Gently Does It

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Then it was Fisher who tried to drop the masonry on you?’ broke in the super. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday?’

  Gently’s shoulders rose a fraction. ‘There wasn’t any proof … it just happened that the masonry was dropped on me immediately after I had interviewed him, from a vantage point familiar to him and which he could have attained in the interval.

  ‘With Fisher worried but nowhere near cracking, I decided that Gretchen was my best move, so this morning I interviewed her and got part of her story. I might have got the rest of it then and there, but oddly enough, just as she was working up to it, we were interrupted by Leaming, who hung around with a blanket of small talk until Gretchen cooled off and wouldn’t come across. You can imagine that if Fisher was worried, Leaming had got the feeling that he was living on the edge of a volcano, and one that was beginning to rumble ominously. Quite apart from the notes turning up, Fisher was behaving in a way that drew attention to himself – boasting of the changes that were going to take place, and the things he could tell the police if he wanted to – and there was no telling when he would start throwing the money about, thus raising immediate suspicion. In addition to this something had gone wrong about Peter – he hadn’t been charged. And there was myself, working on Gretchen, and Gretchen just about to spill the beans.

  ‘All in all, things seemed to be going to pieces in an alarming manner and he invited me to lunch to get from me, if he could, the precise state of affairs. He certainly got value for money. I showed him the card, which I had just found, and showed a good deal of scepticism for his explanation of the “Straight Grain” business … especially when he admitted himself unable to produce their address. He knew then that I’d seen past Fisher, that I understood his motive. It only remained for me to crack Fisher – and I could do that fairly easily by getting Gretchen to talk – actually, it became easier still, because Fisher made a partial statement which was instrumental in making Gretchen talk.

  ‘Thus it was merely a question of time and routine before Leaming stood revealed … and not very much of either. Somehow he had to break the chain that was forging round him and break it in such a way that it would never come together again. And there was only one way to do that – to get rid of Fisher. With Fisher gone, all direct evidence was swept away … and if it could be made to look like suicide, with the money carefully planted, then the trail would come to a dead end. Suspicion of embezzlement might remain, but that would be all.

  ‘I don’t know whether he had an arrangement to deliver the rest of the money to Fisher this afternoon, but that is what happened, and the murder took place as I described it … I am certain of that because there is some blood on the notes, which there would not have been unless they were closer to Fisher when his throat was cut than when we found them. The evidence to look for in that connection will be the bag in which the notes were brought, which is bound to have extensive blood-stains. We can print the notes, of course, but my feeling is that Leaming is too careful a man not to have used gloves.’

  Gently broke off, glancing at the three silent men in the lengthening twilight. ‘Well … that’s my case,’ he said, ‘it hasn’t become any easier with the loss of Fisher, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s become absolutely positive.’

  The super took a long breath and bored into Gently with his sharp, authoritative eyes. ‘So that’s your case, is it?’ he enquired icily.

  Gently nodded without expression. There was a moment or two’s silence, emphasized by the distant rumble of traffic, below them in Queen Street and above them in Burgh Street.

  Hansom said: ‘It stinks, if you ask me.’

  ‘It’s childish!’ snapped the little doctor. ‘I stake my reputation on suicide.’

  ‘You could put that alibi through a rolling mill.’

  The super frowned, still boring at Gently. ‘You realize that I have a very high opinion of you … especially after what you’ve achieved so far,’ he said, ‘and I admit that I am to a certain extent impressed with what you have been telling us. I believe that you believe it, and I believe that you’ve got something about Leaming and the “Straight Grain” business. But really, Gently, have you got anything else? I mean, look at it from my point of view. Three parts of this case of yours is conjecture and for the rest you offer no vital proof. It’s ingenious and not improbable, but what else can you say for it?’

  Gently said, woodenly: ‘We can get the proofs … if we work at it.’

