Close Quarters (7 page)

Pollock accepted this hitherto unknown property of beer and asked for the name of the public hostelry.

‘The Victoria and Albert is the name – a very respectable house, though kept by a dissenter, and not above five minutes from the gate of the Close, which makes it handy to slip out and in. But I'll not seek to conceal from you, Sergeant,' and Parvin wrinkled up his face into a sharp-toothed grin, ‘that some of the people in this Close are as narrow in their ideas that they would gladly grudge a man even a simple drop of beer of an evening.'

‘Could you,' said Pollock patiently, ‘give me some idea of your movements yesterday evening?'

A slight extra tenseness added itself to Parvin's naturally sharp face, and a curious timbre was noticeable in his voice. It was not exactly, thought Pollock, that he was preparing to tell lies, but he was going to be very, very careful indeed of what he said. If his thoughts had been put into words they would have been, ‘How much shall I tell you, young man, and more important,
how much do you know?'

‘I was back from the Victoria and Albert by the hour of seven for my evening meal. A fine tender end of lamb stewed with onions and pearl barley – my wife is fine hand with a stew. I finished and lit my pipe, just as I might be doing now, and sitting in this very same chair – which I had from my grandmother who died by lack of breath, rest her soul, forty-two years ago to the day!'

He added this last telling detail triumphantly as though it finally corroborated all that had gone before. Having done so he stared glumly at the carpet, but Pollock would give him no help.

‘And then,' he suggested.

‘And then,' said Parvin, looking as if he was ready to burst into tears at any moment, ‘I walked along to see Mr. Appledown.'

‘The time, as I take it,' said Pollock consulting a previous note, ‘would be about five-and-twenty minutes to eight?'

This little bit of pantomime was not lost on Parvin, and it seemed to cheer him considerably.

‘It is little use,' he said with exaggerated fervour, ‘attempting to keep anything from you gentlemen of the London police force, I can see. Yes, I went along to see Mr. Appledown about a little matter of duty – nothing that would interest you.'

He paused invitingly, but Pollock said nothing.

‘Well, it would have been about fifteen minutes that we were talking of this and that—'

‘Where were you – I mean, in what room?'

‘In the kitchen it was. Mr. Appledown pecking and picking at the poor victuals provided by his scamp of a brother – out on the booze himself, I've no doubt,' he added virtuously.

‘When did you leave?'

Parvin's manner became even more guarded.

‘That is a very different question,' he opined.

‘Very,' agreed Pollock dryly. ‘Perhaps, if you can't fix the exact minute when you left the house, you can tell me where you went to, and when you got there?'

Parvin brightened considerably at this suggestion. ‘It's a funny thing you should mention that,' he said, ‘for I went straight back to the Victoria and Albert, and I happened to notice the time when I was ordering my first glass of beer. It was a few minutes after eight.'

‘And how long does it take you to reach the Victoria and Albert?'

‘A little more than five minutes from the gate of the Close,' said Parvin promptly – almost too promptly from the viewpoint of total abstinence. ‘Eight or ten minutes from Mr. Appledown's door, according as you hurried or not.'

‘Then,' said Pollock, ‘we may take it you were off the premises by about ten to eight.'

‘Right,' breathed Parvin, with fervent admiration for the keenness of Pollock's mathematics, ‘that's quite right. I must have been away by ten to eight.'

‘Did you pass anyone?'

Again Parvin hesitated.

‘Plenty of folk about in the streets,' he volunteered.

‘In the Close,' said Pollock impatiently.

‘No one.'

‘You're sure?'

‘Not that I can remember,' said Parvin unhappily.

‘Come, man,' said Pollock sharply, ‘it was only yesterday.'

‘Well, so it was now,' said Parvin, as if this had put it in quite a different light. ‘Well, I'm sure, now I think of it, that I didn't see a soul about in the Close. They were all at their dinner, no doubt.'

‘No doubt,' agreed Pollock grimly. ‘Only you didn't seem very sure about it when I asked you just now.'

