Swing, Swing Together by Peter Lovesey Read Free Book Online Page A

it didn’t seem to matter that the others wasn’t listening. The voice matched his build. He’d have passed for a Viking, that one would, if he’d worn a helmet on his head instead of a boater. Sitting at bow was a smaller man. A queer sight they made rowing that skiff. He was dark-complexioned, the small fellow, Jewish if I can spot ’em, and with arms that barely reached the oars. I don’t know what difference he was making to the movement of the boat, but he couldn’t have got up much of a sweat—begging your pardon, young lady—for he was still wearing his blazer. Oh, and he had pebble glasses so thick you could hardly see his eyes behind ’em.”
    â€œYou’ve earned your florin already,” said Cribb. “Do you remember as much about the third man?”
    â€œMost of all, because he was the one that spoke to me as I worked the gates for ’em. A rum cove he was, that one. He didn’t talk natural at all. He might have been standing at a pulpit instead of sitting in a boat. ‘Be good enough to explain, lockkeeper,’ he said, ‘why this lock does not appear in our itinerary, which we faithfully compiled from Mr. Jerome K. Jerome’s celebrated work.’ I gave him my usual answer and the little man at bow turned up page 220 and squinted at it. ‘He’s right,’ he says. ‘It’s here in the book. We went up the backwater to Wargrave. It is a short cut, leading out of the right-hand bank about half a mile above Marsh Lock. ’ ‘That,’ says the other, ‘is of no consequence. It is merely a retrospective reference. If there is a lock here as there appears incontrovertibly to be, then Jerome ought to have mentioned its existence at the appropriate point in the book. The omission is inexcusable.’ ”
    â€œWhat was his appearance?” Cribb asked.
    â€œFor the river on a summer afternoon, very odd, very odd indeed. Pin-stripe suit and grey bowler. He was built on slimmer lines than either of the others, round-shouldered and white-faced, with tortoise-shell spectacles and buck teeth. I’d know him again.”
    â€œI can believe you,” said Cribb. “Did you discover by any chance where they were making for?”
    â€œHaven’t I said as much already? They’re doing the book, like everyone else. They’ll have spent last night on one of the Shiplake islands and today they’ll be making for Streatley. They’ve got two days there. If you’re wanting to meet ’em, that’s where you’ll catch ’em, for sure.”

CHAPTER
    10
    Dropping of the pilot—Familiarity in the ranks—How the colour came to Harriet’s cheeks
    A FTER M ARSH L OCK THE Berkshire bank rises sheerly in a clifflike formation festooned with ivy and capped with a beech wood. So far Harriet had studied the scenery more from necessity than choice, but momentarily the prospect was so spectacular that she was able to forget Constable Hardy. Then the voice of Sergeant Cribb jolted her out of her reverie.
    â€œYou’re pulling to port, Constable. I’m trying to steer an even course and you’re pulling the blasted thing to port.”
    Hardy was quick to apologize. “I thought we must be goin’ by way of Hennerton Backwater. It saves nearly half a mile of rowin’. It’s a pleasant way. Plenty of shade.”
    Harriet felt obliged to add, “I seem to remember the lockkeeper mentioning a backwater. To Wargrave, wasn’t it? It was the route the characters in the book were supposed to have taken.”
    â€œI can believe that, miss,” said Hardy. “It’s a charmin’ little stream. Just right for a small boat, threadin’ its way through the rushes and under the trees. If I was writin’ a book myself, I’d have a chapter on Hennerton Backwater for sure.”
    â€œWell, you’re not,” Cribb pointed out.