Gently Down the Stream by Alan Hunter Read Free Book Online

in the garage …’
    ‘I get you, sir.’
    ‘And what other things your police-training suggests.’
    Dutt clicked his heels smartly and descended to the garden by the veranda steps. At the same moment there was a confident knock at the door and the cook entered.
    The cook was a dumpy middle-aged Welshwoman with a comfortable face and lively grey eyes. She came in with an expression of anticipation on her countenance, as though an incursion of policemenwas something that brightened up her day, and took her seat before being asked.
    ‘Your name, please?’
    ‘Gwladys Roberts, spinster, look you.’
    ‘You are Mrs Lammas’ cook, I believe?’
    ‘I am too, but my father was in the Force and my brother is a sergeant at Cwmchynledd.’
    ‘Indeed? Then you will be familiar with the routine of interrogation, Miss Roberts …?’
    ‘Why should I not, when I was brought up at a Station?’
    Gently took her over the same ground as had been already covered with the maid. Her answers were full and to the point, and confirmed what they had heard before. She could add nothing to the maid’s account of the conversation on the phone.
    ‘And you have been long with the family, Miss Roberts?’
    ‘Long, you say! They’ve never been without me.’
    ‘Mrs Lammas engaged you when she got married?’
    ‘Yess, and the first time. She’s been married twice, though through no fault of hers.’
    ‘Would you explain …?’
    ‘Why, first she married Geoffrey Owen of Bangor. A gentleman he was, come of good family, and a Major in the Guards. But he didn’t last long, poor fellow. He went to Aden and died there of cholera. Poor Mrs Phyllis! I thought she would have followed him … so bad she took it.’
    ‘And after that she married Lammas?’
    ‘Yess, after that.’ The cook’s face had become melancholy. ‘We went to Torquay – Mrs Phyllis waspoorly. She met him at Torquay, right on the rebound, and in a week they’d done it.’
    ‘It wasn’t too … successful?’
    ‘No, mun, it wasn’t. Though mark you, Mr Lammas wasn’t all to blame. He did his best at first to make it go. But there, they wasn’t suited, that’s the answer. She couldn’t forget poor Mr Geoffrey and he didn’t like having Mr Geoffrey thrown up at him at every turn. Ah me! It was a bad day when we went to Torquay.’
    ‘The children … they didn’t improve matters?’
    ‘No, not a bit. When Mr Paul came he was all his mother’s, and so he still is. Miss Pauline was her father’s.’
    ‘Would you say there was animosity between father and son?’
    ‘Oh yess! They had some quarrels, I can tell you.’
    ‘About anything in particular?’
    ‘No, not at first. Mr Paul was just obstreperous and above himself – his head is full of poetry and nonsense. He used to say his proper name was Owen.’
    ‘Would that have been possible?’
    ‘Not on your life! He knew it wasn’t, too.’
    ‘What else did they quarrel about?’
    ‘Oh, Mr Lammas wanted his son in the business, that was the big trouble. And Mr Paul, he wouldn’t hear about it. If you ask me, Mr Paul doesn’t think much of the university either, but then he only went there to spite his father.’
    ‘That would be somewhere about two years ago?’
    ‘Indeed it was. You never heard such rows!’
    ‘And of course, it worsened the relationship between Mr Lammas and his wife?’
    ‘Oh yess, she took her son’s part, all the way. Some bitter things were said. It was Mrs Phyllis who sent Mr Paul to Cambridge and pays his fees. I don’t think Mr Lammas ever properly got over what happened two years ago.’
    Gently paused to criss-cross some lines on his scribbling pad before his next question.
    ‘You will have heard by now, Miss Roberts, that Mr Lammas was enjoying certain relations with Miss Brent, his secretary. Was there any suspicion of this before the present juncture?’
    The cook gave a little giggle. ‘Oh no, I shouldn’t think so. Though Miss Pauline works at the office with