Gently Down the Stream (4 page)

Gently sniffed at the acrid smell of burned varnish.

‘Was the body this side of the engine or the other?’

‘The other.’

‘Was the petrol-tank that side?’

‘Yes – you can see where it blew out.’

‘There must have been a lot of petrol used to do a job like this … is it safe to go aboard?’

He stepped cautiously on to the hulk and was directly up to his ankles in ashes, which still seemed warm. He kicked them away from the engine and stooped to examine it.

‘Did you find the carburettor?’

‘No, it was too bloody hot to look for carburettors the last time I was here!’

Gently poked about in the ash with his foot and was eventually rewarded.

‘Looks as though it was unscrewed. The cap’s off it, too.’

‘Reckon he took the cap off first,’ put in Rushm’quick knowingly, ‘then it wasn’t coming through fast enough, so he took the carb right off.’

Gently nodded and continued to probe with his foot. Towards the fore part of the hulk his shoe caught something which sounded hollow and metallic. The twisted remains of a jerrican came to light.

‘Is this part of the yacht’s equipment?’

Rushm’quick shook his head.

Gently handed it out and clambered back on to the bank.

‘Well … there’s a nasty job for someone, going through those ashes. We’d better have it towed back to the yard and gone over there. How do you get a car into an outpost like this?’

Hansom led the way along a doubtful track which plunged through the thick of the surrounding wilderness. But a few yards saw them on higher, drier ground and the track widened into a lane.

‘Here you are – you can still see the tracks where he turned the car.’

‘Where does the lane go?’

‘It joins the Lockford–Wrackstead road about a mile from Ollby. The phone-box is at the junction.’

‘No houses about there?’

‘There’s a bloke called Marsh lives in a house a quarter of a mile towards Panxford, but the house stands back amongst trees. He didn’t see anything …
no
bastard’s seen anything! All we’ve got is the village idiot.’

Gently tutted. ‘You can’t manufacture witnesses. Have you searched the area round here?’

‘We didn’t get time to be really clever.’

‘Then you mightn’t have noticed …
that
… for instance?’

He pointed to the bole of an alder a few yards off the track. A white flake was showing up against the dark, gnarled bark.

Hansom glared at it as though it were a personal insult. ‘And what’s that supposed to be – the answer to a detective’s prayer?’

But Dutt had already grasped the significance of the white flake and was making his way carefully through the rough grass. Gently waited patiently, Hansom impatiently, while the sergeant performed his operation. Eventually there was a little cluck of triumph from Dutt and he returned to drop something small in his superior’s hand. Gently examined it expressionlessly.

‘Spot any blood, Dutt?’

‘Yessir.’

‘Much or little?’

‘Not much, sir.’

‘Head, I expect. They’d have noticed it lower down.’

‘What I was thinking, sir … about the angle, too.’

‘Would it be too much,’ enquired Hansom with biting sarcasm, ‘would it be too much to ask what all this is about?’

Gently extended his hand gravely and revealed the shapeless chunk of metal Dutt had dug from the tree.

‘It’s about the way Lammas was killed … you can let your pathologist off duty. He was shot through the head with a bullet from a .22 gun.’

I
T WAS A pleasant run from the village to ‘Willow Street’, lately the home of James William Lammas. After traversing the beech avenue, the road ran along the edge of the upland just where it fell into the shallow river valley and one caught glimpses of the winding stream low down amongst billowy trees and later of the broad.

‘All this and the best coarse-fishing too …’ murmured Gently at the wheel of the Wolseley. At breakfast that morning he had watched Thatcher fairly scooping bream out of the mouth of the Dyke.

‘You know, it’s rum, sir,’ began Dutt beside him, and stopped.

‘What’s rum, Dutt?’

‘Well sir, it stuck in me loaf what you said about the woman.’

‘What was that?’

‘About her not having to go off with the shover.’

‘It’s a point that needs elucidating.’

