This was one of those delightfully risky gambles, as I saw this in a charity shop and picked it up having never heard of the author or the series (my kind of living dangerously!). But when I read up online about it later, it seems the author and series are quite highly rated and this is also the first book in the series, so I’m very hopeful with my find!
This was one of those delightfully risky gambles, as I saw this in a charity shop and picked it up having never heard of the author or the series (my kind of living dangerously!). But when I read up online about it later, it seems the author and series are quite highly rated and this is also the first book in the series, so I’m very hopeful with my find!
It is the funeral of Harold Carobleat, local businessman, in the village of Flaxborough. The locals are annoyed at not being invited to the small funeral and are annoyed at the simplicity of the funeral. Six months later, the Carobleats’ next-door neighbour, Marcus Gwill, who was one of the few guests at Carobleat’s funeral and is the owner of the local newspaper, is also dead. He has been found by an electricity pylon in Callendar’s Field, having been electrocuted, and seemingly gone out at night in his slippers, climbed a railing into the field and crossed the field to reach the pylon. His nephew, George Lintz, who also works at the newspaper, can give Detective Inspector Purbright no explanation for why his uncle would do this apart from as an elaborate form of suicide. Lintz collects from the police the items from his uncle’s pockets, these include the expected money and keys, but also a paper bag of marshmallows. Ooooh, the death of Gwill sounds very unusual and interesting! And the marshmallows found in his pocket are a bit odd, I guess he could just like the sweets and always keep some on him, we’ll have to see if people mention eating marshmallows as one of his habits, and Lintz doesn’t seem to be surprised when he sees them, but the blurb on the back of the book mentions the marshmallows in a kind of sinister and curious way (or maybe I’ve just read it that way). And I wonder if we are being led to think that Gwill’s and Carobleat’s deaths are connected. Lintz mentions that Gwill had been extra touchy in the last six months (and Carobleat died six months ago), and Sergeant Malley then seems to reinforce this point by questioning how well Gwill and Carobleat knew each other. I like the little bits of dry humour so far in the book, with the locals being annoyed at the simplicity of the funeral but grudgingly lowering the blinds in their houses out of respect, and the statement that one of the functions of a wake is to thaw out the feet of the mourners (tee hee!), and that one of Carobleat’s friends was the undertaker Bradlaw but that ‘even amongst one’s friends one may number those of whose professional services one does not wish to take immediate advantage, at whatever the discount’, and Sergeant Malley being described as ‘florid, fat, catarrhal, and kind’, and he greets the dead man’s relative ‘in the manner of a butcher anxious to placate a good customer for whom he had forgotten to reserve some kidneys’ (tee hee)!! When I was reading about this series online it mentioned the humour in it, which at first made me cautious thinking perhaps it was more of a comedy book, but it seems quite a subtle and dry humour, and thankfully not detracting from the main theme of the detective novel. And Detective Inspector Purbright so far seems to be friendly and relaxed, not too forceful with his questioning, letting the person he’s questioning just talk and reveal things themselves, and quite apologetic in his manner saying such things as ‘I’m a terrible old nuisance, aren’t I?’, which I imagine disarms the person and they let their guard down around him (which I then imagine he uses to his advantage), and he is described by Sergeant Malley as ‘a conscientious gentleman’, awww, bless him, I like gentlemen detectives. We’ve not really had the facts of the death stated yet though, the details have just come out during conversations so far, which is an unusual way to do it, but it seems an odd death with Gwill being electrocuted by an electricity pylon, I am presuming he would have had to climb the pole in order to be electrocuted and then fell down to the ground, which seems an odd choice for suicide but also an odd choice for murder too as you’d have to force the victim to climb the pole, or if you’d killed him elsewhere and wanted to make it look like he had been electrocuted by the pole then you’d have to carry the body to the pole which would surely be awkward. An accident seems the most likely scenario (though I’m aware that would make for a boring book!), though then there’s the mystery of why a seemingly sensible man would have entered a field at night and got close enough to an electricity pylon to accidentally be electrocuted!
Purbright interviews Gwill’s housekeeper, Mrs Poole, who seems to hint that Gwill had been troubled by ghosts or spirits from about a month after Carobleat’s death and she thinks he was driven or chased out of the house to his death. She also mentions that Gwill’s main friends were Mr Gloss the solicitor, Dr Hillyard, and Mr Bradlaw the undertaker, the men who were at Carobleat’s funeral with Gwill. She also mentions that Mrs Carobleat used to come over to see Gwill ‘once a week maybe’. Purbright looks around Gwill’s home office and finds lots of newspaper cuttings from classified adverts, Gwill had pasted them all into a book and there were 20 or so to each page, the adverts seem to be regarding buying and selling furniture but Mrs Poole isn’t aware of why Gwill kept them. Mrs Poole seems fearful when they go to Gwill’s bedroom but when Purbright asks her, kindly, what has been frightening her, she says nothing frightens her now and that it is over. Hmmm, so the two dead men had the same friends (although in a small town and them all being professional men, maybe that isn’t surprising). And is there something to read into Mrs Carobleat’s frequent visits to Gwill? And the newspaper clippings in his office are odd (and also makes me feel quite nostalgic, as I’m sure people rarely have newspapers now). And Mrs Poole being frightened is concerning and puzzling too, surely this isn’t a ghost story, I am presuming there is a real solid human factor involved!
