BODY ON THE BEACH: YARD CALLED IN, ran the headline of the evening paper, Chief Inspector Gently To Take Charge, New Move In Riddle Of The Sands. It continued: ‘There were fresh developments today in the murder mystery which has come to be known as “The Body On The Beach Murder”. The Starmouth Borough Police acknowledged the gravity with which they view the case by calling upon the services of Scotland Yard. Chief Inspector Gently, well known in Northshire for his handling of the Sawmill Murders, has been assigned the task and this afternoon he arrived in Starmouth to take over the investigation. Superintendent Symms told our reporter in an interview today that sensational developments in the near future are not expected and that the arrival of Chief Inspector Gently was purely a routine step.’
There was also a photograph of Gently which the Norchester Evening News had kept in cold storage from his last visit, but fortunately it wasn’t recognizable…
All along the Front they were talking about it, from the bowling greens in the north to the funfair in the south. It was really making the week for them, holidaymakers and residents alike. Publicity it was, Publicity with a capital P — it dragged in excursionists to be plucked and made the holidaymakers feel that their stay would be truly memorable. For how often does a first-class murder turn up on one’s doorstep during a holiday? A classic murder with stabbing, mystery, the Yard, and all that? They even had the spot marked X for them, thought Gently, as he turned away from the crowd which still milled excitedly on the beach: the Starmouth Borough Police, nothing if not thorough, had set up a ponderous post to mark the site of the discovery. Nobody took it seriously, that was the trouble… the police had already written it off as unsolvable, and everybody else looked on it as a bigger and better side-show. Even Gently himself was being infected by the feeling. He had been practically tipped off that he didn’t have to exert himself.
And yet it was still there, up in the mortuary. That shrunken husk of what had once been a man. A foreigner, they all said, as though it were something subhuman — a foreigner whom they couldn’t really care about, though he had been tortured, killed in cold blood and thrown into the sea, to be washed up, troublesome and unwanted, on their holiday shore… just a foreigner: one didn’t bother too much about him.
But suppose one did bother, thought Gently, where did one begin on such an impossible business? He had taken the only step that suggested itself. He had got Dutt to phone headquarters to have the prints transmitted to Paris. Where did one go from there — what was one to try that the so-efficient Starmouth BP hadn’t tried already? He sighed, and sat down heavily in a deckchair which still remained on the evening sand. He was still baulking, and he knew it. He still couldn’t get his shoulder under the thing. There was something about just being in Starmouth, quite apart from anything else, that sapped his power of concentration. Those tight-fitting knickerbockers, for instance… And where were the donkeys…?
Behind him the lights blazed and jewelled as far as the eye could see, outlining buildings, flashing on signs, revolving on the sails of the windmill which reared further down. The two piers presented a strong contrast. The virile Albion seemed to burn and throb with illumination, to assert itself by sheer candlepower; the Wellesley contented itself with graceful and glittering outlines, making it appear, with its Winter Gardens, like an iced-cake shored-up above the sea. And there was the great evening medley of the Front, the undertone of the traffic, the beat of ten thousand feet, the shrieks and cries of ragamuffin children, the tinkle and soughing roar of mechanical music and the intermittent spang and crash of a shooting saloon not far away.
And then, of course, there was the sea, the sea that knew the secret, the heavy-looking evening sea that hissed and chuckled near that solitary post.
Gently took out his pipe and lit it. There had to be something, he told himself obstinately. After all, that man must necessarily have been murdered not very far away and murder under the best conditions is apt to leave traces. He blew out the match in a gust of smoke and held it poised in the air beside him. Except if it were done at sea, of course… but one mustn’t begin by assuming that.
Suddenly, the match disappeared from his fingers. It went so quickly and so silently that for a moment Gently simply sat still in surprise. Then he jerked his head round to see by what agency the match had taken flight. But there was nothing to be seen. There was nobody within yards of the back of his chair. The nearest people to him were two uniformed Americans with their inamoratas and they were patently occupied with quite other things. Puzzled, he returned to his meditations. He puffed at his pipe, his empty fingers taking up the same position as before. And then, just as suddenly, with the lightest of twitches, the match reappeared in its former situation.
