Gently Down the Stream (9 page)

Gently bit on the end of a dead pipe and reached automatically for a match.

‘I’ve got an odd feeling, Dutt.’

‘Yessir. That sun was bleeding fierce, sir.’

Gently grinned. ‘I don’t mean sunstroke! The feeling I’ve got is that I’ve learned something about this trip of Lammas’, and I don’t know what the blazes that something is.’

‘You mean as how you can’t see the wood, sir.’

‘Exactly, Dutt – I can’t see the wood.’

He scratched the match, which lit cheerily in the dank vapour curling past them.

‘The further we go, the more it grows on me … but it’s no use harping on it. What’s this place we’re just coming to?’

‘Halford Quay, sir, ’cording to the map.’

‘It isn’t on the list, but we’d better give it a whirl.’

‘You’ll have covered the lot then, sir,’ returned Dutt, with the merest tinge of bitterness.

Halford Quay was a popular spot. There were yachts and cruisers moored two deep all along its not-very-great expanse. At one end it was blocked by the gardens of a brightly-lit hotel, at the other chopped off by the cut-in of a boat-yard. Into this Dutt directed the launch. As they came alongside the staithe an elderly, bearded man in navy cap and sweater ambled across to them.

‘Now don’t yew know this is private properta … or dew yew think yew can buy petrol at this time of night?’

Gently shrugged and tossed him the painter.

‘We shan’t worry you long … and maybe you can tell us what we want to know.’

‘Ah … maybe I can an’ maybe I can’t.’

He weighed up the launch with a professional eye, then cast a shrewd glance at the occupants.

‘Tha’s old Slola’s boat, now, i’nt’t? And I reckon I can guess who
yew
are without strainin m’self.’

Gently nodded briefly and climbed out on to the staithe.

‘I was wonderin how long yew’d be gettin round here … thought that’d be a rummun dew yew missed me out!’

‘You know why we’re here then?’

‘Blast yes – I can read the paper.’

‘And you’ve something to tell us?’

‘W’either I dew, or else yew don’t hear it.’

Gently considered this ambiguous reply for a moment.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Me! I’m Ole Sid Crow – Ole Sid’ll dew round here.’

‘You work at the yard here?’

‘I dew, when I aren’t idle.’

‘Go on then – what’ve you got to tell us?’

Sid Crow came a little closer, as though afraid that a precious word might go astray.

‘
He dropped her here
– tha’s what I’ve got to tell yew. Now say I’m a blodda liar an’ don’t know what I’m talkin’ about!’

He did know what he was talking about. He proved that up to the hilt. Of all the interviewees they had tackled on that trip, Sid Crow was the single one who knew Lammas by sight – he had worked at the Yacht Club on Wrackstead Broad and seen Lammas pull in there on his half-decker. And he could describe the clothes Lammas was wearing. And also Linda Brent.

The
Harrier
, it appeared, had moored at Halford Quay at tea-time on the Friday. The quay had been crowded then as it was now and she had tied up on the public side of the cut-in, right under Sid’s nose. The two occupants had then proceeded to get tea. They had had it in the well, without any attempt at concealment. After tea they had smoked a leisurely cigarette, washed and put away the dishes, and a little later had gone ashore, Lammas carrying two suitcases and Linda Brent her handbag and plastic raincoat. They went in the direction of the bus stop. About ten minutes later Lammas returned alone. Without any hurry he made the yacht ship-shape, checked his petrol and then quanted her over to Sid’s side for a fill-up. And then he had set off upstream; time, about twenty to seven.

‘You’re sure it was to the bus stop they went?’ queried Gently.

‘W’no.’ Sid Crow gave a deprecating twist with his shoulders. ‘But tha’s the way they went and there was a bus just about due.’

‘What bus was that?’

‘There’s one go into Narshter at twenta past six, weekdas.’

‘And what time would it get in at Norchester?’

‘Bout seven – yew’d better ask them what go on it.’

Gently caught Dutt’s eye with a meaningful look in it.

‘There aren’t any other buses round about then?’

‘Nothin more till eight o’clock.’

‘Thank you, Mr Crow. That’s a useful piece of information.’

He paused a moment, puffing blue smoke into the tepid, misty air.

‘Of course, when you heard what had happened to Mr Lammas you mentioned what you had seen to one or two people …?’

