The Flaxborough Crab f-6

by Colin Watson

  Miss Teatime’s small, dainty mouth pursed in conjecture.

  “You know, Mr Brennan, there is something about you which I do not quite understand. You do not have the style of a commercial traveller. Nor do you speak like one. I am particularly intrigued, because your, name is not known at the London office of Elixon’s subsidiary company in England.”

  He glared. “My God! Your spying seems to have been very thorough!”

  “My inquiries,” she corrected, gently.

  “You will stop interrupting! Let me make this absolutely clear. Unless you cease your preposterous attempt to extort money and leave here immediately, I shall send for the manager and have you removed.”

  “That would be very unethical, Mr Brennan. I have done no more than put to you a reasonable suggestion concerning medical research.”

  “Get out!”

  He had risen from his chair and was now standing a few feet away from her. His brittle fury was like that of a parade ground officer faced with some insolent subordinate.

  Miss Teatime did not budge. She smoothed out a small crease in her skirt, sat a little more erect, and shook her head regretfully.

  “Oh, dear. So Germanic.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You certainly could not be accused of having a bedside manner, doctor. But then, general practice is not your sphere, is it?”

  “You are a lunatic! I was right, after all. You are mad as a hatmaker!”

  She laughed. “Hutmacher...no, no, you are too carefully colloquial, doctor. In England, we say hatter. Nevertheless, your accent is most creditable—apart from a certain residual flatness. Tell me, how long were you in South Africa after the war, Dr Brunnen?”

  He walked to the door, opened it, and came back to stand over Miss Teatime. She felt his fingers close over her upper arm.

  “If you would be so good, madam...”

  The harsh, ironic voice was within an inch or two of her ear. She was aware of her shoulder rising as if it had been trapped in machinery. For a second, the rest of her body drooped helplessly from it, like that of a cat picked up by one foreleg.

  Brennan took a step towards the door.

  Inexplicably, his foot failed to meet the ground. It seemed to have been taken in charge with quite astonishing dexterity and determination by Miss Teatime, who, slipping from his grasp, now thrust herself neatly aside so as not to impede Brennan’s floorward plunge.

  The room reverberated so violently that it was some little time before the ringing of the telephone separated out as a significant sound.

  Brennan lifted his head. Ponderously, he raised himself to a kneeling position.

  Miss Teatime looked down at him sternly.

  “You must never do that again,” she said.

  The phone was ringing once more.

  “Are you not going to answer it?”

  Brennan got to his feet. He steadied himself against the wall and picked up the phone.

  While he listened, he scowled with increasing intensity at Miss Teatime.

  “Yes, I see... Did they say why?... No, I’ll come down. Tell them that. I shall be down in a moment, yes.”

  Back went the receiver. The baleful stare was maintained.

  “More of your stupid nonsense?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Those two policemen downstairs. They are your idea?”

  “They most assuredly are not!”

  Miss Teatime’s indignation had the ring of truth.

  Brennan turned and hurried from the room.

  Following as far as the door, Miss Teatime watched him walk swiftly to the end of the corridor and go from sight round the corner to the right. But the lift, she remembered, was on the left. He must have chosen to descend by the staircase.

  She went back into the room and opened the front of the lacquered cabinet. It contained only a couple of bottles, a soda syphon and several glasses.

  Two of the three drawers in the bureau were empty. In the third were hotel stationery, a pen, a map, rubber bands, an electric light bulb.

  She made rapid search of the bathroom, paying special attention to a ventilator shutter and to the inside of the flushing cistern. In neither had anything been concealed. She pulled the door shut after her and went to work on the bedroom.

  To the contents of the two small cupboards and the bedside locker, Miss Teatime paid only fleeting attention. She spent longer feeling between the clothing stacked with meticulous tidiness in a chest of drawers and explored the least obvious recesses within the big built-in wardrobe.

  Then, as she stood by the bed, about to lift a corner of the mattress, she caught the sound of voices. At once, she slipped back into the main room.

  Purbright appeared at the open door. Behind his shoulder hung the amiable, inquisitive face of Love, like a rosy moon.

  “What on earth are you doing here? Where’s Brennan?”

  “I presume you want an answer to the second question first. Mr Brennan left this room about three minutes ago. He said he was going down to see you.”

  “Well, he didn’t. Sergeant—go and keep an eye on his car. It should be in the garage at the back. Grey Hillman, HMU-something-or-other.”

  Love’s face dipped, then floated away.

  “May I invite you in, inspector, on Mr Brennan’s behalf ? I cannot think he is likely to be far off.”

  Purbright entered. He pushed the door nearly shut.

