passage through the carrs, but you can get there all right.’
‘And this shack — it isn’t recent?’
‘Not by fifty years it isn’t. I’m told they grazed cattle there before the carrs grew up… that’s when it was probably built.’
‘Didn’t look like he’d been camping there?’
‘No.’ The super frowned. ‘There’s only one sign that he’d been there, and that’s the jacket and the cap.’
Gently nodded from a thoughtful distance. He folded his map and put it away.
‘Well… that’s my minor contribution! Now perhaps we can get to yours. You’ll have talked to this Brent woman — what’s she got to commit suicide about?’
‘She thinks she knows who did it-’
‘Oh does she, by the living thunder!’
‘I said she thinks she knows… I’m not at all certain that she does. She wasn’t around at the time and nobody seems to have got in touch with her.’
‘Never mind! Who’s her tip?’
Gently shrugged. ‘She isn’t giving us one. She was able to infer we hadn’t made an arrest… I’m afraid she’s going to be strictly uncooperative.’
The super said something naughty. ‘She’ll damn well change her mind about that! But just thinking she knows who did it… that’s no reason to turn on the gas.’
‘She thinks she’s implicated… and she’s in love with whoever it is.’
‘You mean in love with the chauffeur?’
‘Not necessarily. Paul Lammas fills the bill.’
The super stared shrewdly for a moment and then ruffled some report sheets which lay on his desk.
‘I’ve been reading a copy of the statements you took this afternoon. I don’t have to ask you what you’ve got from Paul Lammas. And I’ve been thinking, Gently. I’ve been thinking a lot!’
Gently inclined his head deferentially.
‘To begin with, we agree that the chauffeur was only the trigger-puller on this job — I’m talking about Lammas’ murder now. He may not even have pulled the trigger, but whether he did or not, there’s somebody else behind him. Check?’
‘Check.’ Gently looked as though he might say something else, but he prevented himself. He’d better not rub it in!
‘In the second place, we agree that whoever is behind the chauffeur may have succeeded in getting him out of the country — probably to some place from which he can’t be extradited back again. Check?’
Gently hesitated. ‘I’m not quite so struck with that theory as I was this morning.’
‘How do you mean?’ The super eyed him nastily.
‘It’s just a hunch… but I’ve a feeling he may be right under our noses.’
‘You’ve got a lead?’
‘No, nothing you can really call one.’
‘Then damn it, man, stop trying to complicate the issue any further!’ The super was really annoyed. ‘I’ve spent all day coming round to your idea and now you want to slide out of it.’
‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘And it’s the only one that fits the facts. If he hasn’t skipped, where the blasted hell is he?’
Gently’s shoulders hunched. ‘I don’t quite know.’
‘And nor do I — and nor do five score policemen who’ve been raking the marshes for him. If it was Hicks who killed Annie Packer he’d be in a cell by now — but he isn’t, and it wasn’t! Do I have to go on my knees?’
Gently shrugged again and said nothing.
‘Very well — we agree on that one. Hicks is where we’ll never get him. That leaves us to deal with whoever was making use of him — and whoever did kill Annie Packer. Now by your own results we’ve narrowed it down to three, Marsh, Paul and Mrs Lammas, and what we’ve got to decide is whether we should charge one, two or all three of them. They were all on the spot. They all had good reasons! Perhaps you can tell me if you’ve got any favourites among those three.’
Gently shook his head. ‘It works out pretty even. We can deduce that Linda Brent thinks it’s Paul, but against that it was Mrs Lammas who was inquiring where her husband would be and her prints were on the gun-drawer. On the other hand this Marsh would seem to have the strongest motive and looking forward to Annie Packer, he’s the only one with sufficient physical strength to have handled the body as it must have been handled. No… I haven’t any favourites. On the evidence, I wouldn’t dare have.’
‘Then we know where we are.’ The super’s jaw jutted decisively. ‘We shall charge all three with conspiracy to murder and to my way of thinking that’s just about the truth.’
‘But it won’t stand up.’
‘Why won’t it stand up?’
‘Because you haven’t got Hicks… a good defence will simply romp home. They can hang it on him in just the way it’s been planned. If you can’t get Hicks you’ll never get a verdict.’
‘They may rat on each other — it’s been known before today.’
‘But you can’t bank on that.’
‘And there’s bound to be some other evidence!’
‘I’d like to see it before making a charge.’
The super didn’t snarl, although he looked as though he would have liked to. But he knew sense when he heard it and this, he knew, was sense. So he contented himself with putting a band-saw edge into the tone of his next remark.
‘Then if we never get Hicks, what in the thirty-seven blue moons of Gehenna are we something-well going to do?’
Gently produced a peppermint cream from somewhere and began chewing it with insubordinate slowness.
‘I haven’t got a solution… I only know I’m not happy with the facts. Of course there’s some routine-work we haven’t covered yet, like the outgoings from Mrs Lammas’ banking accounts, and what Marsh’s servants know about his movements last night. I’m not expecting too much from either source. For the rest I just don’t know. I’ve got a hunch that there’s a penny due to drop.’
‘But what are you going to do, man?’ exploded the super, not at the moment a great backer of hunches.
‘I’m going to charge Linda Brent… can I borrow your phone?’
The super watched him malevolently as he dialled a number. There had been times before when Gently had made the great man want to tear his close-cropped hair…
‘This is Chief Inspector Gently, Central Office, CID. I’ve a statement for you… give me a machine, will you? This evening Linda Brent, etc., wanted by the Police for questioning in connection with the murder of James William Lammas, was taken into custody and charged with conspiring to defraud while an employee of Lammas Wholesalers Ltd.’
‘You’ll never make it stick, Gently!’ rapped the super as the phone was replaced.
Gently supplied himself with another peppermint cream.
‘I don’t really mind if I don’t,’ he replied wearily.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Move in Lammas case — Gently Charges Linda Brent. It was bannered beautifully across the morning paper which lay by Gently’s cup of tea.
Outside, the river-dwellers were stirring about their business. Pedro was off fruit-picking again, Thatcher was digging for worms, the slattern was getting off to school her own and Cheerful Annie’s offspring.
‘I see you’re findin’ out things, sir,’ sniffed Mrs Grey as she set down the breakfast bacon. She had always a tear to command since the rumour about her nephew being seen had got about.
‘We do our best, Mrs Grey.’
