The fire kept in till dawn. Twice I put the radio on. A stupid woman was trying to be crisply incisive about domestic problems that really needed a kick up the backside instead of a psychiatrist. I told her my opinion in no uncertain terms and switched her off. Later I heard the television news about some Middle East catastrophe and switched that off as well. I managed half a cup of tea about midnight. My coal ran out about five-ish the next morning.
I cut up a piece of bread and some Wensleydale cheese to feed the robin. It was down to me within seconds, shooing competitors away from the door. You can't help waiting to see if they do different things from what you expect, or if they'll do exactly the same as they've done for years. In either case you're never disappointed.
'Sheila used to say I was too soft with you, Rob,' I said to the robin. He came on my arm for his cheese. 'You'll forget how to go marauding, she says-said.' But that can't be bad, was my standard reply to her when she said that. If that's the worst we got up to, the world wouldn't be in such a mess. She'd insist the robin ought to go hunting worms to mangle them in the most unspeakable way because it was naturally what they did in searching for food. My cheese-feeding policy must pay off eventually, though, if you think about it. If you're crammed full of cake and cheese you can't fancy too many worms for at least an hour or two, can you? 'Anyway, cheese is good for teeth and bones,' I said to her. 'You're foolish, Lovejoy,' she used to say, falling about laughing. 'Robins don't have a tooth between them.' I used to say, So what, they'd got bones. It was a stupid argument, but she would never see sense.
Any sort of hunting is only very rarely necessary, it's always seemed to me. When the robin had surely eaten enough I scattered the remainder about on the path near the Armstrong for the sparrows and the big browny-black birds to share. Even so the robin wouldn't have any peace. He flew at them, making stabs with his beak and generally defending the crumbs against all comers. You can't help admiring a bird like that. I wondered if he was more of a hunter than I thought, but decided to stick to my pacification policy anyway. You have to stand by your theories because they're for that, otherwise there's no sense in making them up.
I left them all to it and rang Geoffrey.
'For God's sake,' he said dozily. 'Look at the time.'
'Did Sheila's handbag turn up?' I asked him as he strove to orient himself. He didn't know. I said to find out and let me know or I'd pester the life out of him. It took twenty minutes for him to ring back.
'She didn't have a handbag with her, your young lady,' he reported.
'Then how,' I asked evenly, 'did they know to get in touch with me?'
'The station police. They asked… other passengers to try to recognize…'
I suppressed the terrible desire to imagine rush-hour queues being invited to file past.
'I suppose one of her workmates—'
'Eventually.' Geoffrey was not enjoying this. 'They went to her home. Your address was on the back of your photograph.'
'Ta.' I rang off, but he was back on the blower instantly.
'Lovejoy, anything up as well as this?'
'Clever old bobbies should mind their own business,' I said, clicking him off.
I knew exactly what he would do. He'd sniff about the village uneasily for a day, then come around to pop the question, What was I up to? and warning me not to do anything silly. The answer he'd get would be a sort of mystified innocence: 'But what on earth do you mean, Constable?' straight out of amateur rep, which would gall him still further.
You can't trust the law. Anybody in business will tell you that. As for me, the law is a consideration to be strictly avoided. Never mingle with it. If it's there in force, bow your head, agree like you meant it, and scarper. Then when it's gone for the moment, carry on as normal. It's not for people. I wonder where it all comes from sometimes. Think of it like weather; keep an eye on it and take sensible precautions when it proves intrusive.
The dawn had come. I stood at the door smoking a cigar. Red sky, streaks of crimson against blue and white. It was really average. You get the same blue-on-cream in those Portuguese vases, quite nice. I couldn't finish my smoke. The robin was singing, rolling up his feathery sleeves for the day's battles.
Indoors I ran a bath, thinking, This is where I clouted Sheila that time Tinker rang up about Field. I would do my favorite breakfast, fried cheese in margarine and an apple cut into three and fried in the same pan. Three slices of bread. Tea. Heaven knows how, but I managed to eat it all, with the radio going on about politics and me trying to sing with the interlude music like a fool. I banged the dishes with a spoon, pretending I was a drummer in a band. Don't people do daft things?
I'd never forget my alarm again. The doors locked, I repaired the window. Outside I ran some meshwire around the edge and put new bolts on the inside of all the windows. The day promised fine with a watery sun.
The bath water had cooled enough by the time that job was done. I soaked, working out my chain of suppositions.
Suppose somebody had killed Eric Field for the Judas pair. Suppose then he had learned that I'd managed to pick up the one possible gadget missing from the most costly unique set of Sinters the antique world could ever dream of—a small case-hardened instrument with all the features of a Durs accessory. It had after all been probably chucked into the apothecary box from ignorance to up that particular crummy article's price, so it was definitely a hangover from Seddon's sale of Eric Field's effects. Continuing the idea, suppose then he'd seen me come from Seddon's, followed me here to the cottage. He'd have seen me give Sheila the instrument by the war memorial, seen her put it in her handbag. And the town war memorial's as private as Eros in Piccadilly. Adrian and Jane had passed, Muriel and her tame priest were there. It could be anybody, he or she, seen or unseen.
Maybe he'd waited outside all night.
Then, seeing us depart, he'd broken in, searching, failed to find the Durs instrument, taken the carriage clock as a blind, and, seeing Sheila's letters, guessed wrongly that she still had the instrument in her handbag. Perhaps he'd assumed I realized its importance and was too worried to have it about. So he'd sprinted off to London after her and pushed her under the train when perhaps she'd suddenly realized he was stealing her handbag. Or he'd just pushed her, and in the subsequent uproar picked up her handbag, escaping because of our splendid public's tradition of keeping out of trouble. Now she was dead. I had to say it, dead.
It was heavy in my hand, bulbous in my palm. It could have been a straight screwdriver except that it bent at right angles about the middle of the shaft. Two additional flanges served to catch on some projection, perhaps near
