Gently Sahib

by Hunter Alan

  He came about unsteadily.

  The tiger was lying by the washbasin, one paw fanning weakly.

  Three yards from it lay his rifle with a trickle of smoke rising from the muzzle.

  The tiger was dead. It lay on its back with a pool of blood growing round it. As Police Constable Bulley stared at the tiger its paw stopped fanning, quivered, went still.

  Police Constable Bulley breathed heavily. He went doubtfully to the rifle and picked it up. That’s damned light on the trigger, was all he could think: they should strip that gun in the armoury.

  He hefted it under his arm, got over the tiger, came sheepishly out of the convenience. Outside Police Constable Kennet stood gaping. If he was saying anything, Bulley couldn’t hear him.

  So ended the terror that stalked the streets of peaceful Abbotsham. Police Constable Bulley is to be recommended for a Police Medal.

  Inspector Perkins, who arrived a minute later, noticed that Bulley was improperly dressed, but since he couldn’t tell him without shouting he simply hurried him into the police car.

  And that was all, for the moment, about the Abbotsham Tiger.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘THE AC WANTS to see you, sir.’

  Ferrow was the second person to give him the message. Earlier, as Gently had come in from parking his car, the desk sergeant had interrupted a phone call to tell him.

  ‘What about?’ Gently had grunted.

  ‘Don’t know, sir,’ the sergeant’d said.

  Now, in response to the same question, Ferrow gave the same answer.

  Gently stared at him grumpily before stumping upstairs to his office. So the AC wanted him, did he! Had he forgotten about Gently’s leave?

  Because he studied the papers over breakfast and was expert at sifting news stories, Gently was reasonably certain nothing big had come up. There’d been a bank job at Croydon, which was none of his business; a stabbing at Manchester, who wouldn’t call London; and a suspected poisoning at Slough.

  Was it the poisoning they were going to stick on him, probably a lengthy routine chore? If it was . . . !

  He growled to himself, aimed a kick at the door of the outer office.

  Inside sat Inspector Dutt, typing a report with two fingers. He grinned moonishly at his superior and stopped typing to say:

  ‘The AC—’

  ‘I know!’ Gently snapped. ‘Next thing he’ll give it to the papers. What’s it about?’

  ‘About a tiger, chief.’

  ‘About a what?’

  ‘About a tiger.’

  Gently closed the door of the outer office and leaned against it massively. He took out his pipe and struck a light for it, jetted smoke towards the ceiling.

  ‘Dutt,’ he said. ‘Is this the silly season?’

  ‘Yes, chief. Bang in the middle of it.’

  ‘And he wants to see me about a tiger?’

  ‘About a man about a tiger, he said, chief.’

  ‘Just that and nothing else?’

  ‘He said it would be right up your street. He sounded a bit tickled about it, said you wouldn’t want to miss it.’

  ‘How nice of him,’ Gently said. ‘Only this isn’t my day for tigers.’ He puffed. ‘It wouldn’t be a leg-pull, Dutt?’

  ‘Don’t know, chief.’

  ‘It isn’t my day for them either.”

  But the Assistant Commissioner was rather vain about his sense of humour. In his student days he’d been one of a band who’d dug a hole in Oxford Circus. Nobody had interfered for three days, when the traffic was jammed as far as Holborn, and five separate authorities were exchanging bitter memos.

  And now he’d been paging Gently ever since Gently set foot in the place . . .

  ‘What’s that report you’ve got there?’

  ‘This? The Blazey case, chief.’

  ‘Hurry it up and I’ll take it to him. Then we’ll see what it is with the tiger.’

  He swept through into his office, scowled at it, tossed his hat at the peg. Apart from a return sheet his in tray was as empty as it ought to be just now.

  For the next forty-eight hours he’d be available for conferences, routine, perhaps a fill-in job; but unless the heavens opened they shouldn’t wrap a major case round his neck. And the heavens hadn’t opened, or he’d have smelt it out in the papers. This was a leg-pull . . . another sample of the AC’s dubious humour.

  The phone went.

  ‘Gently.’

  ‘Ah, Gently. Did you get my message?’

