by Alan Hunter
Gently drove in and parked. There was movement behind the big window. Moments later a man appeared at the door; he was wearing a stained smock and held a brush in his hand.
‘You let nothing hinder your work, I see!’
‘My dear old lad, what would you expect?’
It happened instantly with this man: you had to fight down an automatic instinct to accept him. The shy eyes, smiling mouth, strong features, active bearing: along with them went a sort of self-mocking gaiety almost impossible to resist.
‘That’s exactly what I would expect. In these things you look for a pattern.’
‘So, I’m a painter.’
‘What bothers me is where you go for your inspiration.’
Reymerston ducked his head, grinning. ‘Come in, old lad, and get it off your chest! As a matter of fact I was knocking off for lunch. I suppose I can’t offer you two a bite?’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘It was only cheese, anyway. I’ll ring The Gull and book you a table.’
Gently was beginning to feel ridiculous, like a child who’d got stuck with a fit of sulks. He had worked up a level of indignation that plainly he wasn’t going to be allowed to maintain. Yet he didn’t mean to be charmed out of it either! He made his face into a blank. Only by keeping Reymerston at arm’s length could one hope to deal with the fellow ...
They followed him into a hall, on the walls of which hung water-colours. Gently recognized a Miles Edmund Cotman that had hung in the cottage across the river. Then into a studio-lounge surprisingly similar to the one he had known before, with the remembered picture-racks, furniture, books and pervading smell of linseed oil. On an easel stood a canvas, just begun, a palette gory with colours lying near it. In some corner of his mind, Gently registered that Reymerston had changed his style and was no longer a pointillist. The painter dabbled his brush, then wiped it.
‘Sit yourselves while I make that call.’
When he returned he’d got rid of the smock to reveal himself in a cerise shirt.
‘Now ... a beer?’
Gently merely stared at him. Reymerston smiled and squatted on a stool. The thing was getting more and more absurd – with Reymerston grinning, as though coaxing him to begin!
‘Let’s get one thing straight to start with. Your alibi isn’t worth two pins.’
‘Granted,’ Reymerston smiled. ‘I’ve had a go at it myself, trying to fill in the gaps.’
‘This is a serious matter!’
‘Oh, quite. But you do see the difficulty we’re in. The essence of a rendezvous is discretion, and discreet is what we were being on Saturday. Have you seen Archie’s cottage?’
Gently grunted.
‘Well, it’s very much on its own. And you can shove two cars in behind it so they’re out of sight from the road. It’s down Platten’s Loke, which goes nowhere and ends in a track over heath. Only a few bird-watchers and horse-riders use it, and I’m damned if I can find a witness.’
‘What time do you say you got there?’
‘At two. Ruth came a little later.’
‘How much later?’
‘Oh ... ten minutes. I’d only just unlocked and opened some windows.’
‘So where was the owner?’
‘Archie Todd has a studio in Chelsea. He comes down here for odd weekends – I keep an eye on the place for him.’
‘How convenient for you.’
Reymerston didn’t smile. ‘Ruth isn’t just a pick-up, you know.’ He looked straight at Gently. ‘Have you spoken to her yet?’
Gently didn’t reply.
‘She’s a very fine person who’s had a rotten deal in her marriage. Quennell was a pig of a man – a success-merchant, quite unscrupulous. He reminded me of Joe Rayner. But at least Joe treated his wife decently.’
‘Quennell wasn’t worthy of her, you’d say.’
Reymerston said softly: ‘I want to marry her.’
‘And now you can.’
Just as softly, Reymerston said: ‘Yes – if she’ll have me.’
‘And isn’t that the nub of it?’
Their eyes held. Suddenly, Reymerston jumped up and took steps down the room. He turned, looked towards Eyke, then back again to Gently.
‘I want to talk to you alone.’
‘Oh no,’ Gently said emphatically. ‘There’ll be none of that this time. Anything you want to confess you’ll confess with the Inspector present.’
‘This isn’t a confession.’
‘Then the Inspector can stay.’
‘What I have to say is for your ears only.’
‘You can talk quite freely.’
