Alan Hunter: Gently through the Mill

‘You seem to have covered a lot of ground.’

The super, too, was sounding stiff, but in his case it may have been the guilty pair who rankled.

‘I suppose you’re sure of your facts — testimonies reliable and all that? In a case of this sort I should scarcely have expected…’

‘The evidence seems to dovetail fairly neatly.’

‘Oh, I’m not suggesting we can teach you anything!’

‘There’s always a possible margin for error.’

The super ground out a cigarette butt, himself getting heated. More than ever he had the feeling that Gently was building up something unpleasant and reprehensible. To hide his chagrin, Griffin was also fiddling with a cigarette. Over it he muttered:

‘As a matter of fact, I did suggest…’

Gently seemed lost in the dark world beyond the window.

‘If you don’t mind me saying so, it still isn’t clear-’

‘How the money ties in?’

‘Exactly! Up till now-’

‘Up till now the money has been a hypothesis — except that it was in Blacker’s possession by about half past twelve on the Friday morning.’

‘I agree that it’s a coincidence.’

‘Let me reconstruct what I think occurred.’

The super drew a deep breath and cradled his chin in his hands. On the square a mobile fish-and-chip saloon had drawn up, lending a scent of frying to the vernal atmosphere.

‘We’ll take it from Blacker’s angle — I think that’s most convenient. At some time between eleven and half past he secreted himself in the drying-ground.

‘He saw first Mrs Blythely arrive and wait outside the stable. Then Fuller joined her, and when they had gone into the stable, Blythely came out of the passage to take up his position in the lean-to. Ten minutes later X came into the yard.

‘X I am assuming to be the murderer. I don’t know whether Blacker recognized him — there wasn’t a lot of light. But he saw him go down the yard and stop in the mill passage, and it’s possible that he noticed the package X was carrying under his arm.

‘At eleven forty-five X was joined by Taylor. After a brief conversation X handed Taylor the package, and as Taylor was examining it to make sure of the contents, X slipped behind him and effected strangulation.

‘His plans were obviously made and he wasted no time about them. Immediately life was extinct he set about disposing of the body. How much of this Blacker witnessed is open to conjecture, but I think there is little doubt that it was he who Blythely heard come down to the passage a little later.

‘There he stumbled over the package — partly open, one supposes — and discovering what it contained, made off with it at a run. X, having shot the body into the hopper, returned to pick up the money: its absence must have been a shock to him, but there was nothing he could do about it and he didn’t hang around.

‘Unless I’ve overlooked something, that seems to me the inevitable interpretation.’

‘I don’t agree at all!’

Griffin was ready to jump in directly.

‘Surely there’s another alternative that fits just as well?’

‘There may be.’ Gently bowed his head. ‘It’s difficult to think of all the variations…’

‘Suppose it was Taylor in fact who committed the robbery — suppose he’d had to hide the money in the mill, for some reason. Then Blacker catches him collecting it — there’s a struggle, and Taylor is strangled — isn’t the hopper the very place where Blacker would get rid of the body?’

Gently shrugged without replying. Had he still to make himself plain? For most of the day he’d known the inexorable answer to all the questions…

‘At least it simplifies it, Gently.’

The super wanted to buy Griffin’s notion.

‘It gets rid of that “X” of yours, who’s likely to be a pitfall. And it gives us a clearer picture — the whole thing becomes more credible. This Roscoe lot had begun to dabble in burglary, and at Newmarket they heard of a likely crib to be cracked…’

Could neither of them see the facts which were staring them in the face?

‘There are four people, I think, who know the murderer’s identity.’

He would have to tell them in so many words.

‘Roscoe knows, and I’m sure Blacker does. Then there’s me, and of course, Mr Pershore.’

‘What!’

The super sat up with a jerking movement.

‘Mr Pershore… doesn’t that follow? The money was his and nobody else’s.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Why, everything, I imagine! It was he whom Roscoe and the others were blackmailing.’

The super leaned back with an expression of dizziness. A crazy element seemed to have crept into the exchanges! On the one hand, Gently didn’t seem to be raving, but on the other… could he have heard him properly?

‘But that money was stolen!’

Gently shook his head slowly.

‘Ask Inspector Griffin what he found in the study at Prideaux.’

‘He — he found it had been broken into. Didn’t you, Griffin?’

‘That’s right!’ fired Griffin. ‘There’s no question about that. A window catch was forced and there were scratch-marks on the safe.’

‘Only’ — Gently paused to make sure they were following him — ‘there were no scratches or forced windows when I was there an hour earlier. They appeared between the time I left and the time when Inspector Griffin arrived.’

‘Then you are saying-’

The super looked sick. Out of seemingly nowhere, his nightmare premonition was developing.

‘I’m saying that Roscoe, Ames and Taylor came to Lynton to blackmail Pershore, and that he, very determinedly, has responded by killing two of them.’

Coffee was brought in by a woman from the canteen. It was none too warm and probably concocted from a powder. In the square the fish-and-chip saloon was doing excellent business; quite a group were clustering round it, eating from newspapers and greaseproof bags.

‘Don’t you see the improbability of it?’

At last there was a spell for Gently’s pipe. Having got rid of his coffee, he scraped out the bowl and refilled it. After food, it was usually the second pipe which tasted the best.

‘He’s been a figure here for twenty years. After all that time, and with never the slightest suspicion…’

Round and round the super was gnawing at it, trying his best to find a weak place. Against anyone else, yes, it was a case — but against Geoffrey Wallace Pershore, Esq…

‘We probably shan’t know until we get hold of Roscoe.’

‘Just ask yourself! What could they have dug up about him?’

‘It might be something from a long time ago — before he ever set foot in Lynton.’

‘He came from overseas.’

Griffin was childishly bent on getting his foot in somewhere.

‘It was South Africa, I believe. I can remember it quite plainly. It was while you were still at Cheapham, sir.’

‘South Africa, eh…?’

‘He was as brown as a berry — younger, of course, not much over thirty. There was a lot of gossip. He had a Bentley in those days. According to what they said, he’d made his pile out of palm oil or something.

‘Anyway, he took a liking to Lynton and started investing his money here. Then, just before the war, he bought Prideaux Manor from old Major Calthorpe. During the war he organized the local St John’s Ambulance, and turned Prideaux Manor into a nursing-home.

‘Everyone thought he’d get an Honours List mention.’

‘Should’ve done!’ wailed the super. ‘It was only damned favouritism…’

‘Since then he’s done a great deal for Lynton. His name has been at the head of every charity list. He came to the assistance of the football club when it looked like going broke, and started the Library Appeal Fund with a thousand guineas.