‘No,’ said Marmion, solemnly. ‘It’s my sad duty to tell you that he won’t be turning up at the library ever again. Mr Ablatt’s body was discovered during the night. He’d been bludgeoned to death.’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Fussell. ‘That’s appalling!’ Doubt clouded his eyes. ‘Are you quite sure that it was Cyril?’
‘No question about it, sir. His father has identified the body.’
‘My heart goes out to him. This is dreadful news. Cyril was a fixture here. He used the library regularly for many years before he joined the staff.’
‘Mr Ablatt was very proud that his son became a librarian.’
‘Technically,’ said the other with more than a hint of pedantry, ‘he was only a library assistant. I’m the librarian. We’re an odd species. Librarians are rather like concert pianists — nobody needs two.’
‘I sit corrected, sir. What kind of an assistant was Cyril Ablatt?’
‘I couldn’t fault him. This was his true metier. Large numbers of people go through life either hating their job or regretting the one they failed to get. Cyril wasn’t like that. I’ve never met anyone so happy in his work. It was a labour of love to him.’
‘Tell me a bit more about him.’
‘What would you like to know, Inspector?’
‘Everything you can remember,’ said Marmion. ‘My mental picture of him is still incomplete. I need more detail.’
‘Well, I can certainly give you that.’
As Fussell removed his spectacles, his eyes contracted to a more normal size. Taking out a handkerchief, he blew on the lenses before cleaning them methodically. He kept Marmion waiting a full minute before he spoke.
‘Cyril Ablatt is the best library assistant I’ve ever had the good fortune to have under me,’ he began, ‘and that includes my dear wife, whom you probably saw at the desk when you first arrived. According to the last census, this borough has a population of over 111,000 inhabitants. Not one of them could hold a candle to Cyril. He was tireless. When someone made a request, nothing was too much trouble for him. He built up a reputation for efficiency and amiability. Then, I fear,’ he went on, ‘the war broke out and people looked at him differently. His hard-earned reputation slowly began to crumble.’
‘How did he react to that?’
‘He carried on in the same pleasant and dedicated way — even when some people began to voice their criticism. They couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t join the army and fight for his country. It reached a point where a few of them refused to let him stamp their books.’
‘Did you understand his position, sir?’
‘I understood it very well. We discussed it at length in this very office.’
‘And did you approve of what he did?’
‘To be quite candid with you, I didn’t,’ said Fussell, holding the spectacles up to the light so that he could examine the lenses. ‘In times of crisis, pacifism seems quite indefensible. Cyril thought differently, of course, arguing that it was only during a war that pacifism had any real meaning. He could be very persuasive. He’d have made a first-rate public speaker.’
Marmion changed his tack. ‘Is the name Horrie Waldron familiar to you?’
‘It’s eerily familiar.’
‘Does he come in here often?’
‘Thankfully, he doesn’t. You can always tell when he is here by the smell. He never borrows books. He only drops in now and then to read a newspaper.’
‘Do you recall an argument he had with Mr Ablatt?’
‘I do indeed, Inspector. Waldron was obnoxious. If Cyril hadn’t sent him packing, I’d have called the police to remove him.’
‘Would you say that he’s a dangerous man?’
‘When drink is taken, he’s a very dangerous man.’
‘That confirms what I’ve heard,’ said Marmion. ‘By the way, did you know that your assistant went to a meeting of the No-Conscription Fellowship?’
The librarian replaced his spectacles. ‘Yes,’ he said, adjusting them. ‘He showed me their leaflet and sought my opinion. I told him that I thought they were a lot of well-intentioned cranks and that he was better off keeping away from them.’
‘What was his reply?’
Fussell quoted it in exact detail. He and his young assistant had evidently had some lively arguments. As the other man talked at length of Ablatt’s early days at the library, Marmion wondered why he’d taken a dislike to him. The librarian was astute, well qualified and undeniably in command. Yet he somehow annoyed the inspector. It was partly the way that he shifted between a lordly authority and an ingratiating humility. One minute, he was basking in his importance, the next, he was trying to curry favour. Marmion decided that he wouldn’t have liked to work under the man. You never knew what he was thinking.
‘Had he lived,’ said Marmion, ‘we both know what would have happened.’
‘Yes, Inspector, he’d have been conscripted.’
‘The first stage would be an appearance before a tribunal.’
‘Cyril had already worked out what he was going to say.’
‘And what about you, sir?’
Fussell was taken aback. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘Surely, you’d speak up before the tribunal on his behalf.’
‘I hadn’t planned to do so.’
‘But you told me that he was your best assistant.’
‘He was,’ said Fussell, ‘I don’t dispute that. Unfortunately, libraries do not merit inclusion among reserved occupations. There’s nothing that I could say that would be of any help to Cyril.’
‘It’s not what you could say but what you could do, sir.’
‘Could you be more explicit?’
‘I’m thinking of it from Mr Ablatt’s viewpoint,’ said Marmion. ‘At the very least, you could make a gesture. Your very appearance on his behalf at the tribunal would have raised his morale. Did that never occur to you?’
Fussell’s tone was icy. ‘In all honesty, it never did.’
‘Now that it has, what’s your feeling? Had your young assistant requested your help, how would you have responded?’
There was a long pause, then Fussell enunciated the words crisply.
‘I’d have been obliged to disappoint him, Inspector.’
‘Was that because he could defeat you in argument?’ asked Marmion.
He saw the librarian wince.
Maud Crowther was a stout woman in her early sixties with sparkling blue eyes in a face more suited to laughter than sorrow. Age had obliged her to use a walking stick but she’d lost none of her zest. When she opened her front door to him, Keedy guessed that she’d spent much of her life behind a bar counter, serving drinks to all manner of customers with a welcoming smile that had been her trademark. Strangers never disconcerted her. They provided her income. Pleased to see such a good-looking man on her doorstep, she gave him a broad grin.
‘What can I do for you, young man?’ she asked.
‘Are you Mrs Maud Crowther?’
‘I am and I have been from the day I married Tom Crowther.’
‘I wondered if we might speak in private, Mrs Crowther.’
Keedy introduced himself and told her about the murder investigation. She was horrified to hear the details, all the more so because the body had been found only a few hundred yards from her house. As soon as he mentioned the name of Horrie Waldron, her eyes glinted.
‘Don’t believe a word that good-for-nothing tells you!’
‘You do know him, then?’
‘I know of him,’ she said, carefully choosing her words, ‘but I’d hardly call him an acquaintance of mine, still less a friend.’
Keedy could understand why she was trying to distance herself from Waldron and why she was furious that he’d even mentioned his name to a detective. Any relationship between the two of them was meant to be secret. Maud felt betrayed. Inviting her visitor into the house, she hobbled into the front room ahead of him and lowered herself gingerly into an armchair. Keedy sat opposite her. The room was small and crammed with furniture. There was an abiding aroma of lavender.
‘Why are you bothering me?’ she asked, glaring defiantly.