Flaxborough Chronicles - Hopjoy Was Here Part 11

"You don't really want an answer to that, do you?"

Purbright rose and walked slowly to the window. He stood looking out, his hands clasped behind him. "You know, this should have occurred to us before."

Warlock's usual posture of athletic eagerness had been abandoned. He looked anxious. "If you're thinking of the drain washings..."

"I am, indeed."

"Yes, well I'd better say straight away that there's no way of proving whether that sludge was man, woman, or the Archbishop of Canterbury's pet kangaroo." He waited, then waved a hand. "Oh, but surely to G.o.d...I mean this bod of yours has vanished-there couldn't be a more obvious tie-up."

"That's just what I'm afraid of." Purbright turned. "There are several things about this case that look a little too obvious. And you didn't imagine I'd forgotten that doctored hammer, did you?"

"That was queer, certainly. As," Warlock added firmly, "I pointed out."

"You did. And I think you deserve to know something else. The presumed victim was-or is-an exceptionally fly gentleman, very hard pressed by creditors and husbands. His speciality was trading on his employment in a highly secret and I suppose romantic profession."

"So that explains Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee."

"Oh, you've met Major Ross and his colleague, have you?"

"Met them? I've practically been tried in camera by them. That one who looks like a pox-doctor's clerk-the little bloke with a sharp nose-he was b.l.o.o.d.y offensive. I told him so." Warlock's recollection of the encounter restored his restless elasticity. He danced his weight from one foot to the other and threw a shadow punch at the wall. "Never saw a weasel with ringworm before. Ah, well; press on." Opening the door, he glanced back quizzically at Purbright. "D'you really think all this was a put up job, then?"

The inspector smiled, but made no reply.

"Oh, by the way, I nearly forgot about this..." Warlock came back into the room, fishing from his breast pocket a gla.s.s tube which he tossed down on the desk. "Fibrafon think it's from a baby's hairbrush, Portland Plastics say fishing line, and Hoffman's plump for a retaining thread in a gyro compa.s.s. Take your pick."

Purbright recognized the nylon strand gleaned from the Beatrice Avenue plumbing. "Not terribly helpful, are they?"

"I'll try a few more if you like. But I must say it seems a matter of asking silly questions and getting silly answers."

The inspector put the tube aside. "Forget about it for now. There's no point in putting your people to more trouble while there's a possibility of our having been led up a garden. Which reminds me..."-he looked up at the clock-"that I ought to be having a word with the Chief Constable."

Mr Chubb was in his greenhouse, counting out his cuttings. He looked cool and tall and grey behind the gla.s.s. Purbright closed the side gate, with its enamelled NO to hawkers, circulars and canva.s.sers, and skirted a small crescent of lawn. The gra.s.s was littered with rubber bones, savaged tennis b.a.l.l.s, and other no longer identifiable articles a.s.sociated with the appeas.e.m.e.nt of Mr Chubb's Yorkshire terriers, whose excreta, marvellously variegated, was everywhere. The animals themselves, Purbright noted gratefully, were absent; he supposed them to be dragging a triple-leashed, panting Mrs Chubb on their daily expedition against the peace and hygiene of the neighbourhood.

The Chief Constable acknowledged Purbright's arrival with a small patient smile through the panes. The smile announced his readiness to put the public weal before petunias and duty above all delights. There clung to him as he emerged from the green-house the warm, aromatic redolence of tomato foliage.

Purbright was waved to a seat on a rustic bench screened by laurels from the next-door garden, where the wife of the City Surveyor could be heard sc.r.a.ping a burned saucepan bottom and sustaining with a periodic "oh" or "did she?" the m.u.f.fled monotone of a kitchen visitor's narration.

Mr Chubb leaned lightly against a trellised arch and gazed into the middle distance.

"This case from Beatrice Avenue, sir," Purbright began. "I'd like to give you what we've gathered so far and to hear your opinion of it. Our first impressions may have been mistaken."

"Ah..." Mr Chubb nodded almost approvingly. "That's always to be expected, Mr Purbright. There's no discredit in finding one's calculations at fault. Seeds don't always produce what's on the packet, you know."

"No, sir."

Mr Chubb relinquished a few inches of his Olympian advantage and put his hand on the back of the bench. "I'll tell you one thing, my boy. I'm very pleased that you've pegged away at this thing instead of leaving it to the heavies. Major Ross and his man are absolutely capable, I've no doubt, but outsiders never seem to understand just why people in a place like this behave as they do. It's important, you know. Very." The a.s.sertive frown cleared and Mr Chubb's face went back aloft. "Sorry to have interrupted. Carry on."