  He couldn’t wait, even, till Gently condescended to appear!

  ‘Dutt’s getting out his Blazey report. I thought I’d bring it with me.’

  ‘Never mind the Blazey case, that’s finished. I want you along here directly.

  ‘Gently – are you there?’

  ‘Mmn,’ Gently said. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘I’ll expect you right away then, OK? Drop everything.’

  Gently laid the phone fastidiously in its cradle again. He whistled a tune. From the outer office came the tortuous chatter of Dutt’s typing. Gently rose, went to watch Dutt, who frowned as he felt Gently watching him.

  ‘Just signing off now, sir,’ Dutt said. ‘Won’t be another minute.’

  Gently shrugged and walked over to the window.

  He began to think of his fishing plans.

  The Assistant Commissioner raised his glasses.

  ‘So glad you could make it,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking round for your resignation. But perhaps you forgot to hand it in.’

  He was a thin man with a saintly expression but when he was sarcastic he was angry. Gently placed Dutt’s report on the desk, remained standing and poker-faced.

  ‘The Public Prosecutor’s office—’

  ‘Damn the Public Prosecutor’s office.’

  ‘The case is being tried on Monday.’

  ‘I should be aware of that, Gently.’

  They looked at each other. Without shifting his gaze the AC took out his handkerchief and began polishing his glasses. He was one of the very few men who could stare at Gently on even terms.

  At last he said: ‘Well?’

  Gently cleared his throat. ‘I’m not an expert . . .’

  ‘What do you mean – not an expert?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about tigers.’

  ‘Aha,’ the AC said. ‘So that’s it.’

  ‘I couldn’t talk about them,’ Gently said. ‘Not to a man, about a tiger. Even dogs I’m not well up on.’

  The AC went on polishing his glasses. Then he put them on with a dainty flourish.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’m with you now. Message understood. You can sit down.’

  ‘Catching tench, now—’

  ‘Gently, sit down.’

  ‘But I’m not an expert on tigers.’

  ‘Sit down, man! The joke’s on me.’

  ‘I thought I should warn you,’ Gently said, sitting.

  The AC stared at him again, but now he was grinning. He wagged his head archly at Gently. Gently’s face was still blank.

  ‘So you thought I was having you on! Well, it may have sounded a bit like that. But I’m not, Gently. This is quite serious. We have a murder case with a tiger in it.’

  ‘Who’s the chummie?’ Gently said. ‘The tiger?’

  ‘Please! I told you this was serious. But the tiger may have been used as a murder weapon, which is unique in my experience.’

  The AC leaned elbows on the desk. He believed in himself as a raconteur. The wiping of the glasses, the pose with the elbows, they were all part of his act.

  But he couldn’t talk away the fact that Gently was on leave within forty-eight hours . . .

  ‘You remember what happened at Abbotsham last year? Almost exactly a year today! A tiger got loose on the Friday night and was roaming the streets the next morning.

  ‘It was a real tiger too, not just a scare somebody started. A big male, around ten feet long, which a johnny had imported from Pakistan. It was
a mystery how it got out. The owner was in town that night. When his two hands showed up in the morning they found the cage unbolted and the gate part open.

  ‘The owner hared back to help the police catch it, but they didn’t take it alive. When it popped up in the provision market they had to shoot it, of course.

  ‘As far as they knew it had done no damage, other than wrecking a butcher’s van. The theory was that some bright kid had let it out for a dare.’

  The AC licked his lips.

  ‘Till yesterday,’ he said. ‘Then something interesting turned up in the garden of a bungalow near Abbotsham.’

  Gently tapped the desk with a blunt forefinger.

  ‘There was nothing about this in the papers.’

  ‘Nothing, I agree. But you wait. They’ll be screaming their heads off tomorrow.’

  ‘Meanwhile . . .’

  ‘You listen to me. This is your sort of a case. It’s got everything, and we can’t spoil it by sending down a nonentity.’

  Gently grunted. All right – but flattery wasn’t going to do it either!