  ‘But proofs of what? If we follow up the lines you indicate we may be able to show that Leaming was a large-scale embezzler and we may be able to show that Huysmann found out about it, but how does that make Leaming the murderer? You say yourself that with Fisher gone, the trail has come to a dead end. If there is anything in what you suspect, Fisher’s evidence was the lynch-pin, and we’ve lost it. What else is there that a counsel wouldn’t shoot to fragments? You say that Fisher was blackmailing Leaming. Where’s the proof? You say that Fisher got the maid off him – but isn’t it just as likely that Leaming broke with her because he had ideas about Gretchen? You say that Leaming’s information about the football match was derived from the pink’un … well, how are you going to make that stand up?’

  ‘I haven’t done with that one yet …’

  ‘You’ve got thirty thousand interrogations ahead of you!’ jeered Hansom.

  The super cocked his head on one side. ‘It’s no good, Gently, you haven’t got a case, not even the makings of one. If it’s as you say, it can never be proved. And in the meanwhile, there’s nothing in Fisher’s behaviour in conflict with the view that he was the murderer and the thief.’

  ‘Except that he wasn’t the suicide type.’

  ‘There isn’t any suicide type!’ broke in the little doctor. ‘Anybody will commit suicide under certain conditions.’

  ‘Fisher would have stood trial … he was too stupid to want to have avoided it.’

  ‘That’s quite ridiculous!’

  The super said: ‘Even there you’ve only shown that murder was possible, and it’s possible in the majority of suicide cases. You cannot show that murder was likely.’

  Gently brooded, felt for another peppermint cream. ‘You’ve searched the flat?’ he asked absently.

  ‘Of course we’ve searched the flat.’

  ‘You’ve been through his pockets?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘And you found the key?’

  The super stared at Gently uncomprehendingly. ‘What key?’

  ‘The door-key of the flat … it wasn’t in the door.’

  ‘What are you getting at, Gently?’

  Gently ate the peppermint cream slowly and irritatingly. ‘The door was locked,’ he mumbled, ‘if Fisher locked it, you should be able to find the key.’

  Hansom said: ‘He’d got a key-ring in his pocket.’

  ‘One doesn’t keep door-keys on key-rings.’

  ‘Blast you, Gently!’ exploded the super. He turned on Hansom viciously. ‘What sort of a bloody policeman are you? Go in there and find that key – and don’t come out till you’ve got it!’ He turned back to Gently. ‘All right – so if it isn’t there you’ve made a point – but you haven’t proved your case or anything like it. Meantime I’m giving the Coroner’s Court the OK and this case is going in on its merits. I’m satisfied with what I’ve got. If you want more, you’d better go after it – only you won’t be getting any help from me. Is that clear?’

  Gently felt sadly in his pocket and brought out an empty bag. ‘Quite clear,’ he said, screwing it into a ball, ‘quite clear.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE CORONER’S COURT sat on the day following and returned on Nicholas Huysmann a verdict of death resulting from a stab wound inflicted by his chauffeur, James Fisher, and on his chauffeur a verdict of felo de se. Chief Inspector Gently, Central Office, CID, gave immaculate evidence and was publicly congratulated by the Coroner both for this and for his ready assistance, although on holid
ay. Superintendent Walker and the Norchester Police, CID, also came in for congratulations.

  The super muttered grimly as they left the court: ‘You given up this Leaming business then?’

  Gently smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Thanks for letting it ride, anyway.’

  Gently shrugged, but as he turned away the super caught his arm. ‘I didn’t mean quite all I said last night … I’d like you to keep me posted. And if you need any help – within reason, of course.’

  Peter Huysmann had been released the evening before, the charge against him dropped out of hand. He had been at court, slightly dazed by his sudden return to the world, but had only been required to testify to the accuracy of his statement, which was then read for him. For the time being he was continuing to live at the caravan, where he had been received with much rejoicing and congratulation by his late boss and by the fair community in general. It was considered a signal victory over the auld enemy …

