It had been too fine.
The peerless sky which had filled the beaches yesterday had vanished overnight literally in a clap of thunder and its place was filled by low, yellow-grey cloud which drizzled warmly, as though somewhere that wonderful sun was still trying to filter its way through. Perhaps it was wise of nature. There had been havoc enough wrought by one fine Sunday. In the damp streets plastic-caped holidaymakers went about with a wonderful solicitude for their fiery backs and arms…
Now it was the cafes that came into their own. The innumerable little boxes clustered cheek by jowl all the way down Duke Street, empty and forlorn while the sun reigned, filled up now to the last tubular steel chair. After all, it wasn’t an unpleasant rain… one expected it some time during the holiday. And there were worse things to be done than drinking one’s coffee, smoking, writing cards and going through the newspapers…
Not that it was front-page today, their own especial murder. The super had kindly released the news of the arrest of Jeff and Bonce and the discovery of the grey suit, but in the face of fierce competition from a Cabinet re-shuffle it hadn’t made the grade. It had slipped to page five. Strangely unanimous, the editors of the dailies had each come to the conclusion that the Body on the Beach wasn’t going to get anywhere, and they were quietly preparing to forget the whole thing.
Like a certain superintendent, thought Gently, resting his elbows on the low wall bounding the promenade… though of course, the man had his reasons.
He hitched up his fawn raincoat and produced his pipe. He couldn’t help it… this sort of weather always made him moody. To wake up and find it raining induced in him a vein of pessimism, both with himself and with society. He just wanted to turn over and go to sleep again and forget all about them…
Well… if it would rain!
He lit the sizzling pipe, tossed the match on to the sand below and turned abruptly away from the melancholy sea.
Opposite him, across the carriage-way, loomed the garish tiled front of the Marina Cinema. A spare, florid-faced man with a wrinkled brow and a shock of tow hair was polishing the chrome handles of the swing-doors. Gently went across to him.
‘You’re at it early this morning…’
The man paused to throw him a sharp look and then went on with his polishing. ‘It’s got to be done some time, mate.’
‘The sea air can’t do them a lot of good.’
‘Telling me! It plays the bloody hell with them.’
He rubbed away till he came to the top of the handle, Gently watching patiently the while. At last he straightened out and gave his cloth a shaking.
‘What are you — a cop, mate?’ he asked briefly.
Gently nodded sadly. ‘Only I was hoping it didn’t show quite so much…’
‘Huh! I can always smell a cop a mile away.’
‘I shouldn’t have stood to windward, should I?’
The tow-haired man took a reef in his cloth and advanced to the next door-handle. ‘What do you want here, anyway?’
‘The usual thing. Some information.’
‘And suppose I haven’t got any?’
‘Suppose,’ said Gently smoothly, ‘suppose you be a smart little ex-con and keep a civil tongue when you talk to a policeman?’
‘An ex-con…! What creeping nark told you that?’
Gently smiled at a diagonal frame filled with Lollobrigida. ‘You aren’t the only one with a developed sense of smell…’
But he didn’t get any information from the man. He didn’t, or wouldn’t, remember anything about people taking taxis on Tuesday night last. Yes, he would have been in the vestibule just before the last house turned out, but he was probably chatting to the cashier or one of the girls… no, there wasn’t anybody else on late turn that night… no, he didn’t know Frenchy or anyone like her… going straight he was, and he defied anyone to prove different.
Gently left him to his handles and plodded on down the Front, pessimism confirmed in his soul.
‘The Feathers’ was open, but it seemed rather a waste of electricity on such a customless morning. Its arrow was darting away with customary vigour, albeit it fizzed a little in the rain, but there were few enough strollers to be pricked into the temporary refuge of the arcade: its music drooled hollowly down empty aisles. Gently went up the steps and through the doors. Not a soul was about except the attendant, who was sweeping the floor at the far end. Through the doors of the bar, which were stood open with two chairs, could be seen a figure similarly engaged and a ‘closed’ notice hung rakishly on a chair-back. Obviously, they weren’t expecting a rush of business.
