Gently With the Painters

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Do you know where the Palette Group members parked their cars?’

  Stephens had taken the question off Gently’s lips.

  ‘They’re a poverty-stricken bunch, I shouldn’t think they’d got any cars.’

  ‘Not the chairman, St John Mallows?’

  ‘Oh, him. He’s got a Daimler.’

  ‘And did you find out where he parked it?’

  ‘Huh …! Hansom made a contemptuous motion of his head.

  A moment later, however, he climbed off his high horse. He was far from being dense when he gave himself time to think.

  ‘There are two or three others who own heaps of some sort – Aymas is one, and Farrer, and Allstanley. But I wouldn’t mind betting that they parked them in the Haymarket – or Chapel Street, in front of us. That’d be nearest for the George III.’

  ‘But, to date, you haven’t made any definite inquiry?’

  ‘Nope. I like to leave something for Scotland Yard to have a chew at.’

  Gently smothered a grin in the lighting of his pipe. It hadn’t taken Stephens long to measure swords with the handsome Hansom. Already, he was sure, the Chief Inspector bore a ‘difficult’ label – without being aware of it, he was supporting Northshire’s reputation. And now, with hands that trembled slightly, Stephens was also lighting his pipe …

  ‘Let’s leave that for the moment. I’d like to hear more about the Johnsons. You haven’t got a portrait of the victim, I suppose?’

  Hansom dipped into the manilla folder which had contained the official photographs, finally selecting a half-plate print to skim across the desk to Gently.

  ‘That’s a recent one, I’m told … It just about gives the right effect. Don’t forget that you’re talking to an eyewitness – I danced with this femme, at the Charity Ball.’

  He leaned his elbows on the desk and watched as Gently examined the print. It showed a fragile-looking blonde whose eyes, one could swear, had been hyacinth blue. The hair was short and only slightly wavy, the nose rather straight over a small mouth and chin. Though not very striking she’d been pretty in a way … for a moment, Gently couldn’t put a name to the quality.

  ‘You begin to catch on, do you? Well, you’re wrong – she wasn’t a lesbian. She’d got the look and the manner, but you only saw her around with men. Mind you, she might have had some girlfriends in private … that’s possible: but she was the one and only female who belonged to the Palette Group.’

  Gently inclined his head, passing the portrait on to Stephens.

  ‘How old would she be?’

  ‘Twenty-nine last May. She stood five feet seven and had a fashion-horse sort of figure – as lean as a lath, with just a top dressing of sex. She had a bedward way of gazing at you with her innocent blue eyes. Her voice was the tinkling sort, but you can bet it had an edge, too.’

  ‘Did she belong to these parts?’

  ‘Not her. They came from Bedford. Johnson arrived here five years ago and branched out as an estate agent. He’s a right Battle-of-Britain charlie, complete with MG. You could hang up your hat and coat on one side of his handlebars.’

  ‘Does he make a go of the business?’

  ‘His car and clothes say he does.’

  ‘You’ve seen his flat, of course?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s a posh, brand new one. Over an office block.’

  Hansom produced the estate agent’s statement – not a great deal to show for three hours of grilling – and Gently skimmed through its inevitable police jargon, pausing occasionally for Stephens, who was reading over his shoulder.

  A peculiar household must that one have been! Here and there, through the stiff formality, a telling phrase or two crept out. ‘I wanted Shirley to have a baby but to this she would not agree.’ ‘I bought a new bed for the guest room and have been sleeping there for three years.’ ‘I do not know if she has been unfaithful and I myself have not been unfaithful.’ ‘I agree that I wanted a divorce, but that she would not contemplate a divorce.’

  And then his account of Monday evening:

  ‘When I arrived home my wife was going out. I did not ask her where she was going as we had agreed not to ask one another this. I found some eggs in the larder and poached two for my tea. Then I got out my car again and drove first to the Halford Ferry public house and afterwards to several public houses, including the Lordham Dog and the Porter Haynor Falgate. I returned to the Ferry and remained there till closing time, fetching my drinks from the bar to a table by the river. I arrived home at eleven o’clock or soon after. I went straight to bed without visiting my wife’s room, and I did not know that she was missing until I was informed of it by the police.’

