“There was a quarrel, though, Mr Purbright. I don’t think we should let ourselves be led too far away from that fact by chaps with microscopes.”
“Oh, yes, there was a row,” Purbright agreed. “Periam didn’t deny that, as he could very well have persisted in doing. But I think I told you that he said it was a very one-sided affair, with Hopjoy doing all the shouting. If we accept that, might we not consider whether the noise had a special object—to disturb neighbours and put in their minds the presumption of a quarrel?”
“And were they disturbed?”
“Those I’ve spoken to myself say they heard nothing. But Sergeant Love is making inquiries in the houses that back on to Beatrice Avenue. The people there are far more likely to have heard whatever there was to hear; the sound would travel straight across the gardens.”
The Chief Constable nodded. “All right. Now about this business of the body—how do you explain that away? The stuff in the drains and all that.”
“Have you ever read anything about cannibalism, sir?”
“Not avidly, Mr Purbright, no.”
“Well, it seems that human flesh quite closely resembles pork.”
“Indeed.”
“And I learned more or less by chance yesterday that half a pig carcass was stolen recently from a farm where Hopjoy had been a regular and quite intimate visitor. In the boot of that car of his, and in one or two places at the house, Warlock turned up traces of animal blood.”
For nearly a minute, Mr Chubb silently regarded an earwig’s progress along one of the trellis spars.
“I suppose we have to remember,” he said at last, “that tom-foolery of that kind was just the fellow’s line of country. It’s perfectly disgraceful, though, when you think of all the money that’s being spent on the intelligence service. The trouble is, they live in a world of their own. I can’t see that there’s anything we can do about him. I mean there’s nothing we can charge him with.”
Purbright pursed his lips. “Conduct likely to lead...”
“...to a breach of the peace?” Mr Chubb capped the phrase with a sort of sad derision. “You can see his people letting us go ahead with that one, can’t you? Worse than the blasted Diplomatic Corps. He’ll turn up somewhere else with a cock and bull story and start working up a new set of creditors, just you see.”
“There’s rather more to this,” said Purbright slowly, “than mere debt-dodging. A man can arrange his own disappearance without leaving somebody else to face a murder charge. In this case, a great deal of trouble and ingenuity was spent specifically on the incrimination of Periam. But the only thing poor old Periam wasn’t carefully provided with was a motive. Why should he have wanted to kill Hopjoy? If anyone had a motive for murder it was Hopjoy himself—the man whose girl Periam had appropriated.”
Mr Chubb considered. “I see your point. But surely Hopjoy was a bit of a blackguard where women were concerned. Would he have been all that upset about one in particular?”
“Promiscuity and jealousy are by no means incompatible, sir.”
The Chief Constable raised his brows.
“In fact, the more sexually adventurous a man is, the more violently he tends to resent trespass on his own preserves.”
“Oh,” said Mr Chubb, meekly. “You think then...”—he turned to see where the earwig had got to—“we should be wrong to let the whole thing drop?”
Purbright rose. “I quite agree with you, sir; we should keep an eye on things a little longer. Hopjoy certainly ought to be traced, even if Major Ross tries to go against your judgment.”
Mr Chubb resolutely picked the earwig from the trellis and trod on it.
“After all,” said Purbright, “there has been, in a sense, one attempt on Periam’s life. When it is seen to have failed, there may be another—on less unorthodox lines.”
Chapter Fourteen
To the multitude of elusives for whom watch is proclaimed to be kept at British ports, rail termini and airports, was added the name of Brian Hopjoy. If encountered, he was to be asked simply to get into touch with the Chief Constable of Flaxborough. The request had been difficult to frame. “What do we say we want him for?” Mr Chubb had asked; “...to collect his hat?” He had carefully refrained from mentioning the matter to Ross or Pumphrey, although he did ask, at Purbright’s suggestion, if he might borrow from them the photograph of Hopjoy which, as far as anyone could find out, was the only one in existence. Pumphrey, looking as if he had been casually requested to assassinate the Prime Minister when he next happened to be in London, had emphasized with some asperity the topness of the secrecy involved and begged him to be more circumspect.
The withholding of the photograph made local inquiries more difficult, too. Purbright prepared a composite of descriptions offered by the next-door neighbours, Mr Tozer, and the manager of the Neptune Hotel—who seemed especially eager to help—and gave it to the two plain clothes men who could be spared for visits to railway stations and bus depots and taxi firms within a radius of three or four miles. The usual feats of memory were forthcoming: Hopjoys had entrained for London, Birmingham and Newcastle simultaneously with their journeys by road to Lincoln, Cambridge, Swindon and Keswick.
Sergeant Love, conscientiously but fruitlessly urging the residents of Pawson’s Lane to recall sounds of angry altercation in a house ‘over the back’, found time to present the inspector with a theory he had evolved on his own.
“This chap was in hospital fairly recently, according to Bill Malley, wasn’t he?”
“He was. A lover’s tiff, I gather—with the husband.”
“Yes, well if it was something serious he might still need treatment. You know—you hear of fellows on the run who have to nip into a doctor’s when they use up their special pills.”
