Alan Hunter - Gently by the Shore

Dutt, who had been lingering respectfully in the passage, came quickly to the window. Gently spoke to him without turning his head.

‘Over there — where the coping’s knocked off the wall… don’t make it too obvious you’re looking.’

‘I can see him, sir,’ muttered Dutt, ‘if he’d just turn his loaf a fraction…’

‘But who is it!’ interrupted Copping, shoving in, ‘is it someone you know-?’

‘Back!’ rapped Gently, ‘keep away till Dutt has had a good look… there, you’ve scared him… he’s off like a hare!’

Dutt raised himself from the stooping position he had taken up. ‘It was him, sir,’ he asserted positively, ‘I saw the scar as he turned to run… you can’t mistake a face like that.’

‘I saw it too, Dutt, right down his cheek.’

‘He must have copped a fair packet somewhere…’

‘Also he has a strange interest in what goes on…’

‘But who is he?’ yapped Copping again, ‘what’s it all about, this I-spy stuff?’

Gently smiled at some spot that was miles behind Copping’s head. ‘It’s just a little thing between Dutt and me,’ he said, ‘don’t let it bother you… it’s all over now. Suppose we do what you wanted and take a look in the suitcase?’

They retired from the window and a disgruntled Copping demonstrated how to open a suitcase before it had been printed. It was a charmingly well-filled suitcase. It contained an abundance of shirts and socks and underwear, besides some hairbrushes and toilet accessories which the tidy Mrs Watts had garnered from wash-bowl and dressing-table. And the contents were determined to be helpful. There were makers’ labels attached to some of the clothes, names and patent numbers stamped on other items… even the suitcase itself had a guarantee label tied to the lining with blue silk. Gently had never seen such a helpful lot of evidence…

‘It’s American,’ declared Copping brightly, ‘look at this one — “Senfgurken Inc., NY” — and that razor — the toothbrush, even. It’s all Yank stuff, right through.’

‘And all brand new,’ mused Gently.

‘He must have bought it for the trip and he can’t have been over here long. Or maybe he’s a service-man on leave and fixed himself up at his P.X. Anyway, we know where to start looking. If his embassy doesn’t know about him, the US Army will.’

‘I wonder…’ Gently breathed.

‘Eh?’ stared Copping.

‘Of course, he said he was an American…’

Copping’s stare became indignant. ‘Who else but a Yank could get hold of this stuff? And who would want to fake up some American luggage, here in Starmouth? What’s the point?’

Gently shrugged and dug up the last of his peppermint creams. ‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ he said.

‘He’s a serviceman got in some bad company, you take my word. It’s happened before in Starmouth… he’s a deserter, that’s my bet.’

Gently shook his head. ‘It doesn’t fit in. There’s nothing American about Max except his clothes, and even they seem too good to be true. No… everything about him is wrong. He just won’t add up into a good American.’

‘He might add up into a bad one,’ quipped Copping, but Gently didn’t seem to be listening.

‘The suit — his dark suit! What happened to that?’

‘His dark suit?’ echoed Copping.

‘The one he wore on Sunday. Look in the wardrobe, Dutt. It may still be hanging there.’

Obediently Dutt pulled out his handkerchief and unlatched the wardrobe door. Sure enough a dark suit hung there, a shouldery close-waisted number in discreet midnight blue. Dutt turned back a lapel to show the tailor’s label. It was of one Klingelschwitz, operating in Baltimore.

‘Still American,’ commented Copping, a shade triumphant.

‘Go through the pockets,’ ordered Gently dully.

Dutt went through them. There wasn’t even any fluff. But as he was re-folding the trousers something small and bright fell from one of the turn-ups, a little disc of metal. Copping swooped on it and held it up.

‘His lucky charm. He ought to have had it with him on Tuesday.’

‘A circle with a line through it!’ exclaimed Dutt, ‘there’s something familiar about that, sir — I’ve seen it before somewhere.’

‘So have I.’ A gleam came into Gently’s eye. ‘I saw it last night on the ring of a Mr Louis Hooker. I wonder if Louey has ever been to America…?’

The super was out when they arrived back at headquarters — rather to Gently’s disappointment, because he would like to have bounced some of his findings on that sceptical man’s desk. But the super was out: he had received a hot tip about his forgery scare, said the desk sergeant, and had departed with Bryce and two uniform men at a high rate of knots.

‘He’s got a warped sense of value,’ pouted Gently to Copping. ‘In some places it’s homicide that gets top rating…’

‘You’re forgetting he handed that baby on to you,’ grinned Copping, ‘he’s got an alibi now.’

‘I still think a little bit of audience reaction is called for.’

They went into the canteen, where Copping did the honours. It was rather a dull place. The walls were distempered in a dingy neutral tint, the inadequate windows both at one end, the paint worn on lino-top tables and the bentwood chairs looking as though they had been rescued from a jumble sale.

‘They’ve talked about refitting it for years,’ Copping apologized, ‘but somehow the finance committee never quite gets round to it… the food’s all right, though. We made a stink about that a couple of months back.’

Gently examined a plate of sausages and beans apathetically. ‘You have to make a stink at intervals if you want to keep them up to scratch…’

‘Yes, but you should have seen what it was like before then!’

Gently shrugged and embarked on his sausages.

‘We get in touch with the US authorities now?’ inquired Copping, after a silence broken only by the incidental noises made by ingesting policemen.

‘Nmp.’ Gently pursued an errant bean round the rim of his plate.

‘The military’s got good records… they could tell us straight away.’

‘Never mind. Some other time.’

‘They’d know in town…’

‘I know, but never mind.’ Gently swallowed the tail-end of a sausage and grounded his knife and fork. ‘Your print king,’ he said, running his tongue round his lips, ‘what’s his name?’

‘Dack’s your man. Sergeant.’

‘He’s reliable… really?’

‘You trained him, so he’d better be.’

Gently nodded and added a mouthful of strong tea to the sausages. ‘Get him on the job. I can’t spare Dutt just now. See that he does everything that might give something… inside drawers as well as out… and then in the yard, at the back of that down-pipe… he’ll probably have to dismantle it. Don’t wait for me. If you get results, rush some copies to town and check your own files.’

A smile spread over Copping’s heavy features. ‘What about Mrs W’s new lodger?’

‘Nothing about Mrs W’s new lodger… he can sleep under the pier for all I care. When you’ve finished in there, seal it up and leave a uniform man in charge.’

‘I don’t pity the poor swine…! Where can I get you?’

‘Oh… I’ll look in later, or maybe ring.’

‘You’ve got something else?’

‘Could be,’ returned Gently evasively, ‘and then again, it couldn’t.’

He drank some more tea while Copping indulged in speculative ratiocinations. ‘It’d be easy to give the US military a ring… just to be sure.’

‘No,’ said Gently, kindly but firmly, ‘we’ll leave them to concentrate on Western Defence or whatever else it is they do in these parts…’