Gently to the Summit csg-9

by Alan Hunter

  A Rolls-Royce slicked into the courtyard, momentarily displacing his train of thought; not the Commissioner’s sombre state-waggon, but a gorgeous beast in electric blue. He watched it cynically over his pipe. Another film star who’d lost her pearls? An ash-blonde stepped from it with a swirl of mink, but she was too far away for him to recognize her.

  He dismissed her with a grunt and went back to his musings: Kincaid, Paula, and her unexpected choice. Passing over Arthur Fleece — surely he’d met her at that time? — and all the more obvious and probable candidates. Did she know what she was taking on, in that vanished church in pre-war London? Had she intended to buckle-to as the wife of a wage-earning nobody? She’d perhaps continue with her job at Metropolitan Electric, since that house in Putney must have swallowed a lot of cash; and the gilt would wear off, the hectic romance fall flat, the feeling grow that she’d been a fool and thrown away her chances…

  And Fleece was there to remind her of one of the chances she’d thrown away; seeing her now in a new light, as the jewel another man had snatched up. A beauty undeservedly annexed, and a discontented beauty; ready to think again and this time to grasp with a better reach. And Fleece could see fortune. He’d discovered the ways and means. He’d got a tourniquet in his hand and was ready to try his luck with a squeeze. For a man like him, wasn’t she the woman: fair, sophisticated, a social asset; good enough and ambitious enough, but not expensive: the very thing?

  Gently paused to backtrack on that. Was he quite sure it was sound? Wasn’t there something slightly amiss with that part of the picture? An ambitious man might have looked higher, above the level of Kincaid’s wife; a climber himself, he would want a mate who was already to some extent in possession. That was the flaw in the fabric; a blind passion was out of the question; he was too much in Fleece’s skin to believe that love had been the moving force. It might have piqued his pride to obtain her and he might have considered her had she been single, but as it was had the prize been worth the effort, including Everest and attempted murder? Obviously not, to a man like Fleece, a chilly egoist and a weigher of chances. It was an insufficient motive, the motive was much more likely to have been money. And he had returned, having disposed of Kincaid, to collect what must have been a substantial sum, paid by someone, it had to follow, to whom Kincaid had spelled danger. Yet who could Kincaid have threatened, that obscure little pay-clerk? What terrible secret had he learned and perhaps still carried in his head?

  It seemed improbable; but if it were true, till now Gently had been pursuing a chimera, and the disappearance of Mrs Kincaid took on a darker, more sinister aspect…

  His phone buzzed; he grabbed it impatiently. It was the sergeant on the desk.

  ‘There’s a lady here wants to see you, sir. Gives the name of Mrs Askham.’

  ‘Tell her I’m busy.’

  ‘It’s about your case, sir. She wants you and nobody else.’

  ‘What about my case?’

  ‘She won’t say, sir. A bit upstage, the lady is.’

  Gently hesitated. ‘She isn’t that blonde, is she? The one who drove up in a Rolls?’

  ‘… wearing mink, sir. That’s the one.’

  Gently fingered his tie. ‘Very well. Send her up.’

  He shrugged largely, shaking his head: out of the blue it was coming, this one! The name of Askham rang no bells, nothing in society or on the stage or screen. He was belatedly reaching for his copy of Who’s Who when his door was tapped and the lady walked in.

  ‘I read in the papers that you were anxious to trace Kincaid’s wife, Superintendent. Since I was in London I thought I would call on you. Paula Kincaid used to be my secretary.’

  She was superb. She was in the manner of women who have always had the bank behind them. She sat with legs meticulously crossed and her chin held at a patrician angle. Beneath her mink she wore a lilac suit, and it matched exactly the tint of her eyes; the legs, whole worlds from being mere limbs, were barely sheened with nylon mist. Perhaps the last thing one noticed about her, if one succeeded in noticing it at all, was that her age was ‘twenty-nine’, it might be almost approaching thirty. She spoke with a ringingly modulated voice which was also distinct from the purely functional.

  ‘You are still interested in the woman, are you?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Gently assembled his truant wits.

