Flaxborough Chronicles - Hopjoy Was Here Part 5

"That's absolutely untrue, inspector. I told you I was a bit tetchy at being brought over for nothing, but I don't think I let it show. There certainly wasn't a tiff, or anything like that."

"You arrived and later went off again in Mr Hopjoy's car?"

"The Armstrong, yes."

"Which he had lent you for the wedding and the holiday following."

"That's right. For our honeymoon." Periam rummaged in his bag, drew out a toffee in green paper, then dropped it back in favour of one wrapped in pink.

"Where did you leave the car while you were in the house?"

"I put it in the garage."

"So you'd expected to stay a while-long enough to make it worth putting the car away?"

"No, I hadn't, actually. But Bry doesn't like the car left on the street even for a few minutes. Whenever I borrow it I automatically take it right into the garage afterwards." The double operation of talking and chewing seemed at this point to imperil Periam's retention of saliva. He sucked noisily and clapped a knuckle to his lips. "Pardon me: wind in the willows."

"Mr Hopjoy knew about your marriage, I suppose?"

"Of course."

"He didn't attend, though?"

Periam shook his head. "Very much the bachelor gay is Bry. He said if I insisted on meeting my doom, he wasn't going to be an accessory. That's the way he talks, you know-very dry."

There was a pause. Frowning, Periam twisted a toffee paper into a tight spill. "Look, I don't quite get this anonymous letter business... What's supposed to have been going on?"

Purbright looked at him steadily. "Simply this, Mr Periam. We think that Mr Hopjoy might have come to some harm. In your house."

The chewing ceased. "Harm? What sort of harm?"

"Murder, actually."

In Periam's face there came no change whatever. Purbright began to doubt if he had caught the final quiet reply. Then he saw movement of the pale, plump mouth. "Oh, my G.o.d..." The words emerged like those of a man praying through the stricture of a noose. "But this is dreadful...I...Look here, you mean you've..."

"We've not found the body, sir, no. I don't imagine we shall, now."

Periam's hand pa.s.sed uncertainly across his forehead, as if exploring a wound. "You'll really have to tell me what all this is about, inspector. Maybe you think I'm being a bit of a stupid-sides, but honestly to G.o.d I've not the faintest notion of what you're hinting at. Why should you think something's happened to Bry?"

"Can you," Purbright countered, "tell me where Mr Hopjoy can be found?"

"I could suggest lots of places, I suppose. He moves around a good deal. I told you that."

"Without his car?"

"Well, there are trains, buses."

"You suggest a fairly extended journey, then?"

"He certainly knew Dor and I were getting spliced and would be away for a while. There's no reason why he shouldn't have decided to take a holiday himself."

"He didn't notify his employers, sir. They're just as anxious as anyone."

"His employers?"

"You don't know who his employers are, Mr Periam?"

Periam looked away. "I'm not sure what I ought to say to that one. I do have a fair idea, actually. Well, with Bry and Mother and me being rather special pals, things did come out, you know."

"That's understandable."

Periam brightened. "It's gone no further, of course." He looked again directly at Purbright. "I suppose you chaps were genned up all along?"

"The police were given such information as Mr Hopjoy's employers thought desirable."

"Well, then," said Periam eagerly, "you can see why old Bry should nip off without a by-your-leave every now and again. Sometimes those fellows are away for years and their own wives don't know where they've gone."

"How long were Mr Hopjoy's absences as a rule, sir?"

"Not terribly long, actually. He's quite often away for the night, though. Sometimes two or three in a row."

"And you're never anxious on that account?"

"Not really. It's a bit of a nuisance sometimes, not knowing whether to lock up or not. But after all, what he's doing is fearfully necessary-I mean we'd be properly in the soup if the job weren't done by somebody."

"A little while ago you said you thought Mr Hopjoy had been drinking when you went back to the house last Thursday night. Was he in the habit of drinking-drinking fairly heavily, I mean?"

