Sunday sun falling steadily on the platinum beaches, on the lazy combers, on the strangely subdued streets. On the well-spaced, comely mansions of High Town. On the quaint, huddled rookeries of the Grids. On the highly-polished bonnet of a police Wolseley as it halted on the crisp gravel of Christopher Wylie’s retired drive. On the more sober bonnet of PC Atkins as he knocked on the door of No. 17 Kittle Witches Grid.
‘I knew he won’t come to no good, that kid of Baines’s,’ said a frowsy matron to the newspaperman as they watched a goggle-eyed Bonce being marched away. ‘I said so as soon as I saw him in that fancy get-up of his. Did you ever see such frights as they look? And then for him to be mixing with that young Wylie… I said it would be his ruination.’
‘Going about the town at all hours and taking up with all sorts,’ said the cook at Wylie’s, relinquishing her vantage-point at the larder window, ‘they should’ve let me had the handling of Master Jeff — I’d have let him mix with riff-raff like the Baineses, I would!’
‘I dunno,’ returned the kitchen-maid dreamily, ‘I rather liked him in that silly suit of his.’
The cook snorted. ‘Well, you can see where it’s got him now, my girl!’
In the ill-lit parlour of No. 17 John George Baines, dock labourer, sat in his shirt-sleeves staring sullenly at the News of the World. His wife, a bold-faced woman, was slapping together the breakfast plates at a table covered with oil-cloth and two juvenile Baineses were scuffling and screaming on the floor.
‘It wouldn’t have happened,’ snapped Mrs Baines for the twentieth time, ‘it wouldn’t have happened, not if you’d kept a proper hand on him…!’
‘Oh, shut your mouth, woman… it’s your fault if it’s anyone’s.’
‘You’ve never give him a good hiding in your life!’
‘And who was it encouraged him with that bloody suit — trying to be up to His Nibs…?’
More silent was the breakfast-room in High Town. No sound fell upon the ears of Christopher Wylie, except the sobbing of his wife Cora. He stood with his back to her, staring out of the expensive oriel window, staring at his cypress and monkey-puzzle trees, his impeccable gravel drive.
‘I’ll get on to the chief constable,’ he muttered at last, ‘we’ll get it straightened out, Cora… there can’t be anything in it.’
‘Oh, Chris… I’m so frightened… so frightened!’
‘It’s all a mistake… we’ll get it straightened out. The lad’s due for his service in October…’
Up the long High Street marched PC Atkins, the Sunday-silent High Street with its newspaper-men, milkmen and a few early-stirring visitors in holiday attire. Beside him slouched Bonce, looking neither to right nor left. Behind him frisked Nits, a chattering, excited Nits. Halfway along the High Street PC Atkins paused to address the ragged idiot. ‘You run along home, m’lad, and stop making a nuisance of yourself… off with you now, off with you!’ Nits backed away apprehensively while the constable’s eyes were on him, but as soon as the march recommenced he was dancing along in the rear again…
The sunshine had renewed Gently’s feeling of nostalgia. They had all been sunny days, on that holiday of long ago. He remembered getting sunburned and his nose peeling, and the peculiarly pungent lotion they had put on his arms to stop them blistering (though of course they did blister), and, by association the suave smell of the oiled-paper sunshades which had been fashionable about then.
‘We had rooms somewhere about where we’ve got them now,’ he confided to a bleary-eyed Dutt as they set out for headquarters. ‘They used to do you awfully well in those days… I can remember having chops at breakfast.’
‘Don’t know as I should think so much of that, sir,’ admitted Dutt honestly.
‘Nonsense! You’ve been having these degenerate meals of bacon-and-egg too long.’
‘I should think a chop sits a bit heavy on your stomach first thing, sir.’
‘It’s true I was only a boy, Dutt… all the same, I think I could still face one.’ He plodded along silently for a space, a little frown gathered on his brow. ‘We seemed to be younger in those days, Dutt…’
‘Younger, sir?’ inquired Dutt in surprise.
‘Yes, Dutt… younger.’
‘Well, sir, I s’pose we was — in those days!’
