Alan Hunter: Gently Down the Stream

‘Yes, Dutt — Ollby ho!’

‘You reckon we’ll find something, sir?’

‘I reckon we stand a chance, Dutt… a very good chance!’

Dutt jiffled a little. How like Gently it was, this irritating mysteriousness when he thought he had the scent!

‘Might I ask what we’ll be looking for, sir?’

Gently grinned into his driving-mirror.

‘Let me put it to you, Dutt… I like to benefit by your Cockney common sense! Suppose you’d just popped off Lammas and you were going ahead with the cremation programme. Would you, or wouldn’t you be in a bit of a hurry?’

‘I’d be in a hurry, sir… too flipping true I would!’

‘And being in this hurry, suppose you discovered something on Lammas which, if even a trace of it were found, would give the game away — and which might not burn satisfactorily. What would you do with it?’

Dutt hesitated cautiously.

‘Somethink which might be missed, sir?’

‘No — quite the contrary — somethink which would never be missed.’

‘Then I’d sling it overboard, sir, always provided it would sink nicely.’

Gently nodded complacently.

‘That’s just how I argued.’

‘But what is this somethink, sir?’

‘Ah… that remains to be seen!’

Nothing had changed at Ollby Quay, except that the wreck was missing and the smell of burning grown stale. Now that the wreck was gone the charred trees seemed a little unreal and ashamed of themselves. They presented such a woeful contrast to the smiling reed-and-alder bounded pool with its rampant lilies, its white-flowered plants and its domestic water-hens.

‘What a place to commit murder!’

Gently brooded over it pensively a moment as he unbuttoned his jacket.

‘You’d think people would have more sense… it’s only a failure who would kill! Here, give me the net. I’ve always fancied my chances with one.’

Dutt willingly surrendered the dydle, which, with its generous twelve feet of handle, was no sinecure.

‘We may have to get a boat up here — it depends on what sort of sling the fellow had.’

Gently considered the spot where the yacht had lain, then dipped in at the far side of the dyke on which the quay fronted. The water didn’t run deep, but there was some exquisitely resistance-less mud beneath it. Some business it was going to be, finding anything in that lot…

He trawled off a netful and drew it laboriously to the bank.

‘Roll your sleeves up, Dutt — you’re in this too!’ Together they went through it, getting muddied to the elbows. It had a peculiarly viscous quality, that mud; you knew you’d been amongst it. And the sum total of the catch was a number of fresh-water mussel shells…

Gently tried again. One really couldn’t expect impossible luck! He trawled along the dyke carefully and systematically, trying to cover the whole area of the dyke adjacent to where the yacht had been. And slowly the grey-drying pile on the bank grew larger, and Dutt and himself muddier, and the collection of mussel shells more representative. There wasn’t even an old tin to diversify the proceedings. Not even some broken glass.

‘Have a go with the net, sir?’

It was anything for a change.

Gently wiped a streaming brow with a muddy hand and passed over the dydle.

‘I’ve just about covered the dyke… try your luck in the pool. Come to think of it, it’s probably the likelier place.’

He scrubbed his hands in the grass and got out his pipe. There was no doubt that a professional dydler would earn all he could make at the job! He ought to have requisitioned a boat and some Constables… that would have been the way to tackle it. But when you got hold of a lucky break it gave you a feeling of inevitability.

Dutt brought in his first netful. Even the mussel shells were getting scarce. Solemnly they felt their way through the atrocious mixture, the obscene and glutinous mixture. And then… and then…

‘Here sir, would this be anythink?’

It was Dutt who made the strike. From a handful of mud he was separating a smallish, horse-shoe-shaped object, part of which gleamed rosily through its porridge-like envelopment.

Gently almost held his breath.

‘Go on, Dutt… scrape the mud off it!’

Dutt obliged, with a look of perplexity.

‘Now — you tell me! What have we got?’

‘Well… it’s half a set of choppers!’

‘Yes, Dutt… half a set of choppers — and they’re going to hang a certain party!’

He seized on the object in triumph and straightened a back which had suddenly ceased to ache. Here it was, the unarguable proof — the final fact, the fact that hung!

Dutt stared dumbly at the muddied denture. ‘But I don’t quite see, sir-’ he was beginning, when two things happened which he didn’t see either. The first was a vicious hiss from across the pool and a rattling crash in the twigs behind them. The second was Gently’s tackle that sent him flying face-first into the mud.

‘Keep flat!’ bawled Gently, ‘Keep your head down on the ground. If you show a couple of inches you’ll maybe stop a. 22 bullet between the eyes!’

The rotten planks of the quay gave a modicum of cover, but they looked uncomfortably penetrable. Gently eased himself towards them until he could peer through one of the gaps. Not a sound, not a movement came from the direction from which the shot had been fired. Over there it was all green reeds and a single, scrubby alder. To get there one would have to skirt the dyke and make a rush through the slopping marsh and tangled undergrowth… a perfect target all the way. He had picked his spot well, the man with the gun.

‘Can you see him, sir?’

Dutt was spitting the mud out of his mouth.

‘No, Dutt — and we shan’t! He doesn’t want to be seen.’

‘You don’t think he’s hooked it, sir, after taking a pot?’

‘Not him… this is too important. He’s got us on his list.’

By way of testing the hypothesis Gently reached across for his jacket, which was lying folded under a bush. He rolled it into a tight wad and suddenly poked it up above the level of the planks. Almost simultaneously a bullet kicked it out of his hand…

‘That’s tidy shooting with a silenced. 22!’

‘Here, but wait a minute, sir!’

Dutt had crawled up beside him.

‘We’ve got a banger too — I never signed in that Webley yesterday!’

Gently stared. ‘You mean we’ve got it here?’

‘Yessir. Right up there in me pocket.’

‘In your pocket!’ Gently craned his head. Dutt’s jacket was hanging on a snag, about three yards behind them.

‘If we can get that down we’ll have this geezer in a jam, sir. It’s the old. 38, and I know which I’d sooner be behind!’

‘Also it’ll make a noise.’ A gleam came into Gently’s eye. ‘But how the devil are we going to get it down, with Davy Crockett sitting in the rushes?’

Tantalizingly the jacket hung there, only just hooked on to a snag. A quick spring… a sweep of the arm! But a vigilant bullet was waiting for just such a move.

‘We’ll have to knock it off with the dydle, Dutt.’

Dutt pulled a face. ‘A fine mess it’ll make.’

‘So would a bullet in the back — even a little. 22!’

Gently squirmed towards the dydle, trying to keep himself perfectly flat. He couldn’t quite have succeeded, since when he was halfway towards it there was a warning hiss and something plucked a loose part of his shirt.

‘That lad’s quite a marksman. I wonder what he’ll be like when someone’s firing back!’

But he managed to get the dydle and tow it back to where Dutt was crouching.

Now came the difficult part — raising the dydle to the level of the jacket. Dydles were no light-weights and the amount of leverage one could get while in a prone position was inconsiderable, to say the least.