Gently to a Sleep

by Alan Hunter

  The room however had become drearier. Furniture and carpets appeared worn and dowdy. The many paintings, carelessly hung, showed at a glance their meagreness of talent.

  Beer, from cans with off-licence price-stickers, had been poured into fancy imported glasses.

  After brief consideration, Lynne Taylor had covered her easel and brought her beer to the settee.

  ‘I suppose that’s your usual way with suspects?’

  Under the lights, Noel Raynes looked more haggard. He had taken a long pull of beer before replying to Gently’s question.

  ‘It’s simply a way of requesting information . . .’

  ‘To me, it sounds more like a threat! You know very well what my movements were, so why would you want me to go through them again?’

  ‘I know only what other people have told me.’

  ‘Yes, and it seems they’ve made the most of it. Not that I care. When all’s said and done, there’s nothing anyone can pin on me . . .’

  ‘So?’

  About to swallow hastily, he checked, the glass at his mouth. His eyes, of a smoky hazel colour, met Gently’s then pulled away.

  ‘Very well, then! Just what can I tell you that you don’t know already? I drove to my father’s place and arrived in time for a drink before dinner.

  ‘No, I didn’t see anything suspicious – and I did nothing suspicious myself! When the row started I came away. And that’s all I can tell you about that.’

  ‘You were able to observe Ronald Best.’

  ‘Yes – but I wasn’t his keeper, was I?’

  ‘Did he seem out of spirits?’

  ‘How should I know – yes, perhaps he did!’

  ‘In fact – depressed?’

  ‘Something like that. At least, he hadn’t much to say for himself. I doubt if he spoke two words all the time he was there.’

  ‘Not to those on either side of him.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He said nothing to Mrs Clive Raynes.’

  ‘Flo . . . ?’ His eyes were quick.

  ‘She was seated between Best and yourself.’

  ‘Yes . . . Flo!’ He took a long sip. ‘Well, she wouldn’t do, would she? I mean . . . feeling the way she did . . . the surprising thing was that she sat by him at all. No, there was no conversation there! Nor from Greta on the other side.’

  ‘And of course you said nothing to him – when you handed him his coffee, for example.’

  ‘But I gave it to . . . !’

  He broke off in confusion. The beer was slopping in his glass.

  After a pause, Lynne Taylor rose and, smiling bleakly, topped up their glasses. Then she resumed her seat, to sip sparingly at her own.

  ‘Look . . . what are you getting at now?’

  ‘Allow me to feel a little surprise! That, a fortnight later, you should remember so clearly the dispensation of that cup of coffee.’

  ‘But . . . !’

  ‘Can we trace it exactly? Your mother was pouring at the trolley.’

  ‘I won’t put up with this—!’

  ‘Then it passed through your hands, and finally into those of Mrs Clive Raynes. Wasn’t that the sequence?’

  ‘Are you trying to say—?’

  ‘Merely eliciting the facts. Unfortunately, now, there is no possibility of identifying the cup and submitting it to tests.’

  Noel Raynes’s brow was moist and the glass in his hand trembled. Nevertheless he pulled himself together to face Gently with attempted swagger.

  ‘So what! I had the cup through my hands . . . you aren’t going to prove very much by that!’

  ‘If Best was poisoned, I think we have to assume the poison was given him in his coffee.’

  ‘If!’

  ‘The matter is open to proof.’

  His eyes rounded. ‘You don’t mean to tell me—?’

  Gently returned his stare, then deliberately tipped his glass.

  Noel Raynes came to his feet.

  ‘Listen . . . I’ve a right to know this! You’re trying to trap me in some way, and I’m answering nothing more until you tell me!’

  ‘Tell you what, Mr Raynes?’

  ‘Have you . . . dug him up?’

  Gently’s shoulders moved; he drank more beer.

  Noel Raynes stood over him, wildness in his eyes. The hand that held the beer-glass was raised.

  ‘You’d better sit down, Noel,’ Lynne Tayor said. ‘The officer doesn’t have to tell you what he is doing.’

  ‘I’ve a right to know . . . !’