This time Gently got up. He got up with an alacrity unexpected in a bulky man of fifty summers. But his haste was quite needless, because the worker of these miracles was merely crouching behind the chair and it made no attempt at flight when Gently pulled away the chair and exposed it.
‘And who may you be?’ demanded Gently, realizing then whom it could be no other.
‘I’m Nits — I’m Nits!’ piped the halfwit, staring up painfully with his bulbous eyes. ‘I know who you are, they told me who you are! I know — I know!’
Gently released the chair slowly and reseated himself, this time with his back to the sea. ‘So you do, do you?’ he said, ‘and who did they tell you I am?’
‘You’re a policeman!’ chattered Nits, ‘you’re a policeman, though you haven’t got a hat. I know! They told me! You want to know about my man who wouldn’t wake up.’
Gently nodded profoundly, keeping his eyes fixed on the halfwit’s. ‘And what else did they tell you about me?’ he queried.
‘They said I mustn’t talk to you — ha, ha! — they said you might take me away and lock me up. But’ — Nits assumed an expression of exaggerated cunning — ‘I know you won’t do that.’
‘And how do you know I won’t do that, Nits?’
‘Because I haven’t asked for any money. That’s why they locked me up!’
Gently puffed at his pipe, still keeping the staring green eyes engaged. This was it, the solitary link — an idiot who ought to be in a home. Not even a rational creature, however stupid. Just an idiot, someone who couldn’t testify anyway. As he sat there, smoking and brooding and watching the ragged Caliban crouched in the sand, he seemed to hear a mockery in the tinkled outburst of music and a laughter in the shuffling of feet on the promenade. What was the use of it? And who cared two hoots, really?
‘So you found the man who wouldn’t wake up…’ he murmured.
Nits nodded in energetic glee.
‘Just there, where they’ve put the post.’
Nits’s head bobbed ceaselessly.
‘And you tried to wake him up… then you went and told a policeman
… and the policeman tried waking him up too.’
The head never wavered.
‘You’ve no idea how he got there?’
The head changed direction agreeably.
‘You didn’t see anybody around before you found him?’
‘My part,’ said Nits, his features twisting into an absurd mask of aggression, ‘nobody come on my part of the beach.’
It was just what was in Copping’s report. The efficient Inspector had covered the ground admirably. Nits had told what he knew, and he didn’t know anything: it just so happened that the corpse had been washed up on ‘his’ part of the beach.
‘You were told not to talk to me,’ said Gently wearily, ‘who was it told you that?’
Nits grinned and chattered but made no intelligible reply.
‘And why did you talk to me, after being warned not to?’
The halfwit frowned ferociously and turned his trouser-pockets inside-out. ‘The other man — he took it away!’
‘Took what away?’
‘My knife — he took it!’
Gently smiled and felt for the little broken-bladed penknife. Nits gabbled with joy and snatched for it with the speed of a striking snake. But Gently had already experienced a sample of the halfwit’s snatching and he held the knife carefully out of range.
‘Who was it told you not to talk to me?’ he demanded.
Nits chattered and tried another sudden grab.
‘You get it when you tell me, not until.’
Nits made all sorts of fierce faces, but Gently merely made as if to return the knife to his own pocket.
‘Jeff!’ piped the halfwit suddenly, ‘it was Jeff and Bonce — they told me.’
‘And who are they?’
‘I don’t know — I don’t know!’
‘You know their names — you must know something else about them.’
‘I just see them, that’s all.’
‘See them where?’ persisted Gently, ‘see them here — on the beach?’
But the halfwit relapsed into a mewing and gabbling, and refused to make himself any further intelligible. Gently sighed and tossed him the knife. It was plucked out of the air as though by the lash of a whip and Nits capered off, clutching it to his bosom, his two trouser-pockets still turned inside-out.
‘Whoa — wait a minute!’ called Gently, rising to his feet.
He produced a florin and held it out between thumb and finger. The halfwit paused in his flight, hesitated, and then came sidling back, spaniel-like, his chin tucked in until there seemed nothing of his face below the two bulging eyes. He didn’t snatch at it, as Gently expected: he reached up and took the coin quietly from Gently’s hand. Then he crept closer still, crouching, cringing almost, and stared up with his faceless eyes.
‘The man who wouldn’t wake up!’ he piped, but in a sort of whisper.
Gently nodded silently.
