Close Quarters by Michael Gilbert Read Free Book Online Page B

and Moon Equable Incorporated,’ said the old lady resignedly. ‘I dare say they’re as bad as each other.’
    Pollock was just wondering whether he had stumbled unexpectedly into Alice in Wonderland when a hearty clerical figure appeared at the end of the passage.
    â€˜All right, Biddy. Excuse me, I’m Halliday. Let me see, do I know you?’
    Pollock got an impression of muscular Christianity, and advanced resolutely past the still suspicious Biddy.
    â€˜I’m Pollock,’ he said (thinking how silly your own name sounded when you had to repeat it three times in as many minutes). ‘The Dean sent me over to talk to you about a small matter which has cropped up. I’m his nephew, you know.’
    â€˜Oh, come in,’ said Halliday more genially, opening the study door and revealing an untidy room. ‘It’s quite all right, Biddy, you run along and help Miss Halliday with the unpacking. I’m afraid we’re rather in a mess, you know,’ he went on, sweeping two tennis rackets and a pair of sand-shoes from the nearest chair. ‘Just back from our holiday. Won’t you sit down?’ As Biddy backed out of the room, her gaze still fixed suspiciously on Pollock as though she expected him at any moment to blossom with pink proposal forms and premium schedules, he added, ‘Now what can I do for you?’
    Feeling that in this case, there would be no harm in trying the approach direct, Pollock said, ‘I shan’t keep you very long, I dare say. As a matter of fact, I’m a police officer from Scotland Yard. I understand that you and your sister have been away from Melchester for some time, so you mayn’t know much of what has been going on, but during the last few days somebody has been sending some rather stupid and unpleasant messages to people in the Close – mostly about your head verger, Appledown.’
    â€˜I had heard something about it as a matter of fact,’ said Halliday slowly. ‘Trumpington – he’s one of the canons, you know – wrote to me. Something about a flag and the anthem at Evensong. And now that you mention it, I remember that he said he’d had an anonymous letter.’
    â€˜Letters have been sent,’ said Pollock carefully, ‘and it would seem from their nature and contents that they constitute a criminal offence. The evidence would seem to point to the fact that they were written by a resident of the Close.’
    â€˜Good gracious,’ said Halliday mildly. ‘What a very extraordinary thing.’
    â€˜You’ll appreciate,’ went on Pollock more informally, ‘that I have to question everyone. I’m starting by trying to eliminate those people who weren’t here. I wondered—’
    â€˜You’d like me to prove an alibi,’ said Halliday cheerfully, coming to the point with such crude abandon as momentarily to take Pollock aback. ‘For what time or times?’ he added ingenuously.
    â€˜Well,’ said Pollock cautiously, ‘it would be a help to start with, if you would let me know what you were doing last Sunday evening.’
    â€˜Preaching,’ said Halliday, and seeing a slight look of mystification on Pollock’s face, he added, ‘I don’t often take a proper holiday, you know. Too hard up. But I sometimes do locum for an old friend of mine who has a tiny little parish in North Devon – seventeen inhabitants and a three-by-four church; you know the sort of thing. Just Sunday services, and a very good golf course opposite the front door. Evensong (with sermon), at six-thirty till about seven-thirty. Last Sunday, after evening service, my sister and I went back to dinner with the local big-wigs. I’m afraid we sat it out a bit late as I knew their eldest son at Cambridge, and he was spending the week-end with them – I suppose we were back before one o’clock in the morning, and then—’
    â€˜Have