Half an hour later Inspector Haines was sitting back in his chair and surveying Mr. Pringle with faintly malicious pleasure. “So you’re the Crime Reporter?”
“That’s right, Inspector,” said Pringle jauntily. “Glad to meet you. I don’t know how it is I’ve never run across you before. Anything I can do to help?”
“That remains to be seen, Mr. Pringle. I’m always open to suggestions—provided, of course, you don’t try to make them the basis of an interview.”
Pringle looked quite shocked. “That’s understood. This is a private talk, eh?” He cast a wary glance round the empty room, and drew his chair a little nearer to the inspector’s desk. “I think I can tell you a thing or two. I’ve been working things out. It’s going to be a very sticky case.”
“So far I’m with you,” said Haines.
Of course, you don’t know the office the way I do. You haven’t got the dope. That’s where I can help you. I don’t shout the odds around the place, but I don’t miss much. I keep my eyes and ears open.” He leaned forward confidentially and words oozed from the corner of his mouth. “Has it occurred to you, Inspector, that the poison may not have been intended for Hind at all?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“It had, eh?” Pringle wagged his sandy head in admiration. “I’ve always heard you were pretty smart. Mind you, it could have been Hind. Between ourselves, Inspector, he was a nasty bit of work. Women, you know—and he liked talking about it. Of course, we mustn’t be narrow-minded. I’m a married man. You’re a married man. We don’t expect perfection.” Pringle winked. “All the same, he went too far. He seduced one of the waitresses.”
“Really!”
“Yes, a girl named Rose. She was a nice little thing—he took her on Epsom Downs. She married a G.I. and went to Arkansas.”
“That seems to let her out, then.”
“Yes, but there are plenty of others. There’s old Jackson’s secretary—he’s the Assistant Editor, you know. Girl named Penelope.” He made the word rhyme with “envelope”. “Hind gave her the works all right, and she’s still around. He had a try with Katharine Camden, but she was out of his class—I don’t think he got anywhere. Then there’s an old flame of his in the Art Department—girl named Phyllis. He told me about her when he was tight. That all started when she showed him something in the dark room.”
“Mr. Hind certainly seems to have got around.”
“Oh, he tore pieces off right and left. But there’s a lot more dirt in the office that doesn’t concern Hind. Those little kids wouldn’t have had the nerve to poison him—they took everything lying down. What you want to look for, Inspector, is the big stuff. Let me tell you something.” He inched forward until he could lean his cuff on the desk. “There’s an eternal triangle in this office.” He pointed significantly to the ceiling. “Upstairs.”
“Is that so?”
“It certainly is. Have you met Ede’s wife?”
“No.”
“You should. She’s a real smasher. And do you know whose girl-friend she is?” Pringle paused impressively. “Cardew’s. Lionel Cardew’s.”
“You have my whole attention,” said Haines.
“Good. I’m glad to be able to collaborate. We’ll break this case wide open between us, you see if we don’t. Anyway, that’s the lowdown. Ede doesn’t know about it—he’s one of those saps that work evenings. He thinks Cardew’s a pal of his—thinks he can trust him with his wife. But I’ve seen Cardew and Mrs. Ede together. Cardew showed her over the office, you know, not long ago. Talk about friendly! She called him ‘sweetie’ every other word. They go out together too. On the river—that sort of thing. It sticks out a mile. I reckon she’s his mistress.”
“That’s interesting,” remarked Haines. “Possibly slanderous.”
Pringle was startled. “Oh, come off it, Inspector, this is in confidence. I wouldn’t say a word about it to anyone but you. Anyway, there’s your triangle.”
“I’m still not clear,” said Haines, “exactly what it is you’re suggesting. Who do you think meant to kill whom, and why?”
“Just work it out for yourself, Inspector. After all, there’s no smoke without fire. Maybe Ede found out about his wife at last and tried to bump off Cardew. Maybe Cardew got tired of working someone else’s claim and decided to get rid of Ede. Maybe Mrs. Ede hates her old man and planted the stuff herself—she comes to the office now and again. More likely she got Cardew to do it for her, though. Of course, these are just suggestions—sort of raw material for you to work on.”
“You’re certainly full of ideas.”
“I know what’s going on, that’s why,” said Pringle complacently. “I have my spies.”
“All the same, Mr. Pringle, I think for the moment I prefer to concentrate on Hind. A man who behaved as you say, he did no doubt made enemies. He seems quite a likely victim to me.” Haines’s mask of good-natured interest suddenly dropped. “By the way, how did you get on with Hind?”
“Eh?” The pale eyes blinked. “Well, as I told you, Inspector, I couldn’t really approve of him.”
“Did he approve of you?”
Pringle looked hurt. “What are you getting at, Inspector?”
“I have my spies too. I’m told that you and Hind had words yesterday evening.”
“Oh, that!” Pringle gave an uneasy laugh. “I thought for a moment it was something serious. He got a bit shirty about some expenses I’d put in—that was all. He must have been feeling liverish.”
“Did he not say he intended to report you to Mr. Ede?”
