Colin Watson - Bump in the Night

“Biggadyke wasn’t in the Forces, you said. What about Home Guard or Civil Defence?”

“No, I think the Observer Corps was Big’s war club.”

“I’m just wondering where he might have acquired his taste for explosives.”

“Can’t imagine, old chap.”

“Has that firm of his any connection with quarrying?”

Kebble looked doubtful. “I’d be surprised if it had. It handles agricultural stuff mostly. There’s not a quarry within ten miles of here.”

Purbright sighed. “You see my difficulty, don’t you, Mr Kebble?”

“Oh, I do. Aye.” The editor regarded him with a slightly too wide-eyed expression of sympathy. “You’re trying to trace the...”

“Biggadyke’s source. Exactly. Chalmsbury probably accepts these little diversions as perfectly normal, or at least in character. But what I must call the Authorities take a somewhat jaundiced view. High explosive, Mr Kebble, is the very apotheosis of un-Englishness. And when someone appears to have been in a position to stick free samples of it all over the place the Authorities are naturally concerned.”

“I hadn’t really thought of it like that,” confessed Kebble. “Perhaps we do tend to be easy-going down here.”

“Do you suppose Biggadyke might have known someone who would supply him with explosive? Or did he dream up all his practical jokes by himself?”

“He didn’t know any safe-blowers, so far as I’m aware. Not that I’d rule it out.”

“Had he any special friends?”

“Couldn’t say. Wait a minute, though”—Kebble’s eye had brightened—“male or female?”

“Either.”

Kebble glanced about him, then beckoned Purbright to lean closer. “I’m going to tell you something, old chap, but for God’s sake keep it to yourself.” Again he looked quickly round the room. “That caravan was no more an office than this pub: you probably guessed that. Aye, but I bet you’ll never guess who the totty was that old Big played gypsies with...Mrs Chief Inspector Hector bloody Larch, none other!”

He jerked back in his chair to enjoy the effect of his revelation.

At first, Purbright gave no sign of having heard. Then his lips slowly protruded in a soundless whistle. “Mr Kebble,” he said at last, “this little township deserves to be administered by the Sodom and Gomorrah Joint Sewerage Board.”

The editor nodded delightedly.

“You’re not pulling my leg, are you?” Purbright was suddenly grave.

“Good heavens, no. Poor Leonard’s too dumb to make up a story as good as that.”

“Leonard?”

“The lad you’ve seen in the office. He’s my reporter, or what I try and use for one.”

“And what does he know about it?”

“He watched them together. It was very wicked of him and I fancy he feels rather guilty about it now, but I’m perfectly certain he was telling the truth. He even wrote what he called an ‘exposure’.” Kebble shuddered and reached for his drink.

“When did he see these...goings on?”

Kebble considered. “It was a Tuesday night: now which one?...Oh, yes—when old Barry Hoole’s eye was blown out. I remember the boy saying that he heard the bang when he was just coming away from...Good Lord!” He stared at Purbright. “Then Big must have been in his caravan when the thing went off.”

“Why not? He didn’t need to be there with a match, you know.”

Kebble subsided. “No, I suppose it had a time fuse or something.”

“They all did. The first three, anyway.”

“Aye, of course. Still, it does seem a bit odd to set a bomb ticking and then push off to a date with your totty. Damn me, I’d want to stay and see the fun if it was mine.”

“Do you know Mrs Larch?”

“Not terribly well. She’s Ozzy Pointer’s girl, you know. Quite a good-looking lass but hard boiled. You’ll not get much out of her.”

“I shouldn’t imagine her husband would thank me for trying.”

“No. Quite so.” Kebble looked at him shrewdly. “You might fare better with the old man, though. Ozzy’s an awkward bloke but dead straight. He and his son-in-law don’t hit it off too well, they tell me.”

“Do you think Larch would have known of his wife’s relationship with Biggadyke?”

“God, no! That’s why I told young Leaper to be careful. If Larch did find out he’d go up to Hilda, give her a nice smile, and then slowly pull her head off like a prawn’s.”

“Hasty tempered, is he?”

“Not hasty, old chap. That wouldn’t be so bad. He’s the sort that wouldn’t fall out with you until he’d got a grave dug ready. You want to watch your step with brother Larch.”

Purbright promised that he would indeed.

“Now then,” said Kebble, more cheerfully, “how’s Mrs Crispin looking after you?”

“She’s very”—Purbright groped for a word—“conscientious.”

“Grand. I thought you’d be all right there. You’re on your own except for old Payne, aren’t you? Not that he’d bother you.”

“On the contrary; we get along rather nicely. An ally is always welcome.”

“What, against Mrs Crispin?” Purbright thought Kebble sounded slightly offended.

“No, no; but all lodgings are intimidating, however hard a landlady tries to make one feel at home. In fact it is precisely their homeliness that always alarms me. I half expect to find an embalmed mother propped opposite the teapot.”

“Payne’s been in digs for years,” Kebble said. “He must be an authority.”

“Oh, he copes expertly. But even the most competent, self-possessed lodger is essentially a sad fellow. And Payne is too intelligent to be able to hide it.”

“You’ve spotted that? I’m glad. Sometimes I forget what I think of people—d’you know that? It sounds queer, but life drags on from year to year in a little place like this without anything happening to confirm an opinion. I mean nobody’s going to give Payne or Barry Hoole a Nobel Prize, for instance, yet there was a time when they seemed absolutely brilliant.”

“Talking of Hoole,” Purbright said, anxious lest Kebble’s sudden lapse into subjective philosophy should prove intractable, “I cannot fathom why he qualified for one of Biggadyke’s infernal machines.”

The editor brightened at once. “Oh didn’t you hear the story?”

He might have known, Purbright reflected, that there would be a story. “No,” he said, “I haven’t heard that one either.”

Kebble told him at some length about the sight testing, the belladonna, the collision.

“Rather a murderous trick,” commented Purbright, a fraction more censoriously than he had intended. The editor looked surprised, then pained.

“Well, rather ill-advised, shall we say?”

Kebble accepted the amendment with a shrug. “Mind you,” he said anxiously, “I only told you for your own amusement. Barry would be very upset if he thought that I’d let a confidence slip into the police files.”

“It doesn’t seem terribly important now that the man’s dead. I shouldn’t worry about it, Mr Kebble.”

Kebble nodded gratefully. “Trouble is, old chap, we’re used to the gendarmerie here being a bit on the heavy-handed side. They don’t enjoy it, but Larch pushes them, you know. I can’t get used to a policeman who isn’t for ever holding a cell door open, as you might say.”

“I don’t want to spoil my holiday, that’s all,” Purbright said. “Let’s go out and get sunburned, shall we? Then perhaps you can show me where Mr Pointer might be found.”

Chapter Thirteen

As it happened, there was no need to seek out Councillor Pointer. When Purbright and Kebble rose from their table they saw him framed in the narrow, raised doorway, peering about him like an angry little sea captain disturbed by voices in the hold.