Purbright meets up with Detective Sergeant Love who is examining the field where Gwill died. The constable with them reports that his cousin, Maurice, saw Gwill late last night splashing water from a big jar or can onto the ground by his front gate, and he adds that the locals have believed for some time that a ghost was trying to get into Gwill’s house and that he used to spread holy water by his front gate to deter it. The pathologist tells Purbright that Gwill died of heart failure but before that he was asphyxiated and had had an electric shock. And he adds that there were marshmallows in his teeth. Hmmm, asphyxiated, I had to look that up, and it’s being suffocated, so he had suffered an electric shock and then been suffocated, how intriguing! And at what point did he get up the electricity pylon to be electrocuted (unless you can be electrocuted from standing on the ground by the pole)? I think this removes the suicide theory then, as he wouldn’t have suffocated himself, or was he suffocated with marshmallows, ie lots of them forced into his mouth so he couldn’t breathe?! And I wonder if Love is Purbright’s second, his Watson? And the pathologist, Dr Heineman, seems a character too with his diagnosis of how Gwill died and then adding ‘and before that…joys and sorrows and delusions, dear chappie’. And interestingly, Purbright is described by a constable as ‘sarky’ but he doesn’t really seem cuttingly sarcastic and to be putting people down and making them look small, though I did chuckle at Purbright’s suggestion of clues in the field including ‘cloth fibres, nail parings, dust from a hunch-backed grocer’s shop’, tee hee! And I liked the fact that Purbright likes ‘staring about him when he was out and silently guessing the errands of such inhabitants’, I love people-watching myself and wondering what they are up to!
Rodney Gloss, the local solicitor and a friend of Gwill, goes to see Chief Constable Chubb, he refuses to give more details but states that he believes Gwill’s death wasn’t an accident and was murder as he says that Gwill had enemies, he also says that he himself feels under threat and he asks Chubb if he can have police protection with an officer watching his house at night as he anticipates further murders, though he has no idea of quite how Gwill was killed and continues to say he can give no further details of what the threat is or by whom. He states that the murderer is ‘no one against whom you could possibly take action’. The Chief Constable warns Gloss about withholding information and states they can’t provide the protection he requests. Well, how odd! And Gloss’ reluctance to give details and him stating that the murderer is no-one that the police could possibly take action against makes me wonder if he also believes it is some kind of ghost. And tee hee, Chief Constable Chubb is described as ‘a slow thinker and late eater’, though I’m not really sure what this reveals about his character! And his private labelling of the case as ‘the damnable affair of the electrocuted newspaper proprietor’ made me smile too, they’re not words you see too commonly together, they would have made a good title to the book!
Purbright meets with Chief Constable Chubb to summarise the case so far to him. He explains that Gwill’s body was found that morning on the ground under the electricity pylon, he was wearing an overcoat over the top of a suit, and slippers, and he had burns on his hands which made the first policeman on the scene presume he had been electrocuted and had fallen from the pylon. The gate to his house was open, and the front door was closed but not locked. Hmmm, so finally, on page 34, we get details of the murder scene! I was surprised this wasn’t described earlier in the book, but at least we’re getting it now. And tee hee, again I’m smiling at the Chief Constable who felt the marshmallows sounded possibly sinister and possibly psychological, but he felt the psychological possibility was worse than the sinister possibility!
Purbright speaks to Mrs Carobleat at a teashop and tells her that Gwill was killed the night before, which she is surprised at but ‘she continued to stare at him, blankly now but with self-control’. She says she had gone to Shropshire yesterday morning and got back a short time ago, saying she often goes there for a change of scene. They are interrupted by Hillyard’s arrival at their table, Mrs Carobleat does not seem to like Hillyard. Purbright then leaves, saying he will see Mrs Carobleat at home some time. Ooooh, I love any scenes in teashops, they just seem so quaint and olde-wordly, plus the access to tea and cakes is an added bonus!
Purbright returns to his office, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the case with how unusual murder is in the town of Flaxborough. He looks at the post-mortem report sent to him and is puzzled by the details of the burn marks on the victim’s hands, as on the palm of his right hand the burn mark was a star or flower-like shape. He also notes that there were no other marks on the body but the burns, so it didn’t seem like Gwill had been physically forced to electrocute himself. Love arrives after speaking to Mrs Lintz, he relates that she had said she woke at 2am that morning when her husband arrived home from the club, and she also said that she and her husband suspected that Gwill was making money from several deals outside of the newspaper but that they had never been able to find out what these were, and that there seemed to be some antagonism between Gwill and Bradlaw, the undertaker. Purbright and Love go to Gwill’s house to collect the book of newspaper-clippings, as Purbright tells Love that he keeps puzzling about it, and they then go to Lintz’s office asking him if he knows anything about the book. Lintz recognises the book from having seen it in his uncle’s home office and queries why the Inspector is interested in it, to which Purbright explains that they now believe that Gwill was murdered. Lintz says he too was puzzled about the book of newspaper clippings and why his uncle had collected them but that he’d never asked his uncle about them, he says that the clippings were from their newspaper, and that he’d noticed there was a list of names and addresses at the back of the book, but when Purbright turns to the back of the book this list isn’t there, Lintz can’t remember any of the names and addresses. Lintz calls the member of staff who deals with the adverts, who says that they were all for-sale adverts that Gwill had written himself and that Gwill had asked for ‘CS’ to be put with the box number of the advert and had insisted that any replies to the adverts were to go directly to him, he says that four or five adverts were placed each week in the paper and that each advert brought about six replies, but that there are no replies left at the office from last week’s adverts as Gwill had collected them all promptly. Purbright decides to put three of the adverts in the paper again to see if they get a response. Lintz also hands Purbright a sheet of paper detailing all the people he was with yesterday and at what time, from leaving his uncle’s home until he arrived at his own home. Purbright notes that Lintz had been playing chess at midnight with Bradlaw. Hmmm, the oddly shaped burn mark is interesting, as is the missing list of names and addresses at the back of the book of newspaper clippings, was this list removed by the murderer? And how mysteriously intriguing about the adverts that Gwill placed, were they some kind of coded message?
