Gently Sahib (2 page)

As for the market, it continued as usual. It would take more than a tiger to stop that. The big square of stalls, with lights blazing under striped canopies, was crowded with shoppers from breakfast-time onwards.

The market was entertainment. Cheap-jacks thronged one side of it. Stolid-faced country folk grouped silently round them to be harangued in Cockney and Brummagem accents. Plates were slammed together to show their soundness, rolls of printed cotton went flapping down counters.

One man, styled The Glassware King, smashed a tumbler and ate it at the start of his performance.

And nobody really believed in the tiger – hadn’t it escaped to the fields, anyway?

In the Abbey Gardens children, tired of waiting to see it, improvised a game called ‘Tiger, Tiger’.

And the policemen too felt a little silly, strolling about the streets with rifles from the barracks. Some carried them shouldered, like sentries, some wore them slung, thumb-under-strap.

Groton, the animal dealer who owned the tiger, was cruising about in the back of a police car. He was a huge man in a khaki shirt and jodhpurs and he wore an impressive revolver in a polished leather holster.

‘Don’t shoot unless you have to,’ he’d told the police. ‘I can handle him – that’s my job. I paid seven hundred and fifty for that tigger. I’ve some doped gee-gee waiting in the truck.’

The truck, slightly resembling a Black Maria, was an object of interest on the Abbey Plain car park. Small boys pointed out the little barred windows and fingered the scratches on the two heavy doors.

But only Groton was showing a real concern. Danger seemed so remote from the Saturday market, the busy pavements. If there was in fact a tiger – one remembered the cheetah scare at Blackheath – wouldn’t someone appear with a whip and usher it back to its cage?

Meanwhile there was the shopping to do, shoes for the kids, the old man’s tobacco.

And hour by hour was safely tolled by the clock on the Jew’s House, a resonant chimer.

Then the famished brute appeared again, this time in the crowded Market Place. The police believe it had been lying up in a small yard behind a fish shop. Panic swept through the crowds. They rushed screaming into adjoining streets. A policeman fired at the tiger which darted into cover.

Police Constable Kennet was the man who fired at the tiger. Except for the tiger he would have been playing cricket on the village green at Cockgrave. He was a lean, strong-boned man, a fast bowler and a middling bat. He was patrolling the east side of the Market Place while Police Constable Bulley patrolled the west side.

The tiger appeared opportunely, when Police Constable Kennet had come to the south end of his beat.

A moment before he’d watched Police Constable Bulley slip into the convenience by the Jew’s House.

The tiger emerged with composure. It stood blinking its eyes at the top of an alley. For several moments it went unnoticed and remained peering at the stalls and lazily stretching.

Then it yawned – and one of the cheap-jacks found himself peering into a vast throat.

He gave a wavering sort of yell and overbalanced from the box on which he had been demonstrating butane lighters.

In doing so he upset a case of lighters, which went shimmying around on the flagstones, and made such a commotion that all attention was temporarily centred on himself.

Then he got up and began running and shouting:

‘Get out of here – it’s that blinking tiger!’

And there were screams and other shouts and a sudden rushing and violent scramble.

Yet strangely enough, not everybody ran. Quite half the crowd, after the first scatter, came to a stand again at a little distance. Some were climbing on stalls, others catching up impromptu weapons. It was those at the back who caught the panic and dashed into shops and into side streets.

Only Police Constable Kennet stood his ground, but behind him a semicircle formed.

He could feel them there, tense, watching him, the man who must do something about the tiger.

And the tiger blinked at this sudden confusion and gave a feeble flick of his tail. Then he made to yawn again, thought better of it, dropped his head and prepared to slink off.

‘Use your gun!’ someone shouted. ‘There’s women and kids back here, mate.’

‘Shoot the bleeder – don’t be a mug.’

‘Shoot him while you have the chance!’

Police Constable Kennet unslung his rifle. He didn’t want to shoot the tiger. His instinct told him that just then the tiger was comparatively undangerous.

But after all, it was a tiger . . . and women were screaming there, behind him.

He threw the rifle to his shoulder, fired, missed the tiger by yards.

And the tiger, snarling, bounded away to vanish through the doorway of the convenience.

