Alan Hunter - Gently by the Shore

Gently puffed a negative stream of smoke.

‘Perhaps not. I’ve a feeling I’m wrong.’

Gently reached out to drop his match in an ashtray.

‘Maybe Central European is nearer… or further east. Behind the Curtain, even?’ Louey’s eyes drifted slowly back to Gently, strong, assured.

‘The Balkans?’ suggested Gently quietly.

The grey eyes smiled approval. ‘That would be my guess, too. Or perhaps we could be more definite… after all, the cast of feature is very distinctive. Shall we say Bulgarian?’

Gently nodded his mandarin nod.

‘And — I think — a cultivated man… possibly Sofia?’

‘As you say… possibly.’

Still smiling, Louey fondled the purring tom which continued to loll on his knees. It stretched itself and yawned contentedly. Then it flexed its claws with an exaggerated expression of unconcern, whisked its tail and tucked its head under one of its paws.

‘Rain,’ said Louey, ‘it’ll make the going soft… eh, Peachey?’

Peachey was sitting with his mouth open and giving an imitation of someone expecting an atomic bomb to explode.

‘Then there’s the other one…’ murmured Gently, absently blowing a smoke-ring. ‘You were saying, Inspector?’

‘The man with the scar, doesn’t he strike you as belonging to the same racial group?’

There was a pause broken only by the muted skirl of electronic jazz. Louey’s fingers paused halfway along the tom’s back. Even Gently’s smoke-ring seemed to pause and hover, exactly between the three of them.

‘Do I… know him, Inspector?’ queried Louey in a finely-blended tone of frustrated helpfulness.

‘You should do. He was here last night.’

‘Last night? You mean here in the bar?’

‘I mean here in the office — this one or the outer one.’

There was a further pause while Louey shook his head perplexedly. ‘I don’t know… it’s rather puzzling. I’m afraid I’m not acquainted with a man with a scar — it’s a conspicuous scar, I suppose, something that stands out?’

‘Very conspicuous.’

‘And he was here in the office?’

‘He left at nine thirty-one.’

‘Someone saw him leave?’

‘Exactly.’

Louey looked hopelessly blank. ‘If I knew his name, Inspector…’

‘I intended to ask you for it.’

Louey sighed regretfully and reached out for the silver cigarette-box. ‘He couldn’t have been in here… I was here myself the whole evening. And as for the other office-’ he hesitated in the act of selecting a primrose-coloured cigarette — ‘Peachey!’

Peachey jerked as though yanked by a wire.

‘You were in the other office at half past nine… Peachey!’

‘B-but boss-!’

‘Now no excuses — you were working there till ten — you didn’t leave the place except to fetch me something from the bar. He was getting out accounts, Inspector… we do a good deal of postal work.’

‘But boss!’ interrupted the anguished Peachey.

Louey pinned him with an unanswerable eye. ‘Who was it, Peachey — who was the man with the scar? The inspector isn’t asking these questions out of idle curiosity, you know…’

Poor Peachey gaped and gasped like a hooked cod.

‘But wait a minute!’ boomed Louey, ‘half past nine — that must have been about the time I sent you for my whisky. Inspector’ — his eye dropped Peachey as a terrier drops a rat — ‘you were in the bar yourself just then, I believe. Did you notice Peachey come out, by any chance?’

Gently nodded reluctantly.

‘Of course! Perhaps you can tell us at what time?’

‘About half past nine… more or less.’

‘Half past nine! Then it seems that Peachey wasn’t in the office when this man of yours was alleged to have left. Is that what you wanted to tell me, Peachey — is it?’

Peachey gulped apoplectically. ‘That’s right, boss! I wasn’t there to s-see nobody!’

‘And nobody looked in before that… none of our regulars about their accounts?’

‘No, boss — no one at all!’

Louey extended a gigantic hand towards Gently. ‘Sorry, Inspector… it doesn’t look as though we can help much… does it?’

‘No,’ admitted Gently expressionlessly, ‘it doesn’t, does it?’

‘Of course, this man may have looked in while the office was unoccupied.’

Gently shook his head. ‘Let’s not bother about that one, shall we?’

The grey eyes smiled approval again and Peachey sagged down into his chair, breathing heavily. Louey lit his cigarette, slowly, thoughtfully.

‘You know, I’ve given this business a certain amount of thought, Inspector… one can’t be indifferent, with the Press making so much of it… and there are certain points which seem to stand out.’

Gently hoisted an inquiring eyebrow, but said nothing.

‘I admit in advance that I’m the merest amateur… naturally! But it’s just possible that being outside it, away from the… tactical problems?… I’m in a more favourable position to study the strategy.’

‘Go on,’ grunted Gently.

Louey inhaled deeply and raised his head to blow smoke above Gently’s face.

‘There’s this man… what is he doing here? A complete stranger — nobody knows him — the police don’t know him (at least, I presume they don’t?) — turning up one day at a popular English seaside resort — and disguised. What would bring him here? His motive is past guessing at. Why should anybody kill him when he got here? The motive is just as obscure.’

‘Robbery,’ suggested Gently, puffing some Navy Cut into a haze of Russian.

‘Robbery?’ The gold tooth showed lazily for a moment. ‘You’re forgetting, Inspector, he was reported to have been killed in cold blood. His hands were tied. Does that seem like robbery?’

‘It seems like more than one person being involved.’

‘Exactly… and that’s my point! It wasn’t the crime of an individual. All the facts are against it. The more you juggle with them, the more emphatic they become. It was an organized killing, an act carried out by a group of some description… who knows?’

The grey eyes slid up and fastened on Gently’s, holding him, commanding him.

‘A political killing, Inspector. The execution of a traitor… that’s my reading of the situation. Your man was a fugitive. He chose Starmouth for his haven. But the organization he had betrayed found him out and exacted justice… doesn’t that seem to fit what we know?’

Gently blew an exquisite ring.

‘I think it does… better than any other interpretation. I hope I’m wrong — for your sake, Inspector. I believe these political killings are planned with a care which makes detection onerous and arrests unlikely. But the odds seem to lie that way… at least to my amateur way of thinking.’

The smile strayed back into the magnetic eyes and Louey part snuffed, part sucked a tremendous inhalation of smoke.

‘I’d like you to know I appreciate your difficulties,’ he concluded, spilling smoke as he talked. ‘My admiration for your abilities won’t be lessened, Inspector… what can be done by the police in these cases I am sure you will do.’

Gently nodded towards a peak in Darien. Then he reached for the photograph, pulled out his pen and drew on the matt surface a clumsy circle divided by a line. Without looking he handed it to Louey. The big man took it and stared at it.

‘Is this something I should know about?’ he inquired softly.

Gently lofted a careless shoulder. ‘You were wearing it on your ring last night.’

‘My ring?’ Louey extended his hand to display his solitaire.

‘The one you were wearing last night.’

Louey hesitated a split second and then laughed. ‘No, Inspector, you are mistaken… this is the only ring I wear. Tell him, Peachey, tell him… I wear this diamond to impress the clients… eh?’