Gently with the Innocents

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll round one or two of them up.’

  Gently made a face.

  ‘Not like that!’

  But then, after all, he didn’t get his pheasant peacefully, like a private citizen on his honest occasions. First there were reporters laying ambush in the George’s foyer, and Gently knew better than to brush them aside without a statement.

  ‘Mostly a routine check . . . nobody likes open verdicts. One of the relatives was in touch with the Yard, so they sent me along to make some motions.’

  They listened carefully, with hard eyes, trying to catch him in a revealing phrase. No crime reporter worth his salt could quite believe that Gently was routine . . .

  ‘Who was the relative?’

  ‘Peachment’s nephew.’

  Rule one: always tell them what they’d find out anyway.

  ‘Can you give us his address?’

  Gently obliged. With luck, they’d go haring off to an empty flat in Grout Street, Kensington.

  ‘You’re treating this as murder?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you a lead, sir?’ (Politeness with that one!)

  ‘No. We’re treating it as murder for the purpose of the check, but it could equally well turn out to have been an accident. I’m here to make certain.’

  Some jiffling and staring.

  ‘What about this rumour that Peachment had found a hoard of gold?’

  Gently shrugged smilingly. ‘Put it in your story. But just between us, it hasn’t turned up yet.’

  An effective performance: they went away to the phones half convinced there wasn’t a big one here. The odds were they’d just leave a stringer hanging around, unless Adrian Peachment set their noses twitching again.

  He washed and went down to dinner complacently, his office door mentally closed. But alack, when he’d barely begun on his minestrone, in walked Sir Daynes Broke.

  ‘Hullo, you old war-horse!’

  Who would have expected him, forty snowy miles from Merely? In fact, he’d been to a Regional Crime Squad conference at Eastwich and was taking in Gently on his way home.

  ‘There’s a good cross-route, y’know . . . don’t have to bother going through Norchester. I called at the station to have a look at the medal. Oh, glory. My fingers are still itching.’

  And of course he stayed to dinner, exerting all the consequence of a Chief Constable. The head waiter, wine-waiter and waitress hovered around him in a sort of ecstasy.

  ‘This pheasant now . . . fresh, is it?’

  ‘Oh no, sir. We hang them at least a week.’

  ‘Ah, so you know what’s what.’

  They loved him. They couldn’t have enough of him.

  Through dinner he chatted gossip to Gently, who would sooner have concentrated on his food; then, hand on his elbow, he steered him into the lounge and to the best seats by the log fire.

  ‘Now . . . how is it going?’

  The George, you felt, had become Merely Manor when Sir Daynes walked in. Outside, in the very centre of the cobbled courtyard, would be standing his B1 Bentley with its discreet flag.

  Gently gave him a résumé. He listened intently, interrupting only at the mention of Bressingham.

  ‘Know the fellow. Bought a George III guinea off him. Twenty-seven ten, but I had to knock him down.’

  ‘How much was he asking?’

  ‘Thirty-five quid. What are you grinning at?’

  Gently shrugged.

  Again, when it came to the Edward IV angel, Sir Daynes was stirred into an exclamation.

  ‘The old devil! I’ve wanted one for years. I wonder what else he had his hands on?’

  In the end he sat back, staring into the fire, his grey, wiry eyebrows drawn in a frown.

  ‘An odd sort of business . . .’

  As though ensconced at his own hearth, he tossed a few fresh pieces from the wood-basket on to the blaze. ‘Y’know . . . how shall I put it? . . . this has the feel of something unusual. Out here, now and then, a strange thing can happen. We’re not quite twentieth-century in some ways.’

  ‘Something supernatural?’

  ‘Don’t be an ass! Though I dare say we have a little mild witchcraft. If people are credulous it’s possible to work on them – saw plenty of that out in Malaya. No, what I’m getting at . . .’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘Look, take incest – there’s an example. Up in town you probably never come across a case, but we’ve got plenty in the villages. And nobody cares very much. It’s been going on since the foundation. You cockneys marvel at your TV sex, but out here they wonder what the fuss is about.’

  Gently nodded. ‘So what you’re saying . . . ?’

