Gently with the Innocents

by Alan Hunter

  Gently fetched the chair and stood the lamp on it. Full or empty – that was the question! Had Peachment managed to keep his secret, or had blows from the cosh jerked it out of his throat?

  He tipped the lid back: the coffer was full.

  Inside, it was nested with leather-lined trays. In the top tray lay a confusion of dulled gold pieces, mingling with crumpled squares of the famous blue paper. Gently lifted the tray out. Its weight astonished him. In the next tray the pieces were still mostly wrapped. On each wrapping, he noticed, a description was written with a spidery pen, in an ink gone brown. And so with the next tray, and the next: old Peachment had sampled one here and there. But the weight told you – it was gold, and more gold: ten brutal trays of it, stacked one on the other. And there it had lain, in the gloomy coffer, while Harrison’s heirs had come and gone, through reigns and centuries, deaths and entrances, till the deaf old man had jemmied-in daylight . . .

  And he? He’d left it lying, perhaps with a chuckle at his own astuteness, with a little fond wonderment that such things were, and a whimsical hint to his straight-faced nephew. Sell it? Be rich? What would it buy him? Trouble, anxiety and loss of quiet . . . no! The old man wasn’t such a fool. And perhaps he’d have let the secret die with him.

  Sombrely, Gently replaced the trays. Alas, old Peachment hadn’t kept the secret. He’d shown a tiny corner of that gold, curious to know what the stuff was worth. And then, at a curtainless window, he’d pored over the coins, examining the kings and queens and emperors – and the tale was out. Twenty-four hours later his corpse was stretched at the foot of the stairs.

  For gold . . .

  This soft rotten metal, in which men had rested their ugliest madness.

  Kill for this? What was it?

  It didn’t even make a serviceable coin!

  He slammed the lid down, and turned his attention to the sliding shelves again. They were beautifully crafted, and so arranged that their thickness concealed the breaks in the wainscot. The upper bearers were integral and embodied a small brass socket. This mated with a rod, also brass, which emerged from a collar in the wall. You entered the room, bolted the door, and the shelves were free to be withdrawn; you left the room, bolted the door, and the shelves were automatically locked. Unless you knew to bolt the door when you entered, passing the Portal of Olympus would get you nowhere . . . .

  He lifted back the shelves and slid them home. Now the secret rested with him! Locked or unlocked, the shelves defied even the most expert examination.

  At that moment the board on the landing creaked. He swung quickly to face the door. And his blood stood still.

  He saw Dinno crouching there, and behind Dinno, Moosh and the rest of the gang.

  They had the coshes, the green coshes, and they huddled watching him with dead eyes. Dinno was swinging his cosh rhythmically, his gaze somehow going past Gently. They had the togetherness of a strange animal, stupid, poised for a kill. They weren’t children any longer: they were violence, waiting to erupt.

  He felt a chill colder than the frost, a rush of paralysing horror . . .

  Dinno’s hand flicked. The cosh flew. The bolt struck Gently in the forehead. Blood rippled down between his eyes and he staggered, his knees going weak. Then they were on him, hitting him, battering him, welting the strength out of his body, with just the trampling and grunting and thudding as the coshes rose and fell.

  ‘Get the old bugger to the door!’

  Panting savagely, they began to drive him. Like Colkett . . . with, like Colkett, blood pouring down over his nose . . .

  ‘Come on . . . he’ll go the same way!’

  And the horror showing in his face . . . like Colkett, like Peachment . . . and no attempt to defend himself.

  With a great effort he seized on the chair and jabbed its legs into the attackers. They fell back squealing, oddly weightless, while the lamp went scuttling into a corner.

  ‘Get him . . . get the old sod . . . !’

  He jabbed again, producing howls. He backed out of the L and towards the doorway, taking vicious blows as he went.

  ‘Now . . . now we’ve got him!’

  But they hadn’t. He swung the chair in two desperate sweeps. Then, throwing it at them, he staggered on to the landing, dragged the door shut, and turned the key.

  ‘The old bugger . . . the old bugger . . . !’

  A hand shot through the aperture, feeling for the key. Just in time, Gently whipped the key out and tremblingly slipped it into his pocket. Fists, feet battered on the door. Voices shouted and wailed, childishly grotesque.

  ‘You let us out . . . let us out . . . !’

  He stumbled, went down the stairs in a kind of sobbing hysteria.

  In the Sceptre, he pulled himself together and got the R/T working. He made his voice firm, forced it steady to give a few hoarse instructions. Then he sat back, eyes closed, trying to shrink from the aches of his body. Oh, God . . . but there might be still another quirk to this business . . .

  He started the engine and drove shakily away, to park again when he reached Bressingham’s. The shop was dark, but he could see light outlining the curtain at the back. He rang and kept ringing. After a while the curtain stirred. Bressingham, jacketless and in slippers, switched on the lights and crossed to the door. He saw Gently.

  ‘Oh . . . holy Jesus!’

  He came out quickly and grabbed Gently’s arm. He lugged him hastily into the shop, kicking the door shut behind them.

  ‘Christ . . . what’s happened?’

  Gently stared at him, feeling Bressingham’s horrified eyes on the blood.

  ‘Your son – where is he?’

  ‘Phil . . . ? In bed. But—’

  Gently just nodded, leaning hard on the counter.

  Ursula Bressingham came round the curtain. Her black eyes gazed hotly at Gently. She stared silently, very still. Then she shrugged.

  ‘You’d better come in. I’ll fix you up.’

  There were ten of them who slunk wailing and blubbering out of the old eccentric’s strong-room, and they passed down the stairs into an anonymity which the Press reluctantly respected. But the Press quickly found a tag for them. They were dubbed ‘the Cross Innocents’ – which soon became, simply, the ‘Innocents’; Cross having little appeal to the mass-memory.

  And the coins, they were sold by Sotheby’s, and realized one-and-three-quarter million pounds. Gently, who found them, received nothing, neither did Bressingham, who’d pointed the way; but the latter, in a moment of rashness, bought the Edward IV angel under the hammer.

  Rigby House,

  Norwich.

  18.11.68/3.3.69