notoriously sensitive to suggestions of immorality in their employers.
In turn, Mrs Carobleat seemed to have no love for Hillyard. Social jealousy? Or did she resent being the widow of a man whom Hillyard had failed to doctor successfully? Personal grievances against the medical faculty were not rare in Flaxborough. One’s doctor was something one boasted about to friends, like a cake recipe or a central heating system. It was hard to have to admit a let-down.
Could Hillyard, Purbright wondered, have had a hand in the snuffing of Gwill? It was conceivable that Gwill had received, amongst the gossip that accompanies the stream of news into a paper, knowledge of some hideous professional blunder by Hillyard; that he had threatened the doctor...
The thread of Purbright’s speculation was broken at this point by the entry of Sergeant Love.
Love unbuckled his raincoat and lit a cigarette. He flicked through a few pages of his notebook, put it back in his pocket and recited: “I, Gladys Lintz, am a married woman and forty-one years of age. I reside with my husband, George, in a nice house and already have a cocktail cabinet, a free pass to the Odeon, two beautiful children and the Telly. What, kill dear old Uncle Marcus? Why ever should I?”
“Quite,” said Purbright. “Now tell me what she said without really meaning to.”
“One, that husband George’s cold feet woke her up round about two o’clock this morning. Two, that she had a vague idea that Uncle’s affairs weren’t all on the up and up. Three, that she thinks the undertaker did it. Four, that she takes that back on second thoughts because Bradlaw’s elder sister has had a lot of trouble lately and she doesn’t want to add to it.”
“You do invite confidences, don’t you, Sid?”
“I’m every mother’s bloody son,” replied Love, without rancour.
“But can we sort out anything useful?”
“Well, she made no secret of Lintz having been out until the early hours. She thought he’d probably been to the Cons Club.”
“We can ask him about that. In fact we’ll have to, now. Poor George is the best prospect we have at the moment. But what was that she said about Gwill?”
Love took out his notes again. “According to Gladys, her uncle had dealings with several people outside the newspaper buisness, and kept George in the dark about them. She doesn’t know who they were and she’s sure her husband was never able to find out. But the pair of them suspected the old man of making money on the side.”
“What sort of dealings? Buying and selling?”
“She hadn’t a clue.”
Purbright considered a while. “Look,” he said, “I think we’ll pull in a little of Gwill’s homework. There’s a cuttings book over at his house that keeps popping into my head for some reason or other. I’d like to see what you make of it.”
“Do you want us to go over there now?”
“Have something to eat first. Oh, and tell me about Mrs Lintz and Nab Bradlaw.”
“She said Gwill knew Bradlaw pretty well...”
“So I’ve heard.”
“...and had said on one occasion something about ‘fixing him if he’d a mind to’. She thought it sounded like a threat and suggested Bradlaw had done the fixing first.”
“Did she say when this threat was made?”
“Several months ago, apparently. At one time every undertaker used to get a free mention in the paper’s report of any funeral he’d handled. Then the system was dropped. Nab was the only one to make a fuss and Lintz asked his uncle what he should do. Gwill told him to let Bradlaw go to hell and dropped that hint that Nab was in no position to be awkward.”
“Hardly an incident pregnant with murderous possibilities.”
“Not on the face of it. But Gwill wasn’t in the habit of saying much, least of all in Gladys’s hearing. The remark stuck in her mind. It’s a very narrow mind,” Love explained.
An hour later, the inspector and the sergeant drove to The Aspens. Mrs Poole, compliant, but looking more than ever like an evicted cemetery-sitter, showed them straight to the room with the desk. Purbright explained to her that they were going to take away some books, but that everything would be reported to Mr Lintz and that she need not worry. She refuted the suggestion that anything Mr Lintz might think could worry her and gave them to understand that they would be welcome to take away Mr Lintz as well.
“No one,” observed Purbright as he accompanied a book-laden Love down the drive to their car, “in this case seems to like anyone else.”
Love grunted. “That woman had a dreadfully haunted look. What do you think is wrong with her?”
“Just frightened.”
“Why?”
Purbright opened the car door. “There’s no knowing at the moment. Probably imaginative and overwrought. On the other hand, she may actually have seen something that scared her. You’ll not get her to talk until she wants to, though. There are women who cling to fear just as some cling to illness. They become quite attached to it.”
Love laid the books on the back seat. “We’d better make a quick call at the
The street door of the
