Gently with the Ladies

by Alan Hunter

  ‘They were completely estranged.’

  ‘If you wish.’

  ‘She didn’t care what he did with himself.’

  ‘Oh dear! Do you need me to make it plainer? If he’d done it quietly, he might have gone and hung himself.’

  ‘That’s been my impression,’ Gently said.

  ‘I’m glad, so glad. I thought you had missed it.’

  ‘But doesn’t that make it a little strange that they should quarrel violently over another woman?’

  Her bold eyes challenged him again, implying an impertinence to be stared down.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’d best take a seat. If you want to be clever, it will take time.’

  Gently silently chose a Sheraton chair and turned it back to the windows. Mrs Bannister frowned at him for some seconds, then went to give a tug to a tasselled bell-pull. Albertine entered. Mrs Bannister addressed her in a stream of resonant French. Albertine curtseyed and withdrew. Mrs Bannister took her seat on the settee. She caught Gently’s eye.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I was wondering . . . is your maid’s name really Albertine?’

  ‘It most certainly is. There would be no satisfaction in having a false Albertine.’ Her stare held for a moment, then she grudgingly gave him a smile. ‘For a policeman,’ she said, ‘you seem to be a very determined reader.’

  ‘Did you get her by accident?’

  ‘Oh no. One must take trouble over worthwhile things. We interviewed maids by the dozen in Paris before we discovered our Albertine.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Does that surprise you? Clytemnestra was no illiterate. And here’s a little test for you, Superintendent: Albertine actually comes from Illiers.’

  Gently shook his head. ‘I’d have to look that up . . .’

  ‘Then I’ll save you the trouble. Illiers is Combray.’

  Now her smile was triumphant, but it quickly faded again.

  ‘And all that’s past,’ she said dully. ‘As though it had never been . . . so suddenly. And what should be Wagner splitting the skies is just Cole Porter in the next room.’

  ‘Yet you’re wearing no mourning.’

  She pointed to her dress. ‘Not mourning as you’d understand it. But this is the colour she’d expect, the colour of death and love. Her colour: she was the Green Lady. That was the myth she made real.’

  ‘The myth . . . ?’

  Mrs Bannister nodded. ‘Of the woman untouchable by man. The perfect species, the type of the race, from which the male is a biological splinter. You are aware I suppose, being so well read, that that is the current scientific view?’

  Gently hunched. ‘Biology isn’t my subject.’

  ‘Then you may accept the fact from me. The male is a departure from the norm, a specialized carrier of the seed. Probably as a reaction to his situation, which is one of biological inferiority, he has developed an aggressive and self-glorifying ego which in turn has given rise to an unstable society. The biological direction is plain and evident. It is towards a diminished status of the male.’

  ‘You mean matriarchy?’

  ‘More than that. The role of the male is biologically narrow. He carries the seed and transmits it. That is his solitary function.’

  ‘Perhaps, but you’ll hardly do without it . . .’

  ‘You have heard of artificial insemination?’

  ‘Yes, but there are psychological factors—’

  ‘Not for me. Not for Clytemnestra.’

  She rested her chin on her clasped hands and stared large-eyed from between her brackets. She was sitting on the settee with her legs tucked under her and had a curious pixie-like appearance. Though she was tall she was perfectly made. She had a firm, unconscious femininity.

  ‘Of course, you’ll have talked to Siggy about us, and no doubt he gave us some pretty names. You’d rather expect that, wouldn’t you? The poor creature was living out of his century. But you’ve come to me now – correct me if I’m wrong – to hear the other side of the picture, and I’m perfectly willing to give it to you. You seem a man of intelligence.’

  ‘Thank you. There were other questions—’

  ‘Oh, let’s put our cards on the table! I’m an invert, and so was she, and we were neither proud nor ashamed of it. Quite simply, we are the New Women.’

  ‘New . . . ?’

  ‘Speaking biologically. We are the vanward of the trend towards a more successful racial pattern. In this the males will decline, probably in numbers as well as status, and with them will decline the factor of social instability. This is a perfectly logical trend, following the law of natural selection. By means of diminished heterosexuality, the race proceeds to greater stability. And in that sense you must term women like us the New Women.’

