Alan Hunter - Gently Down the Stream

‘Hullo… you the sole survivor?’

The elderly man turned to survey him through steel-rimmed spectacles.

‘The Police again?’ he enquired a little tetchily.

Gently grinned and admitted the fact.

‘We can’t help it… not when people get themselves killed! What’s your name, by the way?’

He was Mr Page and he had been the head clerk. A shrivelled, martinet of a man. He hadn’t the slightest right to be there nor the remotest prospect of being paid for what he was doing… but he was doing it all the same. He was tidying up the loose ends of the business.

Gently settled himself on a table and stuffed his pipe with Navy Cut. There was something incredibly dreary and posthumous about this place…

‘You always been with Lammas?’ he asked.

‘I have. At least, ever since the firm was founded.’

‘How long have you been head clerk?’

‘Since the beginning of the war. Our last head clerk was a younger man. He volunteered for Army service.’

‘You’d know everything that went on here.’

‘In the line of business, certainly. That is what head clerks are for.’

‘Well… what about this realization? Didn’t you know about that?’

‘It could hardly have been carried out without my knowledge.’

Lammas hadn’t quite pulled the wool over Page’s eyes, but he’d got pretty close to it. He’d built his story round the approaching termination of his lease on the warehouse. Because of that he was reducing stock, because of that he was selling off trucks and vans. And if it meant the loss of business? Page needn’t worry his head about that! Lammas was conducting highly secret negotiations for the lease of bigger and better premises. When the firm acquired these it would blossom out on a scale it had never approached before. And then Page, of course, could expect a substantial augmentation of his salary

… even an allotment of shares, to increase his interest in the firm.

Yes… Lammas had played it well enough to keep Page guessing, if not satisfied.

And after all, hadn’t Page been witness to Lammas’ business acumen all these long years?

‘What about Miss Brent — you must have noticed something there?’

Page tightened his mummified lips.

‘Miss Brent worked in the ante-room to Mr Lammas’ office, which is across the corridor. It was not my business to spy on my employer’s conduct.’

‘But you’d got an idea?’

‘I have seen nothing suspicious.’

‘I’m not asking if you caught them in flagrante delicto,… just if their attitude struck you as suggestive.’

Page eyed him in hostile silence.

‘Looking at it another way… if you had noticed something, would you have felt it your business to drop Mrs Lammas a hint?’

The ghost of a flush appeared in Page’s corpse-like countenance.

‘This… has to do with the case?’

‘Oh yes! Very much it has to do with the case.’

‘It is not my business, you understand, to be a passer of idle gossip.’

‘I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t require the facts.’

‘Very well… since I have your assurance. I did in fact drop such a hint.’

‘When!’ rapped Gently, with such venom that Page nearly toppled off his stool.

‘When… why… it was Friday morning! I rang her up when the wage cheque was refused… she drove into town directly with money to pay off the staff!’

It came out easily then. Page was suddenly rather frightened. He had gone to the bank at the end of the morning to cash the cheque and when it was refused, had started putting two and two together. Mrs Lammas, when she arrived, had put them together even faster. Where was Linda Brent? She hadn’t been in that week! What was going on at the business? The unhappy Page had had to admit that it was practically sold out.

‘Who else was present at this interview?’ fired Gently.

‘Nobody — they had gone to lunch!’

‘And why didn’t you tell the police about it?’

‘I–I looked upon it as a private matter… Mrs Lammas advised me to keep it to myself…’

‘How did you find out about the Harrier?’

‘I didn’t — I didn’t know anything about it.’

‘Then where did Mrs Lammas get her information?’

The head clerk wrung his hands anguishedly.

‘She went into his office… she might have found something amongst his papers!’

With a snort Gently got up off his table and slammed across the corridor into Lammas’ office. It was a neat, well-furnished room, looking out on the drab river-frontage. Gently sized it up quickly. There was a shallow document drawer at the top of the green steel desk. On the desk lay a slightly bent paper-knife and the drawer was bent and scratched above the lock. He whisked it open. No need to look further! The current Blake’s List stared him in the face, turned back at the Harrier’s entry, and under it lay Old Man Sloley’s confirmatory letter…

‘Haven’t you got any keys to this desk?’

The shattered head clerk had followed him into the room. He shook his head helplessly.

‘Well… I doubt whether he would have left anything interesting, though we’ll have to make sure.’

He ruffled through the other papers in the drawer, then threw them back impatiently.

‘Look here! I’m pretty certain Lammas was up to something we don’t know about. Why not make a clean breast? He’s dead now and in any case he hasn’t treated you any too well.’

‘But there was absolutely nothing…!’ Poor Page was almost ludicrous in his agitation.

‘There must have been something! What were those mid-week trips of his about?’

‘They were to negotiate the new property… that’s what he told me!’

‘And you believed it — you, with your finger on the pulse of everything going on here! Do you think we’re imbeciles? You couldn’t help having an idea. And don’t think you’ll be left here any longer to cook the books and cover up!’

This was too much for the head clerk. He drew himself up with a fury that almost startled Gently.

‘Sir… sir! If you continue in these allegations I shall request the presence of my solicitor. I will not submit to such preposterous accusations!’

‘All right… all right!’ Gently waved him down pacifically. ‘We’ll check the books anyway… I’m only giving you a chance to come clean.’

‘But I have nothing to admit, sir! I am here purely in the office of a caretaker — unpaid, I may say. My services are gratuitous-!’

‘I’ll believe you… don’t labour it.’

‘-doing nothing but answering correspondence, which, sir, must be done!’

Further protestations seemed to hover on the outraged Page’s lips, but he was interrupted by the sudden clangour of the dead man’s phone. For a moment both of them stared at it, ringing away insistently on the corner of the desk. Then Gently grabbed it up and limbered it to his ear.

‘Chief Inspector Gently.’

It was Hansom at the other end.

‘I’ve been trying to get you for the last hour… thought you might like the latest bulletin from Upper Wrackstead.’

‘Upper Wrackstead!’ Gently stiffened. ‘You don’t mean you’ve picked up Hicks?’

‘Not yet… not quite!’ Hansom’s voice sounded gloating. ‘But we’ve picked up a specimen of the larky lad’s handiwork. You remember that fat burglar’s wife — Cheerful Annie, they call her? Well, they found her in the Dyke this morning… with a. 22 bullet through her head!’

The Super’s Humber decorated the scene of the crime when Gently arrived there. The great man was standing beside it holding forth to Hansom, while two plain-clothes men and the local Constable added dignity to the composition. In scared little groups the river-dwellers stood near their boats, even the children subdued and watching.