Blantyre road was a shabby-genteel thoroughfare which began at the top of Duke Street and meandered vaguely in a diagonal direction until it joined the Front a good way south, where hotels had already begun to thin out. It was at its best at the top end. Just there it skirted a small park or garden, and the houses which faced it, Edwardian Rococo, had a wistful air of having known better times and more civilized people.
Outside one of these a crowd had collected. It spread along the pavement in both directions and was a model of quietness and patient expectancy. On the steps behind them the careful Copping had stationed a uniform-man, but his authority was somewhat vitiated by the presence of three gentlemen with cameras supported by four gentlemen without cameras — a contingent possessed of far more glamour than a mere police constable.
‘Blimey!’ exclaimed Dutt, as he, Gently and Copping came dramatically on the scene in the back of a police Wolseley, ‘there wasn’t a soul about here half an hour ago.’
‘That woman must have blabbed,’ snapped Copping, ‘I sent Jennings down to try and stop it… blast her tattling tongue!’
‘Of course, she’s got a perfect right to…’ murmured Gently.
The Wolseley made a three-point landing opposite the door and the police constable marched down to give them his official greeting.
‘Sorry about this here, sir,’ he apologized to Copping, ‘that was all done before I arrived…’
‘Never mind — never mind!’ barked Copping, ‘just keep those wolves there out of the house, that’s all.’
He strode up the steps, an impressive figure. Gently followed with Dutt at a more sedate pace. The flashbulbs popped and the crowd rippled.
‘How about a statement!’ demanded a reporter, pushing up, notebook at the ready.
‘Nothing about a statement!’ boomed Copping, ‘if you want a statement, come to headquarters for it.’
‘A statement from you, then,’ said the reporter, turning to Gently.
Gently shrugged and shook his head. ‘Did you get one from Mrs Watts?’ he inquired.
‘We were actually getting one when the constable interfered…!’
‘Then you probably know more than I do just at the moment…’
He pushed past and up the steps.
The interior of the house was as pleasingly period as the outside. Inside the front door was a long, narrow, but lofty hall, a good deal of it occupied by a disproportionately wide staircase. At the far end another door led into the back garden, a door equipped with panes of red and blue glass. There was a certain amount of upheaval apparent, quite incidental to the main theme — it was a lodging-house Saturday, one set of guests departed, the other not yet arrived. At the foot of the stairs lay a bundle of dirty sheets, in the dining-room, its door ajar, a heap of tablecloths and napkins… Entr’acte, thought Gently. The phrase epitomized Starmouth on a Saturday.
Copping had marched ahead into Mrs Watt’s private parlour, from whence could be heard issuing the landlady’s strident and aggressive tones.
‘I don’t know why you’re making all this fuss now, I’m sure… I told the man who called round here on Wednesday… well, is it my fault if you didn’t know about the beard?’
‘There must be some mistake, mam,’ came the discomfited voice of Copping, ‘I’m sure O’Reilly…’
‘Mistake, Inspector! I should just say there was a mistake. My daughter Deanna and my husband Ted both backed me up about it… “Beard or no beard,” I says, “the man on that photograph is our number seven”… and that was on Wednesday, Inspector, yet you come worrying me today of all days, a Saturday, and Race Week — it’s too bad, it is really! If it’s not making me all behind with my work, it’s what my people are going to think with all that lot gawping outside…’
Dutt gave Gently a knowing wink. ‘Aye, aye! I was waiting for him to run into that lot.’
‘Somebody’s boobed, Dutt.’
‘Yessir… and it isn’t you and me.’
Gently pushed in at the parlour door. It was a small but expensive room. The gilt-edge of Mrs Watts’s season expended itself on radiograms, television sets, slow-burning stoves, carpets and furniture notable for its areas of glossy veneer. The available floor-space was a trifle restricted by these evidences of wealth. It occurred, where it occurred in small islands of gold mohair. On the largest of these, which adjoined the multi-tile hearth, Mrs Watts was conducting her attack, while a red-faced Copping had got himself wedged into a triangle between a radiogram and a television set.
‘What do you send them round for?’ continued the stalwart matron, snaking a glance at the new intruder en passant. ‘What’s the idea of wasting our time asking questions when you aren’t going to believe us anyway? Is that how you run the police in Starmouth? Is that why they keep putting the rates up?’
