by Alan Hunter
‘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?’
‘They were to negotiate the new property … that’s what he told me!’
‘And you believed it – you, with your finger on the pulse of everything going on here! Do you think we’re imbeciles? You couldn’t help having an idea. And don’t think you’ll be left here any longer to cook the books and cover up!’
This was too much for the head clerk. He drew himself up with a fury that almost startled Gently.
‘Sir … sir! If you continue in these allegations I shall request the presence of my solicitor. I will not submit to such preposterous accusations!’
‘All right … all right!’ Gently waved him down pacifically. ‘We’ll check the books anyway … I’m only giving you a chance to come clean.’
‘But I have nothing to admit, sir! I am here purely in the office of a caretaker – unpaid, I may say. My services are gratuitous—!’
‘I’ll believe you … don’t labour it.’
‘—doing nothing but answering correspondence, which, sir, must be done!’
Further protestations seemed to hover on the outraged Page’s lips, but he was interrupted by the sudden clangour of the dead man’s phone. For a moment both of them stared at it, ringing away insistently on the corner of the desk. Then Gently grabbed it up and limbered it to his ear.
‘Chief Inspector Gently.’
It was Hansom at the other end.
‘I’ve been trying to get you for the last hour … thought you might like the latest bulletin from Upper Wrackstead.’
‘Upper Wrackstead!’ Gently stiffened. ‘You don’t mean you’ve picked up Hicks?’
‘Not yet … not quite!’ Hansom’s voice sounded gloating. ‘But we’ve picked up a specimen of the larky lad’s handiwork. You remember that fat burglar’s wife – Cheerful Annie, they call her? Well, they found her in the Dyke this morning … with a .22 bullet through her head!’
CHAPTER TEN
THE SUPER’S HUMBER decorated the scene of the crime when Gently arrived there. The great man was standing beside it holding forth to Hansom, while two plain-clothes men and the local Constable added dignity to the composition. In scared little groups the river-dwellers stood near their boats, even the children subdued and watching.
‘I want him,’ the super was delivering himself, ‘and I’m going to have him! I’m going to have him if it means drafting in blasted military. Why man, nobody’s life is safe while this damned chauffeur is at liberty – he’s running amok, he’ll put a bullet into anybody who recognizes him!’
‘We’ve got the district cordoned,’ put in Hansom defensively. ‘There’s road-blocks on all the main—’
‘Road-blocks!’ snapped the super, swinging his arms dramatically at the surrounding marsh and carrs. ‘That’s where he is – not playing tag with your road-blocks! Get some men in there – get a lot of men in there. I don’t care whether they sink in up to their backsides – I want Hicks winkled out before he shoots down any more innocent bystanders!’
Hansom made a face outside the super’s range of vision. He knew, if the super did not, what it was like beating an alder carr …
‘Ah … and you Gently!’ The super’s eye fell on the Central Office man. ‘Where were you when Hicks was blazing away last night? You’re a Yard man, aren’t you! You’re one of those “lucky” types whom things creep up on! Well, there was something crept up here last night and I’ll bet my last chance of promotion you were sleeping like a baby, forty yards from the spot! And that, after you’d been told Hicks was lurking around here!’
Gently heaved his bulky shoulders non-committally.
‘That was only a rumour … we investigated it thoroughly.’
‘Only a rumour! Only a rumour!!! And I suppose the body they’ve just carted off is only a rumour, too! I tell you it’s not good enough, Gently. You might have prevented what happened last night. Ever since you’ve come down here you’ve been wasting your time probing and prying into the Lammas family, while the real criminal has been left running around loose … and now this happens, right under your very nose! If you’d exerted yourself in the right direction we might have pulled in Hicks before he had a chance to pot anyone else.’
Slowly Gently fumbled in his pocket for a peppermint cream and balanced it on his thumb.
‘Why,’ he asked simply, ‘would Hicks come here?’
‘I don’t give two hoots why Hicks came here!’
‘But it’s a relevant question … this is the last place you’d expect to find him.’
The super looked as though he’d bite him. ‘I don’t care if it’s so bloody irrelevant that Scotland Yard would lie down and weep! He’s been here – he was seen here – and he’s done another killing here. That’s all that matters, and that’s all that’s going to matter. We didn’t know where to start looking before, but we do now, and by glory we’re going to have him sitting in a cell before he’s very much older!’
Gently shook his head with the slightly admonishing air that superintendents took so hardly.
‘We don’t know he was here – we don’t know that he was seen here. All we know is that the gun which killed Lammas killed Annie Packer … and we don’t know that either unless we’ve recovered the bullet.’
And he skilfully popped the peppermint cream into his mouth.
‘All right!’ breathed the super chokingly. ‘All right, Gently. Let’s play it your way for half a minute. If it wasn’t Hicks who shot Annie Packer, perhaps you can tell me who in high heaven else would want to do it?’
; Gently nodded his approval. ‘That’s what one should ask one’s self … though unfortunately the choice is rather wide. But I can suggest a motive, if you feel it might be interesting.’
‘I do, Gently … it just happens that I do!’
‘Well … it might occur to a clever sort of criminal that we weren’t taking as much interest in Hicks as we might be and that a carefully prepared episode of this sort would remedy the situation. The likelihood would be all the stronger if Hicks was only the fall-guy in the first instance … wouldn’t it? And it wouldn’t hurt him any if he was already making well-paid tracks for South America …’
The super stared at him evilly, but he was too good a policeman to brush an idea aside.
‘You mean this rumour about Hicks being seen was a put-up job?’
‘That’s how it struck me … after I had investigated it.’
‘In fact Hicks never was anything but a red herring – the door is still wide open?’
‘Pretty wide open. Though it may have closed a little lately.’
The super brooded for a spell. ‘It’s narrow enough, if you ask me. If Hicks was just a blind then there’s only two people in it – Mrs Lammas and her son Paul. Nobody else would get Hicks to play. I suppose you can add the Brent woman – he might have been infatuated with her. But it’s pointing all the way to Paul and Mrs Lammas.’
‘And maybe one other.’
The super glanced at him keenly.
‘I keep getting the impression that we haven’t got a full list yet …’
‘Any reason for that?’
‘Not really … just a place in the picture for him.’
‘It’s a “him” then and not a “her”?’
‘Oh yes! I think it has to be a “him”.’
The super brooded some more with a terrier-like glint in his eye. Then he said nastily:
‘There’s just one little flaw in this precious theory of yours, isn’t there?’
‘There may be several …’
‘Yes – and the first one is how an outsider could spread a rumour about Hicks in a little closed community like this – without being identified! Did that cross the Central Office mind?’