‘The Amurrican body?’
‘Precisely, McParsons.’
‘Weel, I doot I’m noo a policeman to be forever noticin’ the crinks and crankles o’ folk…’
The super snorted. ‘Don’t strain your imagination.’
‘I willna, Supereentendent… it’s me memory I’m jowin’ the noo.’
‘For instance… was he clean-shaven?’ mumbled Gently, apparently studying his stubby fingernails. The Scot turned quickly towards him.
‘Noo yer mention it, he wasna — he had a beard fra the temples doon.’
‘He would have, wouldn’t he?’ demanded the super derisively.
‘And his suit… Scots tweed?’ suggested Gently.
‘Na, man, it was ain o’ they Yanky-doodle jobs, a’ tap and noo bottom.’
‘Dark?’
‘Na… aboot the colour o’ pipe-ash.’
‘He was a youngish man?’
‘Ower forty, ain or twa.’
‘And he spoke with an educated accent?’
‘Noo this cheil — he was Amurrican by adoption, ye ken… he spoke a fair smatterin’ o’ Sassenach, but he hadna it fra his mither.’
Gently felt once more in his breast-pocket for one of his doctored prints.
‘Had he a beard like this one?’
McParsons rose excitedly to his feet. ‘But yon’s the man — the verra spittin’ image! Sae ye kent him — ye kent him a’ the while — it’s jist a try-on, a’ this chargin’ and fulin’ — ye’ve got yer hands on him a’ the while!’
Gently’s gaze strayed mildly to the thunderstruck super. ‘I’d like to get Hull on the wire… it may be a longish call.’ He turned back to McParsons. ‘You wouldn’t remember what ships docked at Hull on that Tuesday… from the continent, say?’
‘Fra the Continent? Och aye! There was that Porlish ship they made a’ the fuss aboot aince — we ganged roon to ha’ a luik at her. But concairnin’ the body on yon photygraph-!’
‘Thank you, Skipper,’ murmured Gently distantly, ‘the body on the photograph is undoubtedly your next port of call.’
They were obliging, the Hull City Police, without being able to do much more than fill in a few details. They knocked up numerous people (including constables) from the first and important hours of their slumber. No, they had no record of a man of Max’s description. No, their life was not being blighted by an irruption of counterfeit hundred-dollar notes. Yes, the Polish liner Ortory had broken her Danzig-New York run at Hull on the Tuesday week last. She had docked at noon and sailed again at 19.30 hours: she had discharged seventy-five crates of Russian canned salmon and picked up a Finnish trade delegation on its way to Washington. Yes, they would get on to the dock police if Gently would hang on for a while.
‘So he was a Pole, was he?’ brooded the super, sniffing meanly at the Navy Cut contaminating the aseptic night air of his office.
Gently shook his head. ‘A Bulgar from Sofia.’
‘You know that for a fact?’
‘Not really… but I’m prepared to accept it as a working hypothesis.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Just a hunch. I don’t think someone I know could bear to tell a lie about it… provided he wasn’t implicating himself.’
‘And who is this someone?’
‘Oh, it’s a bit vague at the moment…’ returned Gently evasively.
The super grunted and toyed with a retractable ball-point which seemed to be a novelty with him. ‘So he was a member of this TSK… they were sending him to the States guyed up like a Yank and loaded with counterfeit… is that the angle?’
Gently nodded through his smoke.
‘What was he supposed to do when he got there?’
‘Oh… they’d have put him ashore quietly before the ship docked.’
‘And then?’
Gently shrugged. ‘Sabotage seems to be their line… he was probably going over to organize it.’
‘He must have been well up in the party,’ mused the super, ‘it was a position of trust… what do you suppose went wrong?’
‘That’s something we’re not likely to know.’
‘A double-cross inside the party, maybe.’
‘You’re probably safe in saying that…’
There was a dulled, small-hour silence broken only by a scratching in the uncoupled phone and a sizzle from Gently’s pipe. From the nearby harbour came the mournfully alert toot of a siren, twice repeated.
‘Of course you’ll get on to the Special,’ muttered the super drowsily.
‘Dutt’s getting them for me… he was attached to them a time back.’
‘They may know something… then there’s the US Federal… could be something they’re looking for.’ The super jerked himself to attention. ‘Look here… there’s something that puzzles me. If this fellow was so worried about his health, why didn’t he seek political asylum when he skipped the Ortory? That would have been his obvious move. There was no need for all this chasing around and stowing-away aboard fishing-boats.’
Gently gave himself a little shake. ‘There’s the missing suitcase
… if it were stuffed with hundred-dollar bills it seems a fairish reason for keeping things private.’
‘But they were counterfeit!’
‘He may not have known that.’
‘You mean his party sent him off on this mission without telling him?’
‘It would seem to square with what we know about the methods of these parties…’
The super nodded sapiently. ‘But the person who swiped that suitcase must have known they were phoney, because he hasn’t been passing them.’
‘You can’t bank on that either… the TSK weren’t planning to spend them in Starmouth. What puzzles me is the way that bedroom was frisked. You don’t have to tear a bedroom apart to find a suitcase…’
They were interrupted by the entry of a constable with a tray from the canteen. It bore a plate of corned-beef sandwiches and two mugs of hot coffee. Gently gladly grounded his pipe in favour of the more substantial fare — there was an almost psychic quality about corned-beef sandwiches and hot coffee at that hour of the morning. He chewed and swilled largely, and the super kept in strict step with him.
‘May have hidden the stuff about the room,’ mumbled the super, flipping a crumb from his moustache.
‘Then why was he always carting the suitcase about with him? Everyone’s agreed about that.’
‘Could have been a blind.’
‘Why should he bother?… the stuff would be safer by him.’
‘He seems to have left it behind in the last instance, at all events,’ grunted the super beefily.
‘There may have been a purely incidental reason for that…’
Dutt came in, looking peeked and heavy-eyed. ‘Special is going into it, sir,’ he said laconically. ‘I gave them a p.p. as good as I could remember and all the information we’ve got to date.’
‘What did they say?’ asked Gently, shoving him a charitable sandwich.
‘Nothink, sir. They never does.’
‘Did they confirm the identity of the charm?’
‘Only after I’d got on to ’em, sir, and told them it was hanging up the case. You never knew such a lot for keeping their traps shut.’
Gently drank the last of his coffee and looked sadly into the empty mug before returning it to the tray. ‘Maybe they don’t know much
… maybe they aren’t going to until the day-shift turns up. Did Sergeant Dack get any results with that photograph?’
