Coffin Scarcely Used

“You were being facetious just now about some ‘awful goings on’.”

“I can be as facetious as I like about matters of which you are now unlikely ever to be the wiser.”

“Mrs Poole might have given me a fairly clear idea of your relationship.”

Mrs Carobleat smiled. “A half-witted old servant?”

“You don’t wish to confide in me any further, then? I assure you I am the soul of tact and broad-mindedness. Come, now—you and Gwill were more than pally neighbours, weren’t you, Mrs Carobleat?”

She frowned, but not with annoyance. “Look here, inspector: suppose just for the hell of it I admitted what Mrs Poole would call The Worst...just what would be its bearing on your inquiries?”

“I might be a little nearer to discovering a motive for what seems at the moment a singularly pointless crime.”

“Come, widows don’t provide motives—except sometimes for other men’s wives.”

“They occasionally have motives of their own. I don’t suppose they are proof against being discarded, scorned, dishonoured—all that sort of thing, you know.”

She broke into a little clatter of laughter. Purbright, too, was smiling. But his eyes were alert.

“And how do you suggest this poor widow avenged her dishonour, inspector? When she wasn’t even in the same town at the time?”

“You were in Hereford, you said?”

“Shropshire. The Lad’s county, you know.”

“Ah, yes. You spent Monday night in a pub with a peculiar name. The Brink of Discovery.”

“I fancy its proprietor would prefer you to call it an inn. But at least you have the name right.”

“Was anyone else staying in this house while you were away? Your...the young woman who brought the tea?”

“Anna? Oh, no. She goes to some friends on a farm when I take a holiday. You were going to call her a maid, weren’t you? She isn’t quite that, actually. You could say companion if that doesn’t make me sound terribly Bayswater. And old,” she added.

“You had no idea of what had happened here until you returned from Shropshire and heard of Mr Gwill’s death from me?”

“None whatever. It was hardly likely that the news would have reached me the same morning, even if anyone had thought I would wish to be told.”

“Hardly.” Purbright considered a moment. “Did Mr Gwill have any...any presentiment of harm coming his way? Did he mention to you the possibility of his having an enemy?”

She pouted and shook her head.

“How did he get on with the men I presume to have been his friends—those who visited him regularly? Mr Gloss, for instance?”

“Gloss was his solicitor. He had quite a high opinion of him, I believe.”

“Dr Hillyard?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

“Mr Bradlaw?”

“The undertaker, you mean? They were on good terms. They could do each other a certain amount of mutual good through the newspaper, of course. Advertising on one side, and help with lists of mourners and so forth on the other. It’s a common enough arrangement, I believe.”

“Was there anyone apart from those three with whom Gwill was on intimate terms?”

“Not since my husband died. And always excepting his guilty association with me, of course.” Mrs Carobleat sipped her tea and eyed Purbright over the top of the cup.

After another quarter of an hour of being stolidly inquisitive to no perceptible effect, Purbright rose and said: “You understand that I have no right at the moment to ask you this, but would you be willing just the same to let me have a look round your house?”

This, at any rate, seemed to find Mrs Carobleat unprepared. She looked at him doubtfully and said she couldn’t quite see why, but he could if he really wanted to. He smiled apologetically and motioned her to lead the way.

The rest of the house proved to be as tidy, expensively furnished and well tended as the room they had left. Purbright and Love silently followed Mrs Carobleat, who only once turned in time to catch the inspector closely examining a power point.

He also showed interest in a small leather travelling case containing brushes and shaving equipment that lay on the dressing table of one of the only two bedrooms that showed signs of regular occupation.

“Those were Harold’s,” she said expressionlessly. Purbright nodded and turned away.

Chapter Ten

On the morning following the publication day of the Flaxborough Citizen, an early telephone call was put through to the police station by George Lintz. Purbright had been in his office since the time he judged the first postal delivery would be made at the newspaper. He now hurried over to Market Street.

Lintz let him in and handed him fourteen letters addressed to the box numbers specified in the