Alan Hunter - Gently through the Mill

‘This is fantastic — an outrage!’

The mayor-elect was bubbling with indignation and bafflement. Every cliche of injury came thronging to his lips.

‘In the first place it’s impossible — I shall get in touch with the chief constable! What are things coming to — what are the police being paid for!’

‘Would you mind checking the contents?’

‘I shall write to my M.P.!’

‘At the moment it would help-’

‘This is utterly criminal!’

Shrugging heavily, Gently turned his attention to the safe. Inside, everything seemed to be in scrupulous order. The door was immaculate in its dull green paint. Force had obviously not been used to effect an entry.

‘You are sure that the money was placed in the safe?’

‘Must you be so infernally stupid!’

‘Have you had it open since the money was put in?’

‘I have had no occasion to — the old fool sold over my head!’

‘I would be very greatly obliged if you would check the contents.’

At last Pershore got down to it, still reverberating impotently. He was in such a way that he could scarcely remember what should be there. It was some time before he had established to his own satisfaction that, apart from the money, the contents were intact.

‘Can you describe what you did after you drew the money?’

‘Haven’t I made it clear enough? I put it in the safe!’

‘When you left the bank you drove directly back here?’

‘Yes — I told you. And then I got that telephone call!’

It took time and patience to get information from Pershore. He was raving with the incredible wrong which had been done him. Bit by bit it had to be dragged out, with the chance of an insult at every fresh question.

‘What time did you go to the bank?’

‘How the devil should I know?’

‘On Thursday morning you called in at the mill. Had you the money with you at that time?’

‘I don’t know — ask Fuller. He may have seen me with it!’

‘It’s important that you remember.’

‘For heaven’s sake, talk sense!’

‘Who knew you had it or were going to draw it?’

‘Do you think I’d broadcast a thing like that?’

‘Where else did you go in Lynton that morning?’

‘Nowhere, I tell you.’

‘Did you have a drink at The Roebuck?’

‘No, I did not!’

Slowly but remorselessly the picture was teased into detail. As he put his questions Gently wandered over to the study’s two big windows. Here they were at the back of the house, facing a long stretch of terraced lawn closed by shrubberies. Immediately under the windows were flowerbeds shaped in scallops, but the naked earth, ideal for footprints, was rendered sodden and crumbled by the beating rain.

The windows themselves were wooden sash frames secured by common fingertip catches.

‘When you went to draw the money, where did you park your car?’

‘Honestly, Inspector! Outside the bank.’

‘Were there many people about?’

‘I really didn’t notice.’

‘That attache case is conspicuous. Are you sure you caught nobody eyeing it?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘Who opened the door when you returned here?’

‘Nobody opened it — I let myself in.’

‘Then your servants knew nothing about it?’

‘Not unless they saw me go out with the case.’

‘Would that have been probable?’

‘Do you really expect me to remember such things?’

‘Where do you keep the safe key?’

‘Attached to a body-belt, as you are aware.’

‘Was the money ever out of your hands?’

‘Never at any time until I deposited it in the safe.’

‘And you can’t remember whether you drew it before or after you visited the mill?’

‘Not to swear to it, but it might have been after.’

‘How long after you got back did the telephone ring?’

‘Almost as soon as I got in the door.’

‘You kept the case in your hand all the time you were answering it?’

‘I put it on the desk there.’

‘Nobody else was in the room?’

‘Nobody.’

‘You had your eyes on it?’

‘All the time.’

‘And then you put it in the safe?’

‘Yes, just across the room!’

‘Think: did you stop anywhere except at the mill?’

‘I’ve told you already-’

‘May I use your phone, please?’

Pershore watched him loweringly as he dialled the headquarters number. Like many an angry man before him, the mayor-elect had been sobered by the probe of Gently’s interrogation. It was humiliating to be shown how little one really remembered about things…

‘Gently here. Anything come in?’

Through the window came the steady beat of the rain on the lawn and flowerbeds outside.

‘Never mind… get me Inspector Griffin, if he’s there.’

He’d got the meat out of Prideaux Manor: it was up to the local boys to scoop up the gravy. Just at the moment, he could think of much more interesting things to be done.

For a second time that day Gently’s Wolseley came to a halt among the puddles of the mill yard. If anything it was raining harder now, and the light was worse than ever.

The double doors of the engine-room were half-closed to keep out driving rain; a couple of men, making a dash from the sack-store to the passage, had sacks pulled over their heads and shoulders.

Was ever there such a day of rain before? When you pictured to yourself an English spring…

Gently, apparently, was in no hurry. Having parked the car he lit his pipe and remained in the driving seat puffing at it. First Fuller appeared at his door, ghost-like, his dark eyes almost black against his pale face; then the foreman peered out of the hoist-doors above the loading bay, pausing to spit into the yard below.

As for Blythely, he was no doubt having a nap. The bakehouse door stood ajar, but there was no sign of activity within. His wife Gently had seen in the shop. She was reading a woman’s magazine with a glossy cover. Come storm, come shine, the Blythely household continued to go about its routine…

Now there was a movement in the doorway of the sack-store. Blacker had come down and was rolling himself a cigarette. Looking anywhere but at the Wolseley, he licked the paper and dabbed it down; lighting up, he made an exaggerated face as though the match were scorching him.

Then he leaned against the doorpost, exhaling self-conscious lungfuls of smoke. His eyes seemed fixed on a point in the sky above the roof of the cafe across the road.

And still the rain poured out of the sky, and Gently continued to sit in the Wolseley.

Blacker grew restive. He shot a calculating glance at the engine-room, the next point of refuge, then, lowering his eyes, at the front wheels of the Wolseley. He dashed out his cigarette with a nervous movement. Twice he made as though to run for the engine-room doors.

But, finally, it was the Wolseley which attracted him. Like a magnet which he was forced to obey, it drew him away from the quick rush to the engine-room.

Frowning stupidly in the rain he thrust his head close to the driver’s window:

‘You want something, do you, coming here like this…?’

Presumably Gently heard him, though he gave no sign of it. Behind the slightly misted window Blacker could see him smoking in comfortable dryness. Feeling the rain chilling his shoulders, the foreman rapped on the window.

‘It’s about that scooter, ain’t it? I watched the bloke go in after me! I’m getting wet…!’

He was, and no mistake.

‘Why don’t you ask me, ’stead of keeping me standing here?’

Only the rain made him any sort of an answer.

Miserably, the foreman rapped again. Now that he was standing by the car it seemed impossible for him to retire without getting some acknowledgment of his action. His eye fell on the door-handle, but he wasn’t bold enough to turn it.