Hardcastle sighed.

‘I’m not fastening it on her-but I’ve got to start somewhere. The body was found in Pebmarsh’s house. That involves her. The body was found by the Webb girl-I don’t need to tell you how often the first person to find a dead body is the same as the person who last saw him alive. Until more facts turn up, those two remain in the picture.’ 

‘When I went into that room at just after three o’clock, the body had been dead at least half an hour, probably longer. How about that?’

‘Sheila Webb had her lunch hour from 1.30 to 2.30.’

I looked at him in exasperation.

‘What have you found out about Curry?’

Hardcastle said with unexpected bitterness: ‘Nothing!’

‘What do you mean-nothing?’

‘Just that he doesn’t exist-there’s no such person.’

‘What do the Metropolis Insurance Company say?’

‘They’ve nothing to say either, because there’s no such thing. The Metropolis and Provincial Insurance Company doesn’t exist. As far as Mr Curry from Denvers Street goes, there’s no Mr Curry, no Denvers Street, Number 7 or any other number.’

‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘You mean he just had some bogus cards printed with a bogus name, address and insurance company?’

‘Presumably.’

‘What is the big idea, do you think?’

Hardcastle shrugged his shoulders.

‘At the moment it’s guesswork. Perhaps he collected bogus premiums. Perhaps it was a way of introducing himself into houses and working some confidence trick. He may have been a swindler or a confidence trickster or a picker-up of unconsidered trifles or a private inquiry agent. We just don’t know.’ 

‘But you’ll find out.’

‘Oh, yes, we’ll know in the end. We sent up his fingerprints to see if he’s got a record of any kind. If he has it’ll be a big step on the way. If he hasn’t, it’ll be rather more difficult.’

‘A private dick,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘I rather like that. It opens up-possibilities.’

‘Possibilities are all we’ve got so far.’

‘When’s the inquest?’

‘Day after tomorrow. Purely formal and an adjournment.’

‘What’s the medical evidence?’

‘Oh, stabbed with a sharp instrument. Something like a kitchen vegetable-knife.’

‘That rather lets out Miss Pebmarsh, doesn’t it?’ I said thoughtfully. ‘A blind woman would hardly be able to stab a man. She reallyis blind, I suppose?’

‘Oh, yes, she’s blind. We checked up. And she’s exactly what she says she is. She was a teacher of mathematics in a North Country school-lost her sight about sixteen years ago-took up training in Braille, etc., and finally got a post with the Aaronberg Institute here.’

‘She could be mental, I suppose?’

‘With a fixation on clocks and insurance agents?’

‘It really is all too fantastic for words.’ I couldn’t help speaking with some enthusiasm. ‘Like Ariadne Oliver in her worst moments, or the late Garry Gregson at the top of his form-’

‘Go on-enjoy yourself.You’re not the wretched D.I. in charge.You haven’t got to satisfy a superintendent or a chief constable and all the rest of it.’

‘Oh well! Perhaps we’ll get something useful out of the neighbours.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Hardcastle bitterly. ‘If that man was stabbed in the front garden and two masked men carried him into the house-nobody would have looked out of the window or seen anything. This isn’t a village, worse luck. Wilbraham Crescent is a genteel residential road. By one o’clock, daily women who might have seen something have gone home. There’s not even a pram being wheeled along-’

‘No elderly invalid who sits all day by the window?’

‘That’s what we want-but that’s not what we’ve got.’

‘What about numbers 18 and 20?’

‘18 is occupied by Mr Waterhouse, Managing Clerk to Gainsford and Swettenham, Solicitors, and his sister who spends her spare time managing him. All I know about 20 is that the woman who lives there keeps about twenty cats. I don’t like cats-’

I told him that a policeman’s life was a hard one, and we started off.

Mr Waterhouse, hovering uncertainly on the steps of 18, Wilbraham Crescent, looked back nervously at his sister.

‘You’re quite sure you’ll be all right?’ said Mr Waterhouse.

Miss Waterhouse snorted with some indignation.

‘I really don’t know what you mean, James.’

Mr Waterhouse looked apologetic. He had to look apologetic so often that it was practically his prevailing cast of countenance.

‘Well, I just meant, my dear, considering what happened next door yesterday…’

Mr Waterhouse was prepared for departure to the solicitors’ office where he worked. He was a neat, grey-haired man with slightly stooping shoulders and a face that was also grey rather than pink, though not in the least unhealthy looking. 

Miss Waterhouse was tall, angular, and the kind of woman with no nonsense about her who is extremely intolerant of nonsense in others.

‘Is there any reason, James, because someone was murdered in the next door house that I shall be murdered today?’

‘Well, Edith,’ said Mr Waterhouse, ‘it depends so much, does it not, by whom the murder was committed?’

‘You think, in fact, that there’s someone going up and down Wilbraham Crescent selecting a victim from every house? Really, James, that is almost blasphemous.’

‘Blasphemous, Edith?’ said Mr Waterhouse in lively surprise. Such an aspect of his remark would never have occurred to him.

‘Reminiscent of the Passover,’ said Miss Waterhouse. ‘Which, let me remind you, is Holy Writ.’

‘That is a little far-fetched I think, Edith,’ said Mr Waterhouse.

‘I should like to see anyone coming here, trying to murderme,’ said Miss Waterhouse with spirit.

Her brother reflected to himself that it did seem highly unlikely. If he himself had been choosing a victim he would not have chosen his sister. If anyone were to attempt such a thing it was far more likely that the attacker would be knocked out by a poker or a lead doorstop and delivered over to the police in a bleeding and humiliated condition.

‘I just meant,’ he said, the apologetic air deepening, ‘that there are-well-clearly undesirable characters about.’

‘We don’t know very much about what did happen yet,’ said Miss Waterhouse. ‘All sorts of rumours are going about. Mrs Head had some extraordinary stories this morning.’

‘I expect so, I expect so,’ said Mr Waterhouse. He looked at his watch. He had no real desire to hear the stories brought in by their loquacious daily help. His sister never lost time in debunking these lurid flights of fancy, but nevertheless enjoyed them.

‘Some people are saying,’ said Miss Waterhouse, ‘that this man was the treasurer or a trustee of the Aaronberg Institute and that there is something wrong in the accounts, and that he came to Miss Pebmarsh to inquire about it.’

‘And that Miss Pebmarsh murdered him?’ Mr Waterhouse looked mildly amused. ‘A blind woman? Surely-’

‘Slipped a piece of wire round his neck and strangled him,’ said Miss Waterhouse. ‘He wouldn’t be on his guard, you see. Who would be with anyone blind? Not that I believe it myself,’ she added. ‘I’m sure Miss Pebmarsh is a person of excellent character. If I do not see eye to eye with her on various subjects, that is not because I impute anything of a criminal nature to her. I merely think that her views are bigoted and extravagant. After all, thereare other things besides education. All these new peculiar looking grammar schools, practically built of glass. You might think they were meant to grow cucumbers in, or tomatoes. I’m sure very prejudicial to children in the summer months. Mrs Head herself told me that her Susan didn’t like their new classrooms. Said it was impossible to attend to your lessons because with all those windows you couldn’t help looking out of them all the time.’