Gently Down the Stream Read Online Free PDF Page A

yew – jus to make sure!’
    He got up reluctantly and came over to them. Gently introduced himself briefly.
    ‘You didn’t happen to be here Friday evening, I suppose?’
    ‘Frida evening – w’yes! I had m’nets up Frida.’
    ‘You were here all the evening?’
    ‘Ah, most of the day asides.’
    ‘And do you remember seeing Sloley’s Harrier go by?’
    ‘Thatta dew, and saw the bloke what was on it tew.’
    ‘Tell me,’ said Gently simply.
    The little man’s face puckered up. ‘W’ … that was about eight o’clock time, I reckon. There’d been all sorts goin past – I shoonta noticed in the ordinara way. But this bloke fetches up on the bank here to pull his mast down … naturalla, I keep an eye on him.’
    ‘And then?’
    ‘W’ then he start his ingin and slide off again, an the last I see of him was goin up the Deek.’
    Gently hesitated. ‘Did you know who he was?’
    ‘Blast no! Woont know him from Adam.’
    ‘Or the woman with him?’
    ‘He ha’nt got no woman.’
    ‘What was that?’
    ‘I say he ha’nt got no woman. That was jus him on his lonesome.’
    There was a moment broken only by the throb of the idling motor and then Hansom exploded angrily:
    ‘Of course he had a bloody woman – we know all about it!’
    ‘I tell yew he ha’nt ,’ retorted the little man obstinately.
    ‘You mean you didn’t see her – she was in the cabin.’
    ‘No she wa’nt. He was moored starn-on, an I could see down into the cabin. Sides, why di’nt she help him get the mast down? That wa’nt easa for him, on his own.’
    ‘She could have been in the WC!’ snarled Hansom.
    ‘Then she musta been wholla bound up, tha’s all I can say …’
    He wasn’t to be shaken – there was only Lammas on the Harrier that evening. Neither Hansom’s bullying nor Gently’s more subtle methods would make him modify his statement.
    ‘What was he wearing?’ queried Gently at the end of it.
    ‘W’one of them sports shuts an some white trousers.’
    ‘You’re sure it was a sports shirt?’
    ‘I aren’t blind, ama? That was a red one.’
    ‘A tall, heavily built man, was he?’
    ‘No, that he wa’nt, jus midlin’ an a bit on the lean side.’
    Gently nodded absently and signed to Rushm’quick to push off.
    ‘We may be back for another chat later on, Mr Noggins.’
    ‘The old fool’s got his lines mixed!’ grunted Hansom as they chugged back towards the Dyke. ‘The woman was out of sight and he’ll swear blind she wasn’t there.’
    ‘What about his description of Lammas?’
    ‘That tallies all right … the bits of trouser we recovered were white flannel.’
    ‘And his build?’
    ‘Like he said – medium height and spare.’
    ‘Which leaves the sports shirt, doesn’t it …?’
    ‘Sports shirt?’ Hansom stared.
    ‘Yes … didn’t you find the cuff-links with the body? It looks as though Lammas changed his shirt.’
    ‘Christ yes – he must have done!’ The divine light of ratiocination appeared in Hansom’s eye. ‘Yeh – there might be something in Noggins’s story at that. Suppose he put the female off somewhere down-river – he brings the yacht up here to hide it and kill the trail for a day or two – changes into his city clothes and rings his chauffeur, the chauffeur being paid to keep his mouth shut—’
    ‘You’re forgetting one thing, though …’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘He’d got his trail covered for the whole week. He might just as well have lit out on the previous Saturday, saying nothing to nobody.’
    Hansom sniffed in a deprived sort of way. ‘We’ve got to make sense of the facts, haven’t we?’
    They ducked as Rushm’quick sent the launch slicing through the drooping boughs and bushes that concealed the mouth of the Dyke. On the other side they seemed to be in a different world. Overhead the tangled twigsof blunt-leaved alder closed out the sky, on either hand the stretching rubbish reached out to brush the launch as it slid past. A green-lit