straightforward. The biggest snag...I say, you don’t want a lot of technical stuff, do you?”
“Not if you can avoid it.”
“Right you are. I’m not awfully strong on jargon, anyway. The point is that livers don’t mend themselves like most other bits of insides, so the artificial repairs have to be permanent—that’s why they use non-soluble sutures —and they’ve got to be treated with a good deal of respect ever after.”
“I follow. Now I’ve been told that this man came out of hospital in reasonably frisky condition. Is that likely, in your opinion? Would he have been able to...well, to lift heavy weights, for instance?”
Tewkes grinned. “The only thing he’ll be lifting for a bit will be a glass, and he’d better not make too regular a habit of that, either.”
“I don’t fancy he will,” said Purbright soberly. He remained thinking awhile, then pulled open a drawer of the desk.
“You mentioned just now something you called non-soluble sutures. Would they be made of nylon?”
“I believe they are, as a rule, yes.”
“Have a look at that, will you?” The inspector placed before Tewkes the small glass tube bequeathed by Sergeant Warlock.
Tewkes held the tube to the light and squinted at the fine, yellowish-white strand it contained. “Could be, certainly. Where did you get it?”
Purbright was so pleased with Mr Tewkes that he nearly rewarded him there and then with a true and full answer. Deciding after all that really wouldn’t do, he said simply: “It was stuck in a drainpipe.”
Tewkes wrinkled up one eye. “Stuck in a...”
Purbright nodded.
“But how bloody queer!” Tewkes gazed again at the tube, turning it this way and that in his big hands. He looked up and smiled. “Go on—I’ll buy it.”
Purbright returned his grin, a little apologetically, and reached for the tube. “Sorry. The price is too high, Mr Tewkes. Far too high.”
Chapter Seventeen
“But the lounge, sergeant...the lounge! He can’t be left in the lounge!”
Sergeant Love, who was feeling by no means happy himself, found the distraught manager of the Neptune increasingly hard to bear.
“Now look, Mr Barraclough, I regret this as much as you do—perhaps more, because I feel a bit to blame— but what’s done is done. The inspector will be here very soon and he’ll make all the decisions. In the meantime everything must be left exactly as it is.”
“But it’s nearly six o’clock.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
Mr Barraclough, in his agitation, nearly retorted: “Opening time, of course,” but he just managed a more seemly formula. “Six is the licensed hour for non-residents.”
Love was unmoved. “That doesn’t matter. I’ve locked the door. Nobody’s going to get a fright.”
He sat down in a chair near the lift. From it he commanded views both of the receptionist—of her upper parts, anyway; for the moment Love found sufficient the mere memory of his earlier glimpse of those portions he had appraised, after his first surprise, as ‘snazzy’—and of the main hotel entrance.
Through that entrance at exactly a quarter past six walked Inspector Purbright, Major Ross, Pumphrey, and the county police surgeon. Behind them, an ambulance drew across the forecourt in a half circle and backed somewhere out of Love’s line of vision.
The sergeant rose and hurried up to Purbright. His face had lost a good deal of its usual expression of luminous equanimity. Purbright gave him a concerned glance. “Don’t look so woebegone, Sid; they don’t charge you just for being here.”
“I’m ever so sorry, sir, honestly...”
“Nonsense. You had nothing whatever to do with it. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. Now then...” Purbright looked about him—“I suppose we’d better view the remains. Where’d you put them?”
“I didn’t put them anywhere. They’re...he’s just sitting there in the lounge.”
Purbright took the key Love offered. He paused. “By the way, where’s the girl?”:
“She’s up in their room.”
“Upset?”
Love looked uncertain. “Well, shocked of course; she was there when it happened. But not hysterical or anything.”
Purbright beckoned the others. He unlocked the door.
On the far side of the long room, with its indigo ceiling, pearl-grey walls and scallop-backed armchairs panelled with alternate plum and yellow, sat a solitary figure. It seemed to have been waiting for them there a long, long time. Slumped a little sideways in the big, embracing chair, it stared stupidly as if just awakened from a doze.
In front of the chair was a low, kidney-shaped table bearing a tray set with a teapot, milk, sugar and two cups and saucers. One eye of the corpse seemed directed at the pot; the other fixed upon the advancing party, defying them to ask for a share in the refreshment.