‘I was casting my mind back,' said Parvin, who seemed to have recovered his assurance, ‘and it's plain to my memory now that I met no one. I remember remarking to myself how deserted the roads were.'

‘I see. Well, that's quite plain then. Would you mind calling your wife?'

Parvin went to the door and bellowed ‘Meg' whilst Pollock resumed his study of the distended kitten. It had an enormous pink cable of ribbon round its neck, from which was suspended a bell massive enough to have immobilised a mastiff. The title ran round the top in Gothic capitals, and Pollock (who had first made it out as “The Family Fiend”) had just disentangled the additional “r” in the last word from the tendrils of a rose-bush, when he was brought back to reality by the slamming of the door.

Mrs. Parvin was a bold, black-eyed, handsome slut, and Pollock could well imagine that she found Close life wearisome. His mind reverted to the anonymous letters; there had been one, he remembered, which accused Appledown of the most strictly dishonourable intentions in this quarter. He had not paid much attention to it at the time – but he had not then seen Mrs. Parvin. The outlines of a
crime passionnel
took sketchy shape in his brain. The girl waited for him to begin – half sullen, half contemptuous. Pollock knew that type of witness well, and tackled her in his blandest manner. Her information, when extracted, was corroborative of her husband's, but amounted to little more. She had been at home getting the supper ready until seven o'clock. They had eaten together, and then she had cleared the dishes. Whilst she was in the kitchen she had heard the door go. That was a little after half-past seven. She had finished washing up and putting away by eight o'clock. Then she sat in the living- room reading and listening to the wireless until her husband had come back at about a quarter past ten.

‘When else would you expect him,' she added shrewishly, ‘with closing time at ten o'clock?'

‘And that's all you can tell me about yesterday evening,' said Pollock conventionally, as he rose to go.

He got an unexpected answer.

‘Why don't you go and ask someone who was out last night?' Mrs. Parvin was on her feet now, her voice shrill with malice and her dark eyes snapping. ‘Ask old busy-body Hinkey why he came creeping home after nine o'clock last night. He thought no one saw him, but I did. And his trousers all covered with mud. Ask him where he'd been, and what he'd been doing.'

‘Thank you,' said Pollock, ‘I will. Is that all you've got to say?'

He felt that Mrs. Parvin had a good deal more to say on the subject of the Precentor – probably of a sharply detrimental nature. But her husband had silenced her now with a glare.

‘Nice people,' he thought. ‘I wonder if Hinkey has been pi-jawing her about morals?'

Said Precentor Hinkey, seated placidly amidst his black cats, ‘I don't really know that I can help you very much, Sergeant. Of course I will tell you all that I know.' He was mild, sandy- haired, and bespectacled, and as he talked he massaged his smooth pink cheek as if hypnotising his side-whisker to a yet more luxuriant growth. He was so uncommonly like one of his own pets that Pollock expected him to start purring at any moment.

‘I got back to my house at half-past six,' he went on. ‘I believe I was just a few steps behind you, Sergeant, on your way back to the deanery. When I got in I put on an old coat and hat, took a stick, and went out for a long walk.'

‘Good gracious,' said Pollock, ‘but it was almost dark! Do you often do that?'

‘I have never done it before in my life,' admitted the Precentor. ‘But I had some very serious thoughts to turn over in my head, and it seemed the best plan.'

‘Did you meet anyone you recognised?'

‘Well, do you know now, I was so deep in my thoughts that I never noticed a soul. In fact, I could hardly tell you where I went, but it was some miles out into the country. Then it started to rain, so I turned round and came home again. That's really all.'

Pollock stared down thoughtfully at the mild-eyed man in front of him. The story seemed so incredibly thin and improbable that it might even be true.

‘Don't you remember anything more?' he said persuasively. ‘For instance, what time did you get back?'

‘I'm afraid,' said the Precentor apologetically, ‘that I can't tell you even that. I have a clock in the hall, but it stopped at half- past four on the afternoon of our late king's funeral – quite a coincidence,' he laughed sedately, and the largest of the three cats jumped softly on to his knee.

Pollock went back to the deanery.

