“And what about Joan and Sal? How are they getting along these days?”
The woman said nothing.
“Superior Antique Lampstand,” murmured Harper dreamily. He put the list back in his pocket.
“How long have you and your friends been patients of Dr Hillyard’s?”
“Quite a while. I have, at any rate. I don’t know what friends you’re talking about.”
“I think you do, you know, Mrs Shooter. In fact, I think you know perfectly well what this is all about. You do, don’t you?” Harper’s tone was that mixture of It’s-All-Up and No-One-Will-Hurt-You-If-You-Tell that policemen use when hard evidence seems to have run out and they would give a day’s pay for a nice straight confession.
“Look,” he said, leaning towards her and extending the fingers of his left hand as if in readiness to mark off five irrefutable and urgent reasons for her co-operation, “I’m going to be absolutely frank with you, Mrs Shooter. And what’s more”—he raised his eyebrows—“I’ll tell you right at the start, and with no ifs and buts, that whatever you care to tell me you’ll be in the clear all the way. We’ll hang nothing whatever on you personally so long as you play the game with us.”
“You’d have your work cut out,” she retorted softly. “I know the law.”
“Of course you do. And you know we’re only interested in the people who run these things. The tight lads who draw their eight quid a customer and sit back nice and safe and respectable while...”
“Eight quid!” He had struck fire. “Eight quid! Don’t give me that, son!” She laughed stridently, her eyes questioning and angry.
Harper glanced round the tidy, austerely furnished room. “I don’t suppose you’re making a fortune, me duck,” he said.
The colloquialism pleased her, though she didn’t know why. “Not exactly,” she said.
“I’m not kidding you about the eight quid,” said the detective. “We stopped some letters. Not that you need let that go any further.”
“Letters to the doctor, you mean?”
“He’d get his share. They took a long way round, though. All very hush-hush. You’d be surprised. But there’s not much we don’t know now.” Harper leaned back and searched for a cigarette. “One thing’s definite. You’re going to need to change your doctor.”
“You aren’t really going to knock old Hilly-billy off, are you?” she asked earnestly.
“Hilly-billy?”
“Hillyard.”
He paused in bringing up the match he had just struck. “You should know better than to ask that,” he reproved. Then he lit the cigarette and added: “As it happens, the warrant’s out now.”
The woman digested this information. She looked straight at Harper. “Who the hell tipped you off about me? That’s what I want to know. We never even used the front door—me and the girls, I mean. And there wasn’t any names mentioned. Not ever.”
“You were unlucky. Somebody recognized you. A policeman, believe it or not.”
Mrs Shooter swallowed, as though trying to push down the tide of colour that had risen round her plump throat. “Not...not a bloke with a torch? Do you mean that wasn’t old Bert? Oh, for crying out...” She jumped to her feet and glared down at Harper.
“Bert?” repeated Harper, unruffled.
She tossed her head. “Yes, a pot-bellied old bastard. A regular. One of the life-of-the-party ones. I don’t know his proper name. There was never no names. Just appointments, and initials, sort of.”
Harper sighed and handed her his cigarette case. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?”
She accepted a light and blew smoke to the yellowed ceiling of the little room. After a few moments’ silence, she shrugged and pulled the dressing-gown more closely around her.
“That would be”—she picked a shred of tobacco from the tip of her tongue and regarded it vacantly—“about three—no, four—years ago, I suppose. One afternoon a fellow walked in here and said wouldn’t I like a decent regular job instead of what I was doing and how he could fix it because he was on the council and thought it wasn’t really my fault but the district I lived in. You know the gaff. I was green, considering, mind. And could he gab? Well, you must have known him yourself, I expect. Carobleat. You did? Yes...Councillor Godalmighty Harry Carobleat. That’s who it was. Anyway, the next thing...”
Mrs Popplewell, the only Flaxborough magistrate who could be found willing that morning to preside over the brief formalities of a special court, sat in Purbright’s office and looked with secret excitement at the charge sheet. The prisoner, she had been told by the station sergeant, would be brought in very shortly: at eleven, the inspector had said. It was now nearly five minutes past, but Mrs Popplewell had nothing in particular to do before a luncheon of business and professional women two hours hence, so she remained contentedly fingering her big green beads and easing her shoes half off under the inspector’s desk, which served as a bench of justice on these occasions.
‘The prisoner,’ she repeated to herself in a flutter of anticipation. Dr Hillyard a prisoner. One could hardly believe it. He was such a masterful man. With iron-grey hair—yes, that was the word, iron-grey—and penetrating eyes. Dour, perhaps, but that was because he was Scotch. Scottish, rather; they preferred being called that. And if it hadn’t been for the drink, they said, he’d be in Harley Street today. But what a shocking thing he was supposed to have done. A disorderly house. It sounded comic in a way. People went to Dr Hillyard with disorders and now his house had caught one. No, it wouldn’t do for her to giggle while she was asking him if he had any objection to being remanded in custody. It was a serious business, all right—and wouldn’t it lay her lunch companions by their ears. Half of them were probably his patients. They’d be absolutely green...
The station sergeant knocked and entered the room. “I’m very sorry you’re being kept waiting, ma’am, but from what we hear there’s been some difficulty in apprehending the defendant.”
“That’s all right, constable. I’m quite comfortable,” Mrs Popplewell assured him with a dignified smile.
The sergeant glanced meaningfully at his striped sleeve and inquired: “Would you happen to care for a cup of coffee, ma’am? I can easily send one of the constables out for one.”
Mrs Popplewell reddened slightly and said it was most kind of him but she would rather not. Was there, by the way, any suggestion of the, er, defendant being out of town or anything?
The sergeant said he could not speak as to that, but no doubt the inspector would soon be back, with or without the prisoner, and she could then ask him the reason for the delay.
Purbright in fact appeared a few minutes later. He wished Mrs Popplewell good morning, ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed his chin. “We seem,” he told her, “to have been a little premature in asking you to come along. I’m terribly sorry.”
“Not at all,” she said, hiding her disappointment in an unnecessary search for her handbag which lay just at her elbow. “You cannot help it if people beat you to the draw, as it were.” She laughed and added as casually as she could contrive: “Where’s he off to, do you think?”