Purbright bore with this reminiscence and then told Chubb about his arrangements for investigating the matter of the advertisements in the Citizen.
The Chief Constable listened. “My, but you’re being kept busy,” he said. “It’s amazing, isn’t it, how many odd little things go on under the surface of a place like this?”
“Yes, isn’t it, sir,” agreed Purbright. “Takes all sorts to make a world.” Not for the first time, he was visited with the suspicion that Chubb had donned the uniform of head of the Borough police force in a moment of municipal confusion when someone had overlooked the fact that he was really a candidate for the curatorship of the Fish Street Museum.
“When do you think we can expect an arrest, my boy?” asked Chubb. “Or would that,” he added in bloodless parody of jocularity, “be telling?”
Purbright clenched his teeth.
Mr P. F. F. Smith, manager of the Flaxborough branch of the Eastern Provinces and Bartonshire Consolidated Bank, rose and greeted his visitor with almost explosive affability. He had made sure, when the appointment was being fixed, that none of the bank’s much advertised services and favours would be invoked.
“Grand day,” beamed Mr Smith, motioning Purbright to The Customer’s chair.
“Well, it’s cold and rather foggy outside, actually,” Purbright corrected him.
“Yes, how miserable,” agreed Mr Smith. “Seasonable for the time of year, though.” He grinned over the gleaming nakedness of his desk top, on the very edge of which his aseptically manicured fingers beat a refined tattoo.
“We should be glad to have your help, sir...”
Mr Smith inclined his head and continued to register delight. “Anything we can do, we shall be only too pleased.”
“...in a somewhat delicate matter,” Purbright added, and the tiniest flake of frost settled upon Mr Smith’s manner.
“You will have heard of the death last Monday night of Mr Marcus Gwill?”
“Indeed, yes. A shocking affair. A gentleman and a most charming man.”
“You found him so, sir?”
“Oh, yes.” A slight pause. “Within the limits of our professional relationship, of course. What was, er, your impression, inspector?”
“If I had formed one, it would scarcely be relevant to my present inquiries, sir.”
“Quite so.” Mr Smith nodded and gave the first of the tiny, flicked glances at the clock above Purbright’s head that were to accompany his every second remark throughout the interview.
“But the general impression conveyed to me by others is that Mr Gwill was not outstandingly easy to get along with.”
“I can quite understand that, inspector, now that you mention it. He was reserved, you know, and perhaps just the least bit forbidding. Charm was not his strong suit.”
“What I have to ask you, Mr Smith, is not so much concerned with the gentleman’s character as with his cash. He dealt predominantly with this bank, I understand.”
“I see no harm in confirming that he did have a private account with us.” Mr Smith’s eye was now more watchful within its smiling socket.
“Small or large?”
“Of late, quite substantial. And it was about to become much more substantial, as you no doubt know already.”
“I don’t, as it happens, sir. I wonder if you’d care to tell me about that?”
“Ah...” Mr Smith had realized his indiscretion. “I think perhaps you should not press me in these somewhat confidential matters, inspector. A client’s affairs are with us—what shall I say?—like the secrets of the confessional.”
“But not, surely, after he’s been murdered, Mr Smith?”
“Murdered?” The manager succeeded in looking as if Purbright had suddenly asked for an overdraft.
“Oh, yes. So now he’s my client as well, in a sense.”
“I see...But how dreadful.”
“This is news to you?”
“But decidedly. I had no idea.”
“Except for rumours, perhaps?”
Mr Smith shrugged delicately. “We make it our business not to pay too much attention to rumour, inspector. The bank likes to be absolutely sure of everything.”
“So do the police, sir. That is why I have presumed to trespass upon your time.”
Mr Smith nodded sagaciously and joined his fingertips. “Please ask me anything you like, inspector. It is the duty of us all to cooperate in the solution of crime, especially”—his smile returned and resumed its seat, as it were, upon the smooth cushions of his face—“especially when the victim is a person of integrity.”
“And recently augmented substance,” Purbright put in, suggestively.
“Ah, yes. I was about to elaborate on that theme, was I not? Well, the addition to Mr Gwill’s fortunes, such as they were, was to have been brought about under the terms of the will, of course.”
“The will?”
“Yes. The late Councillor Carobleat’s bequest. A matter of”—Mr Smith rolled his eyes upward for a moment—“oh, some eighteen thousand pounds.”
Purbright frowned. “But surely he left a widow?”
“Ah, the widow. Yes.” Mr Smith picked an invisible thread from his cuff. “A peculiar circumstance, that. But the will was quite explicitly in Mr Gwill’s favour—and in that of certain other beneficiaries. Mrs Carobleat has not suffered as much as you might think, however.”
“Insurance?”
“Er, so I am led to understand. A substantial sum. Then there was the house, and so forth. She is well provided for.”
“That was my impression,” said Purbright. “Even so, it isn’t customary to will away all one’s money over a wife’s head, so to speak.”
“Quite so. It came as a surprise to me, I admit. I had expected Carobleat to be found to have died intestate, as a matter of fact. It was only a short time before his illness that the question of wills cropped up in conversation between us. He gave me to understand that he had taken no steps in that direction. Naturally, I urged upon him the desirability of making proper provision, but he gave no sign of taking me seriously. Yet the will must already have been in existence at that very time, although it didn’t actually come to light for some little while after his death.”
“And how was that?”
“I’m not sure that I ought to tell you, inspector.” Mr Smith regarded his finger-ends as though his professional conscience pulsed there, just below the skin that had flicked back without temptation the corners of untold thousands of banknotes. “You might think that someone had been a little remiss, although I’m sure it was simply a matter of a slight lapse in office routine. Not all firms are run as punctilliously as banks, you know.”
“The will was mislaid?”
Mr Smith leaned forward. “Strictly between ourselves,” he said, “it was. Gloss explained afterwards how it had happened. Well, of course, he had to be absolutely frank about it, because of the possibility of its being challenged by the widow. She didn’t, as it happens, but never mind.”