“They must know something,” Harper declared.
“Scared we’ll ask for their dog licence,” theorized Pook.
They parted once more for odd and even investigation, like vacuum cleaner salesmen doggedly canvassing a community served by gas.
About half-way through the morning, Pook discovered he was far ahead of the last point at which he had seen Harper march up a driveway. Perhaps the lucky devil had found a house where hot coffee and reminiscences of a son’s career in the North-West Frontier Police were waiting. Pook noted the number of his next call and strolled back. Harper, he saw, was just coming out of the house, looking at his notebook and apparently confirming something with a tubby, beady-eyed and garrulous woman who nodded energetically and pointed occasionally in the direction of The Aspens, whence the detective had been working their hitherto unproductive way.
“That one was a bit more useful,” said Harper as he rejoined his colleague.
“Coffee?” asked Pook, enviously.”
“Tea,” absently replied Harper, “I think.” He gave a final glance at his notebook and slipped it in his pocket.
Pook grunted and looked back sadly at the long line of odd and tea-less residences at whose doors he had knocked or rung in vain. “We’d better do the rest,” he said. “By the way, did you get anything out of her—apart from a cuppa?”
“Three, actually,” Harper corrected. “And a list of people who could have been at Gwill’s place after midnight.”
Worse and worse. Pook stared at him. “Don’t talk wet. These people all sink into a coma round about eight. She probably made something up because she was sorry for you.”
“On, no.” Harper was pleased and brisk. “It so happens her daughter was out at a dance or something and the old woman was so scared she’d come back ruined that every time she heard anyone coming from town she popped down to the gate to see if it was girlie. Hence the who’s who. She didn’t know them all, but I’ve four names and a few descriptions.”
The inquisition was resumed. But the houses here were much nearer the town. The detectives’ automatic catechism drew no more information that seemed to have any bearing on what had happened at or near The Aspens. Pook was reduced to putting down in his notebook an account of the narrow escape of one old woman’s cat from death beneath the wheels of a black van driven “furiously and without the slightest regard for animals” from the direction of Flaxborough at half an hour past midnight. “I noticed specially because it came back again later, officer, and poor Winston called out from the kitchen—well, they know, don’t they?”
It was at Winston’s home that Pook’s fast was ended. But his benefactor was still so upset that she very nearly poured him a saucer of milk before it occurred to her that he might prefer tea.
Love found Purbright digesting, like a sleepy boa constrictor, the offerings of Harper and Pook. He added his own news that Bradlaw had called upon lawyer Gloss and been driven off by him in his car. This was accepted by the inspector with a mild “Did he now?”
“Anything new?” asked Love.
“Oh, bits and pieces. They may make sense eventually. Unfortunately we’re still at the stage of not knowing what to throw away. Harper’s just unloaded this lot, for instance. ‘Middle-aged man with stick, carrying case and looking at numbers on gates...girl in hurry wearing dark fur-trimmed coat and high-heeled shoes...Maurice Hoylake, garage proprietor, on bicycle...man, fairly well-off looking, with trilby hat and small feet...Dr Hillyard, general practitioner, of Flaxborough...Mr William Semple...man in raincoat, rather drunk...Miss Peabody, millinery assistant and amateur dramatics secretary...’ And from Pook, with apologies and stiff-lipped readiness for further foolish errands, ‘One black van, driven to the danger of cats up and down Heston Lane all of a Monday midnight-O’.”
“And what are they supposed to mean?”
“They are the fruits of inquiries by Messrs Harper and Pook of the residents of Heston Lane. A list of everyone seen in those parts around the time that Gwill was likely to have been murdered. They’ll all need to be questioned when we can get round to it, but at the moment, it’s the last name that rings the loudest bell, isn’t it?”
“Hillyard?”
“Yes. Do you know him, by the way?”
“I’ve never actually met him. He’s a bottle-hitter, from what I hear.”
“It seems so. He turned up while I was talking to the Carobleat woman yesterday afternoon. She knew him well enough to dislike him, and I’d say he’s not over fond of her. Wherever he was going on Monday night, I doubt if it was to an assignation with Mrs Carobleat.”
“You’ll tackle him about Monday?”
“Naturally. It might not be easy, though. When he’s sober, which may not be very often, he’s probably well fortified with professional dignity and Gaelic awkwardness. And when he’s drunk, I expect he becomes a mystic, which will be a damn sight worse.”
Purbright looked again at his notes. “What do you make of the ‘well-off looking man with trilby hat and small feet’? Small feet...what a curious thing for anyone to notice at that time of night.”
“Not necessarily. When I used to be on nights I could tell some people by their feet. It’s the way they walk and the amount of noise they make. Those with little feet look rather like those prancy characters of Edward Lear—you know, walking on points.”
Purbright regarded him with admiration. “Sid, you read books!”
Love beamed. “I’m jolly well educated,” he retorted cheerfully. “I can detect, too. Roddy Gloss walks like one of Mr Lear’s Old Men Of.”
The telephone forestalled Purbright’s reply. It was Lintz. He had just realized, apparently, that his uncle’s end was the beginning of a news story that was likely to run a course quite independent of his own feelings in the matter. He had toyed with, but finally abandoned, the idea of announcing the death in simple ‘We regret...’ terms designed to give the impression that Gwill had expired unaided and in an orthodox manner, and now wished to know if he could give instructions for the local account of the affair to include an official statement from the police.
Purbright pondered. He had quickly learned to meet the bright, hungry questions of men who called him ‘Old Boy’ and seemed passionately interested in irrelevancies, with a non-committal geniality that they were pleased to take as confirmation of everything they asked. But the Citizen might prove useful. Unlike the Nationals, whose touching faith in their readers’ readiness to believe absolutely anything was so misplaced, a local weekly commanded credence.
“Look, Mr Lintz,” said Purbright, “you can use all the facts as I believe you know them already. I’d like you to add this, though. Say the police are anxious to hear from anyone who was out in the Heston Lane area on Monday night from eleven-thirty onwards. Oh, and you might add a mention of a plain, black van. We’d like a word with the driver...Yes, same place, Heston Lane; it went up from town just before twelve and returned about half an hour later. Pardon? Yes, black...That’s very good of you, sir.”