Purbright and Love speak to Bradlaw, the undertaker, who is a little nervous but confirms that he and Lintz played chess that night although Bradlaw states that Lintz went out into the yard a few times but Bradlaw was drunk and sleepy so can’t say for certain when and for how long Lintz had been gone. Bradlaw also looks alarmed when Purbright mentions that Gloss is scared. When they leave, Purbright asks Love to follow Bradlaw if he leaves his home, which he does and goes to Gloss, them both then leaving in a car. Purbright’s colleagues’ investigations have found that Hillyard was seen in Gwill’s road that night, there was also someone who matches the description of Gloss, and a black van that matches Bradlaw’s van. Lintz also phones Purbright saying that he’s realised that Gwill had already inserted four adverts in the paper the week before, the adverts-man having just spotted them when proofing the paper, so Purbright cancels the adverts he was going to put in and asks Lintz to call him as soon as any replies to the adverts arrive and not to let anyone touch the replies. Tee hee, I chuckled at Bradlaw having been divorced due to ‘overmuch and carelessly directed amiability’, what a very polite way of saying (I presume) that he had had affairs! And I chuckled at one woman noticing the black van seen going past Gwill’s house was being driven fast and ‘to the danger of cats’!
Purbright speaks to Gloss who says he suspected that Gwill was earning money on the side and that he thinks that Gwill was conning someone else out of this money, as he said Gwill seemed excited and fearful and had dropped hints to Gloss to this effect, though Gloss had nothing to do with this and knew no details of what it was, other than by advising Gwill of suitable things to invest in when asked. However, Gloss says Gwill had hinted that he had led the conned person to believe that Gloss was also involved, and that Gwill had even said to Gloss that if something happens to him then Gloss should watch out for himself. Gloss tells Purbright that he was at Gwill’s house on the night he died, as Gwill had phoned asking him to come there on an urgent matter, he says he arrived at about 11.45pm and that Hillyard was also there. He says that Gwill was eating marshmallows, then took a phone call and immediately hurried out of the house saying he would be back in a few minutes, but he never came back. Gloss says that he and Hillyard waited for about half an hour and then left, pulling the front door to but not shutting it fully in case Gwill didn’t have a key. He says that having thought about it since, he heard a large car or van pull up outside the house so he wonders if the driver used the phone box opposite Gwill’s house to phone Gwill. He also thinks, though cannot be certain, that Gwill addressed the caller as George. Purbright asks him if Gwill had taken a bucket of water down the drive, which astonishes Gloss but he then remembers that the ground by the gate was wet when he arrived. Purbright asks Gloss why Bradlaw came to see him that morning, and Gloss says that Bradlaw needed reassurance as Purbright’s questioning had made him nervous. Hmmm, it’s all sounding more and more intriguing, and I am presuming that this business of Gwill’s on the side was something to do with the adverts. And that felt like quite a lot of information from Gloss, although I don’t really think it gave answers or cleared things up at all! But interesting that Gloss said that Gwill was eating marshmallows at his house, so perhaps there is nothing sinisterly significant in them being found on him (though that disappoints me a little as I was quite tempted by the unusualness of marshmallows being a possible clue!).
Hillyard and Bradlaw are speaking privately together, Bradlaw saying that ‘the whole damned thing’ will have to be dropped for the moment and built up again later when the fuss about Gwill’s death has passed, but Hillyard disagrees, saying it’s running smoothly and he won’t see it abandoned after everything they’ve put into it and that Gwill had got what he asked for. Hillyard also says ‘there’s only one way we can find him’ but adds that it’s not from speaking to ‘her’ as that has already been tried, and he says that he has a grateful patient who works at the telephone exchange. Oooh, it’s very intriguing what Hillyard and Bradlaw could have been meaning, but it seems like the four of them (Hillyard and Gloss and Bradlaw and Gwill) were in something together, and I wonder if the ‘him’ that Hillyard wants to find is Gwill’s murderer? And is he going to listen in on this man’s phone calls, which then means he must suspect who the murderer is.
Purbright receives a close-up photo of the flower-shaped burn mark in Gwill’s palm but can find nothing in Gwill’s house that is similar to the mark. He and Love also speak to Mrs Carobleat who avoids giving any more details about what kind of relationship she had with Gwill, above just being neighbours. Tee hee, I sympathised with Purbright and his collection of ‘enigmas, contradictions, deductions and doubts’, the case does seem full of those! And more insight into Purbright’s character (or rather, the character he chooses to come across as) with one of the suspects describing him as ‘makes himself a thorough nuisance and rubs it in by constantly apologising’, tee hee, I think he is cleverly using his apologetic style to his advantage.
