Alan Hunter: Gently Down the Stream

‘Then it was after you had your talk with Mrs Lammas?’

‘I have said I cannot exactly remember! My mind was greatly taken up with matters of business… no doubt I utilized some spare moments, but when it is impossible to say.’

‘This is humiliating!’

Mrs Lammas had risen to her feet.

‘Henry, I will not permit you to be harried and questioned like this on my behalf!’

There was emotion in her face now.

‘Don’t you see that he’s going to know these things, in spite of you, in spite of me? How do you know what he’s got up his sleeve! He’ll have already checked with “The Theatre Royal” booking-office and heaven knows where else — he just sits there playing with us, knowing it all — ready to pounce on the slightest evasion!’

‘Phyllis…!’ Marsh put out a restraining hand.

‘I don’t care, Henry! I hate it. I hate them. The police are filthy, filthy, filthy! How can we call this a civilization when we have dirty people like this living amongst us — people who can tyrannize and dictate and make us submit to their sadistic prying? Tell them what they want to know! Tell them, and let us be rid of them! I’ve felt sick ever since I set foot in this place and if I don’t get out soon, I shall be sick!’

Even Marsh didn’t know what to say in the silence that followed. An outburst like this was not envisaged by the rules of the game.

Gently twisted his spill round a stubby finger.

‘Of course, our sadistic spying relates to two sadistic civilian murders…’

‘You are worse than they! A hangman is the moral inferior of a murderer!’

‘But a murderer is no great shakes…’

‘At least he has the courage of his crime!’

Marsh cleared his throat. His impressive features seemed to have grown tighter, gaunter.

‘Phyllis, you really must control yourself and let me handle this matter. You are making a great mistake to allow this man to unsettle you.’

‘I will speak, Henry! I can’t keep silent any longer.’

‘You are giving him a quite gratuitous advantage.’

‘I don’t care any more. I just want to get out of this beastly place!’

‘Please remember that you may involve another person.’

‘He could not be more involved than he is at present.’

‘I cannot agree with you-’

‘I’m sorry, Henry. I’ve had as much as I can stand.’

She came to the front of the desk and stood there, her head and shoulders barely rising above it. Marsh’s hands were tightly clasped together. His eyes were fixed on her appealingly.

‘Please instruct your man to take this down, Chief Inspector Gently.’

‘I think I ought to warn you that it may be used as evidence.’

‘Use it for what you like — but for heaven’s sake take it down!’

Gently nodded to the shorthand Constable, who had got rather put out by the preceding exchanges.

‘You want to know if Henry and me are lovers. Very well — we are! We have been in love since Christmas, as your informant very accurately told you. I take it that it was Paul? My son discovered this and threatened me. He threatened to tell my husband, unless the affair was terminated. If my husband had come to know of it he would undoubtedly have divorced me — so there is your motive, inspector! I had not the slightest intention of being divorced.

‘I have admitted going to the office on Friday and to discovering how matters stood. I now admit to the telephone call, in which I arranged to meet Henry in the evening, if I could shake off Paul. The call was not made from the office owing to the presence of the head clerk and I didn’t go to see Henry because I knew Paul was following me about. In the evening I was foolish enough to believe I had got rid of him, so I set out in my Rover. Before I went I spoke to Hicks. I instructed him to let me know immediately if my husband got in touch with him… my husband had just bought a new Daimler and I thought it unlikely that he would leave it behind.’

‘Just a moment, please!’ Gently was leaning forward. ‘What else did you tell Hicks… he was a confidential servant, wasn’t he?’

‘I told him what I thought necessary. Hicks is very loyal and discreet.’

‘Did you tell him what had happened at the business?’

‘I wanted him to understand the seriousness of the affair.’

‘What I’m getting at, Mrs Lammas, is whether or not he knew that your husband might have a large sum of money in his possession.’

‘I didn’t tell him so, but I suppose he could have deduced it from what I did tell him.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Lammas… please continue your statement.’

‘Before going to Ollby I went to Halford Quay. It had occurred to me that if my husband were returning with the Harrier he would be in the neighbourhood of Halford Quay. As you have taken such pains to find out, I did get news of him, and this confirmed what I had discovered at the office. So I continued to “High Meadows”… you were quite correct in assuming that Henry got rid of the servants on purpose.

‘I arrived there at twenty minutes to eight. We discussed the situation and what I was to do. Shortly before nine o’clock-’

Marsh was on his feet. There was a tinge of pallor in his hitherto ruddy complexion.

‘Phyllis, I protest! What you are going to say is positively suicidal!’

She turned to him coldly. ‘I am going to tell him all, Henry.’

‘But this is unnecessary… there is no need for them to know it! I beg you to stop a moment and consider the implications!’

‘Mr Marsh… you will kindly sit down.’ Gently’s voice sounded stony.

‘Sir, I have a right to consult with my client!’

‘But not to hinder a witness.’

‘She is about to incriminate both of us wilfully!’

‘It will rest on her evidence — sit down, sir, or I must have you removed.’

The plain-clothes sergeant half-rose to give colour to the warning and Marsh sank back, almost involuntarily, into his chair.

‘Go on, Mrs Lammas.’

Marsh groaned and held a hand to his face.

‘I was saying that shortly before nine o’clock we were a little alarmed to hear a car approaching the house. Henry peeped out and saw that it was my husband’s Daimler with Hicks at the wheel. He had come to tell me that my husband had rung for him, and that he was just going to pick up Mr Lammas and his luggage from the yacht, which was moored at the head of Ollby Dyke.’

‘He told you where the yacht was?’

‘I have just said that he did.’

‘But when you knew that, wouldn’t you have gone down to the yacht with Hicks with the purpose of frustrating your husband’s plan to disappear?’

‘God help you, Phyllis!’ exclaimed Marsh. ‘I tried to warn you what you would let yourself in for!’

Mrs Lammas shrugged impatiently. ‘It is reasonably plain why I did not! In the first place, I began to doubt whether my husband really intended more than an illicit week with his mistress. I had never expected him to do more than ask Hicks to leave the Daimler at a garage for him. In the second place, he could not be out of my sight while he was with Hicks. Hicks would have kept me constantly informed of his movements.’

Gently nodded imperceptibly.

‘Did Hicks know where they were going?’

‘No. He had not been told.’

‘He wouldn’t have mentioned meeting Paul outside?’

Mrs Lammas bit her lip.

‘I knew nothing of Paul’s escapade until I got home!’

‘Then that was really all that happened?’

‘Yes. Now you know about everything.’

Gently looked at her ponderingly, and then at the despairing Marsh.

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘I wonder, Mrs Lammas…!’

The telephone rang. It was Hansom reporting nothing from ‘High Meadows’. Almost as soon as Gently laid it down it rang again, and this time it was Dutt.