Fiery red sun had broken through slated sky, touching the teatime streets with rosiness. There was no warmth in the phenomenon. It made the east wind feel colder than ever. Like an inflamed and warning eye the sun peered down the comfortless streets, threatening to bring storm and wrack in its wake.
People were hurrying homeward, dour and silent as they had been all day. Along with the streets and buildings they seemed driven into themselves; nothing merged, nothing harmonized, everything was separate and alien to everything else.
Lynton…
‘Just a coffee, please, waitress!’
Was it different in the summer? Perhaps… when the sun burned down! Or was it always like this, always at loggerheads with itself — was that the peculiar essence of the town?
‘Do you belong to Lynton, miss?’
‘Me? No, I come from outside.’
‘Like it here, do you?’
‘It’s a bit slow, sometimes.’
‘Ever think of moving?’
She hadn’t, not really; but her young man was wanting to get a job in Cambridge…
Dutt had arrived, riding a massive constable’s bike. He had parked it by the mill gate, in everybody’s way, and was now leaning beside it and gazing absorbedly at the mill.
In the office, Pershore was haranguing his tenant. Gently had left him at it ten minutes ago. Miss Playford, feeling revived, had been sent home early, after resisting Fuller’s offer to drive her in his car.
All the same, she’d been quite thrilled by his fuss when bringing her round.
Gently swallowed his coffee quickly, seeing Blythely enter the shop. The last card in his hand — and this one had to be played according to Hoyle!
They were checking up the till, he and his wife. The bread and rolls had all gone from the trays, the glass shelves in the windows carried little but soiled doyleys. Expert in everything appertaining to his trade, the baker could estimate his day’s work to a few teacakes…
Gently put down a coin and took his hat. As he was crossing the street Mrs Blythely had advanced to drop the latch on the shop door.
‘Just a minute — I want to come in!’
Her eyes met his through the glass, startled. Blythely, saying something, came over behind her, and with a pettish shrug she opened the door.
‘Actually, we’re closed, Inspector-’
The pettishness of the shrug found an echo in her voice. The shop, though empty, still smelled of cakes and pastries, while the air continued warm from the bakehouse round the corner.
‘You can see what we’ve got left — there’ll be nothing else till tomorrow.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not here as a customer, Mrs Blythely.’
‘Isn’t it a bit late today? We’re going to the pictures!’
‘My regrets. I won’t keep you longer than necessary.’
Blythely, out of his working togs, certainly seemed uncomfortably dressy. He was wearing a thick black suit of provincial cut, and a gold Albert peeped out of his waistcoat pocket.
‘Like she says — it’s a bit late. Can’t you keep it for the morning?’
His glossy collar must have been purgatory to him.
‘We don’t often get out, and the wife looks forward to it — and what’s more, you had all I can give you this morning.’
Gently shouldered the door closed and dropped the latch. What was it that made this uncouth man so impressive? A yokel, he looked, a country-town yokel, and yet — if Lynton really wanted a mayor…
‘Shall we go upstairs?’
‘What’s wrong with the shop?’
‘It’s a little public, perhaps.’
‘I’ve no business that can’t be…’
‘Possibly Mrs Blythely…’
The same applies to her.’
Gently shrugged and found a bentwood chair for himself, reversing it in his customary manner. Mrs Blythely, sulky-faced, took possession of another, but her husband continued to stand under the fuse-boxes by the door.
‘Now, about Thursday night…’
It was useless watching Blythely’s expression. He only had one, and that was carved on his face as it might have been on oak.
‘Some information has reached me which affects your statement.’
The eyes alone were changeable, but you only caught them in occasional, wary flashes.
‘But first I want to ask you something which may seem a little personal… by the way, do you wear that watch-chain all the time?’
‘Hmp!’ Blythely grunted. ‘I do — it was my father’s.’
‘Do you mind if I see it?’
Reluctantly the baker hooked his watch out of his pocket. The chain was a long one and opulently doubled. Besides the gold half-hunter there depended from it two seals and what appeared to be a masonic charm; they slowly revolved as Blythely held them suspended.
‘Isn’t there something missing from it?’
‘Missing? What should be missing?’
‘You take your religion seriously, Mr Blythely. Some people would carry a token of it.’
The quick eyes fell on him a moment, thrusting, exploring. Then they returned to the watch with its little garnish of ornaments.
‘We place no faith in graven images, if that’s what you mean. They are the sign of the Whore and not of the Word which is Life.’
‘I wasn’t referring to graven images, just the token of your belief.’
‘I have no token but the Word and the Hope in Jesu.’
‘Not even one like this?’
Gently produced the gold cross.
‘It seems to belong to that chain of yours, Mr Blythely… one would not be surprised to find it attached there.’
