Gently through the Mill

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Did you have a drink at The Roebuck?’

  ‘No, I did not!’

  Slowly but remorselessly the picture was teased into detail. As he put his questions Gently wandered over to the study’s two big windows. Here they were at the back of the house, facing a long stretch of terraced lawn closed by shrubberies. Immediately under the windows were flowerbeds shaped in scallops, but the naked earth, ideal for footprints, was rendered sodden and crumbled by the beating rain.

  The windows themselves were wooden sash frames secured by common fingertip catches.

  ‘When you went to draw the money, where did you park your car?’

  ‘Honestly, Inspector! Outside the bank.’

  ‘Were there many people about?’

  ‘I really didn’t notice.’

  ‘That attaché case is conspicuous. Are you sure you caught nobody eyeing it?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Who opened the door when you returned here?’

  ‘Nobody opened it – I let myself in.’

  ‘Then your servants knew nothing about it?’

  ‘Not unless they saw me go out with the case.’

  ‘Would that have been probable?’

  ‘Do you really expect me to remember such things?’

  ‘Where do you keep the safe key?’

  ‘Attached to a body-belt, as you are aware.’

  ‘Was the money ever out of your hands?’

  ‘Never at any time until I deposited it in the safe.’

  ‘And you can’t remember whether you drew it before or after you visited the mill?’

  ‘Not to swear to it, but it might have been after.’

  ‘How long after you got back did the telephone ring?’

  ‘Almost as soon as I got in the door.’

  ‘You kept the case in your hand all the time you were answering it?’

  ‘I put it on the desk there.’

  ‘Nobody else was in the room?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘You had your eyes on it?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘And then you put it in the safe?’

  ‘Yes, just across the room!’

  ‘Think: did you stop anywhere except at the mill?’

  ‘I’ve told you already—’

  ‘May I use your phone, please?’

  Pershore watched him loweringly as he dialled the headquarters number. Like many an angry man before him, the mayor-elect had been sobered by the probe of Gently’s interrogation. It was humiliating to be shown how little one really remembered about things …

  ‘Gently here. Anything come in?’

  Through the window came the steady beat of the rain on the lawn and flowerbeds outside.

  ‘Never mind … get me Inspector Griffin, if he’s there.’

  He’d got the meat out of Prideaux Manor: it was up to the local boys to scoop up the gravy. Just at the moment, he could think of much more interesting things to be done.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FOR A SECOND time that day Gently’s Wolseley came to a halt among the puddles of the mill yard. If anything it was raining harder now, and the light was worse than ever.

  The double doors of the engine-room were half-closed to keep out driving rain; a couple of men, making a dash from the sack-store to the passage, had sacks pulled over their heads and shoulders.

  Was ever there such a day of rain before? When you pictured to yourself an English spring …

  Gently, apparently, was in no hurry. Having parked the car he lit his pipe and remained in the driving seat puffing at it. First Fuller appeared at his door, ghost-like, his dark eyes almost black against his pale face; then the foreman peered out of the hoist-doors above the loading bay, pausing to spit into the yard below.

  As for Blythely, he was no doubt having a nap. The bakehouse door stood ajar, but there was no sign of activity within. His wife Gently had seen in the shop. She was reading a woman’s magazine with a glossy cover. Come storm, come shine, the Blythely household continued to go about its routine …

  Now there was a movement in the doorway of the sack-store. Blacker had come down and was rolling himself a cigarette. Looking anywhere but at the Wolseley, he licked the paper and dabbed it down; lighting up, he made an exaggerated face as though the match were scorching him.

  Then he leaned against the doorpost, exhaling self-conscious lungfuls of smoke. His eyes seemed fixed on a point in the sky above the roof of the café across the road.

  And still the rain poured out of the sky, and Gently continued to sit in the Wolseley.