Sid Crow was disgusted.

‘I’m old enough t’know when t’keep m’mouth shut – specialla when I knew that parta wa’nt his missus!’

‘Then you didn’t mention it to anyone?’

‘Not the bit about the female.’

‘But the bit about his being here on the
Harrier
?’

‘W’yes – I told his missus.’

‘You told
who
?’

‘I told his missus – though mind yew, I woon’t have done dew I ha’nt thought she knew about’t alreada.’

Gently coughed over his sparking pipe. It was quite a few seconds before he got round to his next question …

‘And
when
did you tell his missus?’

‘Why, that verra same evenin’?’

She had driven up in her car at about a quarter past seven and parked it opposite the quay. Sid, alerted by what he had seen previously, had watched her with interest as she walked along the quay, obviously looking for the departed yacht. When she came to the end of the quay she had beckoned Sid across. She didn’t know he recognized her.

‘I’m looking for Mr Lammas on board the yacht
Harrier.
Have you seen him by any chance?’

Sid told her he had supplied the
Harrier
with petrol.

‘His – er – wife, was she on board with him?’

‘No mum. He was alone when he pulled in here.’

‘He was on his way to Wrackstead, I suppose?’

‘He certainla went off in that direction.’

Mrs Lammas had given Sid half a crown, gone back to her car and driven off again directly.

Gently sighed deeply at the end of this narration.

‘And you weren’t going to tell me this if I hadn’t squeezed it out of you?’

Sid’s weathered features wrinkled into a wink.

‘Well, yew got to remember, ole partna … it was her what give me the half-crown.’

‘Ahem!’ coughed Dutt, ‘don’t you think we ought to take a statement, sir?’

It was dark when Gently sent the Wolseley bumbling down the lane to the cottage, but there were lights enough on the river bank. Besides the glimmer of lamps through houseboat windows there were two or three hurricanes placed at strategic points and in the space so illuminated an animated scene was enacting. As Gently switched off the engine the rollicking music of a concertina could be heard.

‘Looks like they’re having a spree, sir!’ exclaimed Dutt, his cockney eyes brightening.

‘And that bloke can really play a concertina,’ mused Gently as he slammed his door.

Within the circle of light two grotesque figures were
hopping and gyrating. Ponderous, massive, yet with a sort of elfin agility, they gave the impression of something non-human, of mindless animals caught in a bewitched pattern.

‘It’s Ted Thatcher and Cheerful Annie doing a hornpipe, sir!’

On the roof of the wherry sat Pedro, Pedro the Fisherman. It was Pedro who was swinging and twirling the concertina. Never a false note trilled and cascaded from his long, tip-flattened forgers, never a pause interrupted the ecstatic rhythm. Like a Pied Piper of Upper Wrackstead he wove his spell and the corpulent couple had to obey him, though sweat trickled down their none-too-clean faces.

‘Go it, Annie! Keep it up, Tedda bor!’

All around the boat-dwellers sat or squatted, clapping in time and shouting encouragement. Some visitors moored along the bank sat on their cabin roofs laughing and applauding. And there was no end to that lilting music. It frolicked on and on with rapturous and infinite variation. The very soul of music seemed to have settled in Pedro’s concertina, seemed to be releasing itself through his runaway fingers.

Gently moved over to the magic circle of lamp-light.

‘Cor … couldn’t we half do with this bloke down at the “Chequers”!’

‘Come an join us!’ panted the dripping Thatcher, catching sight of Gently. ‘Dew I can dance the Starmth Hornpipe, there i’nt no reason why yew shoont!’

But Gently was more interested in the slim figure perched on the wherry’s cabin roof.

For a moment, as he regarded it, the curly hair, angelic eyes and shy smile faded into stolid East Anglian countenance beneath a peaked chauffeur’s cap.

Then he shook his head and turned away.

‘Come on, Dutt, we’d better ring HQ.’

‘Just a moment, sir … it ain’t often you get a basinful of this!’

Gently shrugged and went back to lock the car. As he pushed open the gate of the cottage he nearly ran into a thin, white-haired person who was standing there as motionless as the gate-post.

‘Ah, Mrs Grey! I didn’t see you in the dark.’

She made no reply. By the faint glimmer of light from the lamps he could dimly descry her set, ashen face. There were tears running silently down it.

‘Mrs Grey … but what’s the matter?’