Lintz calls Purbright saying that 14 replies have come in response to the adverts. Purbright goes to the newspaper office and he and Lintz open them all, steaming open the envelopes so they can be resealed later and seem to be untampered with. Each one contains £8 and refers to a piece of antique furniture the sender wants to buy as well as suggesting a day and time to view the furniture, which seem to all be between 7pm-9pm in the evening, and they are all from genuine people in the town. Purbright collates the details in a chart and re-seals the envelopes with the notes and money inside, putting them back in the newspaper post-room and telling Lintz to let him know if anyone calls to collect them. He discusses the findings with Love and asks for his ideas. Love suggests that the scheme could be blackmail, as the repliers are all well-respected men, several belonging to the Council or to the Country Club, but Purbright says that Gwill’s death was known about and this money was sent after he died so people who were being blackmailed wouldn’t still continue to pay after the blackmailer was dead. Purbright suggests that Love follow one of the men who replied, a Mr Leadbitter, as he doesn’t think that Leadbitter knows that Love is a policeman and Leadbitter’s viewing is booked for the day after tomorrow. Hmmm, I’m getting the inkling of an idea…I think taking the first letters of the pieces of furniture makes women’s names, eg Japanese antique newel ebony is Jane, superior antique lampstand is Sal, Japanese oak antique newel is Joan, and Egyptian newel inlaid dodecahedronic is Enid. So I think this is some sort of prostitution business, which would also fit with the times stated to view the furniture as these are all in the evening. I think this may be it, although I can’t really take that much credit for my idea as the author seemed to generously lead us by giving some of the pieces of furniture leading capital letters which then draws the eye to them. Oooh, it’s a very sneaky clever idea though! And I’m also thinking that Gloss and Bradlaw and Hillyard are in it with Gwill, which is why the money continues to be sent after Gwill’s death as the clients are presuming that the service will be continued by the remaining three men. And perhaps the list of names and addresses in the back of Gwill’s book that Lintz remembered seeing and which is now missing, are the details of the women, their names written in full (I’m guessing the list wasn’t of the clients as the clients have replied using their proper names, which I guess makes sense as it would seem to anyone not in the know that they are innocently arranging to view furniture so there is no need to disguise who they are). So I wonder who the murderer is, perhaps one of the women angry at being used in this way or feeling she isn’t being paid enough, or maybe one of the women’s husbands having just discovered what his wife is doing, or a client that Gwill (and the others?) have threatened to tell on unless he pays more for the service? Although why would Gwill and the others risk their successful business by getting greedy demanding more money from the clients, as if their clients suspected that they’d be blackmailed then they would soon stop being clients, and besides Gwill and the others are all respectable businessmen themselves so presumably wouldn’t want to risk being known for being part of a prostitution business so anyone they tried to blackmail could threaten them also with revealing what they do. Ok, so no further forward on the murderer or motive or why Gwill was killed in the way he was, but at least I’m fairly sure (well, I am hoping…!) that I am at least further forward on what Gwill was actually doing in his business on the side.
Purbright updates Chief Constable Chubb, who was hoping that the death of ‘poor old Gwill’ was nothing suspicious, and feels that ‘the sooner this business is cleared up the better’. Purbright explains that it seems like Gwill was enticed out of his house as a result of a phone call he received, which Purbright feels indicates a ‘calculated attack on Gwill, or…some sort of trap laid for him’. He says that Gloss has admitted he was at Gwill’s house that evening along with Hillyard, and Purbright suspects that Bradlaw was there too and was the driver of a black van seen passing the house twice, and he adds that he suspects that Mrs Carobleat was Gwill’s mistress and possibly also involved in his death in some way. Purbright also details the mysterious adverts that Gwill was putting in his newspaper. Tee hee, I did chuckle at Purbright privately wondering how Chubb became Chief Constable and if ‘in a moment of municipal confusion…someone overlooked the fact that he was really a candidate for the curatorship of the Fish Street Museum’. And I am hoping that the Chief Constable wasn’t one of the clients, with him being part of the Country Club (and there being several Country Club members who were clients).
Purbright speaks to Gwill’s bank manager, Smith, who confirms that Gwill had a large amount of money with the bank and that this seemed to be more money than Gwill’s official earnings, though Smith says he has no idea where this other source of money came from as Gwill always paid it into his account in cash. Smith also adds that Gwill’s money was ‘about to become much more substantial’ due to Gwill receiving £18,000 from Carobleat’s will, though Smith says that he was surprised at this as Carobleat had given him to understand that he hadn’t made a will, which led Smith to urge him to do so, and also that the will had apparently been put in the wrong deed box at Gloss’ office so wasn’t found for quite some time after Carobleat’s death. Tee hee, I chuckled at Smith giving what is clearly his standard trite greeting of ‘Grand day’ but without taking any notice of the day’s weather, so Purbright slightly snidely corrects him with ‘Well, it’s cold and foggy outside’, ha ha, nice to shoot down those trite meaningless statements and the people who make them! And it was also funny when Purbright mentioned that they suspect Gwill was murdered, as Smith was horrified and looked like someone ‘had suddenly asked for an overdraft’, tee hee! And oooh, that’s very interesting that Gwill benefitted from Carobleat’s will and to such a large sum, and Gloss only found this will some time after Carobleat died, hmmm, is there something suspicious with this will?! And where does Gwill’s money go to, is that a sufficient motive for someone to murder him to gain all that money?
Love follows Leadbitter that evening, who goes into Hillyard’s surgery at his appointed viewing time of 8.15pm. Love also enters the surgery, but Leadbitter isn’t in the downstairs waiting room. Love therefore climbs the stairs to the next level and finds a noticeboard at the top of the stairs entitled Treatment Schedule with that day’s date, a column of times, a column of numbers 1 to 4, and a column of initials. He copies down the table in his notebook. A man exits from one of the doorways (Love hiding himself in the shadows at the other end of the landing) who he recognises as Herbert Stamper and remembers he was one of the men who replied to Gwill’s advertisements. Love decides to look into the rooms labelled 1 to 4 and finds what seems to be a dressing room immediately behind each door and then another closed door after the dressing room. He can hear Leadbitter’s lowered voice behind the closed door in room no.2 and can see his clothes hung up in the dressing room area, he then hears odd breathing noises from behind the closed door which makes him wonder if Leadbitter is under anaesthetic. He tries the closed door in room no.3 and finds a near-naked woman asleep in the darkened room, who is very angry. He retreats swiftly but recognises the woman. Hmmm, I think I am right in my guess, though I chuckled at Love’s naivety in not guessing it. And who is the woman he recognises?! And this surely means that Hillyard is definitely involved, with it being his surgery being used.
