Alan Hunter - Gently Down the Stream

‘I want him,’ the super was delivering himself, ‘and I’m going to have him! I’m going to have him if it means drafting in blasted military. Why man, nobody’s life is safe while this damned chauffeur is at liberty — he’s running amok, he’ll put a bullet into anybody who recognizes him!’

‘We’ve got the district cordoned,’ put in Hansom defensively. ‘There’s road-blocks on all the main-’

‘Road-blocks!’ snapped the super, swinging his arms dramatically at the surrounding marsh and carrs. ‘That’s where he is — not playing tag with your road-blocks! Get some men in there — get a lot of men in there. I don’t care whether they sink in up to their backsides — I want Hicks winkled out before he shoots down any more innocent bystanders!’

Hansom made a face outside the super’s range of vision. He knew, if the super did not, what it was like beating an alder carr…

‘Ah… and you Gently!’ The super’s eye fell on the Central Office man. ‘Where were you when Hicks was blazing away last night? You’re a Yard man, aren’t you! You’re one of those “lucky” types whom things creep up on! Well, there was something crept up here last night and I’ll bet my last chance of promotion you were sleeping like a baby, forty yards from the spot! And that, after you’d been told Hicks was lurking around here!’

Gently heaved his bulky shoulders non-committally.

‘That was only a rumour… we investigated it thoroughly.’

‘Only a rumour! Only a rumour!!! And I suppose the body they’ve just carted off is only a rumour, too! I tell you it’s not good enough, Gently. You might have prevented what happened last night. Ever since you’ve come down here you’ve been wasting your time probing and prying into the Lammas family, while the real criminal has been left running around loose… and now this happens, right under your very nose! If you’d exerted yourself in the right direction we might have pulled in Hicks before he had a chance to pot anyone else.’

Slowly Gently fumbled in his pocket for a peppermint cream and balanced it on his thumb.

‘Why,’ he asked simply, ‘would Hicks come here?’

‘I don’t give two hoots why Hicks came here!’

‘But it’s a relevant question… this is the last place you’d expect to find him.’

The super looked as though he’d bite him. ‘I don’t care if it’s so bloody irrelevant that Scotland Yard would lie down and weep! He’s been here — he was seen here — and he’s done another killing here. That’s all that matters, and that’s all that’s going to matter. We didn’t know where to start looking before, but we do now, and by glory we’re going to have him sitting in a cell before he’s very much older!’

Gently shook his head with the slightly admonishing air that superintendents took so hardly.

‘We don’t know he was here — we don’t know that he was seen here. All we know is that the gun which killed Lammas killed Annie Packer… and we don’t know that either unless we’ve recovered the bullet.’

And he skilfully popped the peppermint cream into his mouth.

‘All right!’ breathed the super chokingly. ‘All right, Gently. Let’s play it your way for half a minute. If it wasn’t Hicks who shot Annie Packer, perhaps you can tell me who in high heaven else would want to do it?’

Gently nodded his approval. ‘That’s what one should ask one’s self

… though unfortunately the choice is rather wide. But I can suggest a motive, if you feel it might be interesting.’

‘I do, Gently… it just happens that I do!’

‘Well… it might occur to a clever sort of criminal that we weren’t taking as much interest in Hicks as we might be and that a carefully prepared episode of this sort would remedy the situation. The likelihood would be all the stronger if Hicks was only the fall-guy in the first instance… wouldn’t it? And it wouldn’t hurt him any if he was already making well-paid tracks for South America…’

The super stared at him evilly, but he was too good a policeman to brush an idea aside.

‘You mean this rumour about Hicks being seen was a put-up job?’

‘That’s how it struck me… after I had investigated it.’

‘In fact Hicks never was anything but a red herring — the door is still wide open?’

‘Pretty wide open. Though it may have closed a little lately.’

The super brooded for a spell. ‘It’s narrow enough, if you ask me. If Hicks was just a blind then there’s only two people in it — Mrs Lammas and her son Paul. Nobody else would get Hicks to play. I suppose you can add the Brent woman — he might have been infatuated with her. But it’s pointing all the way to Paul and Mrs Lammas.’

‘And maybe one other.’

The super glanced at him keenly.

‘I keep getting the impression that we haven’t got a full list yet …’

‘Any reason for that?’

‘Not really… just a place in the picture for him.’

‘It’s a “him” then and not a “her”?’

‘Oh yes! I think it has to be a “him”.’

The super brooded some more with a terrier-like glint in his eye. Then he said nastily:

‘There’s just one little flaw in this precious theory of yours, isn’t there?’

‘There may be several…’

‘Yes — and the first one is how an outsider could spread a rumour about Hicks in a little closed community like this — without being identified! Did that cross the Central Office mind?’

‘I admit… it rather puzzled me.’

‘Ah! It rather puzzled you! Well, it isn’t going to puzzle me, Gently. There’s been too much puzzling in this case already. Now we’re going to have some action — a lot of action! Hansom, get back in that car. We’ll leave the chief inspector to do his puzzling while we tackle this thing like common, everyday policemen!’

There was a relaxed murmur amongst the river-dwellers as the super’s Humber departed, as though the great man’s presence had burdened their independent spirits. Gently, of course, was another matter… apart from being a resident he had a chameleon-like quality of blending with his environment. They crowded round him as though he were their personal representative with the latest news.

‘What are they goin’ to do, mister?’

‘Why did Joe Hicks do for our Annie…?’

‘They aren’t goin’ to make trouble, are th’?’

‘Yew don’t think that wa’nt none of us!’

Gently gazed at the nondescript group with a humorous wonderment.

‘You — lot — of — baboons!’ he exclaimed at last. ‘Don’t you realize you’ve brought this on yourselves? If you could have told me last night who spread that rumour about Hicks, Annie Packer would be with us now — and Dutt and myself the only coppers for miles! Why do you have to be so infernally dumb?’

They shuffled a bit and looked rather abashed. Ted Thatcher eased back his greasy cap and scratched beneath it.

‘Now hold yew a minute, bor!’

‘Yew can’t remember evra mortal thing!’

‘An we reckon we know now ennaway…’

‘What was that?’

Gently turned to the last speaker, who chanced to be the slattern. She met his eye defensively.

‘Well… don’t it seem obvious? We’re been talkin’ it over b’tween us.’

‘Tha’s right,’ put in Thatcher, ‘I know she told me.’

‘Who told you?’

‘W’poor ole Anna.’

Intelligence dawned in Gently’s eyes.

‘Let’s get this straight! Is this something you’ll swear in the witness-box, or is it something you’ve dreamed up because Annie doesn’t live here any more…?’

They murmured indefinitely. Thatcher was the only one who stood his ground. Annie had told him and he had questioned the slattern’s son about it… whereupon the slattern thought she might’ve heard it from the kids after all.