T HE HUYSMANN AFFAIR had turned stale by Tuesday. The fun and games were over with the arrest of Peter and although the failure to charge him with the murder was still good for a minor headline, feeling was that time would take care of that… as, indeed, it would. More current now was the pulled muscle of the City’s centre-forward. The situation was very keen at the top of the third division south.
Impatient Hansom, having slept on it, ventured a suggestion that the super should reverse his decision and charge Peter forthwith. It was Hansom’s first chance of getting an unaided homicide conviction… it might easily be his last. But the super, also having slept on it, was convinced that his decision had been wise. He had known Gently longer than had Hansom. He had also begun to be affected by a little of Gently’s doubt about the case. So he trailed a convenient smoke-screen before the powers that be and went about his superintendental duties with a thoughtful mien.
Mrs Peter Huysmann had seen her husband at police headquarters. In the presence of a curious constable there had been very little said on either side. Such hopes as had been raised in Mrs Huysmann by the delay in charging Peter were quickly shaken — Peter himself had very few. ‘But it must mean something…’ she said. He shook his head. ‘It means they’re waiting until they’ve got everything ready.’ ‘But did you see Chief Inspector Gently, Peter? He knows you didn’t do it… he told me so!’ ‘He doesn’t belong here. Cathy, it won’t make any difference.’
‘Fancy!’ said Mrs Turner to Susan, ‘going out with a policeman — and that one too, who’s old enough to be your grandfather! I knew you weren’t particular, my girl, but I didn’t know you’d come as low as that.’ Susan sniffed infuriatingly. ‘He’s a nice man,’ she said, ‘I like him… he’s got good taste.’ ‘He must have been after something or he wouldn’t have taken you out!’ ‘You’re completely wrong,’ said Susan, ‘he wasn’t after anything. He was just being sympathetic and nice and manny…’
Gretchen’s bedroom was small, almost an attic, with a narrow window looking across the river to the willow trees down Riverside. The floor was stained and naked; the walls, distempered grey, bore nothing but a carved wood crucifix and a narrow iron bed, a white-painted deal wash-stand and a cane-bottom chair comprised all the furniture. Gretchen knelt for long periods on the bare floor in front of the crucifix. Her lips murmured over and over: O my God, I am sorry for my sins… let me be forgiven and show me the way.
There came a tap at the bolted door. ‘Just a minute!’ Gretchen called, and rose, rubbing her painful knees. At the door was Susan. ‘It’s the Chief Inspector, miss — he wants to know if you can see him.’ Gretchen hesitated. ‘Which — which one is the Chief Inspector?’ ‘He’s the one from Scotland Yard, miss… the quiet one who’s always nice to you.’ ‘Very well… tell him that I shall be down directly.’
Susan went, and Gretchen moved across to the white-painted wash-stand, which had a small mirror. She patted her straight black hair with plump fingers, turned sideways and examined herself critically. Then she looked back into her dark eyes, large, heavy, betraying nothing except that they had something to betray.
Gently was waiting in the hall. He came forward, smiling sunnily, and took her plump, limp hand. ‘I hope I haven’t broken in on you too early,’ he said. Gretchen shook her neat head. ‘I am usually up at six o’clock… we have always been early risers.’
Gently said: ‘I’d like to have a little chat in the study, if you are agreeable.’
‘In the study?’ She looked at him in some dismay.
‘I want to glance through the papers in your father’s desk… of course, we can talk elsewhere if you prefer it. I only wanted to kill two birds with one stone.’
Gretchen took two quick little breaths. ‘It does not matter… one must grow used to these things.’ Gently led the way to the study.
The study had a forlorn, removed look, shaken out of its familiar self by the absence of the carpet, which the local police had taken away, and the slight redistribution of the furniture which this had occasioned. Gently dusted off a chair with his handkerchief and placed it for Gretchen. He himself sat down at the desk and began a leisurely examination of the contents of the drawers.
‘Your brother is bearing up well,’ he observed, aside. ‘I asked him if he had any message for you, and he said to tell you that you mustn’t worry, because somehow it would come out what really happened.’
Gretchen said: ‘I would like to see him, when I may.’
Gently nodded, peering into a file of advice notes. ‘There won’t be any difficulty made about that. You can come along with me, if you like. I suppose you didn’t know much about your father’s business affairs, my dear?’
‘Oh no… he did not think that a woman had any part in business.’
‘He was one of the old school… I’m just a child at business matters myself. I spent a couple of hours looking through the firm’s books on Sunday, but I might just as well have had a nap. Why doesn’t somebody think out a way of making book-keeping intelligible?’