  “And now your answer to the first question.”

  “Why I am here? I came to persuade Mr Brennan of the error of his ways.”

  “Which particular ways, Miss Teatime?”

  “You should know, inspector. Otherwise, why should you be here yourself?”

  “Ah, now you know better than to imagine that I am going to barter motives. Policemen have one great advantage, they need never account for their presence anywhere.”

  “If I found one in my bath, I fancy I should be entitled to an explanation.”

  “Not if he were in uniform. But you are not bathing at the moment, Miss Teatime, and I must not waste time in chat. Where is Brennan?”

  Suddenly her expression changed.

  “What is it you wish to question Mr Brennan about?”

  “Oh, come now, Miss Teatime!”

  “This is not mere inquisitiveness, and I do not mean to sound impertinent. Please tell me.”

  He regarded her in silence for a moment.

  “Very well. I want to ask him what he knows about an assault that took place the other night.”

  “A criminal assault?”

  “No. Technically, a common assault.”

  She nodded. “Not a felony, then. Not an indictable offence at all. So you have no power to arrest him.”

  “That’s true.”

  She smiled at him slowly. “You do not much care, do you, inspector, for the exercise known as making bricks without straw.”

  He, too, smiled. “Not greatly, no.”

  “I may possibly be able to provide you with a little straw. Allow me to remain and we shall see.”

  The door was pushed open. Brennan, accompanied by Love, entered the room. He glanced coldly at Miss Teatime, then addressed the inspector.

  “I’m sorry, I was under the impression that you had arrived by the other entrance. I have been looking for you there.”

  “I met the gentleman in the yard,” Love side-remarked to Purbright.

  “That’s all right, Mr Brennan. The main thing is that we’ve finally managed to catch up with one another. I hadn’t really supposed”—the inspector grinned—“that you’d gone tearing off to the nearest airport or anything like that.”

  Brennan responded with a brief, thin smile.

  “There is a matter,” Purbright began, “about which we hope you might be able to give us some useful information, sir. We are investigating an incident in Heston Lane two evenings ago. The evening of the twelfth. A young woman was assaulted near a post box. You may know the place,
sir—it’s quite near Dr Meadow’s surgery.”

  “I know where the surgery is, yes.”

  “Well, of course you were actually in the area not long before—as, indeed, I was myself.”

  “That is true.”

  “Did you happen to see or hear anything which may have a bearing on what happened to that girl?”

  “No, I can’t say I did. I had no reason to be particularly observant.”

  “You remember no one hanging about near the letter box?”

  “I’m not sure that I’ve ever noticed a letter box in Heston Lane. In any case, I went to and from the surgery by car. I would have been watching the road at the time.”

  “At what time, sir?”

  “When I was coming back. About half-past six, wasn’t it, or a quarter to seven? You were there when I left the surgery.”

  The inspector looked at Brennan’s suit.

  “Were you wearing something else that evening, Mr Brennan? My mental picture of you has some grey in it.”

  “Naturally. The suit I had on then was grey.”

  “You weren’t wearing a coat, by any chance? Then—or later on?”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Not a light raincoat, perhaps?”

  “Now look, inspector—you said you wanted to ask me some questions. Very well, I am glad to give what information I can to help the police. But I do not care to be cross-examined. Especially in front of strangers.”

  Purbright looked surprised. “This lady is a stranger to you, sir?”

  “Virtually, yes. She came to see me on a matter of business.”

  “But this is your room, sir. I can scarcely ask a guest of yours to leave it.”

  Brennan shrugged. Miss Teatime gave him a sympathetic smile and moved over to the fireplace, where she began to examine intently a framed print of Constable’s ‘Hay Wain’.

  “Now, sir, just one more question about this matter of clothes. Do you own a lightweight raincoat, very pale in colour, practically white?”

  “I do not,” asserted Brennan. “Or at least”—he carefully checked the irritation in his voice—“I never wear one. There is an old coat in the car. I keep it there in case I should need to get out in the rain.”

  Purbright appeared to find this reasonable. Brennan added:

  “I’ve had no occasion to put that coat on for, oh, at least a couple of weeks.”

  Suddenly and quite sharply, the inspector asked: “Where were you at eight o’clock that evening, sir?”

  There was a short silence. Then Brennan looked over towards the fireplace.

  “Miss Teatime—just a moment, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  She faced them.

  “The inspector would like to know where I was at eight o’clock on the evening of the day before yesterday. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell him.” Without pausing, Brennan faced the inspector again. “Her firm has been awarded a grant by one of the medical research trusts. A quite substantial grant, I understand. My own company has been asked to help with currency arrangements. I met Miss Teatime by appointment on the very evening that you happen to be talking about. A few minutes before eight o’clock, if I remember rightly.”