But there was no smile on the face of his superior as they turned up the steps at headquarters.
The landlord of the Southend Smack was waiting patiently in the office which the super had assigned to Gently, and Copping, who had got to bed earlier than most, and was consequently his old spry self, officiously performed the introduction.
‘You think you can remember the youth who changed the note?’ inquired Gently dryly.
‘Ho yes, sir — don’t you worry about that!’ replied the landlord, a red-faced beery individual called Biggers.
‘You’ve seen him before, then?’
‘Ah, I have — once or twice.’
‘You know his name?’
‘No. No, sir. But he’s been in the bar once or twice, I can tell you that.’
‘It didn’t occur to you that he might be a little young to be served in a bar?’
‘W’no, sir… I mean… there you are!’ Biggers faltered uneasily, beginning to catch on that he wasn’t Gently’s blue-eyed boy. ‘He looked old enough, sir… couldn’t be far off. You can’t ask all of them to pull out their birth-certificates.’
‘Was he on his own?’
‘Ho yes, sir!’
‘Does he always come into your bar on his own?’
‘Y-yes, sir, as far as I remember.’
‘How do you mean, as far as you remember?’
‘Well, sir… I wouldn’t like to swear he never had no one with him.’
‘A woman, perhaps.’
‘No, sir — no women!’
‘Another youngster dressed like himself?’
‘Yes, sir, that’s it!’
‘Dressed exactly like himself?’
‘Yes, sir, exactly!’
‘And younger — about a year?’
‘Yes, sir… I mean…!’ Biggers trailed away, realizing the trap into which he had been unceremoniously precipitated. Gently eyed him with contempt.
‘This hundred-dollar bill… didn’t it seem odd to you that a young fellow should have one in his possession?’
‘Oh, I dunno, sir… what with the Yanks about and all…’
‘And how should he have acquired it from an American?’
‘Well, sir, they’re master men for playing dice.’
‘You thought he’d won it gambling?’
‘I never really thought… that’s the truth!’
‘Good,’ retorted Gently freezingly, ‘I’m glad it’s the truth, Biggers. The truth is what we are primarily interested in… let’s try sticking to it, shall we? How much did you give him for it?’
‘I… I give him its value.’
‘How much?’
‘Why, all it was worth to me…’
‘How much?’
Biggers halted sulkily. ‘I give him a tenner… now turn round and tell me it wasn’t enough, when it was a dud note in the first place!’
Gently turned his back on the sweating publican. ‘Is the parade lined up?’ he asked Copping.
‘They’re in the yard — just give me a moment.’
It was a scrupulously fair parade. Copping had wanted to impress Gently by his handling of it, and after witnessing the momentary appearance of the mailed hand lurking beneath the chief inspector’s velvet glove he was glad that he had so wanted. There was something almost deceitful about Gently, he thought…
Biggers took his time in going down the line, as though wishing to display his helpful care and attention. He paused before several law-abiding youths before making his final selection. He also paused before Bonce, whose wild-eyed guilt proclaimed itself to high heaven, but the pause was a brief one and might even have been involuntary… Having done his conscientious best, he carried his findings to Gently.
‘That’s him… fifth from the far end… kid in the brown suit.’
Gently nodded briefly. ‘And this one… the carroty-headed boy?’
‘No, sir. Don’t know him. Never seen him before!’
‘Positive?’
‘Ho yes, sir… I never forgets a face.’
The same mailed hand which Copping had so judiciously observed fell lightly on Bigger’s arm and the astonished publican found himself whirled a matter of three yards in a direction not of his choosing.
‘Now see here, Biggers, you’ve come forward voluntarily and given us some useful information, but there’s not much doubt that you’re sailing a bit too close to the wind. From now on there’ll be an eye on you, so watch your step. Don’t change any more money, American or otherwise, and if any of your customers looks a day under fifty — ask for his birth certificate. Is that clear?’
‘Y-yes, sir!’
‘Quite clear?’
Biggers gulped assent.
‘Then get away out of here… we’ve finished with you — for the moment!’
