go her own way. Sensual, promiscuous, but level-headed as well. A born and bred cockney, she was first of all a realist: she had accepted her life and produced something like a glow from it.
Wasn’t that the true attraction, setting aside her physical beauty? Wasn’t that what fascinated men even more than all the rest?
‘Thirty-fifteen!’
Down below the game waxed furious. Racquets in hand, those waiting their turn stood by shouting advice and comment.
‘Come into the net, Barry!’
‘Whee! What a backhander!’
She had seen it all, heard it all, but now it went on without her. The essence of tragedy lay in other people’s indifference.
Gently swept up the photographs with a sudden surge of violence. Who would have wanted to have killed her? What had she done to deserve that? Mixer didn’t fit the picture — he was jealous, but he understood her. Simmonds? He was a better bet — a twisted little egoist. But there again, she’d been kind to him. She was a blend of mother and mistress. If Mixer had been killed that would have been another story
… as it was, what could have prompted a murderous fit in Simmonds?
He heard a movement by the door and glanced quickly towards it. Just too late a white jacketed figure glided silently out of view.
‘Here… you! Come back a moment.’
Reluctantly Maurice reappeared. His expression was a little sheepish but otherwise he seemed at ease.
‘Come in here — I want to talk to you.’
Maurice entered with his neat, graceful step. At close quarters one saw that he was not so young; there were fine lines meshing the corners of his eyes, a few white hairs amongst the sleeked dark brown.
‘Take a chair, will you?’
‘I should be in the kitchen.’
‘Never mind that. You can refer them to me.’
Maurice shrugged delicately and took a chair beside the window. Rachel’s bag was lying on it but he removed the obstruction without curiosity.
‘I suppose you know why I want to see you?’
Gently himself sat on the broad wooden sill. The bartender’s face was directly facing the sun: it was a perfectly calculated deployment for interrogation.
‘It’s about Mr Mixer, isn’t it?’
‘You didn’t take long to guess.’
‘Well, there you are — I knew it’d come out. It stands to reason that you wouldn’t be satisfied.’
‘Yet you told us a lie, didn’t you?’
‘I did my best for him.’
‘How much did he pay you?’
‘Fifteen quid altogether.’
This was frank to a point — Maurice seemed rather to enjoy talking about it. His grey eyes nudged Gently’s with a sort of confidential cynicism.
‘It was a fiver to start with — did he tell you about that? I was supposed to keep an eye on her while he was away in Starmouth. Then the next morning he sent for me and coughed up two more. That was to tell you he got in at a quarter after midnight.’
‘And you told us — just like that!’
‘I’d taken his money, hadn’t I?’
‘Didn’t you realize that he might be Miss Campion’s murderer?’
‘We didn’t hear about it till later, and then it was too late. Anyway, I reckoned that you’d soon have the truth out of him.’
There was no abashing the bartender by representing his iniquity to him. He obviously looked on Gently as a fellow cognoscente. Mixer had been tossing fivers about — good! Maurice had been in their way. It wasn’t in human nature to have behaved any differently.
‘And suppose I charge you with obstructing the police?’
‘Go on! You wouldn’t make a fuss about a little thing like that.’
Gently grunted but didn’t press him. The time for that, perhaps, would come. He pulled out his pipe and filled it with deliberate slowness. The smoke curled bluely in the still, hot air.
‘Tell me about Tuesday evening.’
‘Tuesday?’ Maurice grinned at him. ‘It’s a long story, that is. How much do you want to hear?’
‘All of it.’
‘You’ll get your money’s worth. But it started before
Tuesday. In a manner of speaking it started when she first set foot in the place.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Can’t you guess? I like the ladies.’
‘You’re telling me that you?’
‘I wouldn’t pass up a girl like Rachel!’
There was no hesitation about it — quite the reverse, indeed. Maurice revelled in the telling of his amorous history. He winked at Gently and made gestures with his head. When he came to the tit-bits he fairly rolled his tongue round them.
‘I saw what she was the moment I clapped eyes on her — so could anyone else, if it comes to that. She’d got just that way with her — you know the sort? Every move, every jiggle… and what a body she had!
‘Her breasts were like melons and her thighs like trees, and sometimes she looked at you as though she wanted to eat you.’
Though he was properly behind the bar, Maurice had rushed to take up her baggage. He found her standing in front of her mirror and taking the fastenings out of her hair.
‘I nearly dropped a clanger. Mr Mixer was round the corner. She opened her bag to give me a tip, and I could see right down… you get me? Luckily I heard him coming — but don’t tell me she did it by accident!’
After that he was more cautious, though his lecherous mouth was watering. He watched and spied and made sheep’s eyes at Rachel. She, too, had noticed him and gave him contemptuous encouragement. His sheep’s eyes were caught and answered, and once or twice she was more provoking.
‘Got me to run her bath and came in wearing next to nothing… another time the bar was empty. She leaned on the counter and gave me a proper old eyeful.’
But the moment came when the teasing was made up to him. Perhaps Rachel felt sorry for the tricks she had played. One evening she retired early, saying that the sun had given her a headache. Within twenty minutes she rang the bar asking for aspirins and water.
‘Didn’t Mixer suspect anything?’
‘No, he was stuck into the Record — I’d just fixed him up with a nice long Scotch. Rosie took the bar for me — she’s all right, is Rosie — and I went up the back way to keep it nice and unobtrusive.
‘Guess how I found her? Stretched flat across the bed there! The light was out, of course, but it wasn’t properly dark.’
‘How long were you away from the bar?’
‘Half an hour or forty minutes. I daren’t stay longer, and perhaps it was just as well. As it was… you understand me? I needed a brandy to pull me round. Rosie laughed her head off to see me looking so pale.’
‘Where was Mixer when you got back?’
‘Right there where I’d left him. He’d drunk another couple of whiskies but he hadn’t left the bar. And for the rest of the evening
…’
‘When else did you make love to her?’
‘There wasn’t never another chance until Tuesday, worst luck.’
Gently relit his pipe while Maurice gabbled on. There was something absurd about this oversexed little man.