  Blacker grew restive. He shot a calculating glance at the engine-room, the next point of refuge, then, lowering his eyes, at the front wheels of the Wolseley. He dashed out his cigarette with a nervous movement. Twice he made as though to run for the engine-room doors.

  But, finally, it was the Wolseley which attracted him. Like a magnet which he was forced to obey, it drew him away from the quick rush to the engine-room.

  Frowning stupidly in the rain he thrust his head close to the driver’s window:

  ‘You want something, do you, coming here like this …?’

  Presumably Gently heard him, though he gave no sign of it. Behind the slightly misted window Blacker could see him smoking in comfortable dryness. Feeling the rain chilling his shoulders, the foreman rapped on the window.

  ‘It’s about that scooter, ain’t it? I watched the bloke go in after me! I’m getting wet …!’

  He was, and no mistake.

  ‘Why don’t you ask me, ’stead of keeping me standing here?’

  Only the rain made him any sort of an answer.

  Miserably, the foreman rapped again. Now that he was standing by the car it seemed impossible for him to retire without getting some acknowledgment of his action. His eye fell on the door-handle, but he wasn’t bold enough to turn it.

  ‘If it’s about the money, that’s what I earned, do you hear! I’ve been saving it up … Mr Fuller, he give me a bonus!’

  Surely this should interest Gently, unless he was in some sort of a trance!

  ‘It’s my wages, that’s what it was … I get sixteen pound a week! I’ve been keeping my eye on that scooter since the other side of Christmas. Why don’t you ask me proper if you want to know? Look, I can’t stop here any longer!’

  Nevertheless, he seemed very reluctant to go, though by now his clothes were dragging from him like dishclouts.

  ‘Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying …?’

  It was almost a whine, a plea to be noticed.

  ‘It’s the truth, I tell you, those fivers come in my pay envelope! Why can’t you say something, ’stead of just sitting there?’

  A smoke-ring appeared perfectly around Gently’s pipe. Blacker could see it circling as it drifted tenuously towards the roof. Cursing, he turned and ran slopping into the engine-room – the swine had wanted him to get wet, that was all that could explain it!

  Shaking himself like a dog, he stood between the two doors and scowled at the rainbound Wolseley.

  When at last Gently made a move it was for the side door of the miller’s office, but having entered by it he seemed no more disposed to begin business than before.

  First, he had got a little wet – that had to be seen to! He contrived to upset the whole office while putting his raincoat to dry on the backs of two chairs. Then he wanted a towel – hadn’t anybody got one? And what about some hot coffee? Surely … with the café so close!

  If there had been any work going on, it was disrupted by this time. Apart from anything else he had annexed the chairs – two for his raincoat and one for himself. And now that Mary had gone out, wrapped to the eyes, he was amusing himself by tapping out test sentences on her typewriter – surely a Yard man had better things to do with his time?

  Fuller, without a dash of colour in his cheeks, got a file out of a cabinet and pretended to be looking through it. Having nowhere to sit he leant against his desk, but somehow he couldn’
t find a posture which was comfortable.

  ‘We’re getting some of these.’

  Fuller started at the sound of Gently’s voice.

  ‘They’re re-equipping some of the offices … a few of us got together. As a rule it’s all done by contract, but we got permission to indent for this model.’

  He had his back turned to the miller, and Gently’s back was peculiarly unexpressive. As for his tone of voice, it contained nothing but an interest in Fuller’s typewriter …

  ‘Government departments are very conservative, you understand.’

  He was tapping away afresh with two clumsy fingers.

  ‘We’ve been using the same make since typewriters came in – a lot of taxpayers’ money going all in one direction! For typing reports—’

  Fuller threw down his file. ‘If you’ve come here for something—!’

  ‘Tabulation isn’t a “must”, but it’s useful for paragraphing.’

  ‘I’ve seen the lunchtime paper!’

  ‘As a rule we like the larger typeface.’

  The miller clenched his fists and groaned. Like his foreman, he was finding it far worse to be ignored than to be attended to by Gently. If you knew where you stood, that could be bad enough; but to be treated as though you were already in the bag …!

