“Will that suit you?” Booker asked.
“Well, it’s eighty-five guineas, actually. There’s been quite a lot of...”
“It will be waiting for you when you get back to London tomorrow.”
Again Hive hesitated. Purbright swore to himself. The man was hopeless, absolutely hope...
“No.”
It was Mr Hive’s voice, suddenly firm and challenging.
“No, I am not going to be paid off like a taxi-driver. I consider that you owe me an explanation.”
“Of what?”
“Of, of...yes, all right, then—of this wretched woman’s murder!”
Purbright gripped the phone close to his ear while he delved urgently with his free hand for paper and pencil. For what seemed a long time after he had found them, there came to him nothing but background sounds from the echoing corridors of the school.
Then the cold, restrained voice of Booker.
“This conversation is becoming a little too foolish to be continued over the telephone. I think you’d better come over here. Straight away, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Hello...” said Mr Hive, several times. There was no answer.
Chapter Sixteen
Om his return to Miss Teatime’s office, Purbright found Mr Hive in a mood approaching elation.
“Ah, my dear Inspector! Did you hear that?” A sweeping gesture indicated the phone. “We are to beard him in his den!”
“I don’t wish to discourage you, Mr Hive, but you must not expect too much from this interview. Booker strikes me as a very circumspect gentleman.”
“That is exactly what I have been trying to tell him, Mr Purbright,” said Miss Teatime, who was gathering together the cups and saucers. “He is also very resourceful.” She caught the inspector’s eye and gave him a private little head-shake. Purbright saw that it was meant as an appeal for Mr Hive’s protection.
“One thing must be understood,” Purbright said to Mr Hive. “In your own interests, you must avoid provoking this man too rashly. I shall keep as close to you as I can without arousing his suspicion. If he incriminates himself in my hearing, well and good. But for heaven’s sake don’t drive him into making an attack on you or anything like that.”
Hive smiled. “My dear chap, this is no time for boasting, but if you think I have never before faced danger you are sadly mistaken. I have collected my fair share of honourable scars, as Lucy here will tell you.”
“I will tell the inspector nothing of the sort, Mortimer. Neither bedroom nor bar-room wounds qualify for medals in this country, and even those have long since healed in your case. It is only your juvenile exuberance that is undiminished, and I am afraid that it will get you into trouble.”
“Heavens above, woman! Would you have me grow old?” Hive threw back his shoulders. “I am a soldier of fortune, and justice”—he glanced winningly at Purbright—“is my new captain! Have I not just given up eighty-five guineas for him?”
Suddenly he looked serious. “Do you suppose the court will recompense me for that? I mean, it is a legitimate fee, you know.”
“There’s nothing to stop you suing the estate of a convicted felon, so far as I know,” said Purbright.
Mr Hive looked dubious. “It would be rather like kicking a man when he was down, wouldn’t it? Those unspeakable bloody lawyers would get it, anyway.” He shrugged and took up his coat from the back of the chair.
As the two men were leaving, Miss Teatime touched Hive’s sleeve. She looked at him earnestly.
“Now, Mortimer—none of this Rupert of Hentzau nonsense. You promise?”
Hive closed his eyes and for a moment of self-dedication held his hat against his breast. Then he twirled about and in three long, springing strides reached the door, which Purbright was holding open for him.
They evolved their plan on the way to the school. Hive was to enter first, on his own. From a shop doorway opposite the school gates, Purbright would be able to keep him under observation while he walked up a short carriageway and through glass doors into the entrance hall. There he was to wait for Booker. In the hall were the doors of two, perhaps three, small interview rooms, and the inspector thought that one or other of these rooms would almost certainly be Booker’s choice for a private talk. The staff room he obviously would avoid, as he would the headmaster’s study; and the various offices and storerooms were likely to be locked. Once Purbright had noted through which door Booker had taken his visitor, he would follow and do what he could to hear what was said.
Hive’s final eager embellishment of these arrangements was his suggestion that he should pretend to be slightly deaf. “That will make him speak up, you see.”
Purbright stood well back in his refuge, a space between the two display windows of a greengrocer and florist, and watched Hive step jauntily through the school’s gateway and up to the main entrance. One of the big plate-glass doors swung inwards and turned for an instant into a sheet of orange flame as it sent back the reflection of the evening sun.
Remaining all the time within sight, Hive first made a tour of inspection. He looked at some pictures on the walls, glanced at all the doors in turn, and spent some time inspecting a display of pottery, docketed with pupils’ names, on a low table. He sat on a chair, nursed his knee, scratched his head, got up again, stretched. He walked slowly in a circle, head down, hands clasped behind; then took a turn in the opposite direction, head up, hands in pockets.
Where the hell was Booker? Purbright gazed across at as many windows as were within range. The school