Love reports on the evening to Purbright, saying the woman he saw was a Margaret Shooter who he knew from his days of plodding the beat a few years ago when she was one of the women at the ‘knocking shop…entertaining sailors’, before this place at the docks was closed down by Carobleat. Purbright also tells Love that a young lad from Gloss’ office collected the replies to Gwill’s adverts from the newspaper office, presenting the counterfoil to the adverts, and Purbright adds that he has already challenged Gloss about this but that Gloss had explained that the counterfoil had been amongst Gwill’s things, which he had as his solicitor, so he thought he’d better collect them in case they were important, and that Gloss had shown Purbright the replies that he’d opened and the money enclosed in each envelope, and had asked Purbright if he had any idea what it could all mean. Oooh, so could this be a link with Carobleat closing down the prostitution business at the docks, so he may have had a few men angry at him and one of them murdered him? Although I don’t think there was a hint that Carobleat was murdered, was there? I was then wondering why Carobleat was friends with Gwill and Hillyard and Gloss and Bradlaw, who seem now to be involved in the prostitution business (if my guess is correct, of course), if Carobleat disapproved of prostitution and tried to eradicate it from the town by closing down the place at the docks. I guess Carobleat could just not have known about their side line in the prostitution business, or could it even be that Carobleat was involved with them in this business so he therefore closed down the original premises at the docks so they could open up premises of their own at Hillyard’s surgery? And Love said that the woman he saw was called Margaret which made me wonder how they could get her name to represent a piece of furniture as part of the code system, but Purbright says Stamper (who was the man who came out of the room Margaret was in) had answered the advert for a Mahogany and Beech Sideboard, so perhaps a shortened version of Margaret is Mabs? Although if so, I’m glad this wasn’t one of the first names listed, as I don’t think I’d have guessed it then, not knowing that Mabs could be short for Margaret. Oh, in fact I’ve just googled and Mabs is also a nickname for a prostitute or ‘low woman’, so perhaps because Margaret was known for being a prostitute in the past then could her nickname in this present scheme refer to this, rather than being a shortened form of Margaret? And tee hee, I did chuckle at Chief Constable Chubb popping into Purbright’s office for an update and being impressed with the ‘wealth of psychology’ that Purbright uses to explain his theory, adding ‘I’d always thought traffic was your forte’, phew, how insulting (though funny)! And there was quite a poetical bit in this section too with ‘the blackness bloomed with a dim reflection of the room’s lamp-light upon rags of mist’, I quite liked that!
Gloss’ wife phones the station saying that Gloss has been stabbed with a knife as he was entering his house a little while ago, and he is dead! Chief Constable Chubb accompanies Purbright and Love to Gloss’ home, as they were all together when the call came in. Hillyard is at Gloss’ home when the three arrive, as he had walked back with Gloss to his house after Gloss had come to his surgery that evening for a chat and a drink. Hillyard explains that they were by the gate of Gloss’ house when there was ‘a dark shape right under our noses, then Gloss seemed to lift…and went down outside the gate’. He says the attacker made no sound, and the long knife used in the attack was left at the scene. Hillyard explains that he has blood on him because he knelt down to see what had happened to Gloss, but later Love says to Purbright that he feels certain that Hillyard was the attacker due to the blood on his sleeve and also the fact that there is a street lamp almost directly outside Gloss’ house so Love struggles to understand how Hillyard didn’t see the attacker at all. Purbright says they should have begun this case by looking further into Carobleat’s death, as he was connected with the other men and the police were suspicious at the time that he had another business on the side. Purbright says he will arrest Hillyard tomorrow, partly to try and avoid him being killed. Ooooh, that was a bit of a shock with Gloss being killed! And are we being led to suspect Hillyard of the attack? It does seem a bit odd how vague he is with any details of the attacker. But with Purbright being concerned if Hillyard would ‘last the night’ and not be murdered, it seems he is viewing Hillyard as another potential victim rather than the murderer.
One of Purbright’s policemen goes to Margaret Shooter’s house, and she admits she is a prostitute at Hillyard’s surgery, after he tells her that Hillyard will shortly be arrested. The policeman asks if she is also known as Mabs, and then asks her if she knows a Jane and Sal, ticking these names off on a piece of paper with Mahogany and Beech Sideboard (Mabs), Japanese Antique Newel Ebony (Jane), and Superior Antique Lampstand (Sal). She says about four years ago, Carobleat offered her a ‘decent regular job’ saying he could fix it as he was on the council. Oooh, I was right about the code names for the women, tee hee! And does this mean that Mrs Carobleat is involved? She doesn’t seem to be one of the prostitutes.
When Purbright and Love go to arrest Hillyard, he isn’t to be found, and neither is Bradlaw. When they go to Gwill’s house again, Love spots that the iron handle on the gate matches the flower shaped burn on Gwill’s hand. Purbright then realises, by looking at marks on the gates, that an electric current had been passed through the gates and he guesses the cable had come through the hedge to Gwill’s gate, but he is unsure if its source came from Gwill’s house or the neighbouring house of Mrs Carobleat. He examines the hedge dividing the properties and finds a piece of tape with fragmented writing on it which looks like an advert for an electrical business. Mrs Poole comes out of the house, she is still frightened and doesn’t seem able to speak coherently due to her fear, but she intimates that she saw the person who set up the electric current, although she didn’t realise at the time what they were doing, however she is unable to say who this person was. Grrr, it’s frustrating that Mrs Poole doesn’t say who she saw, she seems to be acting very oddly though, almost paralysed by fear, bless her! And I’m glad we’ve come back to the mystery of Gwill’s death and how he might have died, I’d almost forgotten about that with me thinking more about the mysterious adverts and the code they contained.