‘I assure you, mam, if you’ll let me explain…’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt, you’ll be a wonderful one for explaining. And I dare say your explaining will get the work done by the time my people start coming in. If you ask me, Mr Inspector, we need someone in Starmouth who can teach you your job… that body on the beach was a show-up for you, wasn’t it just…?’
‘Ahem!’ coughed Gently, appropriating some mohair behind the door.
Mrs Watts shook her platinum locks and presented a square chin at him. ‘And who’s this?’ she demanded of Copping, ‘how many more have you brought down here to waste my time?’
‘This is Chief Inspector Gently, mam!’ explained the squirming Copping, ‘he’s in charge of the case… he wants to ask you a few questions.’
There was a pause while Mrs Watts digested this information. Then her expression underwent a change, passing from steely aggressiveness to steely affability. ‘Well!’ she said more placably, ‘well! And aren’t you the gentleman they’ve sent from Scotland Yard to clear up this body-on-the-beach business?’
Gently nodded gravely.
‘The same Chief Inspector Gently that did that case at Norchester?’
‘The same, Madam.’
‘Well!’ repeated Mrs Watts, ‘of course, if I’d known that…’ She favoured Gently with a smile in which steeliness was still the principal ingredient. ‘Do please sit down, Inspector… I shall be pleased to be of any assistance. Deanna!’ — her voice rose to a shout — ‘Deanna, leave what you’re doing and make a pot of tea, do you hear?’
There was a faint acknowledgement from without and Mrs Watts, satisfied, ushered Gently to the room’s most dramatic and veneer-lavish chair. He contrived to avoid it, however, and it was Copping who became the victim…
‘Now,’ pursued Mrs Watts, ‘I’d like you to know, Inspector-’
‘Just a minute,’ interrupted Gently, ‘has the room been interfered with?’
‘The room, Inspector…?’
‘Number seven — the room from which this man disappeared?’
Mrs Watts looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know what you mean, interfered with. I’ve changed the sheets and pillow-cases, and Ida (that’s the maid) has polished and hoovered, but that’s all… there’s nothing been moved about.’
Gently sighed softly to himself. ‘Well… we’ll look in there later, if you don’t mind. Now about the man himself…’
‘I recognized him directly, Inspector. There was never any doubt.’
‘You recognized him without the painted-in beard?’
‘As soon as I clapped eyes on the photograph… “Yes,” I says to the man, “that’s our number seven. Only he’s got a beard,” I says, “a lot of it — all over his face.”’
‘And that was on Wednesday, the day after your lodger was missing?’
‘That’s right — Wednesday evening. Naturally, I didn’t pay too much attention to him spending the night out… you can’t be too particular about that sort of thing, Inspector. But when it got near tea-time and still no sign of him…’
‘You rang the police and were shown the photographs. You acted very properly, Mrs Watts.’
‘But the man didn’t believe me, Inspector — I could see he didn’t!’
Copping made a rumbling noise. ‘It was O’Reilly,’ he brought out, ‘he was going on transfer to Liverpool the next day… he didn’t want to believe it…’
Gently nodded comfortably to one and the other. ‘Everyone is human
… even the police. And of course you recognized the touched-up photograph, Mrs Watts?’
‘Naturally I did — and so did Deanna — and so did my husband Ted, who was in after his lunch.’
‘You’d be prepared to swear to the identity in court?’
‘I’d take my Bible oath on it, Inspector… and so will they.’
Gently nodded again and felt absently in the pocket where he stowed the peppermint creams. ‘When was it he arrived?’ he asked, struggling with the bag.
‘It was last Wednesday week — in the morning, just after breakfast.’
‘Go on. Describe what happened.’
‘Well, I answered the door, Inspector, and there he stood. “I see you’ve got a room vacant,” he says — only he had a queer way of slurring it, as though he were trying to be funny — “do you think I might see it?” he says. I mean, the cheek of it, Inspector! People are usually glad enough to get rooms in the middle of the week at this time of the year, without being awkward about it. And him a foreigner too, and smelling as though he’d just walked off a fishing boat…!’
Gently paused in the act of transporting a peppermint cream to his mouth. ‘A fishing boat?’ he queried.
‘Yes — that’s just the way he smelt. Mind you, I don’t want to accuse him of having been a dirty man. It was something that wore off later and the first thing he did was have a bath. But there’s no doubt he had a fishy smell on that particular morning… well, I nearly slammed the door in his face!’
Mrs Watts pulled herself up in a way which reminded Gently of a baulking mule.
‘How was he dressed… can you remember?’ he asked.
