Purbright’s manner of scrutinizig the pages before him became gradually more alert. Several details were now underlined. He passed his tongue over his dry upper lip and reached for the coffee cup. Absentmindedly he sipped its chilled, forbidding residue.
When Love came back with two steaming mugs, he motioned him to his side and pointed to one of the entries he had marked.
“This is interesting. Edward Leadbitter, you notice, wrote asking to see an antique pewter tankard...”
“A pewter antique tankard.”
“Eh? All right, then, a pewter antique tankard; and he specified eight-fifteen this evening. Now then”—Purbright moved his pencil over to the second sheet—“here’s the entry on that upstairs board of Hillyard’s. First of all, the time. Eight-fifteen. That checks. Next, the figure two. You said it was the second cubicle from which you heard his voice. Now in the last column on the notice board are these five initials: E.L.P.A.T.”
Love scratched his chin.
“Edward...” Purbright prompted.
“Edward Leadbitter...Pewter...Of course, it’s that bloody tankard again.”
“Exactly.”
“But I still can’t see any sense in it,” protested Love. “The place hadn’t an antique in sight. No pewter, no furniture, nothing like that at all. It was like a clinic or part of a hospital, except that it was more comfortable. It was certainly no antique that jumped up at me when I switched the torch on.” Love looked more gleeful than dismayed at the memory of the moment of revelation before his flight.
“Never mind the Venusberg aspect. Who was the fellow you said you saw on the landing?”
“Stamper. Bert Stamper.”
“The farmer?”
“That’s the one, yes.”
Purbright looked down the names on his letter digest. “Here we are—he just put initials to his reply. H.S. And over here”—he waved his pencil over to the ‘Treatment Schedule’—“they appear against seven-thirty and cubicle three.”
“Three was the cubicle where I found the door unlocked.”
“And looked at what the policeman saw.”
Love blushed happily.
“You say you know the girl?”
“Professionally, yes. Mrs Shooter—Margaret Shooter, I believe it was. I was beat-bashing in those days and she was listed with a few others for entertaining sailors in the place in Broad Street.”
“Over by the harbour?”
“Yes. There used to be more knocking shops than telegraph poles down there at one time. That was before Holy Harry blew out all the red lamps and set the girls to sew surplices.”
Purbright looked pained. “Don’t come that hell’s kitchen stuff to me, Sid. You know perfectly well that the Flaxborough brand of vice was never anything but shabby amateurism. The house you’re talking about closed down weeks before we could get any real evidence. By Holy Harry, I suppose you mean the late and questionable Mr Carobleat?”
“That’s the boy.”
“I'd never heard the soul-saving line before. What we suspected was that he got hold of a list of the ladies we were interested in when he was chairman of the Watch Committee and went round tipping them off.”
“They stopped operating, anyway,” said Love defensively.
“So far as we could prove, they did. But don’t delude yourself that they took to good works. However”—Purbright looked at his watch—“that’s neither here nor there. Let’s finish with Stamper, the honest hayseed.”
He sipped from the mug Love had brought in and found his place again in the letters summary. “It was the heavy stuff he was after, apparently. A mahogany and beech sideboard, of all things. Did you happen to trip over any sideboards in your flight from Mrs Shooter?”
Love looked at the second sheet. “There you are.” He pointed to a group of initials, six this time. “That’s clear enough—Herbert Stamper, Mahogany And Beech Sideboard.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Maybe the place is a private asylum.”
Purbright leaned back in his chair and stared into space. “You say you don’t know the big man who looked in at you while you were in Leadbitter’s cubicle. And yet he winked at you?”
“Oh, yes. Quite friendly, he seemed.”
“A wink,” Purbright went on, talking half to himself, “suggests sharing a joke, a lark, as you might say. Something private and perhaps risky or pleasantly scandalous. But not”—he joined his fingers—“desperately conspiratorial. No murders or burglaries. And no drugs, I fancy: that’s commonly a gloomy or else a hysterical business. Could that wink, though, have been one purely of medical commiseration between fellow candidates for boil lancing or colonic irrigation?”
“What’s that?” asked Love.
“Enemas.”
“He didn’t look as if there was anything wrong with him. And I’m sure he couldn’t have thought I wanted an enema.”
Purbright glanced at him briefly and again addressed the ceiling. “No, I’m sure he couldn’t. So there must be some other reason for the recognition of one man of the world by another.”
Love lifted one eyebrow, but said nothing.
“These cubicle things,” said Purbright. “Would you say they’d been there long? Were they an original part of the house?”
“I don’t think so. They looked like conversions. Not brand new, but recent.”
“Solid?”
“Well...” Love considered. “I don’t know much about building, but they looked a pretty sound job of carpentry. Sort of semi-permanent.”
“You didn’t go down the second corridor?”
“No, there was a sign up...”
“Ah, yes, I’d forgotten.” Purbright was silent. Then he looked again at his watch and yawned. “We do see life, don’t we?” He began tidying up his desk.
Before Love could ask what he was supposed to deduce from the evening’s events, he heard footsteps approaching from the main office. Purbright listened. “The Chief Constable,” he said, “is upon us.”
Mr Chubb knocked punctiliously before entering. He wore a grey overcoat of remarkable rigidity and carried a bowler hat and what he himself would have termed a gamp. He looked as if he might have been attending a public meeting of the better, quieter sort; of the Friends of Flaxborough Cathedral, say.
“Ah, Purbright,” he said, with “Evening, sergeant,” in kindly parenthesis, “I’ve just come from having a word or two with the Coroner. No, sit down, sit down.” He propped himself against a cupboard in his customary attitude of elegant detachment and gave the impression of being ready to hear petitioners. After some seconds he said: “He wants to get this Gwill business cleared up, you know. Amblesby’s rather old for adjournments. He can’t always remember what he’s adjourned or why.” Mr Chubb permitted himself a weak smile, then extinguished it and added: “A perfectly sound old fellow, of course.”