by Hunter Alan
‘Well,’ Superintendent Gently said.
‘I’ve brought a warrant for the arrest of the Lidneys with me,’ Inspector Parfitt said.
‘Have you?’ Gently said.
‘It’s as good as that,’ Parfitt said. ‘I was waiting for a copy of the lab report or I’d have been out here sooner.’
‘You’re soon enough,’ Gently said. ‘I’ve only just finished breakfast. I don’t burn the candle so much these days. Anyway there’s no rush. What does the lab report say?’
‘I’ve got it here,’ Parfitt said, fumbling his breast pocket.
‘No,’ Gently said. ‘You tell me, it’s too early for that sort of handwriting. Any luck with the doorstop?’
‘Actually, not much,’ Parfitt said. ‘It’s clean. They must have wiped it, done a pretty good job. All we got off it was a thread of wool that was jammed in that shell pattern at the base. French was wearing a light tweed jacket and the thread matches, but we can’t swear to it.’
‘When he was hit on the shoulder with it,’ Gently said.
‘Yes, that’s pretty certain,’ Parfitt said. ‘Our pathologist reports that the edge of the shell pattern would cause a graze like the one on French.’
‘What about the knob and the fracture?’ Gently said.
‘Yes,’ Parfitt said, ‘that’s a fit. There’s nothing to give complete identification of course, not like breech marks or rifling, but it fits all right. It would make that size and pattern of fracture.’
‘No hair, impacted skin?’
‘No,’ Parfitt said, ‘it was wiped.’
‘And put back by the door,’ Gently said.
Parfitt looked at Gently.
‘Go on,’ Gently said. ‘It just occurred to me that the river was handy. But you meet a frugal murderer now and then. No doubt the doorstop was part of the old home.’
‘But I thought Lidney was our chummie,’ Parfitt said.
‘Yes, that’s all right,’ Gently said. ‘You’ll get to know how I work eventually. What did they find on the lino?’
‘Blood,’ Parfitt said, unfolding the report form. He pointed to some writing on it, said: ‘That’s it, blood.’
‘Whose group?’ Gently said.
‘Not French’s,’ Parfitt said. ‘Human blood, not French’s. Had some ptyalin mixed with it.’
‘Good for French,’ Gently said. ‘He must have copped Lidney in the mouth. I’d say Lidney was getting the worst of it when he picked up the doorstop. Whereabouts was the blood sited?’
‘Nearer the front door end,’ Parfitt said.
‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘it fits the picture. Lidney would have backed up there after French entered. So they fight, he’s getting the worst of it, he’s hit in the mouth and spitting blood. He looks for a weapon, finds the doorstop, throws it, it grazes French’s shoulder, falls, bounces. But that wouldn’t stop French, he comes up the hallway after Lidney. Lidney hasn’t got a weapon now. The doorstop’s behind French at the other end of the hallway. So what happens?’
‘The devil,’ Parfitt said. ‘It was someone else who crowned French.’
‘Someone entered by one of the doors behind him,’ Gently said. ‘They picked up the doorstop and felled him with it. Someone a good deal shorter than French if our experiment with the hammer has a bearing. Like Mrs. Lidney. Like John French. It probably lies between those two.’
‘The devil,’ Parfitt said again.
‘Those two,’ Gently said. ‘And for my money Rhoda Lidney picked up the doorstop. It fits the rest of the facts better. Except for one we’ll come to in a minute, when we’ve done with this line.’
‘But hell, it isn’t a line,’ Parfitt said. ‘This is what happened, it must be this. It stands to reason, Lidney didn’t have the doorstop, it finished up behind French. French was hit from behind.’
‘All right,’ Gently said, ‘let’s go on. French is dead, he’s lying in the hallway. He’s a sixteen-stone corpse and they can’t get a car down the cinder path.’
‘A boat,’ Parfitt said, ‘they put him in a boat.’
‘Was there a boat there?’ Gently said.
‘His own launch,’ Parfitt said. ‘They’d only to fetch it round to the bungalow.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘but how did they know about it? How did they know French had come in his launch? How did they know where he’d moored the launch? Unless he’d let it out himself somehow.’
‘But it must have been a boat,’ Parfitt said. ‘They couldn’t have carried him down the cinder path. And they wouldn’t have slung him into the river off the front, it was too close, he might just have stopped there.’
‘So,’ Gently said, ‘we’ll give them the launch. They’ve brought the launch, got the body into it. What’s to stop them from taking it a mile downstream, why do they tip it in so near home?’
Parfitt stared with hooked-up eyebrows. ‘The bridge,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t want to go under it. There’d still be traffic, people going over it, might’ve been the local copper standing on it.’
‘So why not upstream?’ Gently said.
Parfitt hesitated longer. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. ‘Unless they were planning to make it look like an accident, wanted to keep it close by the yard.’
Gently said to Joyce: ‘Have you any ideas, Constable?’
‘No sir,’ Joyce said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t figure it, sir.’
‘That makes two of us then,’ Gently said. ‘After we’ve got him dead I can’t figure it either.’