‘That’s just what I can’t do. And you need to hear what I can tell you.’
It was close to blackmail. Reymerston’s mouth was set in an obstinate line. And he was right: there was that between them which couldn’t be broached in front of Eyke, whose ears had cocked already at the casual reference to Joseph Rayner.
Shrugging profoundly, Gently nodded to Eyke. ‘Perhaps you can wait in the car.’
‘If you think it’s wise, sir.’
After a pregnant pause, Eyke rose and strode from the studio. They saw him pass the window, heard the clap of the car door. Reymerston came back up the room.
‘I could see he was cramping your style,’ he smiled. ‘So now what about a beer?’
Gently took out his pipe. What was the use?
‘Make mine a bitter.’
The beer came in bottles bearing the label of the family brewery of which Wolmering boasted. When he had poured it and taken a long swallow, Reymerston fixed Gently with an amused eye.
‘You’re married, they tell me.’
‘Never mind that!’
‘It may help you to understand my position better. Off the cuff, would you murder the husband of a woman you wanted to marry?’
Gently grunted. ‘That proves nothing.’
‘Oh, proof’s another matter,’ Reymerston smiled. ‘You had plenty of proof against the Major, but it didn’t seem to make you so very happy.’
Gently swallowed a slow draught. ‘Then what are you saying?’
‘I suppose it amounts to this. Once you believed me, against all the proof, when I told you what happened to the Selly woman. There was nothing against me at all, I was outside the scope of your investigation. I couldn’t even produce a worthwhile motive, because in fact I didn’t have one. But you believed me: without proof. You knew I wasn’t telling you a lie.’
‘Because you knew how she died.’
‘It won’t wash, old lad. I could have had that from the Major.’ Gently sieved beer through his mouth. The doubt had occurred to him, but he’d dismissed it.
‘I didn’t,’ Reymerston said. ‘The truth was I scarcely knew the man. But the possibility must have struck you. And yet you still accepted what I said.’
‘So?’
Reymerston looked at him steadily. ‘Now listen to me again. I didn’t do for Quennell, and I don’t know a damned thing about it. Neither does Ruth, as far as I know, and I’m certain she would have told me if she did.’
Gently stared at emptiness. ‘And I’m supposed to accept that?’
‘Oh, you’ll have to go through the motions,’ Reymerston said. ‘Old Hawkeye out there in the car will stick to your elbow, making sure you do. But just between us, I’m trying to plant the truth, to make sure you keep your eye lifting. Perhaps professionally you daren’t accept it, but at least you’ll know it’s on the table.’
He took a long pull, still watching Gently, whose eyes were directed towards the window. Down below, gulls were whooping behind a longshore boat that was motoring up the river. And they could just see Eyke, sulking in the car, face turned resolutely ahead. Then he vanished temporarily as he stretched over to wind down the opposite window.
‘Don’t forget the letter.’
‘The letter’s a fake.’
‘At least the daughter was convinced by the handwriting.’
�
��Oh dear!’ Reymerston said. ‘What you don’t know is that Ruth would never have risked a letter. I couldn’t write to her and she would never write to me. We arranged at one meeting for the next. A couple of times, when something came up, she rang me. But even then it was from a box.’
‘She went in so much fear of her husband?’
‘Quennell was a brute, but it wasn’t only that. You spoke of the daughter, and if you’ve met her you’ll know she’s a very disturbed kid. And not just over this business. A year ago she had nervous trouble of some sort. Ruth feels deeply responsible for her and she wouldn’t risk an upset in the home.’ He waved his glass. ‘Besides, it’s ridiculous! Ruth described the letter to me. No doubt there are women who write such twaddle, but you couldn’t imagine it of Ruth.’
‘People sometimes suit their style to the recipient.’
Reymerston stared before replying. ‘If you sat where I’m sitting you’d know how stupid that idea is.’
‘She must have other acquaintances.’
‘Not boy friends.’
‘If you, why not others?’
‘Simply because.’ Reymerston smiled suddenly. ‘All right – it was worth an airing!’ He drank. ‘In point of fact, I know a woman who might write such letters. But not in Ruth Quennell’s handwriting. It simply has to be a fake.’