  It doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing that happened can be blamed on you.’

  ‘But he’s trying to trap me.’

  ‘Let him – if he can. You aren’t helping matters by playing into his hands.’

  Noel Raynes wavered, glass still raised; perhaps suddenly conscious that the stance was ridiculous. Finally with a grunt he dropped back on his chair.

  Lynne Taylor sipped, and smiled at nothing.

  ‘In addition . . . you were helping with the brandy too.’

  ‘All right – and I passed out plates of trifle! I’m the poor relation, can’t you understand? That sort of thing is expected of me.’

  ‘When he’d poured the brandy, wasn’t it then that your father made his announcement?’

  ‘What if he did?’

  ‘And wasn’t it at that point that you and your sister-in-law were serving the coffee?’

  ‘Yes, it was . . . more or less!’

  ‘When all attention was on your father?’

  ‘I don’t know that!’

  ‘But it was then that you passed the last cup – for Best – to Mrs Clive Raynes?’

  ‘Look, I won’t—’

  ‘Did you?’

  Noel Raynes sat crouched, eyes glaring.

  ‘Yes – you ruddy-well know I did – I put it into Flo’s dainty little hands!’

  ‘And she . . . ?’

  ‘Slammed it down in front of him!’

  ‘You watched her, and you saw it?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Why were you watching her, when what your father was saying was so important?’

  ‘Oh God . . . !’

  He swung away from Gently, the glass clutched in both hands. Hands, neck were pink; his bony knees were pressed together.

  ‘I did nothing . . . I saw nothing!’

  ‘Yet you remember such a trifle precisely.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I . . . ?’

  ‘One cup among ten.’

  ‘Because it was . . .’

  ‘Because it was . . . Best’s?’

  Noel Raynes groaned over his glass.

  ‘I don’t think it’s so surprising,’ Lynne Taylor said, smilingly. ‘After all, it was the last cup served, and they were making a point of serving it to him.’

  ‘Perhaps Mr Raynes described the incident to you?’

  ‘No – of course not! This is the first I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘You felt no curiosity about the dinner-party.’

  ‘Well . . . I didn’t interrogate him like this.’

  ‘Yet it was an occasion followed by tragedy.’

  ‘Yes – admitted! And I’m as curious as the next. But until now there was no question of foul play . . . and even now there seem few grounds for it.’

  Gently took a sip of beer; Lynne Taylor sipped too. From without the train siren wailed again, sounding at once muffled and echoey.

  Noel Raynes jacked himself straighter.

  ‘Look . . . for the last time . . . all this is bosh! I don’t care what . . . you’re trying to prove something, but all I did was . . . never mind!

  ‘I’m not involved. If Ronnie was poisoned, you’d do better to start leaning on the others. Flo, for example!

  ‘Because I didn’t see it, it doesn’t mean that nothing was done . . .’

  Gently shrugged and drank more beer.

  ‘How soon after Best did you leave the party?’

  ‘How soon . . . ?’

  ‘Y
ou were next to go. I was wondering if you could estimate the time.’

  ‘But that has nothing—’

  ‘I’d like you to try.’

  Noel Raynes took a defensive nip. ‘Very well then – have it your way! I dare say it was half-past eight.’

  ‘Yet you weren’t back here till after midnight.’

  ‘After midnight . . . that’s a lie!’

  ‘He was back at ten-thirty!’ Lynne Taylor said quickly. ‘At least it was only a few minutes after.’

  ‘At . . . ten-thirty.’

  She bundled her mouth small. Noel Raynes’s mouth had fallen open. His smoky eyes were staring, the glass tilting in his slack fingers.

  ‘I can explain that!’

  ‘I wish you would. Also why you didn’t leave your father’s immediately.’

  ‘I . . . I can explain that too! As a matter of fact, I was waiting for Clive . . .’

  ‘You spoke to your brother?’

  ‘No – listen! I wanted a word about . . . it doesn’t matter! But when he came out he was rowing with Flo, so I knew it was no go.’

  ‘Then you drove off?’