A blue-bottle buzzed in a sunny pane of the office window, a casual, preoccupied buzzing which focussed and concentrated in itself a vision of all fine Sundays from time immemorial. Copping lifted the bottom of the window and let it out. It fizzed skywards in a fine frenzy of indignant release, wavered, scented a canteen dustbin and toppled down again from the height of its Homeric disdain. Copping left the window half-open.
‘One at a time?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Shove the Baines boy into a room by himself where he can do a little quiet thinking.’
Copping nodded and went out. Gently seated himself in awful state behind the bleak steel desk with its virgin blotter, jotting-pad and desk-set. He slid open a drawer. It contained a well-thumbed copy of Moriarty’s Police Law and some paper-clips. The drawer on the other side contained nothing but ink-stains and punch confetti.
‘I wonder who the super turfed out to make room for us?’ he mused to Dutt.
Copping returned, prodding Jeff before him. The Teddy boy looked a good deal less exotic in his quieter lounge-suit, but there was still plenty of swagger about him. He stared round him with a sullen defiance, his thin-lipped mouth set tight and trapped.
‘Sit down,’ said Gently, indicating a chair placed in front but a little to the side of the desk. Jeff sat as though he were conferring a favour. Copping took the chair on the other side and Dutt hovered respectfully in the background.
‘Your full name and address?’
‘You know that already-’
‘Answer the inspector!’ snapped Copping.
Jeff glared at him and clenched his hands. ‘Jeffery Wylie, Manor House, High Town.’
‘Your full name, please.’
‘Jeffery… Algernon.’
Gently wrote it down on his jotter.
‘Now, Wylie… you had better understand that you are here on a very serious matter, perhaps more serious than you at first supposed. You have been identified as possessing and uttering counterfeit United States currency — wait a minute!’ he exclaimed, as Jeff tried to interrupt, ‘You’ll have plenty of opportunity to have your say — you’ve been identified as handling this money and we happen to know the source from which it emanated. Now what I have to say to you is this: you may be able to explain satisfactorily how you came to be in possession of that note, in which case there will be no charge made against you. But you are not obliged to give an explanation and you are not advised to if you think it may implicate you in a graver charge. At the same time, if you take the latter course I shall automatically charge you and you will be held in custody on that charge while further investigations are made. Is the situation quite plain to you?’
Jeff shuffled his feet. ‘I can see you’re out to get me, one way or the other…’
‘We’re not out to “get” anyone, Wylie, if they happen to be innocent. I’m simply warning you of where you stand. And I’d like to add to that some advice if you help us you’ll be helping yourself. But it’s up to you entirely. Nobody here is going to use third-degree methods.’
The Teddy boy sniffed derisively and stuck his hands into his pockets. ‘I know how you get people to say what you want… I’ve heard what goes on.’
‘Then you’d better forget what you’ve heard and consider your own position.’
‘A fat lot of good that’ll do me…’
‘It’ll do you more good than trying to be clever with policemen.’
‘You say yourself I don’t have to tell you anything.’
There was a silence during which Copping, to judge from his expression, was meditating a modified use of the third-degree methods which Gently had disowned.
‘It’s only his word against mine…’ began Jeff at last.
Gently cocked an eyebrow. ‘Whose word?’
‘His — the pub-keeper’s.’
‘And who told you he was a publican?’
Jeff flushed. ‘Isn’t that what he looked like?’
‘He may have looked like a publican or he may have looked like a barman. What made you think he was one and not the other?’
‘I just said the first thing that came into my head, that’s what I did!’
Gently nodded a mandarin nod but said nothing.
‘He could have been wrong,’ continued Jeff, encouraged, ‘he might’ve just picked on me because he couldn’t remember and thought you’d jump on him if he didn’t find someone. He can’t prove it was me.’
‘I dare say other people were present…’
‘There were only two of them and-’ Jeff stopped abruptly, glowering.
‘And they were busy playing dominoes or something?’ suggested Gently helpfully.
Jeff dug deeper into his pockets. ‘I won’t say any more — you’re trying to trap me, that’s what it is! You’re trying to get me to say things I don’t mean…!’
