Gently Sahib

by Hunter Alan

  ‘Did Jimma’s missus go home with you two?’

  ‘No, she’s away at ha’past three. She get his dinner and see to things – we have our dinner in the kitchen with him.’

  ‘Does he have many visitors?’

  ‘No, not him. He don’t like people round the farm. And another thing hangs to it, what’s more – there’s not a lot of people want to come round here.’

  ‘But he has some visitors?’

  ‘Ah, now and then.’

  ‘Such as . . . ?’

  ‘Customers. He’ll have them in.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have any friends here?’

  ‘Not very often.’

  ‘Just take a look at these photographs.’

  They looked at the photographs, as at all else, with an unhurried contemplation; but photographs were not of their world and they returned them at last without comment.

  Harbut remembered a visitor who had looked at the tiger, it may have been a week before the escape, but recalled only that he was smartish-looking and drove a posh kind of car.

  ‘He was having a long talk with Mr Groton, but I didn’t pay any attention. They was round the tiger’s cage for a while. Then they went and sat in Mr Groton’s car.’

  Gently thanked them and they stood watching while the four policemen walked away.

  A movement behind a window in the farmhouse suggested that Groton was watching too . . .

  They drove towards town. Perkins was more unhappy than Gently had seen him yet. He sat hunched in a corner in the back of the police car trying desperately to jog his memory.

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen that man somewhere . . .’

  Gipping had seen the photograph without recognizing it. But Cheyne-Chevington’s face, though rather handsome, had very little to distinguish it.

  ‘Of course, it may not have been in Abbotsham. I get about a bit in the district. Or perhaps I’m just remembering that photograph – what did it appear in, the Express?’

  Gently shrugged, but didn’t press him. Why worry? It would work out. The shape of the business was being established, the details would come in their own good time.

  Perhaps not in his time – he was handing over tomorrow.

  But Dutt and Perkins, between them, could have a ball tying it up . . .

  ‘Let’s run over the facts as we know them to date.’

  In other words, make certain they were getting the picture!

  ‘Groton and Shimpling were in Kenya together in 1953, and I’m pretty sure there was some funny business, though we don’t know what.

  ‘Shimpling was there as a journalist. We’ll have some details of that shortly. Groton was presumably leading a safari, or he might have been collecting animals to sell.

  ‘Seven years later Shimpling is police witness in a drug-trafficking case against Cheyne-Chevington: the case was laid on evidence volunteered by Shimpling and by a prostitute, Shirley Banks.

  ‘It failed, but as a result of it Cheyne-Chevington was struck off. The defence claimed that Cheyne-Chevington had been blackmailed by Shimpling but they could offer no evidence. The police, however, had strong suspicions that Shimpling was indeed a blackmailer.

  ‘Within nine months of that trial Shimpling is living in the bungalow here with Shirley Banks, only a few miles from the farm where Groton has established an animal-supplying business.

  ‘That business is a profitable one. Groton has given us an instance. At different times he has told us he bought the tiger for seven hundred and fifty, and that he proposed to sell it to a Canadian millionaire for three thousand.

  ‘Even allowing for acclimatization and training, that would leave a handsome profit.

  ‘Shimpling continues his blackmail activity. We have evidence of it in his “black book”. He is drawing money from a number of sources, among others from one designated “G”.

  ‘This continues for eighteen months during most of which time he has Banks living with him; then Banks leaves, and soon after that we have the affair with the tiger – on the very night when Groton has an alibi which nobody can question.

  ‘Investigation shows that a truck was used and that the truck almost certainly was Groton’s; also that Groton had an opportunity to load the tiger before he left for London; also that shortly before he was visited by a man who was interested in the tiger, and who had a long talk with Groton; and that the murderer searched the bungalow and probably found and destroyed the blackmail evidence.

  ‘Those are the facts.

  ‘You can safely add to them that Groton is a liar.’

  He stared hard at Perkins, but Perkins obviously hadn’t been listening.

  With head bowed, the local man was still wrestling with his memory . . .

  Dutt said: ‘I reckon there was two of them, chief. It’d have been dicey for one man to do that job.’

  Gently grunted and got out his pipe.

  Perkins murmured: ‘It’s his expression . . . I remember the expression.’

  Outside Headquarters they ran into the pressmen, who had somehow lost track of them during the lunch break. Now they came running over to the car as Gipping parked it in a slot.

  ‘We’ve something for you, chiefie – a bit of info about Shimpling.’

  ‘Meet Harry – Harry Barnes’

  ‘Harry’s freelance for Smith’s PA.’

  They pushed an elderly, dark-jowled man towards him and immediately flashbulbs began to pop. This was news at all events – a pressman telling the Yard something.

  ‘So what’s this info?’

  ‘I was working with Shimpling. He was at Smith’s PA for a while.’

  When?’

  ‘’Fifty-two, ’fifty-three. We were in Paris together.’

  ‘Lucky for you. What then?’

  ‘They sent him to Nairobi to cover Mau-Mau. He was out there six months. Then he dropped out of sight.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He left Smith’s. He hasn’t been newsing for anyone since.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Pretty sure. Someone would have heard if he had.’