7

DR. MICKIE COMES CLEAN

‘Bees,' said Canon Bloss, ‘appreciate a warm autumn. Warm and calm. This unsettled weather has been very trying for them.' He was walking with Hazlerigg down the broad grass path which ran the length of his well-kept garden. Hazlerigg thought it one of the most beautifully proportioned gardens he had ever seen; not too broad for its length, and ending under the shadow of the grey stone ramparts of the Close.

Hazlerigg showed no sign of irritation at the discursive style of his host. He found it restful. He had already packed into the preceding two hours what most men would have considered a good day's work.

On leaving Pollock, he had visited Canon Fox and had discovered that elusive and nondescript man in the nursery, instructing Prima, Secunda, and Tertius Fox in their Catechism. He had seemed unsurprised at Hazlerigg's visit, and, in consultation with his wife (a sleek, tawny-haired, sharp-toothed lady destined inevitably to be known as the Vixen) had produced a satisfactory schedule of his movements.

Canon Trumpington, interviewed next, had proved kind and concise. Canon Beech-Thompson, on the other hand, had been concise but unpleasant. Canon Bloss could hardly have been said to have evinced any independent tendencies. He had answered Hazlerigg's questions with a great clarity and complete lack of emphasis and had then propelled him into the garden and started to talk about bees.

‘A mild spell in September and October,' he explained, seizing Hazlerigg by the arm and steering him amongst the little green and white hives, ‘produces just those conditions favourable to good wintering. The bees can collect a little nectar and pollen to ripen their winter stores.'

Gently he raised the roof of one of the hives, and lifting a wad of blankets, invited his reluctant guest to observe the cell formation. Hazlerigg knew nothing about bees, except that one end of them stung, and was relieved when Bloss replaced the coverings as carefully as he had removed them.

‘We must on no account disturb them,' he explained. (Here Hazlerigg entirely agreed with him.)

‘Disturbance of any sort causes a rise in the temperature of the hive; then the bees eat too much food and that may give them dysentery.'

He brooded benevolently over his little flock, and Hazlerigg felt compelled to ask, ‘Do they live through the winter on what they collect in the summer?'

‘Good gracious, no!' said Bloss, appalled at such ignorance, and with more animation than he had yet shown. ‘They have to be fed. Not individually – I don't mean that – but thirty to forty pounds of syrup to each hive.'

‘Ah, I see,' said Hazlerigg. ‘Thirty to forty pounds of syrup. Not individually, of course.'

When he took his leave he was still toying with the picture of Canon Bloss knocking at the hive door at breakfast-time and feeding each hungry little mouth with syrup from a long silver spoon.

Dropping in at No. 3 next door, Hazlerigg discovered that Vicar Choral Malthus had returned from his visit in the country. In fact, as he learnt to his surprise, Malthus had got back unexpectedly the night before.

‘I understood from the Dean,' said Hazlerigg a little severely, as if it was inconsiderate of Malthus to intrude himself as a further complication in an affair so tangled already, ‘that you were away visiting a sister who was sick and were likely to be away for some days.'

‘That's quite right,' agreed Malthus unhappily.

‘Then may I inquire why you changed your plans? Did she, perhaps, take a sudden turn for the better?'

‘Yes, that's right, she did,' said Malthus, with such patent insincerity that Hazlerigg almost gasped. ‘She suddenly got very much better, so I left her. I'm in course, you know,' he added as an afterthought.

‘In course?'

‘In course – I mean it's my fortnight to take the services. Halliday very kindly does them for me when I'm away, but I don't like to trespass too much on his good nature.' He plucked off his round gold spectacles and polished them with nervous energy on the edge of the tablecloth.

‘Could you let me have the name and address of your sister?'

‘Oh, certainly,' gasped Malthus, looking as if he were going to expire on the spot. ‘I've written it down for you.' He fished in his pocket and produced a piece of paper on which was scribbled in pencil:

Mrs. Frampton, Lea House, Park Drive, Bournemouth.

