Peter Lovesey - Mad Hatter

Guy was wearing his red blazer. ‘I thought we were taking lunch alone,’ he told his father, with the merest glance at Cribb, who had stood to receive him.

‘Mr. Cribb, this is my elder son, Guy.’

Cribb extended his hand. Guy produced his snuff and charged each nostril, ignoring the sergeant.

‘Mr. Cribb met me in Brill’s-‘ ‘In circumstances too embarrassing to recall,’ said Cribb, putting down his hand. ‘I’m standing the lunch. Order whatever you wish.’

In a few minutes they were all busy with soup-spoons.

‘Have you left school?’ Cribb inquired conversationally.

‘Ask him,’ said Guy.

‘It’s a sensitive point at the moment,’ Prothero explained. ‘Guy has left one school and is about to start at another.’

‘A boarding establishment?’

‘Yes. This is by way of a farewell holiday. He starts in two weeks.’

‘Where is the school?’

‘He won’t tell you where it is while I’m here,’ Guy informed Cribb, ignoring his father. ‘He doesn’t want me to know. I’m treated no better than Jason. I’ll have a sirloin steak next, cooked rare. It’s probably in the Outer Hebrides.’

‘Guy has a well-developed sense of humour which does not endear him to schoolmasters,’ said Prothero. ‘Or his family, on occasions.’

‘It’s true!’ said Guy. ‘When have you ever treated me with anything but suspicion? You’re fearful all the time that I’ll embarrass you and your quack theories. I can’t even come on holiday without being forbidden to bathe in the sea because you think it’s teeming with typhoid germs.’

‘My quack theories, as you term them, are supported by a substantial correspondence in The Lancet , my boy,’ retorted Prothero. ‘Any other lad in your condition would be grateful that he had a doctor for a father. He suffers from asthma, you know,’ he added, for Cribb’s information, ‘and I have made the disease my life’s work. Don’t so lightly dismiss the efforts I have made to alleviate your attacks, Guy.’

‘How can I, when I have a bruise on my arm as big as half a crown to remind me? That’s a father’s loving care for you. I began to wheeze a bit on Sunday,’ Guy told Cribb, ‘so he gave me an injection of atropine. He might be a specialist on asthma, but he handles the needle like a punt-pole.’

‘How long do you expect to be in Brighton, Mr. Cribb?’ asked Prothero, in a way that indicated that so far as he was concerned the insults had gone far enough.

‘Oh, as long as my business detains me.’

Guy turned sharply and looked at Cribb and then turned back to his father. ‘What did you say his name was?’ he asked.

‘I told you,’ said Prothero with a glare. ‘This is Mr. Cribb.’

‘I thought that was it! And you’ve only been in the town a day or two? You’re the man from Scotland Yard, aren’t you?’ demanded Guy triumphantly. ‘Investigating the body they dug up on the beach. I’ve read it in The Argus. What do they call you- Inspector Cribb?’

‘Sergeant only, I’m afraid.’

‘You’d better watch out, Father. Sergeant Cribb’s looking for a murderer. Better get home quick and pour your poisons down the wash basin. Business! You’re a fly one, Sergeant Cribb, aren’t you?’

‘It’s never been the custom of detectives to give cards to everyone they meet,’ said Cribb, matching the sarcasm. ‘Perhaps you think I should give you an account, item by item, of what we uncovered the other morning. It’s not my notion of lunch time conversation, but if you can enjoy a slice of sirloin at the same time, I’m sure I can. What would you like to know? Ah, here’s the waiter. Are we all for steak, gentlemen?’

‘I think the soup was quite sufficient,’ said Prothero, palely.

‘What about your son?’

Guy shook his head. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’ll have a cold collation later.’

‘Steak for one, then. Well done, if you please,’ said Cribb. ‘As it happens, gentlemen, it’s the victim I’m concerned to identify. I’ll find my murderer later. I want to know who the unfortunate woman was. There isn’t much to go on, you see. Dark hair. Age about thirty. Small to medium height. Slim in build. Wearing a sealskin jacket and black skirt. Could be every other woman you pass in the street. That’s why I have to know about women who haven’t been seen in the town since Saturday-for whatever reason. It’s my job to investigate every report.’

Prothero frowned. ‘Am I to infer that you are concerned for the safety of my wife?’

‘Yes, sir, since I have it on quite good authority that she hasn’t been seen in Brighton since Saturday.’

There was a moment’s uneasy silence.

‘Your wife didn’t accompany you to the ball,’ Cribb added as if to strengthen the point.

The colour rose in the doctor’s cheeks. ‘I told you. She doesn’t go out in the evening. She was in one piece on Sunday, dammit, and if you’d asked me in the first place I could have told you so.’

‘You accompanied her to the station on Sunday morning?’

‘Er-no. They took a cab.’

‘Your wife, the maid Bridget and Jason?’

‘Good God, man! Do you even know the name of my servant?’

‘Did the three of them travel together, sir?’ persisted Cribb.

‘Naturally.’

‘You saw them leave?’

‘Of course! After a late breakfast. They would have caught the half past eleven train. If the change at Horsham didn’t delay them, they must have been home by one.’

‘That’s good news, then,’ said Cribb, leaning back in his seat as the steak was placed in front of him. ‘Would you be so kind as to pass the French mustard? Whoever this young woman was, she was killed on Saturday night. Not far from your hotel, so you can understand my concern.’

‘There were scores of men and women on the front that night,’ Guy suddenly said. ‘It was the firework show. I saw them from the hotel window. I expect a soldier got too much drink inside him and killed the doxy he was with. Then he dragged her into one of the lock-ups under the arches and left her until the next night, then he came back and set to work with the cleaver. There! I’ve solved the case for you.’

‘It’s one possibility,’ said Cribb, without much gratitude. ‘You say you watched the fireworks from the hotel. Were you with your stepmother?’

‘She was asleep,’ Prothero stated confidently.

‘No, Father. She got up to watch the fireworks.’

‘But she had taken her usual sleeping draught.’

‘I think not. We watched the show together from your bedroom. She would tell you herself if she were here. I went out on the balcony for a time, but she was wearing her peignoir, so she remained inside.’

‘The suite overlooks the front, I gather,’ said Cribb.

‘That’s so,’ Prothero confirmed. ‘My wife and I have a double room with a balcony, the best in the hotel. Jason sleeps next door-or did until Sunday-with Bridget, and their window looks on to the sea, too. Guy is on the other side of the building, across the corridor. The boy’s right, Mr.

Cribb. There are always people along the front at night, and on the beach. Soldiers, sailors, silly little sluts of shop-girls and females of a certain profession. They don’t go there just to promenade, I promise you. Brighton is not all it seems by day in the King’s Road, you know. One has only to see the colonnade of the Theatre Royal between eleven and midnight- a veritable Gomorrah. The women of the town flock there from their sordid houses of assignation in Church Street and Edward Street and some do not even have the decency to take their clients back there. The Pavilion grounds aren’t fit to walk through by night, and you may ask your friends at Brighton police station to verify that, if you wish.’