Gently through the Mill by Alan Hunter Read Free Book Online Page A

in it. Fuller’s story could be twisted and checked, but Blythely’s was as unassailable as a block of concrete.
    And you had to believe it, watching that plain, unemotional, unimaginative face.
    Griffin had believed it, so why should not Gently?
    ‘You’re a chapel-goer, they tell me?’
    ‘I am, and so is my wife.’
    ‘You would not approve of horse racing, I feel sure.’
    ‘It’s an invention of the Devil.’
    ‘Didn’t you once keep a horse?’
    Yes, he had had three. But the last one had been got rid of in 1938, since when the stable had been used as a junk repository.
    ‘Mr Fuller uses the loft, he tells me.’
    Was there just a flicker of reaction to that?
    ‘I suppose he’s never kept a horse there?’
    Only too plainly, this was a wrong track.
    Mrs Blythely appeared carrying the cold tea in a beaker. She was a handsome woman, and one wondered how she had come to throw in her lot with such an unpresentable husband.
    She had deep golden hair only now beginning to fade, a slightly snubbed nose and lively green eyes. In her youth she must have been a ravishing beauty.
    ‘Do I know this gentleman?’
    Gently came in for a brilliant smile.
    ‘I can guess who he is – only a policeman could get Henry out of the bakehouse! But he isn’t the man who’s been around such a lot.’
    A good skin and an oval face, and a figure which was full but not yet going heavy.
    The baker was lucky to have such a wife in his shop.
    ‘Is the door on the latch?’
    ‘Yes, my dear. And all the regulars have been.’
    ‘This is the man from London. No doubt he’s got something to ask you.’
    With husbands and wives it was difficult to tell; they had an act to be put on for strangers, and the act was usually expert. Yet here, as with Fuller and his foreman, Gently had the impression of friction. He could scarcely have put his finger on any one spot, but the impression was none the less established.
    ‘I went to bed soon after tea, Inspector. It’s a long day in the shop – hard on the feet, too! As a rule I sleep like a log till my husband wakes me with a cup of tea. It was the same on Thursday night. I didn’t remember anything after my head touched the pillow.’
    Here again one had to believe it – difficult, even, to suggest the stock questions.
    ‘No, I never get up during the night … the bathroom is next door, on the same floor.
    ‘Naturally I go out by myself sometimes, but never away from Lynton. The only horse racing I’ve seen is on the newsreel … I entirely agree with what my husband says about it.
    ‘I didn’t see the – the man, but I’m quite certain that he was a stranger to me. The only Taylors we know are some people who keep a chemist’s shop …’
    Two worthy people who had been pursuing their lawful occupations. They had the truth to tell and they were comfortable in the knowledge of it.
    ‘You sublet these premises from Mr Fuller, I believe ?’
    ‘That’s right – and old Burge before him. I’ve been here twenty-seven years.’
    ‘You’re on good terms, I suppose?’
    ‘What do you mean by that exactly?’
    ‘Just a general enquiry.’
    ‘We’ve never had a quarrel yet.’
    Gently hesitated, catching it again, that subtle essence of something between the lines. Blythely was staring unwinkingly at the street, what was almost a frown had appeared on the face of his wife.
    ‘By your standards, I suppose, Mr Fuller has rather lax principles?’
    ‘Nobody has ever heard me criticize my landlord.’
    ‘He drinks, doesn’t he, and gambles sometimes?’
    ‘I don’t prescribe rules for him, and I’ll let him know when he interferes with me.’
    Oracular utterances, both of them, and pronounced with a degree of inflexible emphasis. Was it a warning to Mrs Blythely that this was the official line? She was compressing her lips as though keeping back an impatient comment.
    ‘You’re all local people, are you?’
    ‘We are. Fuller comes from Starmouth.’
    ‘Well, it’s the