  ‘And male inverts the New Men?’

  ‘Why not? They are part of the same pattern. They are diminishing heterosexuality, and so assisting the trend.’

  ‘So that, eventually, in a society which is predominantly female, heterosexuality will be an inversion, and present inversion the norm?’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t you see that then there can be no inversion – that heterosexuality will become simply the transmission of seed? On the one hand you will have love, a physico-spiritual expression, and on the other insemination. There is nothing left to call inversion.’

  ‘Is there anything left to call love?’

  ‘Now you’re beginning to slip a century.’

  Gently’s shoulders twitched. ‘What’s a century,’ he asked, ‘to the law of natural selection? Did Mrs Fazakerly hold this theory?’

  ‘Yes. If you can think of no better term.’

  ‘And it involved her in whips and cords?’

  ‘My God,’ she said. ‘You sound like Siggy.’

  There was a tap at the door and Albertine entered with a tea-tray. It was a Georgian tray with a shell-pattern border and carried a silver tea-service of the same period. Mrs Bannister rose and fetched a small table and placed it by the settee. Albertine set the tea-tray on the table. Mrs Bannister dismissed her in French.

  ‘Was she here on Monday?’ Gently asked.

  ‘No. We give the servants Monday off.’

  ‘You were alone?’

  ‘I was alone. Do you take milk, Superintendent?’

  She handed Gently his tea. It was in a fluted cup which doubtless bore a mark of crossed swords, along with a silver spoon with a rat-tailed bowl and trellisengraving on the shank. The tea was slightly aromatic. Mrs Bannister drank it with a squeeze of lemon. While she drank she watched Gently, her large eyes tight with aggression. Finally she took a cigarette from a vanity bag lying on the settee and lit it with a tiny wax match, and breathed smoke once or twice.

  ‘No doubt I over-estimate you,’ she said. ‘After all, you’re still a policeman. You’ll have the moral attitudes of a policeman. You wouldn’t dare not to have, would you? For you, sex is fundamentally distasteful, and you wish the Almighty had ordered it otherwise. But since he hasn’t, then it’s your duty to keep the lid on the sewer. Your point of view is a little blasphemous, but the Almighty must shoulder some blame for that.’

  She flicked her cigarette waspishly.

  ‘May I smoke my pipe?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Please do. I shall have the room squished after you’ve gone in any case.’

  ‘What did you talk about at lunch on Monday?’

  ‘Is it any of your business?’

  ‘You told my colleague the deceased was in good spirits. Yet she was quarrelling bitterly a short time afterwards.’

  Mrs Bannister closed her eyes. ‘Couldn’t you have used some other word?’ she said. ‘Deceased: just a word in a report. It’s so pitifully inadequate.’

  ‘Did she mention her husband and this woman?’

  ‘She didn’t mention her husband at all. He wasn’t a topic of conversation. We were discussing autumn fashions.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Our evening arrangements
.’

  ‘Her husband’s affair wasn’t even hinted at?’

  ‘Not even a hint. I can tell you quite certainly that nothing was further from her mind. She burst in, as she always did, full of fun and high spirits. She brought some sketches from Waring with her, I daresay you’ll find them upstairs. We had them spread all over the floor. She was very excited about the new line. During lunch we were choosing a coat for her and deciding about accessories. Then we discussed what to wear that evening, but she soon returned to the sketches, and she went out planning to ring for an appointment. That was what her mind was full of.’

  ‘But she’d have mentioned this woman on a previous occasion.’

  ‘Perhaps it would help if I knew who she was.’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I’ve never been much interested in Siggy’s women.’

  ‘But you knew he had them, and so did Mrs Fazakerly.’

  Mrs Bannister breathed smoke delicately. ‘I have to give you the point,’ she said. ‘I find that quarrel of theirs incomprehensible. Nobody cared about Siggy’s women. He was always sleeping about somewhere. If anything, I imagine Clytemnestra encouraged it, it provided an emotional sedative for him. She knew about some of them, because she used to joke about them, and I’m willing to swear that’s all it meant to her.’

