Gently Does It

by Alan Hunter

  Fisher towered above the Chief Inspector in stupid rage. ‘And so you may bloody well wonder!’ he burst out, ‘you and all the other coppers with you … if I want to take her out, I take her out … and you can wonder till the bloody sky drops on you!’

  Gently clicked his tongue disappointedly. ‘I thought you were going to say till a bit of wall dropped on me,’ he said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MRS TURNER ANSWERED the door when Gently knocked at the Huysmann house. She eyed him inimically with her small mean eyes – she had had her knife into him since the questioning. ‘So you’re here again,’ she said. Gently admitted it gracefully. ‘A fine one you are, coming and upsetting people with your silly questions – don’t even belong here, either. What do you want this time?’

  ‘I want to see Miss Gretchen again.’

  ‘Oh, you do? Well, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. Miss Gretchen’s gone out.’

  ‘Where’s she gone?’

  ‘How should I know where she’s gone?’

  ‘It’s rather important that I should see her just now.’

  Mrs Turner snorted and tilted her chin. ‘Strikes me it’s always important when you want to see somebody – leastways, that’s your idea. And it’s on account of you she’s gone out … upsetting her like that!’

  ‘Have you any idea where she might be?’

  ‘I told you I hadn’t … might be the Castle, or Earton Park … she used to go there sometimes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Gently, and the door was promptly slammed. Shaking his head, he plodded off towards the city. The Castle … or Earton Park. Or anywhere else in a city of rising a hundred and fifty thou. He took the Castle first because it lay in his way. Stretching halfway round the base of the Castle’s prehistoric mound was the Garden, where once had been the ditch, a crescenting walk, deep-sunken, bisected by the slanting stone bridge which connected the Castle with the cattle market. Here were people enough, strolling amongst the long, sweet-scented beds of wallflowers and beneath the carnival blossom of the Japanese cherry-trees. But there was no Gretchen. Gently glanced up through the elms at the sleepy-faced Castle … but one didn’t seek consolation amongst stuffed birds and man-traps. He went out to the Paddock and sought a bus for Earton Park.

  It was a nice park, but a very large one. Its extent and complexity brought a pout to Gently’s lips. But having come, he set about the matter methodically and plodded away across the rose parterre to the avenue of chestnuts, on either side of which old gentlemen were playing interminable games of bowls. Beyond these were the tennis-courts, on which Gently wasted no more than a passing glance. Coming to the Circus with its cupola’d bandstand he paused in indecision. North? South? Long, frequented vistas stretched to the four cardinal points. He took a chief inspectorial sniff and went south.

  It was a good sniff. He found Gretchen huddled on a seat beside the great lily pond, staring large-eyed at the shallow water. Gently lifted his brown trilby politely and seated himself at a suitable distance.

  Gretchen said: ‘I did not know that you would find me here.’

  ‘I didn’t know myself until I found you,’ Gently replied, feeling about for his pipe.

  ‘Please do not think that I came here specially to avoid you … it was just that I had to get away … I could not think in the house.’

  ‘I think you were wise … a change of venue is helpful.’

  Gently went slowly and carefully through the business of filling and lighting his pipe, tamped it down with his thumb and took one or two inaugurating puffs. ‘Have you come to any decision?’ he asked.

  Gretchen turned towards him pitifully. ‘It is very difficult … I do not know.’

  ‘Perhaps I can help you. I’ve just been having a very interesting chat with our friend Fisher.’

  ‘… Fisher?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he has said something?’

  Gently nodded.

  She studied him for a moment in silence, Gently puffing away unconcernedly. ‘I do not know …’ she said.

  ‘You’ll have to take my word for it, of course. He admitted that he spent the afternoon with you, that he was there when you discovered the murder, and that it was at his suggestion that you went out and got yourself alibis. Is that correct?’

  ‘He said all … that?’ Gretchen stared at him incredulously.

  ‘That was the gist of it, though I’m not quite satisfied.’