  Hansom sneered: ‘He was playing it close to the chest, don’t you think? The innocent wronged husband who doesn’t know a thing! We checked at the pubs which he condescended to mention, and like I told you, they don’t remember him after half past nine.’

  ‘Is he fairly well known to them?’

  ‘You bet. He’s that type. His MG would do the circuit with him blind drunk in the dickey.’

  ‘Halford Ferry is that large pub …?’

  ‘Yep. He’s a regular clever boyo. It’s big, and rushed off its feet at this time of the year. Naturally, they won’t swear that he wasn’t there till closing, especially with him claiming that he sat at an outside table. He may have sat nursing a pint for an hour.’

  ‘It’s either true or very clever.’

  ‘Cobber, you’ve put him in a nutshell.’

  The Super, feeling perhaps that he was being ignored, now filled in some details of their investigation of Johnson. His service record was good, they knew nothing against his character, and though he owned a fast car his licence was virgin of endorsements. He had friends in his own profession and was generally well thought of. His business was honestly conducted and had a good reputation. That he was estranged from his wife was no secret to his acquaintances, but the subject was painful to him and he became abrupt if she was mentioned.

  ‘Can anyone vouch for the time he arrived home?’

  ‘No, and that and the time he gives seem to lend support to his good faith. If he had known at what time his wife had been killed, he could have sworn that he was home by ten without fear of contradiction. Inspector Hansom here thinks that it’s an example of Johnson’s cunning, but failing evidence to the contrary one is bound to allow him the doubt. It was small things like these which made us uncertain about Johnson, and I suggested that we should turn our attention elsewhere.’

  ‘Elsewhere’, of course, was the Palette Group and its members, and from Hansom’s bored expression Gently could judge what luck they had had. From his folder the local man produced a sheaf of bitty statements, the result of many hours of unprofitable labour.

  ‘Perhaps you could give me the overall picture.’

  ‘Sonny, I’d be delighted! They all had a “thing” about her.’

  ‘Infatuation, you mean?’

  ‘Hell, no – these are painters! There were some who thought she could paint, and the rest who thought she couldn’t. Apart from some guessing about times, there’s damn-all else.’

  Gently paused for an instant before putting his next question; he wasn’t confident that Hansom could give him the answer.

  ‘Did it strike you as being the … usual relation, as between artists, or was there a little bit more of a point to it?’

  ‘How the devil should I know!’ Hansom stared his disgust at Gently. ‘They’re queers, the whole bunch, and that’s putting it mildly. The fact that she was croaked didn’t seem to have penetrated – they were only concerned with the way she lashed paint on.’

  ‘But they were concerned about that – they held strong opinions?’

  ‘I couldn’t get them to talk about anything else. And yesterday it broke out again, when they opened the exhibition. We had to grab that picture to save ourselves a riot.’

  The picture was produced and displayed on the top of a filing cabinet. On the
whole, it seemed to lack something as a potential riot-raiser. A monotone drawing of about eighteen by twelve, it showed practised execution but no startling originality. There were qualities, however, which had been lost in reproduction. The figure wasn’t striding through rain but through a grove of wire-like stalks. And it was a strangely evil figure, something medieval and witch-like; little breasts, like shrivelled gourds, hung from the wasted and wrinkled chest.

  ‘Urs Graaf … possibly Dürer.’

  Stephens, it appeared, was knowledgeable in art. Both the Super and Hansom viewed the picture with degrees of distaste.

  ‘But that’s the sort of thing she’d paint …!’ Hansom lofted his beefy shoulders. ‘She was dried up somewhere herself, with all her beautiful come-on eyes.’

  ‘Have you seen her other pictures?’

  ‘There’s a room full of them, back at the flat. I saw a pair that hung in her bedroom, but I hadn’t any reason to look at the rest.’

