‘No… it doesn’t sit square in the picture. We haven’t got the reason yet.’
Hansom sniffed meanly and tore off a light for his second whiff. ‘Anyway, you won’t mind me following up this hideaway angle just in case I’m being right somewhere?’
Gently grinned and blew out his colleague’s match.
‘It’ll keep you out of mischief, won’t it?’ he replied.
CHAPTER SIX
Paul Lammas wasn’t quite so petite as his mother, but otherwise he was very, very like.
Dark, slender, he had the same big brown eyes and fragile features, the same low, clear voice. And he moved the same way, quickly and nervously, though always with grace. The difference about him was difficult to pin down. It was something in his manner rather than his appearance. Mrs Lammas struck one as icy, Paul as though he concealed a secret fire; her emotions were rigidly controlled, his seemed at the point of spilling over. He was wearing a dark-red linen sports shirt with ash-grey jacket and trousers in gaberdine. His rope-and-canvas sandals matched his shirt. He came into the room so quietly that nobody could have sworn to seeing him enter.
‘I am Paul Lammas. My sister informed me that you were ready to question me.’
Gently turned round from the veranda where he had been basking and watching the yachts.
‘That was kind of her. I hadn’t really made up my mind.’
‘If you want Mother I will go and fetch her.’
‘No, don’t bother. I daresay your sister knows best.’
He came back out of the veranda. Paul Lammas stood quite still, watching.
‘Sit down, Mr Lammas, if you please…’
‘Thank you. But I’d rather stand.’
‘We may be some little while, you know…’
‘All the same I’d rather stand, if it isn’t breaking immutable regulations.’
Gently shrugged and seated himself heavily at the table. He seemed in no hurry to begin. He emptied his pipe in the ashtray, filled it slowly and expertly, sucked it once or twice to test the packing and then lit it at some length. Even then he appeared to hesitate before getting down to business.
‘You’re a poet, they tell me…?’ he remarked, patting down the ash on the pipe with a yellowed forefinger.
The young man flushed.
‘I don’t see how that comes into it.’
‘It doesn’t; there’s nothing culpable about it. I’m just one of those people who read poetry from time to time.’
Paul Lammas looked at him as though he thought it unlikely.
‘Of course, you wouldn’t have seen anything of mine. It’s only been published in Panorama and the Eastern Daily Post, and a little book I brought out myself.’
‘Did it sell?’ inquired Gently naively.
‘I suppose you’d say it didn’t — and judge it entirely from that point of view!’
‘Oh, I don’t know… the provinces are hardly the place to peddle poetry.’
‘It’s not a question of whether it sells, anyway. And one doesn’t peddle poetry, as you’re kind enough to put it.’
‘Then how do people like me get to see it?’
‘They don’t — and it doesn’t matter. Creation is the only thing that signifies.’
Gently nodded. ‘I heard it in a play somewhere… but the author wasn’t sad because it pulled in some audience.’
‘That’s the cynical view one would expect!’
‘It struck me that the other view was the cynical one… but we’d be all day arguing about it!’
He felt in his baggy pocket and pulled out a small package, which he laid on the table. Hansom rocked back out of a fit of ennui to examine it. But Gently left it wrapped up in front of him.
‘Well… we’d better check off that motorbike ride of yours, I suppose. Why aren’t you at Cambridge, by the way?’
‘I was sick. Mother wanted me at home.’
‘You look all right now. When did you come home?’
‘Last Saturday week… she sent the car for me.’
‘Did you see your father?’
‘No. I didn’t get here till tea-time.’
‘Right you are… now tell me about the ride.’
Paul Lammas straddled his feet on the deep-piled carpet and launched into his account without hesitation. He had spent the day lying in the hammock in the garden. After tea he had felt restless and had got out his motorcycle. At first he had thought of going to the coast, but it was getting a bit crowded at this time of the year, so instead he struck inland. He gave rough details of his route. He had set out at about seven and got back at about a quarter to ten. He had been as far as Cheapham, which was thirty miles away.
Gently jotted down some figures.
‘It gives you an overall average speed of about twenty-two miles an hour… did you stop for a drink, or were you just taking it easy?’
‘I was riding for pleasure, not trying to break my neck. You know what the side roads are like.’
‘But you didn’t stop for a drink or anything like that?’
‘No, I didn’t stop for a drink. I am not in the habit of drinking at public houses.’
Gently clicked his tongue. ‘And you a poet, too! But you remembered your route well.’
‘I happen to know the roads around here.’
‘Then you’ll be able to go through it again… on this Ordnance Survey.’
He pulled open the package which had so much intrigued Hansom. It contained a brand-new one-inch OS map of the district.
‘Here we are… where we’re sitting… and there’s Cheapham over on the other side. Now you can show us properly, Mr Lammas.’
The young man came up to the table slowly but quite confidently. He picked up Gently’s pencil as though to demonstrate his complete unconcern. If there was a slight hesitation at this fork or that, it was no more than might be expected of one retracing the precise route of a casual evening run.
‘There you are — as near as I remember.’
‘Thank you, Mr Lammas… it must have been a pleasant little ride.’
‘I pride myself on knowing the quieter parts of Northshire.’
‘I see you took the Tackston road… I’ve an idea I went fishing there many years ago. Did you see any anglers as you crossed the bridge on Friday?’
‘There were two or three. I stopped on the bridge to watch them.’
‘Were they having good sport?’
‘I suppose so. I wasn’t there long.’
Gently sighed and brought something else out of his pocket.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘why don’t you read your papers? They started demolishing that bridge a week ago… the Tackston road has been closed since Monday.’
Paul Lammas flushed violently and dropped the pencil from his fingers.
‘You’re trying to trap me — that’s what you’re doing! Mother warned me what you would do-!’
‘Mrs Lammas warned you?’ Gently’s eyebrows rose. ‘Have you been discussing what story you should tell us?’
‘It isn’t a story!’
His voice rose to a scream.
‘I can’t remember exactly — why should I remember? I wasn’t thinking what I was doing just riding along with my mind a blank!’
‘Then why did you pretend to remember?’
‘To satisfy you! That’s all — that’s why! I knew you wouldn’t be satisfied if I said I didn’t remember. It’s beyond your comprehension to understand that one may be doing a banal thing like riding a motorcycle, with one’s mind miles away. So I had a guess at it. I tried to think where I probably went. I didn’t believe you would be so pathologically suspicious as to set a trap over such a simple little thing. But it’s a lesson to me, I assure you. I shall think twice what I tell to policemen in the future!’
‘Hmn.’
Gently regarded him stolidly.
‘At least it’s a curious way to ride such a lethal instrument as a motorcycle… where did you really go?’
‘To Cheapham — only I don’t remember how I got there.’
‘It wouldn’t have been by way of Ollby — with your mind miles away?’ struck in Hansom sardonically.
‘It’s the truth!’ screamed Paul, turning on him wildly. ‘It is, I tell you — it is!’
‘All right, all right!’ Gently waved a pacific hand. ‘There’s no need to get worked up about it, Mr Lammas… if you say it’s the truth we’ll duly note the fact. Now why not sit down and try to be a little more accurate and helpful?’