them clean and neither were near Hiverton. We’ve got another name, Coulson, but him we’re still chasing.’
‘What did they know about Campion?’
‘Nothing, except that she buried her grandmother. Her husband was a Charlie Campion, a foreman carpenter who hailed from Stepney. We dug that up at Somerset House, but there’s no sign of any of their children having married. You can think what you like.’
‘And the local records?’
‘Gone up in smoke. But we’re still asking questions.’
Gently inquired about the warehouse affair. Here everything was progress with arrests hourly expected. Mixer’s associates had been identified as old friends of the police; there were men out searching for them in all their favoured localities.
‘If only it wasn’t so flaming hot! You’ve no idea what Whitehall’s like.’
‘Have you been frying any more eggs?’
‘We tried some steak, but it just dries up.’
He lit his pipe and went into the bar. The news of the fresh discovery had quickly made its way to the guest house. At one or two of the tables they sat discussing it, but their voices sank as they saw him enter. Without looking round he knew that every head was turned.
‘A shandy with plenty of ice.’
Maurice looked as though he wanted to speak to Gently. After making the drink he stood hesitating by the counter, put off by the silence and general focus of attention. But at last he leaned over and whispered in Gently’s ear:
‘Is it right what they’re saying?’
Gently tilted his glass, shrugging. If that was all Maurice wanted, then he could wait for the evening paper. It wasn’t all, however. The bartender remained with his elbows on the counter. His appearance was less confident than it had been in the morning and he watched the progress of the shandy with symptoms of anxiety.
‘You remember what I was telling you?’
‘Hmn.’ Gently put down the glass.
‘Well, I don’t want you to think… I mean, I gave it to you straight! As near as I remember Rosie was in with me till one. If she says any different… we didn’t watch the clock, did we? I gave it to you straight, you needn’t worry about that.’
Watching him, Gently grunted again. Maurice was noticeably more nervous, less inclined to be matey. It went without saying that he had compared notes with Rosie — had her memory been bad, and the truth leaked out by accident?
‘What part of the world do you come from?’
‘Me? I belong to Starmouth.’
‘Your family lives there?’
‘Well no — not exactly. But I’ve been settled up here for a few years now.’
‘Where does your family live?’
‘In Lambeth, as a matter of fact.’
‘In Lambeth! When was the last time you were there?’
‘To tell the truth, I haven’t been home since after the war.’
The nervousness was alarm now- Maurice didn’t like this at all. In spite of the ears cocked in their direction he was letting his voice rise from its confidential whisper.
‘Look, I had some trouble, see? But it’s all over and done with! I may as well admit it — it had to do with a woman. She swore I made her do it — you know how it is — tore her clothes and got some bruises! And all the time, if she’d told the truth.’
‘How far is Lambeth from Camden Town?’
‘I don’t know! What’s that got to do with it?’
‘And how long did you say you’d known Miss Campion?’
‘I told you — since last week. And the same goes with her boyfriend.’
‘You’d better let me have your family’s address.’
He left Maurice staring after him very unhappily. The bartender had the air of being completely taken down. He began polishing glasses which were sparkling bright already, and when he served a customer, kept his eyes strictly lowered.
‘Pagram? It’s me again. I’ve got another assignment for you.’
As he talked Gently could imagine the airless heat trap of the Lambeth streets.
Some of the youngsters had formed a skiffle group which practised in the reading room, and Gently, on his way out, caught a snatch from it in the hall. They weren’t entirely beginners, you could tell it by their panache: just then they were improvising a rather neat calypso.
‘Rachel, she was a lady -
At least, some people thought so!
Rachel, she was a lady -
At least, some people thought so!
Rachel came to the Bel-Air,
Rachel had long coal-black hair -
Rachel, she was all the rage,
Isn’t it a pity she was in a cage!
Oh, we all liked Rachel so,
But not that other so-and-so!’
The performance ended in laughter and shrieks of applause. It was sung, Gently thought, by a certain fair- haired youth who played a good game of tennis. It depended on your age how you reacted to shock.
Did he have a premonition that he would find Esau waiting for him? He couldn’t precisely have said, but at least the event didn’t surprise him. The fisherman must have known that Gently would want to see him — no policeman was going to be satisfied by the events of that morning! At the same time, Esau didn’t need to put himself forward; and that was what he was doing, sitting there on his hedge bank.
Or was he? Gently had to admit a second of doubt about it. The fisherman looked so unconcerned, his darkened clay resting between his teeth. He was, of course, ignoring Gently. The Sea-King paid his respects to no man. But surely he could be there for one purpose only, he wouldn’t have chosen that seat by accident?
He was there, in any case, in his odd, inscrutable fashion. Gently advanced towards him deliberately, trying to frame his opening gambit. Then — instinctively — he wavered. What was the use in asking questions? Hadn’t it already got beyond words with them, this majestic man and himself?
Instead, he sat down silently beside him. It seemed suddenly the only thing to be done. If there was to be any communication, then the initiative lay with Esau: Gently’s role was to wait alertly for what the other might care to impart. They had got into a peculiar relationship and one could only give it its head.
And so it began, a bizarre half-hour, unequalled by anything in Gently’s experience. Looking back on it from a distance he was still unable to make sense of it. Not a word was spoken by either, nor did they once exchange a look. If they had been a couple of statues they could hardly have sat stiller or quieter. Bizarre — and yet something did pass between them however inexplicable it was to remain. Gently became conscious of a growing clarity, a slow development of his earlier mood. Was the Sea-King a telepathist — could that be the explanation? Was he secretly shaping Gently’s thoughts as the smoke rose from the guttering clay?
Perhaps it was simply the other’s serenity which was being communicated to him. He sat so still, so effortlessly still, his eyes scarcely blinking or shifting direction. His face was as a mask from which all emotion had drained away: its lines contained a history, but of itself it had no expression. And sitting there beside him one had to echo that brooding serenity. It was like a sensible ether that he extended round about him. This it was, at the least, which was prompting Gently’s awareness, soothing him, persuading him that he was seeing things more clearly.
Because, in sum, what was it that this clarity embraced? It was an indefinable conviction that now he knew all there was to be known. There was nothing material to support it, no new fact to square the circle. As intangible as the pipe smoke the conviction had stolen upon his mind. Now… he knew it all! — Esau’s silence was to tell him