‘He’d got his light grey suit on — he nearly always wore that… a bit American, it was, with one of those fancy backs to the jacket.’
‘Tie?’
‘That was a bow.’
‘Hat?’
‘He never wore one that I can remember.’
‘Did he have some luggage with him…?’
‘He’d got a couple of cases, one bigger than the other… the big one is still in his room.’
‘How about the other — what happened to that?’
‘I suppose he took it with him, Inspector. He always did when he went out… he seemed to think there was something very precious about it.’
‘Did you see him leave with it the last time you saw him?’
‘No… I didn’t see him after I’d given him his tea. Deanna saw him go out, perhaps she noticed. Deanna!’ — Mrs Watts’s voice rose piercingly again — ‘come in here — the inspector wants to ask you a question!’
‘Coming, Ma!’ replied a sugary voice just without the door, and a moment later Deanna made her entrance bearing a chrome-and-plastic tea-tray.
‘Put it down here, Deanna — I’ll pour it out.’ Mrs Watts was obviously proud of her daughter and wanted her to be admired. ‘This is Chief Inspector Gently down here about the body on the beach… don’t be afraid of him, my dear, there’s no need to be shy.’
Deanna wasn’t shy. She beamed at Gently with a mechanical smile which had haunting overtones of Mrs Watts in it, then seated herself next to him. She had a cat-like grace too studied to be pleasing. She was twenty-one or — two.
‘My daughter’s on the stage, Inspector,’ chattered Mrs Watts, sploshing tea into straight-sided cups with lustred rims, ‘she was in the pantomime last season… just in the chorus, you know.’
‘I understudied the principal boy,’ beamed Deanna.
‘They’re going to give her something bigger this year… of course, she’s home with me during the summer.’
Gently accepted one of the straight-sided cups and stirred it with a spoon that had a knob of black plastic to its spindly shank. ‘Getting back to your lodger…’ he murmured.
‘Of course, Inspector.’ Mrs Watts handed a cup of tea to Dutt behind the television. ‘Deanna dear, you saw him go out on Tuesday… the inspector wants to know if he had his case with him.’
‘I don’t really remember, Ma… I didn’t know it was going to be important.’
‘But it is important, dear… you must try to think.’
‘I am trying, Ma, but it isn’t any good.’
‘What time was it when he went out?’ asked Gently.
Deanna curled round in her seat to him. ‘I just can’t remember, Inspector… isn’t it awful of me?’
‘What were you doing when you saw him?’
‘Oh… I was going up to my room to get ready for the Tuesday dance at the Wellesley.’
‘How long would that have taken you?’
‘About an hour… aren’t I terrible!’
‘And then your boyfriend called for you?’
‘Well yes, he did, Inspector!’
‘And what time was that?’
‘It was a quarter past eight… he was late.’
‘Thank you, Miss Deanna.’
In his veneered throne Copping stirred restlessly. ‘How about the visitor’s book — what did he put in there?’ he asked.
Mrs Watts’s chin took on an ominous tilt. ‘He didn’t put anything in there. They don’t, most of them, until they’re going.’
‘They should,’ said Copping stoutly, ‘they should make an entry as soon as they arrive.’
‘Well, they don’t, Mr Nosey, and that’s all there is to it. And if you’re going to make trouble out of it you’ll have to make trouble for everybody in Starmouth who lets rooms…’
Gently made a pacifying gesture. ‘But surely he gave a name, Mrs Watts? Naturally, you would ask for that…’
‘Of course I did, Inspector. And he gave it to me without any hanky-panky — only it was such a peculiar one that I couldn’t even say it after him. So he just laughed in that rather nice way he had and told me to call him Max… and that’s what we all called him.’
‘Didn’t you inquire his nationality?’
‘He said he was an American but if he was, he hadn’t been one for long, not with that accent.’
Gently sipped some tea and looked round for somewhere to put his cup. ‘How long was he going to stay?’ he asked.
‘Just on to the end of this week — I hadn’t any room for him after that. I’m usually full up right through, of course, but it just so happened through an illness…’
‘Quite so, Mrs Watts. And did he pay up till the end of the week?’
‘He did — it’s one of the rules of this establishment.’
‘There seemed to be no shortage of money with him?’
‘Not him, Inspector. He’d got a whole wad of notes in his wallet — fivers, most of them.’
‘Did he ask any questions before he took the room?’
‘Well, the usual ones… how much it would be, if we’d got a separate bathroom and the like.’
