Gently With the Painters

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Is it about the death of Mrs Johnson?’

  ‘Yes, it most certainly is. I have what I feel to be some vital information, and I would like you to call on me without further delay.’

  Gently made a face at Stephens. ‘Couldn’t you tell me over the phone, sir?’

  ‘No, Superintendent, I couldn’t. It involves some highly personal explanations.’

  In spite of his brusqueness a note of anxiety had crept into Butters’s voice – it was as though he wanted to ask a favour, and didn’t know quite how to set about it.

  ‘You are busy, sir, I am sure, but I am positive that you won’t be wasting your time … this may well affect the whole case. It is essential that you should see me at once.’

  ‘Then if you would care to drive over, sir …’

  ‘No, I’m afraid it won’t do.’

  ‘Then if you could give me a little idea …’

  ‘No, Superintendent. You must come here.’

  There was obviously no help for it, and Gently hung up with a sigh. Stephens, who had divined the state of affairs, was watching his senior’s expression anxiously. Gently gave him a grin:

  ‘You don’t have to wait for me, you know. Just carry on with Aymas according to the rules they gave you at Ryton.’

  ‘You mean me … I’m to interrogate him?’

  ‘Why not? It’s all good practice.’

  ‘But I thought, sir – since a charge is so near—’

  Gently chuckled and punched the younger man’s shoulder.

  The drive out to Lordham took him through familiar country, it being at Wrackstead that he had arrested Lammas, the burnt-yacht murderer. There, and at Lordham Bridge, the moorings were busy with pleasure craft, and Gently needed to drive slowly through the careless crowds of yachtsmen. The address he had been given was The Grange House, Lordham, a premises not to be found without a due amount of inquiry; he was directed down narrow lanes which seemed to have lost their raison d’être, and it was by following his instinct that he at last arrived at his destination. It was a moderate-sized property of Regency period, and stood palely among trees on a slope above the River Ent. A portico with an elegant flight of steps graced the front, commanding a panoramic view of the sedgy, twining river. Its decoration, Gently noticed, was not in first-class order, and there were signs of neglect in the rather fine terrace gardens. The garage doors stood apart to reveal a highly polished Rolls, but it was a Rolls of a period which predated the Second World War.

  He parked his Riley on the notched tiling in front of the garage, and made his way to the portico, of which the door was also open. Then, quite unconsciously, he threw a glance at the upper windows – to find that a pair of frightened eyes were staring down into his. It was only for a second. In the next, they had disappeared. From such a glimpse he had been unable to register either the sex or age of their owner. An instant later a curtain was pulled, though actually this was quite unnecessary; the room behind it was already darkened by the subdued light of the evening.

  ‘Superintendent Gently, is it?’

  He found himself staring blankly at Butters. The man had approached him down the steps and was offering his hand with mechanical politeness.

  ‘I’m glad that you decided to call … I’m afraid this interview has been delayed too long. But perhaps if you are a family man, you will appreciate my position …’

  Gently shook hands and mumbled something in reply – had they been an illusion, those fear-struck eyes? Butters led him into the house and along a wide, deserted hall, ushering him finally into a room which had a faintly mouldy smell. It was large, and period-furnished, but there were pale areas of damp on the wallpaper.

  ‘Can I offer you a drink to begin with …?’

  Butters closed the door carefully behind him. He was a man of sixty or over and had a flushed and alcoholic face. His figure had probably once been athletic, but now was thickening and running to fat. He wore a suit of Donegal tweed of which the waistcoat seemed too small for him.

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll have one myself … I always talk better with a drink in my hand. But you’d better sit down, Superintendent. This … I’m afraid it may take a little time.’

  Obediently, Gently took possession of a petit point easy chair, one of a set of half a dozen which stood about the handsome room. Butters seated himself in another and swallowed down some brandy and water. From the slight tremulousness of the glass, Gently suspected that it was not his first.

  ‘Have you ever been to Norway?’