"Just before I left the office"-Purbright delved into the briefcase he was holding-"I had an idea about the anonymous letter that started off this affair. You'll remember it, of course." He handed a creased, pale blue sheet to the Chief Constable. "And now look at this, sir: it was among the papers we found in Hopjoy's bedroom."

Mr Chubb turned back the cover of the writing pad Purbright had taken from his case. He compared the letter with the top sheet of the pad, then smoothed one over the other. They corresponded in size, colour and texture.

"You can follow the ball-point indentations that have come through," Purbright pointed out. "They persist for two or three pages down."

"Not very anonymous now," remarked Mr Chubb drily. He watched Purbright re-fold the letter and slip it into its parent pad. Then he frowned. "What the d.i.c.kens are we supposed to make of it all? Some sort of a joke, or what?"

"It would have been no joke for Periam if he'd been convicted of murder, sir."

"No, by jove, it wouldn't," murmured Mr Chubb.

"And yet," said Purbright, "he very well might have been. The evidence that he killed his lodger and then disposed of his body is very impressive at first sight. We get this letter and naturally presume it's from a neighbour who has heard a quarrel and might even have seen something suggestive of violence. It makes particular mention of the bathroom-a rather convincing touch, somehow. We have no choice but to investigate. And there they all are, the signs of very nasty goings on-bloodstains, wax coating on the bath, acid burns on the floor, a hammer stuck up with blood and hair. And buried in the garden, the smashed carboy, whose iron basket-too big to bury and too tough to be broken up-has been hastily pushed out of sight in a wardrobe.

"We look in the drains-quite predictably, of course-and sure enough they prove that a body has been destroyed by acid. Whose? Obviously, the loser of the midnight fight in the bathroom which was so considerately reported to us by a watchful neighbour. The winner, if and when we trace him, is bound to be the murderer.

"The survivor, Gordon Periam, is duly found. He is not far away, but that fact in itself is consistent with the self-confidence of the sort of man who can commit and conceal an exceptionally horrid crime. Indeed, all the circ.u.mstances in which he is found (as you doubtless recognized yourself, sir) are cla.s.sically in line. The refuge in s.e.x relations, the flashy hotel with its novel comforts and expense, enjoyment of the victim's car as well as his girl...the pattern's complete and absolutely d.a.m.ning."

The inspector paused to light a cigarette. Mr Chubb regarded him very thoughtfully. He was trying to persuade himself that the point about the cla.s.sic behaviour of murderers had, indeed, already occurred to him.

"And that, sir," resumed Purbright, "was the situation as it was presented to us. 'Presented' is the operative word, of course. It could have gone straight to the Director of Public Prosecutions there and then, and I dare say that Periam's indictment would have been automatic. But you were wise not to rush it, sir."

The Chief Constable modestly turned his gaze to a group of border plants near his foot.

"It was almost inevitable," Purbright went on, "that some part of so elaborate a set-up would prove faulty. The lab. people spotted it. Those hairs on the hammer were Hopjoy's all right-or at least they corresponded with some found on his clothing-but they hadn't arrived there through his having been bashed over the head. According to Warlock, they'd been snipped and stuck on."

"Yes, but the blood..."

"It doesn't need too much of a self-inflicted cut, possibly with the corner of a razor blade, to provide enough blood to be smeared on a hammer head. And perhaps a few splashes around the place as well."

"There was a quarrel, though, Mr Purbright. I don't think we should let ourselves be led too far away from that fact by chaps with microscopes."

"Oh, yes, there was a row," Purbright agreed. "Periam didn't deny that, as he could very well have persisted in doing. But I think I told you that he said it was a very one-sided affair, with Hopjoy doing all the shouting. If we accept that, might we not consider whether the noise had a special object-to disturb neighbours and put in their minds the presumption of a quarrel?"

"And were they disturbed?"

"Those I've spoken to myself say they heard nothing. But Sergeant Love is making inquiries in the houses that back on to Beatrice Avenue. The people there are far more likely to have heard whatever there was to hear; the sound would travel straight across the gardens."

The Chief Constable nodded. "All right. Now about this business of the body-how do you explain that away? The stuff in the drains and all that."

"Have you ever read anything about cannibalism, sir?"

"Not avidly, Mr Purbright, no."

"Well, it seems that human flesh quite closely resembles pork."

"Indeed."

