a cased pair of eighteenth-century dress swords.
He was Barrington Hoole, optician, of Chalmsbury town, and he clearly was expected by the proprietor, who announced, without preamble: “They’re here.”
Mr Hoole pressed his lips together and made a high humming noise at the back of his nose, at the same time nodding like a spring-loaded Buddha. It was his way, apparently, of expressing gratification.
The shopkeeper, a stooped, sandy-haired man, with deep facial furrows and scraggy neck, went to a cabinet at the rear of the shop. He selected a key from the fob pocket of his aged but still elegant grey suit and opened the cabinet, the doors of which were glazed with tiny panes discreetly reinforced with steel latticework. There was something ceremonial about the performance, not unlike the reverence with which the senior partner in a wine-shipping firm might draw from sanctuary a very rare brandy.
It was not a bottle that was lifted into the waiting hands of Mr Hoole, though, but a rectangular, leather-covered case, about a foot long and three inches deep.
Mr Hoole carried it to a glass-topped table nearer the light. Carefully, he set it down and unhasped the lid. He drew a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket and rubbed upon it his plump but delicately tapered fingers.
The antiquarian (for thus Mr Enoch Cartwright described his latter-day metamorphosis from junk dealer) watched in silence as the lid of the case rose. Then he glanced at Mr Hoole’s face and smiled at what he saw there.
.”Oh, yes,” said Mr Hoole. “Ah. Yes, indeed. Mmm. Yes.” He wrinkled his small, beaky nose, and sniffed happily.
“Rather nice?” prompted Mr Cartwright.
The optician hummed and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged and hummed again, this time in a speculative kind of way; enthusiasm did not do when price-naming was imminent.
“You notice the crest, of course.” From Mr Cartwright.
“The loony earl. Ye...es...” Mr Hoole was smiling gently, as at some fading but still fragrant memory.
He eased from its bed of scarlet velvet one of the pair of pistols that the case contained. “A trifle on the heavy side,” he said, snuffing the smile lest it warm any expectations.