  Once again, Gently was staring blankly. It was the merest coincidence, of course, and yet he couldn’t help feeling struck by it …

  ‘It’s a first-rate country for fishing, and I’ve been up there several times. You take the Bergen Line out of Newcastle – it gets you across in nineteen hours.’

  ‘Is this to do with Mrs Johnson, sir?’

  ‘Yes, and you’ll see how in a minute. But let me tell the tale my own way … it puts me out when people ask questions.’

  Gently held back the ghost of a shrug and fixed his gaze on a French Empire clock. In Butters’s manner there was too much of the club bore: one could hear his ‘county’ tones droning on into the night …

  ‘I was there in ’53 at a hotel in Stalheim – just Phoebe and myself, the girls were in Switzerland that year. I can recommend the hotel if you’re up that way – usual incompetence with meat dishes, but that’s the same everywhere. Well, I was fishing one day some miles out of Stalheim, and I dropped into the local pensjonat for a spot of middag. I was put on a table kept reserved for another Englishman, and this other fellow turned out to be Johnson.

  ‘We fell to talking, of course – a treat to hear your own tongue; I can snakker a bit of the native, but only enough to get along with. He told me where he came from and the line of business he was in. Then we got on to the war, and fishing yarns, and places we’d been to …’

  The upshot of it had been that Butters had taken a liking to Johnson. He had invited him back to his hotel and introduced him to Mrs Butters. Then, their holidays ending together, they had travelled back in company, first by coastal steamer to Bergen and then on the Venus home to Newcastle.

  ‘Well, just at that time I was selling my Lynge property, in fact it was already in the hands of an agent. But the local men are much too slow, Superintendent, all they know about selling are these nasty little bungalows …’

  And so, quite naturally, he’d handed the job to Johnson, and Johnson had come up trumps by the end of a fortnight. He’d produced a retired company director from somewhere in Sussex, and what was even better, had got an advanced price from him.

  ‘It was a genuine deal, sir?’

  ‘As genuine as that clock! Nobody can have any complaints about the way he does business. He’s keen, sir, and he’s got the brains, and he knows where to find the buyers. He’s moved off a lot of stuff that had been hanging fire for years.’

  ‘And you recommended him, did you?’

  Butters had done, with enthusiasm. He had commended this pearl to his wide acquaintance of ‘county’ people. As a result Johnson’s business had flourished like a bay tree, and he had established a monopoly in the selling of cumbersome properties.

  In the meantime, he had cultivated his personal relations with Butters, and had become a familiar visitor at Lordham Grange House. They had fished and played golf and gone sailing in Butters’s half-decker, and when Butters went into town, Johnson would take him to lunch at the Bell.

  ‘And that’s how it’s been going on …’

  Butters sounded a little petulant; he had already poured himself another brandy and water. Several times, it had seemed to Gently, the man had shied away from something painful, and now he had come to a halt with the matter still unbroached.

  ‘You met Mrs Johnson, did you?’

  Butters made some sort of a gesture – half turning, as he did so, so that his eyes avoided Gently’s.

  ‘Yes … that’s just w
hat I want to tell you, but … damn it! I don’t know where to begin. It’ll all come out, I suppose – be plastered across the Sunday papers …’

  He came to a stop again, and this time Gently forbore to prompt him. It was, after all, a voluntary statement, and Butters had a right to a sympathetic hearing. And, if what Gently guessed was correct, then Butters was showing a good deal of courage …

  ‘You understand that we’re a county family – not a rich one, I don’t say that. But we’ve got a certain position to keep up … connections, too. We’ve got a lot of connections.

  ‘My wife, for example, is a sister of Lady Kempton’s – I met her in ’23 at the Faverham Hunt Ball. And Cathy, she’s married to one of the Pressfords, and Elizabeth’s husband is a nephew of Lord Eyleham. Not that that matters – I’m not a snob, either! And though Johnson has no family, I’ve never held that against him. But the other was a shock, I don’t mind telling you, especially when I first saw it staring out of a paper …’

  ‘The news of his wife’s death, sir?’ Gently felt that he was losing touch. Butters seemed to have gone off at a tangent from the line he had been about to take.