She gave a little broken sob.

‘They say they’ve seen him … my nephew.’

‘Seen him! Seen him where?’

‘Here … going into my cottage. But it i’nt true, Mr Gently. It i’nt true! They’re a lot of good-for-nothings trying to make trouble for me! I woon’t hide him … not though he’s my own sister’s boy!’

She broke down in a fit of sobbing.

In the distance, Gently could see Dutt throwing off his hat and joining in that seductive hornpipe.

H
ICKS HAD BEEN seen, but nobody knew who had seen him. That was the result of lengthy and exhaustive questioning.

About three in the afternoon the rumour began. Mrs Grey had set out to shop in the village at half-past two. Cheerful Annie was having a nap on her bunk. Ted Thatcher was fishing, Pedro gone off strawberry-picking and the rest of the community disposed in their various forms of idleness. And sometime during the half-hour that followed Joe Hicks was seen sneaking up the path to let himself into the cottage. By three o’clock, the knowledge was common property. Only everyone had heard it from somebody else.

By guile and sarcasm, Gently did his level best to break the vicious circle.

‘There’s only thirty-three of you … suppose you stand in a row, each one next to the person who told him!’

They were perfectly willing to try – if they could have remembered who in fact
had
told him.

‘It can’t be mass hysteria … do some of you know the difference between seeing a thing and being told it?’

But it wasn’t any good. Nobody would own up. Fact or illusion, the image of Joe Hicks creeping into his aunt’s cottage seemed to have drifted into the little community on a passing breeze: everyone knew, nobody had seen.

And Gently had other worries, anyway.

‘The super’s getting jumpy,’ Hansom had told him on the phone. ‘The Coroner’s beefing about his inquest and he’s a pal of the CC’s. The super wants to know if we’re going to make a grab in the next twenty-four hours …’

‘Coroners …!’ exploded Gently with deep feeling, as he hung up the phone.

In the morning things looked brighter. They had a tendency to do so over Mrs Grey’s breakfast-table. Also, Gently noticed once more, the mind had a way of sorting things out while one was asleep … you went to bed with a problem and woke up with a new slant on it. Or a better attitude, which was sometimes as good.

‘We goes into town, sir?’ enquired Dutt, soaking up the last of the bacon-grease with a piece of bread.

‘We goes into town, Dutt.’

‘If you don’t mind, sir, I reckon we might dig something up at the bus-station, the times of them buses being so cohincidental.’

‘You’re dead right, Dutt – that’s your assignment.’

‘Though I got to admit, sir, it beats me what the connection is there.’

Gently reached for the ginger marmalade and dredged up a tidy spoonful.

‘You have to remember that we’ve got two camps at  “Willow Street” – pro-Lammas and anti-Lammas.’

‘Yessir. I see that, sir. But what business could Miss Pauline have with this Brent woman?’

‘Well … this Brent woman might be running into trouble once Mrs L. found out about her. And she had found out, if we’re to believe Mr Crow.’

Dutt nodded intelligently and rescued the marmalade.

‘But how would Miss Pauline know where to meet her, sir?’

‘She wouldn’t, would she, unless she knew the whole plot.’

‘Then why don’t we just pick her up and spring it on her sudden, sir?’

‘Because we’ve got nothing to spring, Dutt – not until we can prove she met Linda Brent.’

The sapient Dutt allowed that his senior had got something.

The super was out when Gently reported at HQ and Gently was duly thankful. Hansom’s print men had done a sterling job of work at ‘Willow Street’, but the results were entirely negative. They had acquired good specimens of Lammas’ prints and of Hicks’. It was Lammas’ which were found on the reverse of the drawer that had contained the gun. And Mrs Lammas’, of course … but they were accounted for. For the record Hansom had sweated out a press pic. of Lammas. It wasn’t too good. One got the impression of a dapper, athletic-looking man of middle-stature, expensively
dressed, a touch of distinction about a badly caught profile and iron-grey hair.

Gently said: ‘You’ve had nothing in about Hicks?’

Hansom laughed a hard laugh.

‘I’m having that photo circulated … what gives you the idea that Hicks has been financed and tucked away somewhere?’

‘He’s supposed to have been seen at Upper Wrackstead yesterday afternoon.’

‘Seen?’ – Hansom’s mouth gaped open.