He turned to the nearest machine and dropped a penny in the slot. It was one of the pre-war ‘Stock Exchange’ type and a pull on the handle yielded a brisk no-dividends. Gently tried again. He’d got quite a pocket-full of coppers. Absently he yanked the lever and watched the colourful passage of Rubber, Textiles, Railways and Gold… it seemed hard that such a well furnished wheel should come up no-dividends twice in a row. But it did. It was clever. It sorted out a solitary white from a whole rainbow of coloured, and stuck to it with an obstinate firmness.
A gigantic hand ornamented with a solitaire diamond suddenly covered the handle and its guard.
‘You haven’t got the knack, Inspector,’ purred Louey’s voice behind him, ‘let an old professional show you how to beat the book!’
Gently stood back without replying and Louey pressed a coin into the slot. Then he caressed the handle with an even, almost casual pressure and the wheel drifted lazily round to a Gold segment. A second coin brought coppers cascading down the shoot.
‘You see, Inspector?’ Louey’s gold tooth shone its message of innocent goodwill. ‘It is a matter of skill, after all…’
Gently shrugged and repossessed himself of his twopence. ‘It needs a safe-breaker’s touch… the way one tickles a combination lock.’
Louey’s smile broadened. ‘Some of the kids learn how to play them, though it costs them a few weeks’ pocket-money. But I don’t mind that
… there are fifty who never learn for every one who does.’
‘Sounds like an expensive accomplishment to me.’
‘We have to risk our stakes, Inspector, when we’re out to win something.’
Louey picked up the rest of the coins from the shoot and paid them back into the machine, one by one. They flicked up no-dividends as surely as a till flicking up no-sales.
‘Skill,’ purred Louey, ‘you can’t really call it gambling, Inspector.’
Gently quizzed the huge man’s sack-like raincoat and corduroy cap. ‘You were just going out?’
‘My morning constitutional,’ nodded Louey, ‘I always take it, summer and winter.’
‘Mind if I come too?’
‘Delighted, Inspector! I was hoping for the opportunity of another little chat.’
He ushered Gently out, holding the door obsequiously for him. They crossed the carriage-way and turned southwards along the almost deserted Front. The rain, from being a drizzle, had now become quite steady and gusts of sea-breeze made it cut across their faces as they walked. Louey snuffed the air and looked up at the sky.
‘It’s set in for the day… I shall be a richer man by tomorrow night, Inspector. You remember my pussy? I expect you thought he’d got his lines crossed yesterday, but he never makes a mistake. I suppose we shan’t have the pleasure of your company at the races tomorrow?’
Gently grunted. ‘I follow my business… wherever it takes me.’
‘Ah yes… and I see by the papers that you’re making great strides. Well, well! Those two youngsters in their ridiculous suits! It must be a lesson to me to keep a tighter check on the customers in the bar…’
Gently flipped the sodden brim of his trilby. ‘I still prefer your first theory, the one about a political organization.’
‘You do?’ Louey seemed pleasantly surprised. ‘I thought you must have forgotten that, Inspector… my amateur summing-up of the case! But these new facts explode it, I’m afraid. There wouldn’t seem to be much connection between Teddy boys and politics.’
‘There isn’t,’ grunted Gently.
‘Then surely we must give up my theory…?’
‘We could if the Teddy boys killed Stratilesceul, but as it is they only pinched his suitcase.’
Three strides went by in silence. ‘Stratilesceul?’ echoed Louey, ‘is that the name of the murdered man?’
‘The man who skipped the Ortory at Hull and was chased down here by Streifer.’
‘Streifer…?’ This time Gently lost count of the number of strides. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector… a lot of this hasn’t appeared in the papers, or if it has, I’ve missed it. Was it from Hull that this unfortunate man came?’
‘It was.’
‘And he was chased by someone?’
‘By Streifer. Olaf Streifer. A member of the Maulik, the TSK secret police. It was just like in your theory, Louey… the execution of a traitor by an organization he had betrayed.’
The big man shook his head with an air of bewilderment. ‘You must excuse me if I seem a little dense… I’m not so familiar with the business as yourself, Inspector. Am I to take it that the case is closed and that you have arrested this… Streifer?’