Gretchen kept her dark eyes riveted upon him, on edge, trying to gather something of what would come. But Gently seemed to be in no hurry. He prodded and poked, drawer by drawer, sometimes musing over bits and pieces with raised eyebrows, as though he had forgotten Gretchen’s existence. Occasionally he made a remark of no particular significance and once or twice he asked questions about things. For the rest, Gretchen might just as well not have been there and towards the end of Gently’s investigating she began to get impatient.
At last he appeared to have finished. He replaced everything which had been removed except a green card and closed the drawers. The card he handed to Gretchen. ‘Have you seen this before?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘It is an advice card from his suppliers in Holland… this is perhaps the last one.’
‘Do you remember it being received?’
‘I think it came one day my father went to London on business. He picked up his mail as he went out.’
‘There is something scribbled across one of the margins. Would that be your father’s handwriting?’
‘Oh yes. He often made little notes like this.’
‘Have you ever heard that name before — “The Straight Grain Timber Merchants”?’
‘I know nothing of his business…’
‘The name is entirely unfamiliar to you?’
‘Yes… entirely unfamiliar.’
Gently received back the card and put it carefully away in his wallet. He took out a large new bag of peppermint creams. ‘Have one?’ he invited. Gretchen refused. Gently placed half a dozen of them on the desk in line-of-battle and stowed the bag back in his pocket again.
He said: ‘Miss Gretchen, I think it’s time you told me the truth about last Saturday.’
Gretchen started back in her chair. ‘Inspector… what is it you mean? I’ve told you everything!’
Gently shook his head sadly and removed the first of the peppermint creams. He said nothing.
‘But you took it down… everything I said! What more can there be?’
‘First,’ said Gently, swallowing, ‘you didn’t go to the pictures, Miss Gretchen.’
‘But I did… to the Carlton… it was Meet Me in Rio!’
‘Secondly,’ continued Gently, unheeding, ‘the chauffeur, Fisher, was in the habit of visiting you on Saturday afternoons, here, in this house.’
‘You cannot say that, oh no…!’
‘And thirdly,’ proceeded Gently, ‘Fisher did not spend the afternoon at his flat, as he would have us believe. He left it at about two o’clock and returned again at four twenty-two and a half p.m. exactly. In addition to this somebody — and I suggest it was either Fisher or yourself — was seen by your brother at the head of the main stairway when he entered.’
‘But this is… impossible!’
‘There are supplementary facts, Miss Gretchen. Fisher has been your lover since January. You are with child by Fisher. You have refused to see Fisher since the discovery of the crime. Fisher has been hinting that he may soon be boss here. He has also hinted that he has knowledge of the crime unknown to the police. When you have added all that together, Miss Gretchen, you will come to the irresistible conclusion that both you and he spent the Saturday afternoon in this house.’
Gretchen gave a low moan and buried her face in her two plump hands.
‘I can appreciate your feelings,’ said Gently kindly, ‘and believe me, I hate this side of the business almost as much as yourself. But there are some important things which must take the place of personal considerations or there could be no human society. Miss Gretchen, if your brother is to receive justice you must tell the truth. His life is very nearly in your hands.’
‘It isn’t true,’ moaned Gretchen, ‘I can’t help him… it isn’t true!’ and her shoulders heaved with sobbing.
Gently took the second peppermint cream. ‘If you won’t speak,’ he said, ‘you are leaving me with only one possible conclusion. I shall have to think that you are shielding your lover at the expense of your brother’s life and that you are doing it because you can only save his life by accusing your lover… is that what you want me to think?’
Gretchen sprang upright, staring at him. ‘No, no! That is not so — he didn’t do it!’
‘But what else can I think, if you will not tell me the truth?’
‘I tell you he did not do it!’
Gently shrugged and shook his head, made a pattern with the four remaining peppermint creams. Into the comparative quiet of the room broke the distant shriek of a circular saw biting at oak. The sound was mirrored by a quiver that ran through Gretchen’s body. ‘Look!’ she said, ‘I tell you — I tell you the truth about myself!’
Gently’s eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘I would like the truth about everything you can tell me, Miss Gretchen.’
‘It is about everything… it is the truth…’ She stared at him with wide open eyes, as though she would compel him to believe her by the naked will. ‘You are right, I did not go to the pictures… at least, I did not go in. I just go there to find out about it so I can pretend, that is all.’
‘At what time was this, Miss Gretchen?’
‘I don’t know… about half-past four.’
‘It would be about the time that Fisher returned to his flat… or a little longer, to enable you to reach the Carlton?’
‘He — was — not — there!’ She beat on her knees with her clenched hands. ‘I do not know where he is — if he go out, he go out, but it is not to me. I am the one who was there, in the house… it is me that Peter sees…’
‘Just a moment,’ Gently interrupted, ‘let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? What did you do after lunch?’