  She looked away from him, her hands beginning to clutch together. ‘I cannot understand … why should he tell you that?’

  ‘Oh, there’s no mystery about why he told me. He’s rather thick with Susan these days and she told him how I’d been questioning you this morning … I gather she was listening at the door. This seems to have worried Mr Fisher and he hastened to put his story on record.’

  ‘… Susan?’

  ‘She seems to be Fisher’s latest acquisition.’

  ‘It is not true – you must not speak about him like that!’

  Gently shrugged. ‘I think you foster a somewhat idealistic opinion of Fisher, Miss Gretchen … however, that’s why he told his story. Perhaps he will verify it if you ask him.’

  ‘No!’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘I do not want to speak to him … not ever again. Later, I will get a new chauffeur.’

  Gently regarded his pipe-smoke rising tenuously in the still, warm air. ‘Were you ever really in love with him, Miss Gretchen?’ he asked.

  Gretchen turned her head away. ‘I think that I was, once upon a time.’

  ‘You knew what sort of character he had – I mean, with women?’

  ‘Oh yes … I must have known that. It is as you say, I had an idealistic opinion. In my situation such things happen easily … we can believe when we want to.’

  ‘And yet now, when the way is clear, you have turned completely against him.’

  Gretchen hung her head and said nothing.

  ‘Did you ever think of marrying him?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Oh yes, I used to think of that. I thought perhaps, when my father died … but that is a very terrible thing to say.’

  ‘And did Fisher know that?’

  ‘We used to talk about it.’

  ‘He knew, then, that once your father was out of the way he could expect to be your husband?’

  Gretchen wrenched her hands viciously, one from the other. ‘But we did not think of this – we did not think of this!’

  ‘Are you quite certain in your own mind that Fisher did not think of this?’

  ‘No – no! he did not!’ A shudder ran through her body, and she crouched away from Gently, over the arm of the seat.

  ‘Miss Gretchen, I am asking you again: why is it that you have now turned against Fisher?’

  ‘I don’t know … I don’t believe in him any longer.’

  ‘Then what has shaken your faith in him so suddenly … precisely at this juncture?’

  Gretchen moaned but made no answer.

  ‘Let me ask you another question. Whose finger-prints did you suppose you wiped from the handle of the knife – your brother’s, or Fisher’s?’

  ‘I have told you … my brother’s!’

  Gently leaned away, shaking his head. ‘Miss Gretchen, I have still to learn the truth of your and Fisher’s actions on Saturday afternoon.’

  There was a long pause, broken by nothing but the distant calls from the tennis-courts and the dull murmur of traffic from behind trees. Above the low hedge at the bottom moved a white triangle. It was the sail of a model yacht on the second pond, further down. The triangle shuddered, stopped, wagged a moment, then slowly sank from sight as the model slid away on its new course. Gently watched the little performance impassively. ‘They’ve opened the refreshment bar …’ he said. ‘Let’s go and have a cup of tea.’

  He sat Gretchen down at one of the little tile-topped tables by a french window and fetched tea from the counter in large, thick cups. Gretchen stirred her tea at some
length. Just outside a foursome was being played, a young and a middle-aged couple: other tennis-players sat in groups round the larger tables, chattering and drinking soft drinks from bottles.

  Gently sipped his tea and then leaned forward, chin in hand. Gretchen gave him a frightened glance. He said: ‘It will have to be told some time … why not tell me now?’

  ‘But … how can I?’

  ‘Is it so damning, what you know?’

  ‘To you it may seem so …’

  Gently felt down for his tea-cup. ‘At least, you ought to warn Susan what sort of person she’s taking on.’

  ‘Susan!’ The waxen cheeks flushed.

  ‘She’s going out with him tonight.’

  ‘What do I care about that?’

  ‘Well, having done it once and got away with it …’ He took another sip of tea and appeared to be watching the foursome through the french window. Gretchen laid a trembling teaspoon in her saucer.

  ‘He told you so much … of his own accord?’