Gently didn’t seem to have heard. He was poking in his pocket for a peppermint cream.
Louey gave a little laugh. ‘I was saying, Inspector… has this Streifer been arrested?’
The peppermint cream was found and Gently nibbled it with deaf composure… it might have been the rain which was making him so hard of hearing. Louey shook his head again as though realizing that it was necessary to humour a Yard man. After all, he seemed to be saying, it was a privilege thus to be taken into the great man’s confidence at all…
They strode on towards South Shore. The rain kept driving in from the sea. There were warm sheets of it now, really wetting, and Gently’s experienced brogues were beginning to squelch. Even Louey was constrained to do up his top button, though it meant veiling the glories of a pearl tie-pin stuck in a grey silk tie but there weren’t many people to see it in any case.
‘Of course, it was Streifer we saw coming out of your office on Friday night,’ grunted Gently at last, the peppermint cream being fairly disposed of.
‘I thought we had disposed of that point, Inspector.’ Louey sounded justifiably piqued. ‘But it was Streifer all right, and it was your office all right.’
‘Well, if you say so… but I can’t imagine what he was doing there. Naturally we had a little check after you’d told us about it, but as far as we were able to discover nothing had been stolen or disturbed.’ Louey turned his huge head towards Gently. ‘Do you want my opinion, Inspector?’
Gently shrugged, hunched down in a leaky collar.
‘My opinion is that if it was Streifer and if it was my office, he must have ducked in there to avoid running into your man. Doesn’t that sound a reasonable explanation?’
‘Very reasonable… and why did he duck out again?’
‘Obviously he would have heard Peachey coming back.’
‘Why wasn’t he worried by the risk of meeting Peachey when he ducked in?’
‘Oh, come now, Inspector, I can’t work out the minute details for you…!’
‘And how did he know the door was unlocked in the first place?’
‘One must use one’s imagination. Perhaps he took cover in the doorway, and then tried the handle…’
‘Why, in fact, would he take cover at all? On Friday night he wasn’t known to us, and neither was my man known to him.’
Louey chuckled softly. ‘There you are, Inspector! My naive amateur deductions don’t hold water for a moment, do they? I’m afraid it’s as big a mystery as ever… I would never have made a policeman.’
‘One other thing,’ added Gently evenly, ‘how did you come to know that it was my man who saw Streifer leave your office?’
Louey’s chuckle continued. ‘How else could you have known about it? You admit that Streifer meant nothing to you on Friday night, so you could hardly have been making inquiries after him, Inspector…’
They had passed by the Wellesley, its wrought-iron fantasia washed and gleaming, and were approaching the weirdly incongruous skyline of the Pleasure Beach. High over all reared the Scenic Railway, a miniature Bass Rock fashioned out of painted canvas and paper mache, and under it, like a brood of Easter chicks under a hen, the gay-painted turrets and roofs of side shows, booths and the other mechanical entertainments. Harsh strains of music through the rain suggested that the Pleasure Beachers, like lesser mortals, were assuming a custom though they had it not.
Louey gestured comfortably towards the gateway. ‘Rivals of mine… but they don’t have a licence! Shall we stroll through?’
Gently nodded drippingly. ‘I want to see the place. It’s where Streifer dropped the man who was tailing him on Friday.’
‘Which shows he knew his job, Inspector. Isn’t this where you would come to shake off a tail?’
‘I can’t say I’ve had much experience…’
They passed under the flaunting portal with its electric jewellery. The close-packed attractions within wore a rueful look, unsupported by the crowds. Larger and more expensive pieces were frankly at a standstill — the Caterpillar had postponed its gallop, the Glee Cars their jaunting — while the smaller roundabouts and rides were operating at a profit margin which was doubtful. Booth attendants stood about in each other’s stalls. They were drinking tea and staring around them morosely. The owner of the Ghost Train, for want of something to do, was riding round in his own contraption, but all its promised thrills seemed unable to raise the siege of boredom which had invested his countenance.
‘Of course there’s Frenchy,’ brooded Gently, obstinately undiverted by all these diversions.