‘I mean, sir, it’s pretty obvious that this geezer and her were planning to fade together … it don’t seem natural
for her to get the shover to do him in. What’s she going to get out of it what she didn’t have in the first place?’

‘Only the chauffeur … he might be quite a guy.’

‘No sir.’ Dutt shook his head. ‘If she’d been took with the shover there wasn’t nothink in their way …
he
wasn’t married. And she wouldn’t be carrying on with Lammas.’

‘Unless it was a deep, dark plot.’

‘No sir. It don’t seem right.’

‘What’s the theory, then, Dutt?’

‘Well, sir … I’d say the shover did for both of them and hooked it on his own. It’s the only way what makes sense, the way I looks at it. He knows about the money – it’s got to be on the boat – he goes there ready to do for them and make it look like an accident. When he gets there he finds there’s only Lammas, but if he shoots him first-off down by the car he isn’t going to know that till it’s too late.’

‘And then, Dutt?’

‘And then he goes through wiv it, sir – what else can he do? But somehow he runs across the woman again – maybe Lammas was aiming to pick her up somewhere close – she’s seen the fire – she sees the shover coming away from it – so he has to do for her, to keep her mouth shut. And then he dusn’t go back and shove her in the yacht, so he gets rid of the corpse somewhere else.’

‘Which is why he flitted, eh, Dutt? The second corpse wasn’t looking like an accident.’

‘That’s right, sir. Otherwise he’d be sitting tight and knowing nothink.’

Gently grinned feebly at his subordinate. ‘It’s a nice little theory … all it needs to set it up is a bunch of facts and a fresh corpse.’

‘Well, sir … it isn’t to say they won’t turn up.’

‘No, Dutt – but until they do we’d better be good policemen and keep a wide-open mind.’

‘Yessir. Of course, sir.’

‘We’re only halfway into the picture … it’s the other half we may be finding now.’

They had come to the ornate iron gates of ‘Willow Street’. The narrow country road turned sharply to the right, the gates being set in the corner. Beyond them a gravel drive screwed steeply down between luxuriant rhododendrons, now in full bloom, their giant salmon, white and heliotrope flowers seeming to explode against the sombre leaves.

‘Willow Street’ from the landward side presented a different picture to ‘Willow Street’ seen from the broad. It was not entirely a high-built bungalow. The land at this point dropped down to the carrs in a knoll, so that while the front of the building was piled the rest of it was niched into the slope, and the floor was at ground level where the drive came sweeping out of the rhododendrons. It was built in the traditional timber and white plaster, its reed thatch humping over semi-circular loft-windows. A golden vane surmounted the high cone of thatch rising at the broad end.

Hansom had already arrived from Norchester. His car stood parked near the capacious garage and he was to be seen chatting to a tiny dark woman who scarcely came up to his elbow. A Constable stood at a little distance. Gently parked and went over to them.

‘Chief Inspector Gently, ma’am, in charge of the case … this is Mrs Lammas.’

Gently extended his hand.

She was a woman of forty or a little more, but so delicately beautiful that her age seemed to adorn rather than detract from her. Slight in build, her features were pale and small, like those of a Dresden figure, her brown eyes appearing by contrast large and curiously penetrating. She wore a plain black dress too simple to be cheap and on her finger a ring of diamonds and emeralds. Her voice, when she spoke, was low but ringingly clear.

‘I am pleased to meet you, inspector … Inspector Hansom has just been telling me about you.’

‘We are sorry to have to intrude upon you, ma’am, at a time like this.’

‘It cannot be otherwise, inspector … I do not wish it otherwise. Will you come into the house?’

They followed her up the steps and down a wide, parquet corridor.

‘This is the lounge. I trust it will suit your purpose?’

It was a large room overlooking the broad, with French windows giving on to a veranda. Gently cast a speculative eye around the furnishings. Expensive, also feminine. There was nothing in that room to suggest a man had ever lived there.

‘You have a beautiful home, ma’am.’

‘Thank you, inspector.’

‘Your husband must have been in a substantial way of business.’