‘My married sister,' he explained. ‘She has always had a weak chest but finds Bournemouth very bracing.' Having delivered himself of this tribute he relapsed into complete silence. Hazlerigg thought he had never witnessed so extraordinary a performance. The man was plainly beside himself with agitation, and though the matter was coherent enough, yet the manner in which he had made his statement would have shaken the most credulous listener. On principle, however, Hazlerigg disbelieved people who looked him straight in the eye, and very often found that a hesitating and nervous reply contained more truth than a calm and concise statement. On these slender grounds he was prepared to admit that Malthus might be telling the truth – or some of the truth.

In that case why was he looking like a badly frightened rabbit?

Very gently – almost as one coaxing a timid child – Hazlerigg extracted the information that Malthus had come back the night before on the six o'clock train from Bournemouth which reached Overly Junction at five minutes to eight, there making a connection with the fast train to Melchester from town (the seven o'clock which reached Melchester at eight fifty-five). He had not had dinner on the train. He thought – and Hazlerigg agreed with him – that train meals were one of the poorest bargains which modern life had to offer; besides, a very dear friend of his had once contracted ptomaine poisoning from eating tinned tongue on a railway journey. He supposed that he had reached home by shortly after nine. He had walked down from the station. His wife had had a hot meal ready for him; perhaps the inspector would care to speak to Mrs. Malthus.

Mrs. Malthus arrived so pat on this suggestion that it might have been suspected, in a less refined atmosphere, that she had been listening outside the door. She looked altogether more self-possessed and confident than her husband, and Hazlerigg imagined that she was the driving force on the Malthus axis.

‘Please don't apologise!' she exclaimed before Hazlerigg had either time or inclination to do so. ‘I quite understand that you have to ask these tiresome questions. Oh, dear me, no! I wasn't at Evensong. What with one thing and another to worry about, and all the children at home and the shopping to do – well, it doesn't leave you with much time for religion.'

‘Oh, Martha, Martha!' said Hazlerigg – but he said it to himself.

‘I went straight down to the town after tea. I like to do my shopping then – the shops are not so crowded, and one meets a nicer type of person.'

‘Did you?'

Mrs. Malthus looked surprised, and stopped talking for the first time since she had burst in on them.

‘I mean, did you meet anyone you knew? Anyone from the Close, that is.'

‘I don't think so. Most of them would be at service, wouldn't they? Stop, though, let me see. I did meet Mr. Prynne coming out of Boots. I remember I exchanged a few words with him. After that I was some time in Roberts – beautiful ham they sell and the most delicious cheeses – and, let me see, what did I do next?'

‘Never mind exactly where you went – what time did you get back?'

After some consideration she opined that it must have been nearly eight o'clock.

‘Rather a long shopping expedition,' suggested Hazlerigg.

Mrs. Malthus was at a loss for an answer to this, but at last she said, ‘Of course I wasn't shopping the whole time. I went into the reading-room in Smith's and sat down with a paper. A shocking waste of time, but you know what we women are.' She smiled tentatively.

‘I don't really know – you may be a fool or you may be a liar,' said Hazlerigg, ‘but I can pretty soon find out whether that last bit is true or not.' But this, again, of course, he said to himself.

Aloud, he added, ‘And after you got in, Mrs. Malthus?'

‘Well, I suppose I sat down and rested for about ten minutes. Then I had the girls to put to bed and the supper to see to. I knew that my husband would need a good meal when he got back.'

‘You had heard from him during the day?'

‘No,' said Mrs. Malthus, after a barely perceptible pause.

‘And yet you expected him back by that particular train and knew that he would not already have dined.'

‘I had always understood that he would get back on Tuesday evening, if possible – and I know how much he dislikes train meals.'

The answer was smooth and natural, but Hazlerigg was not deceived. His eyes had been on Vicar Choral Malthus, and the look of urgent discomfort on the weaker partner's face had not escaped him. However, he saw that at the moment further questioning would be fruitless.

‘That's their story and they're sticking to it.' He murmured the old saying to himself as he took his leave. It was after five o'clock, but he had another call to make before he could think of tea.

‘Yes, sir,' said the maid at No. 1 the Close (rather surprisingly), ‘Mr. Prynne's in and he's expecting you.'