"That's not easy to say, inspector. You see although we're pretty chummy when we're both at home we scarcely ever go around together outside, so I can't swear he goes into pubs or anything like that."

"You wouldn't be surprised if he did, would you, Mr Periam? It's a fairly normal recreation."

Periam smiled sadly. "You wouldn't have persuaded Mother to think so. I don't mean she wasn't a good sport; it was just that she had a horror of sozzling. It's funny she never twigged that Bry was a bit squiffy sometimes."

Absently, Periam felt in the bag he still clutched, withdrew a toffee and began unwrapping it. Then, changing his mind, he twisted the paper tight again. He looked up to see Purbright watching him. "Mustn't spoil my lunch. As a matter of fact I really ought to be getting back."

He stood and looked expectantly at Purbright. The policeman made no immediate move. Then he shook his head. "You know, Mr Periam, this won't do, will it?"

Periam slowly lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bench, half turned towards Purbright. "How do you mean? What won't do?"

"Five minutes ago you were a good deal shocked at the suggestion that your friend had been murdered. Now you're anxious not to spoil your lunch."

Periam drew breath to reply, hesitated, then said quietly: "No, it was Dor I was thinking of; she'll be wondering where I am. Of course I'm upset. Terribly. I'm just one of those people who don't always show their feelings. In any case, you still haven't told me what's supposed to have happened."

"That, Mr Periam, is because I don't think you told the truth about your return home last Thursday night."

Periam looked down. "I was fibbing a bit, as a matter of fact."

"Why?"

"It was before you said anything about...you know, about Bry. I didn't want Doreen's name to be dragged into it. The shindy was to do with her, you see."

"There was a row, then?"

"Well...yes, I'm afraid there was. A sort of row, anyway." Periam's face muscles tightened. "It was quite one-sided. Bry bawled me out, if you must know. I suppose I deserved it, but he certainly gave me old Harry. What I said about his having had one or two was quite right, by the way-I should think he'd been getting up some Dutch courage to have things out with me."

Purbright watched Periam's hands. Tightly clasped, they were being pushed into the flesh of his thighs in a kind of kneading self-punishment.

"The truth is," Periam went on, "that Doreen was Bry's fiancee. They'd been going together for quite a while. He brought her home to tea once or twice when Mother was still alive. Then she started coming more often-after we lost Mother, I mean. She insisted on having a key and popping in to make things shipshape two or three times a week. She did most of the shopping and got us quite a few meals. Dor really is a brick, you know.

"Anyway, as time went on it just happened that we saw rather a lot of each other. You see, I was home more than Bry and... well, that's how it was. It sounds terribly disloyal, but I mean when two people find they're meant for each other... Of course, we didn't do anything...well, you know-nothing like that. It was rather awful, all the same, having to face old Bry day after day knowing I'd let him down. I simply couldn't tell him. Nor could Doreen; she hadn't the heart, poor kid. So we decided to slip off and get married and face the music afterwards. It sounds a rotten thing to do, but...oh, I don't know..." Periam lapsed into silence.

"It isn't true, then," said Purbright, "that Hopjoy lent you his car for your honeymoon. Nor that you told him you were getting married, for that matter."

"No, I suppose it isn't. Actually I said I was having a holiday on my own. That's what I told Joan, too-Miss Peters at the shop."

"Then have you any idea how Mr Hopjoy knew where to telephone you last Thursday night? And how he knew-as presumably he did-that you were about to get married?"

"It wasn't he who phoned, remember. I didn't recognize the voice of the girl who did, but my guess is that she was a friend of Bry's who had heard what was going on from someone Doreen had confided in. Dor's terribly sweet, but she does tend to let her heart rule her head. I tell her sometimes that she's much too trusting."

Purbright seemed to accept the explanation. "I should like," he said, "to hear a little more about this quarrel you now say took place between you and Hopjoy. Was there any violence-actual physical violence, I mean?"