‘Different… different!’
‘Different from… what?’ murmured Gently.
‘From when he was awake.’
‘From when he was awake!’
Nits went into one of his fits of nodding.
‘Hold it!’ exclaimed Gently, feeling his universe beginning to rock, ‘did you know him, Nits — did you know him when he was awake?’
‘I knew him — I knew him!’
‘But when did you know him — and where?’
Nits screwed his face up into an expression of rage and shook his head. Then he pointed to the tip of his almost non-existent chin.
‘Hair!’ he chattered, ‘hair — when he was awake!’
The next moment he was capering over the beach again, leaving Gently with his eyebrows hoisted in almost comical surprise.
Twilight had become dusk and the lights which had sparkled like fugitive jewellery were now glowing and full. The blazing Front had a strange glamour about it, as though it belonged to a different world, and the holidaymakers too seemed to partake of the strangeness. Perhaps it was simply the multiplicity of lights destroying the shadows, perhaps only the sense of anonymity and freedom… they felt changed and in some way abnormal.
Gently picked his way through the promenade crowds and paused at the edge of the carriage-way. He felt changed also, though his changedness was due to something quite different. He’d got a lead, that was it. He’d found something to hang on to in this slippery orphan of a case.
Almost jauntily he crossed the carriage-way and directed his steps to a phone-box on the other side.
‘Chief Inspector Gently… is Inspector Copping in, by any chance?’
The switchboard girl thought he might be if Gently would kindly hang on. Gently grunted and wedged himself into a supportable position in the corner of the box. Outside he could see the front of the amusement arcade from which blared much of the canned music which disturbed that part of the promenade — a striking blaze of light in the shape of three feathers, with a lurid red arrow snapping backwards and forwards as though working up to burst in through the door. And there was some jutting neonry which said LICENSED BAR… a ritzy sort of touch for an amusement arcade, thought Gently.
‘Inspector Copping,’ said the switchboard girl.
Gently jammed the door yet tighter-shut on the racket without. ‘Gently here… I want something done,’ he said. ‘Look, Copping, can you get on to the pathologist who did the post-mortem? I want him to have another check.’
‘Can’t see what that’s going to buy,’ came Copping’s voice plaintively, ‘he didn’t die of asthma.’
‘I’m not interested in the way he died. I want a thorough examination of the skin of the face for spirit gum.’
‘Spirit gum!’
‘Or any other mucilage that may be present,’ added Gently generously.
There was a pause at the other end, and then Copping came back: ‘But what’s he supposed to be now — a member of a touring company?’
Gently smiled at the leaping red arrow. ‘Your guess is as good as mine…’
‘And where did you dig up the idea, anyway?’
‘Oh… it was a present for a good Central Office man. And by the way, Copping, you wouldn’t know anything of two characters called Jeff and Bonce, would you?’
‘Not to my knowledge. Are they hooked up to this business?’
‘Could be,’ admitted Gently, ‘it’s an even chance…’
There was a noise like a snort at the other end. ‘But how do you do it? I’ve been three days on this case!’
‘Just luck, you know… you need it in homicide.’
‘It looks like all the breaks were being saved up till you came. Are there any other small ways I can help?’
Gently brooded a moment. ‘There’s an amusement arcade down here… it’s called “The Feathers” and it sports a licensed bar. What do you know about that?’
‘Is that in the case too, or are you just being curious?’
‘I’ve been tailing Nits… when he’s finished collecting he makes for “The Feathers” like a homing pigeon.’
‘Well, it’s got a clean record. The proprietor is a man called Hooker — Louey Hooker. He lives in a flat at the back of the building, and he runs a bookie’s business too. The office is under the flat and fronts on Botolph Street, which runs parallel with the Front.’
‘A bookie’s business.’
‘That’s right. They’re still legal in this year of grace.’
Gently nodded at the undiscourageable arrow. ‘Well… send me Dutt along, will you? And drag that pathologist away from whatever he’s doing and put him to work.’
‘You mean tonight?’ inquired Copping in surprise.
‘We’re working, aren’t we?’ retorted Gently heartlessly.
He hung up and levered open the door of the phone-box. The year’s hit-tune, mildly interruptive till then, leaped to meet him with a vengeful roar. Gently frowned and felt in his pocket for a peppermint cream. Mr Edison, he felt, hadn’t been an unmixed blessing to mankind.
