“Talking of businesses,” said Purbright, “I seem to remember that that man with the unlikely name used to live near Mr Gwill. The broker chap...”
“Carobleat?”
“That’s the one. He died not so long ago.”
“Carobleat lived next door to my uncle. His wife’s still there...widow, rather.”
“Is she really? You’d think a big house like that would be rather overwhelming. I must call and see how she’s coping when I go over later on.”
“You’re going to my uncle’s place?”
“Oh, yes. I think I ought to take a quick look, don’t you? The people round there are mostly timid old souls. An unhappy affair like this tends to prey on their minds a little, and they feel better when they see a policeman turn up. I find they regard me as a sort of exorcist.”
“Mrs Poole won’t, I warn you. Not unless you take a stake with you and promise you’re looking for a likely corpse to immobilize with it.”
Purbright beamed and rose. “You’re a sensible man, Mr Lintz. I’m glad to see you taking this unfortunate affair so well.”
He shook hands and was almost out of the door when he turned. “Oh, by the way, sir, my Sergeant Malley— an awfully nice chap, you’ll like him—asked me to remind you about the inquest. Do you think you could find time to pop in and have a word with him?”
“I suppose so. When?”
“It’s stupid of me not to have mentioned it earlier, but I believe he hoped you would call this morning. Look, if you’ve nothing urgent on hand you can come over with me now.”
Lintz shrugged and reached down his hat and coat.
As he followed the inspector down the narrow, uncarpeted stairs, he asked: “Who’s this Sergeant Malley, anyway?”
“He’s the Coroner’s Officer,” replied Purbright, “and the best baritone in the county, they tell me. You don’t happen to be a singer, do you, sir?”
“No,” said Lintz, “I don’t.”
Chapter Two
Limtz found Sergeant Malley awaiting him in the dark, file-cluttered little office that served as a clearing house for Flaxborough’s uncertificated deaths.
The Coroner’s Officer was florid, fat, catarrhal and kindly. He greeted the editor rather in the manner of a butcher anxious to placate a good customer for whom he had forgotten to reserve some kidneys.
“A bit of a nuisance, but there it is,” he said comfortingly as he turned a sheet of fresh paper into the typewriter before him. “Now, sir, this is what the Coroner will have to refer to when you give your evidence tomorrow. What he’ll do is just to ask the questions to guide you into saying the same as you’re going to say now. Compree?”
Lintz replied somewhat coolly that he knew the procedure at inquests and was ready to help the sergeant prepare his deposition.
Malley began to type the formal introduction to the statement, muttering as he jabbed the keys and backspacing now and then to correct an error with vicious superimposition. The machine seemed to have the durability of a pile-driver.
“First he’ll want you to say when you last saw your uncle alive. When will that have been, sir?”
“About six o’clock yesterday evening. I drove him back from the office in my car and left him at his home soon afterwards.”
Malley attacked the typewriter again. “I drove...deceased...”
Lintz gazed round the tiny office and nibbled, quite fastidiously, the corner of a finger nail.
“And how did Mr Gwill strike you then, sir? In what sort of health, would you say?”
“The same as usual. I didn’t notice anything wrong with him.”
Malley thought about this and fed his own version into the machine. “...usual good health...” he murmured. Then: “I suppose he’d never given you cause to expect he might do anything a bit rash?”
“That he might commit suicide, you mean?”
“Well, you could put it that way. Had he been depressed? Worried?”
“If he had, he didn’t confide in me.”
“Perhaps not, sir. But you could have formed an opinion of your own about his general mood.”
Malley, Lintz realized, was neither as simple as he looked nor likely to leave questions half answered for the sake of peace. “My uncle was never particularly cheerful,” he conceded. “He was an easily irritated man.”
“And had he been more touchy in recent weeks, or months?”
“For the last half year or so, yes, I think he had.”
“But you know of no special reason for that?”
“None. I didn’t share his life at all outside the office and things have run perfectly smoothly there.”