  Rejoicing there was also at Charlie’s, for Charlie had come to look on the ‘getting’ of Fisher as almost a personal issue. ‘I knew it was him from the start,’ he told a group of lorry-drivers, ‘right from the time Chief Inspector Gently first come in here, I could smell what was in the wind. Ah, he’s a foxy one, he is! He just let the City Police go on thinking it was young Huysmann and then when they got their hands on him, “No,” he says, “you let young Huysmann be. Just give me twenty-four hours,” he says, “and I’ll have the one you want!” Ah, he played with Fisher like a cat with a mouse. Fisher, he thinks he’s this and he thinks he’s that … but all the time the Chief Inspector was getting nearer and nearer to him, taking his time, never in a hurry, till last of all even Fisher can see that the game is up … well, there you are. There was only two ways out, and he took the handiest …’

  Gretchen, subdued, bowed, dressed entirely in black, with a veil which hid any expression in her waxen face, had also made a statement which was read for her in court. It had been drafted by Gently and was exquisite in its restraint. At the point where the hiding of the knife was described the Coroner was moved to raise his glasses and deliver a look of reproof, but a closer view of the dark-clad figure decided him to let the matter rest. With Susan, on the other hand, he was positively genial.

  Late final editions carried a full report of the inquest, were scanned perfunctorily in cafés and snack-bars and on the crowded buses carrying city workers back to the suburbs. It was a satisfactory but tame dénouement. The affair had raised expectations of a hard-fought trial with all the exciting trappings of judicial slaying … quite a fair stretch of innocent entertainment. As the clerk at Simmonds said to Miss Jones (blouses), ‘You can’t get really worked up over a thing like that. But if it had been the son, now …’ ‘Bloody flash in the pan that was,’ said a news-vendor, ‘thank God for the football, that’s what I say.’

  Inspector Hansom went about his duties, a wounded soul. He hadn’t had much sleep. Into the small hours of the morning he had been at Fisher’s flat and, at the super’s suggestion, all the area within a key’s throw of the flat, searching for the blasted key that had to be there and wasn’t … as dawn had begun to show far off down the Yar valley he had been assailed by unpolicemanlike thoughts. There was a firm in the city who would turn out an identical key for a couple of bob … and wasn’t it worth a couple of bob to get one’s head down? At the same time, if that key really was missing … and you had to admit that Gently was a clever bastard … Hansom lit a bad-tasting cigar and breathed expensively towards the dawn.

  Leaming, well-dressed and impressive, had given his brief evidence to the court with precision and conviction. One felt that here was a man of ability, a man who could handle affairs of moment: a man to be trusted implicitly. The Coroner treated him with deference. As he concluded his short statement he glanced round the court and catching Gently’s eye, smiled to him winningly. Gently smiled also, but it would have been more difficult to categorize Gently’s smile.

  A police car still stood in Paradise Alley, lone and smart amongst the derelict houses and blank, shabby walls. Gently nodded to the constable who stood by it.

  ‘Have they had any luck?’

  ‘Not so far, sir, but they’re just taking the floor up.’

  Gently clicked his tongue. ‘They won’t find it there.’

  ‘There’s a crack where it might have slipped through, sir … they’ve found the head off an old hammer and a threepenny bit.’

  ‘Well … tell them not to spend it all at once.’

  ‘Ha, ha! Yes, sir.’

  Gently turned away to the row of empty windows opposite. No fierce little head bobbed up to greet him, but then, it was probably Superman’s bedtime. He shoved open a yawing door and went through. The floor above had caved in long since, leaving a rusty fireplace hanging on the wall in hearthless nakedness. The back of the house was a collapsed pile of rubble. Gently climbed over it and looked down at the desolation below. Walls disintegrating, sagging roofs, piles of rubble surmounted by nettles and ragwort … right down to Queen Street, where the shabby thoroughfare arrested the ruins with a narrow bulwark of vitality. He shook his head and picked his way cautiously through a fragment-strewn yard.

  ‘Gotcher!’ rang out a triumphant shout behind him. Gently put up his hands and came to a standstill. ‘Turn around!’ commanded the voice, ‘and don’t try any funny stuff on the Cactus Kid!’ Gently turned around. ‘Oh … it’s you, mister …’

  Gently nodded. ‘Yes, it’s me … can I put my hands down?’