"And I learned more or less by chance yesterday that half a pig carca.s.s was stolen recently from a farm where Hopjoy had been a regular and quite intimate visitor. In the boot of that car of his, and in one or two places at the house, Warlock turned up traces of animal blood."

For nearly a minute, Mr Chubb silently regarded an earwig's progress along one of the trellis spars.

"I suppose we have to remember," he said at last, "that tom-foolery of that kind was just the fellow's line of country. It's perfectly disgraceful, though, when you think of all the money that's being spent on the intelligence service. The trouble is, they live in a world of their own. I can't see that there's anything we can do about him. I mean there's nothing we can charge him with."

Purbright pursed his lips. "Conduct likely to lead..."

"...to a breach of the peace?" Mr Chubb capped the phrase with a sort of sad derision. "You can see his people letting us go ahead with that one, can't you? Worse than the blasted Diplomatic Corps. He'll turn up somewhere else with a c.o.c.k and bull story and start working up a new set of creditors, just you see."

"There's rather more to this," said Purbright slowly, "than mere debt-dodging. A man can arrange his own disappearance without leaving somebody else to face a murder charge. In this case, a great deal of trouble and ingenuity was spent specifically on the incrimination of Periam. But the only thing poor old Periam wasn't carefully provided with was a motive. Why should he have wanted to kill Hopjoy? If anyone had a motive for murder it was Hopjoy himself-the man whose girl Periam had appropriated."

Mr Chubb considered. "I see your point. But surely Hopjoy was a bit of a blackguard where women were concerned. Would he have been all that upset about one in particular?"

"Promiscuity and jealousy are by no means incompatible, sir."

The Chief Constable raised his brows.

"In fact, the more s.e.xually adventurous a man is, the more violently he tends to resent trespa.s.s on his own preserves."

"Oh," said Mr Chubb, meekly. "You think then..."-he turned to see where the earwig had got to-"we should be wrong to let the whole thing drop?"

Purbright rose. "I quite agree with you, sir; we should keep an eye on things a little longer. Hopjoy certainly ought to be traced, even if Major Ross tries to go against your judgment."

Mr Chubb resolutely picked the earwig from the trellis and trod on it.

"After all," said Purbright, "there has been, in a sense, one attempt on Periam's life. When it is seen to have failed, there may be another-on less unorthodox lines."

Chapter Fourteen.

To the mult.i.tude of elusives for whom watch is proclaimed to be kept at British ports, rail termini and airports, was added the name of Brian Hopjoy. If encountered, he was to be asked simply to get into touch with the Chief Constable of Flaxborough. The request had been difficult to frame. "What do we say we want him for?" Mr Chubb had asked; "...to collect his hat?" He had carefully refrained from mentioning the matter to Ross or Pumphrey, although he did ask, at Purbright's suggestion, if he might borrow from them the photograph of Hopjoy which, as far as anyone could find out, was the only one in existence. Pumphrey, looking as if he had been casually requested to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Prime Minister when he next happened to be in London, had emphasized with some asperity the topness of the secrecy involved and begged him to be more circ.u.mspect.

The withholding of the photograph made local inquiries more difficult, too. Purbright prepared a composite of descriptions offered by the next-door neighbours, Mr Tozer, and the manager of the Neptune Hotel-who seemed especially eager to help-and gave it to the two plain clothes men who could be spared for visits to railway stations and bus depots and taxi firms within a radius of three or four miles. The usual feats of memory were forthcoming: Hopjoys had entrained for London, Birmingham and Newcastle simultaneously with their journeys by road to Lincoln, Cambridge, Swindon and Keswick.

Sergeant Love, conscientiously but fruitlessly urging the residents of Pawson's Lane to recall sounds of angry altercation in a house 'over the back', found time to present the inspector with a theory he had evolved on his own.

"This chap was in hospital fairly recently, according to Bill Malley, wasn't he?"

"He was. A lover's tiff, I gather-with the husband."

"Yes, well if it was something serious he might still need treatment. You know-you hear of fellows on the run who have to nip into a doctor's when they use up their special pills."

"That field's a bit narrow, Sid. We should have heard if Hopjoy were a diabetic, surely. Still, it's worth a try; that description badly needs strengthening, if only with a scar or two."

The sergeant, one of whose private dreams accommodated Editor Love, waistcoated and dynamic, appraising a re-plated page one, set off again for Pawson's Lane with his mind embannered by SCARFACED PLAYBOY SOUGHT IN WARD TEN: MUST RENEW MIRACLE DRUG.