  ‘Yet you heard the quarrel.’

  ‘Only a word or two.’

  ‘Enough.’

  Mrs Bannister nodded. ‘She was being hysterical, and about a woman. She was warning Siggy to drop her, or she’d stop his money. I suppose he confirms it?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Who was the woman?’

  ‘A Sarah Johnson.’

  ‘Clytemnestra never mentioned her to me. I’m afraid I’m mystified by the whole business.’

  She stared thoughtfully at Gently, as though holding him to blame for her mystification. Perhaps she would liked to have denied the truth of anything about Clytie Fazakerly to which she was not privy. She had drawn her legs in beneath her again and sat curiously upright, without support.

  ‘Had Mrs Fazakerly any relatives?’

  ‘Only her step-father and the Merryn woman. Her step-father is a solicitor in Bristol and he’d ceased to have anything to do with her. Brenda Merryn is her half-sister, a doctor’s receptionist or some such person. I’ve seen her here a few times. She meant nothing to Clytemnestra.’

  ‘Had she any close friends?’

  Mrs Bannister eyed him, but contented herself with a ‘No’.

  ‘Well, acquaintances who might visit her?’

  ‘We invited few people here.’

  ‘But you can name one or two?’

  ‘Oh, our friends are mostly about town. People you meet going around. You’d really waste your time investigating them. Anyway, where’s the point, Superintendent? The facts of the case are not in dispute. Siggy killed her. I know it. You know it. It was on his face when I saw him.’

  Gently nodded. ‘When you saw him, you say the lift was in use?’

  ‘Yes. The numbers were flashing. I don’t know why I particularly noticed it.’

  ‘Was the lift coming up or going down?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Wait! – coming up.’

  ‘You’re certain?’

  ‘Yes . . . I can see the numbers.’

  ‘And would you remember where it stopped?’

  She looked away, then quickly back at him. ‘Now we’re being clever again,’ she said. ‘No, I don’t know where it stopped, but I can tell you certainly where it didn’t. It didn’t stop on these two floors. If it had stopped on this one I would have seen it. If it had gone past I would have heard it. Ergo, it stopped lower down.’

  ‘Did you hear or see it later on?’

  ‘No, because I was not in the hall.’

  ‘So it, or the stairs, might well have been used, and you would not have been the wiser.’

  She breathed smoke silently for some moments, giving it little, modulated utterances, then she said:

  ‘You know, I don’t think I understand you, Superintendent. Have you some reason for supposing that Siggy didn’t do it?’

  ‘He says he didn’t.’

  She shrugged contemptuously. ‘What was he likely to say? And don’t forget he’s an arrant liar, though you may have discovered that for yourself.’

  Gently nodded. ‘There are also some other points.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Points of detail. For instance, what had he to gain by killing her, when she was leaving her money to you?’

  Mrs Bannister gave a short laugh. ‘So you know about that, do you?’ she said. ‘Oh, the minds of these policemen! And of course, I’m immediately under suspicion.’

  ‘I didn’t say that—’

  She raised her hand. ‘Please! We can manage without hypocrisy. I don’t mind you suspecting me, it gives me a bitter sort of amusement. I am worth suspecting, oh yes, I am perfectly cast for the murderer. Nobody was better situated than myself to have gone up there and killed Clytemnestra. I heard the quarrel, I saw him run off, I could easily have gone in to console her. And then, remembering the money she was going to leave me, I could have reached that belaying-pin down from the wall. I’d know where to go for it, you see, because it was hung there at my suggestion.’

  Gently stared at her over his pipe. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That fits exactly.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? Exactly? And I’m an invert into the bargain.’

  She was breathing a little fiercely, and she stubbed out her cigarette with venom. She had large though well-proportioned hands and the fingers looked strong.

