‘I’m having that photo circulated… what gives you the idea that Hicks has been financed and tucked away somewhere?’
‘He’s supposed to have been seen at Upper Wrackstead yesterday afternoon.’
‘Seen?’ — Hansom’s mouth gaped open.
‘Supposed to have been… it’s probably just a rumour. I can’t get hold of a first-hand witness. I ran over the cottage to please Mrs Grey and Dutt took a shufti at the boats. We didn’t find anything.’
‘But Jeez — shouldn’t we get a man out there?’
‘Maybe we should… though he’ll show up like a sore thumb.’
Back in the Wolseley Gently sat for a minute or two gazing at the well-polished facia board. Then he solemnly produced and tossed a coin. It came down heads.
Pacey Road was a shabby-genteel thoroughfare off Thorne Road. It consisted of rows of late Victorian iced- cake houses, solid though stupid, and derived an air of sooty forlornness from the nearby marshalling yards of Thorne Station. Most of it had been taken over by the County Council and Gently, cruising slowly down, discovered the Drama Organizer’s office at the extreme and stationmost end. He was lucky, they told him. One didn’t often catch the Drama Organizer in his office.
Gently introduced himself and stated his business. John Playfair, an impish, smiling little man with bushy hair and glittering brown eyes, checked his information with scientific thoroughness. Yes, Pauline was one of his most promising young players. Yes, she had been waiting at the door of St Giles’ Hall when he got there for rehearsal on Friday. What time she left he couldn’t be sure… he was trying to iron out the Hovel scene, he seemed to remember. But it was round about her usual time. She had flashed him a goodnight and a promise to be there all day Sunday.
‘Did she seem upset at all that evening?’ Gently prompted.
‘Well… there you are! I can’t swear I noticed anything different about Pauline — I wasn’t really on the look- out for it. As far as I was concerned, she was her usual cheery self.’
‘Of course, you knew Mr Lammas pretty well.’
The smile died from the Drama Organizer’s eyes.
‘Yes… poor old Jimmy! He’d been the backbone of the Anesford since our St Julian’s Hall days… it’s a shocking thing to have happened to him.’
‘Was he popular with the Players?’
‘He was rather more than that… he was almost a tradition with us. Life won’t be quite the same here with old Jimmy gone.’
‘He wasn’t in the present production, however?’
‘No.’ Playfair frowned. ‘I wanted him to play Kent, but he said he couldn’t manage this time. This is an extra production, you understand — we’re putting it on for Festival Week. It isn’t easy to get people at this time of the year.’
‘Did he say why he couldn’t play?’
‘Well… something about business. One doesn’t bully people, you know.’
‘Had business ever stopped him before?’
‘No. But then, we’ve never put on a show in July before.’
Gently half-lofted a shoulder in acknowledgement of the loyalty implicit in the other man’s reply.
‘He was a good actor… what sort of parts did he play?’
‘Jimmy? He was a comedy actor… one of the best I’ve ever seen. The stage lost something when Jimmy went into business. The amateur stage, you know, is plagued with people who simply play themselves — the amateur who can create character is the rarest of rare birds. And Jimmy was that rare bird. Heaven knows how we’re going to replace him!’
‘He was very attached to his daughter, was he?’
‘Very attached indeed.’
‘You knew something about his family affairs?’
‘A little… though not from Jimmy. It was Pauline who dropped something occasionally.’
Gently nodded and picked up his trilby.
‘And his secretary… did he ever mention her?’
‘No — never, within my hearing.’
‘Thank you, Mr Playfair.’ Gently extended his hand. ‘If I should still be in town next week, I’ll make a point of getting along to your Lear!’
The tails side of his coin took him to a thirties-looking reinforced concrete building which stood on the river bank near Count Street bridge. Count Street was dull and industrialized, showing high, bleak walls diversified with an occasional small shop, or a flint church which had got lost during the nineteenth century. The warehouse of Lammas Wholesalers Ltd. was quite an adornment.
Gently turned in at the open gate and parked in the yard. Four steel-shuttered doors over a loading-ramp were closed and locked, but a smaller door at the side stood ajar. He pushed it open and went in. In the office to his right an elderly man in a dark suit was working at a high desk.
‘Hullo… you the sole survivor?’
The elderly man turned to survey him through steel-rimmed spectacles.
‘The Police again?’ he enquired a little tetchily.
Gently grinned and admitted the fact.
‘We can’t help it… not when people get themselves killed! What’s your name, by the way?’
He was Mr Page and he had been the head clerk. A shrivelled, martinet of a man. He hadn’t the slightest right to be there nor the remotest prospect of being paid for what he was doing… but he was doing it all the same. He was tidying up the loose ends of the business.
Gently settled himself on a table and stuffed his pipe with Navy Cut. There was something incredibly dreary and posthumous about this place…
‘You always been with Lammas?’ he asked.
‘I have. At least, ever since the firm was founded.’
‘How long have you been head clerk?’
‘Since the beginning of the war. Our last head clerk was a younger man. He volunteered for Army service.’
‘You’d know everything that went on here.’
‘In the line of business, certainly. That is what head clerks are for.’
‘Well… what about this realization? Didn’t you know about that?’
‘It could hardly have been carried out without my knowledge.’
Lammas hadn’t quite pulled the wool over Page’s eyes, but he’d got pretty close to it. He’d built his story round the approaching termination of his lease on the warehouse. Because of that he was reducing stock, because of that he was selling off trucks and vans. And if it meant the loss of business? Page needn’t worry his head about that! Lammas was conducting highly secret negotiations for the lease of bigger and better premises. When the firm acquired these it would blossom out on a scale it had never approached before. And then Page, of course, could expect a substantial augmentation of his salary
… even an allotment of shares, to increase his interest in the firm.
Yes… Lammas had played it well enough to keep Page guessing, if not satisfied.
And after all, hadn’t Page been witness to Lammas’ business acumen all these long years?
‘What about Miss Brent — you must have noticed something there?’
Page tightened his mummified lips.
‘Miss Brent worked in the ante-room to Mr Lammas’ office, which is across the corridor. It was not my business to spy on my employer’s conduct.’
‘But you’d got an idea?’
‘I have seen nothing suspicious.’
‘I’m not asking if you caught them in flagrante delicto,… just if their attitude struck you as suggestive.’
Page eyed him in hostile silence.
