Alan Hunter - Gently Down the Stream

They followed her up the steps and down a wide, parquet corridor.

‘This is the lounge. I trust it will suit your purpose?’

It was a large room overlooking the broad, with French windows giving on to a veranda. Gently cast a speculative eye around the furnishings. Expensive, also feminine. There was nothing in that room to suggest a man had ever lived there.

‘You have a beautiful home, ma’am.’

‘Thank you, inspector.’

‘Your husband must have been in a substantial way of business.’

‘My husband-’ she began and then checked herself, her small lips pressing tight. ‘This is my own house. I built it and furnished it myself.’

‘It does your taste credit.’

She rang the bell and ordered coffee to be brought. Hansom arranged his short-hand Constable at a card-table and made other official dispositions. Mrs Lammas watched him coldly.

‘I suppose you will begin with me?’

Gently shrugged. ‘Would it upset the domestic economy if we started with the servants?’

‘Not really. Do you want the cook or the maid?’

‘We’ll take the maid… she’ll be along with the coffee.’

‘What do you think of her?’ inquired Hansom leeringly when Mrs Lammas had retired. ‘Can you imagine a man turning up a dish like that for his secretary!’

‘It’s surprising what men do.’

‘And money with it — Lammas must have been crackers!’

‘I daresay he has his point of view if you could get round to it.’

The maid came in, bearing the coffee on a silver tray. She was a square-boned, moon-faced girl in her twenties. When the coffee was served Gently bade her be seated and took his place with Hansom at the table opposite.

‘Your name, please?’

‘Gwyneth Jones, it is.’

‘You don’t belong to these parts?’

‘Oh no! I come from Wales, like Mrs Lammas.’

‘Mrs Lammas is Welsh?’

‘Indeed she is — and good Welsh too, at that!’

Gently nodded and dropped lumps of sugar into his fragile coffee cup.

‘Now Miss Jones… we’d like you to tell us exactly what happened on Friday evening from, shall we say, tea-time.’

‘But I’ve told it already, I have-’

‘We’d like to hear it again, if you please.’

The maid gave herself a little shake and then began, as though it were a lesson: ‘The cook and me were sitting in the kitchen, we were, talking about old times at Pwllheli-’

‘Whoa!’ interrupted Gently. ‘What time was this?’

‘Oh, about eight o’clock, or it might be later.’

‘But I want you to tell what happened before that.’

‘There wasn’t nothing happened — it just went on as it always does go on!’

‘Never mind — I’d still like to hear about it.’

The maid gave herself another little shake. ‘Well, there was Miss Pauline had her tea early to catch a bus-’

‘How early?’

‘At half-past five it was, she was catching the quarter-past six.’

‘Does she usually travel by bus?’

‘Oh yess! She’s wonderfully independent is Miss Pauline — not like Mr Paul in that respect, mark you. In the mornings she would go to the office with her father, but when it came to her own affairs it was different.’

‘She was going to a rehearsal in Norchester, I believe.’

‘Indeed — she has always been a one for acting.’

‘Did she usually have tea early when she was going to a rehearsal?’

‘- No, not that I know of. It was the ten-to-seven bus as a rule.’

‘Very well… go on with what you were telling me.’

‘Why, then the mistress and Mr Paul has tea here, in the lounge, and very quiet they were — not the usual chatter at all. And while we were washing the dishes I heard Mr Paul starting up his motorcycle — “Look you,” says I to Gwladys, “there has been a row, or something very much like one”-’

‘What time was that?’

‘Oh, about seven o’clock I’d say, either more or less. “If there has been a row,” says Gwladys-’

‘Did you actually see Mr Paul leave?’

‘Oh yess, I did — the kitchen looks out that way.’

‘And Mrs Lammas — what time did she leave?’

‘Some minutes later — I was going to tell you!’

Gently sighed and resigned himself to be told.

‘“If there has been a row,” says Gwladys, “a quiet one it has been, I tell you,” and while we were talking about it, out comes the mistress and has a word with Joseph. Then Joseph gets her car out, and off she goes, and it was after that he comes into the kitchen.’

‘And he was in the kitchen until he was called out?’

‘Yess — all the time. He often came to sit there. But mark you, as a rule he liked to gossip, and Friday night he hardly said a word. And then the phone rang. “It’s like for me,” he said, and goes to get it.’

‘He was expecting the call?’

‘I would have said so.’

‘The telephone is in the corridor, Miss Jones. Is the kitchen near there?’

‘Indeed, it’s right beside it.’

‘Then you were in a position to hear the conversation?’

‘Oh yess — every word.’

‘Can you remember anything of it?’

‘I can, though not exactly. He was asking how to get to where it was.’

‘And anything else?’

‘No — nothing I remember.’

‘You wouldn’t have been close enough to have heard the voice of the person at the other end?’

She shook her head.

‘Or whether it was, in fact, Mr Lammas?’

‘No, I would not.’

‘But that was your general impression?’

‘Indeed yess, he sounded just as though he were speaking to Mr Lammas.’

‘Thank you, Miss Jones… please continue your account.’

The maid stroked down her lace-edged apron and paused before going on. There wasn’t any nervousness about her, Gently noticed; the authority of the mistress descended to the servant.

‘Well, Joseph hung up and told us he had to go to Ollby to fetch Mr Lammas. — “You’ll miss ‘Take It From Here’,” says Gwladys, looking at the clock, “it’s just on half-past eight, mun, why not go a little later? You can always say you’ve had some trouble with the car.” But he would not stay, not even for a cup of tea.’

‘He mentioned Mr Lammas, did he?’

‘Oh yess, he did.’

‘Go on.’

‘Why, then he goes, and me and Gwladys has our tea and toast, and listen to the wireless, we do, until it’s getting quite late. At last we hear Mr Paul come back on his motorcycle. He hasn’t been back five minutes when the mistress follows him and when they get together in the lounge there are words, I can tell you, though they keep their voices low.’

‘About what?’ inquired Gently eagerly.

‘I didn’t hear — and if I did, I might not tell you.’

‘This isn’t idle curiosity, you know…’

‘I know it isn’t — but then, I didn’t hear.’

Gently shrugged regretfully and motioned her to proceed.

‘An hour it goes on, if not longer. I never heard the like before between them. And then Miss Pauline comes in off the bus, and look you, it’s all over, just like that. The mistress rings for malted milk and biscuits, and then to bed without another word.’

‘What time would that be?’

‘Oh, half-past eleven at the soonest.’

‘The bus gets in when?’

‘Eleven o’clock, it does.’

‘Hmn.’

Gently leaned back in his chair and seemed to be studying the white sails which turned and drifted on the broad below.

‘Miss Jones… have you been very long with the Lammas family?’

‘I have been here four years and three months, come Michaelmas.’

‘Would you say it was a… happy family?’

‘I daresay there are worse, when you look about you.’