Hillyard and Bradlaw are driving in the countryside, looking for the home of someone (not stated) in order to ‘redress an ancient wrong’ and ensure ‘we’ll sleep again’. Meanwhile Purbright has gone to the pub in Shropshire that Mrs Carobleat told him she was at the night that Gwill died. The landlord confirms that she was there that night and that she regularly stays there, about once or twice a month. The landlord says she often visits Mr Barnaby’s cottage in the countryside, so Purbright and Gibbins (the local constable who is assisting Purbright) go there. It then becomes obvious that this is also the area where Hillyard and Bradlaw have gone. There is no answer when Purbright and Gibbins knock at Barnaby’s cottage, and when they scout around they see lots of electric flex in the garage. They break into the cottage but there is no sign of Barnaby inside, although they find clothes laid out in the bedroom as if he had taken them off. Purbright also finds two beads of glass from medical phials that makes him suspect something poisonous was added to an empty jug of milk in the sink, and Gibbins manages to unscrew the waste pipe under the sink to get a sample of the milk. Tee hee, I was a bit annoyed with how vague it was with who Hillyard and Bradlaw were looking for and why and what they intended to do, but then we got a certain amount of the answers by Purbright turning up at the same place! I was wondering where Hillyard and Bradlaw were when Purbright and Gibbins were in Barnaby’s cottage though, I was expecting either Purbright to find them inside the cottage, or them to enter the cottage when Purbright was inside. Have Hillyard and Bradlaw been and gone, or are they still walking to the cottage perhaps, or did they spot Purbright and Gibbins approaching the cottage so held back themselves? And I had half expected that Barnaby would be found dead inside the cottage, but obviously not, though Purbright seems to be thinking he is dead. Which then makes me wonder again about the time difference between Hillyard and Bradlaw being there and Purbright and Gibbins being there, had Hillyard and Bradlaw arrived quite some time earlier and killed Barnaby?
Purbright explains to Chief Constable Chubb that the original idea for the prostitution business was Carobleat’s, even though he was known for having removed it from the docks area and had set up a moral welfare committee, however Carobleat had used this committee to recruit women, promising them a good living with good-class clients, he then organised the financial side of it and the women received a list of appointments and turned up at the doctor’s premises. Purbright thinks that Bradlaw became involved as he was a builder as well as an undertaker and he converted the top floor of Hillyard’s surgery to accommodate the rooms that the prostitutes used. Purbright thinks that Gwill managed the organisation of the scheme through his adverts, the intricate codes of which Purbright says probably wasn’t necessary but Gwill recognised that this added to the excitement for the clients. He adds that Mrs Carobleat looked after the secretarial side. Ick, it makes me feel a bit queasy that Carobleat recruited the women from his moral welfare committee, I wonder if the women had originally hoped this committee may have given them skills for a worthwhile trade but really they were just being kept in the same trade and taken advantage of yet again.
Later, Hillyard is arrested but Purbright then guesses that the cremation which Bradlaw is organising that day is actually secretly for Barnaby, although Bradlaw has stated that the man being cremated is the uncle of his housekeeper who he said was visiting his niece and suddenly died. Purbright and Love hurry over there to put a stop to the cremation just in time. They question Bradlaw about the body in the coffin, and he says that Hillyard signed the death certificate, but Purbright then tells him that Hillyard has been arrested so Bradlaw confesses everything. He explains about the prostitution business and that Mrs Carobleat had told her lover, Barnaby, all about the scheme and he had started blackmailing them and was taking more and more money from them, threatening to make public what they were doing. He says Gwill committed suicide as he was so worried about being exposed, but that Barnaby killed Gloss and also tried to stab Hillyard at the same time but he survived. He says Hillyard was determined to act after Gloss was killed but they didn’t know where to find Barnaby, however Hillyard had a friend of his at the telephone exchange trace calls to Mrs Carobleat till they discovered where Barnaby was calling from. He says they went to his cottage and he wasn’t there, Bradlaw says he thought they were just going to scare Barnaby and then he saw that Hillyard had brought along his drugs case. They broke into the cottage and Hillyard used a syringe to inject some milk with something from his drugs case, telling Bradlaw that it would just make Barnaby sleepy and easier to manage. They waited for Barnaby to return to the cottage and then watched him through the window as he drank the milk and then collapsed. They carried him onto the bed and Bradlaw says he left Hillyard alone with Barnaby, who was just asleep at that point, but when he came back into the bedroom he saw Hillyard injecting him with the syringe. They then put him in the back of the van and drove back to Bradlaw’s premises, and when they arrived Barnaby was dead, but Bradlaw swears he had had no intention of killing Barnaby and it was all Hillyard. Purbright points out that Barnaby had been stripped before being put into the van so he believes this was because Barnaby was actually put into a coffin in the back of the van which they had brought with them, therefore the whole thing was premeditated. Phew, that was a bit of a dramatic close call at the crematorium, wondering if they’d get there in time before the body was destroyed! So Bradlaw says Gwill committed suicide?! That can’t be so, surely!
