“Shit,” said Mr Palgrove and hauled her into a rough, greedy embrace.
She let him slide a hand to her bare breast and palpate it for a while before she murmured over his shoulder: “You know, darling, if you weren’t such a randy old sod, you wouldn’t be in the mess you’re in now.”
The hand stilled at once. Slowly, he drew back from her.
“Mess? What mess?” His flushed face almost matched his fan hat.
Lightly, she restored the hang of her dress. She smiled.
“Surely you can’t imagine that I never guessed the real reason why you half-inched Mummy’s picture?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Lawyer Loughbury is what I’m talking about, and well you know it. He frightened poor little Len into giving him a sweetener, having found out that he’d been ‘having it off’, as they say, with that woman from the farm.”
Palgrove’s flush was taking on a blue tinge. “That’s a disgusting thing to say!”
“What—that you were having it off, or that you let yourself be conned afterwards?” She smiled again and patted his hand. He snatched it away as if she had burned it.
Cynthia sighed and began looking through the menu lying on the bar top. “Grist for the Mill,” it was headed. “I could wish sometimes,” she said, “that we’d chosen a gimmick with wider scope. ‘Lobster Nellie Dean’ does seem to be pushing things a bit.”
The first customers to arrive were Mrs Whybrow and her lodger, accompanied by a man of about sixty with a big, bull-like head, covered with matted off-white curls like ill-kept astrakhan. This was Peter Pritty, farmer and demolition contractor, who lived with his three sons at Long Camberley Grange, somewhere in which was also to be found his wife.
The party was attended by Mr Palgrove in person. He was very jocular in manner, calling Mrs Whybrow “dearest lady” and farmer Pritty “squire”. He was careful not to call Mr Bishop anything, but as that person spared him neither look nor remark and made his wishes known only through Mrs Whybrow, it did not much matter.
Farmer Pritty said he’d start off with oysters and Palgrove said there weren’t any oysters, squire, but would he like scallops which were much the same, really, and Pritty said he’d have a try if they did the same for him as oysters did, and he made a noise like a snorting horse and rubbed his groin.
Mrs Whybrow ordered “some of those absolutely delicious sort of frilly—no, not frilly, crunchy—things I had last time—those things with raisins or whatever...what?—oh God, you know...”
“Tell him I want tomato soup, Booboo,” commanded Mr Bishop.
Two cars drew up in the Market Place. A Ford Granada discharged a pair of married couples from Flaxborough, bent on celebrating their double wedding anniversary. From the smaller and shabbier car descended a detective inspector from the same town, celebrating nothing, unless it was having just given a lift to Miss Teatime, for whom he hurried round to open the door.
“We are a little early,” Miss Teatime observed, “so I suggest we go along to the Gallery. I told Edgar to wait for us there.” As they set off towards Church Lane, she cast a side glance at the inspector. “Nice suit,” she murmured.
Purbright took her offered arm. “My sergeant told me it costs all of eight pounds to eat at the Mill,” he explained.
“You will reclaim it on your expense account, surely?”
“The last sybarite on the Flaxborough force was reduced to the ranks for charging a take-away chop suey.”
Mr Harrington let them in by the side door. He welcomed Miss Teatime with well-bred affability. To his introduction to Purbright he responded politely, if cautiously.
They sat in the little Georgian styled parlour at the back of the shop. Harrington produced a decanter of Amontillado and, for Miss Teatime, some cheroots in a silver box.
“The table,” he announced, “is booked for a quarter past eight, so we have nearly half an hour.” He used the pouring of the sherry to disguise his appraisal of Purbright, who pretended not to notice.
“As I told you earlier, Edgar,” Miss Teatime began, “my good friend Mr Purbright is interested in the collection of old Mr Loughbury.”
Without taking his eye from the level of wine in the glass he was filling, Harrington drew a soft intake of breath through the protruding lips and murmured, “Clean, Lucy, absolutely clean.”
“Yes, well, that is nice to know, of course.” She turned to the inspector. “Mr Harrington has a very wide, Bond Street-based experience.”
Purbright said “Ah” and Miss Teatime added: “However, as I understand matters, the inspector is not concerned with anything so straightforward as theft per se.”
Almost imperceptibly, Mr Harrington relaxed. He handed them their glasses.
“No, I had not supposed that any of the articles at the Manor House had been stolen”—this, from Purbright—“but the manner of their acquisition does strike me as having been curious in some cases.”
Harrington nodded, carefully. “There seems to be a dearth of record, certainly. The transactions must have been rather off-hand.”
“Gifts?” suggested Miss Teatime.
“They may have been,” Harrington said. “There are no receipts, no insurance documentation.”
“But why?” Purbright was looking at his glass.
“That, you will have to ask the donors.”
“I can hardly ask the beneficiary,” Purbright observed.
“What about his widow?” Miss Teatime said.
“She is most unlikely to say anything that might cast the genuineness of the gifts into doubt. In any case, I really don’t think she knows. Mr Loughbury was not a gentleman much given to sharing confidences.”
“Not even in bed?”
Miss Teatime regarded her manager sharply. “Edgar, you are in Mumblesby, not Knightsbridge.” To Purbright she said: “I have never, to the best of my recollection, been in bed with a solicitor, but I should not expect much in the sharing line even there. My guess is that you are right about Zoe. If so, you can only hope that the original owners will tell you.”
To Harrington, Miss Teatime said: “The inspector is here tonight in expectation of seeing one or two of those generous people in the flesh. We are to act as his guides.”
Harrington sipped his sherry ruminatively, set it down, and drew a folded paper from his inner breast pocket. All his movements were calm yet precise.
Miss Teatime accepted the paper and unfolded it.
“A copy of the inventory of Mr Loughbury’s objets d’art,” she explained to Purbright. “Mr Harrington has very kindly ticked those items which he believes to have been acquired by Mr Loughbury during the past year or so. He has pencilled against each the initials of the person who owned it previously.”