No such dramatic and socially desirable potentialities appeared to have occurred to Sister Howell, in charge of the male surgical ward at Flaxborough General Hospital. She was a cool, smooth, stiffly laundered woman, with an indestructible smile guarding the pink sugar fortress of her face while her eyes were absent on their continual darting quest for faults. Purbright delivered his inquiry with the sense of being accounted no more important than one of the dust motes that submissively descended through a shaft of sunlight to the level of Sister Howell's sensible shoes.

She heard him out. Then she slightly re-arranged the smile (the eyes still could not be spared, even for the briefest introduction) and told him that much as she would like to be obliging, he would, of course, understand that it was quite, quite impossible to divulge confidential medical matters even to an inspector of police.

Purbright a.s.sured her that he did appreciate and respect her loyalty, but wondered if perhaps she could modify it in the wider interests of justice. It had, unhappily, become the task of the police to trace her former patient, who had disappeared, and knowledge of his late injuries or ailments might be of considerable a.s.sistance.

"I'm sorry," said Sister Howell, folding fingers devotionally over her ap.r.o.n.

"Then perhaps if I were to refer to Mr Harton personally..."

The eyes, instantly obedient to recall in appropriate circ.u.mstances, were trained upon him at last. "Mr Harton is a very busy man. He's probably in theatre. I really couldn't..."

The door at the end of the corridor swung open abruptly. A procession bore down upon them. Sister Howell plucked Purbright's sleeve and drew him against the wall. "There's Mr Harton now," she whispered urgently. Purbright wondered if he were expected to kneel.

The surgeon advanced with a slow, easy stroll. Keeping precisely level with him were the short, st.u.r.dy legs of the Matron, to the rhythm of whose ponderous trot her ca.s.sock-red dewlap rose and fell. Harton and his consort were closely followed by a young nurse who carried a stack of folders and gazed idolatrously at the back of the surgeon's head. Then came a pair of house physicians in white coats, unb.u.t.toned and trailing black tentacles from the pockets. Seven or eight students, murmuring to one another and looking at their hands, shuffled along in the rear. Every now and again the parade was halted while Mr Harton paid particular, head-inclined attention to the Matron's commentary and rewarded her with a mellifluent ring of laughter.

As the procession was about to wheel off into the ward, Purbright politely but firmly removed Sister Howell's restraining hand and stepped forward. He smiled apologetically at the Matron, then introduced himself to Harton. The surgeon, imperturbably gracious, took him aside into the empty duty room. Through the closed gla.s.s door Purbright saw the retinue congeal into att.i.tudes of respectful patience.

Harton, whom Purbright had thought it politic to give fairly fully the reasons for his inquiry, nodded with good-humoured sagacity. Nearly as tall as the policeman, he had skin the colour of an advertis.e.m.e.nt for tinned ham. This slightly incredible wholesomeness of complexion was emphasized (quite horridly, some thought) by strong, disciplined waves of prematurely white hair. His were the bright, steady eyes of one who has learned to render charm intimidating. The flawless cheeks flanked an unexpectedly tiny, drawn-in mouth, his only unrelaxed feature, which ambition had prinked like a flan edging. When he spoke, which he did most musically, his lower teeth were displayed more than the upper.

"My dear inspector..."-he felt behind him for the table and leaned against it with some of his weight supported upon spread fingertips-"you mustn't take all this medical etiquette too seriously. It's designed to give our dear old girls something to occupy them." He grinned boyishly through the window at the Matron.

"So you've no objection to giving me this information, sir?"

"None whatsoever."

Purbright waited, but Harton merely continued to regard him placidly.

"Well, sir...?"

"Well, inspector?"

"You were about to tell me the nature of the operation you performed upon Mr Trevelyan."

"Oh, no; that is not so."

Purbright stared. "Perhaps we've misunderstood each other, sir."

"Ah, possibly we have. What I said was that I, I personally, you understand, have no objection to telling you what you wish to know. That is quite true. But I did not say that no objection existed, did I?"

The inspector sighed. Here, he reflected, was the type of man who would enjoy confusing shop a.s.sistants with pedantic pleasantries.

"The fact is, inspector"-Harton thrust a hand deep into his trousers pocket and energetically stirred some coins-"that I simply am not at liberty to follow my personal inclination to tell you what was the matter with our mutual friend."

"Oh, you do know, then, sir?"

Harton smiled away the calculated impertinence. "Certainly I know. Surgeons do occasionally remember what they have done and why. In their own way they are possibly as methodical as policemen."