Little Knell Read Online Free

men says Boller always does that whenever he’s got anything unsaleable in his catch.’
    â€˜And there was I,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan sourly, ‘thinking that Horace Boller was the exception that proves the rule about there being some good in every man.’
    But the Customs and Excise officer was following quite a different train of thought.
    â€˜Our picking up this consignment will make a big hole in some dealer’s distribution system,’ he forecast. ‘I don’t know how many weeks’ supply it constituted for your patch, Inspector Sloan, but I dare say you’re going to feel the shortage over at Berebury quite soon. That can be quite tricky.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Sloan, bleakly.
    â€˜Anyway,’ Jenkins finished breezily before he rang off, ‘now we’ve let you know all about it.’
    The civilities had been duly observed.
    *   *   *
    It wasn’t the diplomatic niceties of inter-regulatory authority communication which were troubling Superintendent Leeyes. It was a matter of protocol. He barely listened to Sloan’s report about Horace Boller before unburdening himself about another, more pressing, problem.
    â€˜It’s the coroner,’ Leeyes rasped.
    â€˜The coroner, sir?’ said Sloan.
    â€˜Making work.’
    â€˜Really, sir?’ Sloan didn’t know what to think about this. The trouble was that the superintendent – an absolutist if ever there was one – only ever saw difficulties from his own point of view, which made even a well-educated guess impossible.
    â€˜The man can’t have enough to do,’ grumbled Leeyes. ‘That’s his trouble.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan contented himself with leaning forward attentively. There was absolutely nothing in his expression to indicate that he was taking this last assertion with the proverbial pinch of salt. He did not himself suppose for one moment that Her Majesty’s Coroner for East Calleshire, Mr Granville Locombe-Stableford, had nothing better to do than upset the police superintendent, whatever that worthy might think. He did know, though, that the coroner and Superintendent Leeyes were sparring partners of old. And he knew, too, that in the way of ancient enemies, the two of them picked a quarrel whenever they could find a bone even half worth the contention.
    All Sloan said aloud though was, ‘I’m not aware, sir, of there having been any reportable deaths in the division today…’
    â€˜There haven’t,’ snapped Leeyes.
    â€˜But…’
    â€˜Don’t you understand, Sloan? That’s just what I’m telling you. The man hasn’t got better things to do and all this does is prove it.’
    â€˜This?’ Sloan picked on the word, feeling as if he was grasping at a straw in the verbal – and proverbial – wind. ‘What…’
    But Leeyes had already taken off at a tangent. ‘Poking his nose into matters that have nothing whatsoever to do with him; that’s what he’s doing.’
    â€˜You mean, sir,’ advanced Sloan cautiously, trying again, ‘that there’s been a fatality in East Calleshire but that it’s outside Mr Locombe-Stableford’s jurisdiction?’ This at least, decided Sloan, would make sense. A deep preoccupation with the territorial imperative was one of the many characteristics which the superintendent and the coroner had in common.
    â€˜Well, no,’ hedged Leeyes. ‘Not exactly.’
    â€˜Or outside ours?’ suggested Sloan even more cautiously. The superintendent knew to an inch where his own writ ran and defended all his boundaries with a vigour that some of his staff thought might well have been better devoted to more important police matters.
    â€˜No,’ admitted Leeyes grudgingly. ‘This body’s on our patch all right. No doubt about that.’
    â€˜And on the coroner’s,