  ‘And Groton was out that way,’ somebody put in. ‘He was a hunter before he came to England.’

  ‘Shimpling might have had something on him.’

  ‘There’s your tie-up for you, chiefie.’

  Gently looked from one to another of them.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Now I can go home. Just tell me how a man can be juggling with tigers at Abbotsham while he’s sitting in a club in Kingsway.’

  ‘Is Groton in the clear then?’ came from all over.

  ‘No comment on Groton.’

  ‘Oh, give us a break, chiefie.’

  ‘Groton has been assisting us. We think his truck was used. And you can print what you like about Shimpling and Kenya.’

  Once more, as soon as they were certain they’d got all he was going to give them, they dashed away to talk it up into a story on the phones.

  Meanwhile Superintendent Bradfield, who’d watched complacently from the steps, smiled deprecatingly and murmured:

  ‘The Yard have been on the phone for you . . .’

  They went with him into his office, a large room smelling of varnish, at a table in which a plain-clothes man was typing on a machine with a double carriage.

  ‘This is Sergeant Hargrave—’

  ‘What extension was it?’

  ‘Oh. Extension one-seven.’

  Sergeant Hargrave, who had bobbed to his feet, sat down again, but didn’t dare go on with his typing.

  Gently took the swivel-chair at the desk, dialled and asked for the extension. Bradfield, Perkins and Gipping stood by the desk like three naughty boys up for a wigging.

  ‘That you, Ferrow?’

  ‘Ferrow here, chief.’

  ‘Have you picked up Banks yet?’

  ‘Divisions are working on it, chief. They haven’t come up with anything yet.’

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘About Shim
pling, chief. He worked as a journalist at one time.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He was sent to Kenya—’

  ‘I know. Skip Shimpling. What about Groton?’

  ‘Just a minute, chief. A confidential report . . .’

  Everything from the Foreign Office was confidential! Gently stared woodenly across the desk while he listened to Ferrow playing around with some papers.

  ‘Here we are. He was born in Griqualand—’

  ‘Never mind about Griqualand.’

  ‘Well . . . he’s been fined twice for ill-treating natives and once for poaching game in the Kruger National Park. Suspected connection with ivory-poaching but no charge brought. Another fine for tax-dodging and one for the illicit sale of a firearm.’

  ‘Nothing big?’

  ‘There’s a sealed envelope stamped “For Your Eyes Only”.’

  ‘Open it, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘Thought I’d better ask you, chief.’

  Further pause, with background sounds of Ferrow dealing with the envelope. Bradfield, after jiffling for a moment, pulled up a chair and sat down on it awkwardly.

  Bradfield . . . Gently remembered him now: he’d been a detective constable in those days. A bland-faced youngster, fresh off the beat, who’d picked up a man in a shooting incident.

  Now he was Super, running his own show, smitten with the glamour of the Yard . . .

  ‘Hello, chief ?’

  ‘What’s the big secret?’

  ‘Something to do with the Mau-Mau business.’

  ‘Is it, by heaven!’

  ‘In 53. That’s when—’

  ‘I know. Just stick to the facts.’

  ‘It was in August 53 at a place called M’Butu, Northern Province. Somebody burned a Kikuyu village and shot eight of the natives.

  ‘There was an inquiry. Groton was there. He was staying at a game farm three miles off. The night before some animals were slaughtered and one of the boys had his head cut off.

  ‘The inquiry was closed for lack of evidence and the burning was blamed on rival tribes, but the authorities are convinced it was done by white men and that Groton was the instigator.

  ‘He was given a one-way ticket and the affair was hushed up.’

  ‘No mention of journalists nosing round?’

  ‘Sorry, chief. Nothing about that.’

  ‘Do we know the dates of Shimpling’s visit?’

  ‘He was there from March till September.’

  So there it was, dovetailing neatly, just as he had been certain it would: the connection between the blackmailing Shimpling and the fierce but vulnerable South African.

  What evidence had Shimpling collected in Africa?

  That they were never likely to know.

  Unless, perhaps, the Banks woman had been privy to the secret . . .

  But one thing was becoming clear – Groton was a very slippery customer. The English police, like their Kenya counterparts, might be reduced to issuing a one-way ticket . . .

  ‘Tell them I want Banks and want her quickly.’

  ‘Willco, chief. It shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘It’s taken too long already!’

  He could sense Ferrow shrugging his shoulders.

  ‘Also I want a check on Cheyne-Chevington. I’d like to know where he’s living.’

  ‘Matthews has been checking for you, chief, but he hasn’t picked up the trail so far.’

  Gently hung up.

  Bradfield met his eye with an interrogating smile.

  ‘Everything all right . . . ?’

  The man was an ass! Gently had an impulse to say something rude.

  Over by the door, a shrinking violet, hovered the uniformed figure of Police Constable Kennet. He made a sort of inclination as Gently’s eye fell on him and shuffled forward a couple of steps.

  ‘Excuse me, sir . . .’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s something that came to me, sir. About the bungalow and who owns it. I thought it might be of use to you.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Hastings handled it, sir.’

  ‘Who are Hastings?’

