Alan Hunter: Landed Gently

‘Guess I’ll miss him,’ said the colonel. ‘Guess I’ll miss the young hound! He got drafted over here at the same time as me. Came in the same flight, we did, way back in August. Reckon we’ll fly him back, too… His folk’ll expect that.’

‘Hmph! Inquest tomorrow,’ said Sir Daynes gruffly.

‘Yeah… I know the ropes. I’ll have a wagon there to collect him.’

The fire burned red, and Sir Daynes, coming out of a revery with a jerk, suddenly remembered that his spouse was keeping a lonely vigil in the Manor House.

‘Hah — Gently!’ he exclaimed. ‘Better be getting back, man… There’s nothing we can do here, and Somerhayes has gone off to jaw things over with his cousin. Care to join us over at my place, Colonel? I can guarantee the central heating!’

The colonel nodded, getting to his feet. ‘I’d surely appreciate that, Bart, right now.’

‘It’ll be a change of blasted atmosphere — I try to keep business out of the home. Outside it, y’know, I’m the chief constable of Northshire, but once I cross that confounded threshold I’m just Gwendoline’s husband…’

Lady Broke had her skating, and, by way of a special and not-to-be-adopted-as-precedent dispensation, Gently was indulged in another day’s pike-fishing, by means of an air-hole cut in the ice. This proved to be a highly successful operation. The pike, wholly innocent of the dangers of air-holes, almost hung around waiting for the gleam of Gently’s spoon. Certainly, he didn’t get a specimen. The largest, an eighteen-pounder, was no rival for the celebrated heavy-weight that graced the wall in Finchley. But they bit firm and they bit often, and the average weight was gratifyingly high. At the dusky end of the day Gently struck his gear with the complacent feeling of a man who had really been among the pike, and having been there, had acquitted himself. A snapshot taken by Sir Daynes provided a permanent record of the fact.

Of Somerhayes, Gently saw no more before he returned to town. He did not attend the inquest, which dealt merely with identification, and Sir Daynes, who did, reported that Somerhayes ‘hadn’t got a blasted word for him, not for anyone else as far as he could see’.

‘Poor man,’ commented Lady Broke, whose maternal interest in Somerhayes never flagged. ‘It’s been a shocking time for him, Daynes, truly shocking. I shudder to think of what he must have been through. If I were him I would take a long, long holiday in — you know, the West Indies or somewhere like that. And I would take Janice Page with me. I think it’s ridiculous how he doesn’t marry her!’

Sir Daynes pooh-poohed, but his prescient lady maintained her opinion; and whether the idea was communicated to Somerhayes supersensorily or by more material media, he did, in fact, very shortly depart with Janice for the sunny shores of Jamaica. Johnson, who proved quite capable of the task, was left to manage the tapestry workshop.

‘I liked the inspector,’ said Gertrude Winfarthing dreamily, as, with the housemaid, she stripped the now-vacant bed. ‘Give me a ten-bob note he did, which is more than half of them do. An’ he got a twinkle in his eye… Did you notice his twinkle, Irene? I reckon a girl like me could do worse than marry a man like that, spite of his being fiftyish and always got a pipe in his mouth…’

And she kept her piece of mistletoe for quite a long time afterwards.