  ‘That bungalow had been empty,’ the AC went on, ‘since the night of the tiger. It stands a mile outside the town on the Stowmundham road. First the milkman found nobody was taking in the milk, but the owner of the bungalow was sometimes away, so the milkman just stopped delivering.

  ‘The same thing happened with the paper boy and the other tradesmen – they called for a while, then gave it up as a bad job. But the postman kept calling – there was always the odd circular – and at last he became curious and peeped through the letter box. What he saw was sufficiently striking for him to mention it to a bobby, and the bobby reported it to the CID, and the CID forced the door.

  ‘Guess what they discovered.’

  ‘A summons for the rates,’ Gently said.

  ‘All right – have your fun! They may have found soap-powder coupons too. But they also found the hall wrecked and the walls and floor spattered with blood, and a rug on the floor so impregnated with blood that you could pick it up like a sheet of hardboard. The hallstand and two chairs were smashed and an inner door hung from one hinge. And on door, walls and floor were the scars of claws – huge claws. The marks were a handspan across.

  ‘Now laugh that off if you can.’

  He paused, eyes gleaming, waiting to get his reaction. Most of the TV politicians could have taken points from the AC.

  But Gently didn’t react, he simply stared back, deadpanned.

  ‘The body,’ the AC said, ‘was in the garden.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘So I assumed.’

  ‘It was a man. He was terribly mauled. They think he was aged about fifty.’

  ‘The owner of the bungalow?’

  ‘As far as they know. They dug him out of a flower bed. They sent in his dabs but he doesn’t have form – though oddly enough, we know of him. And right away there’s a motive. His name is Shimpling. He was a blackmailer. He was our witness in the Cheyne-Chevington case – doctor who sold drugs to prostitutes.’

  Gently nodded. ‘That wasn’t a conviction.’

  ‘No, but Cheyne-Chevington was struck off – which you might consider as a motive for setting a tiger on Shimpling. Anyway, Shimpling owned the bungalow. He lived there under his own name. And all the collateral evidence points to him being the man they dug up.

  ‘For example, his personal gear is still in the bungalow – clothes, medical card, a passport. There are two suitcases with his initials and a silver brush set engraved with monograms.

  ‘They seem to have caught him on the hop. Some milk had boiled over in the kitchen. They appear to have searched the bungalow, but nobody knows if they took anything. It could be he was holding incriminating evidence which they daren’t leave behind.

  ‘Two other things, and that’s the picture. First, his car is missing from the garage. Second, witnesses talk of a Mrs Shimpling, though there’s no woman’s gear in the bungalow. But at the time of the Cheyne-Chevington affair Shimpling had a blonde living with him – Shirley Banks, she’s a prostitute. She was also a Crown witness.

  ‘A tiger, a blonde and a body in the garden. What more do you need to get your name in the Sundays?’

  Gently shrugged politely. What more indeed?

  The AC unlatched his glasses again, beamed affectionately at Gently.

  ‘Of course, I know you’re due for leave, and I wouldn’t dream of upsetting it. But you do see, don’t you, that the case calls for a personality. The Press’ll be there in droves, we daren’t send one of the faceless brigade. So I’m asking you, for the sake of the public image, to go down there and open the batting.

  ‘Just two days. After that we can put in a night-watchman – and you can get on with your holiday.

  ‘A fishing trip in Wales, isn’t it?’

  He leaned back, watching Gently, making the glasses swing hypnotically. In his department, he was fond of boasting, it was all done by kindness . . .

  Gently sighed very quietly. ‘So what’s his name?’ he asked.

  ‘Whose name?’

  ‘The animal importer’s.’

  ‘Oh, him. Hugh Groton. He’s a South African. He’s been over here five years. He sells his animals to circuses and private collectors.’

  ‘Did anyone check his alibi?’

  ‘Well, actually, yes,’ the AC said. ‘I was here when the message came, I put Division on checking it.’

  ‘How good was it?’

  ‘Pretty unassailable, I’d say. He’s on the committee of the Safari Club, which has premises in Kingsway. He was up there for a committee meeting and had his bed booked for two nights. The evidence is down in the minute-book. Ten people of substance can swear for him.’