Police Constable Bulley, who saw service with the Sufolks during the war, was searching the premises when the tiger entered. ‘It was a terrible moment,’ he told our reporter. ‘Luckily I had remembered the old army drill – one up at the spout. He got it straight through the heart.’

In fact, Police Constable Bulley had his back to the doorway at the critical moment of the tiger’s entry. He had stood his rifle down inside, since it tended to slip off his shoulder. He was preoccupied; he heard Police Constable Kennet’s shot without appreciating its import.

A moment later there was chaos. He didn’t have time to feel afraid.

The tiled cloister of the convenience exploded with sound that deafened him for minutes.

Along with the roar came a gasping snarl and the lumping thud of a huge body and the scraping sound of claws on tiles, then just the singing deafness in his ears.

He came about unsteadily.

The tiger was lying by the washbasin, one paw fanning weakly.

Three yards from it lay his rifle with a trickle of smoke rising from the muzzle.

The tiger was dead. It lay on its back with a pool of blood growing round it. As Police Constable Bulley stared at the tiger its paw stopped fanning, quivered, went still.

Police Constable Bulley breathed heavily. He went doubtfully to the rifle and picked it up. That’s damned light on the trigger, was all he could think: they should strip that gun in the armoury.

He hefted it under his arm, got over the tiger, came sheepishly out of the convenience. Outside Police Constable Kennet stood gaping. If he was saying anything, Bulley couldn’t hear him.

So ended the terror that stalked the streets of peaceful Abbotsham. Police Constable Bulley is to be recommended for a Police Medal.

Inspector Perkins, who arrived a minute later, noticed that Bulley was improperly dressed, but since he couldn’t tell him without shouting he simply hurried him into the police car.

And that was all, for the moment, about the Abbotsham Tiger.

‘T
HE AC WANTS
to see you, sir.’

Ferrow was the second person to give him the message. Earlier, as Gently had come in from parking his car, the desk sergeant had interrupted a phone call to tell him.

‘What about?’ Gently had grunted.

‘Don’t know, sir,’ the sergeant’d said.

Now, in response to the same question, Ferrow gave the same answer.

Gently stared at him grumpily before stumping upstairs to his office. So the AC wanted him, did he! Had he forgotten about Gently’s leave?

Because he studied the papers over breakfast and was expert at sifting news stories, Gently was reasonably certain nothing big had come up. There’d been a bank job at Croydon, which was none of his business; a stabbing at Manchester, who wouldn’t call London; and a suspected poisoning at Slough.

Was it the poisoning they were going to stick on him, probably a lengthy routine chore? If it was . . . !

He growled to himself, aimed a kick at the door of the outer office.

Inside sat Inspector Dutt, typing a report with two fingers. He grinned moonishly at his superior and stopped typing to say:

‘The AC—’

‘I know!’ Gently snapped. ‘Next thing he’ll give it to the papers. What’s it about?’

‘About a tiger, chief.’

‘About a what?’

‘About a tiger.’

Gently closed the door of the outer office and leaned against it massively. He took out his pipe and struck a light for it, jetted smoke towards the ceiling.

‘Dutt,’ he said. ‘Is this the silly season?’

‘Yes, chief. Bang in the middle of it.’

‘And he wants to see me about a tiger?’

‘About a man about a tiger, he said, chief.’

‘Just that and nothing else?’

‘He said it would be right up your street. He sounded a bit tickled about it, said you wouldn’t want to miss it.’

‘How nice of him,’ Gently said. ‘Only this isn’t my day for tigers.’ He puffed. ‘It wouldn’t be a leg-pull, Dutt?’

‘Don’t know, chief.’

‘It isn’t my day for them either.”

But the Assistant Commissioner was rather vain about his sense of humour. In his student days he’d been one of a band who’d dug a hole in Oxford Circus. Nobody had interfered for three days, when the traffic was jammed as far as Holborn, and five separate authorities were exchanging bitter memos.

And now he’d been paging Gently ever since Gently set foot in the place . . .

‘What’s that report you’ve got there?’

‘This? The Blazey case, chief.’

‘Hurry it up and I’ll take it to him. Then we’ll see what it is with the tiger.’

He swept through into his office, scowled at it, tossed his hat at the peg. Apart from a return sheet his in tray was as empty as it ought to be just now.

