The Gimmel Flask

by Douglas Clark

  “A verbal photograph. It’s uncanny. She was an apprentice hairdresser. She could sometimes be seen going on some errand on the market hill, wearing a white overall which she tightened in at the waist with a black belt. She almost shouldered her way through crowds, looking at nobody, as aloof as only somebody with an arrogant spirit and a consciousness of her own physical power could be. Unfortunately her face is the sort that, once it had lost its early youth, coarsened into what I would call a bad tempered heaviness which has the remnants of form one would expect to find more in a man who has run-to-seed than in a woman.”

  “And is it your opinion that Lamont is now no longer attracted to her?”

  “I imagine that might have happened whatever his success or failure in business. But Lamont over the past few years has made a deal of easy money. Now, I can’t answer for his attitude, but appearances would suggest that his wife believes in the old tag ‘easy come, easy go’. Or, if I am doing her an injustice there, then I think she is compensating for what she didn’t have in youth. She has her own big car. They have a big house and a cruiser on the river, and they live in a style to match. Need I go on?”

  “I think not. Her expensive tastes may well mean that Lamont is feeling a financial draught. But could it not be that her overcompensation in over-spending may be due to her disappointment at her husband’s attitude? If he no longer cares, or is running other women . . .?”

  “I had considered that, but I have no knowledge of other women in his life.”

  “Rumour, perhaps?”

  “Faint. But I have no details.”

  “Would it surprise you to learn that when Mrs Horbium heard Lamont mention gimmel flasks, he was in the company of Joanna Wellerby? He was apparently spending the evening at her cottage.”

  There was a short silence. Masters broke it.

  “You haven’t answered my question, Mr Benson.”

  “And you, being the man you are, will be drawing conclusions from my silence?”

  “You must agree that silence in response to a bombshell denotes either shock or a strong desire not to comment because the explosion lays bare some knowledge the hearer had previously covered.”

  “In this case,” said Benson quietly, “it is both. The thought of a woman like Joanna Wellerby consorting with Lamont is distasteful. Unaesthetic. Lamont is greasy. Literally, I believe.”

  “I don’t know the man, but Green has described him to me in far from complimentary terms.”

  “I’m sure he has. Your colleague has a pungent turn of phrase.”

  “So I can assume that this association caused the shock part of the reaction. What about the other?”

  “Joanna Wellerby was brought up in Limpid, as I was. Of course I am nearly twenty years older than she is, but she was known to us because of her well publicised ability as a pianist even in her teens. By then I was married, and when we came home on leave, my wife and I usually returned here to stay with my parents. So my wife got to know people here. She got to know the young Joanna. My wife’s name for her was ‘the fast young lady’.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “The more discerning of our womenfolk have an instinct about their sisters. I trusted my wife’s wisdom. What she intended to convey by those words was her belief that sooner or later, because of her uninhibited attitude towards men, young Joanna would cause disaster or discord of some sort. She was good-looking, talented, spoilt and possessed of a power over males which, from the age of sixteen, she exercised up to, and beyond, the point of discretion.”

  “Go on.”

  “She married Wellerby, whom I do not know and have never met.”

  “From whom she is now separated.”

  “I hadn’t seen Joanna for so long that when I caught a glimpse of her two months ago, in Mrs Horbium’s company, I could not recall her identity, though the face was familiar. A day or so later, before I could remember who she was, I was told her name and given the information that she and her husband were separated. My wife’s predictions came back so strongly to me over the years, that I asked an acquaintance of mine in London, who does know Wellerby, what the circumstances were under which they had parted.”

  “You got to know?”

  “My information is that it was Wellerby who left Joanna. Reports are said to have reached him, concerning Joanna’s behaviour on her foreign tours, that would have caused any man to leave any woman. As it was, I understand, Wellerby stuck it longer than most could have managed. Finally, after some sort of trouble in Belgium, he threw in his hand. He left her. She came down here.”

  “Surely a strange place for a woman of her supposed reputation to bury herself.”

  “Not if she needed to play for time for some reason or to drop out while something died down.”

  “You may be right. Meanwhile she is contenting herself with Lamont. Her choice of man shocked you, but not the fact that she is still playing the part of the fast young lady?”

  Benson nodded. “It is amazing how a conversation should get round to topics which are often totally unconnected with your investigation.”

  “Conversations always veer off the main subject. Now, I think we should eat. There’s more conversation to come, and I’m anxious to hear it.”

  *

  “The dish of the day,” said Green, “is liver pudding. Can anybody please enlighten me as to what liver pudding is?” He looked up from the menu at Frimley, who shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t think there’s much mystery,” said Benson. “It is an excellent dish. Substitute liver cut very small for the steak and kidney in a pudding, and you have the answer. The chef here does know what he’s doing, gentlemen. He uses onions and, I suspect, strips of bacon. If you are seeking a recommendation, I am prepared to supply it...”

  “In that case,” said Masters, “I’ll have the pudding.”

