cheques were too hot to handle, so we may get a lead later on.’
‘Springdale seems to be the clue, sir. It has been mentioned twice.’
‘If this business is as fishy as I think it is, both could be a blind, of course.’
‘Buxton drives a furniture van, sir. He can get about all over the country without arousing the slightest suspicion.’
‘Yes, I hadn’t lost sight of that fact. I think I’ll have another word with the Buxtons before I go to Springdale. No, wait a minute. Perhaps you could do that while I’m gone. Lean on Buxton as hard as you can under the regulations and take him all through his story again as to what he did and at what time he got home on that Friday evening. Oh, and have another crack at that nephew of theirs. I have an idea that he’s a nasty bit of work. If he saw a chance of helping himself out of somebody else’s pockets, I have a hunch that he’d take it. I don’t like artists, anyway. Sleight-of-hand merchants, every one of them.’
‘Thou shalt not make any graven image or the likeness of anything? Is that your view, sir?’
‘Something of the sort. There’s a kind of witchcraft about graven images. Think of Pygmalion. And there is black magic in pictures.’
‘So our cave-dwelling ancestors seem to have believed, sir.’
‘Not that I’m a fanciful or a superstitious man, of course,’ said Routh hastily.
‘Of course not, sir, but none of us can altogether control our atavistic instincts.’
Routh regarded his sergeant with surprise.
‘Are you attending evening classes at the Sir George Etherege school, by any chance?’ he asked.
‘No, sir, but I do a lot of reading in any spare time I’ve got.’
‘I must see you have less of it. Can’t have you overtaxing that brain of yours.’
Bennett was early at the Buxtons’ house next morning. He wanted to catch Buxton before the van driver set off for work. He also thought that an early morning visit to the artist might disconcert that slightly disreputable young man.
From Buxton he got nothing but a mulish adherence to what he had told the police at former interviews. He had worked late, the roads were heavy with traffic and he was sure that Pythias would have left long before he himself reached home. Mrs Buxton confirmed all this so far as her knowledge of it went. She had not actually seen Pythias leave. They had had their little up-and-a-downer about the money in the briefcase, but she had given him his high tea, ‘with no ill-feelings on either side, if you understand me’, and she felt certain he must have left immediately he had had it. Bennett tackled Rattock once more, but the artist also had nothing to add to his previous story. He was what the sergeant called ‘dumb-insolent’ and contrived to be extremely irritating.
‘The three wise monkeys rolled into one,’ said Bennett, when he reported back to Routh later.
6
Labour in Vain
« ^ »
Routh allowed himself an hour and a half to drive to Springdale although, if there were no hold-ups, it was possible, without speeding, to do it in about an hour and ten minutes.
The roads were reasonably clear and he made good time. His appointment with the Superintendent was at ten-thirty, so he pulled up before he entered the town, got out of the car to stretch his legs and looked around him.
Springdale was a town of some considerable size. Its high street went steeply uphill and from where he stood Routh could make out a church spire and another church with a tower, while directly in front of him was a fine old bridge across the river. He had fished the river, although not the reach at which he was looking. It was a pleasant stream bordered by wide, flat meadows and the fishing was mostly barbel, chub and dace, although there were also plenty of pike to be taken with dead bait.
Routh was no believer in the theory that the pike is a sort of devil-fish which, when caught, should be despatched immediately. He followed the theory of that master of coarse fishing the Dorset man Owen Wentworth, always throwing the pike back when he had caught them, just as he did the other coarse fish which came to his rod and line. However, there was no fishing to be done that day. Routh strolled on to the bridge, spent a few pleasant minutes looking down at the flowing water and then returned to the car.
The police station was in the high street and a narrow turning on the left brought him into a fair-sized yard where other police cars were parked. At the front entrance to the building a constable recognised and saluted him, and a moment or two later he was in the Superintendent’s office greeting his old friend.
‘You were a bit mysterious over the phone,’ said Superintendent Bellairs. ‘What can we do for you?’
‘Find me a couple of Greeks, a man and a woman, who may be nursing another Greek who was taken ill in their house over Christmas.’
‘What’s their name?’
‘That’s the trouble. I don’t know.’ He gave the Superintendent a short but sufficient account of the disappearance of Pythias and the money, the return of the cheques in an envelope postmarked Springdale and the visit of the two strangers to Pythias’s room to collect his belongings.
‘Looks an open and shut case to me,’ said Bellairs. ‘The chap has absconded with the money and the Buxtons suspect that they won’t see him again. The Buxtons have invented these two foreigners to cover the fact that they have sold Pythias’s clothes and golf-clubs to cover the rent he probably owes them. That fits the facts as you’ve given them to me, I think.’
‘It doesn’t cover Mrs Buxton’s definite statement that they live here in Springdale and the fact that the cheques were sent to the bank from here. She knew nothing about the Springdale postmark on the envelope that went to the
