‘Looking at it another way… if you had noticed something, would you have felt it your business to drop Mrs Lammas a hint?’
The ghost of a flush appeared in Page’s corpse-like countenance.
‘This… has to do with the case?’
‘Oh yes! Very much it has to do with the case.’
‘It is not my business, you understand, to be a passer of idle gossip.’
‘I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t require the facts.’
‘Very well… since I have your assurance. I did in fact drop such a hint.’
‘When!’ rapped Gently, with such venom that Page nearly toppled off his stool.
‘When… why… it was Friday morning! I rang her up when the wage cheque was refused… she drove into town directly with money to pay off the staff!’
It came out easily then. Page was suddenly rather frightened. He had gone to the bank at the end of the morning to cash the cheque and when it was refused, had started putting two and two together. Mrs Lammas, when she arrived, had put them together even faster. Where was Linda Brent? She hadn’t been in that week! What was going on at the business? The unhappy Page had had to admit that it was practically sold out.
‘Who else was present at this interview?’ fired Gently.
‘Nobody — they had gone to lunch!’
‘And why didn’t you tell the police about it?’
‘I–I looked upon it as a private matter… Mrs Lammas advised me to keep it to myself…’
‘How did you find out about the Harrier?’
‘I didn’t — I didn’t know anything about it.’
‘Then where did Mrs Lammas get her information?’
The head clerk wrung his hands anguishedly.
‘She went into his office… she might have found something amongst his papers!’
With a snort Gently got up off his table and slammed across the corridor into Lammas’ office. It was a neat, well-furnished room, looking out on the drab river-frontage. Gently sized it up quickly. There was a shallow document drawer at the top of the green steel desk. On the desk lay a slightly bent paper-knife and the drawer was bent and scratched above the lock. He whisked it open. No need to look further! The current Blake’s List stared him in the face, turned back at the Harrier’s entry, and under it lay Old Man Sloley’s confirmatory letter…
‘Haven’t you got any keys to this desk?’
The shattered head clerk had followed him into the room. He shook his head helplessly.
‘Well… I doubt whether he would have left anything interesting, though we’ll have to make sure.’
He ruffled through the other papers in the drawer, then threw them back impatiently.
‘Look here! I’m pretty certain Lammas was up to something we don’t know about. Why not make a clean breast? He’s dead now and in any case he hasn’t treated you any too well.’
‘But there was absolutely nothing…!’ Poor Page was almost ludicrous in his agitation.
‘There must have been something! What were those mid-week trips of his about?’
‘They were to negotiate the new property… that’s what he told me!’
‘And you believed it — you, with your finger on the pulse of everything going on here! Do you think we’re imbeciles? You couldn’t help having an idea. And don’t think you’ll be left here any longer to cook the books and cover up!’
This was too much for the head clerk. He drew himself up with a fury that almost startled Gently.
‘Sir… sir! If you continue in these allegations I shall request the presence of my solicitor. I will not submit to such preposterous accusations!’
‘All right… all right!’ Gently waved him down pacifically. ‘We’ll check the books anyway… I’m only giving you a chance to come clean.’
‘But I have nothing to admit, sir! I am here purely in the office of a caretaker — unpaid, I may say. My services are gratuitous-!’
‘I’ll believe you… don’t labour it.’
‘-doing nothing but answering correspondence, which, sir, must be done!’
Further protestations seemed to hover on the outraged Page’s lips, but he was interrupted by the sudden clangour of the dead man’s phone. For a moment both of them stared at it, ringing away insistently on the corner of the desk. Then Gently grabbed it up and limbered it to his ear.
‘Chief Inspector Gently.’
It was Hansom at the other end.
‘I’ve been trying to get you for the last hour… thought you might like the latest bulletin from Upper Wrackstead.’
‘Upper Wrackstead!’ Gently stiffened. ‘You don’t mean you’ve picked up Hicks?’
‘Not yet… not quite!’ Hansom’s voice sounded gloating. ‘But we’ve picked up a specimen of the larky lad’s handiwork. You remember that fat burglar’s wife — Cheerful Annie, they call her? Well, they found her in the Dyke this morning… with a. 22 bullet through her head!’
CHAPTER TEN
The Super’s Humber decorated the scene of the crime when Gently arrived there. The great man was standing beside it holding forth to Hansom, while two plain-clothes men and the local Constable added dignity to the composition. In scared little groups the river-dwellers stood near their boats, even the children subdued and watching.
‘I want him,’ the super was delivering himself, ‘and I’m going to have him! I’m going to have him if it means drafting in blasted military. Why man, nobody’s life is safe while this damned chauffeur is at liberty — he’s running amok, he’ll put a bullet into anybody who recognizes him!’
‘We’ve got the district cordoned,’ put in Hansom defensively. ‘There’s road-blocks on all the main-’
‘Road-blocks!’ snapped the super, swinging his arms dramatically at the surrounding marsh and carrs. ‘That’s where he is — not playing tag with your road-blocks! Get some men in there — get a lot of men in there. I don’t care whether they sink in up to their backsides — I want Hicks winkled out before he shoots down any more innocent bystanders!’
Hansom made a face outside the super’s range of vision. He knew, if the super did not, what it was like beating an alder carr…
‘Ah… and you Gently!’ The super’s eye fell on the Central Office man. ‘Where were you when Hicks was blazing away last night? You’re a Yard man, aren’t you! You’re one of those “lucky” types whom things creep up on! Well, there was something crept up here last night and I’ll bet my last chance of promotion you were sleeping like a baby, forty yards from the spot! And that, after you’d been told Hicks was lurking around here!’
Gently heaved his bulky shoulders non-committally.
‘That was only a rumour… we investigated it thoroughly.’
‘Only a rumour! Only a rumour!!! And I suppose the body they’ve just carted off is only a rumour, too! I tell you it’s not good enough, Gently. You might have prevented what happened last night. Ever since you’ve come down here you’ve been wasting your time probing and prying into the Lammas family, while the real criminal has been left running around loose… and now this happens, right under your very nose! If you’d exerted yourself in the right direction we might have pulled in Hicks before he had a chance to pot anyone else.’
Slowly Gently fumbled in his pocket for a peppermint cream and balanced it on his thumb.
‘Why,’ he asked simply, ‘would Hicks come here?’
‘I don’t give two hoots why Hicks came here!’
‘But it’s a relevant question… this is the last place you’d expect to find him.’
The super looked as though he’d bite him. ‘I don’t care if it’s so bloody irrelevant that Scotland Yard would lie down and weep! He’s been here — he was seen here — and he’s done another killing here. That’s all that matters, and that’s all that’s going to matter. We didn’t know where to start looking before, but we do now, and by glory we’re going to have him sitting in a cell before he’s very much older!’
