‘He was in his rights to tell me to go to hell,’ said Gently tolerantly.
‘Well yes, sir, I dare say…’
‘What’s your name?’ asked Gently.
‘I’m Alf Wheeler, sir.’
‘Charlie to your pals?’
‘Well, I do run this place, though there isn’t no Charlie really — that’s just what it’s called. And I hope you don’t think I was anyway disrespectful yesterday, sir, it’s just I didn’t know you were…’
‘A policeman?’
‘That’s right, sir… though I ought to have guessed from the way you was leading me on.’
‘Well, well!’ said Gently, pleased, ‘you’re not going to hold it against me?’
‘No, sir — not me.’
Gently sighed. ‘It makes a change… what was it you wanted to tell me?’
The bar-tender became confidential. ‘He was in here last night, sir.’
‘Who?’
‘Fisher, sir. He was a bit — you know — a bit juiced, and the girl Elsie and one or two of them was kidding him along, pretending they was scared of him — asking who he was going to do in next and that sort of thing. Quite harmless it was, sir — nothing intended at all.’
‘Go on,’ said Gently.
‘Fisher, he begin to get all of a spuffle. “I could tell you a thing or two you don’t know,” he says, “and I could tell that b-Chief Inspector Gently something, for all his cleverness.”
‘“Why don’t you tell us, then?” says the girl Elsie.
‘“Never you mind,” he says, “but you’re going to see some changes round here shortly, you mark my words.”
‘“What sort of changes?” they say, but Fisher begin to think he’s said enough. “You’ll see,” he says, “you’ll see, and maybe it won’t be so long either.”
‘“Hugh!” says the girl Elsie. “I ’spect he thinks he’ll be manager at Huysmann’s now.”
‘“Manager,” he says, “I wouldn’t be manager there for something. And another thing,” he says, “there’s people cutting a dash today who may not be cutting one tomorrow,” and after that he shut up and they couldn’t get anything else out of him.’
Gently ate another peppermint cream thoughtfully. ‘Would you say that the last remark referred to the manager?’ he enquired.
‘I thought it did, sir, and so did the others.’
‘Have you any idea what he might have meant by “changes”?’
‘Well, you know what we was saying about there being something between him and Miss Huysmann? If that’s the case, sir, then he’s probably thinking, now that the old man is dead, that she’ll take him on and make a man of him. I can’t think what else he may have had in mind.’
‘And then he would be in a position to deal summarily with Mr Leaming?’
‘You bet he’ll put a spoke in his wheel when he gets the chance.’
Gently shrugged. ‘It depends a lot on Miss Huysmann’s attitude,’ he said. ‘I wonder if, perhaps, he could be referring to something else…?’
He went down the stairs, followed by the bar-tender. A heated discussion amongst the group round the fireplace broke off as the door opened. Gently bowed to them gravely. ‘Carry on, my friends… don’t let us interrupt you,’ he said. Twenty pairs of eyes from all parts of the snack-bar turned on him in silence. He shook his head sadly and went out.
The bright sun of the street struck in his eyes, making him blink. A steady stream of traffic was making in both directions, slowing at that point to get round the two parked trucks. A few yards further back Mariner’s Lane disgorged a small, hooting van. Gently read the street sign with puckered eyes; at the same time he observed a figure standing in the gateway of the timber-yard. He turned directly and began walking casually towards the lane.
Mariner’s Lane threaded the jungle between Queen Street at the bottom of the cliff and Burgh Street at the top. It was narrow and steep and angular. It began at the bottom by a derelict churchyard, carved its way past walls and slum property, with occasional vistas of desolate yards and areas, and threw itself at last breathlessly into the wide upper street, a bombed-site on one hand and a salvage yard on the other. It was a mean, seamy thoroughfare, part slum and part derelict: its only saving grace was the view it commanded — over the roofs of Queen Street, over the river, over the railway yards, as far as the bosky suburbs rising out of the easting Yar valley.
Gently plodded upwards with tantalizing slowness, pausing now and then to study his surroundings. He did not look back — at least, he did not appear to look back; but he looked long and hard at each miserable series of yards, and sometimes peered curiously at sparsely furnished windows. One of the many angular turnings brought him to Paragon Alley. It was a neglected little cul-de-sac about fifty yards long, with grass and ragwort growing out between the made-up surface and the pavement. One side was derelict, the other comprised of high walls and forgotten warehouses. Gently turned into it.
For a moment he did not see how anybody could live in Paragon Alley. It seemed too completely forgotten and neglected. And then he noticed, well down on the right-hand side, a warehouse over which were two curtained windows. It had access by a paintless side-door and two worn steps, and the number was chalked on the door: 5 A.
Gently brooded before this footprint in the desert sands. ‘It’s quiet up the alley,’ was what Fisher had said, ‘there might have been someone about…’ He turned to take in the blank face of the wall that closed the alley and the sightless windows that stared across the way. From the corner of his eye he saw the figure that slid out of sight at the entry…
There was a face at one of the windows, a dirty little urchin’s face. It stared at Gently with mock ferocity.
‘Hullo,’ said Gently.
‘Zzzzzzzz!’ said the face, ‘I’m Superman. I’m going to carry you away to the Radio Mountain.’
‘Well, you’ll have to come out here to do that,’ said Gently.
‘No, I won’t — I’ll get you with my magnetic ray!’ A piece of stick came over the window-sill and levelled itself at Gently. ‘Zzzzzzzzing!’ said the face, ‘zing! zing! Now I’ve got you!’
Gently smiled affably. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘I’m Jeff, the Son of Superman.’
‘Do you often play in these old houses?’
‘Mister, this is my headquarters. This is where I bring all my prisoners, after I’ve paralysed them with my magnetic ray.’
‘Were you here on Saturday? Saturday afternoon?’
‘Course I was. That was the day I caught Professor X and his Uranium Gang.’
Gently moved over, closer to the window. ‘Do you know who lives across there — over the warehouse?’ he asked.
The little brow wrinkled itself ferociously. ‘Course I know. He’s my arch enemy. That’s the hide-out of the Red Hawk, the biggest plane bandit in all England. That’s where he builds his planes, mister, real ones, and then he goes out and shoots down other planes with gold in them. Oh, I’ve been watching him for a long time. One day I’m going to get him real good, and all the stolen gold he’s got.’
‘What was the Red Hawk doing on Saturday afternoon?’
‘Saturday afternoon? That was when he shot down the mail-plane carrying all the gold. I tried to stop him, mister, I was firing the magnetic ray at him all the way down the alley. But do you know what I think?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think he’s got wise to the magnetic ray. I think he’s got an atomic plate on him that stops it.’
Gently fumbled for his peppermint creams. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘these are G-men hot-shots. They’ve got radioactive starch in them — they’ll put sixty miles an hour on you.’
Superman took two and tried out one for effect. ‘Gee — thanks, mister!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll get that Red Hawk now, just you see.’
Gently said: ‘Now this is important, Superman. What time did Red Hawk light out to rob the mail-plane on Saturday?’
Superman injected the second hot-shot. ‘He went right away, mister, as soon as he’d come back for his Z-gun.’
‘When was right away?’
‘Right away after dinner.’