When Hazlerigg entered the study, a tall, ascetic-looking gentleman rose to greet him. Guileless eyes regarded him from behind rimless pince-nez glasses. A lean but unexpectedly sinewy hand shot out from a length of snowy clerical cuff, grasped his own hand, shook it, and steered him into a tall wheel-back chair – all with a certain absentminded grace.

The Reverend Ernest Vandeleur Prynne, having settled his guest, took a short hitch in his own immaculate trousers and seated himself in the chair opposite.

‘I have been expecting you,' he said austerely.

‘So your maid informed me,' retorted Hazlerigg. ‘Would it be indiscreet of me to inquire why?'

Prynne elected to take this question at its face value.

‘No,' he said, ‘you can ask me that. My reasons for expecting you were, I think, quite logical. Either you were questioning everyone in the Close – in which case of course I should be included – or else you were confining your attention to those who could give you useful information on the subject of Appledown's movements yesterday evening.'

‘Short of questioning you in pursuit of method number one,' said Hazlerigg, falling in easily with the didactic manner, ‘how was I expected to ascertain that you qualified with inclusion in category two?'

‘You knew,' said Prynne, ‘because Mrs. Judd told you so.'

‘And did she also tell you that she had told me so?' inquired Hazlerigg, nettled.

‘She informed Miss Bloss, who told my daughter, who passed this information on to me.'

This remarkable instance of The Close Intelligence System left Hazlerigg a little breathless.

Prynne went on.

‘It's no good trying to keep any secrets in this place. And exclusive information is an expression we haven't heard of. Information here belongs to everybody. To that extent alone we really do live the communal life. But I mustn't divert you from your purpose. I suppose you want to know what I was doing yesterday evening?'

‘If you please.'

‘That's simple. I went to the cinema.'

‘You were on your way there, I presume, when you passed Appledown going into his house. That would be at about a quarter to seven.'

‘If Mrs. Judd says so,' observed Prynne courteously, ‘I am quite prepared to take her word for it. Personally I never notice the time.'

‘Could you think back carefully and tell me exactly what you did and what you saw?'

‘Why, yes,' said Prynne slowly. He seemed a little surprised. ‘You think it might be important? I thought that it wasn't, until …' He paused.

‘Until what, were you going to say?'

Prynne looked at him blandly.

‘I shan't answer that,' he said. ‘My thoughts are no one's business but my own.'

The smile that accompanied them robbed the words of their sting. ‘You were asking me what I saw. Let me think. I was walking along the road – it was dusk, not quite dark. As I rounded the corner of the wall I heard the gate go – the west wicket gate of the precincts, that is to say; it has a most peculiar and characteristic squeak. I looked up and saw Appledown crossing the road – he must have just left the cathedral. By the time I got up he had gone indoors, but I saw the light go on in his front room and immediately afterwards his shadow jerking about on the blind.'

For the first time in the interview Hazlerigg shifted sharply in his chair. Prynne waited for him to speak, but if he had been going to say something he evidently thought better of it, and after a pause Prynne continued in his dry pedantic tones.

‘That is really all I have to tell you of that particular incident. I reached the cinema in time for the beginning of the supporting picture.'

‘What time did you come out?'

‘As I told you before I never notice the time, so it's no good asking me. I came out after the big picture was over and went straight home. I then read a discourse of Marcus Aurelius – as a mental laxative – and went to bed.'

‘Casting your mind back a bit, can you tell me what you did before going to the cinema?'

‘Before going to the cinema I had a meal, a sort of high tea, at six o'clock. And before that I was down in the town – first to the tobacconists and then to Boots. I don't know if you're one of those investigators who find an absorbing interest in small and irrelevant details; if so, I may tell you that whilst I was there I encountered Mrs. Malthus, and purchased a two and fourpenny bottle of Dr. Balsom's Balm for the Bilious.'

Hazlerigg's mind was wandering. He was trying to recapture a shade, an intonation in Prynne's voice which had puzzled him a minute before. Almost idly he asked, ‘Did you like Appledown?'