  He looked again at Miss Teatime.

  So did Purbright. Unlike Brennan’s, however, his expression was one of perplexity.

  Miss Teatime walked towards them a little hesitantly. She glanced from one to the other, and gave a gentle sigh.

  “I am very much afraid,” she said slowly, “that this places me in a somewhat invidious position. I must now make certain facts plain. It is quite true,” she said to Purbright, “that a grant to my company has been mooted—a grant of...oh, dear, what was it? Three thousand pounds?”

  Brennan nodded, “Three thousand.”

  “No, I am wrong. Four thousand. That was the figure, was it not, Mr Brennan?”

  Brennan’s frown seemed to indicate rapid calculation. “Ye-es...more nearly four, perhaps. At the present exchange rate.”

  “Thank you. Yes, as I was saying, such a grant had indeed been suggested, and my company would have been delighted to accept it, as you may imagine, inspector. But Mr Brennan has been too modest in describing his own role in the matter. You see, he is something more than a mere representative of the firm which undertook the negotiation of the grant. He is a director and a co-founder.”

  Sergeant Love, who had been gazing around with a mildly bored expression, gave Brennan a respectful glance.

  “Is this true, sir?” Purbright asked.

  “I would rather Miss Teatime had respected my confidence,” said Brennan. “In business, it is not always wise to advertise one’s connections. However, I see no point in denying what she says.”

  Purbright returned his attention to Miss Teatime.

  “I am relieved,” she said, “that this gentleman is showing such forbearance. It would be even more painful for me to be frank—and frank I must be—if I thought he might bear me ill-will. The grant, you see, is in the gift of Mr Brennan’s company. One might almost say that it would have come from his own pocket. Such generosity in the cause of public welfare, with no regard for national boundaries, does him great credit, of course. I was proud that my own little field of research should have won his interest.

  “At the same time I could not help feeling that a personal relationship was involved. I was bound to ask myself: Should I, on behalf of my company, accept this wonderful gift from this man? There seemed no reason why not. I made discreet inquiries. It soon became clear that here was a gentleman of considerable attainment. The firm he had helped to create was already prosperous, and promised to become immeasurably more so by the sale of its latest drug. As for Dr Erich Brunnen himself...”

  Brennan crashed his fist on the cabinet by which he was standing. Jarred wineglasses sent forth an angry little carillon.

  “This is quite unforgivable!” he shouted. “It has nothing whatever to do with the inspector or anyone else. If you...”

  Purbright raised a restraining hand. “Come now, Mr Brennan. No one is challenging your right to travel under any name you wish. Celebrities do it all the time. I cannot see that this lady has made anything in the nature of an accusation.”

  “That is not the point,” Brennan retorted. “You are letting her go on and on with all this irrelevant nonsense. Why should I put up with it? What the devil has my private or my professional life to do with an attack on some servant girl in this ridiculous little town of yours?”

  The inspector looked at him thoughtfully. “I don’t recall,” he said, quietly, “describing her as a servant girl.” He waited, then made a gesture of indifference, “However, perhaps Miss Teatime will finish what she was telling us.”

  Miss Teatime, who had been staring uncomfortably at the carpet, raised her head.

  “I am sorry, but I had no intention of upsetting Dr Brunnen. I was simply going to say that what I learned about him was just as reassuring as the result of my inquiries about his firm. Long before his success in the drug industry, he had made quite a name in medical research at one of those big experimental institutes—what was it again?—Raven-something-or-other... Never mind, I must not embarrass him with a list of achievements. What really matters is that I decided it would be quite proper to accept the grant.

  “And then, only two days ago, something happened that made me change my mind completely. Something absolutely unaccountable, and more distressing than I can say.”

  She glanced timidly at the inspector. At the same time, one of her hands stole to the opposite shoulder and massaged it gently, as if to soothe the pain of a recent injury.

  All three men were watching her, Brennan with as much bewilderment as anybody.

  “It was in the surgery of poor Dr Meadow,” Miss Teatime resumed, seemingly with considerable reluctance. “Both Dr Brunnen and I went into the consulting room immediately after his collapse. I do not think that Dr Brunnen knew I was just behind him. He cannot have known. For one of the fi
rst things he did—with that unfortunate man lying there dead on the floor—was to steal Dr Meadow’s stethoscope and hide it away under his jacket.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A dead silence extended for fully five seconds before Brennan managed to push words past the blockage of his anger.