He hung up and pushed his desk-pad across for Gently’s inspection. ‘There you are — for what it’s worth!’
Gently glanced at the pad and back at the super.
‘The names of our playmates… Special does work on a Sunday! Olaf Streifer is Scarface — he’s an agent of this precious TSK Party’s secret police… Maulik, it’s called. Special want him in connection with some naval sabotage at Portsmouth two years ago. You seem to have got a set of his prints from somewhere, incidentally…’
Gently nodded. ‘And this… Stratilesceul?’
‘Stephan Stratilesceul — the lad on the slab. He wasn’t known over here, but the Surete had records. They wanted him in connection with a similar business at Toulon… the TSK seems to have a lien on naval naughtiness.’ He picked up the pad and held it up ironically. ‘So now we know — and how much further does it get us?’
Gently hoisted a neutral shoulder. ‘It all helps to fill in the picture… you can’t know too much about a murder.’
CHAPTER TEN
It had been too fine.
The peerless sky which had filled the beaches yesterday had vanished overnight literally in a clap of thunder and its place was filled by low, yellow-grey cloud which drizzled warmly, as though somewhere that wonderful sun was still trying to filter its way through. Perhaps it was wise of nature. There had been havoc enough wrought by one fine Sunday. In the damp streets plastic-caped holidaymakers went about with a wonderful solicitude for their fiery backs and arms…
Now it was the cafes that came into their own. The innumerable little boxes clustered cheek by jowl all the way down Duke Street, empty and forlorn while the sun reigned, filled up now to the last tubular steel chair. After all, it wasn’t an unpleasant rain… one expected it some time during the holiday. And there were worse things to be done than drinking one’s coffee, smoking, writing cards and going through the newspapers…
Not that it was front-page today, their own especial murder. The super had kindly released the news of the arrest of Jeff and Bonce and the discovery of the grey suit, but in the face of fierce competition from a Cabinet re- shuffle it hadn’t made the grade. It had slipped to page five. Strangely unanimous, the editors of the dailies had each come to the conclusion that the Body on the Beach wasn’t going to get anywhere, and they were quietly preparing to forget the whole thing.
Like a certain superintendent, thought Gently, resting his elbows on the low wall bounding the promenade… though of course, the man had his reasons.
He hitched up his fawn raincoat and produced his pipe. He couldn’t help it… this sort of weather always made him moody. To wake up and find it raining induced in him a vein of pessimism, both with himself and with society. He just wanted to turn over and go to sleep again and forget all about them…
Well… if it would rain!
He lit the sizzling pipe, tossed the match on to the sand below and turned abruptly away from the melancholy sea.
Opposite him, across the carriage-way, loomed the garish tiled front of the Marina Cinema. A spare, florid- faced man with a wrinkled brow and a shock of tow hair was polishing the chrome handles of the swing-doors. Gently went across to him.
‘You’re at it early this morning…’
The man paused to throw him a sharp look and then went on with his polishing. ‘It’s got to be done some time, mate.’
‘The sea air can’t do them a lot of good.’
‘Telling me! It plays the bloody hell with them.’
He rubbed away till he came to the top of the handle, Gently watching patiently the while. At last he straightened out and gave his cloth a shaking.
‘What are you — a cop, mate?’ he asked briefly.
Gently nodded sadly. ‘Only I was hoping it didn’t show quite so much…’
‘Huh! I can always smell a cop a mile away.’
‘I shouldn’t have stood to windward, should I?’
The tow-haired man took a reef in his cloth and advanced to the next door-handle. ‘What do you want here, anyway?’
‘The usual thing. Some information.’
‘And suppose I haven’t got any?’
‘Suppose,’ said Gently smoothly, ‘suppose you be a smart little ex-con and keep a civil tongue when you talk to a policeman?’
‘An ex-con…! What creeping nark told you that?’
Gently smiled at a diagonal frame filled with Lollobrigida. ‘You aren’t the only one with a developed sense of smell…’
But he didn’t get any information from the man. He didn’t, or wouldn’t, remember anything about people taking taxis on Tuesday night last. Yes, he would have been in the vestibule just before the last house turned out, but he was probably chatting to the cashier or one of the girls… no, there wasn’t anybody else on late turn that night… no, he didn’t know Frenchy or anyone like her… going straight he was, and he defied anyone to prove different.
Gently left him to his handles and plodded on down the Front, pessimism confirmed in his soul.
‘The Feathers’ was open, but it seemed rather a waste of electricity on such a customless morning. Its arrow was darting away with customary vigour, albeit it fizzed a little in the rain, but there were few enough strollers to be pricked into the temporary refuge of the arcade: its music drooled hollowly down empty aisles. Gently went up the steps and through the doors. Not a soul was about except the attendant, who was sweeping the floor at the far end. Through the doors of the bar, which were stood open with two chairs, could be seen a figure similarly engaged and a ‘closed’ notice hung rakishly on a chair-back. Obviously, they weren’t expecting a rush of business.
He turned to the nearest machine and dropped a penny in the slot. It was one of the pre-war ‘Stock Exchange’ type and a pull on the handle yielded a brisk no-dividends. Gently tried again. He’d got quite a pocket-full of coppers. Absently he yanked the lever and watched the colourful passage of Rubber, Textiles, Railways and Gold… it seemed hard that such a well furnished wheel should come up no-dividends twice in a row. But it did. It was clever. It sorted out a solitary white from a whole rainbow of coloured, and stuck to it with an obstinate firmness.
A gigantic hand ornamented with a solitaire diamond suddenly covered the handle and its guard.
‘You haven’t got the knack, Inspector,’ purred Louey’s voice behind him, ‘let an old professional show you how to beat the book!’
Gently stood back without replying and Louey pressed a coin into the slot. Then he caressed the handle with an even, almost casual pressure and the wheel drifted lazily round to a Gold segment. A second coin brought coppers cascading down the shoot.
‘You see, Inspector?’ Louey’s gold tooth shone its message of innocent goodwill. ‘It is a matter of skill, after all…’
Gently shrugged and repossessed himself of his twopence. ‘It needs a safe-breaker’s touch… the way one tickles a combination lock.’
Louey’s smile broadened. ‘Some of the kids learn how to play them, though it costs them a few weeks’ pocket-money. But I don’t mind that
… there are fifty who never learn for every one who does.’
‘Sounds like an expensive accomplishment to me.’
‘We have to risk our stakes, Inspector, when we’re out to win something.’
Louey picked up the rest of the coins from the shoot and paid them back into the machine, one by one. They flicked up no-dividends as surely as a till flicking up no-sales.
