Inside it was pleasantly cool. Bradley peered through the relative darkness to where the thick spectacles of PC Braine gleamed inquisitively. Braine was in shirt sleeves. He gave a jerk to his globular, slightly flattened head and emitted a sound. The sound, though not recognizably verbal, conveyed with quite extraordinary economy not only challenge and inquiry but contempt, indifference and pride in having been born in Yorkshire.
“How like a frog he is,” remarked Bradley after Purbright, ignoring the monosyllabic custodian of the front office, had led him into the corridor beyond.
They found Sergeant Love in the billiards room. He was losing a game of snooker fairly rapidly to Patrolman Brevitt. Only five colours remained. Purbright waved the pair to finish. Love nodded cheerfully: it was his turn and the green ball was hanging at the very edge of a pocket. He aimed with great nonchalance and mis-cued. Brevitt sank the lot. His “Bad luck, Sidney” sounded like the condolence offered by a public executioner on piecework.
In Purbright’s office, Love gave an account of Loughbury’s visit. He held his notebook low down so that Bradley could see that it contained shorthand.
When he had finished, he looked at each inspector in turn with bright and innocent so-now-you-know satisfaction.
Purbright asked Bradley what he thought of the solicitor’s explanation of the high price reached by lot thirty-four.
“A singularly tortuous form of philanthropy, surely,” said Bradley.
“It is also rather odd,” Purbright said, “that they went to all that trouble—Mrs Moldham-Clegg and her legal advisers, that is—without making sure that old Arnold had any dependants.”
Bradley glanced at Love’s still open notebook, to the sergeant’s immediate and obvious gratification, and said: “Judging from the very full report we have been given of what Loughbury had to say, he did not simply assume the man had a family; he specifically mentioned dependents who ‘would not have dreamed’ of accepting a direct gift.” He looked at Love. “That is so, is it not, sergeant?”
Blushing happily, Love sent a finger wiggling amongst his Pitman’s. After a few moments, he nodded and stood very erect. “Yes, sir, that’s right...would...not...have...dreamed...of...” He frowned. “Of gasping...?”
“Accepting,” Bradley corrected gently. “Very similar outline.” He turned to Purbright. “I suppose we must not rule out the possibility that O’Dwyer really was a relative of the old man? In a perfectly genuine sense?”
Purbright shrugged. “And that Mrs Moldham-Clegg and Loughbury knew of his existence, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“They would have needed to be especially broad-minded to accept a burglar as a beneficiary.”
“He wasn’t a very successful burglar,” Bradley observed. “Anyway, they were not to know his profession; he always comes up in court described as an unemployed watchmaker.”
“I still find Loughbury’s tale unconvincing,” Purbright said. “What about O’Dwyer’s appearance at that auction sale? A needy relation doesn’t come all those miles from home and bid into the hundreds for a memento of his old uncle.”
“True,” Bradley conceded. “But why should Mrs Moldham-Clegg have suspected anything? I don’t suppose for a moment that she would remember any of her ex-coachman’s family, even if she had ever seen them. O’Dwyer was just another bidder as far as she was concerned. She may even have supposed that he had been planted by Loughbury in addition to his clerk, Buxton. As for Buxton, he was there simply to carry out instructions. Or so I understand matters.”
Love took the opportunity of assuring Bradley (whom he already considered a crime-buster in the suavest Yard tradition) that he had read the situation absolutely correctly.
“We’d love some tea, Sid,” Purbright informed him, by way of reward. Love paused at the door and looked back indecisively. He caught Purbright’s eye and mimed “Cups?” with his mouth. Purbright nodded. Bradley thoughtfully looked for several moments at the door through which the alacritous sergeant had departed.
“You know,” he said, “our Frankie must have had a depth of viciousness which even I had not suspected if he could slug a lad as young as that.”
“Sergeant Love,” said Purbright, “is forty-four.”
The telephone rang. It was Braine.
“PC Phillips is on the line,” he announced. “There’s been an accident at Pennick and he thinks you ought to know about it.”
“What kind of an accident? I do happen to be rather busy.” Purbright never found it very difficult to suspect Braine of deliberate unhelpfulness.
“Accident—that’s all he says. He wants to talk to you about it. Whatever it is. Sir.”
Purbright said he would take the call. Braine pressed the wrong switch and lost the line. “He’s cut off,” he explained. Soon afterwards Phillips rang again and was put through.
“I’m out at Pennick at the moment, sir. We had a call about twenty minutes ago from the lock-keeper. There’s a body in the lock. The keeper thinks it floated in last time he opened the doors for some boats going up river.”
“Does Sergeant Malley know about this?”
“He’s not in, sir.”
“No, of course. I’ll get a message round to him. But I’m told you wanted especially to talk to me.”
“Yes, sir. I thought you’d be interested in this impression I got.” Phillips sounded now more hopeful than confident. “Yes, naturally,” said Purbright, at once.
“Well, sir, I’ve not actually seen this body—not close up, it keeps circling more or less under the surface—but I do get an impression that it’s the same bloke that I saw outside the saleroom on Thursday, the one who assaulted Sid Love.”
There was a pause.
“Tell me, Mr Phillips; if the lock-keeper was aware of the body twenty minutes ago, when you say his call was received here, why has nobody fished the thing out of the water?”
“It’s a bit unfortunate, actually, sir. He lent his only boathook to the Strawbridge man last week and he’s not got it back yet. The lad’s cycling over now to fetch it.”
By the time Purbright and Bradley arrived at the lock-side at Pennick, the lock-keeper, Phillips and three men from a narrow boat that had moored above the lock were fishing for the corpse with an improvised grapple.
It was not an easy task. The lock was full, but there was still some turbulence beneath the surface and the body was circling in a grotesque, nerveless waltz at constantly changing depths. The keeper, a fat and florid man named Gort, held a long rope, to the end of which had been lashed two meat hooks, donated for the occasion by the crew of the narrow boat. The hope was that a lucky throw of the rope would sink the hooks a little beyond the body so that a deft pull-in might enable one or both to catch the clothing.