  Oddly, though, the picture seemed to fascinate them, and each one kept his eyes fixed upon it. In the Super’s office there was silence for a minute while they steadily appraised the dead woman’s last conception.

  ‘Their chairman … what had he to say about her painting?’

  ‘Oh … him! Well, he was more sober than the rest. As a matter of fact, I don’t think he mentioned it. It was from him that I managed to get the facts about the meeting.’

  It had lasted three hours, from seven-thirty till ten-thirty. According to Mallows, it had run its usual course. The members, carrying their pictures, had foregathered in the cellar, and, aided by pints from up the stairs, had criticized each other’s work.

  ‘There was a little bit of business – subscriptions, reports, the usual thing. Then they started showing the pictures on an easel they’d fetched along. Mallows, being the chairman, was the first to have a crack, after which all present took a hand in the discussion. When they’d had a bellyful of one picture they set up another, and started crabbing that.’

  ‘Did Mrs Johnson show a picture?’

  ‘No, but she was a leading critic. Apparently she carried a bit of weight about the cellar. They would listen to her even when they were hotted up – because she was the only sheila there, do you think?’

  Then followed the important timetable of the order in which the meeting broke up, though Hansom warned Gently that it wasn’t unanimously subscribed to. Mallows had given him the outline and he had checked it with the various members, but some of them couldn’t remember and others denied its accuracy.

  What appeared was that six members had left the cellar before Mrs Johnson, one of them, Shoreby, as early as ten, in order to catch his last bus to Cheapham. The others had left when the proceedings ended, all of them within two or three minutes of each other. Their names were Seymour, Lavery, Farrer, Baxter and Allstanley, but the precise order of their leaving could not be agreed on. Mallows thought that Allstanley was the first to depart, but Allstanley denied it and said that someone went out ahead of him. Lavery admitted that he was one of the first to leave the cellar, but claimed that he had returned to fetch his canvas, which he had forgotten.

  ‘And after those six came Mallows and Mrs Johnson?’

  ‘That’s right. They stood in the doorway chatting for a moment. The cellar at the George III has got a separate door from the pub – it’s on a little side-lane, at the end of the marketplace.’

  ‘Then he saw her depart in the direction of the bus stop?’

  ‘Yeah … that seems to indicate that his car was parked elsewhere.’

  ‘Which makes him the last person to have seen Mrs Johnson alive.’

  ‘Excepting everybody else she might have passed on her way.’

  Along with the reports, that had to be enough for the present. The solemn boom of the City Hall clock had already announced the hour of lunch. Superintendent Walker, who had a great respect for his meals, had for the last five minutes been pointedly examining his wristwatch.

  ‘Just one other thing – the knife. Did you find out where it was purchased?’

  ‘They stock them at Carter Brown’s, a draughtsman’s supplier in Prince’s Street.’

  ‘But they don’t remember selling this one?’

  ‘Not on your life. That would make it too easy. They haven’t sold one for several years – there’s a plastic job which has swept the market.’

  For lunch, Gently took Stephens to a café which he knew about in Glove Street. The young Inspector had little to say to him as he accompanied him thither. Until the sweet came he was silent, a picture of solemn preoccupation, then, dipping his spoon in a trifle, he murmured:

  ‘It’s got to be blackmail or nothing!’

  Through a mouthful Gently murmured back:

  ‘Unless the estate agent’s got a girlfriend …’

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT MAY HAVE been that chance remark which led him first to visit Johnson’s office, thus ignoring some obvious preliminaries which, quite frankly, ought to have been seen to. These included a visit to the dustbins, a step which Stephens regarded as de rigueur: Gently, with a better appreciation of Hansom, expected small profit from this piece of routine.

  He had, moreover, used the car park in the past, and so was familiar with the general layout. More important for him, in the initial stages, were the things with which his mind’s eye was unable to help him.

  ‘I think I’ll take a look at the husband! Perhaps you’d like to go back to HQ?’

  ‘Whatever you say, sir. But shouldn’t we, to start with—?’