"Oh, no; no fisticuffs or anything like that. He just...well, ranted. At the top of his voice. I don't know whether any of the neighbours heard. It's a pretty solidly built house, fortunately, so I can only hope they were asleep."

"Were you in any particular part of the house?"

Periam made a sound distantly related to a laugh. "It was in the bathroom of all places. Bry called me up when he heard me come in. He'd been having a wash, I expect."

"And he...?"

"Let off at me. He seemed to be trying to get my goat. Of course, I can't complain-I had pinched his young lady, after all-but he did come it a bit strong."

Periam consulted a watch that he drew from his trousers pocket after first removing a leather purse. "Look here, I really must see to the inner man. It's just on one."

"It is, indeed. Perhaps I ought to see to my inner man, too." Purbright rose, a little stiffly. "If you think I might be introduced to Mrs Periam without causing her too much alarm ,.."

"Well, I...I'm not sure that..."

"I'm sorry, sir. I a.s.sure you I don't make a habit of intruding on honeymoons. There are some more things I must ask you, though-both of you-and they might as well be put socially, especially as everyone seems to be hungry."

Together they set off towards the Neptune, Periam silent and staring gloomily aside from time to time at the lavender-coloured marsh with its silver fringe of distant sea, and Purbright preoccupied with the compatibility or otherwise of murder by acid bath with a world of chums, young ladies, and the Student Prince.

Neither looked remotely expectant of enjoyment. It was natural for the few people they pa.s.sed on the way back to the hotel to a.s.sume, if they noticed them at all, that they were holiday-makers.

Chapter Eight.

Hopjoy's reports upon the Old Moorish Electric Theatre, Flaxborough, had been suggestive, espionage-wise, to an encouraging degree. Ross, having savoured their subtlety and noted how much their compilation had cost in expenses, felt that a personal follow-up should be undertaken without delay.

He parked the Bentley where it would be un.o.btrusive among a score of farmers' cars against the northern pavement of the Corn Exchange. Immediately opposite was the flaking, ochred facade of the old theatre. The general idea of its columns and arches, its filigree screens and onion dome, had been the simulation of oriental splendour, but the fabric now looked diseased and pulpy. Within an arched opening beneath the dome once had stood, each Monday and Thursday, a junior commissionaire embarra.s.singly victimized by the whims of a zealous manager; robed and turbaned, wool-whiskered and smeared with shoe polish, this miserable sham muezzin had called forth the film t.i.tles and programme times to the faithful beneath. Now a mound of pigeon droppings almost filled the enclosure and a few tatters of faded paper flapped from the column-supported billboard, four-year-old relics of the cinema's last dying week.

The main arch, which had spanned the entrance doors and paybox, was boarded up, but this drab barricade was pierced with a small door surmounted with the words: 'Alhambra Club-Licensed for Billiards'.

Ross's attention turned to a figure on the steps near the door. It was a one-legged man, who gave a first impression of being all chest and crutch. Then, jammed into the great blue-jerseyed barrel, a face became discernible. It was of the colour of smoked bacon rind and transversed with even darker lines, the concertina creases of immoderate mirth. The nose was a k.n.o.bbled crudity, approximately central and perforated by pores suggestive of the inflictions of a shotgun. The mouth was a leathern slit, the eyes shiny black beetles that scuttled in perpetual restlessness back and forth along deep crevices.

The man wore a tiny black waterproof peaked cap, tugged down over one ear. Slung from his shoulders was a tray of paper flags, each bearing the image of a sick terrier looking through a lifebelt. The poster hanging from the tray invited contributions to the Dogs at Sea Society.

If the man was a parody of the Ancient Mariner, his solicitations were a good deal more forceful than those of an original contented merely with stopping one of three. With the air of one brandishing a blunderbuss, he thrust a collecting tin beneath the nose of every citizen who had neglected to cross to the other side of the street.

Ross watched the brisk and successful exactions for some minutes, at first idly, then with sharpened interest. He noticed that an occasional alms-giver failed in some small way to conform to the general pattern. These exceptions fumbled their gifts, but not in the normal manner of pretending a halfpenny to be a florin; they actually pushed paper, not coins, into the tin.

