Alan Hunter - Gently through the Mill

An expert in atmospheres, Gently was surprised by this one. To the closest observer the baker had provided no clue to the emotions which were governing him. Yet now there was something, and that something wasn’t fear; suddenly, one was aware of a monumental agony.

‘I wasn’t going to deny it. What you say is the truth.’

The flat tone of the admission stung like a whiplash across the face.

‘So you agree that you were absent-’

Gently broke off, catching sight of Mrs Blythely swaying ominously where she sat. Not another interruption like that — the first one had been costly enough! He was really being dogged by the in-and-out propensities…

‘I think your wife is feeling faint!’

Blythely didn’t waste as much as a glance. More than ever he had the appearance of something carved from a block of wood.

‘Your wife-’ Gently got to his feet. Plainly he would have to be the one to render assistance. She was crouching now over her knees, her breath coming in gasps, but her husband was paying no more attention than if she had been in another world.

‘Henry-!’

Was he deaf in fact?

‘Henry — oh Henry, help me!’

She might as well have applied to the counter or the door.

Gently wavered, uncertain what to do. The baker’s wife, though stricken, seemed to be in no danger of passing out, and he had an idea that she would resist if he offered her any aid…

‘Mrs Blythely-’

‘Henry!’

‘This time there was panic in her voice, a sort of hysteric wildness.

‘Henry, in God’s name-!’

Now a flicker did pass over the averted countenance.

She burst into tears and sat hugging herself in a frenzy of abandonment. Out in the street they must have been able to hear her, because the passers-by began to stare through the big plate-glass windows.

‘Henry — Henry!’

Could a stone have resisted that ring of desolation? But the baker never shifted, never changed his blank expression; less and less did he seem to be acting in the same scene.

Gently was frankly nonplussed. Between them, they had edged him quite out of it. From being a police interrogation the reins of which were in his hands it had developed into a domestic drama in which he was an embarrassed third party.

‘Mrs Blythely — pull yourself together, ma’am!’

Regardless of him she sobbed and moaned.

‘You — can’t you do anything, instead of just standing there?’

He should have known it was pointless trying to bully Blythely.

Yet the affair had to be terminated somehow, if it were not to get out of hand. Already a group was collecting on the pavement beyond the window.

Quickly there would be others — and then, perhaps, a constable! In the end he would have to walk out and leave his most promising lead to grow cold…

‘You’re coming with me, the pair of you!’

He didn’t stop to think what he would do if they resisted. Grabbing Blythely with one hand and snatching up his wife with the other, he propelled them through the shop and shoved them up the stairs beyond.

Muted by the plate glass, he heard the comment of the audience on this arbitrary curtain-pulling…

‘Henry… forgive me, Henry!’

The actors had been moved, but the situation was continuing. Lit by the rosy sunset, Blythely’s parlour had an angry, melodramatic appearance. It might have been a special stage-set for just such a scene as this.

Blythely, erect by the window, had his face darkened by the weird light behind him. On the dumpy settee Clara Blythely lay prostrate, by accident in a pose which would have pleased a producing eye.

‘I’m so ashamed, Henry… so ashamed!’

Who could mistake the purport of the scene? It was classic in its simplicity, its principals were typecast. The pity of it was that Griffin wasn’t here to enjoy the triumph of his acuteness.

‘I was mad — you’ve got to believe me! I wasn’t myself… it was somebody else!’

There was the Husband, there the Wife — hamming it, if anything; a good producer would have toned it down a little.

Wearily Gently seated himself and sought the consolation of his pipe. Had it been so simple, then, the crucial problem of Taylor’s demise? The rest, that didn’t concern him. It was a mystery, and it could stay so. This was the compass of the brief he held and here, apparently, the inconsequential answer!

Did it even matter who else knew what, guiltily or cunningly, according to their nature?

‘You followed her out there, didn’t you?’

On the screen of his mind he could project the whole picture, complete in time as in space.

‘You saw them go in… you waited in the shadows. When she came out you let her go. To save her face-’

Mrs Blythely’s tears came in a storm. She, at all events, was past equivocation. The baker, with head unbowed, still obstinately stared at nothing — yet he must have appreciated the endorsement given by his wife’s lamentations.

‘For him you couldn’t wait. Once she was gone, you went in after him. Of course, he was unprepared, but even if he hadn’t been-’

‘I didn’t go into the loft.’

It was the baker’s first response for a good five minutes. His tone, like his expression, hadn’t altered by one iota.

‘Then how did this cross get there?’

‘I told you it wasn’t mine.’

‘You mean that it belonged to Taylor?’

‘How can one tell when there’s nothing on it?’

The stupid repetition of this evasion irritated Gently. Surely by now the fellow could see…! But a moment later his wife settled the question finally.

‘It’s mine… he gave it to me… oh God, it was a wedding present! Twenty years…’

Her tears smothered the rest.

‘So — now we’re getting somewhere!’

Gently took a long pull at his pipe.

‘You jumped him as he came out, did you — took him completely by surprise! Did you know that we could tell that it was done from behind? But then you had to find a place for him, and not having much time-’

‘I didn’t kill that man.’

‘Let me finish what I’m saying! Not having much time, you had to hide him about the premises — somewhere that was safe, with luck for a week or two. And what better place than that hopper of flour? Even the smell wouldn’t notice very much! Furthermore, you might be able to fish him up later — if you could get him to the docks, an ebb tide would do the rest for you…’

‘But I was not the one who killed him.’

‘Listen — you can make a statement later! You had the keys in your pocket, didn’t you? It was easy to slip in there. Taylor wasn’t a heavy man, and you were strong and desperate. So up the steps he went on your back — one set, two sets, three sets, four sets: and then across the floor and into the hopper, where he disappeared as though he had never been.

‘That was a bad moment — that was where you stopped to think! You wiped the sweat and listened to the silence, and you realized you had done what could never be undone.

‘But Jimpson was in the bakehouse, already surprised by your absence — and what was more those buns had to be baked, if you were going to avoid comment. So down you went again, down those four sets of steps. The door was locked, you washed your hands, and all that remained was to get through the night — a task made the easier from having Jimpson to vent your nerves on!

‘Can you deny on your oath that that’s roughly what happened?’

The baker shook his head — a grand concession to Gently’s rhetoric! — and hesitated cautiously before he replied:

‘I was hard on the boy — I’ve got to admit that. But all flesh is as grass when the Lord humbles our pride.’

‘And that’s all you’ve got to say?’