While he searched, frowning, for the word he wanted, the knock was repeated. Mr Chubb indicated with a peevish jerk of the head that the inspector should deal with the interruption.
Purbright opened the door. He leaned out to lend an ear to brief, urgent murmuring. It was Love whom he ushered into the room.
“I think you should hear what the sergeant has to say, sir.”
Love responded to the chief constable’s chilly acknowledgment with a boyish geniality of visage emphasized by the wait-until-you-hear-this set of his mouth. Without preamble, he addressed Mr Chubb.
“Well, as I said to the inspector, sir, it looks very much as if the party’s taken off.”
The announcement was made so cheerfully that for some seconds the chief constable supposed that this pink-faced young man’s irruption into his office had been brought about by some ridiculous misunderstanding.
“Party?” he muttered.
“The party with the double-barrelled name. The suspect.” Love now was looking surprised as well as cheerful. He looked from one to the other. “Mr Cork-Bradden.”
Purbright explained for Mr Chubb’s benefit. “It appears that he has left home, sir. Ostensibly for a fishing holiday.”
“Where did you obtain this information, sergeant?” asked Mr Chubb.
“Oh, it’s right,” affirmed Love. “The vicar told me. He’d been talking to Cork-Bradden about some christening or other—he’s a whatsit, a churchwarden—and according to what was said Mr Bradden must have gone off by car yesterday morning.”
Purbright turned to the chief constable.
“It would seem that Mr Tiverton has been less discreet than we hoped, sir. Of course, he would only need to mention his finding that earring...”
The chief constable gently stroked the line of his jaw. “Quite so. And now, as one might say, the bird has flown.”
It was a solemn celebration of the obvious. Mr Chubb waited a moment, as for an Amen. Then he said:
“But you really must not reproach yourself, Mr Purbright.”
Chapter Eighteen
A congregation widely representative of public life attended the funeral service in Mumblesby Parish Church yesterday (Thursday) for the late Major Robin Hugh Lestrange Bradden Cork-Bradden, whose tragic death in a boating accident off the Cornish coast was reported in our last week’s issue.
The body had been brought back to the village for interment following the inquest at Newquay, at which an open verdict was recorded. The coroner said there was no evidence to explain how Major Cork-Bradden, an experienced sea angler, came to fall from the boat in which he had sailed from Penzance for a solitary fishing trip.
The Vicar of Mumblesby, the Rev. A. Tiverton, MA, officiated at the ceremony, and a brief address was given by the Rev. Kenneth D. Perry, BSc, a “padre” of the Brigade of Guards.
“You were in the Guards, were you not, Edgar?” remarked Miss Teatime. “They actually sent a clergyman along to your squires obsequies, according to this. How considerate.”
Mr Harrington looked up from his examination of a china poodle. The watchmaker’s glass screwed into one eye gave his mouth a slightly idiotic cast. “The army of today’s all right,” he said. Miss Teatime laughed delightedly.
A little later, she lowered the Flaxborough Citizen and frowned.
“Here is a curious circumstance,” she said. “The list of mourners includes an envoy of the Magistrates’ Association and also our indefatigable friend, Mr Scorpe, as ever representing the Law Society. But of the constabulary, there is no mention. Now, I wonder why.”
The Rev. Perry paid tribute to the military career of the deceased and to his subsequent achievements in the fields of commercial endeavour and public administration. “His sword did not sleep in his hand,” declared Mr Perry, “nor did he cease from mental fight.” Perhaps his interest in the maintenance of law and order and in the moral problems of the young people of today would be longest remembered; but to sport, too, he had made notable contributions, being as keen a practitioner with rod and line as he was in pursuit of Reynard. “It speaks volumes for the wholeness of this man,” Mr Perry added, “that Robin also found time to cherish works of art, with a modest but choice collection of which his own home was embellished.”
Zoe Loughbury, her attention concentrated upon the printed page, bit unguardedly upon a coffee eclair. Whipped cream blipped past her left ear. She retrieved it from the shoulder of her dress with one finger, which she then licked. When she had finished reading the account of the funeral, she put the paper aside, stretched out both legs, then drew up one knee and cradled it in interlaced fingers. She stared, pouting, at “Staircase with Valves”, which she had lately moved to the wall above the fireplace.
Mrs Claypole, seated on the far side of the room, prim as a museum attendant, had watched every movement. “You ought to get rid of that thing,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s awful. I could draw better myself. I can’t understand why your hubby gave it house room.”
“It was to oblige a friend.”
“It would oblige me if you gave it straight back.”
Zoe transferred her gaze from the picture to the window, through which some scaffolding could be seen. She smiled.
“If you must know, Mr Harrington’s sending it down for auction at Christie’s next month.”
Mrs Claypole’s air of disapproval thawed perceptibly. “Oh, he thinks it’s worth something, then?”
“Enough to buy a decent horse,” said Zoe, carelessly. “And some hunting gear.”
Her mother stared.
“I wonder sometimes what’s got into you, my girl. The sort of people who go hunting aren’t likely to want you along with them.”
Zoe leaned over the side of her chair and fished up a mug half full of cold coffee.
“They’re going to have to get used to it, then, aren’t they?”