If the baker was unimpressible his wife was not. Her caught breath and instinctive gesture betrayed immediately her recognition of the object. But Blythely gave no sign. He merely reached out a clumsy hand for it.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘I’ll tell you… does it happen to be yours?’
‘I want to know where you found it.’
‘First, I’d like you to answer my question.’
There was no rushing Blythely. He was like a pillar of insensible rock, standing there, feet planted, in his shapeless black suit. He had no handle, you felt, you could bring no pressure on him. It was like trying to manipulate one of the elements…
‘Suppose it was mine, then?’
‘In that case, when did you lose it?
‘I didn’t say it was mine — I said suppose.’
‘You must answer me yes or no, Mr Blythely.’
‘I do or I don’t, but there’s no must about it.’
Gently swung round to the baker’s wife.
‘Perhaps you can tell me, ma’am — remembering how quickly you recognized it!’
‘I!’ — she threw a helpless look at her husband — ‘I don’t know about it — it could be anybody’s. There’s nothing on it, is there… just a plain cross?’
‘At least you thought you recognized it.’
‘How could I, when there’s nothing on it?’
‘By being familiar with it, Mrs Blythely — as you would be if your husband wore it on his watch-chain!’
She shook her head stupidly and pretended to stare at the cross. Blythely was turning it about as though to make quite sure it carried no distinguishing marks.
‘I can tell you it isn’t mine.’
At last, a positive statement!
‘My wife would be telling you a lie if she told you she had seen me wearing it.’
‘And neither of you know to whom it belongs?’
‘Like she says, there’s nothing on it.’
‘That’s not quite the same thing, Mr Blythely.’
‘You can’t be sure with a thing like that.’
Prevarication, but not a lie — that was the baker’s answer to an awkward question. It was a game which could go on all night, and probably never get him into a corner. And his wife, too… she had learned something of the gentle art!
‘Very well — we’ll leave it for the moment. It’s something else which I came to see you about.’
Blythely handed back the cross and returned to his impassive stance by the door.
‘You tell me you spent all the night in the bakehouse, the night of last Thursday and Friday. At the most you went out to the toilet — isn’t that how the statement ran?’
‘I said I went out to the toilet.’
‘But you didn’t go anywhere else?’
‘I wouldn’t have said I didn’t.’
‘All the same, you gave that impression!’
Blythely bowed his head slightly but made no other reply. At times one had the idea he was deaf, so little did anything said to him seem to register.
‘As a matter of fact you did go somewhere else, didn’t you? You were out of the bakehouse for an hour, between half past eleven and half past twelve. Before you deny it I should tell you that I have spoken to your assistant, and that the time has been established pretty exactly. Have you any comments to make, Mr Blythely?’
An expert in atmospheres, Gently was surprised by this one. To the closest observer the baker had provided no clue to the emotions which were governing him. Yet now there was something, and that something wasn’t fear; suddenly, one was aware of a monumental agony.
‘I wasn’t going to deny it. What you say is the truth.’
The flat tone of the admission stung like a whiplash across the face.
‘So you agree that you were absent-’
Gently broke off, catching sight of Mrs Blythely swaying ominously where she sat. Not another interruption like that — the first one had been costly enough! He was really being dogged by the in-and-out propensities…
‘I think your wife is feeling faint!’
Blythely didn’t waste as much as a glance. More than ever he had the appearance of something carved from a block of wood.
‘Your wife-’ Gently got to his feet. Plainly he would have to be the one to render assistance. She was crouching now over her knees, her breath coming in gasps, but her husband was paying no more attention than if she had been in another world.
‘Henry-!’
Was he deaf in fact?
‘Henry — oh Henry, help me!’
She might as well have applied to the counter or the door.
Gently wavered, uncertain what to do. The baker’s wife, though stricken, seemed to be in no danger of passing out, and he had an idea that she would resist if he offered her any aid…
‘Mrs Blythely-’
‘Henry!’
‘This time there was panic in her voice, a sort of hysteric wildness.
‘Henry, in God’s name-!’
Now a flicker did pass over the averted countenance.
She burst into tears and sat hugging herself in a frenzy of abandonment. Out in the street they must have been able to hear her, because the passers-by began to stare through the big plate-glass windows.
‘Henry — Henry!’
Could a stone have resisted that ring of desolation? But the baker never shifted, never changed his blank expression; less and less did he seem to be acting in the same scene.
Gently was frankly nonplussed. Between them, they had edged him quite out of it. From being a police interrogation the reins of which were in his hands it had developed into a domestic drama in which he was an embarrassed third party.
‘Mrs Blythely — pull yourself together, ma’am!’
