Read Gently in Trees for Free Online

one curtain. Next, we have to put the transgressors through hell.’
    ‘No!’ the A.C. exclaimed. ‘Enough, Gently!’
    ‘I admit, it’s circumstantial,’ Gently said. ‘But it fits as well as the other two theories, and it would save a packet of tax-payers’ money.’
    The A.C. thumped his desk. ‘I said enough!’
    ‘That’s my provisional opinion,’ Gently said.
    The A.C. put on his glasses, adjusted them, and treated Gently to a grade one stare.
    ‘All right,’ he said, ‘all right, Gently. Message received and understood. So we don’t know enough to start wildcat theories and to call in our oracle to adjudicate. But our oracle has been called in, and our oracle will duly apply himself. I want this little lot sorted out, preferably before the Sunday papers can get their hands on it. Is that clear?’
    ‘Clear,’ Gently said.
    The A.C. gave him another stare. Lyons was examining his trousers. Metfield, pop-eyed, was blushing, aware of sudden thunder.

CHAPTER THREE
    T HE A.C. DISMISSED them, and switched his attention to a working lunch with a Cabinet Minister. Gently entertained his mice, town and country, in the canteen: the executive end.
    Metfield, by now, was completely confused. His so-certain case seemed to have gone through the window. He sat silently masticating his New Scotland Yard viands, his flush continual and his gaze vacant.
    Lyons, too, was far from chatty. He was a pale-complexioned young man with thin lips and precise sideburns. He was being tipped in Met quarters as a likely recruit for the Central Office – Gently rather hoped not; Lyons seemed to lack humour.
    So the meal was on the quiet side, with no mention of the Stoll affair. Gently, as he had intended, had returned the case to square one. No more theories. The next step was to go digging. At this end, naturally; because this end was nearest to hand.
    After lunch, he dismissed Metfield to pursue his bucolic inquiries at Latchford, and himself, with Lyons and a driver, battled through the traffic to Campden Hill.

    The two flats, Stoll’s and Walling’s, were in Dorchester Road, at a polite distance from Kensington Church Street. It was a road of late Regency plaster-front terraces, still impressive, though London-seedy. The architects, alack, had known nothing of cars, or of their dire need to come to rest: along each broad pavement stretched a tightly-packed column, as yet unembarrassed by yellow lines. They were the usual democratic metropolitan sample, dusty Rolls by rusty Citroën, and exhibited the familiar aspect of being parked for ever, with half that period unexpired. Behind them the villas looked out sullenly, even though enlivened by fresh paint. A few scaling planes, with town-dusty foliage, sprouted irregularly from either pavement.
    Gently’s driver cruised ever more slowly between the breechless ranks of abandoned cars, but in the end had to double-park – it was clearly the way of life, in Dorchester Road.
    ‘Shall we look over Stoll’s flat first, sir?’ Lyons asked.
    Gently shook his head and indicated Walling’s. A pale ghost behind the net curtains had been watching the policemen alight below. Gently mounted some tiled steps and applied his thumb to an elaborate brass bell-push. Chimes sounded sleepily within. The door opened to reveal a slender young man.
    ‘Police. Is Mr Walling at home?’
    The young man stared with unwinking, large eyes. He was dressed in faded skinfit jeans and a wine-coloured shirt, open down to the midriff. He had dark, shoulder-length hair and fine-boned features, with a small mouth and chin.
    ‘I don’t know. He may be,’ he said quickly.
    ‘What’s your name?’ Gently asked.
    The young man’s stare was quite expressionless. ‘I’m Messiter,’ he said. ‘Mr Walling’s secretary.’
    ‘And you think he might be in?’
    ‘I don’t know. He may be.’
    ‘So you said before,’ Gently said. ‘Like that, we’ll just have to take a chance.’
    He pushed in across