‘I told you, I have a wash, then I fetch my coffee from the kitchen and take it to my room.’
‘Was Susan in the kitchen when you fetched your coffee?’
‘But of course.’
‘Did you have any conversation with Susan at that time?’
‘No doubt… we said something.’
‘Did she ask you, for instance, whether you were expecting a visit from Fisher that afternoon?’
‘It may be that she did.’
‘And what did you reply?’
‘Oh… nothing special. I just shrug my shoulders and let her think what she like.’
‘You gave her the impression that he was coming?’
‘I do not know.’
‘It was the afternoon on which he customarily visited you, Miss Gretchen. If you gave Susan the impression that he was not coming, then surely she would have commented on it and perhaps enquired why that was so. Did she do this?’
‘No… I think perhaps she thought he was coming.’
‘Why was it, in fact, that he did not come?’
Gretchen twisted her hands together. ‘How should I know…?’
‘Then you were expecting him?’
‘No! I knew he would not come… I think he told me that the last time, but I forget why.’
‘Had there been a quarrel?’
‘Perhaps it was that.’
‘Had it come to your knowledge that Fisher associated with other women besides yourself?’
The clenched hands pulled apart. ‘I do not know that!’
‘Then why did you quarrel?’
‘Perhaps it was not a quarrel. Maybe I told him it was too dangerous for him to keep coming like that.’
‘And he agreed straight away not to come any more?’
‘Well… he agreed.’
‘Had you some reason why it should be more dangerous than it had been in the past?’
‘I don’t know… it was never safe that he should come.’
‘And he was quite agreeable to give it up immediately on your suggestion?’
‘… yes!’
Gently picked up the third peppermint cream and ate it solemnly. ‘Miss Gretchen,’ he said, ‘would you consider it as being an unusual coincidence that this should happen immediately before your father was murdered?’
Gretchen bit her lip, but said nothing. Gently swallowed the peppermint cream and arranged the remaining three in a triangle. ‘Ah well…’ he sighed, ‘you took your coffee to your room. What did you do then?’
‘I… prayed.’
‘And how long were you occupied with prayer?’
‘That I do not know. Sometimes one is taken away and the prayer is very long. It may have been an hour, or less.’
‘You would not be aware of anything that was taking place in the house while you were praying?’
‘Oh no! I am not in the house, then. It is like a far country where everything is… changed.’
‘And you do not know precisely when your praying ended?’
‘I think it was when Peter came. I heard him and got up.’
‘But you have just said that you would not have been aware of anything which was taking place in the house while you were praying, Miss Gretchen.’
The hands twisted again, finger over finger. ‘Perhaps I got up before that… just before.’
‘And then you came out on the landing to see if it was Peter?’
‘I thought it would be him… I did not know.’
‘He says that you withdrew immediately he looked towards you. Why was that?’
‘Oh… my father would have been angry… he might have come out to see who it was.’
‘But surely there was no need to have hidden away from him — you might have smiled to him or greeted him with a few words from the landing and still have been in a position to withdraw if your father should have appeared?’
‘I don’t know… I thought it was best not to see him.’
‘Tell me what happened after that.’
‘I stayed up there on the landing to hear how my father would receive Peter. At first I heard nothing, but later on they raised their voices and I knew it was not going well for him. I heard Peter call my father some names and my father say things which I could not make out. So I crept down the stairs and along the passage in order to hear them better.’
‘Between the time when Peter went in and the time when you went down, did you see anybody in the hall?’
‘There was nobody there.’
‘You’re quite sure of that?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Then you did not see Susan pass through from the dining-room to the kitchen?’
‘Susan? Of course! I thought you meant somebody else…’
‘Continue with your account, please.’
‘I could not hear anything when I went down the stairs… they had stopped talking. I stood close to the door, but they had finished, so I thought that Peter must have gone. I was just going to go back again, then…’
Gretchen broke off, shaking her head stupidly.
‘Then?’ prompted Gently.
‘… then I heard my father… scream.’
‘What sort of scream?’
‘Oh, dreadful… terrible!.. as one screams at a terrible injury…’
‘What did you do?’
Her head continued to shake, senselessly, like the head of a mechanical doll. ‘I stood still… I daren’t move… I could not move at all. I don’t know how long it was that I was like that.’
‘But afterwards?’
‘Afterwards… I got the door open and he lay there with the knife in his back… by the safe, where you found him.’
Gently said: ‘Nobody had passed you in the passage and there was nobody else in the study… is that so?’
‘Yes… nobody.’
‘And you heard no movements that suggested the presence of some other person?’
‘I heard movements in the study directly after the scream, but nothing else.’