Regardless of him she sobbed and moaned.
‘You — can’t you do anything, instead of just standing there?’
He should have known it was pointless trying to bully Blythely.
Yet the affair had to be terminated somehow, if it were not to get out of hand. Already a group was collecting on the pavement beyond the window.
Quickly there would be others — and then, perhaps, a constable! In the end he would have to walk out and leave his most promising lead to grow cold…
‘You’re coming with me, the pair of you!’
He didn’t stop to think what he would do if they resisted. Grabbing Blythely with one hand and snatching up his wife with the other, he propelled them through the shop and shoved them up the stairs beyond.
Muted by the plate glass, he heard the comment of the audience on this arbitrary curtain-pulling…
‘Henry… forgive me, Henry!’
The actors had been moved, but the situation was continuing. Lit by the rosy sunset, Blythely’s parlour had an angry, melodramatic appearance. It might have been a special stage-set for just such a scene as this.
Blythely, erect by the window, had his face darkened by the weird light behind him. On the dumpy settee Clara Blythely lay prostrate, by accident in a pose which would have pleased a producing eye.
‘I’m so ashamed, Henry… so ashamed!’
Who could mistake the purport of the scene? It was classic in its simplicity, its principals were typecast. The pity of it was that Griffin wasn’t here to enjoy the triumph of his acuteness.
‘I was mad — you’ve got to believe me! I wasn’t myself… it was somebody else!’
There was the Husband, there the Wife — hamming it, if anything; a good producer would have toned it down a little.
Wearily Gently seated himself and sought the consolation of his pipe. Had it been so simple, then, the crucial problem of Taylor’s demise? The rest, that didn’t concern him. It was a mystery, and it could stay so. This was the compass of the brief he held and here, apparently, the inconsequential answer!
Did it even matter who else knew what, guiltily or cunningly, according to their nature?
‘You followed her out there, didn’t you?’
On the screen of his mind he could project the whole picture, complete in time as in space.
‘You saw them go in… you waited in the shadows. When she came out you let her go. To save her face-’
Mrs Blythely’s tears came in a storm. She, at all events, was past equivocation. The baker, with head unbowed, still obstinately stared at nothing — yet he must have appreciated the endorsement given by his wife’s lamentations.
‘For him you couldn’t wait. Once she was gone, you went in after him. Of course, he was unprepared, but even if he hadn’t been-’
‘I didn’t go into the loft.’
It was the baker’s first response for a good five minutes. His tone, like his expression, hadn’t altered by one iota.
‘Then how did this cross get there?’
‘I told you it wasn’t mine.’
‘You mean that it belonged to Taylor?’
‘How can one tell when there’s nothing on it?’
The stupid repetition of this evasion irritated Gently. Surely by now the fellow could see…! But a moment later his wife settled the question finally.
‘It’s mine… he gave it to me… oh God, it was a wedding present! Twenty years…’
Her tears smothered the rest.
‘So — now we’re getting somewhere!’
Gently took a long pull at his pipe.
‘You jumped him as he came out, did you — took him completely by surprise! Did you know that we could tell that it was done from behind? But then you had to find a place for him, and not having much time-’
‘I didn’t kill that man.’
‘Let me finish what I’m saying! Not having much time, you had to hide him about the premises — somewhere that was safe, with luck for a week or two. And what better place than that hopper of flour? Even the smell wouldn’t notice very much! Furthermore, you might be able to fish him up later — if you could get him to the docks, an ebb tide would do the rest for you…’
‘But I was not the one who killed him.’
‘Listen — you can make a statement later! You had the keys in your pocket, didn’t you? It was easy to slip in there. Taylor wasn’t a heavy man, and you were strong and desperate. So up the steps he went on your back — one set, two sets, three sets, four sets: and then across the floor and into the hopper, where he disappeared as though he had never been.
‘That was a bad moment — that was where you stopped to think! You wiped the sweat and listened to the silence, and you realized you had done what could never be undone.
‘But Jimpson was in the bakehouse, already surprised by your absence — and what was more those buns had to be baked, if you were going to avoid comment. So down you went again, down those four sets of steps. The door was locked, you washed your hands, and all that remained was to get through the night — a task made the easier from having Jimpson to vent your nerves on!
‘Can you deny on your oath that that’s roughly what happened?’
The baker shook his head — a grand concession to Gently’s rhetoric! — and hesitated cautiously before he replied:
‘I was hard on the boy — I’ve got to admit that. But all flesh is as grass when the Lord humbles our pride.’
‘And that’s all you’ve got to say?’
Gently felt like hitting him.
‘Don’t you realize where you stand — hasn’t it penetrated at all?’
