‘Spot any blood, Dutt?’
‘Yessir.’
‘Much or little?’
‘Not much, sir.’
‘Head, I expect. They’d have noticed it lower down.’
‘What I was thinking, sir… about the angle, too.’
‘Would it be too much,’ enquired Hansom with biting sarcasm, ‘would it be too much to ask what all this is about?’
Gently extended his hand gravely and revealed the shapeless chunk of metal Dutt had dug from the tree.
‘It’s about the way Lammas was killed… you can let your pathologist off duty. He was shot through the head with a bullet from a. 22 gun.’
CHAPTER FOUR
It was a pleasant run from the village to ‘Willow Street’, lately the home of James William Lammas. After traversing the beech avenue, the road ran along the edge of the upland just where it fell into the shallow river valley and one caught glimpses of the winding stream low down amongst billowy trees and later of the broad.
‘All this and the best coarse-fishing too…’ murmured Gently at the wheel of the Wolseley. At breakfast that morning he had watched Thatcher fairly scooping bream out of the mouth of the Dyke.
‘You know, it’s rum, sir,’ began Dutt beside him, and stopped.
‘What’s rum, Dutt?’
‘Well sir, it stuck in me loaf what you said about the woman.’
‘What was that?’
‘About her not having to go off with the shover.’
‘It’s a point that needs elucidating.’
‘I mean, sir, it’s pretty obvious that this geezer and her were planning to fade together… it don’t seem natural for her to get the shover to do him in. What’s she going to get out of it what she didn’t have in the first place?’
‘Only the chauffeur… he might be quite a guy.’
‘No sir.’ Dutt shook his head. ‘If she’d been took with the shover there wasn’t nothink in their way… he wasn’t married. And she wouldn’t be carrying on with Lammas.’
‘Unless it was a deep, dark plot.’
‘No sir. It don’t seem right.’
‘What’s the theory, then, Dutt?’
‘Well, sir… I’d say the shover did for both of them and hooked it on his own. It’s the only way what makes sense, the way I looks at it. He knows about the money — it’s got to be on the boat — he goes there ready to do for them and make it look like an accident. When he gets there he finds there’s only Lammas, but if he shoots him first-off down by the car he isn’t going to know that till it’s too late.’
‘And then, Dutt?’
‘And then he goes through wiv it, sir — what else can he do? But somehow he runs across the woman again — maybe Lammas was aiming to pick her up somewhere close — she’s seen the fire — she sees the shover coming away from it — so he has to do for her, to keep her mouth shut. And then he dusn’t go back and shove her in the yacht, so he gets rid of the corpse somewhere else.’
‘Which is why he flitted, eh, Dutt? The second corpse wasn’t looking like an accident.’
‘That’s right, sir. Otherwise he’d be sitting tight and knowing nothink.’
Gently grinned feebly at his subordinate. ‘It’s a nice little theory… all it needs to set it up is a bunch of facts and a fresh corpse.’
‘Well, sir… it isn’t to say they won’t turn up.’
‘No, Dutt — but until they do we’d better be good policemen and keep a wide-open mind.’
‘Yessir. Of course, sir.’
‘We’re only halfway into the picture… it’s the other half we may be finding now.’
They had come to the ornate iron gates of ‘Willow Street’. The narrow country road turned sharply to the right, the gates being set in the corner. Beyond them a gravel drive screwed steeply down between luxuriant rhododendrons, now in full bloom, their giant salmon, white and heliotrope flowers seeming to explode against the sombre leaves.
‘Willow Street’ from the landward side presented a different picture to ‘Willow Street’ seen from the broad. It was not entirely a high-built bungalow. The land at this point dropped down to the carrs in a knoll, so that while the front of the building was piled the rest of it was niched into the slope, and the floor was at ground level where the drive came sweeping out of the rhododendrons. It was built in the traditional timber and white plaster, its reed thatch humping over semi-circular loft-windows. A golden vane surmounted the high cone of thatch rising at the broad end.
Hansom had already arrived from Norchester. His car stood parked near the capacious garage and he was to be seen chatting to a tiny dark woman who scarcely came up to his elbow. A Constable stood at a little distance. Gently parked and went over to them.
‘Chief Inspector Gently, ma’am, in charge of the case… this is Mrs Lammas.’
Gently extended his hand.
She was a woman of forty or a little more, but so delicately beautiful that her age seemed to adorn rather than detract from her. Slight in build, her features were pale and small, like those of a Dresden figure, her brown eyes appearing by contrast large and curiously penetrating. She wore a plain black dress too simple to be cheap and on her finger a ring of diamonds and emeralds. Her voice, when she spoke, was low but ringingly clear.
‘I am pleased to meet you, inspector… Inspector Hansom has just been telling me about you.’
‘We are sorry to have to intrude upon you, ma’am, at a time like this.’
‘It cannot be otherwise, inspector… I do not wish it otherwise. Will you come into the house?’
They followed her up the steps and down a wide, parquet corridor.
‘This is the lounge. I trust it will suit your purpose?’
It was a large room overlooking the broad, with French windows giving on to a veranda. Gently cast a speculative eye around the furnishings. Expensive, also feminine. There was nothing in that room to suggest a man had ever lived there.
‘You have a beautiful home, ma’am.’
‘Thank you, inspector.’
‘Your husband must have been in a substantial way of business.’
‘My husband-’ she began and then checked herself, her small lips pressing tight. ‘This is my own house. I built it and furnished it myself.’
‘It does your taste credit.’
She rang the bell and ordered coffee to be brought. Hansom arranged his short-hand Constable at a card-table and made other official dispositions. Mrs Lammas watched him coldly.
‘I suppose you will begin with me?’
Gently shrugged. ‘Would it upset the domestic economy if we started with the servants?’
‘Not really. Do you want the cook or the maid?’
‘We’ll take the maid… she’ll be along with the coffee.’
‘What do you think of her?’ inquired Hansom leeringly when Mrs Lammas had retired. ‘Can you imagine a man turning up a dish like that for his secretary!’
‘It’s surprising what men do.’
‘And money with it — Lammas must have been crackers!’
‘I daresay he has his point of view if you could get round to it.’
The maid came in, bearing the coffee on a silver tray. She was a square-boned, moon-faced girl in her twenties. When the coffee was served Gently bade her be seated and took his place with Hansom at the table opposite.
‘Your name, please?’
‘Gwyneth Jones, it is.’
‘You don’t belong to these parts?’
‘Oh no! I come from Wales, like Mrs Lammas.’
‘Mrs Lammas is Welsh?’
‘Indeed she is — and good Welsh too, at that!’
Gently nodded and dropped lumps of sugar into his fragile coffee cup.
‘Now Miss Jones… we’d like you to tell us exactly what happened on Friday evening from, shall we say, tea-time.’
‘But I’ve told it already, I have-’
‘We’d like to hear it again, if you please.’
The maid gave herself a little shake and then began, as though it were a lesson: ‘The cook and me were sitting in the kitchen, we were, talking about old times at Pwllheli-’
‘Whoa!’ interrupted Gently. ‘What time was this?’
‘Oh, about eight o’clock, or it might be later.’