Colin Watson - The Flaxborough Crab

“Aren’t you, sir?”

“Oh, certainly—so long as you are convinced that poor Winge was responsible for all those unfortunate incidents.”

“I think there can be no reasonable doubt, sir. The behaviour pattern was identical in every case.”

“You don’t think you ought to check back, as it were? Check each incident, I mean, against Winge’s availability at the time?”

Purbright recognized in the suggestion one of those fairly rare instances of Mr Chubb’s choosing to show himself much more intelligent than most people thought. Nevertheless, he shook his head.

“The man will not be accused officially of any of these things, sir, so there is no question of a miscarriage of justice. In any case, reluctance to speak ill of the dead is very strong in a place like Flaxborough—as you must have noticed yourself, sir. Loyalty of that kind does tend to make memories somewhat unreliable.”

The Chief Constable, Rotarianly sensible of what Purbright was getting at, made no comment.

“Even the living are spared on occasion,” Purbright added. “You may remember, sir, what the girl Brenda Sweeting said about the man who attacked her. She was sure that Dr Meadow could have identified him. I think so, too. I think he recognized Alderman Winge, an old and valuable patient, whom he let go and pretended later not to have seen.”

“Ah, but we cannot make an accusation of that kind, Mr Purbright. Not without incontrovertible proof. Compounding a felony... Well, I mean that is what it would amount to.”

“Yes, it would, sir,” said Purbright, simply. “And I don’t think it’s too harsh a name for behaviour that was calculated to put more women in danger.”

“Perhaps it is as well,” said Mr Chubb, after some thought, “that things took the turn they did. Strange, how these little mishaps sometimes prove to be blessings in disguise.”

The inspector rose. “If there’s nothing else, sir...”

“No, nothing. Thank you very much.”

When Purbright had gone, the Chief Constable sighed and picked up his hat and gloves. Inquests somehow left a musty smell about the place, even in his own cool and quiet office. An hour’s gardening before tea would be rather nice. He put on his hat and gave it a pat in the very middle of its crown. Yes. One hour. Just what the doctor ordered.

The inspector, too, went home earlier than usual. He was not a gardening man, or at least, not compulsively so, but he felt he had earned a little extra leisure.

So did Sergeant Love. He left the police station five minutes before six o’clock and treated himself to a good long look into every shop window on the way home, in particular that of Kumfihomes, on South Gate, where bedroom suites sang siren songs of the Good Life.

Sergeant Malley, for once not having old Albert Amblesby to dispose of, cleared up in record time such matters as filing depositions, obtaining a burial certificate for the undertaker, and reminding the deputy coroner to shell out Dr Heineman’s fee. By half-past five, he was watching with keen anticipation the slicing of six ounces of home-cured ham that he was buying from ‘Trotter’ Hamble’s in Cromwell Lane to take home for his tea.

Celebration, in fact, was in the air. Nothing wild, nothing that would have offended the high moral principles of the man whose demise had occasioned it. It was simply a sense of sober satisfaction in the solution of a mystery and the abatement of a dangerous nuisance. Rarely enough are policemen the beneficiaries of the strokes of fate. They generally have to clear up after them. But here, everyone agreed, was one little providential side-swipe that had saved them a lot of trouble.

That night, detectives Pook and Harper, constables Wilkinson and Burke, and their comrades of the Crab-catching Patrol, all slept thankfully and well.

And to an unmarried schoolteacher, alone in the bedroom of her bungalow in Darlington Gardens, there appeared—but not in a vision—a man of mature years who wore no trousers. She dropped her book, screamed, and leaped out of bed to close the curtains. Reaching the window, she saw that the man was already in flight across the lawn. He scuttled towards the back gate in a singularly ungainly manner and disappeared sideways into the lane beyond. A moment later, she heard the starting of a car engine. As she went round the house satisfying herself that all its doors and windows were secure, she wondered if she should dress and telephone the police from the call-box at the end of the road. It seemed pointless now. Instead, she made a cup of hot malted milk, went back to bed, and stayed stubbornly awake until dawn. At half-past nine, she rang the inquiries bell at Fen Street police headquarters and asked by name for Inspector Purbright, whom she once had met, and rather liked, at a school sports day.

He welcomed her with a warmth that was occasioned as much by his still lively appreciation of Alderman Winge’s co-operative departure as by the sight of an attractive and sensible-looking young woman.

That was before he heard what she had come to tell.

Even as her story unfolded, he tried to persuade himself that here was some maidenly delusion, born of classroom anxieties and stimulated by wishful thinking. Then he recalled that the schools were on holiday and that, in any case, the desires of so presentable and self-assured a girl were hardly likely to fasten upon an untrousered ancient. No, what she was describing had unquestionably occurred.

A freakish coincidence, then? An isolated event, quite unrelated to the spate of attacks with which the late alderman had so confidently been credited? One could but hope.

But then came the girl’s clearly drawn picture of that now all-too-familiar locomotion of flight—disjointed, crazy, crab-like. Purbright groaned inwardly and surrendered to the facts.

Unless it was the ghost of Alderman Winge that had tumbled across a lawn and driven away by car, the police were now faced with the awesome probability of having to capture not one Flaxborough Crab, but several. And there was not a worthwhile clue to the identity of any of them. Not even the Chief Constable, Purbright reflected, could be so madly sanguine as to expect them all to plunge into a reservoir.

He thanked his caller, tried to give her the assurance, that he was so far from feeling himself, and saw her out. Then he descended to the C.I.D. room with the intention of breaking the bad news to Love.

Love, though, had troubles already. They were being unloaded by a small, dark-eyed, elderly woman with an expression of resolute gloom. From the sergeant’s loud articulation, Purbright judged her to be somewhat deaf.

Spotting the inspector’s diffident approach, Love introduced the woman as Mrs Grope.

“The lady is having trou-ble with her hus-band,” he explained at unnecessary volume.

“Oh, yes?”

Mrs Grope seized Purbright’s sleeve. “I’m having trouble with Mr Grope.”

“What sort of trouble, madam?”

She looked inquiringly at Love, as if asking him to waive copyright.

“It seems he’s been pestering her a bit lately,” said the sergeant.

Mrs Grope nodded. “He’s forever on about his conjuggling rights. That’s not like Mr Grope. It’s not his way. I don’t know what’s come over him.”

“If you mean what I think you mean, Mrs Grope, I really don’t think this is a matter in which it would be right for the police to interfere. What did you have in mind to ask us to do?”

“Well, he’s taking something, you see.”

Love again intervened.

“She says her husband is taking some sort of a herbal mixture. She thinks it’s having an effect on him.”

“It’s herbs,” said Mrs Grope. “I’ve brought along a packet for you to look at.”