  ‘They’re estate agents. They’ve an office in the Buttermarket, sir. I look in their window when I’m passing.’

  ‘And they advertised the bungalow?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It came back to me, I’d seen the card in their window . . .’

  Kennet broke off. Inspector Perkins had suddenly come out of his long trance. He was quivering in his excitement and exclaimed:

  ‘That’s him! It’s David Hastings!’

  Everyone turned to him, and he flushed. But he kept on repeating enthusiastically:

  ‘It’s David Hastings – the man with the car! I knew I recognized him! It’s David Hastings!’

  CHAPTER SIX

  PRECISELY AT THAT moment the phone went – it was Matthews wanting to give Gently a personal report; and then Ferrow came back on the line with a report from Divisions about Shirley Banks.

  Both reports were entirely negative, but of course, Gently was expected to listen!

  While over his head Perkins kept expostulating and Bradfield chimed in his amazement and incredulity.

  ‘We’d better be careful about this, Perky . . .’

  ‘No, I’m positive – it’s the expression! He’s got a little beard, now, and a moustache, but a man can’t alter his expressions.’

  ‘. . . he simply faded out from Kensington, chief. A man called Beevor took over the practice . . .’

  ‘You’d expect he’d try to alter his appearance, after all . . .’

  ‘We don’t want to stir up trouble locally . . .’

  For five minutes the babel went on, then Gently hung up and everyone fell silent.

  Perkins, red in the face, was staring bulbously at the lino; Bradfield tapped his foot, wore a doubting expression.

  ‘Well . . . ?’

  Perkins swallowed. ‘May I see the picture again?’

  Gently produced it and they all clustered round. Plainly nobody else was prepared to go nap on it, though Kennet kept nodding his head cautiously.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s the expression, really! I know there’s not much to go on in the face . . .’

  ‘What about the rest of you?’

  Kennet shuffled his feet.

  Bradfield said: ‘I don’t know the man myself . . .’

  ‘When did Hastings arrive here?’ Gently asked.

  ‘He hasn’t been here long,’ Bradfield said. ‘It used to be Sayers who had the business – Samuel Sayers. I bought my place through him.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘March 59 . . . over four years. It couldn’t have been long after that when it changed hands, though Sayers was living here till recently. There’s a flat over the business. Sayers lived in that. He was a bachelor.’

  ‘He had some form, sir,’ Gipping said. ‘Soliciting men for immoral purposes.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He’s slung his hook, sir. I wouldn’t know where he’s gone to.’

  Gently nodded. It had a promising sound; Shimpling had also been a queer. And along with the ‘G’ in the ‘black book’ there had been an ‘H’ and an ‘S’.

  ‘Is he a married man, your David Hastings?’

  After the trial, Cheyne-Chevington’s wife had left him.

  ‘No, he’s a bachelor too,’ Perkins said. ‘He used to live in a service-flat opposite my house. That’s why I know what he looks like, I’d see him going in and out. The wife says he had girls there. But he was living on his own.’

  ‘Where’s he living now?’

  Perkins looked unhappy. ‘Somewhere in the town.’

  ‘When did he move?’

  ‘Last year some time. Now it’s an accountant who lives there.’

  ‘What else do you know about him?’

  ‘That’s about all. He seems to have plenty of money – dresses well, runs a Jag. Does a
lot of advertising in the Free Press.’

  ‘Does he know Groton?’

  Perkins shook his head. ‘But it’s him all right, I’m sure of that.’

  He fixed his gaze rigidly on the photograph as though willing Cheyne-Chevington to be Hastings.

  Bradfield said quickly: ‘I wouldn’t want to upset him, not unless we’re positive, that is. Abbotsham’s a small place really . . . we try not to play things tough, here.’

  Of course. Abbotsham had tone!

  ‘Somebody was playing it tough last year . . .’

  ‘Oh, I’m not trying to make obstacles!’

  ‘Good. I think we’d better talk to Mr Hastings.’

  Bradfield bit his lip and looked slantingly, but raised no other objection.

  * * *

  They crossed the Buttermarket: Gently and Perkins, with Dutt following behind.

  It was a broad, lazy street proceeding from one corner of the Market Place.

  Cars were double-parked along one side, which was blocked at the top by a projecting building, so that the street had the aspect of a narrow plain which was only partly a thoroughfare.

  It was lined by a variety of decorative fronts of Georgian and early Victorian origin, dwelling-houses which had since been converted to shops and offices. Some, on the side used only for parking, still had sweeps of steps with wrought-iron railings.

  Looking towards the Market Place, you saw the gabled flint front of the Jew’s House.

  ‘This area would be rather expensive?’

  Perkins nodded. ‘Yes. All round here. When these places come up for sale it’s usually a chain store that buys them.’

  ‘Which is Hastings?’

  ‘Behind the cars. You can see the gold lettering on the windows. But nobody owns anything along this side, they’re all on lease from an insurance company.’

  Rather surprisingly, the building which contained Hastings was of Edwardian red-brick, a double-fronted doll’s house of a place loaded with rococo ornament.

  Yet, perhaps because the ornamentation was so thorough-going, so enthusiastically ebullient, the house had charm and didn’t seem out of place.