Gently Down the Stream by Alan Hunter Read Free Book Online Page B

beginning to munch.
    Gently cocked an interrogative eyebrow.
    ‘About Lammas having a point of view. Me, I think I’d have cashed out in twenty months, let alone twenty years!’

CHAPTER FIVE
    T HERE WERE ASHTRAYS about the lounge and as though by tacit consent they all began to smoke. Hansom began it with one of his workaday Dutch whiffs, then Gently produced his weathered sand-blast. Finally the Constable, after many vain attempts to catch someone’s eye, slipped out a small, thin cigarette-case, thus proving beyond doubt that Constables do carry such things about their person.
    ‘Cancer, my arse!’ observed Hansom crudely. ‘Why pick on tobacco out of all the other things?’
    Gently blew a comfortable ring. ‘We’ve been smoking the stuff several centuries now …’
    ‘I can show you a dozen old boys over ninety – smoked and chewed it since they were in the cradle. If you ask me it’s the cinema that’s the killer.’
    ‘Or the internal combustion-engine …’
    ‘Leastways, I shan’t quit before my old man does …!’
    There was quite a pleasant haze in the warm air of the lounge by the time Pauline Lammas appeared. She was not put out by it – on the contrary, she paused at thedoor to light a cigarette of her own. Taller and more robust than her mother, Pauline tended to plainness of feature. She had short, straw-coloured hair, greyish-blue eyes and a thickened nose, and made-up a good deal more than was necessary. She wore a black bodice-blouse and a green skirt.
    Gently rose courteously when she entered. From her private cloud of smoke she quizzed him coolly.
    ‘And – you are Chief Detective Inspector Gently, CID?’
    Wooden-faced, Gently admitted it.
    ‘Really … you’re not a bit how I expected you to be. I’m afraid I’m going to be disappointed – do you mind?’
    ‘Not essentially, Miss Lammas …’
    ‘You see,’ she hurried on, ‘I visualized you as one of the younger school of detectives – the sort they make films about, or at least lean and hatchet-faced and – and intellectual looking. But you aren’t. You’re just paternal. It’s difficult to believe that you’re a detective at all!’
    Gently cleared his throat, but Hansom gave his harsh laugh.
    ‘Don’t worry, miss – he hates people to think he looks like a policeman!’
    ‘Does he really? How strange!’
    ‘He likes you to take him for a farmer or a commercial traveller!’
    ‘ Ahem! ’ coughed Gently loudly. ‘I think perhaps we should get down to business … don’t you?’
    Hansom chortled to himself and kicked his large feet happily under the table. Pauline Lamas swept her bushy green skirt flat and sat down with precision timing.
    ‘Now, Miss Lammas … I understand you were in Norchester all the Friday evening.’
    ‘Yes, inspector. I’m playing Cordelia for the Anesford Players – our first night is a week today.’
    ‘It is a pity, Miss Lammas, that this tragic circumstance should have intervened.’
    A flicker of emotion twisted the corner of the young girl’s mouth, but immediately she recovered her former brightness.
    ‘It’s not going to intervene, inspector. Daddy wouldn’t have expected it.’
    ‘You mean you still intend to play?’
    ‘Of course – he would have wanted me to. Daddy was a Player himself. Hasn’t anyone told you?’
    ‘Naturally … if you feel it’s your duty.’ Gently shrugged. ‘Miss Lammas, what time was your rehearsal on Friday?’
    ‘At half-past seven, at St Giles’ Hall.’
    ‘Who is the producer of the Anesford Players?’
    ‘John Playfair – he’s the Drama Organizer. You can get him at his office in Pacey Road or his private address at 40 Birdcage Hill.’
    ‘Thank you, Miss Lammas! You are correct in assuming that I shall need to get in touch with him. What time did the rehearsal end?’
    ‘Oh, you know what they are, inspector! They go on till all hours. But I had to leave at twenty-past ten to catch my last bus.’
    ‘In fact, you were