Alan Hunter - Gently by the Shore

‘An ex-con…! What creeping nark told you that?’

Gently smiled at a diagonal frame filled with Lollobrigida. ‘You aren’t the only one with a developed sense of smell…’

But he didn’t get any information from the man. He didn’t, or wouldn’t, remember anything about people taking taxis on Tuesday night last. Yes, he would have been in the vestibule just before the last house turned out, but he was probably chatting to the cashier or one of the girls… no, there wasn’t anybody else on late turn that night… no, he didn’t know Frenchy or anyone like her… going straight he was, and he defied anyone to prove different.

Gently left him to his handles and plodded on down the Front, pessimism confirmed in his soul.

‘The Feathers’ was open, but it seemed rather a waste of electricity on such a customless morning. Its arrow was darting away with customary vigour, albeit it fizzed a little in the rain, but there were few enough strollers to be pricked into the temporary refuge of the arcade: its music drooled hollowly down empty aisles. Gently went up the steps and through the doors. Not a soul was about except the attendant, who was sweeping the floor at the far end. Through the doors of the bar, which were stood open with two chairs, could be seen a figure similarly engaged and a ‘closed’ notice hung rakishly on a chair-back. Obviously, they weren’t expecting a rush of business.

He turned to the nearest machine and dropped a penny in the slot. It was one of the pre-war ‘Stock Exchange’ type and a pull on the handle yielded a brisk no-dividends. Gently tried again. He’d got quite a pocket-full of coppers. Absently he yanked the lever and watched the colourful passage of Rubber, Textiles, Railways and Gold… it seemed hard that such a well furnished wheel should come up no-dividends twice in a row. But it did. It was clever. It sorted out a solitary white from a whole rainbow of coloured, and stuck to it with an obstinate firmness.

A gigantic hand ornamented with a solitaire diamond suddenly covered the handle and its guard.

‘You haven’t got the knack, Inspector,’ purred Louey’s voice behind him, ‘let an old professional show you how to beat the book!’

Gently stood back without replying and Louey pressed a coin into the slot. Then he caressed the handle with an even, almost casual pressure and the wheel drifted lazily round to a Gold segment. A second coin brought coppers cascading down the shoot.

‘You see, Inspector?’ Louey’s gold tooth shone its message of innocent goodwill. ‘It is a matter of skill, after all…’

Gently shrugged and repossessed himself of his twopence. ‘It needs a safe-breaker’s touch… the way one tickles a combination lock.’

Louey’s smile broadened. ‘Some of the kids learn how to play them, though it costs them a few weeks’ pocket-money. But I don’t mind that

… there are fifty who never learn for every one who does.’

‘Sounds like an expensive accomplishment to me.’

‘We have to risk our stakes, Inspector, when we’re out to win something.’

Louey picked up the rest of the coins from the shoot and paid them back into the machine, one by one. They flicked up no-dividends as surely as a till flicking up no-sales.

‘Skill,’ purred Louey, ‘you can’t really call it gambling, Inspector.’

Gently quizzed the huge man’s sack-like raincoat and corduroy cap. ‘You were just going out?’

‘My morning constitutional,’ nodded Louey, ‘I always take it, summer and winter.’

‘Mind if I come too?’

‘Delighted, Inspector! I was hoping for the opportunity of another little chat.’

He ushered Gently out, holding the door obsequiously for him. They crossed the carriage-way and turned southwards along the almost deserted Front. The rain, from being a drizzle, had now become quite steady and gusts of sea-breeze made it cut across their faces as they walked. Louey snuffed the air and looked up at the sky.

‘It’s set in for the day… I shall be a richer man by tomorrow night, Inspector. You remember my pussy? I expect you thought he’d got his lines crossed yesterday, but he never makes a mistake. I suppose we shan’t have the pleasure of your company at the races tomorrow?’

Gently grunted. ‘I follow my business… wherever it takes me.’

‘Ah yes… and I see by the papers that you’re making great strides. Well, well! Those two youngsters in their ridiculous suits! It must be a lesson to me to keep a tighter check on the customers in the bar…’

Gently flipped the sodden brim of his trilby. ‘I still prefer your first theory, the one about a political organization.’

‘You do?’ Louey seemed pleasantly surprised. ‘I thought you must have forgotten that, Inspector… my amateur summing-up of the case! But these new facts explode it, I’m afraid. There wouldn’t seem to be much connection between Teddy boys and politics.’

‘There isn’t,’ grunted Gently.

‘Then surely we must give up my theory…?’

‘We could if the Teddy boys killed Stratilesceul, but as it is they only pinched his suitcase.’

Three strides went by in silence. ‘Stratilesceul?’ echoed Louey, ‘is that the name of the murdered man?’

‘The man who skipped the Ortory at Hull and was chased down here by Streifer.’

‘Streifer…?’ This time Gently lost count of the number of strides. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector… a lot of this hasn’t appeared in the papers, or if it has, I’ve missed it. Was it from Hull that this unfortunate man came?’

‘It was.’

‘And he was chased by someone?’

‘By Streifer. Olaf Streifer. A member of the Maulik, the TSK secret police. It was just like in your theory, Louey… the execution of a traitor by an organization he had betrayed.’

The big man shook his head with an air of bewilderment. ‘You must excuse me if I seem a little dense… I’m not so familiar with the business as yourself, Inspector. Am I to take it that the case is closed and that you have arrested this… Streifer?’

Gently didn’t seem to have heard. He was poking in his pocket for a peppermint cream.

Louey gave a little laugh. ‘I was saying, Inspector… has this Streifer been arrested?’

The peppermint cream was found and Gently nibbled it with deaf composure… it might have been the rain which was making him so hard of hearing. Louey shook his head again as though realizing that it was necessary to humour a Yard man. After all, he seemed to be saying, it was a privilege thus to be taken into the great man’s confidence at all…

They strode on towards South Shore. The rain kept driving in from the sea. There were warm sheets of it now, really wetting, and Gently’s experienced brogues were beginning to squelch. Even Louey was constrained to do up his top button, though it meant veiling the glories of a pearl tie-pin stuck in a grey silk tie but there weren’t many people to see it in any case.

‘Of course, it was Streifer we saw coming out of your office on Friday night,’ grunted Gently at last, the peppermint cream being fairly disposed of.

‘I thought we had disposed of that point, Inspector.’ Louey sounded justifiably piqued. ‘But it was Streifer all right, and it was your office all right.’

‘Well, if you say so… but I can’t imagine what he was doing there. Naturally we had a little check after you’d told us about it, but as far as we were able to discover nothing had been stolen or disturbed.’ Louey turned his huge head towards Gently. ‘Do you want my opinion, Inspector?’

Gently shrugged, hunched down in a leaky collar.

‘My opinion is that if it was Streifer and if it was my office, he must have ducked in there to avoid running into your man. Doesn’t that sound a reasonable explanation?’