the solicitor, who took a sip of his tea and began slowly to dictate.
“Rather late on Monday night—it must have been approximately eleven-thirty—I left my home and walked to the house of Mr Marcus Gwill. I do not normally retire to bed early and a stroll about midnight is not an uncommon exercise for me, so you must not imagine that there was anything extraordinary in my being abroad on that particular night. I do not pretend, however, that the visit to Gwill was in response to a mere whim. He had telephoned me a short time previously and intimated that there was a matter of some urgency he wished to discuss.
“I recall nothing noteworthy about my walk along Heston Lane. I met no one I recognized, although there were several people about who might conceivably have recognized me. It would be about a quarter to twelve when I arrived.
“Another acquaintance of Gwill’s was already there. I say acquaintance; actually it was his doctor, the Scotsman Hillyard, whom you probably know. Like myself, he stood in a somewhat closer relationship to Gwill than a purely professional one. When I found him in the drawing-room, I concluded that some sort of a conference was intended, although Gwill had not explained over the telephone what he had in mind. I did not suppose the occasion to be of a purely social nature.”
Gloss paused to look at Purbright’s lightly pencilled shorthand worming between the lines. “Please tell me,” he said, “if I am forging too far ahead of that admirable squiggle.”
“Not at all, sir,” said Purbright, evenly. “My squiggle likes a fleet quarry. But I should like my cup of tea now, if you don’t mind.” And he drank it. “Will you go on from ‘social nature’, sir?”
Gloss frowned, then smoothly resumed.
“Hillyard was seated by the fire and drinking a glass of whisky. He appeared contemplative. Gwill fetched a glass for me and invited me to help myself from the decanter. He took nothing to drink himself; he was an abstainer, you know. I noticed he was chewing, however, and I remember feeling a little irritated at the sight of his jaws working away. Adult sweet-eaters invariably annoy me. They seem furtively self-indulgent and sensual in a horrid, immature way. I mention the fact of Gwill’s chewing because it explains why I can tell you very little of something that occurred almost immediately after my arrival, something which I think now may have been of significance.
“The telephone rang, and Gwill took the call in the room where we were sitting. As he listened, he put another loathsome sweet-meat into his mouth, and I was so preoccupied with the way his mastication moved the telephone earpiece up and down that I failed to take any notice of the conversation. There was no doubt of its outcome, though, for Gwill put the instrument down and hastened out of the house with no more than a mumble about being back in a few minutes.”
Gloss paused, then looked very solemnly at Purbright. “He did not come back and I never saw him again. Hillyard and I waited for perhaps half an hour. Then I went upstairs to ask Mrs Poole if she had any idea of where he might have gone and to request her to remain awake until his return. She was not there, of course. Hillyard and I could think of nothing practical to do in the circumstances and so we left the house and walked to our respective homes.”
Purbright glanced up. “Did you lock the door of the house, sir?”
“We decided it would be better to leave it insecure than to risk his having taken no key and being obliged to break a window or something of that kind.”
“You felt no anxiety on his behalf other than being worried about locking him out?”
“None. Why should we? As a matter of fact, we both took it for granted that he was visiting some house fairly close at hand. It was only later that I realized the unlikelihood of that having been the case.”
“What led you to realize that?”
“I remembered two things about the telephone call that did not register on my mind at the time but which must have made a subconscious impression.”
“Yes, Mr Gloss?”
“Perhaps a minute before the telephone bell rang, I heard a vehicle draw up in the road outside. It has occurred to me since that a public telephone kiosk stands on Heston Lane some little way nearer the town and on the opposite side of the road. I incline to the belief that the call to Gwill’s house came from that kiosk and was made by the driver of the vehicle I heard.”
“Can you say what sort of a vehicle it sounded to be, sir?”
“I’m afraid I cannot. It made a noticeable noise, so it is likely to have been a moderately large car or a small lorry.”
“Might it have been a van?”
Gloss considered. “Conceivably,” he said.
“And now, sir, perhaps you’ll tell me the second thing about the telephone call that has come back to you since Monday night.”
“Oh, yes; the second thing.” Gloss’s gaze fell; he drummed fingers on his knee and gave, Purbright thought, a fair impersonation of reluctant prosecutor. “I am almost certain,” he said, “that Gwill addressed the maker of the telephone call as George.”
“George?”
“That is my recollection, inspector. But I wish to be perfectly fair. My attention, as I have said, was distracted. It is just possible that the name was something similar.”
“Surely there aren’t many names that sound similar to George, Mr Gloss?”
“No? No, perhaps not. I have not given the matter much thought. I wished only to be frank and to impart impressions as they have come to me, quite undisturbed by conjecture.”
“Ah, very proper, sir.” The inspector’s face was blank. So was the other’s. They remained a while looking at each other in querulous politeness. Purbright broke the silence.
“Why did Mr Bradlaw come to see you this morning?”