‘Frenchy?’ echoed Louey indifferently, ‘is she mixed up with the business too? She took a hint the other night, Inspector. She hasn’t been near the bar since then.’
‘Stratilesceul was a client of hers… she went off to the North Shore with him in a taxi just before he was murdered.’
‘Ah, that accounts for a rumour I heard that she had been arrested.’
‘You heard such a rumour?’
‘We’re for ever hearing them in our business.’
‘Undoubtedly… you are very well placed.’
Gently halted to inspect the front of a sideshow. It was an exhibition of methods of execution through the centuries and was advertised by some particularly lurid illustrations. He seemed to be strangely fascinated.
‘And she will have given you some useful information?’ suggested Louey, moving on a step impatiently.
‘She knows a good deal… she’ll be a devastating witness.’
‘There would be some danger in it for her.’
‘Danger? With police protection?’
Louey turned his back on the sideshow and busied himself with lighting a cigarette. ‘If this murder was the work of an organization — and you don’t seem to be in any doubt about it now — then there would be a very real danger for anyone bearing material witness. Men can be hanged, Inspector, but organizations cannot. And my feeling is that a person of Frenchy’s kidney wouldn’t risk too much for pure love of our excellent police force.’
Gently stooped to get a closer view of a gentleman who had been given too long a drop, with the usual top-secret result. ‘You know Frenchy well?’ he asked carelessly.
‘I? Not apart from running her out of my bar on several occasions.’
‘Dulton… Dulsome Street is where she lives.’
‘Dulford Street, Inspector.’
‘That’s right. You’ve been there?’
‘Not visiting Frenchy, if that’s what you mean.’
‘You’re sure of that? Not in the last day or two?’
‘Quite positive, Inspector. My tastes have never been that way inclined.’
Gently straightened up slowly. ‘Odd,’ he said, frowning.
‘What’s odd about that?’
‘These two cigarette ends.’ Gently felt in his pocket and produced a crumpled envelope. ‘There… you see? Your blend of Russian. I found them in an ashtray in Frenchy’s bedroom yesterday afternoon.’
Louey poked at them with a gigantic finger and nodded heavily. ‘You’re right, Inspector… it is my blend.’
‘I was sure of it… I was feeling positive you’d been there.’
The grey eyes rested on his firmly, the flecked pupil seeming curiously larger than its neighbour. ‘Isn’t it a shame, Inspector,’ purred Louey, ‘I thought my cigarettes were exclusive. And now, in the commission of your duty, you’ve proved that someone else in Starmouth smokes them too… at least, I take it, it was in the commission of your duty?’
Gently shrugged and shoved the envelope back into his pocket.
The Scenic Railway had its shutters up, though someone was tinkering with one of the trolleys. It wasn’t quite so impressive on a nearer view. Its cliffs and crags were so palpably props, its tunnels and bridges so contrived. And the rain made it look sorrier still, a great, hollow, sodden mockery. Gently took refuge in a peppermint cream as they squelched past it. If only he’d thought to bring a more reliable pair of shoes…!
‘I suppose I don’t have to ask you to account for your movements last Tuesday night?’ he growled, as they got out on to the promenade again.
‘But of course!’ Louey chuckled, as though he welcomed the inquiry. ‘I was having a little party in the back… Peachey, Artie, Tizer and some more of the boys. You ask them, Inspector. They’ll all remember my party on Tuesday night.’
‘I’m sure they will. And of course it went on till late?’
‘Not terribly late. I cleared them out at two.’
‘Just late enough, in fact.’
‘Well… it was late enough for me.’
‘And that would be your story — supposing you had to have a story?’
‘Certainly, Inspector. Why should I tell any other?’
‘There’s no knowing what Frenchy may say.’
‘She’s a woman without character.’
‘Or Streifer, for example.’
‘Streifer?’ Louey hung on to the word, as though expecting an explanation.
‘And then there’s your car,’ continued Gently, ignoring him. ‘Was that borrowed or something on the Tuesday night?’
‘My car…?’ This time the inquiring tone had an edge of anxiety.