Purbright had earlier sent Love to collect Mrs Carobleat who then arrives at the crematorium, he asks her to identify the body in the coffin and in her shock she murmurs Harold’s name. Omg, I wasn’t expecting that Barnaby was Harold Carobleat, that’s a bit of a clever twist!! I guess Hillyard signed the original death certificate for Carobleat (as well as for ‘Barnaby’) therefore helping Carobleat fake his death, and presumably Bradlaw organised a fake burial for Carobleat. I had been a bit surprised that Mrs Carobleat was involved in the prostitution business but I guess if her husband was involved in it (even after his ‘death’) then that makes more sense.
Purbright is explaining the case to Chief Constable Chubb at Chubb’s home, his wife regularly bringing them cups of tea. Purbright says Bradlaw has confessed and explained that Carobleat realised he was about to be found out and possibly imprisoned by the police for dodgy dealing in his business so he faked his death and moved to a secret retreat in Shropshire under the name Barnaby, and his firm’s books and other incriminating paperwork was buried in the coffin he was presumed to be in. His wife visited him in Shropshire every other weekend, but he grew a beard and sometimes came back to his original house, which was what scared Mrs Poole as she recognised him but believed she was seeing a ghost and he was haunting the area. Purbright says Carobleat was pleased with his cleverness as he had savings he could access via his wife, plus she had received a life insurance payout, plus he was still getting his share from the prostitution business, and he was confident the others wouldn’t give him away as they couldn’t risk their involvement in the prostitution business becoming known, but he also had his wife watching them as she dealt with the secretarial side of the business. But then a forged will turned up giving all Carobleat’s money to Gwill, who doubtless split the money with the others. Carobleat and his wife couldn’t do anything about the forged will without revealing that Carobleat was actually alive, so he decided to kill the others. He made sure his wife stayed at the hotel in Shropshire in order to give her an alibi, and he then fixed the electric cable to Gwill’s gate in readiness and asked the others to meet him at Gwill’s house, saying he wanted to discuss a settlement being made to him so he could then leave the country. When they had arrived at Gwill’s house, Carobleat phoned them saying he had hurt his leg and asking if they could come to his house instead, he then sent the electric current through Gwill’s gate so they would be killed by touching it when they exited. Gwill touched it first and was killed, but this blew the fuses in Carobleat’s house which stopped the electric current to the gate so the gate was therefore safe for the others to touch. The others took Gwill into the house and realised he was dead, Hillyard recognising that he had been electrocuted, so they put him under the pylon in the field to try and make it look like an accident or suicide. Purbright says that Bradlaw told him the story of Barnaby as he was trying desperately to conceal the fact that he was involved in the fake burial of Carobleat. Purbright prepares to leave Chubb’s house after having explained everything, and idly remarks on the unusual coffee table in the room, for something polite to say, however Mrs Chubb tells him that he can have the table as they are planning to get a replacement and says that her husband actually saw a new table last week that they will likely buy, a ‘Japanese ebony’ one, and ‘Mr Chubb stared gravely at his nails, then at the ceiling’.
Eeeek, what what what?!!! So Chubb was using the prostitution business too?! Omg!!! I’ve had to flick back to see how he responded when Purbright explained the discovery of the prostitution business to him, and he did seem quite curt and brusque about it, not wanting to hear details of the business and cutting Purbright short, and he was also praising Purbright quite sarcastically for discovering it. I also remember that Love had said that Chubb was a member of the Country Club, and that several of their members had used the business. But did Purbright guess Chubb used the business, I wonder? Looking back at their exchanges, Purbright had said to Chubb (although seemingly to be speaking about Gwill and the others) ‘some of them are off the rails all the time but manage to keep the fact to themselves’, so was this a hint that he recognised that Chubb had managed to keep his involvement in it a secret? And Purbright told Chubb ‘we may need your support in several ways that I cannot predict at the moment’, so was this a hint to Chubb that Purbright knew his secret and would therefore be relying on Chubb’s support in return for not revealing his involvement? And after Purbright had said about needing his support ‘Chubb regarded Purbright thoughtfully’, so was Chubb then trying to decide just how much Purbright knew? And there was one point when Chubb said ‘There’s just one little thing I must ask of you though’ and Purbright then ‘met Chubb’s gaze with a politely solicitous eye’, so I’m wondering now if Purbright thought Chubb was going to ask him to conceal his involvement, as the ‘politely solicitous eye’ sounds fairly non-committal to me. Hmmm, I don’t know, I’m not sure if Purbright already knew or not, I wish we had his reaction to Mrs Chubb’s words at the end of the book. And I guess Hillyard and the others would have known that Chubb used the prostitution business, so I’m surprised they hadn’t tried to put pressure on him to get Purbright to drop the case. Or was that the reason Chubb had talked about possibly getting Scotland Yard to take over the case from Purbright, had Hillyard and the others pressured Chubb to get Purbright taken off? And was this why Gloss went to Chubb asking for police protection, did he expect to be given this protection knowing he could otherwise reveal Chubb’s involvement? And I guess we’ll see in other books if Chubb is still in his post, as if not then maybe we can assume that Purbright had put pressure on him to leave.
And tee hee, the whole fake will business really was rather clever and cheeky! I love the sneakiness of it, that Carobleat wasn’t able to expose their fraudulency without admitting he had faked his death!! I guess all four of them were involved in it and shared the money, even though it was only Gwill mentioned as the beneficiary in the will, as Gloss must have been the one to ‘accidentally’ find the will in his office. And I did chuckle a little at Hillyard suggesting that they kill Carobleat when he was due to meet them at Gwill’s house but the others had refused to do this ‘because the ground would be too hard’!! So that was the only reason they gave for not committing murder?!