‘Suppose,’ said Gently, beginning to draw pencil-strokes on his pad, ‘suppose we go back to the beginning and try a different tack?’
‘There isn’t any tack to try — it wasn’t me and nobody can prove it was.’
‘Then you didn’t change a dollar bill…’
‘I never had a hundred-dollar bill in my life.’ Gently’s pencil paused. ‘What size bill?’
Jeff bit his lip and was silent.
‘He doesn’t even know how to lie…’ observed Copping disgustedly.
Gently finished off his stroke-pattern with aggravating deliberation. Then he felt in his pocket for the spare photograph and regarded it indifferently for a few moments. Finally he leaned across the desk and shoved it at Jeff.
‘Here… take a look at this.’
Jeff unpocketed a hand to take it, but Gently was being so clumsy that he knocked it out of the Teddy boy’s hand and on to the floor. Sullenly Jeff reached down and scrabbled under his chair for it.
‘Was he the man who gave you the note?’
‘I told you I never had one.’
‘Have you ever seen this man before?’
‘I saw his picture on the screen at the Marina, only it didn’t have a beard.’
‘But you’ve never seen the man?’
‘No.’
Gently retrieved the photograph carefully from fingers that trembled and beckoned to Dutt.
‘Take this along to the print department and see if they’ve got an enlargement, Dutt…’
‘Print department, sir?’ queried Dutt in surprise.
Gently nodded meaningly. ‘And check it with the original, Dutt… it might bring out some interesting points.’
‘Yessir. I get you, sir.’ Dutt took the photograph gingerly by the extreme margins and went out with it. Gently picked up his pencil again and began laying out a fresh stroke-pattern. Through the open window could be heard, faint and far-off, Copping’s blue-bottle or one of its mates improving the shining hour round the canteen dustbin, while more distantly sounded the hum of excursion traffic coming up the High Street. A perfect day for anything but police business…
‘You see, Wylie… I’ll come to the point. The note you are alleged to have had in your possession was one introduced into this country by the man on the photograph. That man, as you are aware, was murdered.’
‘I never knew him — it’s nothing to do with me!’
‘If it’s nothing to do with you then it would be a good idea to tell the truth about the note.’
‘But I never had any note — it’s all a lie… I keep telling you.’
Gently shook his head remorselessly. ‘All you’ve told me to date has convinced me of the reverse. Besides, the man who identified you gave a pretty damning description when he handed in the note. That suit of yours is rather distinctive, you know. I don’t suppose anybody else in Starmouth wears one excepting Baines… and I shall be questioning him in due course.’
‘He’s seen me before, he could have made it up.’
‘He’s seen you before? I thought he wasn’t supposed to be known to you?’
‘He could have seen me before…’
‘And made up the whole story about a complete stranger?’ Gently hatched a few of the lines in his pattern.
Copping snorted impatiently. ‘You’re lying… it’s too obvious. We know what you got for the note and when we picked you two up this morning you each had five-pound notes on you. What was that — a coincidence?’
‘I get pocket-money!’ Jeff exclaimed, ‘my father isn’t a labourer.’
‘No, but Baines’s father is. Where did he get five pounds?’
‘He works — he’s got a job!’
‘That’s right — thirty bob a week as an errand boy and pays his mother a pound of it. Do you think we’re fools?’
Jeff’s breath came fast. ‘I tip him a pound now and again…’
‘And he saves it up?’
‘How should I know what he does with it?’
‘If you don’t, nobody else does. What were you doing at ten to ten last night?’
‘I… I was on the Front.’
‘Alone?’
‘I…’
‘Answer me!’ snapped Copping, ‘you don’t have to think if you’re telling the truth. Baines was with you, wasn’t he?’
‘No! I mean…!’
‘Yes! Of course he was. Why bother to lie? And you were skint, weren’t you? You’d got rid of your precious pocket money and Baines’s ten bob with it. All you’d got left was an American note — a note you’d begged, borrowed, stolen and perhaps murdered for-’
‘No!’
‘-and that was all there was between you and a bleak weekend. So you picked out a quiet-looking pub — one where you knew there wouldn’t be many witnesses to the transaction — and slipped in and flogged the note to the publican. He wasn’t offering much, was he? Less than a third of what it was worth! But you couldn’t stop and argue — it might draw attention — they might ask questions you hadn’t got the answers for-’
‘It’s a lie!’ screamed Jeff, as white as a sheet, ‘you’re making it all up — it’s all a lie!’
‘Then you can prove you were somewhere else?’
‘I was never near that pub!’
‘Then what pub were you near?’
‘I wasn’t near any pub at all!’
‘Is the only pub on the Front the one you weren’t near?’
‘I don’t know… I didn’t notice… I didn’t go into a pub anywhere last night!’
Gently clicked his tongue. ‘It’s a pity about that… it might have helped you to establish an alibi that doesn’t otherwise seem to be forthcoming.’
Copping repeated his snort and seemed, with flaming eyes, about to continue his verbal assault upon the shaking Teddy boy: but at that moment Dutt re-entered.
‘Ah!’ murmured Gently, ‘did you make a comparison, Dutt?’
‘Yessir.’ The sergeant’s eye strayed to Jeff. ‘Very like, sir, at a rough check. Sergeant Dack thinks so too, sir. He’s going over them proper now.’
Gently nodded and stroked off a square. ‘Bring in Baines, Dutt… oh, and just a minute…’
‘Yessir?’
‘Take him along to the prints department first, will you?’
Dutt withdrew and Copping looked questioningly at Gently. But Gently was busy with his patterns again.
‘Y-you can’t go on anything Baines says,’ muttered Jeff tremblingly.
‘Oh? And why can’t we?’ barked the ferocious Copping.
‘He’ll say anything… you can make him say what you like.’
‘If we can make him tell the truth it’ll be the first time we’ve heard it this morning, my lad. I should button my lip, if I were you.’
Jeff licked dry lips and took the advice. There wasn’t an ounce of swagger left in him. He sat sagging back in his chair, his feet at an awkward angle, his hands digging ever deeper into his pockets. Copping got up and went over to the window. The fine weather outside seemed to anger him. He studied it tigerishly for a moment, sniffed at the balmy sea air, then turned to eye the Teddy boy from between half-closed lids.
‘A nice day for a picnic,’ suggested Gently cautioningly.
‘I was going round the links… if I’d got away early enough.’
Gently shrugged. ‘Something always turns up… it’s the bright day that brings forth the adder.’
But Copping sniffed and would not be comforted.
Bonce was brought in, as wild-eyed as ever, and scrubbing recently-inked fingers on the seat of his cheap trousers. Jeff pulled himself together a little at the sight of his henchman, as though conscious of a sudden that he was cutting a poor figure. Gently glanced at Dutt, who shook his head.
‘Not this one, sir. Nothing like.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ asked Gently in surprise.
‘Positive, sir.’
‘Well… they’re not supposed to lie! Sit down, Baines. You can wash your hands later on.’
Bonce sat down automatically in the chair indicated to him. He had an air of bereftness, as though he had lost all will of his own. His mouth was hanging a little open and his face had a boiled look. His eyes resolutely refused to focus on anything more distant than the blunt tip of his freckled nose.
Gently pondered this woebegone figure without expression.
‘Robert Henry Baines of seventeen Kittle Witches Grid?’
Bonce nodded twice as though the question had operated a spring.
Gently cautioned him at some length, though it seemed doubtful if what he was saying penetrated very clearly into Bonce’s shocked and bewildered mind.
‘I’m going to ask you one question, Baines, and it’s entirely up to you whether you answer it or not. You understand me?’
The spring was operated again. Gently paused with his pencil at one corner of his pad.
‘I want you to tell me, Baines… if you assisted Wylie when, on the night of Tuesday last, he entered a rear bedroom of 52 Blantyre Road and removed from there a suitcase containing United States treasury notes.’
‘Don’t tell him, Bonce!’ screamed Jeff, leaping to his feet, ‘don’t tell him, you bloody little fool!’
‘Silence!’ thundered Gently in a voice that made even Dutt wince, ‘get back in your chair, Wylie!’
‘But it’s a lie… he’ll say anything…!’
‘Get back in your chair!’
Copping sent the Teddy boy sprawling into his seat again and held him there struggling and panting.
‘Now, Baines… have you anything to answer?’
Bonce gaped and gurgled in his throat, his eyes rolling pitiably. Then the spring clicked and his head began to nod. ‘I went with him… it’s true… I kept watch in the alley…’
‘You fool — oh, you bloody little fool!’ sobbed Jeff, ‘don’t you understand it’s murder they’re after us for — don’t you understand it’s murder?’
There was a ripping sound as Gently’s pencil crossed from one corner of the pad to the other.
The charge was made: burglary on the night of the eleventh. Jeff was in tears as he gave his statement. Of the two of them, it was Bonce who showed the better front. Having shed the intolerable load of conscious guilt he seemed to stiffen up and gain some sort of control of himself, while Jeff, on the other hand, went more and more to pieces. It was from Bonce that Gently received the more coherent picture.
They had been in ‘The Feathers’ late on the Tuesday evening when the prostitute Frenchy entered. She was well known to them — Jeff claimed to have slept with her and Bonce wasn’t sure that Jeff hadn’t — and she approached them with the information that a man-friend of hers had left in his bedroom a suitcase containing something of considerable value.
‘Was she in the habit of divulging such information?’ queried Gently.
Jeff stoutly denied it, but Bonce admitted one or two instances.
‘And were you accustomed to act on it?’
Bonce hung his head. ‘Once we did…’
Frenchy had struck a quick bargain. They would go halves in whatever the loot realized. She gave them the address, explained the situation of the bedroom and guaranteed to keep the man busy for another hour or two at least. When she left they followed her at a discreet distance and saw her meet a man resembling the one in the photograph. He had exchanged a few words with her and then signalled a taxi. The taxi had departed in the direction of the North Shore.
‘Where did the taxi pick them up?’ asked Gently.
‘It was just outside the Marina.’
‘What would have been the time?’
Bonce glanced at Jeff. ‘About ten, I should think.’
‘Would you know the taxi again?’
‘N-no, sir, there wan’t nothin’ special about it.’
‘From which direction did it come?’
‘From the Pleasure Beach way, sir.’
The owner of the suitcase having been seen on his way, they hastened round to Blantyre Road and identified No. 52. Then they approached it by the back alley and while Bonce kept watch outside, Jeff broke into the rear bedroom.
‘Weren’t you taking a bit of a risk?’ inquired Gently of Jeff. ‘The lodger may have been out, but it’s pretty certain the landlady wasn’t.’
‘We could see them down below,’ sniffed Jeff, ‘they were watching the telly.’
‘The television couldn’t have had much longer to go by the time you got there.’
‘It’s the truth, I tell you!’
‘All right, all right — just answer my questions! It may have been running late on Tuesday. How long did it take you to do the job?’
‘Ten minutes… quarter of an hour, perhaps.’
‘No longer than that?’ Gently glanced at Bonce.
‘That’s about it, sir.’
‘But you had to hunt around for it?’
‘Why should I?’ sniffed Jeff, ‘I knew what I was looking for… a blue suitcase with chromium locks. It was standing with the other one near the wardrobe.’
‘Did you look in the other one?’
‘No… I never touched it.’
‘Didn’t you go through the drawers or anything of that sort?’
‘I tell you I didn’t touch anything! I just got what I came for and went. Ask him if I aren’t telling the truth.’
Bonce corroborate his leader’s statement — he had returned with the blue suitcase and nothing else. They had carried it off to a quiet spot in Blantyre Gardens, forced the locks and discovered the astounding contents. Immediately there was a change of plans. Jeff decided they would tell Frenchy that they had been unable to find the suitcase — a proposition she wasn’t situated to contradict — while in reality they would keep it hidden until the hue and cry had died down and then dispose of it by slow and cautious degrees. This they did, and for some reason Frenchy accepted their story without much fuss. When the murder became news and they recognized the pictures which were issued as being of Frenchy’s man-friend, they had an additional incentive for keeping the stolen notes under cover. Unfortunately, their patience was soon exhausted. A financial crisis at the end of the week had slackened their caution. Surely, they had thought, there could be no harm in cashing just one of that inexhaustible pile of notes… just one, to see them comfortably through the weekend…
Gently sighed at the end of the recital. ‘And the rest of them, where are they now?’
