Gently with the Innocents Read Online Free PDF

right. It was a Northshire two-holer. In that county, they built their privies with two seats.
    When they came out of the house the pantechnicon had gone, leaving a raffle of tea-chests stacked in the yard. The warehouseman, Colkett, was busy with a trolley, but he rested the shafts as they came by.
    ‘Found any treasures?’
    ‘Should we have done?’
    Colkett was aged around forty. He had a leathery face with deep lines and smirking, inquisitive grey eyes.
    He wasn’t put out by Gently’s rebuff. He leant grinning against the trolley. Then he fetched a tab-end from behind his ear and lit it, grinning all the time.
    ‘If what they say is right. Where there’s muck there’s money, you know. And I reckon there’s plenty of muck in there. You two haven’t come out with clean hands.’
    True enough. The grime of Harrisons had a peculiarly clinging quality.
    ‘Have you a wash-place?’
    ‘There’s a sink.’
    ‘Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to let us use it.’
    ‘Do what you like,’ Colkett said. ‘I reckon the police are always the guv’nors.’
    He led them through the open doors of the warehouse into a small but comfortable office. At one end was a sink equipped with a water-heater. Near it a kettle simmered on a gas-ring.
    ‘Home comforts.’
    Colkett squeezed aside to let the policemen go through.
    ‘I was just going to brew up with my sandwiches. Perhaps you gents would like a cuppa?’
    After the old house, a cheerful place. An oil convector stove was poppling in a corner. A girlie calendar hung on the wall above a table on which lay a thumbed, black stockbook.
    ‘You work here alone?’
    Gently lathered with carbolic under a stream of water that was stinging hot.
    ‘All alone. That’s the way I like it. Just one boss and his shadow.’
    ‘You knew Peachment?’
    ‘I knew him.’ Colkett puffed on his tab-end. ‘Not to talk to – nobody did. But I’d see him ambling across the yard. ‘‘Hallo, Dad,’’ I’d say. ‘‘How’s the screw-matics?’’ And he’d sort of laugh and mumble something. You know what I think? He was deaf. Got his ears all bunged up with wax.’
    ‘Laughed, did he?’
    Gently felt for a towel. Colkett shoved one into his hand.
    ‘Well . . . when I say laugh. Perhaps you’d call it a giggle. Miss him I do . . . old Peachey.’
    Gently handed the towel on to Gissing and took his pipe out of his pocket. Colkett sprawled easily on a corner of the table, watching, the smirk lingering in his eyes.
    Opposite the table a double window overlooked the yard and the wall behind it. Above the wall, the back of Harrisons, its dead windows staring blindly.
    ‘Do they keep you busy?’
    Colkett grinned again. ‘Busy enough. It comes in patches.’
    ‘Still . . . you’re comfortable here.’
    ‘I don’t grumble. When there’s nothing doing I can put my feet up.’
    ‘And enjoy the view.’
    Colkett was silent. He rubbed the tab-end out in a tin-lid.
    Gently carefully lit his pipe and laid the match in the same lid.
    ‘How much do you know about old Peachey?’
    ‘I’ve told you. I saw him around in the yard.’
    ‘How long have you worked here?’
    ‘Three, four years.’
    ‘Did you never ask him in for a cup of tea?’
    ‘No.’ Colkett stared hard. ‘Well, he just wasn’t like that. I can’t say no more. Mr Gissing here, he’ll tell you. The nevvy was the only one who could talk to him.’
    ‘That’s about the cut of it, sir,’ Gissing said, pausing in the act of lighting a fag.
    ‘Still, it seems strange . . .’
    Colkett’s smirk was gone. This wasn’t playing fair, his expression said. Here he’d been, offering them hospitality, and now Gently had decided to play the heavy!
    ‘Do you know the nephew?’
    ‘Of course I know him. Used to drop in here every fortnight. He’s all right. You can talk to Adrian. Had him in here many a time.’
    ‘Did he talk about his uncle?’
    ‘Well . . . yes.’
    Gently puffed. ‘Go on,’ he said.
    ‘Well –