could Paul have planned what took place on Friday in advance?’
‘This Brent woman might have let him know what his old man was up to,’ suggested the super, intrigued.
‘Yes — as far as the trip went. But how could she have known that Lammas would go up Ollby Dyke in such a convenient way, setting her off first at Halford Quay?’
‘She might have been able to fix it…’
Gently nodded eagerly.
‘That’s where I began to smell the scent again. Because I couldn’t think of one single way in which she or any of the others could have fixed such a thing!’
He eased back on his chair to give them time to appreciate the proposition. It was clear enough now, when one knew the denouement!
‘You’ve got to remember how Lammas was placed. He’d cut his ties with his past, there was nothing there for a motive. It wasn’t his business or his family which could draw him into a secret rendezvous. And if it wasn’t these, what was it? What else could have been used to get him up Ollby Dyke just as he was about to fade away?
‘There isn’t an answer, but there is a corollary. If Lammas wasn’t enticed up the dyke, then he must have gone there on his own initiative — and if that was the case, who could have known he was there?
‘Mrs Lammas couldn’t. She only knew he had set out towards Wrackstead. Paul couldn’t. He didn’t even know as much as that! And as for Marsh, he only knew what Mrs Lammas told him.
‘Lammas was the only one who could have phoned Hicks and told him to come to Ollby Dyke.’
‘You’re forgetting Linda Brent,’ the super interrupted. ‘She may have known about Ollby Dyke and tipped Paul off.’
‘No.’ Gently shook his head. ‘Paul couldn’t have been tipped off. If he’d known what he was going to do, he’d have fixed the chauffeur before he left. He didn’t need to phone unless his father hadn’t arrived at Ollby, which was not the case.
‘I’d got to this stage last night when we brought in Linda Brent. It still wasn’t making sense, in fact I seemed to be back at the beginning again. If nobody else was involved, then Hicks must have killed him for the money… and if Hicks had done that, he was at once the cleverest, stupidest and luckiest criminal I had ever had to do with. In addition to which Linda Brent was violently in love with him!
‘It was a round dozen of contradiction. I knew I must be seeing it cock-eyed. And it only seemed to make matters worse when I saw the cap and jacket and heard about the shack in the carrs…
‘For instance, why would Hicks leave them there, of all places, when he might have stuffed them in the next ditch? If he’d been hiding there himself it would have been a reason. But you could tell me there were no signs of the shack being inhabited and an intensive manhunt had failed to turn up Hicks… so what was it all about? And as you asked me, if Hicks was around, where was he?
‘I did the only thing I could think off. I cooked a charge against Linda Brent. If she were right about what she knew then it ought to worry someone, and a murderer getting worried has been known to put a foot wrong.
‘Next, I was interested in the shack. It was too handy for Upper Wrackstead… and it did occur to me that Annie might have been lured aboard a dinghy.’
Gently broke off a little hoarsely. He wasn’t used to speaking at such length. And his pipe kept going out, with all this persistent monologue.
‘Is there any coffee left?’
The super kindly poured him some. It was cold and tasted of grounds, but it slaked a thirsty throat. Outside some stars were sparkling and the traffic was getting thin. Hansom was deciding to risk a cigar, even though he didn’t come from the Central Office.
‘I had a hunch about that shack.’
Gently’s pipe was going again.
‘I felt it would make or break me — I’d got into that state of mind! At first it looked like the latter, though I discovered a couple of things you’d missed. One of them suggested that a dinghy had been kept there, and the other that somebody had been using the place long before last Friday. But that didn’t ring a bell. The dinghy fitted a surmise, the other simply added to the mystery.
‘I stood in the shack by the nettles literally wrestling with those facts. I knew there must be a right way of seeing them and that I’d got the wrong way. I thought back over everything I’d done, everything which had come to light — odd little things, like the way Lammas had changed his shirt, or the way the jerrican disappeared from the garage, or the way we only found his and Mrs Lammas’ prints on the gun-drawer. And always there loomed up the incredible folly of that week on the Harrier — against so much careful planning, so much able implementation! And after it the dismissal of Linda Brent to her hideaway and the inexplicable rendezvous at Ollby Quay.
‘Just there, my mind seemed to be wandering. It kept reverting back to an interview I’d had with your County Drama Organizer. Every time my ideas seemed to be building up to something my thoughts slipped away to that smiling little man and whatever it was he was trying to tell me.
‘Psychology is a curious business. I’m tempted to think that had the solution worked out in my unconscious when I got that hunch about the shack… Anyway, I discovered the local reason why my mind kept slipping — I was looking straight at a strip of paper which had been torn from a carmine greasepaint liner! And then I had it, all in a flash. From then on it was simply a bit of routine. There’s a lot of mystery about a substitute corpse when you don’t know what it is… once you do, the murderer hasn’t got much time ahead of him.’
Gently broke off again, as though that, for him, was the end of the matter. Routine was routine… no need to go into that. The interest lay in how you got to your man.
‘Here, but wait a minute!’
The super thought otherwise.
‘Put the light on, somebody… we don’t have to sit here in the dark!’
Dutt obediently rose to his feet and a glare of fluorescence flooded the bare office. Gently screwed up his eyes and puffed a disapproving cloud of smoke.
‘Did you know he was masquerading as Thatcher, right there on the spot?’
The stars had been ousted from their oblique wedge of sky.
‘He was so damned good at it… I had doubts even then.’
‘But you had Thatcher in mind?’
‘Of course. The date almost clinched it.’
‘Dates? What dates, man?’
‘Easter, principally… That was when Lammas put his plan in operation — he gives you the reason: it was then when his Society fixed the date of their conference. Having got that, he went to work. He booked the yacht and rented the bungalow… and started disappearing on mid-week trips. And at Easter Thatcher drifted into Upper Wrackstead Dyke, complete with a frowzy old houseboat and an alibi for being there only occasionally…’
‘His widow!’ grunted Hansom, whose memory had been stirred. ‘And he was away Friday evening — we heard that right at the beginning.’
‘Yes… we heard it from Annie Packer. There’s an odd twist, if you like.’
‘Then you knew it was Thatcher when you borrowed his dydle?’
The super was going to have it, one way or the other.
‘I told you… I wasn’t quite sure. And I had to prove my theory. I suppose I might have grabbed Thatcher on suspicion and established his identity, but there was just a chance it was someone else… I like to prove before I move.’
‘I don’t see what proof it was against Thatcher, your finding Hick’s denture in the mud.’
‘The denture wasn’t.’ Gently shot a wry glance at Dutt. ‘But the bullets were.’
‘Eh?’
‘They might as well have had his signature on them. Only Thatcher knew what I was up to. There wasn’t a soul about when I borrowed his dydle… it had to be Thatcher with the gun.’
‘It was an unnecessary risk, Gently!’
‘I didn’t know he’d chase after us on the next bus.’
‘A fine mess we’d have been in if he’d knocked off the pair of you.’