  The others followed his lead. The waiter brought the trolley round. The puddings had been cooked in stone jam jars which were perfectly cylindrical with no narrowing at the neck. When he saw them, Green exclaimed: “I’ll say the chef knows his stuff! My old mother always steamed puddings in jam jars like that. We used to get them with plum jam in. Three pounders. You could use those jars for anything. Wonderful. Bag blue in one, scraps of soap in another, pickled onions in a dozen of them, red cabbage . . . the list was endless. Stone jars! They’re antiques today, aren’t they, Mr Benson?”

  “There is a certain vogue for them, and the old pop bottles with a glass ball in the neck, flat irons . . . all the things that were everyday items when we were young, Mr Green.”

  Green accepted half of a complete pudding. The other three had one between them. For a time there was silence as they ate. Benson’s eyes were twinkling as he looked around. The others, in turn, nodded approbation as they felt his eye on them and looked up.

  “You know what,” said Green, “I can’t think why I’ve never come across this before. Succulent. I like offal.”

  Masters looked across at Benson. “Now, sir. You have something to tell us, I believe.”

  Benson laid down his knife and fork.

  “I went out this morning to emulate you. Investigating. I am, you see, very interested in the buildings in Limpid. My family has lived hereabouts for generations and I’m fond of the place. Too fond of it to want to see wholesale destruction to make way for modern nightmare buildings. In the last six months there has been a move in the local council to have one side of the market hill demolished to make way for supermarkets and multi-storey car parks. You know the sort of thing—entirely characterless and duplicated in every urban centre in the country.”

  “Hang on a moment,” interrupted Frimley. “I’ve heard something about this. Benson! Of course. You’re the one who started a petition against demolition and got over three thousand signatures.”

  “That’s right. Specifically to help Theraby, the man who keeps the outfitter’s on the hill. One of those good, old fashioned shops that stocks all the lit
tle things like studs and braces and buttons and reach-me-down trousers. The sort of merchandise a modern shop would never think of stocking. He was told to expect a compulsory purchase order.”

  “Has he got it yet?” asked Green.

  “No. Frederick Hardy was a councillor. He fought it.”

  “That’s something in his favour.”

  “One might think so. His office is just above Theraby’s shop and although he had not received any hint that it would be taken, he made no secret of the fact that he was fighting the development plan in his own interests, lest the plan should be expanded to include his office.”

  “That was fairly open dealing at any rate.”

  “I think not.”

  “Ah!” Masters leant forward. “Hanky panky?”

  “I believe so.”

  “You’ve got a very good reason for saying that?”

  “I spent this morning asking questions.”

  “Go on.”

  “Hardy was a natural to be appointed to the planning committee, because of his business interests. He was a professional among amateurs—except for one other councillor. Stephen Yorkwall is a builder in a biggish way.”

  “I know him,” said Frimley. “Never had any dealings with him. But from what I hear he wouldn’t like to be called a builder. He’s managing director of a construction company.”

  “I’m pleased you mentioned that. I shall return to the point later. But for the moment, may I just say that one of my acquaintances in Limpid is the town clerk. Augustus Frane, besides being a solicitor, is an amateur historian and the author of a very pleasantly written history of Limpid. His interests and mine converge when any local find is made, as sometimes happens. So this morning, for the first time in our friendship, I presumed to call on him in his office. I had a ready-made excuse to broach the subject of the market hill development scheme, because as you have heard, I made it my business to organise the petition opposing it.”

  “Frane, being an historian, would be against it himself, I suppose,” murmured Masters.

  “Oh, quite. But as a servant of the council he obviously had to remain neutral, and he was very correct. But when two old friends meet . . . well, to cut the story short, I asked him point blank who had first put forward the idea of the market hill development.”

  “I take it that this time he was not quite so neutral or correct as formerly?” asked Masters.

  “Shall we say he left me in no doubt that Yorkwall was the instigator. Frane said that Yorkwall had delineated his scheme with great exactitude and laughingly gave the reason for doing so. It was, he stated, so that his old colleague Hardy wouldn’t feel the draught.”

  “By that I take it he meant he proposed that the area involved should not include Hardy’s office, but start just below it and extend some way down the hill,” said Masters.

  “Quite. But had he included Hardy’s office building he might have been more successful in steering his plan through the committee.”

  “How come?” asked Green.

  “Because, as the scheme did not involve Hardy’s office, it meant that Hardy was free to argue against it. Had he been involved, he would have been an interested party and, as such, would not have been allowed to speak and vote without declaring his interest—if at all—which would almost certainly have robbed his protest of its sting.”

  “And Hardy was instrumental in getting the scheme scrapped?”

  “That is common knowledge. It is said he went all out against it because he feared he would suffer eventually.”

  “It is said? You don’t think that is true?”

  “I think Yorkwall is too wily a bird not to have nobbled Hardy by including his office, had he, Yorkwall, really wanted his scheme to succeed.”

  “Are you saying that the whole affair was a charade played out by Hardy and Yorkwall in collusion, to fool local opinion and fellow councillors?”

  “I believe so.”

  “What causes you to believe so, Mr Benson?”

