Gently Down the Stream Read Online Free PDF

tunnel it was, thrusting remotely into a forgotten land.
    Hansom snatched a dead alder burr out of his hair.
    ‘Thirty years ago there were wherries up and down here every day of the year.’
    It was only half a mile long, but there seemed no end to it. One hemmed-in reach followed another with bewildering monotony. And then, just as Gently’s sense of direction was irretrievably lost, the alders parted overhead and they swung out into blazing afternoon sunlight.
    They were in a little pool, grown up and almost choked with reeds, water-lilies and a myriad-flowered water-plant. On the far side, against the rotted remnants of a quay, lay the fire-blasted yacht. And by the yacht sat a Police Constable smoking a cigarette, his tunic and helmet hung on a willow-snag.
    ‘Jackson!’ bawled Hansom, in a voice to wake the dead.
    The Constable jumped as though he had been stung.
    ‘What the blue blazes do you think you’re supposed to be doing – having the day off?’
    ‘I – I wasn’t really expecting anyone …!’ blurted the Constable, struggling into his tunic.
    ‘Oh, you weren’t, eh?’ commented Hansom nastily. ‘Thought we’d come by car and you’d hear us in time, didn’t you …?’
    Rushm’quick eased the bows of the launch against the rotten quay and they jumped down gingerly on toshaky green turf. The yacht lay well in under the trees, which bore silent witness to the fierceness of the blaze. It was completely gutted. From end to end the interior showed a blackened mass of ash, nothing remaining of cabin, deck or fitments. Only the engine jutted up near the stern and the charred ribs preserved a pathetic symmetry.
    Gently sniffed at the acrid smell of burned varnish.
    ‘Was the body this side of the engine or the other?’
    ‘The other.’
    ‘Was the petrol-tank that side?’
    ‘Yes – you can see where it blew out.’
    ‘There must have been a lot of petrol used to do a job like this … is it safe to go aboard?’
    He stepped cautiously on to the hulk and was directly up to his ankles in ashes, which still seemed warm. He kicked them away from the engine and stooped to examine it.
    ‘Did you find the carburettor?’
    ‘No, it was too bloody hot to look for carburettors the last time I was here!’
    Gently poked about in the ash with his foot and was eventually rewarded.
    ‘Looks as though it was unscrewed. The cap’s off it, too.’
    ‘Reckon he took the cap off first,’ put in Rushm’quick knowingly, ‘then it wasn’t coming through fast enough, so he took the carb right off.’
    Gently nodded and continued to probe with his foot. Towards the fore part of the hulk his shoe caught something which sounded hollow and metallic. The twisted remains of a jerrican came to light.
    ‘Is this part of the yacht’s equipment?’
    Rushm’quick shook his head.
    Gently handed it out and clambered back on to the bank.
    ‘Well … there’s a nasty job for someone, going through those ashes. We’d better have it towed back to the yard and gone over there. How do you get a car into an outpost like this?’
    Hansom led the way along a doubtful track which plunged through the thick of the surrounding wilderness. But a few yards saw them on higher, drier ground and the track widened into a lane.
    ‘Here you are – you can still see the tracks where he turned the car.’
    ‘Where does the lane go?’
    ‘It joins the Lockford–Wrackstead road about a mile from Ollby. The phone-box is at the junction.’
    ‘No houses about there?’
    ‘There’s a bloke called Marsh lives in a house a quarter of a mile towards Panxford, but the house stands back amongst trees. He didn’t see anything … no bastard’s seen anything! All we’ve got is the village idiot.’
    Gently tutted. ‘You can’t manufacture witnesses. Have you searched the area round here?’
    ‘We didn’t get time to be really clever.’
    ‘Then you mightn’t have noticed … that … for instance?’
    He pointed to the bole of an