‘But damn it,’ Parfitt said, ‘there must be a way. It was all laid on, the boat, the river. It’s all tidied up apart from a detail. We don’t know how their minds worked. Perhaps they were trying to put it on the Speltons.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ Gently said. ‘I’m still in the hallway with the body. Or maybe the body’s still on his feet and nobody’s come out to pick up the doorstop. Or maybe somebody’s come out but not to pick up the doorstop, only to break up the rough-house, to try to talk to them. And they did talk and French walked out of that bungalow and the doorstop was put back beside the door.’
‘You’re not serious,’ Parfitt said.
‘Yes I’m serious,’ Gently said.
‘But then how was he killed with the doorstop?’ Parfitt said.
‘That’s it,’ Gently said. ‘How was he killed with the doorstop?’
Parfitt stared a long time.
‘Did you heft the doorstop?’ Gently said.
‘Yes,’ Parfitt said. ‘It would kill an elephant. I could kill an elephant with that doorstop.’
‘How did you hold it when you hefted it?’ Gently said.
‘Well, by the shank,’ Parfitt said. ‘Just below the stock, in the bight of the cable.’
‘So as to make a club of it,’ Gently said.
‘Yes,’ Parfitt said, ‘a club.’
‘You didn’t hold it by the base,’ Gently said, ‘not by that irregular shell pattern where the weight is.’
‘Well,’ Parfitt said, ‘no.’
‘Yet that’s what we’re supposing,’ Gently said. ‘That somebody did just that. Took an awkward hold on the heavy end of the stop and fractured French’s skull with the light end. But that’s impossible. I tried it. You can’t get the weight of the stop behind the blow. It’s like holding a vice with a hammer in it and trying to knock in nails with the hammer. The inertia of the weight is against you, it takes the power out of the blows.’
Parfitt kept on staring. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘then it was thrown. It was thrown once, it could be thrown again. Somebody picked it up and threw it.’
‘But the same thing applies,’ Gently said. ‘You couldn’t get the weight behind one of those knobs. If one of them struck anything it would merely spin the stop round, it’s only the base that can do any damage.’
‘But the stock was bent,’ Parfitt said. ‘It could fall on the stock hard enough to bend it.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘by falling on the
stock at an angle. Not by falling on the flat face of the knob. We’re dealing with a completely round fracture, the weal in the lino is semi-circular. Not by wielding, throwing or dropping the stop can you produce the sort of fracture that killed Harry French.’
Parfitt got up. They were in the Country Club manager’s office. Parfitt walked over to the window, looked out at the scene. Two red double-decked buses were filling up opposite the window, the sun fell through the window, the sun was hot. Parfitt stood some moments in the sun watching the buses filling up. Then he turned, came back to his chair, sat. He said:
‘So we’re back where we started from are we? No arrests, no weapon, nothing to show. I can tear up this warrant and throw it in the river. And give the Lidneys their lino back and apologize for cutting a hole in their wall.’
Gently shrugged, got out his pipe, filled the pipe, lit it, broke the match. ‘Yes, it’s disappointing,’ he said. ‘At one time I thought we had a case there.’
‘But there is a case there,’ Parfitt said. ‘Hell’s bells, there is a case. French went to the bungalow, there was violence, we know why, we can sew it up. I don’t give a damn about the bloody doorstop, let them fight that out in court. I know the way the jury will see it. There’s a case, let the Lidneys answer it.’
Gently puffed. ‘Stop thinking about juries,’ he said. ‘First you’ve to convince the public prosecutor. You’ve got to tell him things you can’t prove.’
‘What can’t we prove?’ Parfitt said. ‘We can prove enough to tie it up. So some of it’s circumstantial, what does it matter? How can it be anything else?’
‘You can’t prove,’ Gently said, ‘that French was ever in the bungalow. You can’t prove his son was there. You can’t prove he had reason for seeking his son there. Those are the points in chief in the case against the Lidneys and until you can prove one or more of them it’s no use taking the case to the public prosecutor. All we can show is that French was near the bungalow, that there are signs of a recent struggle in the bungalow, that John French’s alibi is improbable, and that he may have had some trouble with his inheritance. None of which would get a conviction if it was ever aired in a court.’
‘Hell, hell,’ Parfitt said. He raised a hand. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘That bit about John French’s inheritance – we can lay that on the line.’
‘How?’ Gently said.
‘Laskey and Laskey, the solicitors,’ Parfitt said. ‘They can tell us what Harry French was up to, that’ll be one of your points proved.’
Gently puffed.
‘Well, won’t it?’ Parfitt said.
‘The operative word is can,’ Gently said. ‘No doubt the solicitors can tell us, but I can think of no reason why they will.’
‘But damn it, this is a murder case,’ Parfitt said.
‘That’s just the objection,’ Gently said. ‘Their late client is deceased, but their present client is implicated. It’s a nice professional question where their loyalty ought to lie, but dead clients don’t write cheques. I imagine they’ll consider their information privileged.’
Parfitt got off his chair again.
‘Still, have you got their number?’ Gently said.
