Free Close Quarters by Michael Gilbert Page A

go,’ agreed Pollock. ‘Anything particular occur to you?’
    â€˜Well, now,’ said Sergeant Parks, not ill-pleased at such unexpected deference: ‘The body, very wet on top, very dry underneath, in a manner of speaking. And the ground quite dry too. Which suggests to me,’ he went on kindly, in case Pollock had missed his point, ‘as if the poor gentleman was killed afore it came on to rain.’
    â€˜A sound conclusion, I think,’ agreed Pollock. ‘And that, I take it, would give us some time about eight o’clock yesterday evening as the latest possible.’
    â€˜A little after eight,’ amended the sergeant. ‘Say ten past.’
    â€˜Another thing,’ went on Pollock. ‘Didn’t it strike you that the body was very wet? Quite uncommonly wet, I mean – especially as it was lying in such a sheltered place.’
    â€˜It was a very wet night,’ said the sergeant. ‘Very wet indeed. I was out in it,’ he added.
    â€˜Rotten luck,’ said Pollock absently. His gaze was fixed on the drain-pipe with its overhanging spout. ‘If you were to give me a leg-up do you think I could manage to get on to the roof of the shed?’
    The sergeant acquiesced with a dubious grunt to this proposed acrobatic feat, and a minute later Pollock was balancing on his broad shoulders; after a perilous wobble and a frantic grasp he drew himself up, and was standing on the flat roof of the engine shed. From here he was able to get a very satisfactory view of the gutter and the top of the pipe. The mystery of Appledown’s extreme dampness was a mystery no longer.
    â€˜Chock full of sticks,’ he shouted down. ‘Nest of some sort, I think. The poor chap must have been lying under a regular shower bath half the night.’
    â€˜Ah,’ said Sergeant Parks, gaping up at his colleague, ‘smart work that.’ Thoughtfully he spat out a twig which Pollock’s foot had dislodged into his open mouth.
    â€˜It wasn’t entirely guesswork,’ explained Pollock when he had safely regained terra firma. ‘There’s a sort of damp mark on the stone which often means a blocked pipe.’
    â€˜Ah,’ said Sergeant Parks. He reseated himself on his favourite seat and continued to ruminate.
    Here Pollock left him. He felt that the time had come – in fact, might well be over-past – when he would have to explain himself and his doings to the Chief Constable. Of one thing he was determined; no amount of “choking off,” nothing short of a direct order from headquarters would make him leave go. The whole affair was most interesting. An assassin who walked across the grass backwards, clothes which were too wet, and a bowler hat which was much too dry. Sixteen little holes in the ground. A case after his own heart. He hoped the Chief Constable would not prove too impossible.
    â€˜I must confess,’ said Colonel Brabington (late Indian Army and present Chief Constable of Melchester) in one of his less affable tones of voice, ‘I must confess that at the moment it passes the bounds of my imagination – my very limited imagination – to discover how you came into this case at all.’
    In moments of irritation he was apt to indulge in an almost Chinese form of self-depreciation.
    â€˜Staying with my uncle, the Dean, you know,’ explained Pollock patiently for the third time, ‘and he asked me – quite unofficially, of course – to look into the question of these anonymous letters. Quite unofficially, of course.’
    â€˜Irregularly,’ amended the Chief Constable unhelpfully.
    â€˜Well,’ said Pollock mildly, ‘I don’t know that you could call it that exactly; it never was meant to be an official investigation, you know-’
    â€˜My knowledge of police procedure is, of course, rusty,’ snapped the Colonel, ‘and not to be compared with yours.’ With a