Alan Hunter - Gently Down the Stream

‘He was also a servant of long standing?’

‘Indeed he was. Mrs Phyllis engaged him when she was having Mr Paul and apart from the war, when we got along without a chauffeur, he has been with us ever since. Very attached he has always been to Mrs Phyllis, besides being one of the few people Mr Paul hits it off with. Taught him to drive, he did, and likewise to fish. You could hardly drop on a man less likely to stick his neck out.’

‘Taught him to fish, did he?’ A dreamy expression stole into Gently’s eyes and once more they wandered to the bright-lit expanse of broad with its thousand reedy inlets. He pulled himself up.

‘You couldn’t find a picture of him for Inspector Hansom… have you been able to find one since?’

‘There now — I was forgetting!’

She felt in her wide apron-pocket and produced a postcard print of the sort vended by street photographers. It was taken on a promenade and showed a man of medium build in dark uniform, the maid on one arm and the cook on the other. He had a stolid but far from naive Northshire countenance. His lips were thin and his mouth rather wide.

‘Took last year it was, on the front at Starmouth.’

‘He looks quite presentable. Did he have any girlfriends?’

‘Well, we had our larks, but I never heard of him going steady with a girl.’

‘Did he ever mention Miss Brent?’

‘No, not to me.’

‘Had he any people or special friends in the locality?’

‘Only his aunt, who lives at Upper Wrackstead.’

Gently stowed the photograph away in his wallet. ‘Now we’re on the subject of photographs, I don’t see any of Mr Lammas about.’

The cook cast a quick look towards a bureau at the far end of the room, her eyes rounding in perplexity.

‘That’s funny now… there used to be one here. Perhaps he took it with him.’

‘Are there any others?’

‘Oh yess, no doubt, in Mrs Phyllis’ albums.’

‘But none about the house?’

‘No, certainly. She would not have them there.’

‘Just one more question, Miss Roberts, and then I think we can let you go.’

The cook looked up attentively.

‘Was Hicks a musical man… did he, for instance, play a concertina?’

‘Why yes he did — but very badly, though!’

‘Thank you, Miss Roberts… that’s everything for the moment.’

Hansom watched her thoughtfully as she got up and departed. Then he reached out absently towards the bag of peppermint creams. ‘You’re right…’ he said to Gently, beginning to munch.

Gently cocked an interrogative eyebrow.

‘About Lammas having a point of view. Me, I think I’d have cashed out in twenty months, let alone twenty years!’

There were ashtrays about the lounge and as though by tacit consent they all began to smoke. Hansom began it with one of his workaday Dutch whiffs, then Gently produced his weathered sand-blast. Finally the Constable, after many vain attempts to catch someone’s eye, slipped out a small, thin cigarette-case, thus proving beyond doubt that Constables do carry such things about their person.

‘Cancer, my arse!’ observed Hansom crudely. ‘Why pick on tobacco out of all the other things?’

Gently blew a comfortable ring. ‘We’ve been smoking the stuff several centuries now…’

‘I can show you a dozen old boys over ninety — smoked and chewed it since they were in the cradle. If you ask me it’s the cinema that’s the killer.’

‘Or the internal combustion-engine…’

‘Leastways, I shan’t quit before my old man does…!’

There was quite a pleasant haze in the warm air of the lounge by the time Pauline Lammas appeared. She was not put out by it — on the contrary, she paused at the door to light a cigarette of her own. Taller and more robust than her mother, Pauline tended to plainness of feature. She had short, straw-coloured hair, greyish-blue eyes and a thickened nose, and made-up a good deal more than was necessary. She wore a black bodice-blouse and a green skirt.

Gently rose courteously when she entered. From her private cloud of smoke she quizzed him coolly.

‘And — you are Chief Detective Inspector Gently, CID?’

Wooden-faced, Gently admitted it.

‘Really… you’re not a bit how I expected you to be. I’m afraid I’m going to be disappointed — do you mind?’

‘Not essentially, Miss Lammas…’

‘You see,’ she hurried on, ‘I visualized you as one of the younger school of detectives — the sort they make films about, or at least lean and hatchet-faced and — and intellectual looking. But you aren’t. You’re just paternal. It’s difficult to believe that you’re a detective at all!’

Gently cleared his throat, but Hansom gave his harsh laugh.

‘Don’t worry, miss — he hates people to think he looks like a policeman!’

‘Does he really? How strange!’

‘He likes you to take him for a farmer or a commercial traveller!’

‘Ahem!’ coughed Gently loudly. ‘I think perhaps we should get down to business… don’t you?’

Hansom chortled to himself and kicked his large feet happily under the table. Pauline Lamas swept her bushy green skirt flat and sat down with precision timing.

‘Now, Miss Lammas… I understand you were in Norchester all the Friday evening.’

‘Yes, inspector. I’m playing Cordelia for the Anesford Players — our first night is a week today.’

‘It is a pity, Miss Lammas, that this tragic circumstance should have intervened.’

A flicker of emotion twisted the corner of the young girl’s mouth, but immediately she recovered her former brightness.

‘It’s not going to intervene, inspector. Daddy wouldn’t have expected it.’

‘You mean you still intend to play?’

‘Of course — he would have wanted me to. Daddy was a Player himself. Hasn’t anyone told you?’

‘Naturally… if you feel it’s your duty.’ Gently shrugged. ‘Miss Lammas, what time was your rehearsal on Friday?’

‘At half-past seven, at St Giles’ Hall.’

‘Who is the producer of the Anesford Players?’

‘John Playfair — he’s the Drama Organizer. You can get him at his office in Pacey Road or his private address at 40 Birdcage Hill.’

‘Thank you, Miss Lammas! You are correct in assuming that I shall need to get in touch with him. What time did the rehearsal end?’

‘Oh, you know what they are, inspector! They go on till all hours. But I had to leave at twenty-past ten to catch my last bus.’

‘In fact, you were at St Giles’ Hall from the time the rehearsal commenced at seven-thirty until you left to catch your bus at twenty-past ten. Is that correct?’

‘Perfectly correct… you’ve only to ask John Playfair. Or anyone else who was there.’

Gently nodded absently. ‘And what time did your bus leave?’

‘At ten thirty-five from Castle Paddock.’

‘And arrived here?’

‘At eleven o’clock. You get off at Wrackstead Turn.’

‘How about the bus going?’

‘I took the ten to seven.’

‘Then would you be kind enough to tell me, Miss Lammas, what you were doing between the time you finished your early tea served at five-thirty and ten minutes to seven?’

There was the briefest of pauses, just sufficient to warn the alert Hansom that Gently had struck oil of some sort. Then Pauline Lammas laughed, only a fraction off-cue.

‘Of course, inspector… on Friday night I took the early bus!’

‘Why?’ fired Gently.

‘Why-? To do some shopping, I suppose.’

‘What shops are open after six o’clock?’

‘What shops? Oh… I don’t know! It was window shopping.’

‘You took an early bus, simply to window-shop?’