‘A woman living here ...?’
Reymerston was thoughtful for a moment. Then he shrugged.
‘So,’ Gently said. ‘If not you, if not another boy friend, who am I looking for?’
Reymerston stared over his glass. ‘Don’t think I haven’t been giving it some thought. Unlike you, I know the field, and unlike you, I know I’m innocent. And unlike you I’m a suspect – which really gets the grey matter weaving. All the same, one doesn’t rush to point a finger at other people.’
‘But you can point one.’
‘Maybe. In a very wavering fashion.’
‘Then you’d better point it.’
Reymerston hesitated, toying with the glass.
‘Well ... it’s this way. I mentioned Quennell in connection with Joe Rayner. He was the same sort of hard, ambitious, opportunist sort of character. And during the last year there’s been a bit of a shake-up at Tallis Press. And the long and short of it is that Quennell finished up as managing director.’
Gently sat blank-faced. ‘What was he before?’
‘General manager,’ Reymerston said.
‘Who was jumped over?’
Reymerston twiddled the glass. ‘It isn’t quite so simple as you’re thinking. When Arthur Tallis died, last year, his brother Raymond took over the helm, then he stepped down and Quennell stepped up, with his son as assistant. Before that, in Arthur Tallis’s time, Quennell wasn’t even a director.’
‘So you’re pointing at Raymond Tallis.’
‘Yes, but there’s rather more to it. I tell you what – let’s call in Hawkeye. He can give you the official version.’
Reymerston finished his beer, got up and went out to summon Eyke.
Gently rose too: the beer, the warmth were making his head begin to swim. Pipe in mouth he strolled to the big window with its ranging view. Could he believe Reymerston? He wanted to! And just that very thing warned him to be cautious. With puckered face he stared at the canvas, a swirling, chromatic composition. As always, Reymerston stayed an enigma, a man you had to guard yourself from liking . . . perhaps, after seeing the Quennell woman, he would know better what to think.
Eyke came in sweating from his frowst in the car. He avoided Gently’s eye, refused a beer and took a seat in a corner.
What he was thinking was plain enough: once more this fellow had put it over on Gently! He sat defensively, eyeing the floor, obviously waiting to hear the worst.
‘Well?’ Gently growled.
‘Just ask the Inspector about the tragedy that happened here a year ago.’
‘A year ago ...?’ Eyke stared at Reymerston. ‘Would that be when Arthur Tallis was lost off his yacht?’
‘That’s it.’
Eyke glanced at Gently: now his suspicions were fully roused! Not only had Reymerston talked himself off the hook, but he had dragged in a red herring as well ...
‘That has no connection with this job, sir.’
‘All the same, let’s have it!’ Gently snapped.
‘There was nothing comic. I was at the inquest.’
‘So now you can tell me what happened.’
Eyke looked as though he might have been regretting the beer.
‘Well, sir, that’s about what did happen. Arthur Tallis was lost off his yacht at sea. The Tallises have always been sailing people – his brother keeps a boat down at the club.’
‘So give it me in detail.’
Eyke was clearly unhappy; he ran a finger under his collar. And Reymerston wasn’t helping matters by sitting quizzing him with a half-smile ...
‘It was September of last year, sir. They were going on a trip down to Harwich. Arthur Tallis had a thirty-six-footer, a Bermudan yawl called Spindrift.’
‘Who went with him?’
‘His brother and Quennell, Sir.’ Eyke brought it out with a touch of defiance. ‘They’re both experienced yachtsmen who’d often sailed with Tallis before. His brother gave evidence of trips to Holland and the Baltic, let alone a jill down the coast to Harwich.’
‘So.’
‘They set out in the morning with a light offshore breeze. The weather was open when they sailed but then it turned to steady rain. They were sailing quietly on a close haul with the wind raking off in the rain, so the brother and Quennell went below and left Tallis doing his trick at the helm. Half an hour later they heard a sail flap and felt the boat come into the wind, and when they went out Tallis was missing and they could see no sign of him in the sea. They threw a lifebuoy over as a marker and retraced their course, then Quennell got on the radio and fetched out Shinglebourne lifeboat. The yacht and the lifeboat searched till dark but never found a trace of Tallis.’
