‘Sympathy? For a cold-blooded murderer?’
‘Not a murderer, Inspector… an executioner, I think you must call him.’
‘Stratilesceul’s hands were tied — do you sympathize with that?’
‘You’re forgetting, Inspector, we also tie a man’s hands for execution. If killing is the order, one may as well kill efficiently.’
‘But we don’t torture, Louey. Stratilesceul was burned with cigarettes.’
‘Our torture is mental, Inspector… it lasts longer, and it isn’t done for useful ends, such as eliciting information. No… I’m sorry. You must permit me to feel some sympathy for Streifer. He did what he did in the service of an ideal, rightly or wrongly… you really mustn’t equate him with even the common hangman.’
Gently’s shoulders hunched ever higher. ‘He was paid, wasn’t he… just like the common hangman?’
‘Naturally, a labourer is worthy of his hire. But the pay wasn’t his motive, you know. It wouldn’t be an adequate incentive to such risk and responsibility. Your hangman is a mere assassin… you hand him his thirty pieces of silver and say Murder; we have bound your victim. And he murders, Inspector. He has your full protection. His crime is written up to humanity and he departs to spend the blood-money. Is this the way of the man you want to hang? Is this the way of any of the men you hang?’
‘At least we kill only the killers…’
‘Is that better than killing for an ideal?’
‘It is an ideal — to protect people on their lawful occasions.’
‘If only it protected them, Inspector… if only it did! But your ideal is a pathetic fallacy, I’m afraid. Of course it’s wrong to say this… I understand your position. Your duty is to catch a criminal and judgment is elsewhere. But I want you to understand me when I say I feel a little sympathy with Streifer… we can talk together, Inspector. You are a man of intelligence.’
They had come to the end of the town, a straggle of houses on one hand, wasteground and the beach on the other. Louey paused as they came abreast with a decaying pill-box.
‘This is as far as I go, fair weather or foul.’
Gently nodded woodenly and gave his trilby a further flick. Then he turned to face the two grey eyes which rested on him confidently, almost affectionately.
‘I’m glad you made the point…’ The eyes were interrogative. ‘… about my duty. It is to catch the criminal.’
Louey’s enormous head tilted backwards and forwards almost imperceptibly.
‘And since I’m in betting company, Louey, I’ll take you at the odds. Wasn’t it ten to one you quoted?’
‘At ten to one… and Louey always pays.’
‘I’ll have a pound on. You can open my account.’
The grey eyes flashed and the big man burst into laughter.
‘You’re on, Inspector… the first policeman I ever had on my books!’
Gently quizzed him expressionlessly from the depths of his comfortless collar. ‘Let’s hope you’re lucky,’ he said, ‘let’s hope I’m not the last.’
The lonely phone-box had a tilt in it, due to the subsidence of its sandy foundation. But it was dry inside and Gently took time off to light his pipe before getting down to business. He gave headquarters’ number.
‘Get me Inspector Copping.’
Copping arrived in fairly prompt switchboard time.
‘Gently here… are we still entertaining Frenchy?’
‘Entertaining’s the word!’ came Copping’s disgusted voice. ‘She’s been yelling her head off since they brought her back… says she wants a lawyer and that we’re holding her under false pretences.’
Gently grinned in a cloud of pipe-smoke. ‘She’s got her bail… what more does she want?’
‘The cash, apparently… you seem to have pinched her at the end of the month.’
‘Well… keep her nice and cosy. Has anything else come in?’
‘Not a darned thing.’
‘Have the lab made anything of that paper?’
‘They say it’s manufactured in Bristol and used for packing mattresses. I’ve got a man going round the stores trying to match it.’
‘No prints worth having?’
‘Nothing anybody’s heard of.’
‘You haven’t traced that taxi?’
‘Not so’s you’d notice it.’
Gently clicked his tongue. ‘It’s a wet Monday all right, isn’t it? Is Dutt anywhere handy?’
‘He’s hanging about waiting for someone to bail Frenchy.’
‘I want him for a job… one of your own men will have to watch our Frenchy.’
The phone at the other end was laid down and Gently whiled away the odd moments watching two raindrops making tracks down the ebony panel in the back of the box. Then Dutt’s chirpy accents saluted him from the receiver.
‘Yessir? You was wanting me?’
‘Yes, Dutt… I want you to do a little scouting in your old pitch in Botolph Street. There’s a lock-up garage there where Louey keeps his car. You might find out if anyone noticed the car being used on Tuesday night…’
‘Yessir. I think I knows the very garage you’re talking about.’
‘Stout fellow, Dutt. And don’t forget your mac.’
‘No, sir! Don’t you worry!’
Gently eyed the rain-swept vista outside his box with a jaundiced stare. ‘And while we’re at it, Dutt, get them to send a car to pick me up at South Shore… I’ve had all the constitutional my constitution will stand for one wet day!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There was a hiatus in the proceedings and the super, excellent man, had scented it out with his keen, service-minded nostrils. Gently had come to a standstill. His case was bogging down. He had pushed it up the hill with his bulky shoulder until he was in hailing distance of the top and now, with the deceptive vision of arrests and charges dead ahead, he was stuck fast as though he had run into an invisible barrier. It was a sad sight, but not an unexpected one. The super had had a strong intuition all along that this was how it would wind up. Because he knew something about secret agents, did the super. He had come across them before in his long career and he could tell Gently, if Gently was harbouring any illusions, just how slippery these birds inevitably were…
‘You see, they plan their murders… that’s the vital difference between them and the ordinary homicide. They know what we’ll do and they take damn’ good care to protect themselves.’
Gently looked up from a large-scale map and smiled with an irony which the super was unable to appreciate. ‘In fact we’re… “faced with a planned execution, the details of which have been efficiently erased”.’
‘Precisely.’ The super cast him a suspicious glance. ‘We may as well face it, Gently. We’re not infallible. We make use of our skill and technique to the best of our ability, but the people on the other side start with an enormous advantage and if they use it intelligently then we’re batting on a pretty sticky wicket.’
‘I know, I’ve heard it once before today. We haven’t got Streifer, we can’t prove he did it and’ — he rustled the map on his desk — ‘we don’t even know where it was done.’
‘Well — those are the facts, Gently, and you’d better add that we’ve exhausted most of the chances of improving on them. Oh, I don’t want to be discouraging, and I’m certainly not disparaging all the sound work you’ve put in getting this case into perspective, but you are scraping the bottom of the barrel now and getting precious little for it — and every hour that passes makes it less and less likely that we shall lay hands on Streifer. This isn’t his first job here, you must remember. The Special have been after him before without finding hide nor hair of him and there’s no reason to expect they’ll be luckier this time.’
‘You think I should write my report?’
