Alan Hunter - Gently by the Shore

Mrs Davis brought in their cuppa, making room for the tray beside Gently. She hesitated on seeing the chief inspector’s pipe on the point of being lit and then produced, from nowhere as it seemed, a capacious glass ashtray. Gently nodded a solemn acknowledgement. Mrs Davis beamed at the still-eating Dutt. ‘Aren’t you going down to the beach now this afternoon, Inspector?’

Gently smiled wanly and unbonneted the teapot.

‘Well, sir… what do you make of them clothes turning up like that?’ queried Dutt when the tea was poured and Mrs Davis had retired.

‘They were planted deliberately, Dutt. By the person who lifted the suitcase.’

‘But how did they know where it was, sir?’

‘By deduction and observation — just as we find out things.’ Gently doused a match and took one or two comfortable pulls. ‘Obviously… they wanted that suitcase back. Whether they still intended to use the money or not we don’t know, but they feel it’s important that a large consignment of it shouldn’t be lying around loose… it would almost inevitably finish up in our hands. So their first move after settling with Max was to recover the suitcase and I can imagine they were a little upset to find it missing when they got to his lodgings…’

‘Lord luvvus, sir — that other set of prints! I’ve been puzzling my loaf about them all the morning.’

‘Exactly, Dutt… the first little slip our friends seem to have made. But I don’t suppose they aimed to be around when those prints came to light. It was just a bit of bad luck that the suitcase had vanished into thin air…’

‘So it was them who ransacked the room, sir.’

‘Undoubtedly.’

‘On account of he may have hidden the stuff somewhere.’ ‘It was a possibility they wouldn’t overlook.’

Dutt gave a little chuckle. ‘You’re right, sir… their faces must have dropped a mile when they found the cupboard was bare!’

‘A good mile, Dutt, and possibly two. It upset all their calculations. It meant they would have to hang around and look for it instead of getting to hell out of the country… and hanging around would get to be more and more dangerous as the investigation went on. At first, I imagine, they hadn’t a clue about it. They may have visited the bedroom more than once and they were certainly interested to know what we found when we got there… and then, of course, they began to think it out and perhaps make some inquiries. They found out, or possibly they knew, that Max had been consorting with Frenchy… that was an obvious lead. No doubt they gave her flat a going-over. They might even have questioned her. But there was no suitcase at the flat, and all that Frenchy could tell them — even if she came clean — was of Jeff and Bonce’s allegedly fruitless attempt to get the suitcase… Anyway, they got on to Jeff and Bonce somehow. It wouldn’t have been too difficult if they checked up on Frenchy.’

‘And then they kept them under observation, sir?’

‘Just as we would have done, Dutt.’

‘And last night they found out where the case was hidden — and left the clothes there for a false scent, sir?’

Gently nodded pontifically. ‘A false scent for a charge-happy super.’

Dutt swallowed a mouthful of tea and looked a little dubiously at the remaining shoulder of apple turnover. ‘Just one thing, sir…’

‘Yes, Dutt?’

‘I don’t want to seem critical, sir…’

‘Don’t be modest, Dutt — just come to the point.’

‘Well, sir, what I want to say is, how did they know we was ever going to find them clothes, let alone connect them with the Teddy boys?’

Gently nodded again and smiled around his pipe. ‘That’s what we want to know, isn’t it, Dutt. That’s going to be the clincher!’

He rose from the table and went over to Mrs Davis’s telephone. The phonebook lay beside it. He flicked through it and traced down a column with a clumsy finger.

‘Starmouth 75629… this is Chief Inspector Gently.’ He tilted the instrument to one side so that Dutt could hear too. ‘Biggers? There’s something else I want to ask you, Biggers… yes, about last night.’

‘Ho yes, sir?’ came the publican’s anxious voice from the other end.

‘You told us in your statement that after you had changed the note you heard there were some counterfeit ones going about. I want to know where you obtained that information.’

‘Yes, sir! Certainly, sir! It was a bloke in the bar what told me that.’

‘A bloke you know?’

‘Ho no, sir. Quite a stranger.’

‘He was in the bar at the time of the transaction?’

‘No, sir, not as I remember. The first time I noticed him there was when the young feller went out.’

‘You mean he came in while the transaction was in progress?’

‘Must’ve done, sir, ’cause he soon ups and tells me to watch my step with regard to Yank money. “Wasn’t that a hundred-dollar bill?” he says. “Ah, it was,” I says. “Then it’s ten to one you’ve been had,” he says, or words to that effect, “there was a sailor got copped with some this afternoon.”’

‘Oh did he…?’ Gently exchanged a glance with Dutt.

‘Yes, sir… God’s honest truth!’ The voice on the phone sounded panicky. ‘I don’t have no cause to lie, now do I-!’

‘All right, Biggers… never mind the trimmings. What else did this man tell you?’

‘Well, he told me I could get five years, sir, and that I ought to hand it over to the police… naturally, me just having paid ten quid …’

‘We know about that. Did he say anything else?’

‘No, sir… not apart from ordering a whisky. It was nearly closing-time.’

‘Would you recognize him again?’

‘Ho yes, sir! Like I was telling you, I never forget a face.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Well, sir… he wasn’t English, that I can say.’

‘Did you notice a mole on his cheek by any chance?’

‘No, sir. No. But he’d got a scar running all down one side…’

Gently hung up the instrument and leaned on it ponderingly for a few moments. His eyes were fixed on Mrs Davis’s flowered wallpaper, but to a watchful Dutt they seemed to be staring at something a good six feet on the other side of the wall. Then he sighed and straightened his bulky form.

‘So there it is, Dutt… our clincher. And they even knew about McParsons… eh?’

Dutt shook his head ruefully. ‘They must have quite an organization, sir…’

‘An organization!’ Gently laughed shortly. ‘Well… we’d better get our own organization moving, too. Go back to headquarters, Dutt, and tell them to put a man each on the two stations and another on the bus terminus, and to warn the men on the docks to keep their eyes double-skinned. It’s an even bet that our scar-faced acquaintance is well clear of Starmouth, but we can’t take any risks… Then give Special a ring and let them know.’

Dutt nodded intelligently. ‘And the clothes, sir…?’

‘Get them sent to the lab, and the paper and string. Oh, and that cab-driver… the one who picked up Max and Frenchy on Tuesday night… see if you can get a line on him, Dutt.’

‘Yessir. Do my best.’

Gently scratched a match and applied it to his pipe. ‘Me, I’m going to pay a little social call in Dulford Street. I think it’s time that Frenchy assisted the police by supplying the answers to one or two interesting questions.’

Dulford Street was a shabby thoroughfare adjoining the lower part of the Front. It began as though by accident where some clumsily-placed buildings had left a gap and proceeded narrowly and crookedly until it got lost in a maze of uncomely backstreets. There was a feeling of having-gone-to-seed about it, as though its original inhabitants had given it up in despair and left it to go its own way. From one end to the other it could boast of no fresh paint except the lurid red-and-cream of an odiferous fish and chip shop.