‘What sort of movements?’
‘First, a thud… then the safe door, which squeaks… after that it was somebody moving across the room.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘No.’
‘Not after you had entered the study?’
‘I heard nothing then… I was not listening.’
‘What did you do?’
Gretchen spread her hands over her knees and took a deep breath. ‘I went and got the knife,’ she said.
‘What was your object?’
‘It was a throwing knife, and Peter could throw knives… also, it would have his fingerprints on it.’
‘Did you notice if the side door was open?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘And the garden gate?’
‘I did not notice that.’
‘What did you do when you had got the knife?’
‘I wiped the handle of it with the hem of my skirt and hid it in the chest… then I went up to my room again. All the time it was quiet, there was no sign of Susan. I say to myself: “She does not know if I am here or if I am not, and I could easily have slipped out earlier on… if she sees me come in, she will believe it when I say I went out after lunch.” So I put on my coat and creep out through the study. Then of course I went up to the Carlton to find out everything that was on… I came back a little while after Mrs Turner.’
Gently removed another peppermint cream from his shrinking battalion. ‘Doesn’t it occur to you, Miss Gretchen,’ he said, ‘that it would have been considerably wiser to have left the knife where it was, and to have phoned the police immediately?’
Gretchen stared at him with wide-open eyes. ‘But my brother… I had to do something to help him!’
‘And what in effect did you do?’ asked Gently. ‘Your brother was bound to be the principal suspect, with or without the knife. Furthermore, the prints on the knife may not have been his. Didn’t that occur to you, Miss Gretchen?’
‘I don’t know… I didn’t think…’
‘In which case you will have destroyed the one piece of evidence which would have cleared your brother on the spot. But apart from that, why did you take the trouble of establishing an alibi for yourself? It hardly seems worth the trouble. Once you had satisfied yourself about the knife there was no reason why you should not have contacted the police… at least, nothing that appears in the account you have given.’
‘My brother… it give him time to get away.’
‘What connection is there between that and your alibi? Why did you want an alibi, Miss Gretchen? It was a difficult thing to establish and it was bound to bring suspicion on you… quite unnecessarily, by your account.’
Gretchen twisted herself in her chair. ‘I just think it best if you think I have nothing to do with it…’
Gently shook his head. ‘It doesn’t seem worthwhile to me. People in murder cases who can prove their innocence are usually very keen to tell the truth.’
‘But it was as I say!’
‘It was not to shield someone other than your brother?’
‘No!’
‘It was not because Fisher was with you?’
‘I tell you he is not!’
‘Not because he might be suspected of having been here, unless you could prove you were somewhere else?’
Gretchen covered her face with her hands again and sobbed.
‘And not,’ continued Gently remorselessly, ‘because you knew him to be the murderer?’
‘No, no! It is not so! Oh why are you asking these things… why… why…?’
Gently sighed and reached for the penultimate peppermint cream. The saws in the yard screamed savagely, two, three, four of them. In his mind’s eye Gently saw the blades tearing into the ponderous trunks, cruel and merciless, ripping them into the geometrical shapes of man.
‘Do you intend to marry Fisher?’ he asked.
Gretchen sobbed on.
‘I understand that you have been refusing to see him.’
She looked at him for a moment, tear-wet. ‘I shall not see him any more.’
Gently shrugged. ‘I don’t blame you,’ he said, ‘he’s not the sort of man to make a good husband…’
Gretchen sobbed.
‘Still, I’m surprised to find him thrown over so quickly.’
‘It is to do with me!’ she burst out. ‘Why have I to tell you about this? Leave me alone!’
‘I was wondering if it had to do with me.’
‘I tell you nothing more… nothing more at all!’
Gently rose, went over to the small window and stood for a moment looking out at the neat little garden with its high walls and quaint summer-house. ‘You haven’t told me the truth, Miss Gretchen,’ he said.
There was no answer but her sobbing.
‘I’m going now, but I shall be coming back. In the meantime I would like you to think over your situation very, very seriously.’ He moved back into the room. ‘Your brother’s life is in danger and it may be only by your telling us everything you know that his innocence can be established. I want you to think about that during the next few hours.’
She looked up suddenly. ‘I’d like to…’ she began, her hands gripping each other convulsively.
‘Yes…?’
‘Please, I’d like to…’ She broke off as a brisk tap sounded at the door. Gently’s lips compressed and he strode across and opened it. Leaming stood in the doorway.
‘Hullo, Inspector!’ he said, ‘I didn’t realize you were here… I’ve come to fetch a check-list.’ He glanced at Gretchen in surprise. ‘Why, Miss Huysmann… you’ve been crying!’ he said.
Alan Hunter
Gently Does It