  ‘Because if you aren’t I won’t continue to waste my time and yours. As it is, my information is probably of doubtful value. But I had an hour between engagements and I thought that this might fill it in.’

  ‘You are very kind, Mrs Askham.’

  She flicked him a look from between well-brushed lashes. Some delicate shadowing, a touch of crimson, they were eyes a camera would have doted on, and at the distance of a desk the effect was quite breathtaking. Her angelic hair was swept up in a high wave and caught in a web of lilac organdie.

  ‘First, you’d like to have my particulars. I am Mrs Harry Askham. My town address is in Mount Street; I left my card down at the desk. My late husband, as no doubt you know, was what is called an industrial magnate. He was a cousin of Lord Cliffley’s and related to the Blount family.’

  She paused, as though intending to let these particulars sink in. Then she said:

  ‘I think it likely that Mrs Kincaid is still in Wales. My country place is at Beaumaris, and we were living there when I discharged her. She was fond of Wales, as she often told me, and I heard later that she was living at Caernarvon.’

  Gently rocked a little in his chair. This was too much, coming all in one mouthful! After so much painful and laboured digging, now to have it handed to him on a platter…! How many people were there around like this, waiting for an hour between their engagements, or just not bothering at all, not giving a damn for the oafish police?

  He became aware of Mrs Askham watching him suspiciously.

  ‘I wouldn’t be boring you, would I?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Far from it.’

  ‘I only ask because I don’t want you to think me a pest. You must get a number of frivolous callers who imagine they have important information, and I should hate to be classed as one of them. This is my first visit to the police.’

  ‘I assure you I’m very interested.’

  ‘Then would you like to ask me some questions?’

  ‘I would. I would indeed.’

  Mrs Askham complacently smoothed her skirt.

  ‘When did you engage Paula Kincaid, Mrs Askham?’

  ‘When? Oh, in the summer of nineteen-thirty-seven. She was a widow, you know, or thought she was. Rather teary and mournful. Though she soon got over it.’

  ‘Did you engage her through an agency?’

  ‘Oh no. My husband suggested her.’

  ‘Your husband?’

  ‘Harry Askham. He knew I was looking for a secretary. When you’re running three establishments and that sort of thing, then a secretary becomes essential. Otherwise you’d go mad.’

  ‘But how did your husband come to know of her?’

  ‘He employed her, of course; she worked at the firm. He thought it would be doing the girl a good turn, or so he said at the time.’

  ‘And his firm?’ Gently gaped.

  Her lilac eyes opened reprovingly.

  ‘Metropolitan Electric. Harry was Met. L.’

  Did she know she was a bombshell, sitting there so expensively, with a hint of the air of a duchess extracting amusement from a clown? If she did, she didn’t show it. She’d learned not to wrinkle her precious skin. And her eyes, cool and bold, merely stared at him interestedly.

  ‘You mean… before the merger?’ Gently grasped for the phrase blindly.

  ‘Oh yes. And afterwards too. It was we who took over Intrics, you know. Harry continued as managing director up to his death nine years ago; then Clarence Stanley was appointed, chiefly at my instigation. I was never actually on the Board, though of course I own the controlling interest.’

  ‘Then Mr Stanley is… well known to yo
u?’

  ‘Naturally. I wanted a man I could trust.’

  ‘He would follow your instructions?’

  ‘He would consult me on matters of policy.’

  Her eyes twinkled and she added: ‘He hadn’t consulted me about yesterday. But he knew the girl had been my secretary, and he was doing his loyal best to protect me. Clarence has always been a dear.’

  ‘Hmn.’ Gently didn’t sound so certain of it. ‘And that’s the reason for your visit today? Because Mr Stanley was unsuccessful?’

  She regarded him archly. ‘That’s not a kind way to put it, but it’s close to the truth, so I’ll forgive you. Also I thought if I saw you myself I might persuade you to spare me publicity. I dread an appearance in the popular press. I prefer the greater sympathy of the Illustrated.’

  Gently shrugged. ‘I can give you no promises.’

  ‘You’ll do your best. I feel confident of that.’