  ‘Yes . . . I couldn’t get Clive on his own . . .’

  ‘At about a quarter to nine?’

  The beer-glass was weaving, its contents in danger of being spilled.

  ‘I came back here. Not to the flat – I needed a drink, you understand? After all that had been going on – the sort of prospects it was going to lead to!

  ‘Cheering up was what I needed . . . a couple of pints in convivial company . . . so I dropped in . . . and in the end, I was there till the cloth went up.’

  ‘You were in where?’

  ‘Oh, some pub.’

  ‘I think it had better have a name.’

  ‘I don’t remember . . .’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been the local, if you were back at the flat soon after ten-thirty?’

  ‘All right then . . . if you must know my business!’ He gestured weakly with the glass. ‘It’s at the corner . . . The Nelson’s Head . . . and now you know the whole story!’

  Gently nodded and drank up; Lynne Taylor was watching him with needle-sharp eyes.

  Outside the train siren, seemingly impatient, gave short hoots, twice repeated.

  The Nelson’s Head was a small pub with a marble-topped bar and plain benches. Customers were playing cribbage at one of the tables and at another sat a tart, nursing a small gin.

  Gently beckoned the publican aside.

  ‘Police . . . just a couple of questions!’

  With one eye on the tart the publican confirmed that he knew Noel Raynes.

  ‘Can you say if he was in here last Tuesday fortnight?’

  ‘Wait a minute! Wasn’t that the night his half-brother snuffed it . . . ?’

  ‘Was he here?’

  ‘Called in for two quick ones – looked as though he needed them, too!’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Just on closing – couldn’t have been five minutes before.’

  ‘May I use your phone?’

  Full of curiosity, the publican placed the instrument on the bar.

  At the other end, Ives sounded nervous; he’d picked up the phone at the second ring.

  ‘There’s been a bit of a fuss here, sir . . . the Coroner’s been complaining to the Chief Constable. They were at it for half-an-hour, then the Chief Constable rang the Yard.’

  ‘But it’s been set up?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir . . .’

  The publican was making signs to the tart. Sulkily, she emptied her glass, picked up her bag and left.

  ‘At the church, then . . .’

  A clock on the wall showed the time as quarter-past nine.

  Sighing, Gently laid down the phone and signalled the publican.

  ‘Bitter and sandwiches!’

  SEVEN

  BECAUSE CLOUD COVER had persisted the night was black and without stars. But what one did see, like a distant conflagration, was the city’s glow in the sky.

  After the pub turned out, to kill time, Gently had driven to a viewpoint above the city. There, among courting couples, he’d smoked two pipes while invisible clocks chimed.

  No occasion to hurry . . . !

  Back now in the country, he let the Cortina amble lazily, traversing roads like tunnels through the night and passing cottages with unlit windows.

  Now and then in his headlights fiery points glittered and once an owl winged frantically ahead of him. Softly white, it darted from side to side before rising suddenly to vanish.

  Cars, other lights, there were none. It might well have been a night in the wartime blackout. The skein of narrow roads, one ending in another, gave at last the impression of an exitless limbo.

  Finally, very faintly on the sky ahead, a secondary glow denoted Starmouth; then, against this, a low line of horizon made uncertain by massed trees.

  A finger-post at a junction read: Church; soon after, to the left, appeared two white sparks – Tilley-lamps, Gently guessed.

  Then he came to a van, cars, people.

  ‘I wish to register the strongest possible protest and I shall censure these proceedings in my report!’

  The Coroner, a spare, sharp-featured man, rather reminded Gently of Clive Raynes.

  The area before the lych-gate was lit luridly by the Tilleys; wheezing softly, they threw light upwards, illuminating oddly the faces of bystanders.

  A third Tilley, placed in the churchyard, cast its light on flint and stonework: the base of a shafted window. There, two uniformed men were stationed.

  ‘May I remind you that, at the inquest, every feature of this case was investigated – also, that the action you seem bent on taking is highly prejudicial to the family.’

  Ives was standing back in the shadows; with him, his sergeant and two more constables. Somewhat apart from them stood a youngish man, holding a case that appeared weighty.

