Colin Watson - Lonelyheart 4122

“He denied that he’d met anybody at all up to now through that matrimonial thing. There’s one lady he’s writing to after dark, but he’s not actually fixed anything up yet.”

“After dark?”

“When he can’t see any longer in the garden.”

“Oh.”

“I honestly don’t think Singleton can have done anybody.”

“It doesn’t sound like it. What about Rowley, then? I gather he didn’t strike you as villain material either.”

The sergeant shook his head. “I think he’s a little bit simple. He goes in for competitions. Hundreds of them. There were papers all over his front room with bits cut out. Actually, he thought I’d come to tell him he’d won some tomato soup thing that would give him a holiday for four in the West Indies or somewhere. As soon as he answered the door, he dashed back inside and brought me three empty tins and said ‘Vigo Vegetables for Vigour’. I felt a proper twat.”

“You disabused him, of course?”

“Well, not straight away, actually. I remembered what you’d said about being tactful.”

Purbright regarded him sternly. “Tact should not be confused with mendacity, sergeant.”

“Mendacity?”

“Telling lies.”

Love looked relieved. “Oh, I didn’t tell him any lies. I just said that I was very sorry but I didn’t seem able to put my hand on the Why-I-Always-Use-Vigo-Soup slogan that he’d submitted and could he let me have a copy.”

Purbright’s expression did not relax.

“Well,” Love added, “it did seem an opportunity for using initiative.”

“How did you know about the slogan?”

“I...I guessed.”

The inspector gave him a shrewd stare, then looked down at the file. He read out with measured gravity: “ ‘I go with Vigo because Vigo Soups are the Stuff for the Troops’.”

His gaze was upon the sergeant’s face once more. “I do hope,” he said, “that your entry was a bit better than that.”

If Love blushed, the effect upon his normally rubicund complexion was not apparent.

“I shall have to see Mrs Staunch again,” Purbright announced. “I don’t know how many clients she has, but it looks as if we shall just have to work through the lot.”

“Couldn’t it be someone who’s just using the agency as a blind?” suggested Love, anxious to rehabilitate himself.

“How do you mean, Sid?”

“Well, you said there are records of all these people like Mrs Bannister and so on in the office there. I don’t expect the place is all that difficult to get into. Suppose somebody did that and jotted down a few names and then wrote to them afterwards. I mean, he would’t need to become a customer himself, would he?”

Purbright considered.

“You have a point. Breaking in would be simple enough—and it wouldn’t have to be obvious, either. The trouble is that in the first instance the letters have to be addressed by number for forwarding.”

“He’d have the numbers, though. He’d send a letter to the agency and Mrs Whatsername would forward it on. She’d not know anything was wrong.”

“True. What about the victim’s reply, though? He couldn’t go and collect it.”

“He wouldn’t have to. Not if he’d put his address at the top of his own letter and asked the woman to write back to him direct.”

The inspector remained silent. The argument was not helpful, but it was certainly tenable. He reached for the telephone directory.

“Consider yourself redeemed, Sid. You might have got something.”

With the expression of a rewarded retriever, Love watched Purbright dial and dispatch introductory civilities to Mrs Staunch. After a while he heard him come to the point.

“Look, something has just crossed my mind—or rather it’s been led across it by my very perceptive sergeant—which could have some bearing on the matter we discussed the other day...That’s right—the two ladies we’re looking for. What I’d like you to do is to think back carefully and see if you can remember anything to suggest someone’s having got into your office—you know, broken in or sneaked in—while you weren’t there...Yes, in the last couple of months or so...”

He hunched the phone between shoulder and ear while he lit a cigarette. Love heard the undulating squeak of whatever Mrs Staunch was saying.

Purbright spoke. “One of the windows...Yes, I know—over the lane at the back...Nothing actually stolen, though...No, I see...No...Anyway, I’m obliged to you...Well, it may and it may not—probably not actually. Thanks all the same. Oh, just one other thing. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a look for myself at those files of yours. It really can’t be helped...Tomorrow, probably...Fine, yes. I look forward to seeing you again.”

Thoughtfully he replaced the receiver.

“She thinks she had a burglar, as she puts it, not very long after Christmas. She can’t remember exactly. It was during cold weather, though, because that is why she particularly noticed that this window at the back had been left open slightly. Nothing was missing, as far as she knows, but she did get the impression that the stuff in the filing cabinet had been rummaged a bit.”

“There you are, then,” said Love.

“Oh, yes. Here we are, indeed. But you can see what dismal prospect this opens up. Instead of a few dozen suspects, nicely docketed with addresses provided, we now have the entire male population to choose from.”

Love swallowed and glanced down at his shoes. He looked like a man who has flicked away a cherry stone and derailed an express.

“Never mind,” Purbright told him. “It may be simpler to go about things in a different way. The opposite way, actually. So far, we’ve worked on the assumption that the man we want must be one of those who have registered with the agency. We can’t assume that any more. But unless we can find him by another means—and remember that we don’t know the first thing about his appearance or movements or where he lives—all we can do is wait for him to go into operation again.”

“What, kill another woman!”

“Of course not. In any case, we don’t know yet that anybody’s been killed; he may be just laying in a harem, like some of those farmers down on the marsh. No, what I mean is that if we stop chasing round after the hunter and keep watch on the quarry instead, we’ll probably stand a much better chance of nabbing him.”

“You think he’ll have another go, then?”

“Unless he’s moved on, yes. There invariably enters an element of habit into these things, Sid. And it isn’t as if the profits so far have justified retirement. Four hundred pounds doesn’t last long these days, and I can’t see that Miss Reckitt would have had much in the way of realizable assets.”

“I feel sorry for them,” said Love, firmly. It sounded as though he had just made up his mind about something slightly embarrassing.

Purbright gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “So do I. Very sorry. Not because they were robbed. Or murdered, even. It’s the insult that must have really hurt.”

Chapter Nine

Mrs Staunch met the inspector with an expression of repressed excitement and annoyance. Without a word, she admitted him to her office and went straight to the window.

“Now, then—what do you think of that?”

She pointed to the small gap between the sill and the bottom of the frame. Purbright saw marks on the woodwork that suggested the insertion of a screwdriver or chisel. They were fresh marks.

He raised his brows. “Last night?”

“And to think it was just yesterday afternoon that you rang up and I told you about that other time. I don’t know what to think, really!”

“It is odd, isn’t it?” Purbright agreed. He peered at the marks, then examined the rest of the window. The catch was old and loose; it would have slipped off with very little persuasion.