‘Supposed to have been … it’s probably just a rumour. I can’t get hold of a first-hand witness. I ran over the cottage to please Mrs Grey and Dutt took a shufti at the boats. We didn’t find anything.’

‘But Jeez – shouldn’t we get a man out there?’

‘Maybe we should … though he’ll show up like a sore thumb.’

Back in the Wolseley Gently sat for a minute or two gazing at the well-polished facia board. Then he solemnly produced and tossed a coin. It came down heads.

Pacey Road was a shabby-genteel thoroughfare off Thorne Road. It consisted of rows of late Victorian iced-cake houses, solid though stupid, and derived an air of sooty forlornness from the nearby marshalling yards of Thorne Station. Most of it had been taken over by the County Council and Gently, cruising slowly down, discovered the Drama Organizer’s office at the extreme and stationmost end. He was lucky, they told him. One didn’t often catch the Drama Organizer in his office.

Gently introduced himself and stated his business. John Playfair, an impish, smiling little man with bushy hair and glittering brown eyes, checked his information with scientific thoroughness. Yes, Pauline was one of his most promising young players. Yes, she had been waiting at the door of St Giles’ Hall when he got there for rehearsal on Friday. What time she left he couldn’t be sure … he was trying to iron out the Hovel scene, he seemed to remember. But it was round about her usual time. She had flashed him a goodnight and a promise to be there all day Sunday.

‘Did she seem upset at all that evening?’ Gently prompted.

‘Well … there you are! I can’t swear I noticed anything different about Pauline – I wasn’t really on the look-out for it. As far as I was concerned, she was her usual cheery self.’

‘Of course, you knew Mr Lammas pretty well.’

The smile died from the Drama Organizer’s eyes.

‘Yes … poor old Jimmy! He’d been the backbone of the Anesford since our St Julian’s Hall days … it’s a shocking thing to have happened to him.’

‘Was he popular with the Players?’

‘He was rather more than that … he was almost a tradition with us. Life won’t be quite the same here with old Jimmy gone.’

‘He wasn’t in the present production, however?’

‘No.’ Playfair frowned. ‘I wanted him to play Kent, but he said he couldn’t manage this time. This is an extra production, you understand – we’re putting it on for Festival Week. It isn’t easy to get people at this time of the year.’

‘Did he say why he couldn’t play?’

‘Well … something about business. One doesn’t bully people, you know.’

‘Had business ever stopped him before?’

‘No. But then, we’ve never put on a show in July before.’

Gently half-lofted a shoulder in acknowledgement of the loyalty implicit in the other man’s reply.

‘He was a good actor … what sort of parts did he play?’

‘Jimmy? He was a comedy actor … one of the best I’ve ever seen. The stage lost something when Jimmy went into business. The amateur stage, you know, is plagued with people who simply play themselves – the amateur who can create character is the rarest of rare birds. And Jimmy was that rare bird. Heaven knows how we’re going to replace him!’

‘He was very attached to his daughter, was he?’

‘Very attached indeed.’

‘You knew something about his family affairs?’

‘A little … though not from Jimmy. It was Pauline who dropped something occasionally.’

Gently nodded and picked up his trilby.

‘And his secretary … did he ever mention her?’

‘No – never, within my hearing.’

‘Thank you, Mr Playfair.’ Gently extended his hand. ‘If I should still be in town next week, I’ll make a point of getting along to your Lear!’

The tails side of his coin took him to a thirties-looking reinforced concrete building which stood on the river
bank near Count Street bridge. Count Street was dull and industrialized, showing high, bleak walls diversified with an occasional small shop, or a flint church which had got lost during the nineteenth century. The warehouse of Lammas Wholesalers Ltd. was quite an adornment.

Gently turned in at the open gate and parked in the yard. Four steel-shuttered doors over a loading-ramp were closed and locked, but a smaller door at the side stood ajar. He pushed it open and went in. In the office to his right an elderly man in a dark suit was working at a high desk.

‘Hullo … you the sole survivor?’

The elderly man turned to survey him through steel-rimmed spectacles.

‘The Police again?’ he enquired a little tetchily.

Gently grinned and admitted the fact.

‘We can’t help it … not when people get themselves killed! What’s your name, by the way?’

