‘Fortunately,’ said the old man, ‘Mr Brough was even smaller than me. The two of us could fit in here without any difficulty. Now, Inspector, what do you wish to know?’
‘Tell me about Mr Quayle’s top hat.’
‘It was something about which he was very particular.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t ask me why. We sell top hats by the dozen. Our highest price is five shillings and sixpence but most customers settle for something slightly cheaper. Mr Quayle, by contrast, paid even more for his because he wanted the very finest silk. It was, if I may say so, a top hat of top hats.’
‘In other words, it would be very distinctive.’
‘Any man of discernment would covet it, Inspector.’
‘That may explain why it disappeared.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Colbeck told him that the hat was missing from the open grave in which the dead man was found. Opening a drawer in his desk, Hubbleday took out a pile of drawings and began to leaf through them.
‘I’m inclined to agree with you that it was stolen rather than simply discarded,’ he said.
‘Did you sew Mr Quayle’s name inside it?’
‘Oh, yes, he insisted. Ah, here we are,’ he continued, plucking a drawing from the pile and passing it over. ‘That’s the hat we made for him.’
‘It’s highly individual,’ observed Colbeck, ‘and almost nine inches in height. That curly brim is a work of art.’
‘Mr Quayle wanted it to stand out in a crowd. Everyone wears top hats these days. You’ll see bargees on the river with them, and conductors on omnibuses. They used to be the sign of a gentleman,’ said Hubbleday, nostalgically, ‘but people of the lower sort get hold of them these days.’
‘This is very useful,’ said Colbeck. ‘I’d recognise that hat anywhere.’
‘Keep the drawing if it’s of any use, Inspector. I hate to say it but Mr Quayle will never be in need of a new hat.’
‘And you’ve never designed a similar one for anybody else?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘What about Mr Quayle’s sons?’
‘Oh, they have very different tastes,’ said Hubbleday with a smile. ‘Lucas, the younger of the two, is something of a peacock and always leans towards ostentation. Stanley, his elder brother, is more conservative.’
‘I met Stanley Quayle earlier,’ said Colbeck. ‘He seems to have taken charge at the house. I gather that his mother is not in the best of health.’
‘Mrs Quayle has been ailing for several years, Inspector. Her husband was devoted to her. When you came down the street, you’ll have passed the florist. He told me that, because his wife was so fond of flowers, Mr Quayle placed an order for a fresh supply of roses or lilies to be delivered every Monday morning.’
‘I should have thought there’d be plenty of flowers on the estate.’
‘Those were only for show,’ said Hubbleday, ‘or so I was told. Mrs Quayle liked to sit in the window of her room and look out on them. Mr Brough and I were invited to a function at the house once. You’ll have seen the flower beds at the front but perhaps you missed the formal garden at the rear of the property. It is truly a thing of beauty.’
‘Unfortunately,’ said Colbeck, ‘I wasn’t there to admire the garden. I simply wanted to make contact with the family.’
‘Did you meet Lucas Quayle? He’s a delightful fellow.’
‘No, I only spoke to his elder brother.’
There was a significant pause. ‘Stanley Quayle is very single-minded,’ said Hubbleday, measuring his words. ‘He always seems much older than he really is. By repute, he’s an astute businessman.’ His frown melted into a smile. ‘Nobody would ever say that about Lucas Quayle. He’s always striking out in new directions even if some of them are ill-advised. Their father used to tell me that he had one reliable son and one irresponsible one. Curiously, he seemed fonder of the madcap.’
‘There are two daughters as well, aren’t there?’
‘Don’t ask me about those, Inspector. I sell nothing that they might want.’
‘I understand that one of the daughters was estranged from the family.’
‘I’m in no position to comment on that.’
‘When I called at the house, Stanley Quayle informed me that the elder sister might not even attend the funeral.’
Hubbleday was scandalised. ‘That’s disgraceful!’
‘The rift with the family must indeed be serious.’
‘Death has a habit of uniting a family, Inspector. I pray that it might do so in this case.’
‘So do I,’ said Colbeck. ‘I’d be very interested to meet the lady.’
Lydia Quayle sat alone at a table in a London tea room and read the item in the newspaper for the third time. She was a smart, shapely woman in her late twenties with brown curly hair framing a face whose unforced beauty was marred by an expression that veered between sorrow and anger. Putting the newspaper aside, she sipped her tea then took a first nibble out of one of the cakes on the plate beside her. It was afternoon in London and, through the window, she could see heavy traffic in the road outside. Lydia was distracted by the sight of a tiny bird perched on a stationary cart and hopping from one place to another. When the bird landed on the rump of the horse between the shafts, the animal took no notice. It was only when the creature hopped along its back and onto its mane that the horse shook its head violently and sent the bird flying into the sky.
Lydia picked up the newspaper and read the article about her father’s murder once more. Getting up abruptly from the table, she abandoned the tea and cakes, tossed the newspaper aside with disdain and left the restaurant.
The short time that Victor Leeming spent with the gravedigger gave him more amusement than information. Over a pint of beer guzzled down at enormous speed, Bert Knowles told him that on the night in question he’d been drinking with friends at the Union Inn and, when he rolled out of there, a sense of duty made him walk to the churchyard to make sure that the grave he’d dug for Cicely Peet was still sound and that none of the sides had caved in. When he got there, he claimed, he felt that somebody was watching him though he saw nobody even though he stayed in the churchyard for a long time. Knowles insisted that the invisible watcher must have been the killer, biding his time until it was safe to put the dead body into the ground.
Leeming felt sorry for the man. He earned a pittance as a labourer and work at the church was intermittent. But the sergeant was firm, telling him that the tale about a phantom in the dark was not worth one penny of the reward money. Knowles promptly burst out laughing, slapped him on the arm and said that his story, freely acknowledged as being fictitious, had been ‘worth a try’. Yet the purchase of a pint of beer for him had been a profitable investment. Thanks to Knowles, word of Leeming’s presence there would be quickly disseminated throughout the village. Those who felt they had something of importance to tell him would certainly do so when they read the reward notice. The sergeant was pleased with himself. In the space of a few hours, he’d befriended a reporter who’d given him a brief criminal history of Spondon, and a local character who was also a mine of information about the village.
Having walked back to the forge with Knowles, he waited until the labourer had taken the horse back to the farm then asked if he could speak to the blacksmith’s children. Walter Grindle agreed with the proviso that he had to be present. When he met Lizzie and Sam, Leeming realised that he’d get very little of value out of them. The girl kept collapsing in a flood of tears when she recalled her moment of discovery and her brother was paralysed with fear in the presence of a detective from Scotland Yard. The interview with the children was mercifully short for all concerned.
As he strolled along the street Leeming heard the sound of running feet behind him. He stopped and turned so that a lanky, dishevelled man with unusually large and staring eyes could catch up with him. Leeming put his age close to forty.
‘Are you the sergeant?’ asked the man.