mysterious.
'You aren't pulling my leg, are you?' the sergeant said.
'Not this time, Sarge.'
He passed through a door and shut it behind him, and Ida settled herself more firmly on the bench, made herself at home. 'Bit stuffy in here, boys,' she said.
'What about opening another window?' and obediently they opened one.
The sergeant called to her from the door. 'You can go in,' he said.
'Come on, Phil,' Ida said, and bore him with her into the tiny cramped official room, which smelt of French polish and fish glue.
'And so,' the inspector said, 'you wanted to tell me about a suicide, Mrs....?' He had tried to hide a tin of fruit drops behind a telephone and a manuscript book.
'Arnold, Ida Arnold. I thought it might be your line, Inspector,' she said with heavy sarcasm.
'This your husband?'
'Oh, no, a friend. I wanted a witness, that's all.'
'And who is it you're concerned about, Mrs.
Arnold?'
'Hale's the name, Fred Hale. I beg your pardon.
Charles Hale.'
'We know all about Hale, Mrs. Arnold. He died quite naturally.'
'Oh, no,' Ida said, 'you don't know all. You don't know he was with me, two hours before he was found.'
'You weren't at the inquest?'
'I didn't know it was him till I saw his picture.'
'And why do you think there's anything wrong?'
'Listen,' Ida said. 'He was with me and he was scared about something. We were at the Palace Pier.
I had to have a wash and brush up, but he didn't want me to leave him. I was only away five minutes and he'd gone. Where'd he gone to? You say he went and had lunch at Snow's and then went on down the pier to the shelter in Hove. You think he just gave me the slip, but it wasn't Fred I mean Hale who had lunch at Snow's and left that card. I've just seen the waitress. Hale didn't like Bass he wouldn't drink Bass but the man at Snow's sent out for a bottle.'
'That's nothing,' the inspector said. 'It was a hot day. He was feeling bad too. He got tired of doing all the things he'd got to do. I wouldn't be surprised if he cheated and got someone else to go into Snow's.'
'The girl won't say a thing about him. She knows but she won't say.'
'I can think of an explanation easily enough, Mrs.
Arnold. The man may have left a card on condition she didn't say anything.'
'It's not that. She's scared. Someone's scared her.
Maybe the same person who drove Fred... And there are other things.'
'I'm sorry, Mrs. Arnold. It's just a waste of time getting fussed like this. You see, there was a postmortem. The medical evidence shows without any doubt that he died naturally. He had a bad heart. The medical name for it is myocarditis. I'd call it just heat and crowds and exertion and a weak heart.'
'Could I see the report?'
'It wouldn't be usual.'
'I was a friend of his, you see,' Ida said softly.
'I'd like to be satisfied.'
'Well, to put your mind at rest, I'll stretch a point.
It's here now on my desk.'
Ida read it carefully. 'This doctor,' she said, 'he knows his stuff?'
'He's a first-class doctor.'
'It seems clear, doesn't it?' Ida said. She began to read it all over again. 'They do go into details, don't they? Why, I wouldn't know more about him if I'd married him. Appendix scar, supernumerary nipples, whatever they are, suffered from wind I do that myself on a bank holiday. It's almost disrespectful, isn't it? He wouldn't have liked this.' She brooded over the report with easy kindliness. 'Varicose veins.
Poor old Fred. What's this mean about the liver?'
'Drank too much, that's all.'
'I wouldn't be surprised. Poor Fred. So he had ingrowing toe nails. It doesn't seem right to know that.'
'You were a great friend of his?'
'Well, we only knew each other that day. But I liked him. He was a real gentleman. If I hadn't been a bit lit this wouldn't have happened.' She blew out her bust. 'He wouldn't have come to any harm with me.'
'Have you quite finished with the report, Mrs.
Arnold?'
'He does mention everything, this doctor of yours, doesn't he? Bruises, superficial, whatever that means, on the arms. What do you think of that, Inspector?'
'Nothing at all. Bank holiday crowds, that's all.
Pushed here and there.'
'Oh, come off it,' Ida said, 'come off it.' Her tongue flared up. 'Be human. Were you out on bank holiday? Where do you find a crowd like that?
Brighton's big enough, isn't it? It's not a tube lift. I was here. I know.'
The inspector said stubbornly: 'You've got fancies, Mrs. Arnold,'
'So the police won't do a thing? You won't question that girl in Snow's?'
'The case is closed, Mrs. Arnold, And even if it had been suicide, why open old wounds?'
'Someone drove him... maybe it wasn't suicide at all... maybe...'
'I've told you, Mrs. Arnold, the case is closed.'
'That's what you think,' Ida said. She rose to her feet j she summoned Phil with a jerk of the chin. 'Not half, it isn't,' she said. 'I'll be seeing you.' She looked back from the door at the elderly man behind the desk and threatened him with her ruthless vitality. 'Or maybe not,' she said. 'I can manage this my own way. I don't need your police.' (The constables in the outer room stirred uneasily--somebody laughed--somebody dropped a tin of boot polish.) 'I've got my friends.'
Her friends they were everywhere under the bright glittering Brighton air. They followed their wives obediently into fishmongers', they carried the children's buckets to the beach, they lingered round the bars waiting for opening time, they took a penny peep on the pier at 'A Night of Love.' She had only to appeal to any of them, for Ida Arnold was on the right side. She was cheery, she was healthy, she could get a bit lit with the best of them. She liked a good time, her big breasts bore their carnality frankly down the Old Steyne, but you had only to look at her to know that you could rely on her. She wouldn't tell tales to your wife, she wouldn't remind you next morning of what you wanted to forget, she was honest, she was kindly, she belonged to the great middle lawabiding class, her amusements were their amusements, her superstitions their superstitions (the planchette scratching the French polish on the occasional table, and the salt over the shoulder), she had no more love for anyone than they had.
'Expenses mounting up,' Ida said. 'Never mind.
Everything will be all right after the races .1 '
'You got a tip?' Mr. Corkery asked.
'Straight from the horse's mouth. I shouldn't say that. Poor Fred.'
'Tell a pal,' Mr. Corkery implored.
'All in good time,' Ida said. 'Be a good boy and you don't know what mayn't happen.'
'You don't still think, do you?' Mr. Corkery sounded her. 'Not after what the doctor wrote?'
'I've never paid any attention to doctors.'
'But why?'
'We've got to find out.'
'And how?'
'Give me time. I haven't started yet.'
The sea stretched like a piece of gay common washing in a tenement square across the end of the street.