He was Mr Page and he had been the head clerk. A shrivelled, martinet of a man. He hadn’t the slightest right to be there nor the remotest prospect of being paid for what he was doing … but he was doing it all the same. He was tidying up the loose ends of the business.

Gently settled himself on a table and stuffed his pipe with Navy Cut. There was something incredibly dreary and posthumous about this place …

‘You always been with Lammas?’ he asked.

‘I have. At least, ever since the firm was founded.’

‘How long have you been head clerk?’

‘Since the beginning of the war. Our last head clerk was a younger man. He volunteered for Army service.’

‘You’d know everything that went on here.’

‘In the line of business, certainly. That is what head clerks are for.’

‘Well … what about this realization? Didn’t you know about that?’

‘It could hardly have been carried out without my knowledge.’

Lammas hadn’t quite pulled the wool over Page’s eyes, but he’d got pretty close to it. He’d built his story round the approaching termination of his lease on the warehouse. Because of that he was reducing stock, because of that he was selling off trucks and vans. And if it meant the loss of business? Page needn’t worry his head about that! Lammas was conducting highly secret negotiations for the lease of bigger and better premises. When the firm acquired these it would blossom out on a scale it had never approached before. And then Page, of course, could expect a substantial augmentation of his salary … even an allotment of shares, to increase his interest in the firm.

Yes … Lammas had played it well enough to keep Page guessing, if not satisfied.

And after all, hadn’t Page been witness to Lammas’ business acumen all these long years?

‘What about Miss Brent – you must have noticed something there?’

Page tightened his mummified lips.

‘Miss Brent worked in the ante-room to Mr Lammas’ office, which is across the corridor. It was not my business to spy on my employer’s conduct.’

‘But you’d got an idea?’

‘I have seen nothing suspicious.’

‘I’m not asking if you caught them
in flagrante delicto
, … just if their attitude struck you as suggestive.’

Page eyed him in hostile silence.

‘Looking at it another way … if you
had
noticed something, would you have felt it your business to drop Mrs Lammas a hint?’

The ghost of a flush appeared in Page’s corpse-like countenance.

‘This … has to do with the case?’

‘Oh yes! Very much it has to do with the case.’

‘It is not my business, you understand, to be a passer of idle gossip.’

‘I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t require the facts.’

‘Very well … since I have your assurance. I did in fact drop such a hint.’

‘When!’ rapped Gently, with such venom that Page nearly toppled off his stool.

‘When … why … it was Friday morning! I rang her up when the wage cheque was refused … she drove into town directly with money to pay off the staff!’

It came out easily then. Page was suddenly rather frightened. He had gone to the bank at the end of the morning to cash the cheque and when it was refused, had started putting two and two together. Mrs Lammas, when she arrived, had put them together even faster. Where was Linda Brent? She hadn’t been in that week! What was going on at the business? The unhappy Page had had to admit that it was practically sold out.

‘Who else was present at this interview?’ fired Gently.

‘Nobody – they had gone to lunch!’

‘And why didn’t you tell the police about it?’

‘I – I looked upon it as a private matter … Mrs Lammas advised me to keep it to myself …’

‘How did you find out about the
Harrier
?’

‘I didn’t – I didn’t know anything about it.’

‘Then where did Mrs Lammas get her information?’

The head clerk wrung his hands anguishedly.

‘She went into his office … she might have found something amongst his papers!’

With a snort Gently got up off his table and slammed across the corridor into Lammas’ office. It was a neat, well-furnished room, looking out on the drab river-frontage. Gently sized it up quickly. There was a shallow document drawer at the top of the green steel desk. On the desk lay a slightly bent paper-knife and the drawer was bent and scratched above the lock. He whisked it open. No need to look further! The current Blake’s List stared him in the face, turned back at the
Harrier
’s entry, and under it lay Old Man Sloley’s confirmatory letter …

‘Haven’t you got any keys to this desk?’

The shattered head clerk had followed him into the room. He shook his head helplessly.

‘Well … I doubt whether he would have left anything interesting, though we’ll have to make sure.’

He ruffled through the other papers in the drawer, then threw them back impatiently.

‘Look here! I’m pretty certain Lammas was up to something we don’t know about. Why not make a clean breast? He’s dead now and in any case he hasn’t treated you any too well.’

‘But there was absolutely nothing …!’ Poor Page was almost ludicrous in his agitation.

‘There must have been something! What were those mid-week trips of his about?’