Inspector Proudie was a stout man with a round, guileless face. He greeted Henry with a nice mixture of friendliness, deference and defensiveness—defensiveness because, in spite of the Chief Constable’s insistence that Henry’s visit was motivated purely and simply by some interesting facts which he had stumbled upon while on holiday, Proudie could not quite rid his mind of the niggling implication that his own enquiries had been somehow inefficient.
He pushed a bulky file across the desk to Henry.
“It’s all there, sir,” he said. “I think you’ll agree that we covered the ground pretty thoroughly, but you know as well as I do that putting your finger on a sneak thief is like trying to catch a trout in a bucket. At first it looked like a local, unprofessional job, and we reckoned we’d get the fellow as soon as he tried to market the stuff. Your people in London were on the lookout too, of course. But nothing traceable has come onto the market. So either the chap is in touch with a highly efficient disposal system, or he’s hidden the loot and is prepared to lie low for years, if need be. Neither alternative sounds like an amateur.”
“Unless,” said Henry, “the local amateur is in touch with a professional fence.”
Proudie sighed. “I know what you’re thinking, sir. Bob Calloway.”
“Exactly.”
“We’ve watched him like hawks. But he’s apparently leading a blameless life as a country publican. As I recollect, even in his Soho days nothing was ever proved against him.”
“That’s true,” said Henry. He grinned, indicating that he had caught the innuendo that, as far as Calloway was concerned, London had had no more success than Ipswich. Proudie permitted himself a smile in return. The atmosphere warmed.
“In any case,” Proudie went on, “don’t forget that Bob didn’t take over The Berry Bush until nearly a year after the robbery.”
“He didn’t?” Henry sat up. “That’s very interesting. You mean, he’s only been here a few months?”
“That’s right. Eight months. Bought the pub outright from old Harry Potter when he retired. It’s all there in the report. If you want my honest opinion, I think it’s just one of those coincidences that make our work so confusing.”
Henry opened the file, and took out the typewritten page on which the life history of Bob Calloway was summarized. He had apparently left the Duck and Doorknob three years previously, and had taken over a pub in Gloucestershire, where his behavior had been exemplary. As far as was known, none of his old cronies from the underworld of London had been in touch with him there, and his own trips to the capital had been infrequent. Eight months ago, he had sold the Gloucestershire pub and bought The Berry Bush. Since then, the only available information on his movements was that a constable on the beat had recognized him walking down Brewer Street one Friday evening in June—an activity that could hardly be classed as illegal or even suspicious. The official opinion was that he had long since retired from any sort of criminal practice, if, indeed, he had ever been engaged in it. Nothing had ever been proved against him, except that he kept bad company.
Henry looked up from his perusal of this document. “Bob was in London last weekend,” he said.
Proudie made a gesture of helplessness. “What if he was? That’s not an offence, is it? I can’t have the man tailed everywhere he goes.”
Henry put the paper to one side, and began reading the official reports of the police investigation into the Trigg-Willoughby robbery. He smiled to himself as he studied the orderly, official language of Priscilla’s statement, and wondered how many patient hours had been required to condense her ramblings to this coherent form.
“I left Rooting Manor shortly after one o’clock A.M., accompanied by my brother. George Riddle drove us home. We arrived at Berry Hall at approximately one forty-five. I was at that time wearing the items of jewellery listed overleaf. I was extremely tired, and went to bed immediately. It was my normal practice to deposit my jewels in the safe every night, according to my dear father’s wishes: but on that occasion my fatigue must have driven it out of my mind. I have no clear recollection of what I did with the jewellery. I imagine I must have left it on the table in my dressing room...”
A vivid picture came into Henry’s mind of Priscilla in the Blue Drawing Room, giggling helplessly over the smashed Wedgwood urn. He could imagine only too clearly the painful scene at the Hunt Balclass="underline" the embarrassment as Priscilla was bundled out to the waiting car: the sniggers and the gossip: Sir Simon’s mortification. He pictured the two men, Sir Simon and Riddle, guardians of a guilty secret that was a secret no longer, helping the pathetic, half-crazy woman into the dark house...
He turned to Sir Simon’s statement. It was typically crisp and to the point.
“...certainly I did not accompany my sister to her room. There was no reason why I should. I had every confidence that she would lock the jewellery up in the safe, as usual. The evening’s dancin
g had exhausted her considerably, but she was perfectly in control of herself. I locked the outer doors of the house and went to bed. I heard no sound of any sort during the night, but this is hardly surprising, as I sleep in the opposite wing...”
Every confidence. Yes, Henry thought, that was justified. Three-quarters of an hour in the car should have sobered Priscilla up considerably, and the habits of a lifetime are not easily broken. He himself could remember an occasion—that terrible Old Boys’ Dinner when he had mixed his drinks so disastrously: to this day he had no recollection of how he got home or to bed, but the next morning his suit was neatly on its hanger, his shoes in the right place on the rack. Drunken people tended to go through their regular routine, blindly. Unless, of course...
“I’m afraid, sir,” said Proudie, “that the fact of the matter is that the lady was...em...intoxicated.” He cleared his throat, and Henry saw that he had gone very red. “It’s not a thing one likes to have to say, and we kept it as quiet as possible, of course...but the people who were at the dance—”
“They tell me the whole county was there,” said Henry. “Not much hope of keeping it quiet.”
“It’s very understandable,” Proudie went on staunchly. “A lady who isn’t accustomed to strong drink...”
“Yes,” said Henry absently. “Yes. How many of the local people would have known which was Miss Trigg-Willoughby’s room?”
Proudie answered promptly. “Quite a few,” he said. “Herbert Hole knows the house well—he’s often helped Sir Simon out with odd jobs in the winter. He’d actually been repainting Miss Priscilla’s room not long before. Then there’s Sam Riddle—his son George is Sir Simon’s man, you know—he does a bit of gardening up at the Hall every now and then. He’d been amusing the locals in The Berry Bush by telling them how Miss Trigg-Willoughby used to lean out of her window in the morning with her hair still in curling pins, and shout out instructions about where he was to plant the tulips. I believe Bill Hawkes has done carpentry jobs up there, too. And there’s Tom Bates, the postman, and young Bill, who delivers the milk, and Alf, the grocery boy—”
“How would they know which was her room?” Henry asked, intrigued.
Proudie smiled. “Same way as Sam Riddle, sir. The lady’s a little eccentric, as you’ll realize if you’ve met her. Given to poking her head out of the window and calling out to people who come to the house. Her rooms are just over the front door, you see. Yes, I reckon most people knew where to look for the stuff, all right. Trouble is, none of them are cat burglars, that I know of.”
“Yes,” said Henry. “That’s the trouble.” He thumbed through the file again, and found the statement which had been signed, in the painstaking copperplate of village scholarship, by George Riddle. Once again, character had all but been obliterated by officialese, but the facts were clear enough.