He rose from the table and went over to Mrs Davis’s telephone. The phonebook lay beside it. He flicked through it and traced down a column with a clumsy finger.
‘Starmouth 75629… this is Chief Inspector Gently.’ He tilted the instrument to one side so that Dutt could hear too. ‘Biggers? There’s something else I want to ask you, Biggers… yes, about last night.’
‘Ho yes, sir?’ came the publican’s anxious voice from the other end.
‘You told us in your statement that after you had changed the note you heard there were some counterfeit ones going about. I want to know where you obtained that information.’
‘Yes, sir! Certainly, sir! It was a bloke in the bar what told me that.’
‘A bloke you know?’
‘Ho no, sir. Quite a stranger.’
‘He was in the bar at the time of the transaction?’
‘No, sir, not as I remember. The first time I noticed him there was when the young feller went out.’
‘You mean he came in while the transaction was in progress?’
‘Must’ve done, sir, ’cause he soon ups and tells me to watch my step with regard to Yank money. “Wasn’t that a hundred-dollar bill?” he says. “Ah, it was,” I says. “Then it’s ten to one you’ve been had,” he says, or words to that effect, “there was a sailor got copped with some this afternoon.”’
‘Oh did he…?’ Gently exchanged a glance with Dutt.
‘Yes, sir… God’s honest truth!’ The voice on the phone sounded panicky. ‘I don’t have no cause to lie, now do I-!’
‘All right, Biggers… never mind the trimmings. What else did this man tell you?’
‘Well, he told me I could get five years, sir, and that I ought to hand it over to the police… naturally, me just having paid ten quid …’
‘We know about that. Did he say anything else?’
‘No, sir… not apart from ordering a whisky. It was nearly closing-time.’
‘Would you recognize him again?’
‘Ho yes, sir! Like I was telling you, I never forget a face.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Well, sir… he wasn’t English, that I can say.’
‘Did you notice a mole on his cheek by any chance?’
‘No, sir. No. But he’d got a scar running all down one side…’
Gently hung up the instrument and leaned on it ponderingly for a few moments. His eyes were fixed on Mrs Davis’s flowered wallpaper, but to a watchful Dutt they seemed to be staring at something a good six feet on the other side of the wall. Then he sighed and straightened his bulky form.
‘So there it is, Dutt… our clincher. And they even knew about McParsons… eh?’
Dutt shook his head ruefully. ‘They must have quite an organization, sir…’
‘An organization!’ Gently laughed shortly. ‘Well… we’d better get our own organization moving, too. Go back to headquarters, Dutt, and tell them to put a man each on the two stations and another on the bus terminus, and to warn the men on the docks to keep their eyes double-skinned. It’s an even bet that our scar-faced acquaintance is well clear of Starmouth, but we can’t take any risks… Then give Special a ring and let them know.’
Dutt nodded intelligently. ‘And the clothes, sir…?’
‘Get them sent to the lab, and the paper and string. Oh, and that cab-driver… the one who picked up Max and Frenchy on Tuesday night… see if you can get a line on him, Dutt.’
‘Yessir. Do my best.’
Gently scratched a match and applied it to his pipe. ‘Me, I’m going to pay a little social call in Dulford Street. I think it’s time that Frenchy assisted the police by supplying the answers to one or two interesting questions.’
Dulford Street was a shabby thoroughfare adjoining the lower part of the Front. It began as though by accident where some clumsily-placed buildings had left a gap and proceeded narrowly and crookedly until it got lost in a maze of uncomely backstreets. There was a feeling of having-gone-to-seed about it, as though its original inhabitants had given it up in despair and left it to go its own way. From one end to the other it could boast of no fresh paint except the lurid red-and-cream of an odiferous fish and chip shop.
Gently eyed the assemblage moodily and applied to a new bag of peppermint creams for encouragement. Sunday was obviously an off-day in Dulford Street. The signs of life disturbing its charms were few. On the right- hand side was a frowsy little corner-shop with some newspapers in a rack at the door, and at the entry from the Front lurked a furtive and ragged figure… Nits, who had been following Gently all the way along the promenade. Gently shrugged his bulky shoulders and pushed open the clanging door of the newspaper shop.
‘Chief Inspector Gently… I wonder if you can give me some information?’
It was a white-haired old lady with beaming specs and an expression of anxious affability.
‘What was it you were wanting?’
‘Some information, madam.’
‘The newspapers is all outside… just take one, sir!’
‘I want some information.’ Gently raised his voice, but the only effect was to increase the old lady’s look of anxiety. He pointed out of the dusty window.
‘That apartment over there… do you know who lives in it?’
‘Oh yes, I do! She isn’t nothing to do with me!’
‘Is that her permanent address or does she just make use of it?’
‘Eh… eh?’ The old lady peered at him as though she suspected him of having said something rude.
‘Is that her permanent address?’ began Gently, fortissimo, then he shook his head and gave it up. ‘Here, how much are these street directories?’
‘They’re sixpence,’ retorted the old lady sharply, ‘sixpence — that’s what they are!’
Gently put a shilling on her rubber mat and made a noisy exit.
Frenchy’s apartment, flat, or whatever other dignity it aspired to was situated above a disused fruiterer’s shop. The shop itself had been anciently boarded up, but the degree of paintwork it exhibited matched evenly with that of Frenchy’s door and the windows above, leaving no doubt about the contemporaneity of the decoration. Gently tried the door and found it open. It gave directly on to uncarpeted stairs which rose steeply to a narrow landing. At the top were two more doors, one with a transom light which did its best to illumine the shadow of the landing, and at this he knocked with a regular policeman’s rhythm.
‘Who is id…?’ came Frenchy’s croon.
‘It’s Chief Inspector Gently. All right if I come in?’
There was a creaking and scuffling, and finally the sound of shuffling footsteps. Then the door opened to display a draggle-haired Frenchy, partly-clad in a green dressing-gown. She glared at Gently.
‘What are you after now?’
‘I’m after you,’ said Gently cheerfully, ‘weren’t you expecting me to call?’
Her eyes narrowed like the eyes of a cat. ‘You’ve got nothing to pinch me for… you bloody well know it! Why can’t you leave a girl alone?’
Gently tutted. ‘This isn’t the attitude, Frenchy. You should try to be co-operative, you know — it pays, in your profession.’
‘That’s none of your business and you ain’t got nothing on me!’
Gently shook his head admonishingly and pressed past her into the room. It wasn’t an inviting prospect. The furniture consisted of an iron bedstead, a deal table and three cheap bedroom chairs. The floor was covered with unpolished brown lino, the walls with faded paper. At the window, curtains were drawn to keep out the sun, but in spite of this the room was like a large and unventilated oven, an oven, moreover, that possessed a vigorously compounded odour, part dry rot, part cigarette smoke and part Frenchy. Gently fanned himself thoughtfully with his trilby.
‘Doesn’t seem a very comfortable digging for a trouper like you, Frenchy,’ he observed.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ spat Frenchy, closing the door with a bang.
‘And you’re travelling light this season.’ He indicated a dress and a white two-piece which hung on hangers from a hook in the wall.
‘If you’re going to pinch a girl for being short of clothes…!’