  In addition, flanking the Coroner, loomed the solid shape of Arthur Swafield.

  ‘You may care to know that the Chief Constable—’

  ‘What is Mr Swafield doing here?’

  ‘What—!’

  Like an affronted hen, the Coroner strutted closer to Gently.

  ‘He is representing the family, sir.’

  ‘You have been in touch with the family . . . ?’

  ‘I most certainly have. I regarded it my duty to inform them what was afoot. I don’t know how things are done in town—’

  ‘Who deputed Mr Swafield?’

  ‘That is not to the point!’

  Gently stared at Swafield’s belligerent face: and shrugged.

  Another car had crept up to park; from it climbed the village constable. Sensing friction, he stayed by his car, well outside the range of the Tilleys.

  ‘Who else did you feel it your duty to inform?’

  The Coroner’s strangely-lit face was pink. Under a closely-buttoned collar, he sported the tie of a professional organization.

  ‘I shall ignore that last remark, sir . . . what I have to say to you is this! On the facts of the case – which are very well known to me – you will be strongly advised to desist.

  ‘Oh, I realize you come with full powers, because I made it my business to check. But as a stranger you may not be aware of certain facts that affect this case.’

  Drawing Gently aside, he continued in a lower voice:

  ‘Touching the character of Walter Raynes.’

  ‘His character . . . ?’

  ‘Precisely.’ The Coroner’s eye was tight on Gently’s. ‘I am not referring to his dissolute behaviour, but to his instability and proneness to malice. These are well-known. On a previous occasion he was near to prosecution for malicious slander. Entirely without grounds, he went around accusing a member of the family of business malpractice.

  In the present instance steps are being taken to remedy his injurious conduct. Perhaps, now, you can judge the utility of proceeding with this farce.’

 
; It was doubtful if the others could hear his words, but their rapt silence was complete. Swafield, who was nearest, had his head craned, his jowled face divided between light and shadow.

  In the churchyard the two uniformed men watched intently, their faces ruddy patches.

  Gently drew out his pipe and sucked air through it.

  ‘Doubtless . . . you are well-acquainted with the family.’

  ‘Indeed I am. They were called to give testimony at the inquest.’

  ‘And that is the extent of the acquaintance . . . ?’

  ‘Certainly not! I meet them sometimes on social occasions.’ The Coroner hesitated. ‘What are you insinuating?’

  Shrugging, Gently sucked on his pipe.

  ‘Are you suggesting—?’

  ‘Listen for a moment! I’m interested in the source of your information. If someone has been blacking Walter Raynes’s character, then I would like to know who.’

  ‘His reputation is well-known—’

  ‘Was it Mr Swafield?’

  ‘I will not submit to interrogation.’

  ‘Then I must assume your information is suspect and put forward merely to secure an intervention.’

  ‘But that is preposterous . . . !’

  Nevertheless there was dismay in the Coroner’s attitude. Shorter by a head than Gently, he was having to draw himself back to stare up at the latter.

  ‘My information is comprehensive . . . and I am not without experience in detecting prejudice! I repeat, you will be most unwise to continue this exhumation . . .’

  ‘On grounds supplied by Arthur Swafield?’

  ‘He merely confirmed . . . certain matters.’

  Hunched and massive, Gently drew at his pipe; then slowly shook his head.

  Arthur Swafield took steps towards them; his eyes glinted waterily in the upward light. Swaying slightly, he stood for an instant in silent confrontation.

  ‘So . . . you won’t listen to reason!’

  Gently gazed, saying nothing.

  ‘You’re still going to play the old man’s game for him . . . trying to get him off the hook! How much is he paying you?’

  ‘Arthur . . . none of that!’

  In alarm, the Coroner grabbed his arm. Swafield ignored him. Leaning forward unsteadily, he advanced his face close to Gently’s.

  ‘If it’s a question of money . . . and it always is . . . !’

  His watery eyes were cunning. Swaying afresh, he raised a podgy hand to make a sly rubbing gesture.