He grinned as he replaced the phone. “I was wondering how to put the wind up Lintz. That might have done it.”
“The bit about the van?”
“Yes. How many plain black vans would you say there are in Flaxborough?”
“There’s ours.”
“Don’t be fatuous.”
Love thought a moment. “There can’t be more than a couple of others. Bradlaw’s is black, isn’t it?”
“It is. Now what did you make of his story this morning?”
“Thin.”
“Very. I rather fancy, d’you know, that Bradlaw and Lintz cooked it up beforehand at Nab’s instigation. He certainly took Lintz home with him—I’ve checked on that. Since the murder, he could have rubbed it into Lintz that as Gwill’s heir he was bound to be suspected, and given him to believe that he, Bradlaw, would provide his alibi. But Nab was smart enough this morning to leave a hole in his story—the part about Lintz going out into the yard. It was deliberately added for our benefit. And for Bradlaw’s. It was the surest way of putting Lintz under suspicion. You noticed how Nab implied that he’d had a good deal to drink? The air of uncertainty about the game of chess...the suggestion that he had dropped off to sleep and wouldn’t have known how long Lintz was away...he did it all very nicely.”
“Don’t you think you’re giving him too much credit for cunning? We don’t know for certain that either of them left the house.”
“There’s the report of the van.”
“Just passing through from some other town, perhaps.”
“Don’t forget it came back again.”
“True.”
“Incidentally,” Purbright went on, “just before you came in I rang the Unionist Club and had a word with Hubbard, the steward. He confirmed what I’d suspected. Nab can drink all night and still see the sixteenths on that foot rule of his. Lintz pewks on a pint. On Monday night he picked his way out like a deep sea diver. Nab was cold sober and steering him.”
Love looked impressed. “In that case, it’s possible that it was Bradlaw who knew what was going to happen and who felt in need of an alibi.”
“Quite possible. But suppose we can prove that Nab took his van and drove to Heston Lane end and back. We still have no notion of why he should have wanted to murder Gwill. He can’t be so short of work that he has to provide it for himself. We still don’t know how it was done. And we don’t know who else might have been involved; heaving the body around was too much for one, surely.”
“Hillyard was seen going that way. But I suppose he could have been visiting a patient.”
“What, on foot?”
“No, perhaps not.”
Purbright rubbed his cheek. “We can’t stretch coincidence three ways. Hillyard was identified. Someone resembling the nimble Mr Gloss was described. And a van very like Nab Bradlaw’s was spotted. All around the same time and bound in the same direction. All three were friends of the murderee. One is now frightened and a second produces a leaky alibi, while the third breathes whisky fumes and gives portentous Caledonian grunts. Pray heaven we’re not faced with a conspiracy, Sid. Conspiracies are the most dreadful things to sort out. Oh, God, they’re maddening, believe me...”
The telephone rang. Again it was Lintz. The inspector would remember the instruction to insert three advertisements in that week’s issue on the lines of he knew what? Yes, well, it had turned out that four insertions had been ordered by Gwill himself the previous Saturday. Mr House had just seen them in proof. He hadn’t known about them before because the girl had taken them while he was out of the office. What did the inspector want done now?
“Oh,” said Purbright, “cancel mine and let the original ones go in. So much the better, sir. And thanks for letting me know. While we’re on the subject, I’d be obliged if you would make certain of being given all the replies yourself as they come in. Don’t allow them out of your hands, sir. I think that may be important. You what?...Yes, telephone my office here as soon as anything arrives—the very first one—and I’ll come over.”
Love watched him replace the receiver and said: “It could be, couldn’t it, that you’re taking a risk with that chap. How do you know he won’t grab the replies and hand you some he’s concocted himself?”
“I don’t. But I can hardly impound the whole newspaper and staff it with our lads, can I? This is just one of those occasions when we have to take a chance on somebody.”
“There may be nothing in this advertisement business.”
“Quite. We shall probably know by the week-end. Incidentally, I thought the inquest went reasonably well, didn’t you?”
Love agreed that it had. Whatever Mr Chubb had done to prime Flaxborough’s irascible and senile Coroner, it had achieved remarkable results. Not only had Mr Amblesby forborne from interrupting the medical evidence of Dr Heineman with malicious cross-questioning about his origins, but he had made no attempt to introduce homilies on drink, gadgets, Edwardian levees, or the monstrous prodigality of the working class, all subjects which Mr Amblesby considered very proper to inquests.
The only dangerous moment had been when Lintz, giving evidence of identification, touched upon his having left Gwill alone at his house on the evening before the discovery of the body. The Coroner, malevolently clicking his dentures and fixing Lintz with an eye like an agate dipped in sputum, accused: “Do you mean to tell me you left an old gentleman of his age on his own and with no one to look after him?” Lintz sullenly retorted that his uncle had been perfectly capable, by no means elderly, and strongly opposed to being looked after by anybody. “But he must be over ninety,” persisted Mr Amblesby. “He was on the association committee with me when Sir Philip trounced that radical chap...Malley, what was the fellow’s name? Pro-Boer, he was...” The sergeant had thereupon nursed him back into the present with an explanation that Marcus Gwill’s father was not the gentleman with whom they were now concerned. The rest of the proceedings had gone smoothly enough, with Mr Amblesby harmlessly slumped in a reminiscent coma.
After lunch, Purbright took himself off through the fog that was spreading inland from the already obscured harbour district and sought the offices of Possett, Gloss and Weatherby.
Mr Gloss, who privately regarded inspectors of police much as the managing director of a public transport company might regard inspectors of tickets, was careful nevertheless to give his welcome that air of unpatronizing amiability that so effectively discourages subordinates from putting demands or awkward questions. He waved Purbright to a chair, then took a seat—a smaller, harder one than his visitor’s—beside, but not at, his desk. He offered him a cigarette, a Woodbine, lit it for him with a match and said melifluously and invitingly: “Now, Inspector.”
“Now, sir,” responded Purbright, with a smile of such friendliness that if he had said outright that here was a game two could play Gloss could not have taken his meaning more clearly. “You’ll have some idea of what I’m after, I expect?”
Gloss also smiled. “Your intention, doubtless, is to grill me, inspector,” he said good-humouredly. “That is, assuming that you are investigating the lamentable death of my client, Mr Gwill.”