  ‘I’m saying this case has got a smell. It may be a straightforward robbery with violence, but it could be something with a rum twist. So keep your eye roving, that’s my tip . . . damn it, man, I’m trying to help you! I’ve got the feel of the place bred in me. I’m trying to let you use my nose.’

  But the coins were what really interested Sir Daynes.

  ‘If we could just turn up that collection!’

  In his own mind he was obviously now certain that the Harrisons hoard was a fact.

  ‘Only to have them through one’s hands . . . pieces like that Innocent medal. I’d make the inventory my self, and the man isn’t born who could hurry me. What are you doing about them?’

  Gently had left instructions for the usual routine circularization. Dealers were requested to report any offers made them of valuable antique coins.

  ‘He couldn’t have got rid of them already?’

  Gently smiled, shook his head. Seaby’s had known nothing of any recent eruption of pieces of this class on the market.

  At last Sir Daynes talked himself out and Gently saw him into the Bentley. The snow had stopped, but a stingy wind was still whirling the loose flakes. Above black, snow-laden gables a pallid moon chased in the clouds, and nothing stirred in the street beyond the gateway. All you heard was the wind.

  He slept well, and made no effort to get down early to breakfast. A tea-tray was brought him by a broad-faced country girl who smiled and lingered to pull his curtains.

  ‘What’s the weather like?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Reckon that don’t get any warmer.’

  Pulling the curtains had admitted a dirty dullness that offered no competition to his bedside lamp.

  After a couple of cups he rang the police station, snuggling back into the sheets while he waited for a reply. He caught Gissing just coming in. The local man sounded breathless.

  ‘Morning, sir . . . oof, it’s a sharp one!’

  Gently clicked his tongue sympathetically. ‘Any luck last night?’

  ‘Not where I went, sir. D.C. Scole has come up with something.’

  D.C. Scole had met a man called Ringmer who remembered an incident that happened on 27 October. Ringmer had entered the WC of the Grapes preparatory to going in the pub for a drink. There he’d met Colkett, whom he knew. Colkett left the WC ahead of him. Afterwards he’d looked for Colkett in the Grapes, but hadn’t been able to find him there. Time, estimated seven p.m. Ringmer remembered the date because that day he’d backed a winner.

  ‘Interesting,’ Gently murmured from his snug cavern.

  ‘Yes, sir, it puts him an hour adrift. But I thought I’d talk to Ted Ringmer myself, just to make sure he’d got his facts straight. After that we can have a go at Colkett.’

  ‘What is D.C. Scole doing now?’

  ‘He’s making inquiries about Peachment’s movements.’

  ‘Tell him to wrap up well,’ Gently said.

  He coaxed another cup from the pot, then consulted the directory for Bressingham’s number. The ringing-tone sounded for nearly a minute before the antique-dealer answered.

  ‘Yes . . . hallo?’

  ‘Chief Superintendent Gently.’

  ‘Good Lord! You get up earlier than I do.’

  ‘I was thinking . . . this morning, if you’re not too busy, perh
aps we could go along to Harrisons.’

  ‘I won’t be busy – not in this weather. But give me an hour to thaw out.’

  ‘If I pick you up at ten?’

  ‘That’s more civilized. I’m human by then.’

  Gently hung up and revelled a few more moments in the bland cosiness of bed. But he could think of no more calls to make. He sighed, and slid his feet to the floor.

  Bressingham’s wife was waiting in the shop with him, and she presented a sharp contrast to her husband. Gypsy-featured, she was tall and lean, and wore a simple black dress with panache. In her ears she wore small gold rings, and other rings clustered on her long fingers.

  ‘Meet Ursula . . . she’s holding the fort for me. Actually, she’s a better dealer than I am.’

  Ursula Bressingham shook hands with Gently, giving him a slow, hard-eyed smile.

  ‘Ursula’s a diddeki,’ Bressingham said proudly. ‘That means she’s half-way to being a gyppo. Anyone who can get the better of her should have his name put up in sovereigns.’

  ‘Tom talks too much,’ Ursula Bressingham said. Her black, glittering eyes remained fixed on Gently. ‘But it’s no use trying to spruce you, Superintendent. You were born under the same sign as myself.’

