Now, as Adam was making his protestations, Pulverbatch was waving his plump hands in the air as if attempting to swat them like troublesome flies.
‘Oh, no suggestion of murdering was meant to pass my lips, sir. None at all. But a body can’t help a-wondering what you was doing here. Inside a house you probably ought to have been outside of.’
‘I’ve told you once already, Inspector. I had an arrangement to see Mr Creech. I arrived at the appointed time but the place was deserted.’
‘It seems the gentleman had sent his servants away for the day. One of ’em come back only a few minutes ago.’
‘Does he know anything of what might have happened?’
‘Constable Smithers has been a-talking to him. Says that the man looks about as comfy as a billy goat in stays but that ain’t to say he’s a-feeling guilty. That’s the effect us gentlemen in blue and white has.’
Pulverbatch picked up Researches in the Highlands of Turkey, examined its spine, grunted and put the book back on the table.
‘I’ll be speaking to him myself in a little while. And he’ll look even less happy when that happens. But, at present, I’m a-listening to you, sir. If you would be so good as to go on.’
‘I looked through a window on the ground floor.’ Adam ran his fingers through his hair as he continued. ‘I could see that something was amiss. I could see someone sitting in a chair at the far end. He was not moving and his head was awry. I decided to break a window and climb in. It was Creech and he was dead.’
‘As a doornail,’ Pulverbatch said. ‘Sitting in his library with his legs under his own mahogany when someone bursts in and strews his brains all around the room. So what did you do next, sir? When you realised he was dead.’
‘I walked back to the road and stopped a gentleman in a fly who was passing. I asked him to send word immediately to the police that they were needed. Then I came back to the house and Quint and I waited here until you and your men arrived.’
‘Ah, Quint. That would be your man, sir, would it? And whereabouts might he be while we’re here chatting so amiably?’
‘Quint is upstairs, I believe.’
‘And what might he be a-doing upstairs?’
‘I have no idea.’
Pulverbatch took a red cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead with it. He returned it to the innermost recesses of his jacket and sighed. ‘Perhaps we should call him and ask him,’ he said.
‘By all means, Inspector.’
Pulverbatch ambled out of the room and made his way to the foot of the main staircase. He lifted his head and bellowed. ‘You, sir, upstairs.’
The sudden roar echoed around the house. Quint would have had to be as dead to the world as Creech not to hear him, but there was no sound from the first floor.
The inspector bellowed again. ‘Get yourself downstairs.’
Up on the first floor of Herne Hill Villa, Quint had heard Adam return. He had called down to him and had been given instructions to continue looking around the rooms upstairs. Twenty minutes later, he had heard the arrival of Inspector Pulverbatch and his constables. Long familiarity with officers of the law meant that he had had little difficulty interpreting the sound of the voices drifting up the staircase; they had the characteristic tone of policemen wanting to know what was going on. Quint had spent the hour since Adam had left him to summon the police roaming the upstairs rooms. He had found nothing that he would not have expected to find in the house of a man like Creech. On several occasions he had come across items of value — a gold watch, a silver cigarette case engraved with the initials ‘SC’ — which he had seriously considered pocketing. Quint had no objections in principle to petty larceny but he had finally decided that any monetary benefit from what he might filch would be more than outweighed by the aggravation that would follow if the filching was discovered. He had left the items where they were.
Now, listening to the voices from below, Quint had already decided that his only option was to join Adam and the policemen on the ground floor. The roars from Pulverbatch merely confirmed him in his decision. He took one last look around what was clearly Creech’s bedroom before leaving it. He caught his own reflection in a large cheval glass which stood in the corner. Then, as his eyes continued to scan the room, they fell on a small table to the left of the bed. On it was an octavo-sized book bound in morocco. Seized by a sudden impulse, Quint crossed swiftly to the table and picked the book up. Opening it, he riffled briskly through its pages.
Quint had but the vaguest memories of his schooldays. This was unsurprising since they dated only to his seventh year and had lasted less than six months. He could just about recall a dark room in Holborn where two dozen grubby boys sat unwillingly at the feet of an elderly dame deputed by the foundling hospital to teach them how to read and write. The elderly dame in question was usually drunk, and drink made her either so tired that she fell asleep in front of them or so furious that she belaboured any boy who ventured within striking distance with her walking stick. Somehow, Quint had emerged from his schooling not only with a grudging respect for elderly dames in their cups, but with a basic knowledge of his letters. He could read. And what little he was able to read in this small leather-bound book suggested to him that further reading of it would be interesting. Here were Samuel Creech’s own words. Here was his journal. Quint wasted no time in stuffing the volume into the depths of his coat pocket before making his way down the stairs and joining Adam to face the guardians of the law.
CHAPTER SIX
I do believe that that was not the first time you have encountered the inspector, Quint.’ Back in Doughty Street, Adam was stretched out in a chair by the fireside. His feet rested comfortably on the fender and his hands were clasped behind his head. Quint was pouring whisky from a crystal decanter. The two men had been back in the rooms but a few minutes. The inspector had not kept them long once Quint had joined Adam downstairs. Policeman and manservant had eyed one another suspiciously as Quint had sidled into Creech’s library but the interview between them had been brief. Quint had done little more than confirm what his master had said. When Pulverbatch had asked what the devil he meant by roaming around a house that was the scene of bloody murder, he had muttered about looking for signs of the murderer. The inspector had grunted as if he had heard likelier tales in his time but had said no more. Once names and address had been noted, he and Adam had been dismissed from the policeman’s presence, and apparently from his mind, almost immediately. Their return from Herne Hill had been free of much conversation, both men sobered into silence by thoughts of Creech and mortality. Now, sitting once again by his own hearth, Adam had recovered his spirits.
‘Oh, I knows Pulverbatch all right.’ Quint handed his master the drink.
‘I thought as much. You circled one another in that room like two prizefighters about to climb into the ring. And what do you know of him?’