  ‘Then that’s that,’ Gently growled. ‘How much was the tiger worth?’

  ‘How much . . . what has that to do with it?’

  ‘Why, everything,’ Gently said, ‘I’d have thought. With Groton out it can’t be murder – who else could have handled a full-grown tiger? So it must be accident. Perhaps Shimpling pinched the tiger and got himelf eaten for his pains.’

  The AC slowly resumed his glasses.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very ingenious, Gently.’

  ‘I seem to remember tigers are pricey – two or three thousand for a good one.’

  ‘And after Shimpling was eaten,’ the AC said, ‘did he steal his own car and bury himself ? Or did the tiger do that – or maybe the milkman?’

  ‘What’s wrong with Groton having done it?’

  ‘Groton?’

  ‘We have to make sense of the facts. If Groton suspected what had happened, he might have reasons for keeping it dark. At the best it was a bad advert, might have led to his farm being closed. Then Shimpling may have had blackmail evidence which Groton couldn’t leave lying about.

  ‘So Groton visits the bungalow, collects the evidence, buries the remains – and pinches the car, very likely, to offset the loss of the tiger. However you tell it, it’s more credible than that someone set the tiger on Shimpling. If that was the angle, why did they queer it by burying the remains and locking up?’

  ‘Yes,’ the AC said, ‘yes.’

  ‘So it’s accident, not murder. They’ll charge Groton with concealing a death and pinching the car, but that’s the lot.’

  ‘Which, of course, isn’t our department.’

  Gently nodded approval.

  ‘In fact all Abbotsham needs is a little phone talk – just to set them on the right track.’

  ‘I’ll ring them now.’

  ‘Oh no you won’t, Gently.’

  The AC scraped back in his chair. He picked up a silver-handled paperknife and began beating his palm with it.

  ‘I knew I was dealing with a slippery customer, but by heaven, this takes the cake! You must think I’m senile, Gently, trying to give me that load of old codswallop.

  ‘It was a Saturday morning – remember? The morning when tradesmen knock for their money. And did one o
f those tradesmen go screaming to the police with a tale about a half-eaten body in a bungalow?

  ‘They didn’t, and you know why. Because they found the door locked and things tidy! While Mister Hugh Groton was still in London with umpty-ump witnesses to prove it.

  ‘So you’ll just get out of here, Gently, and you’ll get in your car, and you’ll drive to Abbotsham – and you’ll take Inspector Dutt with you, to clear up the mess when you’ve finished.

  ‘Now on your way!’

  The AC stood, slammed the paperknife back on the desk.

  Gently, his face still unregistering, rose more leisuredly.

  ‘Of course, there’s the Blazey case going in . . .’

  ‘Gently,’ the AC said very softly.

  ‘And, as I said, I’m no expert on tigers . . .’

  The AC was silent.

  Gently left.

  Outside in the passage he began to grin and was still grinning when he reached his office. Dutt was sitting with his feet on the desk and a sporting paper in his hand.

  ‘All right,’ Gently said, ‘get on the blower. You won’t be sleeping in Tottenham tonight. Then when you’re through get me the Daily Express. They may have some pictures we need in their morgue.’

  ‘Was it really about a tiger, sir?’ Dutt asked.

  ‘It was really about a tiger,’ Gently said.

  He went to the bookshelf and took down an encyclopaedia.

  Under ‘Tiger’ the entry read: ‘See Cats.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘THAT’S PLACE’

  To the side of a high-hedged country road about twenty cars were pulled up with, standing about them in lounging groups, a number of hands-in-pockets men.

  These were reporters. The appearance of the police car jerked them into motion. They ran to crowd round it, some lugging cameras, and a flashbulb fizzed as Gently got out.

  ‘Chief Superintendent Gently . . . who have you brought with you? Is it a fact that Shimpling was the Cheyne-Chevington witness?’

  ‘He was a blackmailer. May we print that?’

  ‘Have you picked up the Banks woman?’

  ‘Cheyne-Chevington’s vanished from London. Do you know where he is?’

  Already they seemed to know more about it than the police. They shouldered and pushed to get in questions, determined to have some quotes from Gently.