  ‘Naturally, that too, with the damning implication; but in the first place, to discover that he’d had a wife at all!’

  It was an astonishing declaration, and for the moment it bewildered Gently. He gazed open-eyed at Butters, who, himself, was now staring indignantly.

  ‘But – in five years – you never knew?’

  ‘I never had a single suspicion! He was on his own when I met him, and as for his flat, I never went there. No, it wasn’t until I read the paper – until I saw it in black and white; and even then I couldn’t believe it, until I’d had a talk with my daughter.’

  ‘Your daughter! Where does she come into it?’

  Butters’s stare turned into a furious frown. ‘They were engaged – engaged to be married, Superintendent. Or at least, that was the steady impression I received.’

  Gently got up and walked over to the window. He felt unable to cope with this, seated in a chair. Johnson … engaged to one of Butters’s daughters! To the daughter of the man who had been the making of his business …

  ‘And this engagement had been announced?’

  ‘Obviously not, though we were expecting it. All the time I’d been hinting at it, trying to bring him up to scratch. His excuse was that he was looking for just the right sort of property for them; when he found it, there was going to be a regular announcement.’

  ‘How long had it gone on?’

  ‘Oh, he met her right at the start. But in those days she was still at Girton – what a waste of money that was! Then, soon after she finished there, they took to going about together – he wasn’t the match I would have picked for her, but she was the youngest, and nothing went with her. They’ve been thick for a couple of years.’

  ‘And she – she knew about his wife?’

  ‘I’ve got to admit it. She knew about everything. She was his mistress all the while, and she says she’s going to have his baby.’

  Over these last few words Butters seemed to have difficulty, and there was no reason to doubt the genuineness of his emotion. One could easily imagine the horror with which he had glimpsed those banner headlines, and then had heard, from his daughter’s mouth, that they were trapped in the ghastly business …

  ‘You did well, sir, to speak up.’

  What was the use of a reprimand? Could he be blamed for taking four days to screw his courage to the sticking point?

  ‘As you said on the phone, this is vital information … I think it may enable us to tie up the case.’

  Butters swallowed a gulping draught of his brandy and water, and Gently was glad that the deepening twilight made the room behind him shadowy. Below him, down the romantic but deteriorating terrace gardens, a smoke mist was rising mysteriously from the still, silica-like river.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me that I should have spoken before … in your place, Superintendent … but I won’t stoop to excuses. I knew on the spot that Johnson had murdered his wife, and I knew that it was my business to put a rope round his neck.

  ‘But God, when it’s a question of your own flesh and blood! And, to a certain extent, I had other people to think of … And again, it looked at first as though they wouldn’t need my help – up till yesterday, even, I thought they were going to arrest him.

  ‘Then that picture business happened and the police seemed to be confused. All night I was pacing that hall … I reached for the phone a dozen times.

  ‘I thought of getting on to Sir Daynes, in spite of the fact that it wasn’t his business. And I knew the Inspector on the case, but in the past … I won’t go into that! Then in the morning I saw you had been called, which wouldn’t have happened unless they’d been stuck … and then I knew I daren’t wait any longer. My only consolation was that you were the man …’

  Gently silently sighed to himself – so near, it had been, to his not being the man! He wondered how Butters would have got on with Stephens, who would almost certainly have read him a lecture.

  Wouldn’t that reference to the county Chief Constable have got Stephens’s back up, straight away?

  ‘You might have confided in Sir Daynes, sir …’ He heard the clink of glass and decanter.

  ‘Yes … I think I might have done that. Failing you, I think I might have done it. But not that other fellow, Hansom … as I say, a motoring offence … Yet, since Tuesday, I’ve been in hell … God, I couldn’t help feeling responsible!