  ‘I’ll leave that to you, then we won’t be duplicating our efforts.’

  Stephens, as he had intended, was mildly complimented by this, but a little to Gently’s surprise the young man preferred to tag along with his senior.

  ‘The husband, after all, is the number one suspect …’

  It went without saying that Stephens was a graduate from Ryton. He was a product of the new policy for catching promising material young. He had been groomed into inspectorhood at an age when Gently had been proud to be a sergeant, and as with others of the new school, textbook lore came readily to his tongue.

  Johnson’s office was in Upper Queen Street, in the business area of the city. It was housed in a Victorian building which owned a dignified, sugar-ice front. The street was a traffic artery to the north and was busy with steady streams of vehicles; it adjoined the cathedral precincts at one end and was closed by the GPO at the other. The office had a prosperous appearance and it rejoiced in some brilliant paintwork. To air-force blue had been added crimson linings, with a touch of gilt on the scroll above the portal. On the plate-glass of the window appeared Johnson’s name in discreet small capitals; the window was backed by a pegboard, to which details of the properties were attached.

  ‘He seems to get the county people …’ Gently brooded over the photographs and particulars. Very few of the advertised properties were at addresses in the city. A score or more of the neatly typed cards referred to substantial country houses, and there were mentions of shooting rights and ‘half a mile of the best coarse fishing’. It was the sort of estate-agent’s window before which Gently had often stood and dreamed.

  The clerk’s office behind the window developed this note of established prosperity. It was furnished in contemporary style and contained electric typewriters and the most modern equipment. Two of the typists were middle-aged women and they paid no attention to the intruders; but the third, a rather sharp-faced brunette, rose to greet them with a flashing smile.

  ‘Is Mr Johnson busy at present?’

  ‘Did you want to see him especially, sir?’

  The smile went into a decline when Gently introduced himself, and the two typers, looking up quickly, showed that they could listen as they worked.

  A handsomely carpeted flight of stairs took them up to the first floor. The receptionist flounced ahead of them, her spiked heels trotting briskly. By the time they had reached the landing Johnson had
emerged from his room to meet them; another girl, carrying a shorthand notebook, slipped out of the room and went down the stairs.

  ‘I saw they’d called you in, old sport!’ Johnson was insisting on shaking their hands. ‘They plastered it over the local, you know, and me, with a gendarme’s hand on my shoulder …’

  He was so much to type that it was difficult to believe in him – you felt he must be clowning it, laying it on a bit. But there wasn’t much that was funny in the tone of his voice, and after the first defiant stare, his eyes switched about him nervously.

  ‘Come into the ops room …’

  He turned and preceded them into his office, which in its smartness was of a piece with the rest of the premises. With an attempt at an air he swaggered across to his desk, and before sprawling into the revolving chair, spun it once with his fingertip.

  ‘I always do that – it’s a gimmick I’ve got.’

  ‘Something you picked up in the Service?’

  Johnson nodded his head briskly. ‘I used to do it in the mess before we took off on a prang … then one day I forgot, and copped a packet over Cologne. Bloody Lanc went up in smoke. Mine was the only chute that opened. Funny thing, wasn’t it, cocker? All the way down I was laughing my head off …’

  His grey eyes fastened for an instant on Gently’s, as though watchfully seeking the Yard man’s reaction. It produced an unpleasant impression, a feeling of distrust. What had Hansom said about Johnson? ‘I could smell him for our man …’

  Hansom had also said that Johnson resembled Heath, but perhaps he was judging from the press photograph of the murderer. Certainly they both had fair wavy hair, and eyes of pale grey that stared a little. But Johnson’s features were heavier and broader, he lacked the cleft chin and the length of the nose. His mouth, too, was stronger, a mouth full of determination. It looked as though it knew how to keep itself shut.

  ‘You’ve come here to put me through it again? It’s like the old days with the Gestapo, cocker. Don’t apologize or anything – I’m well up in the drill. I’ve been through worse grillings than you’ll ever dish out.’