dusty drill trousers and jacket he was wearing.
‘The boss, now, he’s one of the best… when you get to know him! Some people says he’s got a temper, but don’t you believe it. Nervous he is sometimes — aren’t we all now and then? — but underneath it there’s a heart of gold. I reckon they don’t come better than Harry Fuller, there…’
‘What about Mr Blythely?’
‘Huh?’
Blacker was unprepared for the change of subject.
‘I was asking what was your opinion of Mr Blythely.’
‘Oh, him! Well, that’s another kettle of fish entirely.’
The smirk came back to the foreman’s lips, but this time it wasn’t directed at Gently. A private joke it seemed to be, a secret amusement of Blacker’s maliciousness…
‘Now he’s a queer bird if you like, with his hymn-singing and Bible-thumping. Don’t drink, don’t swear — you’d hardly believe he did the other thing! Wouldn’t surprise me if he couldn’t, neither, judging by results. Been married twenty years, they have… do you reckon the bakehouse has anything to do with it?’
Gently merely shrugged and stared absently through the window. Unaware of being observed, the buxom Mrs Blythely was wrapping loaves in tissue for a customer.
‘Well, he’s a bloke I’d keep an eye on if I was a policeman. You never can tell where these holy-boys are going to finish up. They keep it all bottled in — don’t tell me that’s natural! — then one of these days… Yes, I’d keep an eye on him!’
‘Why did he quarrel with Mr Fuller?’
‘Huh?’
Blacker was brought up short again, letting his chair come halfway forward.
‘Didn’t know they had quarrelled — not yet, anyhow. Daresay they will do, though, before they’ve finished with each other.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
Blacker looked suddenly wary.
‘Why, it stands to reason… old Blythely’s got a nasty tongue. One day he’ll say something that Harry won’t take from him. Harry ain’t no saint, you know, he don’t go round preaching sermons.’
‘Likes his pint and his fun, does he?’
‘Yes — one of the lads, he is.’
‘Might raise a bit of scandal.’
‘Well, there you are… that woman who does the letters for him. Though, mind you, she’s a toffee-nosed bitch. Wouldn’t look at the likes of me and the rest of them. But you can take my word’ — Blacker winked knowingly — ‘she wouldn’t say no if the right person asked her. You can always tell about bits of stuff, eh?’
He rocked the chair, watching Gently closely. The man from the Central Office appeared to be studying infinite distances. Blacker ran his tongue over tobacco-stained lips.
‘Not that I want to say a word against Harry — see? He’s a good pal to me, you can say what you like about him. So I know how to hold my tongue. If I sees anything I just keep my eyes shut. And Harry, he appreciates it — he knows that he can trust me! Which is why he made me his foreman when he found he couldn’t get on without one.’
‘Is he trusting you now, sitting here talking to me?’
Blacker tried to smirk, but a wryness had got into it. He darted a glance through the window at the spectral face of his employer.
‘I didn’t mean nothing by that, just pulling your leg! Blast, this business is enough to make anybody get edgy.’
‘Where does the stable come into it?’
‘The stable…?’
Blacker’s chair fell forward.
‘The stable at the back there… don’t tell me you don’t know about it!’
This time he had got home with a vengeance. There was no complacency in Blacker’s manner now. He stared stupidly at Gently, his long face longer still; for two whole seconds he could only open his mouth and gape helplessly.
Mrs Blythely, from her shop door, looked a moment in their direction. But then she seemed to shrug and went back to poring over her newspaper.
‘What about it… that there stable?’
‘That’s what I’m asking you.’
‘Don’t know what you mean… the stable! What’s it got to do with me?’
‘Not only with you, but also with Messrs Fuller and Blythely.’
‘It’s their stable, isn’t it? What am I supposed to know about it?’
They were calling each other’s bluff, and both of them were aware of the fact. Gently had touched a chord which threw Blacker on the defensive, but he was giving nothing away until he could see what cards were being held…
‘Harry keeps some hay up there — that’s all I can tell you! If you want to know anything else, then I reckon you’d better ask him.’
‘I’ve asked him already and now I’m asking you.’
‘Well, I don’t know nothing, and that’s the fact of the matter.’
Gently brooded a second over his empty teacup, then he produced a ten-shilling note and tossed it down on the table.
‘Come on!’ he said. ‘Let’s go and look it over. The sight of the place may improve your memory…’
Protesting, Blacker allowed himself to be led out of the cafe. At least a dozen pairs of eyes were on them — even Blythely was watching from a window high up above the bakehouse.
Just as they went past it the side door of the office opened, but Gently was looking neither to the right hand or the left.
‘In you go — it isn’t locked. We’ll take a look at this side first.’
The stable was a double one with the loft over the inward compartment. Lit by no windows it was gloomy enough, but Blacker pushed in as though he knew his way about. He came to a sullen standstill amongst a raffle of packing-cases and broken chairs.
‘What happens now?’
‘Pull that rubbish to one side.’
‘There’s nothing behind that…’
‘Never mind — pull it aside!’
Blacker was right, there was nothing behind it, with the exception of spiders and a great deal of litter. The floor beneath was of corrugated black tiles, sunk a little at the centre for the purpose of drainage.
‘Satisfied now?’
‘Shift the rubbish on the other side.’
‘I tell you it’s a waste of time…!’
But the rubbish was duly removed, yielding the same result as before.
‘How do you get into the loft?’
Blacker indicated a wooden fodder-trough at the end of the compartment. A packing-case stood by it by way of a step, and above, in a wooden dividing wall, two planks had been left out to provide a means of ingress.
‘Right — up you go!’
Blacker swung himself up with ungainly grace. The loft smelt fragrant with the scent of clover hay, several bales of which lay stacked by the loading door. In addition to this there was a pile of barley straw; it was making a lot of itself and covering much of the floor-space.
‘Move those bales, will you? I’ll turn over the straw.’
There was a pitchfork standing by the wall, and Gently showed that he knew how to use it. Blacker, resigned to the futility of protest, quickly tumbled apart the heap of wire-bound hay bales.
Nothing, and again nothing.
The smirk was creeping back to the foreman’s lips.