‘It’ll be no use,’ Parfitt said. ‘I know Herbert Laskey, I play golf with him. If there’s a reason for being awkward you’ve picked the man to be awkward.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘but French may have filed an injunction. That’s a matter of record, they’ll have to tell us that.’
Detective Constable Joyce looked up the number. Gently dialled. They waited. Gently introduced himself to the telephone, asked for Herbert Laskey, waited. Then he said:
‘Yes good morning. It’s to do with the death of Harry French. We think you have some information which may be of use to us. Relating to the late Mrs French’s estate. I want to know if you can give me that information. Not over the phone, I can call round.’
Time passed. Gently said:
‘Yes indeed. Of course. Yes. Then perhaps you can save me time on a matter of record. Have you lately filed an injunction for Harry French?’
Time passed. Gently said:
‘No thank you. That’s all.’ He hung up, made a face at Parfitt. ‘What’s Laskey’s handicap?’ he said.
‘There wasn’t an injunction,’ Parfitt said.
Gently shook his head. ‘It was an outside chance. From our talk I should guess there was one pending but none was filed. So that’s dead.’
‘Then where do we go?’ Parfitt said. ‘If this isn’t good enough we’ve come to a wall. We know what we know but we can’t prove it and there are no angles. So where do we go?’
‘It’s a stage,’ Gently said. ‘At this point we go on making motions. Keep leaning. Go and lean on Lidney. Keep putting him through it and putting him through it.’
‘You want me to do that?’ Parfitt said.
‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘I want him softened.’
‘That’s me,’ Parfitt said. ‘I’d soften rhinoceros hide. That’s just my mood. I’d soften a steamroller.’
Thus: while Inspector Parfitt and Detective Constable Joyce went to interview Sid Lidney Superintendent Gently relit his pipe and strolled across to French’s yard. He went nowhere particular in the yard and he spoke or sought to speak with no one but he glanced occasionally at the lazy house flag and once at the river which was sleepily flooding. The flag was lifting only at the leech and the leech pointed southerly across the river but every so often the leech flickered westerly and the bulk of the flag rippled and swayed: so that a yacht creeping up on the flood was now winded now unwinded with her main sheet sometimes dripping clear sometimes trailing in the water. Gently also watched this yacht. It took a long time to reach the quays. When it turned up to moor it was headed directly and lost all way and needed quanting in. The name Brownie 2 was carved in its transom and below the name Starmouth and the initials of a club. It was sailed by a bearded man. He had no crew. Gently went over to the quay. The man glanced at him. Gently said:
‘Slow work this morning.’
‘Yes,’ the bearded man said, ‘the wind’s flukey.’
‘Getting a bit of east in it,’ Gently said.
‘It’ll be a tack up to Marsey,’ the bearded man said.
‘Will it take you long?’ Gently said.
‘Hmn,’ the bearded man said, snatching with his head. ‘I’ll be using the motor. I’ve a seagull in the forepeak. Unless the wind freshens. Which it won’t.’
‘Is it a tack to Hickstead?’ Gently said.
‘Not down the broad,’ the bearded man said.
‘How long would it take to sail to Hickstead?’ Gently said.
‘Quanting or sailing?’ the bearded man said.
‘Just sail alone,’ Gently said.
‘Well,’ the bearded man said, ‘you might make it by teatime, if you had enough patience. But if the tide turns before you cross the Sounds you won’t make it at all. You going for a sail?’
‘I’m thinking of it,’ Gently said.
‘Well, take a quant with you,’ the bearded man said, ‘or better still take an outboard.’
‘Would you describe the wind as a light variable north-easterly?’ Gently said.
‘In polite society,’ the bearded man said, ‘provided you’re using capital letters. Provided the capital letters are italics and a foot high and painted with dayglo. Otherwise you’d describe it as a bloody stinker and be guilty of crass understatement.’
‘Thank you,’ Gently said. ‘I just wanted an opinion.’
‘I’m two hours out from the Lion dyke,’ the bearded man said, ‘and that’s my opinion in a nutshell.’
He turned, began getting sail off. Gently nodded, left the quay. The leech of the house flag was plucking westerly but without strength to pull the bunt after it. Gently crossed the yard to the waste ground behind it where the Kiama lay black among her oil drums. The Kiama looked tinder-dry under the sun and the seams gaped along her length. Gently sto
od, watched the Kiama. Behind the Kiama was a rusted wire fence. Behind the fence was rough marsh. On the rough marsh something moved. Gently passed by the Kiama, skirted nettles, ducked under an elder bush, came to the fence. He found a gap in the fence, scrambled through the gap, pushed through some bush willows, came to a small clearing. In the centre of the clearing was a primitive hut. The hut was made of old barrel staves and thatched with marsh litter. In front of the hut were the ashes of a wood fire enclosed by a rectangle of stones and old bricks and beside it a fire-blackened tin and a heap of dried alder twigs and a wooden-handled padsaw with Spelton branded on the wooden handle. And in the hut itself squatted Vera Spelton dressed in jean trousers and a sleeveless cream blouse. Her blue eyes were fixed without expression on Gently until he stopped in front of her. Then they smiled. She said: