Gently slept badly that night in spite of the blandishments of the sprung mattress with which the management of the St George had furnished him. He couldn’t get the baker out of his mind. The wretched fellow haunted his dreams all night long. Now he would wake up arguing with him, chewing away desperately at some perfectly obvious proposition which Blythely was simply staring out of existence; now the situation appeared in symbols, with Blythely as a towering cliff and Gently’s logic the waves beating helplessly against it.
The baker had got the better of him, that was the whole trouble. For once in a way he had met somebody who was a match for him. He had never got hold of the initiative. It had always lain with Blythely. The baker’s wife had given Gently weapons, but they had glanced aside from her husband’s head. Blythely had told him just as much as he wanted to, no more and no less, and the defeat rankled in a thousand uneasy images.
Because, after all, hadn’t Gently pierced the defences of a score of antagonists more redoubtable than this small-town provincial tradesman? Professionals, some of them had been! — men who had known every twist and pressure of the interrogator’s art.
Yet here he had been checkmated, firmly and unhesitatingly.
The baker was wearing an armour more impregnable than guile.
A clatter of bells penetrated the troubled caverns of his sleep, shattering, insistent, not to be denied. Gently groaned and opened his eyes. The telephone on his bedside table was ringing. A grey, unfriendly light suggested that the hour was unseasonable. He couldn’t quite see whether his watch pointed to five or six.
‘Yes… Chief Inspector Gently?’
In the courtyard below his window somebody was having trouble starting a car.
‘Inspector Griffin here… sorry to wake you up. We think we’ve got a line on one of those two men.’
‘Ames and Roscoe, you mean?’
Gently sat up with a rush.
‘Yes, but he’s dead. The county police have pulled him out of the river a couple of miles upstream. They think he’s Ames and we’re sending our print man. I thought you’d like to get out straight away.’
He could see his watch now. It was seven minutes past five. The car outside was firing jerkily, probably on only three cylinders.
‘What happened… how did he die?’
‘They think he was stabbed.’
‘Send round for me, will you? I’ll be ready in five minutes.’
Automatically he dropped the receiver and began feeling for his clothes. Another one of that fated trio — dead, and making sixes and sevens!
For the moment he couldn’t react to the information, it was so unexpected and cataclysmic. He pulled on his clothes stupidly, entirely forgetting his collar and tie.
Down below he found a sleepy-eyed maid and got from her a strong, sweet cup of tea. The refractory car, an ancient Morris, got going just in time to make an incoming police Wolseley pull up with a squeak of tyres.
Gently was never at his best at that hour in the morning. Now, huddled into his clothes without washing or shaving, he felt somehow out of things, as though he were being dragged along as a spectator.
Griffin, on the other hand, was looking particularly smart and sharp. He had both washed and shaved and his hair was sleek with brilliantine smelling of eau de Cologne. Also, he was wearing a clean shirt. Out in the country, Gently had to make a shirt go a couple of days.
‘I was riding on my beat from Cuffley to Morton, taking in Long Lane and Five Mile Drain.’
The constable who had landed the body was young and hard-eyed. He was obviously enjoying being the centre of attraction.
‘I arrived here at the sluice at three minutes to three a.m., when I was accosted by William Harmer, by profession a drainage maintenance inspector. He informed me as how he was making his customary round when he caught sight of something white down in the water by the sluice-gate. On directing his torch upon this object he came to the conclusion that it was a human body…’
If it was bleak and dismal now, at half past five, what had it been like at three minutes to three o’clock! The rain was spitting on the slow-flowing surface of the wide, muddy stream and darkening the brickwork of the lonely little pump-house.
Across the marshes one could just see Lynton, a gloomy stain against the reluctantly lightening sky. Apart from this nothing broke the monotonous flatness except the river reaches and the improbable straightness of the drain. Drawn to infinity, it exercised a curious fascination on the eye.
But at three minutes to three one wouldn’t have seen much of that
…
‘I approached the sluice-gate and looked where Harmer showed me. Being in no doubt that it was a human body, I requested Harmer to fetch the grapnels which are kept in the pump-house, and with his assistance embarked in the rowing-boat which is moored here.’
It was still moored there, in the relief channel beside the sluice. A weathered double-ender, it could have done with a bail with the chipped enamel saucepan lying in the bows.
‘After several attempts we succeeded in catching hold of its shirt and getting it up into the boat. Leaving Harmer in charge of it, I proceeded to the nearest telephone at Coldharbour Farm and reported the occurrence.’
That was all, in official parlance, but one could easily imagine the rest. It had been raining steadily at three o’clock and the constable was probably wet through. And how long had Harmer had to wait with the corpse at that desolate spot, smoking perhaps, watching eagerly for a light on the lonely fen lane?
Gently glanced towards him with curiosity. A tough, leathery-looking little marshman, he had probably been on these vigils before…
The Lynton police surgeon came out of the pump-house where the corpse had been deposited.
‘He was stabbed all right — a proper amateur’s job. Sixteen stab-wounds scattered about the left side of the back and three ribs fractured. Only about two of the stabs would have done for him directly. Nothing elsewhere and there doesn’t seem to have been a fight.’
‘When was he killed?’
‘Not long ago, taking into account the low temperature of the water. About midnight, I’d say, or a little before.’
‘What about the weapon?’
The police surgeon shrugged.
‘I’ll tell you more about that after I’ve had him on the slab. Guessing roughly, I’d say it was an ordinary sheath knife. The blade would be about an inch in width.’
Gently was asking the questions, but he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he was somehow supernumerary. If only he’d remembered to put on his collar and tie! Of the group on the riverbank he felt nearest akin to Harmer. The marshman, sopping wet in a shapeless old coat of Derby tweed, looked as though he had never been near a collar and tie in his life.
‘We’d better take a look at his clothes.’
They followed him into the pump-house. Inside there was very little room, except that taken up by the machinery. A couple of hurricane lamps, impressed from the farm, were beginning to grow pale in the dull light of day.
The body lay on the floor, a tarpaulin sheet pulled over it. A pile of clothing beside it consisted only of trousers, shirt and underclothes. Gently stirred them up disinterestedly.
‘New — no markings. Was there anything in the pockets?’
One of them was turned inside out, and a frayed edge showed where a maker’s label had been torn away. The shirt was of a popular make which might have been bought anywhere.
‘That ties it in.’
Griffin pointed to the frayed edge.
‘The labels were torn off Taylor’s clothes, too. You can see how it works. This bloke was too big to strangle, so chummy took a knife to him.’
‘And he wasn’t an expert with that, either.’
Nevertheless he had done his job with it, stabbing frantically till his victim collapsed. And then, coolly enough, he had sought to conceal the identity… naively, perhaps, but efficiently as far as it went.
Griffin’s print-merchant got up laboriously from a corner where, by the aid of a powerful torch, he had been making a rough check.
‘It’s him all right…’
Gently, after a glance under the tarpaulin, had never been in doubt. There was no mistaking the ex-pug’s battered features, which sported three separate scars in any case.
But if only they could have got to him six hours sooner!
‘How long has the tide been ebbing?’
He turned to Harmer.
‘Set in near midnight, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘How fast does it run?’
‘’Bout four or five here. Farther up it’s slower.’
‘Anyone got a map?’
Somebody fetched a one-inch Ordnance Survey from the locker of one of the cars and Gently spread it out over a convenient part of the machinery. Griffin handed him a hurricane lamp, though it wasn’t strictly necessary.
‘Ten or twelve miles… less, probably, since it wasn’t floating. This is your district — have you got any ideas about it?’
Griffin examined the map keenly, not to be rushed into a hasty judgment. One idea was as good as another, but Gently felt somehow compelled to defer to the spruce inspector.
‘There’s not much up that way for miles. It’s all fen and grazing marshes till you get to Beetley.’
A glance could tell you that.
‘But there’s the main south road there — that runs close to the river near Apton. And there’s a lane down here to one of the old drainage mills.’
‘Let’s get down there and see if we can find anything.’
It was going to be a wet day. Already the interval of spitting was over and the rain reverting to a steady, measured rhythm. It hissed in the wheels of the Wolseley as it sped along the level highway, rising in sheets where puddles had collected.
Over the low hedges, comfortless in their early green, one saw sodden fields of black fen soil. Now and then, appearing like ships, were great barns or farmhouses in the rusty Northshire brick and pantile, by each a leafing elder or two.
Westward lay the marshes and the river, low, waterlogged, the primeval haunt of every depressing tone of brown, green and grey.
‘It’s got rid of the wind, anyway.’
Griffin wanted to talk — no doubt he’d already got a theory. Gently, sitting hunched over his first pipe of the day, was thinking more in terms of a roadhouse where one might get a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
‘Doesn’t seem as though they got far, does it?’
Somebody had to make that remark!
‘Looks as though they got out of town to give us the slip, and then hung around still trying to get whatever it was…’
‘And now there’s only one left alive.’
‘You think chummy will go after him too?’
Gently grunted.
‘Ask yourself the question! If it was necessary to get rid of two of them, it must be necessary to get rid of the other one. And they couldn’t all be making love to Mrs Blythely in the hayloft.’
Griffin was silent for a few moments after this rebuff. He had an irritating way of looking injured, Gently noticed. Beyond the streaming windows a dyke-wall had risen to conceal the view to the right. Judging from what they had passed already, there was small prospect of the coffee and sandwiches materializing.
‘It must be something in Lynton they were after, though.’
One day, would someone tell Griffin he was commonplace?
‘And it has to be pretty big — what happened to Taylor didn’t shake them off. Chummy meant business, but they were still trying for the jackpot.’
‘Almost looks like a racket again, doesn’t it?’
‘If I didn’t know Lynton…’
‘Look — isn’t that a cafe we’re coming to?’
Griffin must have breakfasted already, because he didn’t join Gently in his hasty snack. Instead, he remained in the back of the car, his eyes fixed on the road along which they ought to have been travelling.
‘If there’s traces of blood — in this rain…’
Gently got back beside him feeling a little more benevolent. The coffee had been freshly ground, and scalding hot at that. As well as two sandwiches he had gobbled down a Chelsea bun.
‘Five minutes won’t matter after all the rain we’ve had.’
‘I was thinking of footprints, too.’
‘The same applies to them.’
It wasn’t much further to the road-section near Apton. In the distance one could see the circular brick tower of the old drainage mill, capless and sailless but firmly lined in the dirty sky.
The lane leading to it was narrow but kept in good repair; though the mill was disused, it probably stood at an important point in the current drainage system.
‘If it had been dry we might have seen car-tracks.’
It wasn’t dry, so what was the point of harping on it? This wasn’t the first time rain had assisted a criminal…
The lane ended indefinitely by a clump of bush alders. Griffin, springing out almost before the car stopped, led the way past them to the riverbank beyond.
It was a spot quite as desolate and depressing as the sluice they had lately visited. The mill-tower, seen close-to, looked paltry and devoid of interest. A gap had been rent in the fabric above the door, apparently with intention, while the interior seemed to have been devoted to purposes unspecified.
‘Fishermen…’
Griffin sniffed but didn’t pursue his researches. The litter of paper about the earthy floor was patently of earlier date than yesterday.
‘Is the fishing good in these parts?’
‘Ask Worsnop there.’
‘We get some good bream, sir,’ put in the constable in question. ‘One of the blokes in my club pulled out a nine-pounder on a number twelve…’
Beside the mill still remained the axle of its paddlewheel, but the wheel itself had long since vanished. The apron of turf stretching to the river was tough and springy. It bore a number of marks, but they were shallow and indefinite. If there had been any blood it would have been washed out several hours ago.
‘Not much to see here.’
Griffin sounded disappointed.
‘I could have sworn it was the spot — it’s the only likely place. Do you think we can be certain about the distance the body travelled?’
Gently plodded down the bank and stood gazing into the muddy water. The tide was beginning to make again, but the level of the water hadn’t sensibly risen. On the other bank a bed of soiled reeds showed that it had some two or three feet to go.
‘He might have thrown the clothes in his car and got rid of them anywhere…’
‘Ames’s clothes, you mean?’
‘Mmn. But Ames had to get here… isn’t it three miles to Apton? There’s just a chance he pinched a bike — what do you think of that?’
Griffin stared at him seriously, trying to follow the logic of it.
‘Suppose chummy brought him here…’
‘It isn’t such a helpful supposition.’
‘But until we find a bike…’
‘There’s one down there in the bed of the river.’
He went back into the car and smoked while Worsnop waded for the abandoned bicycle. The rain had taken another turn for the worse and was beating like rods on the Wolseley’s roof and bonnet. Inside the car smelt dankly of moist leather, while a trickle of water was finding its way through one of the door jambs.
Griffin and Worsnop, reappearing with the bicycle, looked as though they had relinquished all hopes of staying dry.
‘It’s a Raleigh, nearly new — dynohub lighting and everything.’
‘Nobody was going to throw that in the river.’
‘What shall we do — issue a description?’
‘First we’ll take it into Apton and see if anyone’s lost one.’
He was feeling more himself now, wreathed in a cloud of navy cut. That little bit of luck with the bicycle had offset the initial disadvantage of being dragged out of bed… besides, Griffin was in something of a pickle now, himself! He had got all over mud helping to strap the bicycle to the roof rack.
One piece of luck sometimes led to another, and Gently’s seemed to be temporarily in form. At Apton the constable was out on his beat, but his wife, a buxom matron with a lively eye, had just booked the very piece of information they were after.
‘Fred Larkin’s just been round here… somebody pinched his bike from outside the village hall last night.’
‘Did he leave a description?’
‘It’s a green Raleigh roadster, newish, frame number — where’s the book! — PYS7 stroke 2964. Got a lot of extras on it, he says, and he only bought it in January.’
‘Where can we find him?’
‘He works in the garage — but won’t you have a cuppa? I’ve got the pot on for my husband, and you look as though you could stand one.’
In spite of a disapproving Griffin, Gently accepted the invitation. The Apton Constable’s kitchen was a cheerful place and his wife a comfortable body. Not knowing who he was, she at once placed Gently as the one in charge of whatever was afoot.
‘Have you any strangers staying in the village?’
‘There’s the vicar’s nephew, who’s a bit of a lad. Down from Cambridge, he is.’
‘Nobody at the pub?’
‘They sometimes have a commercial.’
‘What buses come to the village?’
‘There’s Service 56, runs between Westwold and Lynton.’
‘What time was the last bus through yesterday?’
‘I’ll have to look it up. It’s going to Lynton and gets in here at something to eleven. Do you reckon it was someone off the bus who whipped Fred Larkin’s bike?’
The village was typical of that part of the county, a short, level street winding between a huddle of quite spacious houses, several with architectural pretensions. In the centre it broadened into a small plain where grew a massive oak tree. Here there was a shop and post office, and around the corner a garage with a solitary petrol pump.
Griffin followed Gently doggedly as he strolled into the latter.
‘Is there a Fred Larkin here?’
A figure in soiled dungarees eased itself from under a pre-war Singer which almost filled the small building.
‘I’m a police officer… I understand you had your bicycle stolen last night.’
He was a young fellow with ginger hair, obviously alarmed by this unnatural incursion of policemen.
‘I… yes — somebody took it.’
‘Would you like to repeat the registration number?’
He was so upset that he had to have two goes at it.
The village hall was a rather ornate structure of red brick and stone, incorporating also the village’s two war memorials. On the noticeboard was still pinned a weird amateur poster advertising in brushwork last night’s ‘Gala Supper Dance’; in a cycle stand beside it three machines had been left.
‘I put it there, three from the end… there was two other blokes with me.’
‘What time was that?’
‘About eight… you see, my girlfriend…’
‘Was that the last time you saw it?’
‘I’m going to tell you — she wasn’t ready! I went up for her, and
… one thing and another… it was getting on for ten, and the bike was here then.’
‘When did you miss it, then?’
‘When I came out. I thought someone had shifted it for a joke. When it wasn’t here this morning, I went to the police.’
‘Where’s the bus stop?’
‘It’s over there by the oak.’
He hung around uncomfortably, probably under the impression that he was going to get his bicycle back. Gently ignored him and went over to the post office. There, in a red frame, were posted the times of the village’s rather infrequent bus service. There was nothing in the evening between 7.10 and 10.42.
‘We’ll want a list of all these villages covered by Service 56 — the ones that use it as well as the ones it goes through. Better phone in to H.Q. and get them on the job. I want the check-up before the evening paper gets around.’
‘You think they were biding out there?’
Even Griffin was beginning to be impressed by the breaks Gently was getting.
‘I think it’s worth a try — and we may be lucky. Though if Roscoe’s got any brains he won’t be waiting for the evening papers.’
‘He might be thinking that Ames-’
‘That’s why I want a quick check-up.’
Again he got back into the car and left Griffin to deal with the donkey work. Now he was almost truculent — damnation, he wasn’t in the Central Office for nothing!
Larkin, still wandering like a ghost, seemed fascinated by the sight of his bicycle strapped to the roof of the car. It wasn’t until Griffin came back from the phone box that he learned that certain formalities must be gone through…
It was still only half past eight when Gently, further postponing his shave, sat down in the breakfast room of the St George. Dutt, who had had a relief, was already embarked on his bacon, egg and kidney.
‘Been a dirty night, sir.’
Gently grunted and poured himself some coffee. A plate of cornflakes was laid at his place, but he felt made of sterner stuff and had them taken away.
‘My man has just been in, sir. He’s got a streaming cold and left a copper watching the mill.’
‘What was Blacker doing last night?’
‘Nothink, sir. Being very quiet, he was.’
‘You know what’s turned up?’
‘Yessir. The copper told my relief. But Blacker was in kip when I handed over, and he never showed his nose again till he went to the mill this morning.’
‘Would he have a back way?’
‘No, sir. I checked it personal.’
‘He’s a lucky man, Dutt.’
‘Yessir — we did him a favour, didn’t we?’
‘Keep on tailing him. He isn’t in the clear yet.’
After breakfast he sat smoking awhile. He had already had a brief interview with Superintendent Press. The Lynton police chief was plaintive almost — this time there couldn’t be much doubt that his crimeless town was tied into the business. That Roscoe was the culprit was his only hope now, and he had tried to sell Gently the idea with the shameless persistence of desperation. Gently, looking owlish, had mumbled unintelligible nothings.
Actually, there had always been two sides to this affair. From the very first it had split neatly into two perplexingly connected sections.
On the one hand, you might say, the rogues, Taylor, Ames, and Roscoe; they seemed to have been playing a game on their own, with nothing to show how it had ever brought them to Lynton.
On the other hand, Lynton, as represented by the mill and bakehouse — defensive, apprehensive, involved, suspect… yet still, in some odd way, quite detached from the other.
That was the heart of the problem and always had been. Sitting in his office, the assistant commissioner had straightway put a finger on it. And Gently, working round it, had done nothing but set the enigma in higher relief.
Griffin alone had been able to suggest a credible bridge between the two factions…
Shaking his head, Gently knocked out his pipe. There was far too much now that wanted explaining! Money came into it, apparently a great deal of money; and it was Lynton money, that was pretty well established.
And now two of them had gone, leaving only Roscoe.
What would the fellow do… faced by two such examples?