  ‘If I’d been a proper parent I would never have let it go on. I had a suspicion, once or twice, that things weren’t as innocent as they seemed. But in these days everything is different … I didn’t want to look a fool … and I trusted him, you know. I was sure he wouldn’t let me down.

  ‘That’s the most damnable thing about it. I liked the fellow, and encouraged him! And to think, that by doing that, I was driving him to desperation …

  ‘If I’d found out about his wife he would have lost Anne and most of the business … it only wanted her to become pregnant … you see how inevitable it was? There was no other way out, he was forced to do something. His wife was a wrong ’un, it appears, and she wouldn’t give him a divorce …’

  Gently turned from the window and came slowly back into the room. Butters was leaning over his knees, his umpteenth brandy shaking in his hand. He wasn’t cut for a tragic figure and his posture looked at first sight comic; yet this very misfortune, paradoxically, had the effect of emphasizing his pathos. And behind him, the damp-stained wallpaper took on the office of a symbol …

  ‘You have questioned your daughter, I take it?’ He remembered the frightened eyes which had watched him.

  ‘She’s … I’ve kept her in the house since Tuesday; as a prisoner, if you like …’

  ‘What was she doing on the Monday evening?’

  Butters shuddered. ‘If you don’t mind, Superintendent …’

  ‘Very well … fetch her down, then. I shall have to see her myself.’

  While Butters was absent from the room, Gently made a leisurely and appraising tour of it. In the grey and absorbing twilight he was probably seeing it at its best. Unlike a period piece restored, it lacked a logical unity of style; it had gathered one or two Victorian pieces, and even some items of a later date.

  The pictures, however, apart from two portraits, were all landscapes representing the local school. Gently identified a Stark and a pair of Ladbrookes, and a cottage scene which was probably by Vincent. But of their master, Crome, he could discover no trace – but then, he was probably a death duty too late.

  His prowling was interrupted by the switching on of the light, and he turned to find Butters pushing his daughter into the room. He had been holding her by the arm, which he now released, and he was prompt in closing and bolting the door.

  ‘I’d prefer to be present, if I may, Superintendent.’

  Gently nodded, and motioned Anne Butt
ers to a chair. Even now she hadn’t quite lost that look of terror, though added to it, Gently saw, was a seasoning of defiance.

  She was a shapely, slender girl with a pale-complexioned oval face, and golden-brown hair which she wore long and slinky. She had pale green eyes under fine, symmetrical brows; they gave a touch of distinction to a face which was inclined to be plain.

  ‘This is a serious business, I’m afraid, Miss Butters.’

  She was wearing a plain green dress, the skirt of which was gracefully flared. As he spoke to her, he noticed that she tightened her lips together; there were angry marks on her arm where it had been held by her father.

  ‘Tomorrow, I shall want you to give me a regular statement at the police station. Just now, I would like you to answer a few questions I shall put to you.’

  ‘It wasn’t Derek who killed her!’ She hissed the words out rather than spoke them, her green eyes sparking at him from lids which jumped suddenly open.

  ‘I didn’t say it was. Now, if you’ll be good enough to listen—’

  ‘He was with me the whole evening – we were in bed. So there!’

  With a quick, hysterical movement she jerked back the flared skirt, revealing a pair of neat legs and a froth of black lace. Her father started forward, but she immediately dropped the skirt again. Then she turned to him like a child, making a sneering, triumphant face.

  ‘Do you want me to tell you some more? I’m sure you’d love to have it in detail! My father would, in any case – he adores a bit of smut! We began at half past seven—’

  ‘Anne – that’s quite enough of that!’

  ‘—at half past seven, he undressed me—’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, pull yourself together!’

  Once more Butters started towards her, though what he could have done was problematical; before he could get to her, however, she had burst into a storm of tears.

  ‘He didn’t do it, I tell you, oh, Derek didn’t do it! You’ll never understand, but he didn’t – he didn’t do it!’