Free Gently With the Painters by Alan Hunter

them. How much lay behind it, that gracefully worn lionskin? What batteries of private emotion lit the façade of public utterance? Mallows had held something back, of this Gently was certain: the academician suspected something which he didn’t intend to communicate.
    Gently remembered Stephens’s hypothesis and his lips parted in a smile. The laugh would be on him if his protégé had made a lucky guess! And perhaps it wasn’t so far out either, that diagnosis of blackmail. Mallows would have a lot to lose if his public character were assailed …
    So absent-minded did Gently become that in going out he forgot his change. A smiling manageress recalledhim, and he was not displeased to find that she knew his name.
     
    He made his way across the marketplace, where pigeons were running among the closed-up stalls. The George III, a building coeval with its name, lifted a picturesque face above the brightly coloured tilts. It was tall and narrow and irregularly built, with handsome bow windows on its jutting first storey. The plasterwork had been painted a smooth pale grey, while the windows and elegant ironwork were a complementing shade of green. It stood on a slope and had a towering appearance, and behind it, softly baroque, brooded the majestic bulk of St Peter’s church.
    In the bar, a few of the stallholders had gathered for a pint and they stared at Gently for a moment as he came up to the counter. The publican, a short man with a finely clipped moustache, wore a tight black waistcoat and was serving in his shirt sleeves.
    ‘Superintendent Gently … can I have a word in private?’
    The publican winced as though Gently had used a rude word.
    ‘You can see I’m busy, can’t you …?’
    ‘I shan’t keep you for long.’
    ‘I’ve heard those tales before! Besides, what else do you want to know?’
    But he put his head round the corner, where he shouted something unintelligible, and after a short delay a barmaid appeared. She had a sulky expression and was still smoothing her hair; the publican, after muttering to her, led Gently into the back parlour.
    ‘It plays hell with my reputation, having policemen keepcoming here. You’d think, from the way they do it, that she was knocked off in my cellar!’
    ‘That’s something that I want to see, by the way.’
    ‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place? We can talk there as well as here.’
    The entrance to the cellar was from behind the bar counter, where a divided door gave access to a landing and a steep flight of steps. There was no need to switch on a light since the room below was lit by grating windows; in fact, apart from the staircase, it bore little resemblance to anything cellar-like. The walls were painted in green and cream and the floor was covered with a patterned lino. To the left, with a screen of dusty twigs, was a hearth and fireplace of mottled tiles. An old piano stood over in the corner and on the wall hung a fraying dart board; the floor was furnished with a few marble-top tables, but a number of chairs stood stacked under a window.
    ‘We call it a cellar, but it’s just another room. On account of it’s awkward to get at, we don’t bother with it as a rule. Then a party comes along and wants to have somewhere on their own … there’s a door into the alley, up that other flight of stairs.’
    Gently nodded an absent response and took a few steps about the room. It was a prosaic enough place, that, for painters to hold their meeting in! The green-and-cream decor gave it a frigid, canteen atmosphere, while the carelessly stacked chairs were suggestive of a store. And in the winter, it couldn’t have been too well lighted for the viewing of pictures …
    ‘Can you hear what’s going on when they’re having a meeting down here?’
    ‘Not unless the door’s open, and we mostly keep it shut. They have so many rows that it disturbs the regular custom – when they want a round of drinks, they come up and knock on the