  ‘Then all I had to do was wait for Lipton, phone the police and get in my story. And the longer it took them to find Siggy, the more convinced they’d be of his guilt. Well, Superintendent, if I were you I think I’d arrest me on the spot. Or did I leave something out – something that raises a minor doubt?’

  Gently stared, didn’t say anything. She got up quickly from the settee.

  ‘Now I’ll just show you something,’ she said. ‘Something that’s bound to raise your interest.’

  She strode across to the bureau-bookcase and unlocked one of the drawers. From it she took two folded documents, each secured with red tape. She exhibited them to Gently so that he could read the titles. They were the wills of Clytemnestra Anne Fazakerly and Sybil Edith Elizabeth Bannister.

  ‘Didn’t I say you’d be interested?’ she jeered. ‘These are the veritable documents. We made them together four years ago, leaving our money to each other. There, please examine the signatures – I want you to be certain these are not copies.’

  They were not copies. She flipped over the sheets to show him the signatures and seals, watching, her eyes intent, for any change in his expression.

  ‘There,’ she said, ‘the disposal of above half a million pounds is in these documents. What do you make as a Chief Superintendent? Vaguely four figures? Something like that?’

  Gently shrugged woodenly. ‘I make what I earn,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I see – and I earn nothing – on every count I’m despicable!’

  ‘Do you earn something?’

  ‘No. Not a penny. I’ve lived on society all my life. So you can despise me from the height of your righteousness – I am a criminal before I start.’

  ‘Why are you showing me these wills?’

  ‘Because I’m about to be melodramatic. And that’s another ugliness of the social parasite – it insists on dramatizing itself.’

  She went to the bell-pull and pulled it. Albertine appeared directly. Mrs Bannister spat some French at her, and she retired hastily and without a curtsey. When she returned she was carrying a chafing-dish, which she placed on a stand before Mrs Bannister. Mrs Bannister dismissed her with a gesture. Then she began opening and crumpling the two wills.

  ‘Am I committing an offence?’ she asked.

  ‘A technical offence.’ Gently made no motion.

&n
bsp; ‘And you’re not going to stop me? How kind! No doubt all is grist to your mill.’

  She considered the pile of crumpled paper.

  ‘I think this deserves a libation,’ she said. ‘Poor Clytemnestra would have enjoyed that touch, also the paper doesn’t seem very combustible.’

  She went to a tantalus on the side-table and fetched a decanter of cognac. She lifted the decanter high above the dish and let cognac pour from it in a stream. Then she ignited it. A clear, liquid flame spread about the dish and paper, becoming yellow and smoky as the paper began to char. At last the paper burned fiercely, sending angry tongues towards the ceiling.

  ‘There,’ Mrs Bannister said, ‘Clytemnestra’s manes receive again Clytemnestra’s gift, and the money can go where it likes. I’ll see that Lipton isn’t a loser.’

  ‘Does this prove something?’ Gently asked.

  ‘If it doesn’t, I’ve wasted a lot of cognac. Just see the hunger in those flames – how they lick from sheet to sheet.’

  ‘If Fazakerly gets off he’ll have the money.’

  ‘Never. The deed was in his face.’

  ‘You may not convince a jury of that.’

  ‘Does it matter? With the facts?’

  She was staring at the flames in a sort of abstractedness, and now she stiffened and raised her arms. Her fine-featured face, looking downwards, caught a flickering ruddiness from the blaze.

  ‘At least, Fazakerly showed some grief.’

  ‘Crocodile tears. He’d know how to use them.’

  ‘But you’d have no need for crocodile tears. Tears from you would be genuine.’

  Her eyes flashed at him across the flames.

  ‘What do you know of grief?’ she snapped. ‘Some maudlin hypocrisy in a witness-box would be the extent of your comprehension. Did I offer to exhibit my grief to you?’

  Gently shook his head. ‘Does one exhibit grief . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, I could exhibit it if I wanted to, if I wasn’t too numbed to put on a show!’ She let her arms fall. ‘But of course,’ she said, ‘I was forgetting I was suspect too. So sorry. I should have squeezed out a few tears. This would have been such an appropriate moment.’