‘Wouldn’t he be wearing a life-jacket?’
‘Apparently not, sir. He just had on a waterproof suit. But a life-jacket did come into it, because the lifeboat picked one up in the area. It came off a yacht that had gone missing a week earlier and had the name of the yacht stencilled on it. At the inquest the lifeboat coxswain put forward the theory that Tallis may have tried to recover this life-jacket, and somehow slipped in. He’d have known about the yacht, because it had been in the news all the week.’
‘He slipped overboard and simply sank?’
‘Well, it’s not unusual, sir,’ Eyke said hotly. ‘It’s what you hear in half these drowning cases, even when strong swimmers are involved. The shock seems to paralyse them.’
‘All the same, you would have expected him to shout.’
‘I don’t agree, sir. The usual pattern is just what came out at the inquest.’
And so it was, as Gently knew from an experience quite as long as Eyke’s. So often with drowning cases there was this mystery about how they could happen so obscurely.
‘A straightforward case.’
‘But leading to a shake-up at Tallis Press.’
‘Well ... yes, sir!’
Tired of his collar, Eyke had flipped it undone and loosened the tie.
‘Arthur Tallis was head of the firm, and when he went it fell on the brother. But Raymond Tallis wasn’t up to the job so he appointed Quennell to run it. And I can’t see anything unusual in that, sir, because Raymond Tallis was never a big man in the business.’
‘Would you know who the majority shareholder is?’
‘I reckon Raymond Tallis is, now.’
‘Now ...?’
Eyke hauled on his tie. ‘Raymond Tallis married his brother’s widow.’
‘He did, did he?’
And suddenly one could feel a change in the atmosphere of that room, an odd tenseness. Eyke was staring with a savage expression at his feet. Reymerston was sitting very still, the half-smile li
ngering on his face, looking neither at Eyke nor Gently. There was a silence that seemed to be holding its breath.
‘Sir, this is all codswallop!’ Eyke burst out at last. ‘No one’s going to tell me there’s a connection.’
‘When did he marry her?’
‘Early this year—’
‘Would that be about when Quennell took over the business?’
‘So if it was, sir?’
Gently shrugged. Perhaps there was nothing too special about that! Raymond Tallis might well have wanted to get rid of his business cares before he got married. To the wife of his brother.
‘Where was Raymond Tallis living?’
‘He was a widower, sir.’ Eyke threw a malignant look at Reymerston. ‘After his wife died he was living at Ferry Cottage. That’s in the grounds of his brother’s house.’
‘Sort of en famille.’
‘If you say so, sir. But I’ve never heard of any scandal. And she was a widow and he was a widower, so why shouldn’t they hitch up?’
‘Especially with such good business reasons.’
‘Yes, sir, especially, I would say! So then they had most of the shares, between them, and Quennell to run the firm.’
‘A tidy arrangement.’
‘Well, why not, sir?’
Gently shrugged again and looked at Reymerston. As sure as he sat there, he was convinced that the painter had another card up his sleeve.
‘Is this the whole story?’
‘Perhaps ... not quite.’
Reymerston leaned back, his eyes amused. No doubt it had tickled him to watch Eyke on the wrong end of an interrogation ...
‘Just a small point about the tragedy that wasn’t brought out at the inquest – probably of no significance, but we may as well add it to the pile.’
‘I was at the inquest!’ Eyke growled.
‘I had this from Ruth Quennell,’ Reymerston smiled. ‘Quennell let it out after the inquest. I doubt whether it would have affected the verdict.’
He paused, and Gently could see Eyke’s knuckles paling as he clenched his fists.
‘According to Quennell, when the alarm occurred he was shut up in the toilet. That was in the fore-cabin, and of course he couldn’t see what was going on. He shouted to Raymond Tallis that they had lost way, and presumably Raymond Tallis went on deck, but Quennell didn’t see it. Quennell wasn’t on deck till some time afterwards. In fact, Raymond Tallis could have been on deck at any time after Quennell went into the toilet.’