‘You lent it to someone — and they went up to North Shore?’
‘I don’t understand, Inspector. My car would have been in its lock-up in Botolph Street.’
‘Even though it was seen somewhere else?’
‘That would hardly be possible…’
‘Then you didn’t lend it to anyone?’
‘No. It was never out of the garage.’
‘So the people who saw it at North Shore would be liars?’
‘They were certainly under a misapprehension…’
Gently flicked briskly at his over-worked trilby. ‘You’ll have got rid of the ring, of course… that was too much of a coincidence.’
The big features relaxed and there was a glimpse of gold. ‘If you don’t mind me saying it, Inspector, I think we had better consider that ring to have been an illusion.’
‘I’m not subject to illusions, Louey.’
‘But just once, perhaps, in a long career?’
‘Not even once, and certainly not prophetically. I didn’t know the TSK or its secret sign existed when I saw your ring, but I knew where I’d seen it before when it turned up a second time.’
‘A trick of the memory, perhaps.’
‘The police aren’t much subject to them.’
‘Well, shall we say rather dubious evidence?’
In a court of law it would be for the jury to decide.’
Louey laughed his low, caressing laugh. ‘How we talk, Inspector… how we do. But I like these examples of your official approach to a problem. It’s comforting to feel that the guardians of our law and order work so efficiently and so intelligently. As I said on a former occasion, I could only wish you had more promising material to deal with in the present instance.’
‘I’ll make do,’ grunted Gently, ‘it doesn’t seem to be running out on me at the moment.’
Louey shook his head with a sort of playful sympathy. ‘I respect your attitude… it’s the attitude one would expect and look for in such a man as yourself. But honestly, Inspector, when one takes stock of the situation… for instance, this Streifer. What can you do about him? You can connect him with the murdered man in a dozen ways, you can show he was the most likely one to have done it — but what’s all that worth when you haven’t got a scrap of proof that he did it? I don’t have to remind you of our careful court procedure. In some countries Streifer would be executed out-of-hand on a tenth of the evidence… and perhaps you’ll allow, without too much injustice. But here you have to convince your jury. Here you are obliged to go to fanatical lengths to show proof and double proof. And you don’t seem to have it, Inspector. You are faced with a planned execution, the details of which have been efficiently erased. I’ve no doubt that a jury would convict Streifer of something — there must be several lesser charges you could bring — but as a betting man, Inspector, I’m willing to give you ten to one they never convict him of murdering Stratilesceul.’
Louey took a farewell puff at his cigarette and seemed about to toss it away. Then he changed his mind and with a gilded smile handed it to Gently.
‘Another one for your collection!’
Gently nodded and extinguished it carefully.
‘The previous remarks,’ continued Louey, watching him, ‘supposing you have in fact arrested Streifer…?’
Gently tucked away the sodden end without replying. Louey nodded as though that were sufficient answer.
‘And I don’t think you will, Inspector… I don’t really think you will. If he was, as you say, a member of the… what was it? A secret police? I imagine he will know his way out of a country… don’t you? Especially with the assistance we must assume he will get from his organization over here.’
Gently stuck his hands in his pockets and plodded on. He seemed completely immersed in something taking place over the pale sea-horizon.
‘It’s wrong of me,’ mused Louey, ‘I shouldn’t say it… but I can’t help feeling a little sympathy for the man.’
‘Sympathy? For a cold-blooded murderer?’
‘Not a murderer, Inspector… an executioner, I think you must call him.’
‘Stratilesceul’s hands were tied — do you sympathize with that?’
‘You’re forgetting, Inspector, we also tie a man’s hands for execution. If killing is the order, one may as well kill efficiently.’
‘But we don’t torture, Louey. Stratilesceul was burned with cigarettes.’
‘Our torture is mental, Inspector… it lasts longer, and it isn’t done for useful ends, such as eliciting information. No… I’m sorry. You must permit me to feel some sympathy for Streifer. He did what he did in the service of an ideal, rightly or wrongly… you really mustn’t equate him with even the common hangman.’
Gently’s shoulders hunched ever higher. ‘He was paid, wasn’t he… just like the common hangman?’