Bank notes? Surely, Ross reasoned, not even from the besotted ranks of dog-lovers would this villainous old sailorman manage to extort so extravagant a tribute. And those who produced the folded slips of paper certainly did not look wealthy.

There came a spell when the stream of pa.s.sers-by slackened. The one-legged man hitched up his jersey, consulted a watch extracted from the region of his stomach, peered up and down the street, and wheeled on his crutch to face the small door. With a sudden lurch he barged it open and disappeared.

Ross left the car and walked up the steps.

Closing the club door behind him, he stood listening and adjusting his eyes to the gloom of what had been the foyer of the Moorish Electric. The only illumination came from a grime-encrusted bulb, fashioned like a flame, that sprouted from a torch held aloft by a gilded plaster slave-girl. Ross fleetingly felt old memories stir at the sight of the statue's ingenious mutilations, unhurriedly executed, he supposed, by cruel young men with enormous snooker handicaps.

The air carried a ghost of disinfectant perfume and aisle carpeting but it was heavily overlaid with the brackish smell of damp masonry. Two ascending staircases at right and left, only the first few steps of which could be discerned in what little light reached them, had been blocked off with crossed planks. Flakes of tarnished gilt lay on the bare floor, but whatever mock-Moorish conceits had shed them mouldered invisible in the upper darkness.

Ross saw at once which way the flagseller had pa.s.sed. One of a pair of cut gla.s.s and mahogany doors still swung gently beneath the sign 'Stalls'. He pushed his way through them to the gently inclined corridor beyond. Two similar doors, admitting a greenish twilight, were at the further end. He walked to them and peered cautiously through the gla.s.s.

What had been the ground floor of the cinema was now stripped of seats. Ross saw rows of dark slabs, each surmounted with its pyramidal cowling, stretching away into the gloom. Only the three nearest billiard tables were in use. Scattered snooker b.a.l.l.s shone like multi-coloured globular flowers on their bright baize lawns. Here and there a face blossomed yellowly among them, squinting along a cue.

Watchers of the play-Ross guessed their number to be about two dozen-were invested with a sinister anonymity: the light from the tables fell only upon their trunks and arms. When comments were made, and they were terse and infrequent, it was quite impossible to judge who had spoken.

Ross squeezed into the hall and moved to one side of the doorway. His arrival, if it had been heeded, went unchallenged. Looking to his left, he saw that a long counter had been built against perhaps half the length of the rear wall. Two small shaded bulbs, in conformity with the general scheme of dimness, showed rows of cues, a clock and a table-booking board. Standing behind the counter was a man with thin, sandy hair who was scrutinizing, apparently with difficulty, a newspaper that he had folded to the area of a prayer book.

Ross edged casually along the counter. When he was quite near, the man looked up sharply.

"You a member, sir?"

The question was unnecessarily loud. The headless spectators around the tables undulated slightly as if moved by a sudden current through the waist-deep darkness in which they stood. And Ross glimpsed, at the far end of the counter, another movement. The old sailorman, quick as a lizard, had taken off and replaced his jaunty cap.

Ignoring, for the moment, the steward, Ross gazed full at the flag-seller and was treated to a wink that threatened to expel the old man's eye like a black pip. Before Ross turned away, he had seen that the collecting tin standing beside the tray of flags on the counter now lacked its slotted lid.

"A member of the club? No, I'm not, as it happens."

"If you're looking for someone, perhaps I could..." The steward's voice had resumed normal pitch.

Ross looked back over his shoulder. "I don't think he's here at the moment. The light's not terribly good, though." He stole another glance at the sailorman. The top was back on his tin.

"Well, tell me his name; you've only to tell me his name." The voice was tired, querulous. Small fry, thought Ross: the easily exasperated are never allowed deeply in. He said: "There's nothing against my hanging on for a bit, is there?"