“Yes, sir, but it was conceded that she could have been hiding when the church was locked for the night. So could somebody else.”
“That is pure supposition.”
“With respect, sir, no—it is a possibility, of which account must be taken in conjunction with certain other circumstances that seem to have been overlooked at the time.”
“Those being?” Mr Chubb’s tone had cooled perceptibly.
Purbright prepared to enumerate on his fingers. “One, the regrettable but widely acknowledged fact that Bernadette Croll was ardently promiscuous. Two, that analysis at post mortem showed that she had consumed something of the order of two or three double brandies that evening. Three, that a candle on a stand, seen burning inside the church at about midnight, close to where Mrs Croll’s body was later found, had been removed by the time the police were called and photographs taken. Four...”
“Oh, come now, Mr Purbright. I think I know the source of that one. Someone has been telling you what the little village boy was supposed to have seen. Am I right?” Mr Chubbs was the magnanimous smile of the about-to-score.
“Sir?”
“Boy with an odd name,” said Mr Chubb. “The illegitimate son of the lady who works in the village pub. Mentally defective, poor little chap. I don’t think you need worry overmuch about lights at midnight if it was young master whatsisname who saw them.”
“Howell,” Purbright said.
The chief constable looked blank.
“Howell—the boy’s name is Howell, sir.”
“I see. Yes. Anyway, his mother wrote quite a nice little letter apologizing for the trouble he’d caused, and that was that as far as we were concerned, although I believe there was some talk of an application to the magistrates for a care and protection order.”
“That would be up to the county welfare committee,” said Purbright.
“Of course.”
“The chairman of which is Councillor Robin Cork-Bradden.”
After a pause, the chief constable said pleasantly, “I’m sure that the relevance of that information is clear to you, Mr Purbright, but I’m afraid it eludes me.”
“I’m sorry, sir; I thought you would know that Mr Cork-Bradden lives at Mumblesby. At Church House, in fact. So the case of Miss Howell and her child is perhaps familiar to him.”
“Possibly.” Mr Chubb glanced at his watch, then towards his half-read Flaxborough Citizen. The inspector rose, whereupon Mr Chubb unmoored himself from the mantelpiece and returned to the table.
He spoke quietly, apparently to the newspaper.
“I realize that Superintendent Larch was not always quite as painstaking as we try to be, but it would be rather a pity now that he has retired if that little bit of assistance he gave us last year should prove to have been misdirected. Very upsetting for a chap after so many years in the Force.”
“Very,” Purbright agreed, before leaving the office.
Half an hour or so later, Mr Chubb reached the back page of the Citizen, in the first column of which it was customary to print the Thanks and Acknowledgments relating to the week’s bereavements.
Under “Loughbury” appeared a sizeable recital of gratitude. Its objects included the doctors and nurses of Flaxborough General Hospital, Steven Winge Ward; the Rev. Alan Tiverton; Messrs R. Bradlaw and Son, for tasteful funeral arrangements; the senders of all the beautiful floral tributes, too numerous to be listed; the Grand Master and Officers of the Tom Walker Lodge, Chalmsbury; several army and professional organizations; the chief constable of Flaxborough (Mr Chubb eyed this item with distinct nervousness); the firm of brewers that owned the Saracens Head, Flaxborough.
There followed an item that disconcerted Mr Chubb even more than had the appearance of his own name.
“Special thanks from the Mumblesby Relic Committee to Det. Inspector Purbright for kind services in protecting my late husband’s Memorial Presentation to Our Village.”
There was no telephone in Mr Chubb’s room, or he might have used it in token of his disquiet. He went instead to the duty sergeants office and asked him to summon the inspector. Purbright, though, had gone out. Mr Chubb returned to his room, where he solaced himself until lunchtime with back numbers of Horse and Hound.
The chief constable was not the only reader of the Citizen that morning to take particular notice of Zoe Loughbury’s announcement.
Mrs Priscilla Cork-Bradden, of Church House, Mumblesby, who had been looking through the paper while seated in a garden chair, was so intrigued that she came indoors at once to her husband.
“What in heaven’s name is the Mumblesby Relic Committee?”
Mr Cork-Bradden put down the fishing fly he had been contriving from pieces of feather and cane. He stared at her dully.
“There’s no such thing.”
“Darling, it’s here in the local rag.” She gave the newspaper, already disarranged, a shake. Two sheets fell to the floor. She waited to see if her husband would pick them up but he was looking at his fly-tying again.
The part of the paper containing the thanks notice was still in Priscilla’s grasp. She folded it and flipped it with her fingertips.
“There you are—Mumblesby Relic Committee. I’m not stupid, darling.”
She read a few more words, then looked up angrily. “My God! ‘My late husband...’ Her late husband! The paper should vet these things before accepting them from people like that dreadful Zoe or whatever they call her. You’re a director, darling: you’ll have to have a word with the editor.”
“It doesn’t have an editor now,” said Mr Cork-Bradden. He sounded a little weary. “If you remember, the board took the opportunity when old Kebble retired to merge editorial direction with advertising.”
Priscilla quoted further, more bitterly. “ ‘My late husband’s memorial presentation...’ What is that supposed to mean?”
Her husband took the paper from her, gently, and read it for himself. He had a long face, with slightly protuberant blue eyes and high cheek bones. His hair, pale and thin, was brushed straight back from the high, narrow forehead.
His movements were few, but in this comparative immobility there was nothing relaxed: he had the posture and air of an invigilator. The mouth was level, the lips thin but well-shaped and sensitive. When he spoke, they scarcely moved; yet very rarely was he ever asked to repeat anything he had said.
He returned the paper to his wife.
“Purbright is a police inspector at Flaxborough,” he said. “Of what he has to do with Miss Claypole, I have no idea.”
Priscilla watched him pick up a pair of tweezers and capture a fragment of bright yellow feather that her brusque arrival had sent looping and gliding to the floor.