  Superman, alias the Cactus Kid, wrinkled his nose in a frown. ‘Guess you can, mister … though you look mighty like Bad Dan from behind. He’s the worsest rustler that ever hit these parts, and I’m sure going to get him one of these days!’

  ‘It’s time you hit the hay,’ said Gently, lowering his hands, ‘there’s a sheriff’s posse up the alley. They’ll keep watch out for Bad Dan till you get on the trail again. You come along back to the ranch with me.’ He took the Cactus Kid’s grimy paw and led the way round a lurching segment of wall towards Mariner’s Lane. ‘This is heap bad country, pardner,’ he added, ‘you should find up a better range somewhere …’

  The Cactus Kid trotted along beside him happily. ‘Mister, they got on to Red Hawk at last … I knew about him a long time ago. Did they find all the gold he’d got hidden away?’

  ‘Guess they did, kid.’

  ‘Gee, mister, that must’ve been exciting!’

  ‘Waal … it had its moments.’

  ‘I sure do wish I’d been around about then.’

  Gently looked down at his small companion. ‘Weren’t you up here yesterday?’ he asked.

  ‘No, mister, not me.’

  ‘How come, pardner?’

  ‘Someone gave me two bob to spend on the fair … but it wasn’t going in the afternoon. So I went round Woolies instead. That’s where I bought my six-shooter, mister – see here!’ He withdrew his hand from Gently’s and held up a new toy gun. Gently examined it gravely, spinning the magazine with a stubby finger. ‘Clean, bright and lightly oiled,’ he murmured, ‘that’s a pretty little shooting-iron, pardner … here’s half a buck to buy it some ammo.’

  ‘Gee … mister!’ The Cactus Kid’s eyes gleamed as he felt the heavy coin with its rough milled edge. Then he tugged back on Gently’s hand. ‘Mister … would you mind if I spent some of it on a special belt with a holster?’

  They came down Mariner’s Lane, Gently instinctively steering outwards at the spot where the masonry had been aimed at him. Queen Street was lit dully in the twilight. Across the way the Huysmann house reared more blankly and detachedly than ever, white and looming in the blueness of a mercury lamp. ‘Whereabouts is your bunk-house, pardner?’ enquired Gently.

  ‘Just here, mister – one of those in the row.’

  Gently paused in the act of dismissing him. ‘Who gave you the two bob yesterday?’ he queried.

  ‘Oh, it was a man.’

  ‘
Somebody you know?’

  ‘No … he wasn’t anybody. He came down the Lane when I was keeping watch on Red Hawk.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘I don’t know … it wasn’t tea-time.’

  ‘Coming down the lane, was he?’

  ‘That’s right, mister. I was just on the corner there, keeping watch down the alley. He give me the two bob to go on the fair … only it wasn’t going in the afternoon.’

  Gently bent closer to the little freckled face. ‘This man, what was he like?’

  ‘He was just a man …’

  ‘Did you notice if he was carrying a bag?’

  ‘That’s right, mister – he’d got a bag, one of those bulgy ones.’

  ‘And did he go up the alley?’

  ‘I don’t know … he might have done.’

  Gently stood back again, brooding, gazing into the far distance towards Railway Bridge. The Cactus Kid fidgeted from one foot to the other. ‘It wasn’t anyone, mister … it was just a man.’

  ‘Which way did you go to the fairground?’ asked Gently abruptly.

  ‘I went up the lane and along the top … but it wasn’t going.’

  ‘Did you see a racing car standing at the top – a real fast one, painted red?’

  ‘One that could go a hundred miles an hour?’

  ‘About that … maybe faster.’

  ‘Oh yes, I saw that one, mister – it had got an aeroplane on the front – I blew the propeller round!’

  A slow smile spread over Gently’s face and he felt in his pocket for his bag of peppermint creams. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take the lot … but don’t eat them all tonight or you’ll have nightmares. There’s just one other thing before you go … I suppose you haven’t found a key up there round the alley?’