‘My husband—’ she began and then checked herself,
her small lips pressing tight. ‘This is my own house. I built it and furnished it myself.’

‘It does your taste credit.’

She rang the bell and ordered coffee to be brought. Hansom arranged his short-hand Constable at a card-table and made other official dispositions. Mrs Lammas watched him coldly.

‘I suppose you will begin with me?’

Gently shrugged. ‘Would it upset the domestic economy if we started with the servants?’

‘Not really. Do you want the cook or the maid?’

‘We’ll take the maid … she’ll be along with the coffee.’

‘What do you think of her?’ inquired Hansom leeringly when Mrs Lammas had retired. ‘Can you imagine a man turning up a dish like that for his secretary!’

‘It’s surprising what men do.’

‘And money with it – Lammas must have been crackers!’

‘I daresay he has his point of view if you could get round to it.’

The maid came in, bearing the coffee on a silver tray. She was a square-boned, moon-faced girl in her twenties. When the coffee was served Gently bade her be seated and took his place with Hansom at the table opposite.

‘Your name, please?’

‘Gwyneth Jones, it is.’

‘You don’t belong to these parts?’

‘Oh no! I come from Wales, like Mrs Lammas.’

‘Mrs Lammas is Welsh?’

‘Indeed she is – and good Welsh too, at that!’

Gently nodded and dropped lumps of sugar into his fragile coffee cup.

‘Now Miss Jones … we’d like you to tell us exactly what happened on Friday evening from, shall we say, tea-time.’

‘But I’ve told it already, I have—’

‘We’d like to hear it again, if you please.’

The maid gave herself a little shake and then began, as though it were a lesson: ‘The cook and me were sitting in the kitchen, we were, talking about old times at Pwllheli—’

‘Whoa!’ interrupted Gently. ‘What time was this?’

‘Oh, about eight o’clock, or it might be later.’

‘But I want you to tell what happened before that.’

‘There wasn’t nothing happened – it just went on as it always does go on!’

‘Never mind – I’d still like to hear about it.’

The maid gave herself another little shake. ‘Well, there was Miss Pauline had her tea early to catch a bus—’

‘How early?’

‘At half-past five it was, she was catching the quarter-past six.’

‘Does she usually travel by bus?’

‘Oh yess! She’s wonderfully independent is Miss Pauline – not like Mr Paul in that respect, mark you. In the mornings she would go to the office with her father, but when it came to her own affairs it was different.’

‘She was going to a rehearsal in Norchester, I believe.’

‘Indeed – she has always been a one for acting.’

‘Did she usually have tea early when she was going to a rehearsal?’

‘– No, not that I know of. It was the ten-to-seven bus as a rule.’

‘Very well … go on with what you were telling me.’

‘Why, then the mistress and Mr Paul has tea here, in the lounge, and very quiet they were – not the usual chatter at all. And while we were washing the dishes I heard Mr Paul starting up his motorcycle – “Look you,”  says I to Gwladys, “there has been a row, or something very much like one”—’

‘What time was that?’

‘Oh, about seven o’clock I’d say, either more or less. “If there has been a row,” says Gwladys—’

‘Did you actually see Mr Paul leave?’

‘Oh yess, I did – the kitchen looks out that way.’

‘And Mrs Lammas – what time did she leave?’

‘Some minutes later – I was going to
tell
you!’

Gently sighed and resigned himself to be told.

‘“If there has been a row,” says Gwladys, “a quiet one it has been, I tell you,” and while we were talking about it, out comes the mistress and has a word with Joseph. Then Joseph gets her car out, and off she goes, and it was after that he comes into the kitchen.’

‘And he was in the kitchen until he was called out?’

‘Yess – all the time. He often came to sit there. But mark you, as a rule he liked to gossip, and Friday night he hardly said a word. And then the phone rang. “It’s like for me,” he said, and goes to get it.’

‘He was expecting the call?’

‘I would have said so.’

‘The telephone is in the corridor, Miss Jones. Is the kitchen near there?’