  ‘If I can lay hands on Paula Kincaid I won’t be ungrateful. That’s the most I can offer.’

  She nodded. She picked up her sharkskin bag, which she’d laid on the desk with her pair of lilac gloves. She produced a slender silver case and a butane lighter, both flowingly monogrammed and engraved with a crest.

  ‘May I offer you a cigarette?’

  Gently accepted from curiosity. But they were honest-to-goodness Player’s and not the gold-tipped confection he’d expected. She held out the lighter with a long-fingered hand, the nails of which were polished only. She held it steadily. Her only ring was a circle of gold on the third finger.

  ‘Now that we’ve examined my motives, shall we continue with Paula Kincaid?’

  ‘If we may.’ The unaccustomed cigarette smoke was making Gently squint.

  ‘I engaged her after Ascot, it must have been the end of June, and in July she accompanied us to Trecastles, at Beaumaris. Trecastles is Harry’s family place. We were both very fond of it; it looks across the Straits to Llanfairfechan, with the Great Orme in the distance. Paula wasn’t a secretary, of course, she’d worked an adding machine or something, but she was an adaptable sort of girl and soon picked up the job. She was rather flighty, I’m afraid to say. She was always doing things with her hair.’ Mrs Askham inhaled delicately and allowed herself the luxury of a frown.

  ‘She found a boyfriend, did she?’

  The frown lingered. ‘I’m coming to that. I may be doing her less than justice, but I made up my mind I would confide in you. That was the summer I was having Henry, who is our only child, so I couldn’t keep an eye on things as much as I’d have liked. Harry kept a yacht down there, and I didn’t always feel like sailing. Then there were excursions I was sometimes out of. Having a baby is no joke. Am I making myself plain?’

  ‘Reasonably plain, Mrs Askham.’

  ‘I’m glad, because I shall never know the truth of it myself. Harry was a man and inclined that way, he would have been unhealthy if he wasn’t; but there are limits, you’ll agree. I drew a line at the servants.’

  ‘Did you tackle him about it?’

  ‘No. Not beyond hinting. There was never sufficient to go on, not till the day I sacked her.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘It was during the war, it would be in nineteen-forty-one. I caught him kissing her in the shelter during an alert. And out she went.’

  ‘What was your husband’s reaction to that?’

  ‘What could it be? He simply saw nothing. Harry was a husband of the greatest tact. It was a quality I always appreciated in him.’

  ‘Do you know if he saw her again after she left?’

  ‘He may have done, since she certainly remained in the district. My housekeeper at Trecastles ran across her in Caernarvon perhaps a year after that. But she no longer concerned me.’

  ‘And that was positively the last you’ve heard of her?’

  ‘Yes, positively. When Davies saw her.’

  ‘Did she tell your housekeeper what she was doing?’

  ‘No. Davies received the impression that she wasn’t in employment.’

  Gently drew at the cigarette, which his clumsy fingers were making squashy. Surely l’affaire Kincaid couldn’t be reduced to these proportions? The passing whim of a millionaire for the wife of one of his obscure employees, involving murder by proxy and the disbursement of two large sums? It was top-heavy; it was taking a steam-hammer to crack the shell of a nut. Askham’s purpose could have been served at a far lesser rate. It looked more as though he’d accepted an opportunity already made, adding to his household a likely recruit whom he could seduce at his leisure. Unless… unless his motive was something other than it seemed: such as the deliberate seclusion of Mrs Kincaid and the severing of her ties with her past. But why? What did she know? From whom was her information to be kept? From the returning members of the expedition; from the designing Fleece; could that have been it? He ground the cigarette into his tray.

  ‘Where did Paula Kincaid spend most of her time?’

  Mrs Askham’s eyes looked wondering. ‘With us, of course. Wherever we were.’

  ‘In Wales for the most part?’

  ‘For the most part in Wales. We always looked on Trecastles as being our home. And that first year, having Henry, I didn’t bother about the season.’

  ‘So she was in Wales during all her first year with you?’

