“To the best of my understanding,” qualified Harrington.
Purbright glanced down the list. “You’ve been extremely helpful,” he declared.
“Of course,” added Miss Teatime, “you have the inspectors assurance, Edgar, that the information will be treated in the strictest confidence. This,” and she gave Purbright a Joan of Arc-ish look, “is a private professional document.”
“And will be so regarded,” said the inspector, “by me.”
“There, now,” said Miss Teatime, and she leaned forward to allow Mr Harrington to light her cheroot. His face, as he watched the flame, was as impassive as a butler’s.
At the Old Mill Restaurant, more customers were arriving. By the time that Purbright and his couriers took their seats at a corner table under the effusive direction of Jolly Miller Palgrove, there were more than a dozen people in the room. Zoe Loughbury, née Claypole, recognized Miss Teatime at once, and waved. Miss Teatime waved back. Purbright bowed, a little shyly. Zoe’s frown of uncertainty blossomed suddenly into a smile. She called across. “Hi! Sorry—you look different away from the bathroom.”
They saw Zoe’s companion, Spencer Gash, give them a long, mistrustful stare before turning to her with a question.
Harrington identified Gash for Purbright’s benefit.
“By all appearances,” mused Miss Teatime, “not a patron of the arts.”
Harrington corrected her. “I have him down as Loughbury’s source of a rather nice 1735 salver, seventeen and a half ounces. One of a pair bought at auction by his father in the thirties. Winston doubtless has the other.”
“His brother,” explained Miss Teatime to Purbright.
Mrs Palgrove was above them, sinuously solicitous. They hurriedly burrowed into menus. After consultation, Edgar Harrington ordered for all. Cynthia beamed approval and glided away.
A good deal of noise was coming from the direction of the bar.
Through the communicating arch, Purbright caught sight of a very large man with what appeared to be a tattered fan grasped in one hand. He was holding the fan aloft while his companions, two women and a short, jocose man in glasses, bayed encouragement.
Suddenly, the women began to squeal and jump aside as the big man brought the fan down and mock-threatened them with it in quick, short thrusts.
Some of the diners stared with chilly censure. To others the turn, or whatever it was, seemed familiar. They joined in the laughter when the little man in glasses, his scarlet face sweat-spangled and contorted with hilarity, staggered through the arch and announced:
“Look out! Winnies brought his dinner! He has! He’s brought his bloody dinner!”
“Who is that one?” inquired Miss Teatime, awed.
Mr Harrington shook his head. It was Purbright who spoke. “Car dealer from Flax. Blossom. Alfred. A noted bon vivant.”
The Jolly Miller emerged from the bar, overtook Mr Blossom stalled by his own merriment, and positioned himself by an empty table, where he proceeded to make the sort of gestures that are supposed to help reversing lorry drivers.
The two ladies of the party made a dash across the room and sat down, giggling and patting their chests. Mr Blossom collapsed into his chair, then slewed it round to command a view of the finale of Winston Gash’s performance.
As the farmer lumbered forward into brighter light, it could be seen that the “fan” was a bundle of dirty white feathers. Within it was a scrap of red, and a diamond point of terrified eye. It was a live chicken.
Gash spotted Miss Teatime and halted, staring at her. From within the great cave of the farmer’s hand, the chicken also regarded her.
One of the women called out: “Come on, Win, we’re hungry.”
Gash winked. Without taking his eyes from Miss Teatime, he hooked the middle finger of his left hand about the chickens neck and slowly, deftly, knowledgeably, pulled the spinal cord apart. A feather floated languidly to the floor. At the point of the beak, there grew a tiny bead of red.
For several seconds, Winston Gash remained standing, his smile fixed upon Miss Teatime and her companions. It was the smile of a man deliberating whether to order trespassers off his land.
Miss Teatime regarded him steadily and without expression. Edgar found a distant bowl of gladioli of absorbing interest. Purbright stared placidly at the fast-glazing eye of the hen.
Cynthia Palgrove appeared at Gash’s side. She smiled cheerfully, squeezed his arm, and at the same time relieved him of the hen’s pendent corpse. Mr Gash tried to kiss her. She slipped out of range. He consoled himself with a parting grab at her buttock, then sat down.
“What’s she going to give you for the chicken, Win?”
This from Mr Pritty, who thereupon looked around for anyone whose eye he could catch and treat to a wink of scabrous confidentiality.
“He’s a lad, is Arthur,” Mr Spencer Gash informed Zoe. He topped up her glass with Sauternes from a litre bottle, already nearly empty.
She thanked him briskly, swigged some of the wine, and resumed her assault on a plate of vulcanized scallops.
“You must get lonely in a bloody great barn like the Manor,” observed Mr Gash. “And cold at night, I should reckon.”
Zoe took time off chewing in order to clear a tooth with her tongue. Then a quick shake of the head. “Electric blanket.” Knife and fork went back into action.
Purbright tried to make something of such snatches of conversation as came his way. At first, he found difficulty in isolating other voices from that of Mrs Whybrow, but his perseverance eventually demoted it to a sort of carrier wave, omnipresent yet permeable.
“Who,” he asked Harrington, “is the gentleman sitting two tables away on my left? Next to the one who called out a little while ago.”
“That is Mr Raymond Bishop. The big man is a farmer called Pritty. Mrs Whybrow is the name of the lady. She is a widow and rumoured to be well off.”
“Mrs Whybrow is well off,” asserted Miss Teatime. “She is the former concubine of the wealthy Mr Bishop, and she amuses herself by pretending to be his landlady.”
“ ‘Former’, you said. Do you mean she’s lost the job?”
Miss Teatime considered. “Should we not say, perhaps, that the job has changed its nature. Mrs Whybrow is now better described as Mr Bishop’s business manager.”
“I notice from your list,” said Purbright, “that Mr Bishop made several contributions to the art collection at the Manor House. One, if I remember, was that quite splendid punch bowl in the sitting room on the first floor.”
Miss Teatimes soup spoon paused in its ascent. “You seem to have enjoyed a more extensive tour of the house than we have, inspector.”