He clipped together the notes he had made and smiled down at Mr Spain.
“Perhaps we should let it ride for a few days longer. She must know that she will have to be back in time to prepare for the other people moving into the house. Of course, if she still hasn’t turned up by then we shall have to see what can be done to trace her.”
“You don’t think I’m making too much of all this? Mr Scorpe said...”
“No, you’ve been very sensible, Mr Spain. If you do think of anything else I’d be glad to hear from you straight away. Oh, and a photograph—that would be particularly helpful.”
As soon as his visitor had gone, the inspector opened a drawer of the desk and took out a folder. Inside the folder were two sheets of typescript and, attached to them, a photograph of a woman of between thirty-five and forty. He reached for a cup of half-cold tea and sipped it thoughtfully while he read first the typewritten pages and then the notes of what he had been told by the anxious butcher of Harlow Place.
Chapter Two
Whenever Inspector Purbright was faced with a seemingly intractable problem, he took it to the chief constable, Mr Harcourt Chubb. For one thing, it was only proper, professionally, that he should. “The correct channels” were much revered by Mr Chubb and as long as he believed his subordinates were sailing them he could be relied upon to keep safely on shore.
The other reason for consultation—and again aquatic simile is useful—was that the chief constable had the sort of mind which, because it was so static, aided reflection. By dropping facts, like pebbles, into it and watching the ripples of pretended sapience spread over its calm surface, Purbright was enabled somehow to form ideas that might not otherwise have occurred to him.
So, when the final day of Mrs Bannister’s legal occupancy of her house had brought no sign of the missing vendor, Purbright took himself to the chief constable’s office.
This was a large, cool room, the rather grand fireplace of which had been preserved as a suitable leaning place for Mr Chubb. The chief constable had never been known, save in the most intimate domestic circumstances, to sit down.
“I’m afraid, sir,” Purbright began, “that another lady has disappeared.”
Mr Chubb frowned. The connotation of “another” eluded him and he felt rather guilty about it.
“You’d better have a chair, Mr Purbright. That’s right. Now what have you come to tell me?”
Purbright recounted Mr Spain’s story, together with what he had been able to learn himself during the past few days of Mrs Bannister’s history and associations. This amounted to very little.
“The last that anything was seen of the woman seems to have been around the end of last month. A window cleaner remembers calling and getting paid. He’s been twice since then and he has the impression that everything in the rooms has stayed exactly as it was.”
“You mean he looks in?” Mr Chubb made it sound like an aberration.
“He’s a very perceptive window cleaner, sir.” Purbright did not think it necessary to add that the man was a notable opportunist, too, being reputed to carry a mattress in his van for the accommodation of conquests.
“You’ve checked the hospitals, I suppose?”
“We did that last week. And Sergeant Love has covered the travel agencies. I’m having the woman’s picture circulated and we’re making inquiries at the railway and bus stations. Just as we did for Martha Reckitt.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mr Chubb. He was relieved of his fear that Purbright was going to leave him cluelessly clutching for the implications of that “another”.
“We didn’t get very far with that, Mr Purbright, did we?”
“We didn’t get anywhere.”
“No.” Mr Chubb stroked his cheek and directed his sad, elder statesman gaze out of the window.
Purbright waited a moment and said: “You’ll have spotted the rather interesting parallels between the two cases.”
“Parallels. Yes...”
“Both about the same age. Both rather retiring, without close friends, lonely perhaps. One a spinster—I use the word technically, sir; it’s not one I like—and the other a widow...”
“I don’t like that one either,” broke in Mr Chubb gamely. “Weeds.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Quite. What I’m getting at, though, is that perhaps the most significant thing they had in common—apart from some ready money—was availability.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Mr Purbright. I would have thought them both pretty moral, from what you say. Martha especially; her mother was a very decent soul.”
“I mean matrimonially available.”
Mr Chubb nodded. “I’m with you. Go on.”
“A woman who keeps a reputation for respectability in Flaxborough for forty years is not easily lured. I mean, she isn’t going to run off with the first man who knocks on the door and tells her he wants her to do some modelling. She would need to be offered a solid proposition, however romantic the trimmings. You will say that lust seethes within the most maidenly bosom”—none knew better than Purbright that Mr Chubb would say nothing of the sort—“and you will be right. But always there is this prime regard to security.”
“You talk of luring. We don’t really know about that, though, do we?”
“The only alternative is that Miss Reckitt and Mrs Bannister went off on their own initiative, without a word to anybody, leaving their belongings and obligations.”