  ‘It was one of them, wasn’t it?’

  The typewriter rattled.

  ‘And this morning I was fool enough to tell you—’

  In fact, that he’d been driving past the spot at midnight last night, alone.

  The bell tinkled, and Gently pulled out his sheet. It may not have been a brilliant piece of typing, but such as it was it seemed to find favour with the man from the Central Office. He laid it across the typewriter and studied it fondly. From a back view, at least, he appeared to be completely absorbed.

  ‘May I give you some advice?’

  Offhandedly he threw out the question. Fuller, his lips tight in a bitter line, lifted his head to stare savagely at the bulky shoulders.

  ‘Why not tell me the truth … now, without going any further? I know pretty well that you had nothing to do with either of the murders.’

  The response was astonishing: Fuller began to weep. He collapsed against the desk and covered his face with his well-cared-for hands.

  For two minutes by the pendulum clock he simply sobbed, foolishly, unconvincingly. And yet there was something terrible about this man behaving like a child.

  ‘My wife—!’ His broken voice sounded silly; he knew it and broke off, fighting to gain control.

  ‘How can you understand—?’

  That, too, seemed to have no meaning.

  Gently had crumpled his sheet of typing and dropped it into the waste-paper basket. Mary, coming in streaming, was bundled promptly out again minus the thermos she had been clutching. As an added precaution Gently shot the bolts of both the side and the street doors.

  ‘If I tell you … it’s impossible! Nobody would believe—’

  In a corner cupboard were the office cups and saucers. The coffee, steaming hot, had milk and sugar already added.

  ‘Here … drink this!’

  Gently shoved a cup into the miller’s hand.

  ‘I don’t want any—’

  ‘Drink it!’

  The miller did as he was bid.

  Like a fish in an aquarium, Mary was staring through the glass panels of the side door. But then the rain got the better of her curiosity and she disappeared in search of cover. They were isolated by the downpour. The little office seemed entirely cut off.

  ‘How do you pay your men?’

  ‘—my men?’

  Fuller repeated the words vacantly.

  ‘Yes. Do you cash a cheque, for instance?’

  ‘Mary … she sees to it. She takes a cheque when she goes to lunch on Fridays.’

  ‘She has a list, has she – so many fivers, ones, tens, etc.?’

  ‘Not fivers of course, just ones, tens, and silver.’

  ‘It was the same last week?’

  ‘Except being Good Friday …’

  ‘Has Blacker been after you for money?’

  The miller shuddered. ‘No … it was just being foreman.’

  Gently nodded and sipped his coffee. Deadened by the rain, the naphtha engine’s beat sounded remote and subterranean. It had something of the quality of a barbaric drum-roll.

  ‘You know that red morocco attaché case of Mr Pershore’s?’

  ‘I’ve seen him carry one.’

  ‘Was he carrying it on Thursday?’

  ‘Yes, he had it with him.’

  ‘Was it in his hands all the while?’

  ‘I didn’t see him put it down.’

  ‘What was Blacker doing at the time?’

  ‘Him and Sid … they were feeding grain.’

  ‘That night, which way did you come from the Spreadeagle?’

  Fuller shuddered again and looked for somewhere to stand his coffee cup. His hands were trembling so much that it was a wonder he hadn’t dropped it.

  ‘You know then …?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘But if only you could understand!’

  He was near tears again, huddled up there against his desk.

  ‘To be frank, wasn’t it amateurish? Two people got to know about it.’

  ‘—two?’

  ‘Blythely knew. He was watching the whole time.’

  The blood rushed back into the miller’s cheeks. He stared wildly at Gently as though challenging the truth of the assertion. Then he dropped his eyes to the floor, red to the tips of his ears.

  ‘Oh, my God, what a mess!’

