Cold Coffin by Gwendoline Butler

than loved the various animals he had brought with him into their lives. Except Gus, the dog; she loved Gus. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
    â€˜No, Stella, be nice to have a cat again. My familiar.’
    â€˜I feel guilty, you see. I heard a cat crying, several times, and I never did anything. It might have died if Phoebe hadn’t brought it in.’
    â€˜No need to feel guilty. Or not on your own. I could have heard the cat too and done something.’
    â€˜Oh you had murders and such on your mind . . . I expect in the end she will be more your cat than mine.’
    â€˜I give you my share,’ said Coffin generously.
    â€˜Any news of Jack?’
    â€˜He’s not dead. Not quite alive, either.’
    â€˜He was shot?’
    â€˜Yes, in the neck. Only the fact that he was wearing a coat with a collar up protected him . . . deflected the bullet a bit, so the surgeons say. They’ve got the bullet out.’ Phoebe’s outfit had wanted the bullet to see if it made a match with the bullets in the other killings.
    He worked on, dictating a report to one of his secretaries, and taking a phone call.
    â€˜Charley Fisher here, sir.’
    Inspector Fisher had taken over from Sergeant Drury and was handling the delicate matter of the missing Mrs Lumsden.
    â€˜Just to say, sir, that there has come a postcard from Mrs Lumsden. Sent to her mother. Picture postcard of Teignmouth, postmarked South Devon. Teignmouth is in Devon.’
    â€˜I know that,’ said Coffin irritably. ‘What does it say?’
    â€˜It says her mother is not to worry, she is well.’
    â€˜Does she say why she went off?’
    â€˜No, just that she is in hiding.’
    â€˜In hiding? From whom?’
    An almost audible shrug came over the telephone wire. ‘From her husband, I take it, sir.’
    â€˜Is it a joke? Is it genuine?’
    â€˜The mother thinks it is her daughter’s writing, but she isn’t sure. And she has no idea what is meant by being in hiding.’
    Into the silence, Fisher said, as reproachfully as he dared, ‘You did say you wanted to be kept in touch with any development, sir.’
    â€˜So what do you think? Is the card genuine?’
    â€˜The postmark is genuine. Last week. Took the mother that long to let us see it. But the card, well, it’s an old one.’
    Coffin was silent again. He should keep out of this, he was getting involved in too many cases that he ought to leave to the investigating teams. God knows, he had enough problems to deal with.
    â€˜You don’t believe it,’ he said suddenly.
    â€˜No, sir. Fishy.’
    So that was it, for the moment. Arthur Lumsden was still in trouble, and so, by transference was the Second City Police. No one wanted an officer who had done in his wife. It was the last thing to cheer up an already anxious Chief Commander. Especially one who no longer felt he had the back-up of his surrounding office staff.
    There had been a lot of changes in his office lately. The secretaries that he had relied on had departed to promotion or maternity; he would always welcome them back if they fancied it, but meanwhile he had to take on fresh bodies.
    Stella had told him that he depended too much on women, so now in addition to Paul Masters he had Sergeant Roger Adams (he liked to be called Rog, although not by the Chief Commander) and Sergeant Anthony Davies, a highly efficient young man with whom he was not yet on easy terms, while respecting his skills. Rumour had reached Coffin that Sergeant Davies was considering becoming Antonia Davies. Coffin had nothing against this; in fact, it took him back to his early days as a young constable still in uniform on the beat, when he had met his sergeant, a sturdy well-built figure of a man, on the tube going towards Piccadilly wearing a velvet skirt, an organza blouse with frills and a blond wig. He had been carrying a small white handbag on a hot summer