‘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.