  ‘Except at Christmas, when we went to a party at Cannes. Then the next summer we went to Scotland: Harry wanted to cruise the Western Isles; and after the shooting we returned to Wales, and after that on to Cannes. Then I suppose it was Wales again. It was dull in town; too many war scares.’

  ‘But you’d go to town to do your shopping. To see your dressmaker and the like?’

  Mrs Askham said very coldly: ‘I buy my clothes from Balmain.’

  ‘So in fact Paula Kincaid was rarely in London?’

  ‘I suppose she wasn’t. But she didn’t complain.’

  ‘Did she ever go there to visit her mother?’

  ‘Her mother was dead, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Where did she spend her holidays?’

  Mrs Askham was vague. ‘I let her off when we were abroad, she usually preferred it that way. Then after the war started we spent most of the time at Trecastles, and she never seemed to want a holiday. But perhaps that was Harry’s doing.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Gently asked sharply.

  Her eyes wondered at him again. ‘I should have thought that was obvious. He was always keen to keep her near him.’

  It fitted perfectly. He had spirited her away from all her pre-expedition contacts, had carried her off to his castle in Wales and had held her there incommunicado. By contrivance or a hefty bribe, he had secured her consent to this: and it was only an ill-timed kiss in a shelter that had brought the arrangement to an end. How had it been managed after that? Davies, the housekeeper, suggested the answer. He had set up house for Paula in Caernarvon and had perhaps endowed her with an annuity. And now, eighteen years later, Fleece had shown cognizance of this development. His mysterious trips into Wales now throbbed with a blatant significance. But why had Fleece waited to use his knowledge until the reappearance of Kincaid? What subtle condition had been fulfilled, and who had it driven to take drastic action? Not Askham, he was dead; blackmail couldn’t reach him any longer. But there was Stanley, the father-figure, who might have inherited the Met. L secrets…

  ‘You said you had little to do with your husband’s business affairs, Mrs Askham.’

  ‘That’s perfectly true, if it helps you. Though I’m not entirely a fool in business.’

  ‘You place great faith in Mr Stanley?’

  ‘Mr Stanley is my best friend. He and Harry were at Oxford together and they were more like brothers than most brothers I know.’

  Gently’s tone was deferential. ‘This may seem irrelevant, but it could have a bearing on the subject of my inquiries. Did your husband have any business anxieties?’

  ‘It certainly does seem irrelevant.’
Mrs Askham let it hang for a moment, her eyes half interrogative, half scornful. ‘However, I suppose you have a reason for asking, and I came here to be helpful, so I’ll answer the question. Yes, he did appear anxious about something.’

  ‘To do with the business?’

  ‘I presumed so. I wasn’t entirely in Harry’s confidence. But in latter years he seemed rather harassed, and that I believe had an effect on his health. But whatever it was could not have been serious, since the firm has suffered no setbacks. I checked particularly about it with Clarence. He could think of nothing that should have worried Harry.’

  ‘Your husband knew Arthur Fleece, I’m told.’

  ‘Did he? He knew all sorts of people.’

  ‘Can you remember any visits Fleece made him?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I have a bad memory for faces.’

  Gently opened a drawer and took from it the photograph he’d obtained from Mrs Fleece. He pushed it across the desk, watching Mrs Askham intently.

  ‘Did this man ever visit your husband?’

  Her eyes flickered. ‘No. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘It isn’t a face that’s easily forgotten.’

  ‘I warned you. My memory for faces is bad.’

  ‘Then why are you sure he didn’t visit your husband?’

  ‘I… oh well, perhaps I was being too positive. But I don’t remember him, I can assure you of that. And you’re right about the face. It really gives one the shivers.’

  She smiled dismissingly and rose to her feet, retrieving the sharkskin bag and the gloves; the duchess who’d more than done her duty and who now intended to seek other diversions.

  ‘I’m afraid I shall have to be getting along. I have an appointment to keep at Andre’s. I’m reposing in you the strictest confidence, Superintendent: not a whisper of our little chat to the Press.’

  He nodded vaguely. ‘Thank you for coming, Mrs Askham.’ He rose and accompanied her to the door.