  The waiter arrived to take orders for second courses. It gave Benson a moment or two in which to marshall his thoughts. He seemed to need them. Masters got the impression that Benson was basically, at this moment, an angry man. A fair-minded man angered by knowledge of foul play and prepared to make use of the opportunity their presence offered him to help put matters to rights. Who for? For Limpid? For his friends like Theraby the shopkeeper?

  As if reading Masters’ thoughts, Benson said: “I have, as you know, a number of friends in trade and business on the market hill. They are people whom I pass the time of day with most days. Among them is a mutual friend of Frane and myself. My bank manager. His bank, the East Anglian, is cheek by jowl with the little shops on the hill, and stands not far above the Corn Exchange. Whilst we were talking, Frane, who must really be suffering from a sense of divided loyalties over this business, suggested that I should have a word with Kettle—the bank manager. Kettle is a quiet little man. But a thinker! He plays chess well, and he has a sense of humour. He has, in his time, contributed to Punch. The burden of his humour is usually bureaucracy and government. He is out of sympathy with both.”

  “Did Frane suggest why you should talk to Kettle?”

  “No. And I pride myself I was wise enough not to ask him. I guessed he was going to let Kettle be his mouthpiece—knowing Kettle’s antipathy for many of the unsavoury dealings of today, I know Frane felt sure that Kettle would speak out.”

  “Kettle gave you something that made you think?”

  Benson nodded and waited until his sweet had been set in front of him before continuing.

  “As Mr Frimley will know, quite recently there has been a merger between our two local eastern counties banks—supposedly in the interests of economy. I knew this before I called on Kettle. It is common knowledge and has been reported in the press. Branches of both banks—the East Anglian and the British Woollen—are to be found in every sizeable town south of Lincoln and east of the Trent. But what I did not know, before Kettle told me, was that in each town one or other of the branches is to go, and in Limpid it is Kettle’s East Anglian that is being disposed of.”

  “When I asked to see him and Kettle very kindly received me, I told him Frane had suggested I should speak to him about the possibility of buildings on that side of the hill being demolished. Knowing of my active interest in the matter, Kettle rather let his hair down. I said that I found the disposal of the bank an amazing thing. After all, there would still be as much business to transact as ever—probably more if the merger produced the increased business that was expected. Kettle was very bitter about it. Not only is the number of banks to be halved, but the number of managers, too—for obvious reasons. The banks that remain open are to have their staffs slightly increased by members of the staffs from the banks that are being closed down.”

  “So your pal, Kettle, is redundant, is he?” asked Green.

  Benson nodded. “At fifty-five. A difficult age for such a man to find employment. He was despondent when I arrived.”

  “As well as bitter?” asked Green.

  “When you arrived? Had he cheered up by the time you left him?” asked Frimley.

  “Considerably. I was able to give him an introduction to an acquaintance of mine with a small firm who feels the need for an executive to deal with tax matters. He wants either a civil servant from the Treasury or a bank official. Kettle should suit him admirably.”

  “As a result of your introduction,” said Masters, “did Mr Kettle grow a little indiscreet?”

  “He told me that his bank building is to be sold and is already under offer to. . . .”

  “To whom?”

  I was told in the greatest confidence—and I hope this will remain confidential—that a property company called Goodwerry were hoping to buy.

  “Never heard the name,” said Green.

  “Neither had I until that moment. And then, like Mrs Horbium and her gimmel flask, I heard it again very shortly afterwards.”
<
br />   “Go on.”

  “I dropped in on my friends the Racines. In response to a few questions from me I discovered that six weeks ago they had learned that their camera shop, which they rent, had been acquired from its former owner by a property company called Goodwerry.”

  “The devil, it was.”

  “I called on Theraby, too. He, I know, owns his own property as his father owned it before him, so there could be no question of Goodwerry having bought the freehold unbeknown to him. But Goodwerry had been active.”

  Masters said: “I believe I can guess the form their activity took. They approached Theraby with the assurance that though the move to purchase his property compulsorily had failed this time, the plan would not be dropped. Sooner, rather than later, the business will come up again, and next time it will not fail. They pointed out that these days the individual never wins against authority in the long run. They hinted that Theraby had a year, perhaps two, before he is closed down.”

  Benson smiled. “Your guess is remarkably accurate. What was the object of their approach, do you suppose?”

  “To point out that all property under the threat of compulsory purchase is virtually worthless. Particularly a business. Not only would nobody buy it, but the goodwill would be demolished with the building. All Theraby could hope to get for such a poor old building would be a meagre recompense decided by those who only wanted it to destroy it. But Goodwerry were prepared to help him. They would pay him a fair price for the property as a gamble which he, as a man in a small way of business, could not afford to take. In other words, they tried to persuade him to sell.”

  “Quite right.”

  “Has Theraby agreed to sell?”

  “He is seriously considering the offer.”

  “Was that the end of your investigation?”

  “Not quite. Bessie at the dairy tells me she has a new landlord, too.”

  “Goodwerry?”

  “Goodwerry.”

  “What do you make of it all, Mr Benson?”