  Gently shrugged imperceptibly. ‘Nobody forced him … he buttonholed me in the street.’

  ‘It was because he thinks I have spoken …?’

  Gently said nothing, continued to watch the foursome fumble its way through another service. There was a burst of laughter from the party at the higher table: ‘Harry wouldn’t do a thing like that … no, no, we can’t believe it!’ ‘But he did, I tell you!’ ‘Johnny, you’re only saying that because Vera’s here …’ They clattered their bottles together and trooped out.

  ‘How about it?’ mused Gently.

  ‘Must it be … now?’

  ‘It will help me, and you’ll feel better to have done with it.’

  ‘Yes … I shall feel better.’ She gave a deep sigh and faced him. ‘Very well … it is as you say. I wiped the prints off the knife because I think he did it.’

  ‘And why did you think that?’

  ‘He was not with me then … at the time my father was killed.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  She shook her head. ‘He went down as soon as my brother had gone to the study.’

  ‘Where – into the passage?’

  ‘That is so, but I remained on the landing. I heard the quarrel. After it is over, I expect him to come back up, but he did not come … and then there is the scream.’

  ‘About how long would it be between the time the quarrel ended and the time you heard the scream?’

  ‘Two, three minutes.’

  ‘And you went down immediately on hearing the scream?’

  ‘Oh no! It was frightening to hear that … I did not dare to go down then. It was another minute or two before I had courage to go. Then it was as I told you … I found him near the safe.’

  ‘And you saw nobody?’

  ‘Nobody … except my father.’

  ‘About how long were you in the room?’

  ‘It seemed a long time, but it was just a little while.’

  ‘And during that time you heard nothing?’

  ‘I should not have heard … once, everything went black and I thought I would fall. Then I came to myself again, and I knew I must do something … something to stop people thinking that it was him.’

  ‘You had no doubt in your mind then that Fisher was the murderer?’

  ‘… no, I had no doubt.’

  ‘Have you had any doubt since that time?’

  ‘… no.’

  ‘Where did you next see him?’

  ‘He was waiting in the bedroom when I got back. He asked me where I had been … when I told him that my father was killed he pretended to be surprised.’

  ‘And it was he who suggested establishing alibis?’

  ‘Oh yes … he said that I might have gone out through the kitchen, just as he had come in … there was nothing to prove that we had ever been there. He told me to find out about the programme at a cinema and it would be all right.’

  ‘And you left by the study and the timber-yard?’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘As you were passing through the study, did Fisher stop to examine the body?’

  ‘No … he went straight through … I do not think he looked at it.’

  Gently brooded over his cooling tea. ‘All this …’ he said, ‘you know, it’s your word against Fisher’s.’

  ‘But it is the truth!’

  Gently smiled at a part-submerged tea-leaf. ‘I believe you … what you tell me fits every fact it touches. But I wish there was some proof, just a little bit. Because without it, one could even make a case against you, Miss Gretchen … and it wouldn’t be a bad one at that.’

  There was a tea-time air about headquarters – against the run of the play, because nothing at headquarters was ever quite normal; but the human touch had its occasional triumphs, and this was one. Gently sniffed as he passed the canteen. They were serving toast and its cosy, inviting smell warned him that even the best of lunches wears off by five o’clock. The toast smell carried over to the superintendent’s office, where the great man was sitting ingesting a plateful, a far-away look in his eyes. The look became present and immediate when Gently entered.

  ‘I was just thinking about you,’ he said.

  Gently acknowledged the thought with the ghost of a bow, moved over and abstracted half a round of toast from the super’s plate. ‘Of course, if you’re hungry …’ observed the super bitterly. Gently disclaimed the imputation through his first mouthful.

  The super said: ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m almost home,’ returned Gently, butteredly.

  ‘You’ve got a case made out?’

  ‘It’s made out, but it won’t stand up yet. All the same, I think I’ve got enough to let young Peter out … so it’s a good thing you held back on him.’

