“It seems to me,” said Purbright to Malley, “that Mr Croll’s legal representative was less coy on the subject of Mrs Croll’s mental state than one might have expected. You notice that Loughbury quite openly led Cork-Bradden into suggesting the woman was missing a few marbles.”
“Perhaps she was.”
“Perhaps—but relatives never admit these things. They’re felt to reflect discredit on the family. Let’s have a look at the husbands evidence, anyway.”
Benjamin Croll, farmer, of Home Farm, Mumblesby, said that he had been shown a body in the mortuary of Flaxborough General Hospital and recognized it as that of his wife, Bernadette Croll. He had last seen his wife alive at half-past eleven, on the previous Friday morning—dinner time. She had eaten her meal and left the house, saying she would be back to get him his tea, but she had not returned by bedtime, and he heard no more until the police telephoned him the following morning.
In reply to the Coroner, witness said he had not been worried; his wife had stayed out all night on previous occasions. Answering Mr Loughbury, witness further stated that his wife had lately become very religious and had told him that she stayed out at night to keep God company. He agreed that it would be consistent with his wife’s attitude of mind if she had concealed herself in the parish church in order to pray on her own until morning.
Witness Croll, questioned by Superintendent Larch, said his wife had twice before threatened to take her own life but because she was so religious he did not think she meant it.
“There you are, then,” said Malley. “Ben certainly thought his missus was round the twist. He could scarcely have put it more plainly.”
“Did you ever have anything to do with her, Bill?”
“Took a statement from her once. Must be nearly twenty years ago, though.”
Purbright smiled. “You are going to say you remember nothing about her.”
Malley wheezed protestingly. “If I’m supposed to remember everybody who ever came into this office...”
“Bill, a long time ago it may be, but don’t tell me you’ve forgotten somebody of whom you said at the time—and I quote—‘That girl’s had more ferret than I’ve had hot dinners’. “
“Aye, well...” The sergeant looked down and rubbed the bowl of his pipe with his thumb. “Perhaps we take too much notice of what people say.”
“Wasn’t it true, then?”
“You know what villages are.”
“I’m not sure that I do. Not Mumblesby, anyway. Now come on, was the woman promiscuous or was she not?”
“She isn’t now, that’s for certain.” Malley saw the beginning of a frown of exasperation. He said quickly and with a note of grumpiness: “Of course she was. She was on the batter. You know bloody well.”
Purbright disliked harrying the sergeant, whose occasional obstructiveness came of a purely quixotic desire to protect those who could not help themselves. He wanted to explain the reason for his line of questioning, but he was not yet sure himself what it was.
He asked: “When was she supposed to have taken to religion?”
Malley stared gloomily at the mortuary photograph and shook his head. “No idea. First I heard of that was at the inquest.” He looked up at Purbright. “She left Ben a couple of times—you know that?”
“I did not.”
“Aye. Once with a car salesman from Grantham. The other was that art teacher at Flaxborough evening classes. They reckoned there were others, but I wouldn’t know.”
“How recent was the last affair that you did know about?”
Malley considered. “That would be the art bloke...oh, about six months before she was killed. A year, maybe.”
The inspector was silent for some moments.
“Something you said just now, Bill...”
“Aye?”
“You said the first you heard about Bernadette’s religious conversion, or mania, or whatever it was, was during the inquest. Did you mean that literally? Actually during the inquest?”
“Yes, why?”
The inspector looked at some pages of the record. “It seems to have come out in response to questions—mainly questions put by Loughbury to the husband and to Cork-Bradden.”
“That’s right.”
“So it wasn’t mentioned by any of these people at any time while you were taking their depositions before the inquest?”
“Not a dickey-bird.”
“Odd,” said Purbright.
“In what way?”
“Simply that here is a woman, considered by two people at least, one of them her own husband, to be a religious nut, who is found dead in a church, of all places. That isn’t the sort of coincidence that requires a lawyer to spot. Why didn’t somebody say straight out: Oh, yes, just the sort of thing she would do?”
“I suppose they were all taking the charitable view.”
Purbright stared. “Oh, Bill, come on...”
He said no more until he had read the testimony of the final witness, a young constable who contrived to include so many measurements in his report that the actual distance of the woman’s fall was crowded out and needed to be established by further calculation. Purbright made it forty-two feet.
The constable also had searched the gallery and there discovered a handbag, subsequently identified as the property of deceased. The bag had contained, according to Superintendent Larch’s remark to the coroner, who had recorded it, “nothing suggestive of why Mrs Croll was in the church or how she came to fall from the gallery”.
Purbright looked up. “Right about that, was he, Bill—the handbag contents?”
Reluctantly, Malley confirmed the correctness of interloper Larch’s judgment. The bag had held a purse, and money, a chequebook, cosmetics, handkerchief, car keys, cigarettes and lighter.
A receipt for these things and for the clothing his wife had been wearing at the time bore the signature of Benjamin Croll. Also listed were two rings, a silver chain necklace and one earring.
“One earring?”
“Yes,” said Malley. The other had never been found. It presumably had rolled into a crevice or down one of the gratings.”
The sergeant packed into the box all the documents but the medical report. Purbright motioned him to take that also: he seemed to have lost much of his interest. Malley packed everything in and secured the lid with the two rubber bands.
Suddenly Purbright said: “I want to know about a young boy named Howell. His mother’s a barmaid at the Mumblesby pub.”
Malley took his time putting the box back in its place on the shelf. He was smiling, as at the memory of some once familiar but harmless nuisance.