Apparently it hadn’t. Blythely went on dumbly standing there. Like one of the grim flint towers of his native county, he was not to be moved by the storms that burst about his head.
On her settee his wife cried softly as though her grief were tiring itself out. She, too, seemed to have got into a world of her own, outside the influence of mere verbal formulae.
‘I’ve tried to show you the construction-’
‘I didn’t kill that man.’
‘But you were there at the time it happened…!’
‘So you tell me, but I didn’t see it.’
‘Then you don’t deny being there?’
‘I haven’t admitted it.’
‘Following your wife to her rendezvous?’
‘Has she said anything about a rendezvous?’
It was bordering on the farcical. In a moment, he would be denying that he had ever left the bakehouse. The effect of his prevarication was like that of a smokescreen, growing thicker and more confusing the further one pressed the pursuit.
‘You, ma’am — you don’t deny a rendezvous!’
Gently turned on the weaker vessel.
‘You agree that the cross is yours — that ties you to the loft. And your conduct since you learned that your husband left the bakehouse leaves no doubt of a guilty secret — something you hoped he didn’t know about!
‘So perhaps you would like to be a little more articulate?’
Mrs Blythely moaned and covered her face, which certainly was not at its best just then.
‘You don’t have to get on to Clara.’
Blythely stirred from his monumental attitude.
‘She can’t tell you anything, so why upset her? It doesn’t concern you — it lies between her and her Maker.’
His wife dropped her hands, as though unable to believe what she had heard. For a second or so she stared wildly at the baker, then she sprang up from the settee and threw herself sobbing on to his bosom. He made no move in recognition of her action.
‘That’s all very well-!’
‘It doesn’t concern you.’
‘If you don’t mind, I’ll judge for myself!’
‘Judge not lest ye be judged, says the Good Book.’
What the devil could one do? Gently had rarely been so baffled by the manoeuvres of an opponent. And in addition to his evasiveness the baker had a strange and formidable air of authority — when he made a statement it sounded, ipso facto, final.
‘Go up to your room, Clara.’
Now he was even taking charge of the proceedings!
‘The chief inspector and me’ve got a few things to talk over. You wait upstairs. I shan’t be long.’
‘Oh Henry… help me, Henry!’
‘Go up to your room. Ask help of Him who has it in His Power.’
On the point of intervening, Gently decided to hold his peace. Running contra to the baker was a losing game, but if one gave him a good measure of rope, perhaps…
Mrs Blythely left the room without another word. The baker, as soon as the door closed, took a chair opposite to Gently and seated himself in his peculiarly stiff way.
‘I haven’t much to tell you, but it may be of some use.’
The foxy eyes rested upon him steadily for a moment.
‘But first I say to you, meddle not with the Lord’s business. He has seen fit to lay a burden on two of His children, and neither you nor any man has the right to increase that burden. Revenge is Mine, saith the Lord, it belongeth to no man.’
‘At the same time, Mr Blythely-’
‘I will hear no worldly equivocations.’
Gently gave him a long look before silently shrugging.
‘For the rest, I don’t mind helping you as far as I can. It’s true that I was round the back watching the stable.’
‘You followed your wife?’
‘If she had gone there I may have done.’
‘Please, Mr Blythely!’
‘It’s true that I watched the stable.’
Gently heaved a deep sigh. ‘Very well — you watched the stable!’
The baker nodded impassively, well aware of the points he was scoring.
‘You’ve seen that convenience there? I was standing inside it. In there you can see the stable, though you can’t see the yard. Well, I heard several people go by during the time I was in there — two of them met in the passage and had a few words together.’
‘What did they say?’
‘I wasn’t able to hear. And another thing, I don’t remember hearing them go away again. But just after that somebody else came down the yard. He stopped a bit in the passage and then came back again in a hurry.’
‘How do you mean — in a hurry?’
‘It sounded as though he was running.’
‘Was anyone chasing him?’
‘I only heard the one. Then ten minutes later there were steps from the passage again. Somebody went up and out of the yard, and that’s all I remember hearing.’
‘And Taylor — what about him?’
‘I told you, I couldn’t see anyone.’
‘Not entering or leaving the stable?’
‘I never set eyes on Taylor.’
Half an hour later Gently was out in the street with precisely that information and no more. The most his arts had availed him was to get a rough sort of timetable, as inaccurate, probably, as these things usually were.
And how much could he believe, of all that puzzling interview? Was it in good faith, or partly so, or had even Clara Blythely’s act been an inspired piece of misdirection?
He shook his head at the sunset-outlined building as he turned away towards the town. His third card had gone, not unprofitably, it was true, but the trick he had won was perhaps more tantalizing than the two which had just escaped him.
Griffin, he was sure, would have clapped the baker behind bars directly…