He said: ‘There’s sausage and chips and beans and fried egg.’
Gently sniffed. ‘I was hoping for roast pork and new potatoes, but never mind. Bring me what you’ve got.’
The bar-tender dived through the curtain again. Presently he came back with cutlery and a plate on which lay three scantly smeared triangles of thin bread, each slightly concave. ‘Will you have a cup of tea to go on with?’ he asked.
‘Yes. No sugar.’
The tea arrived in a thick, clumsy cup. But it was fresh tea. Gently sipped it reflectively, letting his eye wander over the snack-bar and its inmates. This was where Fisher went for lunch. Fortified by a pint of beer, the chauffeur had come in to face his plate of sausage, chips, beans and fried eggs. What had he done while he waited? Read a newspaper? Talked? There was talk now between the two transport drivers.
‘I got a late paper off the station… there’s a bit in the stop-press about Scotland Yard being called in.’
‘That’s because the son hopped it, you mark my words.’
‘D’you reckon he did it?’
‘Well, you see what it said…’
‘What did it say?’
‘It said the police thought he could assist them in their investigation. That’s what they always say before they charge them with it.’
‘They’re a rum lot, them Huysmanns… you don’t know where you are with foreigners.’
The bar-tender sallied out with Gently’s plate. Gently motioned to him to take the chair opposite. He hesitated suspiciously. ‘You knew this young Huysmann?’ enquired Gently blandly. The bar-tender sat down.
‘Yep, I used to know him,’ he said.
‘What sort of bloke was he?’
‘Oh, nothing out of the ordinary. You’d think he was English if you didn’t know.’
‘Used he to come in here?’
‘He did before he went away, but he’s been gone some time now. He had a quarrel with his old man before this lot happened.’
‘Do you think he did it?’
‘Well, I dunno. Might’ve done. He didn’t look the sort, but you can never tell with these foreigners.’
Gently essayed a piece of sausage and chip. ‘You know the chauffeur up there?’ he asked through a mouthful.
‘Who — Fisher?’
‘That’s his name, I believe.’
‘Oh, he’s often in here for something to eat. You know him?’
‘I’ve run across him somewhere.’
‘He’s another rum card, if you ask me. He lives for women, that bloke. Thinks he’s the gnat’s hind-leg.’
‘I heard he fancied the Huysmann girl.’
‘He fancies every bloody girl. He was after our Elsie here till I choked him off.’
‘Do you think there’s anything in it?’
‘I dunno. That girl Susan who works up there dropped something about it one night, but I don’t pay any attention.’
Gently sliced an egg. ‘Is she the blonde piece?’
‘Ah, that’s the one. She’s a fancy bit of homework, I can tell you. But Fisher never got a look in there.’
‘How was that?’
The bar-tender grinned knowingly. ‘She’s got a boyfriend out of his class. She runs around with Huysmann’s manager, Leaming, his name is, a real smart feller. Fisher don’t cut much ice while he’s around.’
Gently doubled up a triangle of bread and butter and took a bite out of it. ‘That get Fisher in the raw?’ he mumbled.
‘You bet it does — he’d give his arm to tumble her!’
‘Mmn,’ said Gently, masticating.
‘I wouldn’t mind a slice myself, if it comes to that.’
‘Fisher been around lately?’
‘He came in when he knocked off yesterday and had a meal.’
‘’Bout two, was that?’
‘Nearer one, I should think. He hadn’t got much to say for himself.’
The bar-tender was called back to serve a customer. Gently plodded onwards through the sausage. As he ate he fitted into place in his picture each new fact and dash of colour. Fisher, jealous of Leaming. Fisher, wanting to be Susan’s lover. Susan, hinting at something between Fisher and Gretchen. ‘He lives for women, that bloke… after our Elsie till I choked him off… Fisher never got a look in there… don’t cut much ice while Leaming’s around…’ And Leaming had said, ‘There’s a streak of brutality in the man…’
The doorbell tinkled, and Gently looked up from his plate. It was Fisher himself who entered. Not noticing Gently, he swaggered over to the counter and ordered a cup of tea and some rolls, then stood there waiting while they were got for him. The bar-tender glanced at Gently, who winked back broadly.
Turning, Fisher saw Gently. He stopped stock-still. Gently nodded to him affably. ‘Come and sit down,’ he said, indicating the chair vacated by the bar-tender. ‘I’ve thought up one or two more things I should like to ask you.’
Alan Hunter
Gently Does It
CHAPTER SEVEN
A WHITE, EXPANSIVE April sun, low-tilted in its morning skies, looked down upon the rain-washed streets. In Chapel Field and the Castle Gardens birds were singing, thrushes, chaffinches, blackbirds, and on the steep southern and westerly slopes of the Castle Hill the daffodils looked down, proudly, consciously, like women dressed to go out.
Early traffic swirled up Princes Street and round Castle Paddock; the fast London train rumbled over the river bridge at Truss Hythe, swept out into the lush water-meadows of the Yar; passing over, as it did so, a stubborn little up-stream-making tug with a tow of five steel barges, on each of which was painted the name: Huysmann.
Onward puffed the little tug, bold as a fox-terrier, full of aggression and self-assurance, and onward crept the barges, phlegmatic, slow, till the cavalcade was in hailing distance of Railway Bridge. Then the little tug slowed down, trod water as it were, allowing the foremost barges to catch up with it. A man jumped out of the tug. He ran down the barges, jumping from one to another, till finally, coming to the last one, he loosed the sagging cable and cast her free. A shout ahead set the little tug puffing off on her interrupted journey, while the slipped barge, with the way left on her, was steered to a dilapidated-looking quay on the south bank.
Altogether, it was a smart and well-executed manoeuvre, thought Gently, watching it as he leaned over Railway Bridge. It was worth getting up early just to see it.
He crossed the bridge to watch the tug and its barges pass through the other side. A door in the rear of the tug’s wheelhouse was open. Through it Gently observed a lanky figure wearing a peaked seaman’s hat, a leather jacket and blue serge trousers tucked into Wellington boots. As he watched, the lanky man spun his wheel to the right. There was a tramp steamer on its way down.
Gently anticipated the warning hooter and got off the bridge. He stood by the railings to see the bridge rise, rolling ponderously, and moved further over to get a good view of the vessel as it surged by below. It was a bluff-bowed, clumsy, box-built ship, with a lofty fo’c’sle descending suddenly to deck level. The bridge and cabins aft were neat and newly painted, and the washing that hung on a line suggested that the captain had his family on board. The engines pounded submergedly as the steel cosmos slid through. There followed the bubbling and frothing under her stern. She was the Zjytze of Amsterdam.
Grumblingly the bridge rolled back into place and Gently, after a moment’s pause, strolled over to the little glass box where the bridge-keeper sat. ‘When did she come up?’ he asked.
The bridge-keeper peered at him. ‘Friday morning,’ he said.
‘What was she carrying?’
‘Timber.’
‘Where did she lie?’
The bridge-keeper nodded upstream to where the tug with its train of barges was edging in towards the quays. ‘Up there at Huysmann’s.’
‘Is she a regular?’
‘Off and on. She’s been coming here since the war, and before that there used to be another one, but they say she was sunk in a raid. It’s the same skipper, though.’