“He did say something of the sort, as a matter of fact, but I don’t suppose he meant it. Hell, he was once a reporter himself—he knows about expense sheets.”
“What about them?”
“Well, everyone makes a bit on their expenses. After all, what’s a copper here and there?”
“It depends who the copper is,” said Haines grimly. He lifted his notes and disclosed a bundle of green slips, which he waved menacingly in Pringle’s direction. “These, Mr. Pringle, are your expense sheets for the past four months.”
Pringle’s jaw dropped. He was conscious of an unpleasant sensation in his stomach. He felt in his pocket for a bottle of indigestion tablets he always carried, popped one in his mouth and put the bottle back. “Oh,” he said.
“I’ve been having a look through them,” Haines went on. “They’re fascinating. There’s an item here, for instance, for July 3rd. ‘Hospitality—Yard turn. £4 7s. 6d.’ I presume you were entertaining the Commissioner that evening!”
Pringle pretended to peer. “You can hardly expect me to remember what it was for after all this time,” he muttered. “Probably just drinks with the boys.”
“What boys?” asked Haines. “Do you by any chance mean the police?”
“Well,” said Pringle resentfully, “you know how it is. We’re all in the pub together …”
“We? I don’t remember ever having been bought a drink by you, Mr. Pringle. I should be very reluctant to recall such an occasion. Could you name a Chief Inspector, an Inspector, a Sergeant, or even a constable of the C.I.D. for whom you’ve ever bought a drink? Just one.” His tone was pleading. “I assure you the information will go no farther.”
Pringle wriggled. “Look, Inspector,” he said, “stop kidding, will you? You know how it is. All the chaps do it. It’s the recognised thing.”
“I see. You mean the Press Bureau at the Yard gives you the stories, and you charge them up to the office in drinks that you don’t buy. A very cosy racket, I must say.”
“It’s always done, anyway,” said Pringle sullenly. “As for Hind saying he’d report me, that was just bluff. No self-respecting Editor would give it a thought. Anyway, he was a fine one to talk—what about all the free lunches we used to buy him? He was just being difficult. He never liked me.”
“That I can understand,” said Haines. “Well, now, let’s take another item. ‘June 12th—Missing Child at Farnborough—£14.’ I admire the rotundity of your figures. You—er—you seem to have spent nearly a week on this story. Who was this missing child? Farnborough—let me see—no, I must say I don’t recall the case.”
“It was a private tip I had,” said Pringle, beginning to edge his chair back from the inspector’s desk. “It turned out that there wasn’t anything in it, but I had to look into it all the same. It actually costs more when the story’s a stumer—you must know that.”
“Who gave you this tip?”
“We never disclose the sources of our information,” said Pringle with dignity.
“What was the alleged child’s name? What hotel did you stay at? Of whom did you make inquiries? Well, Mr. Pringle, I’m waiting.”
Pringle’s front collapsed. “All right,” he muttered. “You win, Inspector. I didn’t go. I needed the dough, and the paper’s got plenty. It made up for the times when I didn’t charge enough.”
Haines tossed the green packet back on to his desk. “In fact, Mr. Pringle, you’re a cheat and a thief. Well, now we know where we stand. Do you still think the Editor would have considered this of no importance?”
Pringle licked his dry lips. “What are you going to do? I’ve got a boy in boarding school—he’s doing well—it’ll be hard for him if I get into trouble. It was really for him that I did it.”
Haines gave an exclamation of disgust. “I’m not going to charge you, if that’s what you mean—not with fraud, anyway! Mr. Ede can take care of that.” He selected another paper from the pile on his desk. “I’ve got a report here of the order in which people who attended the editorial conference this morning left the Board Room. It seems that you were the last to leave.”
Pringle, whose thoughts were still concentrated on how to get out of the expenses jam, looked puzzled. “I was a bit behind the others—what of it?” Suddenly he caught up with the situation. “I say,” he said with a squeak of alarm, “you surely don’t think I killed Hind?”
“Since you ask me,” said Haines, “I think you’re as likely a person as anyone I’ve met so far. You’re a pretty unpleasant piece of work, Mr. Pringle. You had a grudge against Hind, and a good reason for silencing him. You’ve been doing your utmost to throw suspicion on others, which you naturally would do if you were guilty. Yes, you seem to me a very promising candidate. Did you by any chance know there was cyanide in the Process Department?”
Pringle swallowed. “No,” he said.
“That’s a lie if ever I heard one,” said Haines cheerfully. “I suppose you didn’t know Mr. Hind liked olives, either?”
Pringle hesitated, his pale eyes darting a glance across to the inspector and away again. “I did happen to know that,” he said.
Haines smiled. “You’re a very simple man, Mr. Pringle, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t do it, anyway,” said Pringle. Consciousness of truth gave his voice an honest vehemence at last. “I swear I didn’t, Inspector. I may have been a bit careless about those expenses, but I wouldn’t kill a man. I wouldn’t know how to begin.”
“Not after all those drinks with Chief Inspectors, Mr. Pringle?” Haines looked disdainfully at the Crime Reporter and his tone suddenly changed. “Get out,” he said.