  The super ate some toast nastily. ‘Give,’ he said.

  Gently crunched a moment. ‘First, I’ve had a statement from Fisher to the effect that he was in the house that afternoon.’

  The super’s eyes opened wide. ‘You mean he’s talked?’ he fired.

  ‘He’s talked, but he hasn’t talked enough – not yet. That’s the main problem ahead, and I think it’s going to be solved without a great deal of difficulty.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I mean I’ve persuaded Miss Gretchen to fill in some of the gaps. According to her testimony, Fisher must either have seen it done or done it himself, one or the other. Of course, it’s her word against Fisher’s, but Fisher is getting to be rather worried, and if you make a pass at him with a murder charge I fancy he’ll talk both loud and clear.’

  The super brandished a piece of toast. ‘Wait a minute!’ he exclaimed. ‘Do I understand that both of them were in the house at the time of the murder? They’ve both admitted that?’

  Gently nodded pontifically. ‘Fisher made a voluntary statement. I had to spend some time on Miss Gretchen. At first she insisted that she was there alone, but after I got Fisher’s statement she came across with it. She has been positive that Fisher did it from the first – it was she who wiped the knife and hid it. She’s in trouble, by the way. Fisher became her lover a month or two ago and Saturday afternoon was his regular visiting time.’

  ‘Give me time!’ pleaded the super. ‘I’m still holding Peter Huysmann – doesn’t he fit into this thing anywhere?’

  ‘Well, he was there, and his quarrel with his father may have suggested to the murderer that the time was ripe. Otherwise, I don’t think he has much to do with the business.’

  ‘You’re saying that Fisher got the girl into trouble and then bumped off the old man so that he could marry her … is that it?’

  ‘Could be,’ admitted Gently cautiously, ‘but there’s another angle to it …’

  ‘Never mind the other angle! Let’s get this one straightened out first. You say the girl was sure that Fisher did it?’

  Gently finished his piece of toast and licked his fingers. ‘Fisher came in through the kitchen just after lunch and went upstair
s to Gretchen’s room. There was nobody in the kitchen and nobody saw him enter. Gretchen went up with her coffee and stayed there with him. When Peter arrived they went out on the landing to see who it was – Fisher was the person Peter caught sight of – and directly he had gone to the study Fisher left Gretchen on the landing and went into the passage. Gretchen heard the quarrel from the landing. It ended, and she waited two or three minutes for Fisher to come back, but he didn’t come back, and at the end of that two or three minutes she heard the old man’s death scream.

  ‘By the time she pulled herself together and went down the murderer had gone. She met nobody in the passage and saw nobody in the study, and feeling certain that Fisher was the man, she took away the knife and wiped the prints off the handle. When she got back to the bedroom Fisher was already there. He expressed surprise when she told him what she had found, and suggested going out and establishing the alibis. They went out by the study and the timber-yard. Fisher exhibited no interest in the body when he passed it. I discovered by questioning that he was not even aware that the knife had been removed. Fisher’s version differs inasmuch as he claims that he never left the landing, otherwise they pretty well agree.’

  ‘Then he was the person in the drawing-room?’ interrupted the super, biting mechanically at a fresh piece of toast.

  ‘Unquestionably. Otherwise, he could not have got back to the bedroom without being seen by Gretchen. Of course, we don’t know at what point he entered. He may have gone in straight away, watched the quarrel, seen the murder, seen Gretchen go in and then slipped back to the bedroom … or he may not.’

  ‘You’re telling me he may not! But what about the money?’

  ‘I’m not sure about that. If Fisher was the murderer I think he must have come back for it, after he’d got rid of Gretchen. He might have come back for it anyway, though I don’t think it’s likely. At all events there was too much of it to carry about his person. There is, incidentally, some indication that Fisher has come into money just recently.’

  ‘And that’s one of the seven deadly sins in criminal investigation.’ The super’s eyes glistened. ‘By God, Gently, you certainly get results. I’ll let this be a lesson to me.’