Alan Hunter - Gently by the Shore

‘Mmph?’ grunted Gently, ‘what did you tell him?’

‘I told him we scarcely saw one — not a right foreigner… just midlanders and such-like.’

‘Yanks,’ mumbled Gently.

‘Well there… we don’t count them.’

‘Was he happy about the situation?’

‘It didn’t seem to worry him, sir. He said we might have him around for a bit… and later on, of course, he picked up with a woman …’

Gently made a choking noise over a segment of pineapple. ‘What was that, Withers…!’

‘He picked up with a fern, sir. Brought her in to lunch here on the Tuesday.’

Gently got rid of the pineapple with a struggle. ‘So he did… did he! Just like that! Why the flaming hell didn’t you say so sooner?’

‘You never asked me, sir!’ exclaimed Withers, surprised and apprehensive, ‘it wasn’t nobody really, sir… just one of the girls you get around here during the season…’

‘Just one of the girls!’ Gently gazed at the wilting waiter. Then he took himself firmly in hand and counted ten before firing the next question. ‘You know her name? It wouldn’t be Yvette, by any chance?’

‘No, sir! I don’t know her name! I’ve never had nothing to do with women of that class…’

‘She’s the little dark one with long slinky hair.’

‘But this one’s a blonde, sir — quite well set-up. And her hair is short.’

‘Nice legs — smooth, rounded knees.’

‘I d-didn’t notice, sir…’

‘Don’t lie at this stage, Withers!’

‘I thought they were bony, sir — I did, honest I did!’

‘She speaks with an educated accent.’

‘Not this one, sir — she’s terribly common!’

‘You’d recognize her again?’

‘Of course, sir. Anywhere!’

A telephone began pealing at the counter inside the cafe and Gently relaxed his hypnotic attention from the freshly-shattered Withers. ‘Go and take it,’ he purred, ‘it’s probably for me.’

Withers departed like greased lightning. He was back inside seven seconds.

‘A S-sergeant Dutt, sir, asking for you…’

Gently made the phone in even better time than Withers.

‘Gently…!’ he rapped, ‘what’s new with you, Dutt?’

‘We’ve placed him, sir!’ echoed Dutt’s voice excitedly, ‘he was missing from a lodging in Blantyre Road — disappeared on Tuesday evening and nothing heard since. The woman who let the room identified him straight away. His name was Max something — she didn’t know what.’

A faraway look came into Gently’s eyes. It was directed at the ceiling, but in reality it plumbed sidereal space and lodged betwixt two spiral nebulae.

‘Get a car, Dutt,’ he said, ‘come straight down here and pick me up…’

‘Yessir!’ rattled Dutt, ‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’

‘Ten minutes,’ mused Gently, ‘that’ll just give me time to drink my coffee… won’t it, Withers?’

Blantyre road was a shabby-genteel thoroughfare which began at the top of Duke Street and meandered vaguely in a diagonal direction until it joined the Front a good way south, where hotels had already begun to thin out. It was at its best at the top end. Just there it skirted a small park or garden, and the houses which faced it, Edwardian Rococo, had a wistful air of having known better times and more civilized people.

Outside one of these a crowd had collected. It spread along the pavement in both directions and was a model of quietness and patient expectancy. On the steps behind them the careful Copping had stationed a uniform-man, but his authority was somewhat vitiated by the presence of three gentlemen with cameras supported by four gentlemen without cameras — a contingent possessed of far more glamour than a mere police constable.

‘Blimey!’ exclaimed Dutt, as he, Gently and Copping came dramatically on the scene in the back of a police Wolseley, ‘there wasn’t a soul about here half an hour ago.’

‘That woman must have blabbed,’ snapped Copping, ‘I sent Jennings down to try and stop it… blast her tattling tongue!’

‘Of course, she’s got a perfect right to…’ murmured Gently.

The Wolseley made a three-point landing opposite the door and the police constable marched down to give them his official greeting.

‘Sorry about this here, sir,’ he apologized to Copping, ‘that was all done before I arrived…’

‘Never mind — never mind!’ barked Copping, ‘just keep those wolves there out of the house, that’s all.’

He strode up the steps, an impressive figure. Gently followed with Dutt at a more sedate pace. The flashbulbs popped and the crowd rippled.

‘How about a statement!’ demanded a reporter, pushing up, notebook at the ready.

‘Nothing about a statement!’ boomed Copping, ‘if you want a statement, come to headquarters for it.’

‘A statement from you, then,’ said the reporter, turning to Gently.

Gently shrugged and shook his head. ‘Did you get one from Mrs Watts?’ he inquired.

‘We were actually getting one when the constable interfered…!’

‘Then you probably know more than I do just at the moment…’

He pushed past and up the steps.

The interior of the house was as pleasingly period as the outside. Inside the front door was a long, narrow, but lofty hall, a good deal of it occupied by a disproportionately wide staircase. At the far end another door led into the back garden, a door equipped with panes of red and blue glass. There was a certain amount of upheaval apparent, quite incidental to the main theme — it was a lodging-house Saturday, one set of guests departed, the other not yet arrived. At the foot of the stairs lay a bundle of dirty sheets, in the dining-room, its door ajar, a heap of tablecloths and napkins… Entr’acte, thought Gently. The phrase epitomized Starmouth on a Saturday.

Copping had marched ahead into Mrs Watt’s private parlour, from whence could be heard issuing the landlady’s strident and aggressive tones.

‘I don’t know why you’re making all this fuss now, I’m sure… I told the man who called round here on Wednesday… well, is it my fault if you didn’t know about the beard?’

‘There must be some mistake, mam,’ came the discomfited voice of Copping, ‘I’m sure O’Reilly…’

‘Mistake, Inspector! I should just say there was a mistake. My daughter Deanna and my husband Ted both backed me up about it… “Beard or no beard,” I says, “the man on that photograph is our number seven”… and that was on Wednesday, Inspector, yet you come worrying me today of all days, a Saturday, and Race Week — it’s too bad, it is really! If it’s not making me all behind with my work, it’s what my people are going to think with all that lot gawping outside…’

Dutt gave Gently a knowing wink. ‘Aye, aye! I was waiting for him to run into that lot.’

‘Somebody’s boobed, Dutt.’

‘Yessir… and it isn’t you and me.’

Gently pushed in at the parlour door. It was a small but expensive room. The gilt-edge of Mrs Watts’s season expended itself on radiograms, television sets, slow-burning stoves, carpets and furniture notable for its areas of glossy veneer. The available floor-space was a trifle restricted by these evidences of wealth. It occurred, where it occurred in small islands of gold mohair. On the largest of these, which adjoined the multi-tile hearth, Mrs Watts was conducting her attack, while a red-faced Copping had got himself wedged into a triangle between a radiogram and a television set.

‘What do you send them round for?’ continued the stalwart matron, snaking a glance at the new intruder en passant. ‘What’s the idea of wasting our time asking questions when you aren’t going to believe us anyway? Is that how you run the police in Starmouth? Is that why they keep putting the rates up?’