  The words came in a hoarse whisper. Making no reply, Gently poured himself some more coffee from the thermos. In London, in Paris, who would have turned their head at such a business? But here, in Lynton … yes, it was a mess all right!

  ‘Why haven’t you arrested me?’

  ‘It isn’t breaking the law.’

  ‘But being there at the time … the keys … everything …’

  ‘It would have helped if you’d told me the truth in the first place.’

  ‘You’d never have understood …’

  That was his leit-motif. In fact, Gently had seen the pattern repeated a score of times. An attractive woman, a man bored and rebellious – add the opportunity, and what other answer was there? It was only the background …

  ‘She … she wanted a baby.’

  Awkwardly, Fuller was trying to tell him.

  ‘They’ve never been able to – Blythely, too – he’s got queer ideas! And Clara … you’ve only got to look at her. Can’t you imagine what it must be like for her?’

  A passionate woman tied to a stone-cold man.

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘God knows! It was always round the corner. Then one day when I was alone she came into the office with the rent for the bakehouse. Somehow, leaning over me … after I kissed her she cried, and I knew how badly …’

  ‘How long has it gone on?’

  ‘A couple of months – three, maybe.’

  ‘And you always used the hayloft?’

  ‘No! That was the first time we’d ever …’

  The first time, and the poor fool had to get caught up in a homicide affair! In a grim sort of way, there was something humorous about it. Fuller had the makings of a man to whom bad luck came naturally.

  ‘You’d best tell your wife. It’ll probably have to come out.’

  ‘My wife … it’ll kill her!’

  ‘Don’t be so conceited!Wives sometimes surprise one.’

  ‘You don’t understand …’

  They were back to it again.

  A lorry came into the yard, backing and turning to get by Gently’s awkwardly parked Wolseley. The driver came running to knock on the door, but Fuller made no attempt to unbolt and let him in.

  ‘You think you can go against them …’

  The lorry-driver, no doubt cursing, had given up his
quest and retired.

  ‘It seems easy, but even if nobody knows …’

  ‘You have to live by the laws of the society that accepts you.’

  Fuller looked up at him quickly, his dark eyes surprised. At that moment the naphtha engine coughed to a standstill, making a sudden silence in the twilit room. Just then there was only the sound of the rain.

  ‘Now suppose you tell me what happened from the time you left the Spreadeagle?’

  Boiled down it was less, very much less than Gently had hoped for. It seemed hardly possible that the miller could have been on the spot and seen so little. He had slipped away from the Spreadeagle in time to meet Mrs Blythely at half past eleven. The rendezvous had been at the stable door. On his way thither he had apparently noticed nothing, except that it was a cool evening and that road traffic had been light. He could remember no cars parked near the entry in Cosford Street.

  ‘It was a clear night but no moon. You couldn’t see a great deal once you got into the drying-ground. Clara was already there waiting for me, a coat over her nightdress. As you might suppose, we didn’t waste a lot of time.’

  ‘Are you absolutely certain you didn’t see or hear somebody? Remember that Blythely wasn’t far away, and presumably Blacker was in the offing.’

  Fuller’s head drooped wretchedly, but now he was almost eager in his desire to help.

  ‘In the circumstances, one … after kissing her we went straight up. I’m pretty sure I didn’t notice anything. Clara … she had a lot of time to make up!’

  ‘What time did you leave?’

  ‘We had an hour together.’

  ‘And as you were coming away?’

  ‘I’m sorry … all I was thinking about …’

  One thing only was clear as daylight. Blacker had been in the yard and witnessed the rendezvous. In the morning he tackled Fuller in his office. He made no bones about what he was after.

  ‘He’d seen us together – must have done some eavesdropping. Anyway, he’d known beforehand and decided to watch. I wanted to knock him down, but God! what could I do? To give me time to think I made him foreman as he asked me.’

  ‘He threatened to tell your wife?’

  ‘Her, and Blythely.’

  ‘Coming from a source like that …’

  ‘It was true, and I couldn’t have faced it out.’