Colin Watson - The Flaxborough Crab

Brennan took a step towards the door.

Inexplicably, his foot failed to meet the ground. It seemed to have been taken in charge with quite astonishing dexterity and determination by Miss Teatime, who, slipping from his grasp, now thrust herself neatly aside so as not to impede Brennan’s floorward plunge.

The room reverberated so violently that it was some little time before the ringing of the telephone separated out as a significant sound.

Brennan lifted his head. Ponderously, he raised himself to a kneeling position.

Miss Teatime looked down at him sternly.

“You must never do that again,” she said.

The phone was ringing once more.

“Are you not going to answer it?”

Brennan got to his feet. He steadied himself against the wall and picked up the phone.

While he listened, he scowled with increasing intensity at Miss Teatime.

“Yes, I see... Did they say why?... No, I’ll come down. Tell them that. I shall be down in a moment, yes.”

Back went the receiver. The baleful stare was maintained.

“More of your stupid nonsense?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Those two policemen downstairs. They are your idea?”

“They most assuredly are not!”

Miss Teatime’s indignation had the ring of truth.

Brennan turned and hurried from the room.

Following as far as the door, Miss Teatime watched him walk swiftly to the end of the corridor and go from sight round the corner to the right. But the lift, she remembered, was on the left. He must have chosen to descend by the staircase.

She went back into the room and opened the front of the lacquered cabinet. It contained only a couple of bottles, a soda syphon and several glasses.

Two of the three drawers in the bureau were empty. In the third were hotel stationery, a pen, a map, rubber bands, an electric light bulb.

She made rapid search of the bathroom, paying special attention to a ventilator shutter and to the inside of the flushing cistern. In neither had anything been concealed. She pulled the door shut after her and went to work on the bedroom.

To the contents of the two small cupboards and the bedside locker, Miss Teatime paid only fleeting attention. She spent longer feeling between the clothing stacked with meticulous tidiness in a chest of drawers and explored the least obvious recesses within the big built-in wardrobe.

Then, as she stood by the bed, about to lift a corner of the mattress, she caught the sound of voices. At once, she slipped back into the main room.

Purbright appeared at the open door. Behind his shoulder hung the amiable, inquisitive face of Love, like a rosy moon.

“What on earth are you doing here? Where’s Brennan?”

“I presume you want an answer to the second question first. Mr Brennan left this room about three minutes ago. He said he was going down to see you.”

“Well, he didn’t. Sergeant—go and keep an eye on his car. It should be in the garage at the back. Grey Hillman, HMU-something-or-other.”

Love’s face dipped, then floated away.

“May I invite you in, inspector, on Mr Brennan’s behalf ? I cannot think he is likely to be far off.”

Purbright entered. He pushed the door nearly shut.

“And now your answer to the first question.”

“Why I am here? I came to persuade Mr Brennan of the error of his ways.”

“Which particular ways, Miss Teatime?”

“You should know, inspector. Otherwise, why should you be here yourself?”

“Ah, now you know better than to imagine that I am going to barter motives. Policemen have one great advantage, they need never account for their presence anywhere.”

“If I found one in my bath, I fancy I should be entitled to an explanation.”

“Not if he were in uniform. But you are not bathing at the moment, Miss Teatime, and I must not waste time in chat. Where is Brennan?”

Suddenly her expression changed.

“What is it you wish to question Mr Brennan about?”

“Oh, come now, Miss Teatime!”

“This is not mere inquisitiveness, and I do not mean to sound impertinent. Please tell me.”

He regarded her in silence for a moment.

“Very well. I want to ask him what he knows about an assault that took place the other night.”

“A criminal assault?”

“No. Technically, a common assault.”

She nodded. “Not a felony, then. Not an indictable offence at all. So you have no power to arrest him.”

“That’s true.”

She smiled at him slowly. “You do not much care, do you, inspector, for the exercise known as making bricks without straw.”

He, too, smiled. “Not greatly, no.”

“I may possibly be able to provide you with a little straw. Allow me to remain and we shall see.”

The door was pushed open. Brennan, accompanied by Love, entered the room. He glanced coldly at Miss Teatime, then addressed the inspector.

“I’m sorry, I was under the impression that you had arrived by the other entrance. I have been looking for you there.”

“I met the gentleman in the yard,” Love side-remarked to Purbright.

“That’s all right, Mr Brennan. The main thing is that we’ve finally managed to catch up with one another. I hadn’t really supposed”—the inspector grinned—“that you’d gone tearing off to the nearest airport or anything like that.”

Brennan responded with a brief, thin smile.

“There is a matter,” Purbright began, “about which we hope you might be able to give us some useful information, sir. We are investigating an incident in Heston Lane two evenings ago. The evening of the twelfth. A young woman was assaulted near a post box. You may know the place, sir—it’s quite near Dr Meadow’s surgery.”

“I know where the surgery is, yes.”

“Well, of course you were actually in the area not long before—as, indeed, I was myself.”

“That is true.”

“Did you happen to see or hear anything which may have a bearing on what happened to that girl?”

“No, I can’t say I did. I had no reason to be particularly observant.”

“You remember no one hanging about near the letter box?”

“I’m not sure that I’ve ever noticed a letter box in Heston Lane. In any case, I went to and from the surgery by car. I would have been watching the road at the time.”

“At what time, sir?”

“When I was coming back. About half-past six, wasn’t it, or a quarter to seven? You were there when I left the surgery.”

The inspector looked at Brennan’s suit.

“Were you wearing something else that evening, Mr Brennan? My mental picture of you has some grey in it.”

“Naturally. The suit I had on then was grey.”

“You weren’t wearing a coat, by any chance? Then—or later on?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Not a light raincoat, perhaps?”

“Now look, inspector—you said you wanted to ask me some questions. Very well, I am glad to give what information I can to help the police. But I do not care to be cross-examined. Especially in front of strangers.”

Purbright looked surprised. “This lady is a stranger to you, sir?”

“Virtually, yes. She came to see me on a matter of business.”

“But this is your room, sir. I can scarcely ask a guest of yours to leave it.”

Brennan shrugged. Miss Teatime gave him a sympathetic smile and moved over to the fireplace, where she began to examine intently a framed print of Constable’s ‘Hay Wain’.

“Now, sir, just one more question about this matter of clothes. Do you own a lightweight raincoat, very pale in colour, practically white?”

“I do not,” asserted Brennan. “Or at least”—he carefully checked the irritation in his voice—“I never wear one. There is an old coat in the car. I keep it there in case I should need to get out in the rain.”