  Bressingham chuckled. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘Next, she’ll be telling you the initial of your girl-friend.’

  ‘It’s B,’ his wife said. ‘And she’s known a lot of sorrow. But that was all over two years ago.’

  Gently shrugged. ‘What about this business?’

  Ursula Bressingham shook her head. ‘Watch out for danger.’

  ‘I usually do.’

  ‘Don’t laugh. It could come when you least expect it.’

  She stood waving as the Sceptre rolled away, over sugary snow brown with grit. Bressingham, tucked up in a greatcoat and a huge knitted scarf, cocked his head and gave Gently a sly look.

  ‘Was the initial right?’

  Gently grunted. It was just over two years since he’d met Brenda Merryn.

  Bressingham was grinning. ‘It’s mostly mind-reading, he said. ‘And a bit of guessing. She’s good, is Ursula.’

  Nobody had bothered to grit Frenze Street and there the Sceptre was ploughing through virgin snow. Snow quilted the dead herbage in front of Harrisons and had drifted in a slope against the front door.

  ‘My God, it’ll be cold in there.’ Bressingham shivered.

  On the roofs, snow overlapped the rotting barge-boards. Smoothing out detail, it emphasized strangely the stoop of the ridge and the lurch of the gables. Chimneys stood out harshly; in every window snow was packed hard against grimy panes.

  ‘We go in at the back.’

  Across at Colkett’s office a light showed mistily behind steamed glass; then a hand wiped a patch in the steam and Colkett’s face peered out at them.

  ‘Wait!’

  Gently threw up his arm, making Bressingham stagger a little.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Just keep back. Sometimes snow can tell a story.’

  It told one here. From the warehouse and the foot-way numerous tracks crossed the yard, keeping, for the most part, in the same line, as people had followed in one another’s footsteps. There was one diversion. A churned-up path led straight from the tracks to the Harrisons outhouse. It showed no footprints. Whoever had made it had kicked out the prints as he came back.

  ‘Stay here, will you?’

  Leaving Bressingham to shiver, Gently cautiously entered the outhouse. But the outhouse was floored with hard-trodden cinder-dirt which, in any case, was frozen. He came to the back door. The padlock was in place and there was no sign of attempted entry. If a prowler had been there he’d brought no tools . . . could it be he hadn’t known about the padlock?

  He went out again and examined the snow-track, trying to decide if it were lately made. In some of the hollows was a little blown snow, but dustings were still being scattered by the wind.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Bressingham asked, his teeth nittering.

  Colkett, in the office, was watching each move. Gently stared back. Then he beckoned to Bressingham.

  ‘Come on. I want some words with that fellow.’

  Colkett met them at the warehouse side-door, a wary expression in his grey eyes. But he managed to throw on a smirk as he greeted them:

  ‘Anything I can do for you gents?’

  ‘Let’s get inside,’ Gently grunted. He pushed past Colkett into the office. Colkett followed, his smirk drooping, and Bressingham crammed himself in behind.

  ‘Sit down,’ Gently said to Colkett. ‘Put your boots on the table.’

  ‘But what—’

  ‘Sit down and do as I say.’

  Very unwillingly, Colkett sat down and hoisted his work-boots on the office table.

  They were damp, and had the clean-picked look of footwear that had been through soft snow. But in the crook of a heel there was a trace of black mud. Gently took out his pen-knife and scraped off a sample.

  ‘Here!’ Colkett said. ‘So what’s all this?’

  Gently held the mud up to the light. Cinder-dirt? A laboratory could tell him. Meanwhile, just black mud . . .

  ‘Why did you go to the house this morning?’

  ‘Why?’ Colkett pulled his boots down sullenly. ‘Who says I did?’

  ‘This mud says so. And a test will soon prove it.’

  Colkett stared stupidly at the scrape of mud.

  ‘You’re having me on, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I could’ve picked that up anywhere. You can’t swear where I got it.’

  ‘Very well. Hand me one of those envelopes.’

  ‘Yes, but wait a minute!’ Colkett said. ‘Suppose I did go over to the house. You can’t pinch me for doing that.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I might’ve done.’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  Colkett’s leathern face puckered.