‘Did he ask about the other guests, for instance?’
‘Yes, he did, now you come to mention it. He asked if they were all English and if they had all arrived the Saturday before.’
‘And did that suggest anything to you?’
‘He seemed a bit anxious about it… I thought he might be expecting to run into somebody he knew.’
‘Somebody pleasant or somebody unpleasant?’
‘Unpleasant, I suppose… if he really is the one you picked up on the beach.’
‘Did he suggest that from the way he spoke?’
‘Well no, Inspector, he didn’t actually…’
Gently prized up a peppermint cream from the dwindling stock in his pocket. It induced that faraway look in his eye which Mrs Watts mistook for profound cerebration, but which in reality was connected with his solvency in terms of that important commodity… though Starmouth was pretty good peppermint cream country at most hours of the day and night.
‘Was he a good mixer?’ he asked absently.
‘Oh, he got on with everyone, though I wouldn’t say he made friends. But he got on with them. They all liked our Max.’
‘Was he regular in his habits?’ Gently yielded up his cup for a second fill from the hotel-plate teapot.
‘I dare say he was… as people go when they’re on holiday.’
‘Tidy… a good lodger?’
‘Oh yes… most of the time.’ A frown hovered over the steely eyes as she handed Gently the freshly-filled cup. ‘He left his room in a bit of a mess when he went out that last time, but probably he was in a hurry… you haven’t always time to clear up after you.’
‘A mess…!’ Gently hesitated in the act of plying his plastic-knobbed spoon. ‘What sort of a mess?’
‘Well, if you ask me, Inspector, he’d lost something and was trying to find it quickly, that’s what it looked like. The wardrobe was open, the drawers pulled out of the dressing-table — right out, some of them — and if he hadn’t up-ended his suitcase on to the floor then he’d given a good imitation of it. And the bed, too, I should say he’d had that apart, not to mention turning up a corner of the carpet. It was a proper mess, you can take it from me!’
Gently drew a long breath. ‘But of course,’ he said expressionlessly, ‘of course you cleared it all up again, Mrs Watts?’
‘I did, Inspector,’ the regal matron assured him, ‘I can’t stand untidiness in my house, no matter from whom.’
‘Ahh!’ sighed Gently, ‘I needn’t have asked that one, need I…?’
The room faced back with a solitary and not-very-large sash window overlooking a small backyard. It was a typical lodging-house ‘single’, about eight by ten, not much more than a cupboard in which had to be packed the bed, wardrobe, dressing-table, chair and the tiny fitted wash-basin which tried to substantiate the terms Mrs Watts charged for such accommodation. The walls were papered in an irritable grained brown friezed with orange and green, the floor had a strip of carpet which echoed these colours. The bed and other furniture were of flimsy stained wood, late thirties in vintage, and the light-shade was a contraption of orange-sprayed glass with a golden tassel for the flies to perch on. In essence it bore a generic resemblance to the parlour downstairs, thought Gently. There was the same over-crowding and full-bodied vulgarity. It was only the cash index that varied so considerably.
Beside the bed stood an expensive looking suitcase, a rather jazzy affair styled in some sort of plastic with towelling stripes. Copping bent down to pick it up, but Gently laid a sudden hand on his arm. ‘Watch it… I want this place printed,’ he said.
‘Printed?’ Copping stared in surprise. ‘There can’t be much left to print after all this clearing-up…’
Gently shrugged. ‘If there is, I want it.’
‘But what does it matter — we’ve got three witnesses at least to identify him?’
‘It isn’t only him that interests us…’
He moved to the window, leaving Copping still staring.
The window was part open at the top. Immediately below it were the red pantiles roofing the outside offices, at the end of which could be seen part of a corrugated steel water-butt. The yard itself was no more than twenty yards long by ten wide. It was separated from its neighbours and the alley on which it backed by grimy brick walls. In the far corner a sad laburnum trembled, in the centre rotted a part-buried Anderson shelter, while close at hand there roosted three dustbins, one of them with its lid at a rakish angle…
Gently produced a not-perfectly-clean handkerchief and closed the window. ‘Look,’ he said to Copping, pointing to the catch.
Copping looked intelligently. ‘It’s broken,’ he said.
Gently nodded and waited.
‘Done from the outside — forced up with a chisel or something…’
Gently nodded again.
‘Hell’s bells — the room’s been burgled!’ exclaimed Copping, suddenly catching on. ‘It wasn’t the boyo who left it upside-down — it was somebody else — somebody looking for something he left behind here!’