‘Indeed, it’s right beside it.’

‘Then you were in a position to hear the conversation?’

‘Oh yess – every word.’

‘Can you remember anything of it?’

‘I can, though not exactly. He was asking how to get to where it was.’

‘And anything else?’

‘No – nothing I remember.’

‘You wouldn’t have been close enough to have heard the voice of the person at the other end?’

She shook her head.

‘Or whether it was, in fact, Mr Lammas?’

‘No, I would not.’

‘But that was your general impression?’

‘Indeed yess, he sounded just as though he were speaking to Mr Lammas.’

‘Thank you, Miss Jones … please continue your account.’

The maid stroked down her lace-edged apron and paused before going on. There wasn’t any nervousness about her, Gently noticed; the authority of the mistress descended to the servant.

‘Well, Joseph hung up and told us he had to go to Ollby to fetch Mr Lammas. – “You’ll miss ‘Take It From Here’,” says Gwladys, looking at the clock, “it’s just on half-past eight, mun, why not go a little later? You can always say you’ve had some trouble with the car.” But he would not stay, not even for a cup of tea.’

‘He mentioned Mr Lammas, did he?’

‘Oh yess, he did.’

‘Go on.’

‘Why, then he goes, and me and Gwladys has our tea and toast, and listen to the wireless, we do, until it’s getting quite late. At last we hear Mr Paul come back on his motorcycle. He hasn’t been back five minutes when the mistress follows him and when they get together in the lounge there are words, I can tell you, though they keep their voices low.’

‘About what?’ inquired Gently eagerly.

‘I didn’t hear – and if I did, I might not tell you.’

‘This isn’t idle curiosity, you know …’

‘I know it isn’t – but then, I didn’t hear.’

Gently shrugged regretfully and motioned her to proceed.

‘An hour it goes on, if not longer. I never heard the like before between them. And then Miss Pauline comes in off the bus, and look you, it’s all over, just like that. The mistress rings for malted milk and biscuits, and then to bed without another word.’

‘What time would that be?’

‘Oh, half-past eleven at the soonest.’

‘The bus gets in when?’

‘Eleven o’clock, it does.’

‘Hmn.’

Gently leaned back in his chair and seemed to be studying the white sails which turned and drifted on the broad below.

‘Miss Jones … have you been very long with the Lammas family?’

‘I have been here four years and three months, come Michaelmas.’

‘Would you say it was a … happy family?’

‘I daresay there are worse, when you look about you.’

‘And what would you mean by that?’

She hesitated and then drew herself up with a flash of agression. ‘I mean she was too good for him by far – that’s what I mean! And if you’re asking me, I’d say that nobody will shed many tears now he’s gone!’

Gently nodded his mandarin nod.

‘That’s all, Miss Jones … will you send in the cook as you go through, please?’

Gently had tapped a source of peppermint creams in Wrackstead and he produced his bag now and offered it to Hansom. Hansom took one suspiciously to sample.

‘I never could see what was so damned special about these things!’

Gently tossed one to Dutt and another to the short-hand Constable. ‘They soothe the nerves, you know, and keep the brain clear.’

‘There must be something in it – you seem to get results on them!’

‘Try one the next time things are getting sticky …’

Hansom munched noisily a few moments and then said: ‘What was all that about the voice on the phone?’

Gently hoisted a non-committal shoulder. ‘I just like to know the minor details.’

‘You got an idea it was someone else – like the secretary?’

‘I keep ideas at a distance this early in a case.’

Hansom grunted and kept working on the peppermint cream.

‘Then there’s that row with the son … maybe that ties in somewhere. Yeah – and the way they went out and came back! It looks as though Paul’s ma was trailing him, and she must have known where he was going to keep five minutes behind.’

‘Could have known what the shover was up to, sir,’ put in Dutt brightly. ‘Might have been the son what finds out where Lammas is and gives the tinkle.’

‘Yeah – and it’s the
son
who’s sweet on the secretary; how about that for a hunch?’