‘Naturally, a labourer is worthy of his hire. But the pay wasn’t his motive, you know. It wouldn’t be an adequate incentive to such risk and responsibility. Your hangman is a mere assassin… you hand him his thirty pieces of silver and say Murder; we have bound your victim. And he murders, Inspector. He has your full protection. His crime is written up to humanity and he departs to spend the blood-money. Is this the way of the man you want to hang? Is this the way of any of the men you hang?’
‘At least we kill only the killers…’
‘Is that better than killing for an ideal?’
‘It is an ideal — to protect people on their lawful occasions.’
‘If only it protected them, Inspector… if only it did! But your ideal is a pathetic fallacy, I’m afraid. Of course it’s wrong to say this… I understand your position. Your duty is to catch a criminal and judgment is elsewhere. But I want you to understand me when I say I feel a little sympathy with Streifer… we can talk together, Inspector. You are a man of intelligence.’
They had come to the end of the town, a straggle of houses on one hand, wasteground and the beach on the other. Louey paused as they came abreast with a decaying pill-box.
‘This is as far as I go, fair weather or foul.’
Gently nodded woodenly and gave his trilby a further flick. Then he turned to face the two grey eyes which rested on him confidently, almost affectionately.
‘I’m glad you made the point…’ The eyes were interrogative. ‘… about my duty. It is to catch the criminal.’
Louey’s enormous head tilted backwards and forwards almost imperceptibly.
‘And since I’m in betting company, Louey, I’ll take you at the odds. Wasn’t it ten to one you quoted?’
‘At ten to one… and Louey always pays.’
‘I’ll have a pound on. You can open my account.’
The grey eyes flashed and the big man burst into laughter.
‘You’re on, Inspector… the first policeman I ever had on my books!’
Gently quizzed him expressionlessly from the depths of his comfortless collar. ‘Let’s hope you’re lucky,’ he said, ‘let’s hope I’m not the last.’
The lonely phone-box had a tilt in it, due to the subsidence of its sandy foundation. But it was dry inside and Gently took time off to light his pipe before getting down to business. He gave headquarters’ number.
‘Get me Inspector Copping.’
Copping arrived in fairly prompt switchboard time.
‘Gently here… are we still entertaining Frenchy?’
‘Entertaining’s the word!’ came Copping’s disgusted voice. ‘She’s been yelling her head off since they brought her back… says she wants a lawyer and that we’re holding her under false pretences.’
Gently grinned in a cloud of pipe-smoke. ‘She’s got her bail… what more does she want?’
‘The cash, apparently… you seem to have pinched her at the end of the month.’
‘Well… keep her nice and cosy. Has anything else come in?’
‘Not a darned thing.’
‘Have the lab made anything of that paper?’
‘They say it’s manufactured in Bristol and used for packing mattresses. I’ve got a man going round the stores trying to match it.’
‘No prints worth having?’
‘Nothing anybody’s heard of.’
‘You haven’t traced that taxi?’
‘Not so’s you’d notice it.’
Gently clicked his tongue. ‘It’s a wet Monday all right, isn’t it? Is Dutt anywhere handy?’
‘He’s hanging about waiting for someone to bail Frenchy.’
‘I want him for a job… one of your own men will have to watch our Frenchy.’
The phone at the other end was laid down and Gently whiled away the odd moments watching two raindrops making tracks down the ebony panel in the back of the box. Then Dutt’s chirpy accents saluted him from the receiver.
‘Yessir? You was wanting me?’
‘Yes, Dutt… I want you to do a little scouting in your old pitch in Botolph Street. There’s a lock-up garage there where Louey keeps his car. You might find out if anyone noticed the car being used on Tuesday night…’
‘Yessir. I think I knows the very garage you’re talking about.’
‘Stout fellow, Dutt. And don’t forget your mac.’
‘No, sir! Don’t you worry!’
Gently eyed the rain-swept vista outside his box with a jaundiced stare. ‘And while we’re at it, Dutt, get them to send a car to pick me up at South Shore… I’ve had all the constitutional my constitution will stand for one wet day!’