Colin Watson - Coffin Scarcely Used

The precise phraseology was maintained, but upon the solicitor’s brow and neck had appeared a gleaming dew.

Chubb, too, looked uncomfortable. He shook his head. “I’m afraid any special arrangements by us would be out of the question. We haven’t the men available, and even if we had I couldn’t authorize the individual protection of someone who won’t say what he wants to be protected against.”

Gloss compressed his lips and stared at the thin, rather loose figure of the Chief Constable leaning lightly against the fireplace. He decided to make one more attempt.

“Naturally,” he said, “I do not ask for the attendance of a...a bodyguard, in what I conceive to be the American sense. The contingency I envisage is not likely to arise during daylight. Would it be out of the question to augment your normal night patrol in the St Anne’s Place area with an officer charged simply with keeping my house under observation?”

Chubb sighed. “Why don’t you tell me what this is all about? Surely you see how difficult you make it for me to help. Let us be frank, Mr Gloss. Who is threatening you?”

“Please believe me when I say it is no one against whom you could possibly take action.”

“Yet you imply that whoever it is has already committed murder.”

“All I wish you to realize is that someone of homicidal intentions is at large, someone clever enough to have misled your men on one occasion and capable of doing so again.”

Chubb put his hand in his pocket and jingled change. Patiently, he asked: “How, do you suggest, was Gwill killed?”

“I have no idea. That, surely, is for your officers to discover from the evidence. The crime must have been carefully and perhaps elaborately planned.”

“And with what motive was he killed?”

“In revenge, perhaps...or to gratify sheer evil-mindedness. But again, we digress. May I have your answer to the question I put a few moments ago?”

“I have already given it, Mr Gloss. I’m sorry.”

Whatever the solicitor felt, he showed nothing. Briskly he rose and brushed his stiff black hat with the sleeve of his overcoat.

At the front door, the Chief Constable gave parting advice. It was a brief homily about the inadvisability of withholding information from the police. He had no confidence that it would do any good. And, indeed, it didn’t.

Some twenty minutes later, Chubb’s enjoyment of a delayed lunch was modified by his wife’s announcement that Inspector Purbright had called and was awaiting him in the front room. He immediately concluded that the damnable affair of the electrocuted newspaper proprietor had taken a turn for the worse and that Purbright bore confirmation of the forebodings of his earlier visitor. He champed his apple tart mournfully and wandered, still nibbling a clove, into the drawing-room.

He found the inspector examining the plaster statuette of a yellow-haired Venus, petrified into Art while apparently picking a corn.

“I suppose,” said Chubb without preamble, “that you’ve come about Gwill.”

Purbright nodded. “I’m afraid I have, sir,” he said, as though breaking the news of the running over of one of Chubb’s Yorkshire terriers—in other words, with just enough pretence of regret to hide a real inward satisfaction.

The Chief Constable motioned him to a chair and took up his own position of command and disparagement by the fireplace. “Carry on, my boy,” he said.

Purbright carried on. He described the finding of the body that morning by a farm labourer on his way to work. Gwill had been wearing an overcoat, unbuttoned, over his suit, and a pair of slippers—sturdy leather ones, certainly, but slippers. He had lain, apparently since late the previous night, in the grass beneath the power pylon from which he was assumed at first to have fallen; at least, that theory had been adopted as soon as burns were seen on both his hands by the policeman who removed the body.

The front door of Gwill’s house had been found closed but not latched. The drive gate was open. Gwill had been alone, probably, at the time he left his house, for the woman who looked after him had been staying elsewhere overnight.

Purbright gave the gist of what Lintz and Mrs Poole had said and wound up with something about marshmallows that sounded sinister and, thought the Chief Constable, a bit psychological as well, which was worse.

“Are you quite sure,” he asked when the inspector had done, “that you aren’t making too much of this?”

“Quite sure, sir,” said Purbright simply.

“Ah...” Chubb considered a moment. “So we’d better take a closer look into things, then; that’s what you think?”

“It does seem indicated.”

“Mmm...” Another pause. Then, “It’s rather odd,” said Chubb, “and I’d better mention this while I remember, but you’re the second chap to come along here today with doubts of this business having been quite above board.”

“Really, sir?”

“Yes. That solicitor with the thick neck and the bow tie—Humpty, I always call him—was here just before you called. Gloss. You know him?”

“I’ve met him in court.”

“Ah, well, he was being very mysterious, and frightened, too, I should say. He seemed quite convinced that poor old Gwill had been murdered. I thought he was just being morbid, but there you are.”

“That’s interesting, sir. Did he say how he’d come to that conclusion?”

“He didn’t. He was very cagey. He asked if I could put a man on his house at night. I turned that down, of course. He wouldn’t give a reason, you see.”

“I’ll have a word with him later on, sir. If he’s really nervous, he’ll probably be more forthcoming after a night or two of listening to creaking floorboards. In the meantime, there’ll be other people to question. I’ve no notion at the moment of where to bore into this case, as it were. The little sounding I’ve been able to do so far hasn’t produced any helpful echoes. You follow me, sir.”

“Yes, oh certainly,” responded Chubb with haste. “I mean old Gwill wasn’t the sort of fellow you’d expect to get murdered. Except by an employee, perhaps. They tell me that newspaper of his is a bit of a sweat shop.”

“We’ll look into that side of it, of course, sir. At first sight, though, one would think George Lintz had most to gain. I believe the control of the business will go to him. On the other hand, there’s the rather curious relationship that seems to have existed between Gwill and the Carobleat woman. You remember the Carobleat affair, I suppose, sir?”

The Chief Constable frowned. “It’s a bit late in the day to drag that up again, isn’t it? After all, you didn’t manage to find much at the time.”

“I wasn’t likely to, considering all the books had disappeared,” said Purbright drily. “What with the firm having evaporated overnight, the owner dead and the widow paralysed with ignorance, it was hardly to be expected that we’d fasten anything on anyone.”

“Just as well, perhaps. It wouldn’t have done the town much good, you know. Anyway, it’s done with now. By the way, would you like me to have a word with Amblesby? You’ll want the inquest holding over a while, I expect.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, sir. He’ll probably take the suggestion more kindly from one of his own—” Purbright nearly said ‘generation’ but substituted ‘neighbours’ on remembering that the desiccated solicitor lived amidst dust and despotism in a mansion on the older side of Chubb’s road.

“Very well. I’ll ask him to adjourn it sine die or pending inquiries or something so that you can all get your heads down for a bit. Bad business...” The Chief Constable shook his head and devoutly wished the world were a great dog show with policemen having nothing to do but guard the trophies and hold leads.