Colin Watson - Coffin Scarcely Used

“You can get that idea out of your head straight away,” he said, speaking now directly into the receiver. “There’s nothing in or near the house that can possibly hurt you. You can’t simply...” He paused and listened impatiently to some further objection, interrupting with “No, of course, I don’t know why he went out. I wasn’t there. Nor were you. If you listen to every silly tale from weak-witted farm labourers, you’ll end up by seeing a vampire or something every time you look out of a window. All we know is that my uncle did a damn silly trick at a damn silly time and got himself killed. People do get taken that way, God knows why. They go running under buses or fall off towers or jump into rivers. But that doesn’t mean they’ve been chased or pushed by the supernatural. The best thing you can do, Mrs Poole, is to make yourself a strong cup of tea and forget all about it until I get over this evening.”

“Heaven save me,” said Lintz, leaning forward and replacing the telephone, “from housekeepers who have horrid presentiments.”

“They can be rather trying, sir.”

This expression of sympathy came from a dark corner of the room where a large, but unassuming-looking man in neutral shaded clothes had been keeping quite still during the editor’s telephone conversation. He now turned into the light and revealed a bland, pleasant face beneath springy, corn-coloured hair that not even relentless cropping could bring to conformity.

“I once had a landlady,” he remarked, “who tried to stop me going on duty because she’d dreamed of a policeman lying in a pool of blood at the end of Coronation Street. She was always having this damned dream, d’you know, and it wasn’t until a bus conductor cut his throat somewhere round that district that she stopped pestering me and admitted she might have been mistaken about the uniform.”

Detective Inspector Purbright regarded Lintz affably. “I gather,” he said, “that you discount the idea of the lady you were speaking to just now that your uncle was—how did she put it?—lured or chased out of his house?”

“I think she was just being stupid. Or hysterical.”

“Yes. Now that’s very probable. A highly strung lady, perhaps?”

“Imaginative, but not very intelligent. I believe she dabbles in spiritualism.” Lintz, a lay preacher among other things, evidently considered Mrs Poole’s interest in the occult a grave detraction from her reliability as a witness to anything but trumpets and cheesecloth.

“Tell me, Mr Lintz, Mr Gwill didn’t happen to have any ideas of that kind himself, did he?”

“Lord, no. He was very down to earth. If you see what I mean,” added Lintz hastily.

“I see, sir. A level-headed man. But maybe he was not so materialistically minded, you understand, that he would do nothing out of the normal run occasionally?”

The editor looked puzzled. Purbright made a little gesture of good-natured humility and smiled. “I put things rather awkwardly, don’t I? What I am looking for, d’you know, is an explanation of why your uncle went out last night. He fancied a little walk, do you imagine?”

“What, in his slippers?”

“Yes, that is curious, isn’t it? If I had occasion to walk down the drive of that house and cross the road and then climb a railing and go twenty yards over a field before clambering up an electricity pylon, I really believe I’d put my boots on first.” Purbright stared at his toe-caps.

Lintz offered no comment. He looked round at the clock on the wall to his left. “Coffee?” he asked. Assured that that would be most kind of him, he gave an order to the girl on the switchboard, then pushed a box of cigarettes across the table to the inspector.

Until the girl’s arrival with a tray, Purbright said no more about Uncle Marcus but kept the conversation offshore, as it were. Then, apologetically, he veered back to the subject of electrocution.

“Do you know, sir, that your uncle’s is the first case of an accident with those cables since the power was brought over in the twenties? Or so the Board tells me. He’s been a singularly unfortunate gentleman.”

Lintz shrugged and spooned sugar into his coffee. “Have you any ideas about it, inspector?”

“I really don’t think I have, sir. As time goes on, things may become a little clearer, but I wouldn’t presume to speculate before hearing more about Mr Gwill from people who knew him. Mrs Poole, now. Do you think she might help me to get a better picture?”

“Mrs Poole would waste your time,” said the editor, decisively. “Wouldn’t it be better if we faced at once the probability of my uncle having chosen an odd but effective way of committing suicide?”

Purbright raised an eyebrow. “You think that, sir?”

“My dear chap, what else is there to think? He wasn’t a child or an idiot. And a grown man in his right mind doesn’t climb pylons in the middle of the night just to feel if the current’s still on.”

“I have known gentlemen do rather eccentric things when the mood took them.”

“My uncle was not an eccentric. He managed to make too much money for that.”

“I suppose you’ll have no cause to regret his good business sense.” Purbright caught Lintz’s quick glance and added, “A newspaper is like any other concern, I expect—easier to take over when it’s running well.”

“That seems logical.”

There was a short pause.

“Talking of businesses,” said Purbright, “I seem to remember that that man with the unlikely name used to live near Mr Gwill. The broker chap...”

“Carobleat?”

“That’s the one. He died not so long ago.”

“Carobleat lived next door to my uncle. His wife’s still there...widow, rather.”

“Is she really? You’d think a big house like that would be rather overwhelming. I must call and see how she’s coping when I go over later on.”

“You’re going to my uncle’s place?”

“Oh, yes. I think I ought to take a quick look, don’t you? The people round there are mostly timid old souls. An unhappy affair like this tends to prey on their minds a little, and they feel better when they see a policeman turn up. I find they regard me as a sort of exorcist.”

“Mrs Poole won’t, I warn you. Not unless you take a stake with you and promise you’re looking for a likely corpse to immobilize with it.”

Purbright beamed and rose. “You’re a sensible man, Mr Lintz. I’m glad to see you taking this unfortunate affair so well.”

He shook hands and was almost out of the door when he turned. “Oh, by the way, sir, my Sergeant Malley—an awfully nice chap, you’ll like him—asked me to remind you about the inquest. Do you think you could find time to pop in and have a word with him?”

“I suppose so. When?”

“It’s stupid of me not to have mentioned it earlier, but I believe he hoped you would call this morning. Look, if you’ve nothing urgent on hand you can come over with me now.”

Lintz shrugged and reached down his hat and coat.

As he followed the inspector down the narrow, uncarpeted stairs, he asked: “Who’s this Sergeant Malley, anyway?”

“He’s the Coroner’s Officer,” replied Purbright, “and the best baritone in the county, they tell me. You don’t happen to be a singer, do you, sir?”

“No,” said Lintz, “I don’t.”

Chapter Two

Limtz found Sergeant Malley awaiting him in the dark, file-cluttered little office that served as a clearing house for Flaxborough’s uncertificated deaths.

The Coroner’s Officer was florid, fat, catarrhal and kindly. He greeted the editor rather in the manner of a butcher anxious to placate a good customer for whom he had forgotten to reserve some kidneys.