Almost as though it were a holy relic he was guiding it into an envelope, hardly allowing himself to touch it, even with the blade of his pocket-knife.
‘Dutt, we’ve as good as got him!’
His voice was trembling with suppressed exultation.
‘It fits like a glove… I must have been mad not to see it before!’
‘But what’s it all about, sir?’
‘… about? You have to ask me?’
‘Well I might be hexceptional dense, sir, but that’s just toffee-paper to me!’
Gently chuckled as he straighted up. His eye had that far-distant look which came at moments when mystery was ceasing to be mystery, when the picture he sought had begun to take shape.
‘Come on… this isn’t enough, Dutt! There should be something more solid. And now we know what we’re looking for, we may know where to find it — even if we aren’t quite certain about the bloke who put it there!’
‘Then we don’t know who it was, sir?’
‘We do, Dutt — and we don’t.’
‘Couldn’t you put it a little plainer, sir?’
‘It’ll be plain enough before long!’
He set off back to the dinghy without vouchsafing another word. Dutt shook his head in sorrow and followed his senior with oozing steps. He wasn’t usually a stupid policeman — what had he missed on this amphibious excursion?
Upper Wrackstead Dyke was a peaceful spot as the dinghy came sculling back to its moorings. The children were at school, the river-dwellers about their business and the sun shining hot on cottage, willows and boats. Only Thatcher was brought to his cabin door by the sound of the approaching oars.
‘Blast, bor!’ he commented. ‘Yew din’t want a boot for long!’
Gently shrugged and cast a speculative eye over the deserted scene. So quiet it was, so still.
‘An look what yew’ve done t’her — she in’t half in a pickle! Yew din’t tell me yew’d be a-jammin’ about in the carrs!’
‘Here’s half a crown for the mess.’
‘Ah, an’ worth evra penna.’
‘What’s that wire-net contraption with handle you’ve got on the cabin roof?’
Thatcher turned about to look. His cabin roof was a depository for all sorts of superannuated junk.
‘Yew mean this here?’
‘Yes — what’s it for?’
‘W’blast, tha’s a dydle, and they use it for dydlin’ out dykes.’
‘You can dredge in the mud with it?’
‘W’yes, tha’s what tha’s for.’
‘I’d like to borrow it… it’s worth another five bob.’
With the dydle securely lashed to the roof-rack, they set out in the Wolseley. Gently was in an effervescent, schoolboy mood. You would almost have thought he was off on a treat.
‘We’re going to Ollby, sir?’
Dutt was a little put out by his senior’s unwillingness to confide in him.
‘Yes, Dutt — Ollby ho!’
‘You reckon we’ll find something, sir?’
‘I reckon we stand a chance, Dutt… a very good chance!’
Dutt jiffled a little. How like Gently it was, this irritating mysteriousness when he thought he had the scent!
‘Might I ask what we’ll be looking for, sir?’
Gently grinned into his driving-mirror.
‘Let me put it to you, Dutt… I like to benefit by your Cockney common sense! Suppose you’d just popped off Lammas and you were going ahead with the cremation programme. Would you, or wouldn’t you be in a bit of a hurry?’
‘I’d be in a hurry, sir… too flipping true I would!’
‘And being in this hurry, suppose you discovered something on Lammas which, if even a trace of it were found, would give the game away — and which might not burn satisfactorily. What would you do with it?’
Dutt hesitated cautiously.
‘Somethink which might be missed, sir?’
‘No — quite the contrary — somethink which would never be missed.’
‘Then I’d sling it overboard, sir, always provided it would sink nicely.’
Gently nodded complacently.
‘That’s just how I argued.’
‘But what is this somethink, sir?’
‘Ah… that remains to be seen!’
Nothing had changed at Ollby Quay, except that the wreck was missing and the smell of burning grown stale. Now that the wreck was gone the charred trees seemed a little unreal and ashamed of themselves. They presented such a woeful contrast to the smiling reed-and-alder bounded pool with its rampant lilies, its white-flowered plants and its domestic water-hens.
‘What a place to commit murder!’
Gently brooded over it pensively a moment as he unbuttoned his jacket.
‘You’d think people would have more sense… it’s only a failure who would kill! Here, give me the net. I’ve always fancied my chances with one.’
Dutt willingly surrendered the dydle, which, with its generous twelve feet of handle, was no sinecure.
‘We may have to get a boat up here — it depends on what sort of sling the fellow had.’
Gently considered the spot where the yacht had lain, then dipped in at the far side of the dyke on which the quay fronted. The water didn’t run deep, but there was some exquisitely resistance-less mud beneath it. Some business it was going to be, finding anything in that lot…
He trawled off a netful and drew it laboriously to the bank.
‘Roll your sleeves up, Dutt — you’re in this too!’ Together they went through it, getting muddied to the elbows. It had a peculiarly viscous quality, that mud; you knew you’d been amongst it. And the sum total of the catch was a number of fresh-water mussel shells…
Gently tried again. One really couldn’t expect impossible luck! He trawled along the dyke carefully and systematically, trying to cover the whole area of the dyke adjacent to where the yacht had been. And slowly the grey-drying pile on the bank grew larger, and Dutt and himself muddier, and the collection of mussel shells more representative. There wasn’t even an old tin to diversify the proceedings. Not even some broken glass.
‘Have a go with the net, sir?’
It was anything for a change.
Gently wiped a streaming brow with a muddy hand and passed over the dydle.
‘I’ve just about covered the dyke… try your luck in the pool. Come to think of it, it’s probably the likelier place.’
He scrubbed his hands in the grass and got out his pipe. There was no doubt that a professional dydler would earn all he could make at the job! He ought to have requisitioned a boat and some Constables… that would have been the way to tackle it. But when you got hold of a lucky break it gave you a feeling of inevitability.
Dutt brought in his first netful. Even the mussel shells were getting scarce. Solemnly they felt their way through the atrocious mixture, the obscene and glutinous mixture. And then… and then…
‘Here sir, would this be anythink?’
It was Dutt who made the strike. From a handful of mud he was separating a smallish, horse-shoe-shaped object, part of which gleamed rosily through its porridge-like envelopment.
Gently almost held his breath.
‘Go on, Dutt… scrape the mud off it!’
Dutt obliged, with a look of perplexity.
