Colin Watson - Hopjoy Was Here

“You don’t sound too certain.”

Purbright smiled. “That’s just my parochialism; we like to think our crimes are home grown.”

“Even murders?”

“Murders especially.”

“And in this case...”

“In this case, Mr Warlock, I must beg you not to try and relieve me of confidences, however much I deplore having them thrust upon me. The fact of murder has yet to be established. That is why you are here.”

“Leave it to me, squire. Any pointers?” Again Warlock was the eager handyman.

“There are one or two things we’ve noticed. I’ll show them to you now.”

As the two men were about to leave the room, Sergeant Love’s shining face appeared in the doorway. “They’ve started, sir. There was a spade in the garage.” He glanced over at the garden door and added approvingly: “This rain’s just come at the right time to soften things up a bit for them.”

“It’s as well, then,” Purbright said to Warlock, “that I had that drain emptied. A heavy shower would have flushed it.” He stepped into the narrow, carpeted passage and walked to the foot of the stairs near the front door.

“Drain?”

“Yes. It’s all nicely bottled for you. The stuff from the bathroom, you know.”

“Bathwater, do you mean?”

Purbright winced. “Good Lord, no. I mean Mr Periam—or Mr Hopjoy. In solution.”

Chapter Two

Warlock surveyed the bathroom with the tense incredulity of a curator viewing empty picture frames after a burglary.

“I’m sorry if we’ve been a bit impetuous,” said Purbright, just behind him. “The Chief Constable was anxious to have the prize exhibit kept somewhere safe. It’s over at our place; you can see it whenever you like.”

“Yes, but prints...”

“Oh, don’t worry, we collected what there were of those before the plumber was set loose. In any case, he was told to touch nothing but the pipes.”

Warlock looked far from reassured but he stepped forward into the centre of the floor to make room for the inspector to stand beside him.

Purbright pointed to the wall opposite the dusty, water-stained rectangle from which the bath had been taken. It bore a number of tiny splashes, dark brown against the green distemper which ran from the white half-tiling to the ceiling. The group of marks was at Warlock’s head level. He gave it close, rapidly ranging scrutiny, like a short-sighted man reading a telegram, then briskly he turned to Purbright. “And the next, squire?”

“Down here...and here...” With his foot Purbright indicated two points at which the grey linoleum was just perceptibly stained. Immediately, Warlock was down on his knees. “Could be,” he said. “There’s been some wiping up, though.”

By what seemed effortless levitation Warlock stood up and looked expectantly at Purbright once more.

Purbright resisted the temptation to confess aloud that he was beginning to feel like the feed man in some bizarre variety turn. Quietly he went to the small mirror-fronted cabinet above the wash-basin and opened its door. “We found this tucked away in the corner under the bath. It’s all right; nobody’s handled it.”

Warlock leaned over the wash-basin and stared at the hammer lying on a sheet of stiff card in the lower compartment of the cabinet. It was an ordinary household hammer, weighing perhaps a little over a pound. He withdrew it carefully, using the cardboard as a tray.

In the light from the window the fore part of the hammer head looked brownly varnished. A few hairs clung to it.

Warlock drew in his lips and released them with a popping noise. “So much for the do-it-yourself kit”—he replaced the hammer in the cabinet—“but what about the job it was used for?” He glanced again at the wall splashes and turned to Purbright.

“I’m afraid that’s not going to be so easy to answer just at the moment. Come here a minute.”

The inspector stepped to the space where the bath had stood. He bent down and pointed to a black circle, about half an inch across. Joining him, Warlock saw that the mark was actually a shallow depression, charred but sticky. The linoleum and part of the board beneath had been burned away.

“He was certainly tidy. That’s the only drop he spilled.” Purbright rubbed his chin gloomily. “I wonder what he felt like when he pulled the plug and heard his pal going down the pipe with that awful ghwelphing noise.”

Undaunted by this speculation, Warlock touched the blackened indentation daintily with his little finger, which he then sniffed at and promptly rinsed under the wash-basin tap.

“Sulphuric, I imagine,” said Warlock, connoisseur-like. “He’d have needed a fairish drop. Have you any hopes of tracing where he got it from?”

“We can but try. It seems rather much to hope that he collected it pint by pint from a local chemist’s, though. How would one go about laying in, what—several gallons?—of concentrated sulphuric acid? It’s not a problem I’m familiar with.”

“The commercial stuff’s what you’d want,” Warlock explained. “There’s tons of it going out every day to manufacturers, processing plants, garages, that sort of thing. Industrial chemists are the people: they’d fix you up.”

“But surely they don’t run a home delivery service, like paraffin or soft drinks.”

Warlock made one of his impatient, energetic arm gestures. “What did you say this fellow did for a living—Perry, was it?”

“Periam. He’s a tobacconist.”

“No, the other one, then.”

“Hopjoy?”

“The traveller, yes. What was it you said his line was?”

“Pharmaceuticals...” Purbright nodded thoughtfully. “I see what you mean.” With something less than enthusiasm, he added: “We’ll go into that, of course.”

Warlock sensed that he had wandered again a little too close to some preserve of which the inspector had been appointed an unwilling custodian. The man Hopjoy, it was clear, had a special and secret status. A by-blow of royalty? A relative of the Chief Constable? Warlock was not seriously bothered. Outside the world of fingerprints and fibre strands, which absorbed his considerable dynamism, he was incurious.

He switched back to his own field. “You’ve seen the bath?”

“I have, yes.”

“So must I. There would have been problems. I’ll be interested to find out how he managed them.”

“Because of the acid, you mean.”

“Certainly. It takes some withstanding. Heavy enamel might do it, but there’d need to be no scratches or chips. A rubber plug would serve. What about the plug seating, though? That’s always metal; it would go in no time. Chain, too...” Warlock enumerated the snags zestfully, like a surgeon counting tumours.

“All that,” Purbright interrupted, “was taken care of. I’ll show you when we go downstairs. Is there anything else you want to see here?”

Warlock gave a final deprecatory glance at the twisted, sealed-off plumbing, peered briefly into an empty airing cupboard, then went again to the cabinet. He looked at the jars and packets on the single shelf above the hammer. They included one of the less inhibited after-shave lotions, a box labelled ‘Friar Martin’s Herbal Blood-purifying Lozenges’, a lid-less tin of rather dusty first-aid dressings, a jar of Riding Master Hand Salve (Cherrywood) and another of anti-scurf ointment, two boxes of laxative pills and a plastic dispenser of Man-about-Town Body Acid Neutralizer (Apple Loft).

“An essay in divergent personalities,” murmured the inspector over Warlock’s shoulder.

Warlock gingerly shifted one or two of the jars aside. He craned to see the back of the shelf. “No sign of shaving kit. Did those boys have beards?”

“There’s an electric razor in the bureau thing downstairs. I imagine that would go with Riding Master and Man-about-Town. The herbal lozenge addict would be a soaper and scraper.”