And so the marshmallows in Gwill’s mouth meant nothing sinister really, they weren’t inserted by the murderer or anything, Gwill was just eating them as he usually did and he had the bag in his pocket at the point he touched the gate. Hmmm, perhaps that was a bit sneaky by the author, as I think the marshmallows were made out to be significant, although I guess they were significant in that they showed that suicide was unlikely (as someone intending to kill himself was unlikely to do it while halfway through a bag of marshmallows!). And it was perhaps the publishers who made more of the marshmallows than the author, as the marshmallows are mentioned in the blurb on the back of the book as one of the ‘curious circumstances’ of the case so I guess my attention was directed to them by the publishers really, not the author.
And I did have to look back at the report from the constable’s cousin who said he witnessed Gwill splashing holy water onto the ground by his front gate to deter ghosts, but Purbright had explained that this was actually Carobleat swilling water onto the ground in order to increase the electric shock. And I guess the whole thing about the locals having believed for some time that a ghost was trying to get into Gwill’s house and that he would spread holy water by his front gate to deter the ghost, was just local gossip going crazy after the event, presumably being spread by Mrs Poole, as obviously Gwill wasn’t splashing water by his front gate to deter ghosts. And still on the subject of ghosts, I felt Gloss also led us (well, led me anyway!) to wonder about ghosts when he told Chubb that the murderer of Gwill was ‘no one against whom you could possibly take action’, as this sounded very ghost-like and mysterious. But I guess Gloss was correct, as technically Carobleat wasn’t believed to be alive! And how difficult for Gloss, to want so desperately to be protected but being unable to say who the murderer was, as to admit that Carobleat was not dead would just get him and the others into trouble. And then Gloss was killed by Carobleat!
But I was a bit puzzled by the pathologist saying that Gwill died of ‘failure of the heart, naturally, but before that there was asphyxia and before that shock from the electrics’, I can obviously understand the electric shock that led to the heart failure, but what about the asphyxiation, as I thought asphyxiation was suffocating? I was wondering if it meant Gwill choked on the marshmallows as they were in his mouth when he was electrocuted so then he suffocated, but after googling more (not a very cheerful search!) I found that a person’s respiratory system stops if they are being electrocuted, so I guess this is the asphyxia bit.
And I guess Gloss and Bradlaw and Hillyard removed the list of names and addresses from the back of Gwill’s notebook, as presumably these were the names and addresses of the prostitutes. But I wonder why they then left the book there at Gwill’s house to be potentially found? Maybe they presumed others, such as Lintz, had previously seen the book as Gwill ran the adverts through the newspaper, so to have the book go missing would attract more importance to it? But I’d have thought they would also need the book in order to continue running the business and arranging the meet-ups between prostitutes and clients.
And I thought Lintz said that he and Bradlaw were playing chess until midnight on the night that Gwill died, so how could Bradlaw be in two places at once as he was at Gwill’s house, wasn’t he? I can’t imagine that Lintz was lying to give Bradlaw an alibi? But looking back at Pubright’s final explanation to Chubb, he said that Bradlaw had told him that he ‘deliberately arrived late for the meeting, he hoped that if there were trouble he would be in nice time to miss it’, so I guess this explains how he could have been playing chess with Lintz and then later be at Gwill’s house to witness him being killed.
And I’m thinking Bradlaw really wasn’t a nice man at all (obviously not, as he was involved in a murder and involved in a prostitute business and involved in the fake death and burial of someone, but even allowing for all that…!), he seems sneaky and quick to lie and is very willing to try and put blame on others in order to protect himself. He hinted to Purbright that Lintz went into the yard a few times when they were playing chess and said that he himself was sleepy so didn’t notice how long Lintz was gone and at what times, so effectively trying to make Purbright suspicious of innocent Lintz. He also tried to make out that Hillyard was solely responsible for killing ‘Barnaby’ and that he himself had no prior knowledge of what Hillyard was going to to do, until Purbright pointed out that they had a coffin in the back of Bradlaw’s van to transport ‘Barnaby’ in which shows that there was premeditation and that Bradlaw was involved as he must have organised the coffin.
And obviously we learnt what the furniture sale adverts really were regarding and that the pieces of furniture were codes to women’s names, but I don’t think we got an answer to what the ‘CS’ was that Gwill added to the PO Box number. Maybe it meant nothing and was just a quick easy way for the newspaper staff to identify that these were the replies that Gwill wanted to open personally, but I did spend quite some time wondering what the letters could mean.
Well, I really enjoyed this book, there were clever twists in it and a few bits of amusingly dry humour and I loved the codes in it. And I liked Purbright as the detective, he wasn’t smug or patronising to the reader and I liked how he questioned the suspects by just patiently letting them talk and not being too forceful or commandeering the conversation, and he explained everything well at the end of the book too. I will definitely read more of this series. I popped back to the charity shop that I purchased this book from, and luckily there were a few more from the series, so I also have Hopjoy Was Here, Lonely Heart 4122, The Flaxborough Crab, The Naked Nuns, and One Man’s Meat to read next. Also the publishers (Magnum Books) listed some other books that they published, which included some Erle Stanley Gardner books with some very intriguing titles, such as The Case of the Musical Cow, The Case of the Fabulous Fake, The Case of the Worried Waitress, and The Case of the Hesitant Hostess! These just sound wonderful (based solely on the titles!) so I think I’ll have to try some of them (but sadly I’m sure they’re not now available to buy for 65p, which was the advertised price in 1977 when this book was published, tee hee!).