For the next forty-eight hours he’d be available for conferences, routine, perhaps a fill-in job; but unless the heavens opened they shouldn’t wrap a major case round his neck. And the heavens hadn’t opened, or he’d have smelt it out in the papers. This was a leg-pull . . . another sample of the AC’s dubious humour.

The phone went.

‘Gently.’

‘Ah, Gently. Did you get my message?’

He couldn’t wait, even, till Gently condescended to appear!

‘Dutt’s getting out his Blazey report. I thought I’d bring it with me.’

‘Never mind the Blazey case, that’s finished. I want you along here directly.

‘Gently – are you there?’

‘Mmn,’ Gently said. ‘I’m here.’

‘I’ll expect you right away then, OK? Drop everything.’

Gently laid the phone fastidiously in its cradle again. He whistled a tune. From the outer office came the tortuous chatter of Dutt’s typing. Gently rose, went to watch Dutt, who frowned as he felt Gently watching him.

‘Just signing off now, sir,’ Dutt said. ‘Won’t be another minute.’

Gently shrugged and walked over to the window.

He began to think of his fishing plans.

The Assistant Commissioner raised his glasses.

‘So glad you could make it,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking round for your resignation. But perhaps you forgot to hand it in.’

He was a thin man with a saintly expression but when he was sarcastic he was angry. Gently placed Dutt’s report on the desk, remained standing and poker-faced.

‘The Public Prosecutor’s office—’

‘Damn the Public Prosecutor’s office.’

‘The case is being tried on Monday.’

‘I should be aware of that, Gently.’

They looked at each other. Without shifting his gaze the AC took out his handkerchief and began polishing his glasses. He was one of the very few men who could stare at Gently on even terms.

At last he said: ‘Well?’

Gently cleared his throat. ‘I’m not an expert . . .’

‘What do you mean – not an expert?’

‘I don’t know anything about tigers.’

‘Aha,’ the AC said. ‘So that’s it.’

‘I couldn’t talk about them,’ Gently said. ‘Not to a man, about a tiger. Even dogs I’m not well up on.’

The AC went on polishing his glasses. Then he put them on with a dainty flourish.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’m with you now. Message understood. You can sit down.’

‘Catching tench, now—’

‘Gently, sit down.’

‘But I’m not an expert on tigers.’

‘Sit down, man! The joke’s on me.’

‘I thought I should warn you,’ Gently said, sitting.

The AC stared at him again, but now he was grinning. He wagged his head archly at Gently. Gently’s face was still blank.

‘So you thought I was having you on! Well, it may have sounded a bit like that. But I’m not, Gently. This is quite serious. We have a murder case with a tiger in it.’

‘Who’s the chummie?’ Gently said. ‘The tiger?’

‘Please! I told you this was serious. But the tiger may have been used as a murder weapon, which is unique in my experience.’

The AC leaned elbows on the desk. He believed in himself as a raconteur. The wiping of the glasses, the pose with the elbows, they were all part of his act.

But he couldn’t talk away the fact that Gently was on leave within forty-eight hours . . .

‘You remember what happened at Abbotsham last year? Almost exactly a year today! A tiger got loose on the Friday night and was roaming the streets the next morning.

‘It was a real tiger too, not just a scare somebody started. A big male, around ten feet long, which a johnny had imported from Pakistan. It was a mystery how it got out. The owner was in town that night. When his two hands showed up in the morning they found the cage unbolted and the gate part open.

‘The owner hared back to help the police catch it, but they didn’t take it alive. When it popped up in the provision market they had to shoot it, of course.

‘As far as they knew it had done no damage, other than wrecking a butcher’s van. The theory was that some bright kid had let it out for a dare.’

The AC licked his lips.

‘Till yesterday,’ he said. ‘Then something interesting turned up in the garden of a bungalow near Abbotsham.’

Gently tapped the desk with a blunt forefinger.

‘There was nothing about this in the papers.’

‘Nothing, I agree. But you wait. They’ll be screaming their heads off tomorrow.’

‘Meanwhile . . .’

‘You listen to me. This is your sort of a case. It’s got everything, and we can’t spoil it by sending down a nonentity.’