  ‘Well, if I did. What about that?’

  ‘Why did you kick out your prints in the snow?’

  ‘I . . . because . . .’ He got up from the chair. ‘Look, there ain’t nothing funny about this! So I went to have a peek to see if all’s well. I’m the sort of caretaker round here, aren’t I?’

  ‘And the prints?’

  ‘They’re nothing either! I just don’t like people knowing my business. So that’s about it. All above board. Why can’t you come and ask me proper?’

  Gently stared at the warehouseman for some moments. Gissing, somewhere, was doing his double check with Ted Ringmer. Perhaps Gently had better hold his hand . . . set Colkett up later, back at the station. He flicked the scraping of mud to the floor.

  ‘In future, you can leave the caretaking to us.’

  ‘Don’t worry – I will!’

  Gently nodded to Bressingham.

  They went, leaving Colkett scowling after them.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A RED DISC patched the umberish sky in the direction of the town, but above and around it was a great weight of slaty cloud, swollen with snow.

  ‘Don’t I know these old drums,’ Bressingham chattered as Gently led him into the outhouse. ‘Oh, my gosh. And the stuff they’re selling is always in an unheated room. Can you imagine it? Trying to price their old treasures with your breath coming like smoke. And there’s usually been trouble when they call you in. Somebody dead, the old home breaking up.’

  ‘So this’ll be familiar,’ Gently grunted.

  ‘Only too familiar,’ Bressingham sighed. ‘I’ve seen some things that would break your heart. I often come away with a load of rubbish because I know darned well they don’t have a bean.’

  But once in the house the antique-dealer perked up. He stood rubbing his hands and looking about him cheerfully.

  ‘This isn’t so bad – I’ll bet there’s some stuff here. I reckon I could get my expenses out of this.’

  ‘Never mind the junk,’ Gently said.

  ‘No . . . but it helps me to
get my bearings. And young Peachment is bound to want to sell it, so I may as well give it a look in passing. That chair, now . . .’

  He picked up old Peachment’s chair, took it to the window and turned it bottom-up.

  ‘That’s a nice old chair . . . could be Mendlesham . . . bit of worm in the seat, but nothing to worry about.’

  He set it down and looked at it, his head cocked to one side.

  ‘I think I could spring fifty bob.’

  ‘What’s it worth to sell?’

  Bressingham’s blue eyes twinkled. ‘About seventeen ten. But of course, they’d knock me down.’

  Patiently, Gently filled his pipe and let Bressingham continue his probe of the kitchen. In turn the dealer valued an old faded-faced clock, a battered coal-scuttle and some plates from the dresser.

  ‘But the chair’s the best bit . . . I’d go to a fiver. Only don’t let on to young Peachment.’

  ‘Then can we get to business?’

  ‘My dear old chap.’ Bressingham dusted his hands. ‘What do you think I’ve been doing while I was prowling?’

  They went through into the dining-room, where the performance continued, and where Bressingham felt he could go a tenner on the table. But Gently noticed the dealer’s eyes were everywhere and his pointed-tipped fingers touching and exploring. Once he stamped on the floor.

  ‘There’s some rot down there!’

  ‘The boards haven’t been interfered with lately.’

  ‘No. You don’t find much hidden under floors. It’s the obvious place, and it’s inconvenient.’

  He felt deeply, however, into a wall-cupboard that had been excavated in the massive chimney-breast, panting a little as he fingered the crevices in search of a loose brick.

  Coming into the book-room, he paused.

  ‘Now that’s a useful old country bookcase . . . I had one of those a few years back . . . got a good day’s work out of it, too.’

  Gently said nothing. Bressingham advanced on the bookcase rather like a boxer shaping up. His hands strayed over it casually for a moment, then came to rest on the drawers.

  ‘Nothing in here, I’ll be bound. First place you’d have looked.’

  ‘We searched them.’

  ‘Of course you did. But I think I’ll just have them out.’

  He withdrew the drawers carefully, not giving the contents a glance, then slipping a torch from his pocket he went down on his knees and shone the torch into the cavity.