several newspapers, including Sunday’s, and a pile of brown paper. Gently unfolded a Sunday Express. It had had a cutting taken from it. He unfolded three others. Each had cuttings taken from them.
‘He’s hopped it all right.’ Copping came in, dusty and aggrieved. ‘Bryce is up in the loft now, but he’d have hardly got up there without someone to give him a bunk… there’s nothing to stand on. I’m afraid we’re just too late… they always seem one jump ahead, these bastards!’
Gently pointed to the pile of brown paper. ‘What do you make of that?’
Copping stared intelligently. ‘Looks as though he bought a geyser or something.’
‘Was that mattress upstairs a new one?’
‘Brand new — and so were the blankets.’
‘And what does that suggest to us… knowing what we do?’
There was a pause and then the divine spark fell. ‘By glory — it’s the same paper that was used to wrap the clothes!’ Gently nodded approvingly. ‘Used to wrap mattresses — and there’s the new mattress and you can see it’s the same paper — it’s got that crimp in it, just the same!’
‘And it’s had a piece torn off it… just about the same size.’
Copping’s heavy features flushed with excitement. ‘We’ve got him, then — we can tie him in! We’ve got proof now, good, hard, producible proof — the sort of thing juries love — material proof!’
‘Just one thing, though,’ murmured Gently.
‘Proof!’ boomed Copping, ‘what more do we need?’
‘We need something we haven’t got right at this moment and that’s the initial proof that Streifer was ever in the house at all.’
Copping faltered in his raptures. ‘But good lord… it must have been him!’
Gently shook an indulgent head. ‘Remember that jury and keep your hands to yourself. Don’t touch the paper, the taps, the dishes or anything else that’s lying about. I suppose it’s too late to worry about the doorknobs. As soon as Bryce is through having fun in the loft he’d better light out for your print man. It isn’t likely that Streifer was too careful here… he expected to be far otherwheres when and if we ever identified the place.’
‘And how right he was — how dead bloody right!’
Gently hunched his shoulders soberly. ‘He’s a man like you and me. People don’t become magicians when they join a secret police.’
‘It’s enough to make you think so, the way this bloke keeps himself lost.’
A dishevelled and wash-prone Bryce was dispatched in the car and Gently, having completed his tour of the house, went out to inspect the grounds. They had nothing relevant to disclose. The tumpy wilderness which had been a lawn, the nettled and willow-herbed flower-beds, these looked as though a full five years had elapsed since a foot had trodden there, or a hand had been raised in their defence. Gently went round to the Achilles heel, the seaward side. Not more than five yards of stony land separated the house from its inevitable tumble to the beach.
‘Can’t last another winter,’ observed Copping knowingly, ‘should have gone in the January gales. It was sheer cussedness that made it hang on… there were falls everywhere except here.’
Gently approached timidly to the treacherous edge. Seventy feet below the wet sand looked dark and solid. North, south, the sullen lines of slanted combers fretted wearily, told their perpetual lie of harmlessness and non- aggression. Down by the racecourse a lonely path wore its way to the beach.
‘That’s it,’ muttered Gently, ‘they carted him down there. How far would you say we were above the Front?’
Copping did some calculations. ‘Two miles, about… might be a trifle less.’
‘It just about tallies… I was reckoning on two miles. They dumped him in down there in the ebb, expecting the current to pick him up and carry him right down south. It was just rank bad luck that he finished up on their doorstep again…’
‘You’re positive it was done in the house?’
‘Quite positive… I can see the whole picture now.’
‘There weren’t any signs of it — no blood-stains or anything.’
Gently smiled grimly. ‘Professionals, Copping. He wasn’t hacked about. Didn’t you notice how little blood there was on the clothes?’
‘And if they’d used violence it wouldn’t have shown much, not in an empty house.’
‘But they didn’t use any… they didn’t have to. He was delivered right into their hands, unarmed and unsuspecting. My guess is that the first thing he knew about it was an automatic dug into his ribs… you don’t argue with a thing like that in the first instance. By the time he’d weighed the situation up his hands were tied and he hadn’t any option. It’s a classic case, Copping. Only our Delilahs come a bit coarser these days.’
‘Delilahs!’ Copping gave a laugh. ‘He must have wanted his brains tested to take up with a mare like Frenchy.’
There was a sound of two cars pulling up and they returned to the front of the house. To their surprise it was the super who came stalking up the crazy-paving. The great man had a taut look, as though primed with high enterprise, and having stalked to the end of the crazy-paving he halted smartly, straddled his legs and quizzed Gently with a sideways look in which were blended both jealousy and admiration.
‘All right!’ he rapped, ‘you’re a happy man, Gently. You know your job, and I’m just a blasted ex-infantry officer who’s got shoved into a rural police force!’
Gently bowed modestly, as though disclaiming praise from such high places. The super snorted and directed his gaze at a ‘Windy Tops’ chimney.
‘So they got him!’ he jerked from the corner of his mouth, ‘laid for him on information — Special and the Limehouse lot — picked him up going aboard a Polish tramp. Nearly shot two men and laid out a third. They’re bringing him up now and a big-shot from Special along with them.’
There was a gratifying silence.
‘You mean… Streifer?’ gasped Copping.
The super withered him with an acetylene flicker of his eye. ‘We’re not after Malenkov — nor Senator McCarthy! And just to temper the general glee I may as well add that Special are not the teeniest weeniest bit interested in our lousy little homicide. They couldn’t care less. What they’re coming for is the whole TSK Party handed to them on a platter and if we can’t produce it then they aim to make life irksome in these parts — you understand?’
Gently nodded his mandarin nod. ‘I’ve worked with Special…’
‘Then you know what’s coming — and it’ll be here just after tea! So get your facts marshalled, Gently. There’s a top-level conference staring you in the face. Amongst other things I’ve had to pull the CC off a theatre party he’s had planned for the last six weeks… that’s one nasty-minded person who’s going to be there, for a start!’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Assuredly there was was an array of formidable talent lined up in the super’s office on that grey August evening. It required the impression of seating accommodation from several other departments and it was sad to see so many men of such lustre crammed together like constables at a compulsory lecture. As far as sheer superiority of rank was concerned, the home team had a clear advantage. They were led by the Chief Constable of Northshire, Sir Daynes Broke, CBE, ably supported by his Assistant CC, Colonel Shotover Grout, DSO, MC, with the redoubtable flanks of Superintendent Symms and Inspector Copping. But rank, of course, wasn’t everything. There was a matter of quality also, and in this respect, to judge from their attitude, the visiting team felt themselves to have the edge. They were four in number, a sort of Special commando unit. Their ranks comprised Detective Sergeants Drill and Nickman, as dour a pair of bloodhounds as ever signed reports; their lieutenant was Chief Inspector Lasher, a man who had earned the hearty dislike of a select list of international organizations. But it was their No. 1 who really set the seal on the outfit. You could feel his presence through six-inch armour plate. He was a comparatively small man with a large squarish head and blue eyes that glowed hypnotically, as though lit by the perpetual and unfaltering generation of his brain. His name was Chief Superintendent Gish and the date of his retirement had been set aside by the entire world of espionage as one for public holiday and heartfelt
