Colin Watson - Bump in the Night

“You didn’t tell me anything,” Purbright justifiably observed.

“Never mind. Go on.”

“It might be as well if I waited here for him. He’s late, but that’s not to say he won’t come. Meanwhile you might like to see if he’s still at his shop. A search warrant wouldn’t come amiss, incidentally.”

“Why?”

“There could be stuff there that you’ll need in evidence. Chemicals, lab equipment and so on. It will probably be a job for a Home Office fellow, but at least you can get the place locked up. Invoices might be interesting, too; check deliveries of something called Infusorial Earth. And don’t let your blokes fiddle with powders—Payne probably used some kind of home-made fulminate to set his things off.”

“Listen: I’m not a bloody Harwell professor.”

“That’s all right. Leave it to Worple: there’s nothing he doesn’t know. I’ll be here if you want me but as far as I can see it’s all yours now.” Purbright tried not to sound too relieved.

Larch said everything would be attended to, but he only hoped he was not being let in for an almighty balls-up.

Purbright said he hoped so, too.

“By the way,” he added, “do you happen to remember where it was that Biggadyke ran down the Grope girl?”

“Of course. It was in Watergate Street. Quite near Payne’s shop, as a matter of fact. Payne never came forward to say she’d been there. It was hardly relevant at the time, though, was it?”

“Not at the time, no.” Purbright rang off.

Within the next few hours Purbright answered the telephone four times.

The first two calls were from Larch, anxious to know if Payne had returned. The shop, he said, had been found in the charge of a young man with the intelligence quotient of a sea anemone. Not only was he ignorant of his employer’s whereabouts; he seemed uncertain of whether he had ever met him. At least he had not been obstructive. The shop was now locked and guarded. A proper search had not yet been made but at first sight it did look as if some of Purbright’s guesses might prove correct.

Purbright gravely acknowledged the tribute and asked whether Larch contemplated putting out a general call for Payne to be held for questioning. Larch retorted that this, of course had been done. He then rang off in order to do it.

The third call was from Sergeant Worple, who explained that he was just checking on the chief inspector’s behalf. Purbright informed him, a little tartly, that Payne was still missing—as Mr Larch might well have adduced from the fact that he, Purbright, had not telephoned to the contrary.

“I quite understand that, sir,” said Worple, unruffled. “Logic’s a great help, even in these days.” He paused to let Purbright make what he could of this obliquity and went on: “I thought you might be interested to know that wherever Mr Payne is he hasn’t taken his car. It was outside his shop.”

“Really?”

“Yes sir. You possibly have never noticed it yourself, but it’s quite an old-fashioned model with what they call a sunshine roof. A sliding panel in the top. I mention that because it explains something that has probably been puzzling you.”

Purbright relieved his feelings by glaring cross-eyed at the telephone mouthpiece and sticking out his tongue.

The unhurried, provocatively respectful voice droned on.

“You see, sir, it’s quite clear now that Mr Payne was able to fix his explosive devices on the statue and the shop sign by taking his car right up to the target, as you might call it, and standing up on the driving seat through the sunshine roof. It wouldn’t take him a minute; then he could sit down again and drive off. All unbeknown,” Worple added extravagantly.

“He could have used the same method to get over the park railings, couldn’t he, Sergeant?”

“Undoubtedly, sir.”

“Did the Chief Inspector work all that out?”

There was a brief silence. “He gave me that impression, sir.” Worple sounded like a man counting short change.

“Well, well. It does him credit. I’ll give you a call if there are any further developments at this end.”

It was some time after ten o’clock when the telephone rang for the fourth time.

“Purbright speaking.”

He heard a resonant click as the button in a public call box was pressed.

“It’s Payne here.”

Purbright swallowed. This he had not expected.

“Oh, yes, Mr Payne?” Did one deliver a formal caution when a man whose arrest one had been trying to contrive suddenly popped up on the telephone?

“Look,” the faint, strained voice was saying, “I rather feel I owe you something?”

“Yes?” I must sound like a deaf charlady offering to take a message, Purbright thought.

“I was going to leave you a note, but the idea seemed far from satisfactory. Awfully impersonal, and I’d probably have left out just the things you wanted to know...”

“Where are you speaking from, Mr Payne?”

“Where? Oh, I don’t think that matters, does it? You can hear me all right, I suppose.”

“Yes, I can hear you...” Purbright looked up to see Mrs Crispin, hatted and mildly Guinness-glad, closing the front door behind her. He beckoned and began writing quickly on the pad by the phone. She came and stood amiably at his side, like a lama waiting for a sugar lump.

“You know what happened, of course,” Payne was saying. “Those questions of yours last night were far too inspired to be passed off as what I believe policemen call routine inquiries. It was decent of you to give me a start like that, but I don’t want to get away. I don’t think I ever did, really. All that elaboration...oh, I can’t think why I bothered.”

“It was rather well done,” Purbright said quietly. He pulled the sheet from the pad with his free hand and gave it to Mrs Crispin. Her grin faded as she read the message. Then she glided with surprising speed off to the kitchen and squawked for Phyllis.

“The notice in the paper was silly, wasn’t it,” Payne said. He sounded tired and the words had a flat clumsiness like those of a man whose tongue is thickened with thirst. “I’m rather ashamed of it now. Pure exhibitionism. Criminals are supposed to find that sort of thing irresistable. Does justice become a crime when it’s put on a do-it-yourself basis? I don’t know...”

Purbright could hear fast, interrupted breathing, as if Payne was opening and closing his mouth, trying to find the right way to say something. Then, almost conversationally, Payne spoke again. “You know about Celia, I expect?”

“A certain amount. I’ve guessed, too. There was that photograph in your room.”

“It’s the only one I have. Old Grope took it a long time ago and let me have a print. He’s always been very decent to both of us. He used to send the kid along to the shop on some specious errand or other so that I could keep seeing her.”

Purbright glanced at his watch. “Tell me, Mr Payne...”

In the house next door Phyllis had replaced a phone and was trying to explain to its anxious owner the reasons (which she did not understand herself) for the 999 call she had just made.

At Fen Street Chief Inspector Larch was demanding from a night operator at Chalmsbury exchange the location of the kiosk connected with Chalmsbury 4116.

Within that kiosk, which Larch was about to be told was a few yards from the entrance to the municipal cemetery, a tall man clutching a parcel under his left arm bowed his head wearily as he listened to the question that was being put to him.

“How did I know?” he repeated. “By much the same process as Kebble’s young reporter adopted, I suppose. It wasn’t too difficult to establish Biggadyke’s habits. They were”—he smiled faintly in the dusk—“remarkably regular in their way.”