‘Which is why I’m printing the place…’ murmured Gently helpfully.
‘It’s plain as a pikestaff — I can see the whole thing! He sneaked in up the alley — got in through that broken gate down there — climbed on to the roof by the water-butt and the down-pipe — forced up the catch!’
‘Hold it,’ interrupted Gently. ‘Dutt, step up here a moment.’
Dutt, who had been lingering respectfully in the passage, came quickly to the window. Gently spoke to him without turning his head.
‘Over there — where the coping’s knocked off the wall… don’t make it too obvious you’re looking.’
‘I can see him, sir,’ muttered Dutt, ‘if he’d just turn his loaf a fraction…’
‘But who is it!’ interrupted Copping, shoving in, ‘is it someone you know-?’
‘Back!’ rapped Gently, ‘keep away till Dutt has had a good look… there, you’ve scared him… he’s off like a hare!’
Dutt raised himself from the stooping position he had taken up. ‘It was him, sir,’ he asserted positively, ‘I saw the scar as he turned to run… you can’t mistake a face like that.’
‘I saw it too, Dutt, right down his cheek.’
‘He must have copped a fair packet somewhere…’
‘Also he has a strange interest in what goes on…’
‘But who is he?’ yapped Copping again, ‘what’s it all about, this I-spy stuff?’
Gently smiled at some spot that was miles behind Copping’s head. ‘It’s just a little thing between Dutt and me,’ he said, ‘don’t let it bother you… it’s all over now. Suppose we do what you wanted and take a look in the suitcase?’
They retired from the window and a disgruntled Copping demonstrated how to open a suitcase before it had been printed. It was a charmingly well-filled suitcase. It contained an abundance of shirts and socks and underwear, besides some hairbrushes and toilet accessories which the tidy Mrs Watts had garnered from wash-bowl and dressing-table. And the contents were determined to be helpful. There were makers’ labels attached to some of the clothes, names and patent numbers stamped on other items… even the suitcase itself had a guarantee label tied to the lining with blue silk. Gently had never seen such a helpful lot of evidence…
‘It’s American,’ declared Copping brightly, ‘look at this one — “Senfgurken Inc., NY” — and that razor — the toothbrush, even. It’s all Yank stuff, right through.’
‘And all brand new,’ mused Gently.
‘He must have bought it for the trip and he can’t have been over here long. Or maybe he’s a service-man on leave and fixed himself up at his P.X. Anyway, we know where to start looking. If his embassy doesn’t know about him, the US Army will.’
‘I wonder…’ Gently breathed.
‘Eh?’ stared Copping.
‘Of course, he said he was an American…’
Copping’s stare became indignant. ‘Who else but a Yank could get hold of this stuff? And who would want to fake up some American luggage, here in Starmouth? What’s the point?’
Gently shrugged and dug up the last of his peppermint creams. ‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ he said.
‘He’s a serviceman got in some bad company, you take my word. It’s happened before in Starmouth… he’s a deserter, that’s my bet.’
Gently shook his head. ‘It doesn’t fit in. There’s nothing American about Max except his clothes, and even they seem too good to be true. No… everything about him is wrong. He just won’t add up into a good American.’
‘He might add up into a bad one,’ quipped Copping, but Gently didn’t seem to be listening.
‘The suit — his dark suit! What happened to that?’
‘His dark suit?’ echoed Copping.
‘The one he wore on Sunday. Look in the wardrobe, Dutt. It may still be hanging there.’
Obediently Dutt pulled out his handkerchief and unlatched the wardrobe door. Sure enough a dark suit hung there, a shouldery close-waisted number in discreet midnight blue. Dutt turned back a lapel to show the tailor’s label. It was of one Klingelschwitz, operating in Baltimore.
‘Still American,’ commented Copping, a shade triumphant.
‘Go through the pockets,’ ordered Gently dully.
Dutt went through them. There wasn’t even any fluff. But as he was re-folding the trousers something small and bright fell from one of the turn-ups, a little disc of metal. Copping swooped on it and held it up.
‘His lucky charm. He ought to have had it with him on Tuesday.’
‘A circle with a line through it!’ exclaimed Dutt, ‘there’s something familiar about that, sir — I’ve seen it before somewhere.’
‘So have I.’ A gleam came into Gently’s eye. ‘I saw it last night on the ring of a Mr Louis Hooker. I wonder if Louey has ever been to America…?’