Bonce swallowed and glanced again at Jeff. ‘They’re under the pier.’
‘Which pier is that?’
‘Albion Pier… there’s a hole between two girders.’
‘You’d better show me… Dutt!’
‘Yessir?’
‘Tell them to bring a car round, will you?’ He returned to Bonce. ‘That evening… in the bar at “The Feathers”… were all the usual crowd there?’
Bonce twisted his snub nose perplexedly. ‘I–I suppose so, sir.’
‘Was Artie serving at the bar?’
‘Oh yes, sir.’
‘That fellow who wears loud checks and lives on whisky?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Louey?’
‘N-no, sir… you don’t often see him in the bar.’
‘Peachey?’
‘I think he looked in while we were talking to Frenchy…’
There was the sound of a car swinging out of the yard and Copping rose to his feet. He looked at Gently questioningly and motioned to the two youths with his head. ‘Cuffs on them… just to keep on the safe side?’
Gently smiled amongst the nebulae. ‘Let’s be devils this morning, shall we? Let’s take a risk!’
Exceeding Sunday-white lay the Albion Pier under mid-morning sun. Its two square towers, each capped with gold, notched firmly into an azure sky and its peak-roofed pavilion, home of Poppa Pickle’s Pierrots, notched equally firmly into a green-and-amethyst sea. Its gates were closed. They were not to open till half past two. The brightly dressed strollers, each infected in some degree by the prevailing Sundayness, were constrained to the languid buying of ice-cream, the indifferent booking of seats or the bored contemplation of Poppa Pickle’s Pierrots’ pics. They didn’t complain. They knew it was their lot. Being English, one was never at a loss for a moral attitude.
Even the arrival of a police car with three obvious plain-clothes men and two obvious wrong-doers didn’t seriously upset the moral atmosphere, though it may have intensified it a little.
‘Which end?’ inquired Gently, shepherding his flock down the steps to the beach.
‘This end… up here where the pier nearly touches the sand.’
They marched laboriously through soft dry sand, the cynosure for an increasing number of eyes. Dutt led the way, the Teddy boys followed, and Copping and Gently brought up the rear. Under the pier they went, where the sand was cold and grey. A forest of dank and rusty piles enclosed them in an echoing twilight.
‘Up there,’ snuffled Jeff, indicating a girder which nearly met the sand, ‘there’s another one joins it behind… it’s in the gap between them.’
‘Get it out,’ ordered Gently to Dutt.
The gallant sergeant went down on his stomach and squirmed vigorously till he was under the girder. Then he turned on his back and began feeling in the remote obscurity beyond. He seemed to be prying there for an unconscionable length of time.
‘Have you found the hole?’ asked Gently, his voice echoing marinely amongst the piles.
‘Yessir,’ came muffledly from Dutt, ‘hole’s there, sir… it’s what’s in it I aren’t sure about… couldn’t get hold of me legs and pull me out, sir?’
Copping went to the rescue and a grimy Dutt renewed acquaintance with the light of day. In his arms he bore a bundle, also grimy. ‘This is all there was, sir… ain’t no trace of any suitcase.’
‘Open it!’ snapped Gently.
Copping broke the string and unwrapped the paper. There lay revealed a crumpled grey suit, a pair of two-colour shoes, shirt, socks, underclothes, suspenders and a blue bow tie.
‘Sakes alive!’ exclaimed Copping. ‘Look at this label — Klingelschwitz — it’s the same as in the boyo’s suit!’
‘And look at this shirt,’ added Gently grimly, ‘four nicely grouped stab-holes… same as in the boyo’s thorax.’
A sugary thump made them all turn sharply. It was Jeff going out cold on a sand that was even colder.