One of the two policemen, in deference to those parts of Miss Pollock displayed through the tear in her dress, ushered her to the car.
The other officer went round asking questions. He received the eager undertaking of the sole witness—Mrs Crunkinghorn—to accompany him back to the police station and there describe what had happened.
At ten minutes to four, a procession set off on the return journey to Flaxborough.
It was led by the ambulance. Then came the coach carrying the Darbys and Joans and the helpers and the crate of light ale, unbroached and all but forgotten. In the police car behind, one officer had shifted to the back seat in the company of Miss Pollock so that Mrs Crunkinghorn might enjoy the high spot of her outing—a silent but triumphant homecoming beside the driver.
On reaching town, the three vehicles broke formation and went their separate ways, the ambulance to the mortuary at the General Hospital, the coach to its occupants’ club in Trent Street, and the car to police headquarters, where Inspector Purbright and the Coroner’s Officer, Sergeant William Malley, were waiting to see what they could make of the stories of its passengers.
In respect for her age, and on the assumption that she would be anxious to get home and rest after the day’s excitement, Mrs Crunkinghorn was interviewed first. Meanwhile, Policewoman Bellweather found a raincoat to cover the deficiencies of Miss Pollock’s clothing and a mug of tea to restore her spirits.
The inspector soon learned how mistaken had been his expectation of a frail, distressed and inarticulate octagenarian. Mrs Crunkinghorn’s description of what she had seen on the sky-line in Gosby Vale had all the colour and fervour of a racing commentary. Purbright was impressed, if a trifle dazed.
He asked her to repeat what she had said about the late alderman’s unorthodox manner of pursuit.
“Sideways,” she declared again. “Sideways wuz ’ow ’e wuz bowlin’ along. Until ’is legs’ got all raffled up. Then over ’e went, arse over tit! I never seen the like, never. Arse over tit, ’ewent! Pwosh!”
“It is very tempting,” Purbright said to Sergeant Malley when the old woman had departed after laboriously scrawling her name at the bottom of the statement typed by Malley, “to conclude from this that the Flaxborough Crab, so called, is no more.”
Malley stroked one of his chins and wheezed reflectively.
“Aye,” he said. “It certainly looks like it.”
“He’s been a singularly busy man, has our Steve. They tell me he was on fifteen committees.”
The sergeant inflated plump cheeks and shook his head in wonder.
“Sunday school superintendent. Old people’s welfare visitor. Magistrate..”
“Governor of the Grammar School,” Malley supplied.
“Lifeboat Fund president.”
“Chairman of that television clean-up thing...”
For a while, both men sat in awed contemplation of the late alderman’s multiplicity of office and honour.
“I wonder,” said Purbright at last, “what set the old bugger off on this lark all of a sudden. Surely not Miss Pollock?”
Malley shuddered. He sighed and went to the door.
Miss Pollock made her entrance with as much dignity as was possible within the folds of a garment so over- long for her that its hem swept the floor. With her hat still jammed in straight and stern bisection of her forehead, she looked like a helmeted and caped member of a decontamination squad.
At Purbright’s invitation, she perched herself grimly on the edge of a chair. Invisible behind the spare yards of raincoat, her little pointed feet dangled three inches from the floor.
The inspector spoke gently.
“This is a very sad and upsetting affair, Miss Pollock, and I’m sorry that you should be put to the trouble of answering questions so soon afterwards. I am sure you understand, though, that the coroner will have to have a clear picture of what happened, and that it will be best to try and put it together straight away.”
“Yes, I see that, of course.” Her voice was firmer, and colder, than Purbright had expected.
“We have heard,” he went on, “something of the events of this afternoon from the old lady who saw your...your predicament from where she was sitting some forty or fifty yards away. She could not tell us, of course, why you appeared to be running away from Mr Winge, nor for what reason he seemed to be chasing you.”
Ignoring the implicit question, Miss Pollock stared at him blankly.
“Perhaps,” said Purbright, “you could help us with those points.”
Her gaze moved to the window.
“I ran because I was alarmed by Mr Winge’s behaviour. It was quite inexplicable.”
Malley, who liked his witnesses’ depositions to be chronologically straightforward, put in: “Before you say anything about that, Miss Pollock, I’d just like to be clear as to where you both were and what you were doing.”
The inspector nodded.
“We were in a small wood—a spinney, I suppose you might call it—in the far corner of the field.”
“Close against the reservoir?”
“Yes. You see, we had set the old folk off on a game of hide-and-seek, and...”
“Hide-and-
