thing” and gone home to do some, gardening.
Purbright listened attentively until his visitors, judging him to have been put squarely in the picture, invited him to deliver reciprocal revelation.
He rose. “I think, gentlemen, that the best thing will be to call in a couple of our local experts.”
Pumphrey looked startled. “I don’t know about that, inspector. You realize all this is top secret...” He glanced at Ross.
Purbright leaned against the door frame. He sighed. “I don’t pretend to be an encyclopaedia, you know. Some of my men have a much wider range; they might save you a lot of time.”
“That’s all right, Purbright,” Ross said. “I’m sure you can question your chaps in a way that won’t set any rabbits away.”
When the inspector re-entered the room five minutes later, he was accompanied by Sergeant Love, looking as pink and innocent as if Purbright had just recruited him from a Dresden pastoral, and by a genial mountain whom he introduced as Sergeant Malley, the coroner’s officer. The inspector arranged chairs so that while the two sergeants and the men from London faced each other, symmetry suggestive of opposing quiz teams was avoided. Then he sat down behind his desk, lit a cigarette, and leaned back.
“George Tozer... Now, then, let’s hear what you know about Mr Tozer.” He blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling.
Love and Malley glanced uncertainly at each other in mutual suspicion of having been drawn into some absurd game.
“But...but you know old George, inspector. The barber. Down in...” Malley scowled and snapped his fingers.
“Spindle Lane,” supplied Love.
“That’s it—Spindle Lane. The Rubber King.”
“You know George, sir,” insisted Love, looking at Purbright with concern.
“Of course I know him. But these gentlemen don’t. And it’s for their benefit I’m asking these things, not mine.”
“Oh, I see.” Malley turned his big friendly face to Pumphrey. “He’s a rum old sod, is George. Ugly as vomit. But he’d help anyone, wouldn’t he, Sid?”
Love grunted confirmation.
“They reckon it was George who fixed up Lady Beryl with that third husband of hers...”
“Fourth,” corrected Love.
“Fourth, was it? Never mind. That book salesman with one ear, I mean. Everyone reckoned Lady Beryl had had it for good when her third chucked in. She’d started drinking hair restorer by then. That’s how she came to know George, I suppose...”
Pumphrey, who had been nodding and making impatient noises in his throat, thrust in a question. “What are Tozer’s political affiliations?”
Malley’s eyes widened. He looked round at Love, who did his best to be helpful at such short notice. “Lady Beryl’s Conservative,” he said.
Malley regarded Pumphrey once more. “That’s right, she is. Although they don’t risk letting her open fetes any more, of course. Mind you, I’m not saying George Tozer’s a snob—you’re Labour, perhaps, are you, sir?—well, the Labour people have done some good in their way. That’s neither here nor there, though; I’m sure George wouldn’t let your politics stop him doing you a good turn if he can...”
“He’s a bit of a flanneller, mind,” Love saw fit to warn Ross.
“Oh, aye,” agreed the coroner’s officer. “Reminds you of the barber’s cat, doesn’t he, Sid? All wind and .,.” He checked himself at the sight of Pumphrey’s frown of exasperation. “Still, I’ll say this for him—there’s many a family in this town would be too big to be fed if it hadn’t been for George’s eightpenny reliables.”
Ross shifted a little in his chair. “Perhaps we’re not quite on the right tack, sergeant. Can you tell us anything about this man’s associates?”
There was a short silence while Malley and Love looked at each other and then at Purbright. The inspector, however, was unhelpfully preoccupied with the tip of his cigarette.
Love scratched his head. “I’ve an idea that he’s in a team of bellringers...”
“They reckon he’s quite religious,” added Malley, cautiously. “On the side, like...”
“But I don’t think he’s what you might call associated with anybody specially,” wound up Love. “I mean, why should he be?”
The hint of defiance in his voice earned a sharp stare from Pumphrey. “The man who seems to have no associations, sergeant, is generally one who has taken good care to conceal them.”
Ross beamed a take-no-notice smile at Love. “So much for Mr Tozer, I think. Now then, what about...what’s his name. Purbright?—the hopalong character...”
“Crutchey Anderson.”
Malley chuckled. He winked at Pumphrey. “You want to keep clear of that old villain; by God, you do. Don’t tell me he’s been asking you to teach him how to play snooker. Oh, Christ!”
Ross quickly intervened. “It was I who came across Anderson, sergeant, not Mr Pumphrey. I’d like to know who he is, that’s all.”
“Bookie’s runner, that’s what he is. Used to be on the shrimping boats at Chalmsbury until he put one leg into the shrimp copper when he was drunk. It was cooked to the bone before they could pull him clear. But if he thinks
