He resumed his seat at the table, leaving Purbright to dispose himself as he thought fit. The only alternative to standing proved to be a tea chest lying on its side in the big bay window.
As Purbright lowered himself on to that, he saw that Janice had before her a large brown loaf. At a nod from Henry she laboriously sawed off a slice which she handed over on the point of the knife. He buttered it while she watched.
“Shrimp,” Henry said, tersely.
Janice leaned forward, short-sightedly scrutinized a row of four or five little jars, then slid one across. Without acknowledgment, Henry picked it up and gouged out some of the contents. Janice neither ate nor drank anything herself.
The room was very cold. A smell of wet plaster pervaded it.
“And what are you after, then?” Henry spoke with his mouth full. He didn’t look up from his plate.
Purbright resolved at that moment to be neither devious nor tactful. The tea chest was exceedingly uncomfortable.
“I understand you are a client of the Handclasp House matrimonial bureau.”
“I was,” replied Henry with neither hesitation nor, apparently, concern. “But I got fixed up.”
Janice blushed happily.
“At first shot?” Purbright did his best to sound rude and was fairly successful
“No.”
“How many?”
“I don’t see what the hell it’s got to do with you, but it so happens there were two others. One had been looking ten years for somebody to put her into a book. I put her on the next bloody bus. Then there was some bint who wanted to bear a beautiful child without taking her knickers off. God, this damn country’s full of walking middle-class fantasies. It’s got no loins any more.”
Henry glared at the loaf and Janice hastily began sawing it.
“Did either of your earlier, er, applicants happen to be called Reckitt?” Purbright asked. “Or Bannister?”
“Tomato and pilchard,” said Henry, after brief consideration. Janice got busy among the jars.
“Names!” cried Henry, as soon as he had recharged his mouth. “Why should I remember names? The only decent book written in the last fifty years hadn’t a single name in it from cover to cover. This labelling obsession is a sign of literary castration. I’m a writer, man! A professional writer, not the compiler of a telephone directory.”
Henry’s pronunciation of the word “writer”, Purbright noted, was the most aggressive instance of his general affection of a West Fading accent. He hurled forth the diphthong like the bleat of an agonized sheep.
“All the same, sir,” Purbright said, “I should be glad if you would belabour your memory and see whether Reckitt or Bannister occurs to you.”
“Never heard of either of them. Who are they, anyway?”
“They are—or were—two of your fellow subscribers to that matrimonial agency. A Miss Martha Reckitt and a Mrs Bannister. Both women now appear to be missing.”
“Well I haven’t lost them.” Henry passed a large white mug to Janice, who hastened to fill it with tea and hand it back. He tasted the tea, held it out for more sugar, then continued to take small sips while he read an item in the New Statesman that had been propped between his plate and a jar of jam.
“You say you are a professional writer?”
“That’s right.” Henry didn’t look up.
“In that case, perhaps you wouldn’t mind obliging me with a sample.”
“What, of urine?”
Janice giggled admiringly.
“No, sir. I was thinking not so much in terms of original composition as of a simple specimen of handwriting. I’d settle for ‘The fox jumped over the lazy dog,’ for instance.”
“Or ‘The inquisitive copper vanished up his own arsehole?’ ”
Purbright nodded blandly. “That would do just as nicely, sir.” He strolled to the table, unscrewing the cap of his pen. The pen and a blank page torn from his notebook he placed beside Henry’s elbow.
Henry stared at them. He looked less confident.
“What’s the idea, anyway?”
“To use an old cliché, I am asking you to help us eliminate you from our inquiries.”
“You mean I’m suspected of something?”
“It does so happen that you bear some resemblance to a man who has been seen in the company of one of the women we’re concerned about.”
“But that’s bloody ridiculous.”
“You never associate with women?”
Henry screwed up his eyes in exasperation. “Look, I’m a wri-i-iter, inspector. Of course I associate, as you call it. Connect up. Charge the battery. Absorb. I’ve got to feed my own parturition. Don’t you see? It’s like a furnace. No. No—a kiln. To get the white heat for beautiful porcelain, I’ve got to stoke, stoke, stoke it all the time. With people. All sorts of people. I don’t have to be fussy like you, with your elimina-a-tions and your associa-a-tions. They just have to be real, and struggling, and smelling of the world’s gut!”
There was a pause during which Purbright fancied he could hear the word “gut” echoing in the room’s cold, huge-throated chimney. What he was afterwards to admit ashamedly to himself had been sheer malice provoked the observation that broke the silence.
“I think John Buchan’s stuff is awfully good, don’t you?”
With a choking noise, Henry Rusk seized the pen and held it poised. For fully a minute he gazed at the blank paper. Within the beard his mouth made fitful little movements. Then at last he groaned and began to write.
It was not until Purbright was well clear of the Old Rectory that he took one hand from the wheel, fished the paper out of his left hand pocket and glanced down to see what was on it.
The single line of writing was in a wavery, rather childish hand, not very easy to read.
It was: “The fox jumped over the lazy dog.”
Chapter Eight
There came to Miss Teatime a second letter by the same firm script as before, snug within its outer and inner envelopes and suggestive of dependable masculinity.
Again it was subscribed merely “4122 (R.N. retd.)” but its contents were more fulsome and, Miss Teatime dared to conclude, in warmer tone.
Dear Miss 347,
How can I describe my pleasure on receiving so prompt and friendly a reply to my little “overture”. As it was my very first attempt through the agency, you can guess how “chuffed” I was when it brought a result—your letter. People are not always very courteous in these selfish times and replies even to the sincerest inquiries cannot be relied upon. Still, you have proved that I do not need to despair altogether! Yes, as you have guessed, I am an “old salt” (though not all that old, I assure you!) and of course I was thrilled to hear that you, too, have a love of the Deep. We must have talks about that when, as I am bold enough to hope, we meet.
So you are a writer (I could tell that from your letter, of course). You make me quite envious. Old shipmates have often told me that I ought to put my experiences into a book, but I never seem to have the time. Which is a pity, because a close friend of mine happens to be a very influential Literary Agent. He holds several publishers “in the palm of his hand” and simply cannot get enough manuscripts—especially, he tells me, by women authors. We must see what