The interior of the amusement arcade was as aggressive as the exterior had promised. It was lit with a farrago of fluorescent tubes and popping bulbs, and the walls were panelled in a gooey pink plastic relieved by insets of ‘teinte de boiled cabbage’. And there was a vigorous use of chromium plate in all departments. The decor man had obviously had a flair for it. Left and right of a central aisle the machines were deployed — all the latest attractions, space-flights, atom-bombing and the rest, with a few tried favourites still making a stand against the march of science. There was the crane that picked up a prize and dropped it down a shoot, Gently noticed… at least, it picked up a prize when Nits was operating it. The halfwit had apparently got the low-down.
Stationed behind a punchball machine, Gently watched the crouched, ragged figure insert coin after coin. Each time the descending grab would seize on one of the more substantial pieces of trash in the glass case. Sometimes it failed to grasp securely and nothing would rattle down the shoot except a few gaudy-coloured sweets, but always the grab dropped plumb on a prize in the first instance.
Gently lit his pipe and continued to watch. All round him machines were ringing and clattering. Any two of that crowd could be the two in question… at any moment they might spot Nits, or Nits them. And what then? he asked himself. Suppose he was lucky and stumbled on them? What they had said to Nits might have been no more than a joke, the sort of silly thing to be said to a halfwit. Of course it was odd that they had known him, Gently, on sight… but then, the picture in the evening paper might have jogged their memories. There had been bigger and better pictures of him in the same paper the year before.
No, he told himself, it wasn’t much better than a hunch, after all …
The music changed to something plaintive and caressing, and as though it were a signal Nits crammed his collection of ballpoints and flash jewellery into his pockets and darted to the door. Gently moved forward also, but the halfwit came to a standstill short of the entrance, so he slid back again into the cover of the punch-ball machine. Was Nits expecting someone? It rather seemed like it. He stood by the door, apparently trembling, and strained his protruding eyes in the direction of the Wellesley Pier. Several people came in, but these were ignored. Nits didn’t even glance at them as they pushed past. Then he gave a little whimper and a skip, like a dog sighting its master, and a moment later the object of his vigil appeared.
She was a blonde, a tall, big-bodied blonde. She didn’t have to broadcast her vocation, either to Gently or the world. She wore a sleeveless green silk blouse, high-heels and a black hobble skirt, and walked with a flaunt that looked vaguely expensive.
‘Geddart,’ she said to Nits in the husky voice of sin, ‘keep away from me, you dirty liddle so-and-so — how many more times must I tell you?’
‘I’ve been a good boy!’ piped Nits, frisking and cringing beside her as she hipped down the arcade.
‘I don’d care — jusd keep away from me.’
‘I got something — I got something! Look for you!’ Nits pulled out his hoard of swag and tried to thrust it into the blonde’s hands, but she snatched them away and the stuff tinkled on to the floor.
‘I don’t wand it!’ she yelped, ‘keep your dirdy muck to yourself! Don’d ever come near me again!’ And she bustled away through the grinning crowd, leaving Nits to scrabble amongst the feet for his scattered treasure.
‘That’s my gal, Frenchy!’ shouted someone, ‘don’t you have him if you don’t fancy him!’
The blonde turned back and said something so filthy that even Gently was taken aback, then she swaggered through the swing-doors of the bar.
‘Whoo-whoo!’ was the cry, ‘Frenchy’s got the answer, don’t you forget it!’
On the floor Nits chattered and sobbed with rage. ‘I’ll kill you — I’ll kill you!’ he babbled, ‘I’ve been a good boy — I have — I have!’
Gently stooped and rescued a plastic ballpoint from under the heel of a bystander. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘one you missed.’
Nits seized it and stuffed it into his pocket after the others. ‘I’ll kill you!’ he whispered in an ecstasy of passion.
‘Did she know him?’ asked Gently, ‘did she know the man who wouldn’t wake up?’
Nits’s green eyes burned at him like two malignant lamps and Gently, moving swiftly, moved only just in time. As it was the leaping halfwit sent his trilby flying. Then, recovering himself, Nits dived for the door and his turn of speed was something that Gently could only have sighed for in his palmiest days…