G ENTLY, HAVING SEEN enough, went out and sat in the Humber while the police medico made his examination. After him came the photographer, whose flash-bulbs could be seen popping through the unmasked window. Hansom and the super came out in conference with the medico. ‘… Naturally, it’s always possible,’ said the medico, ‘any self-inflicted wound may have been the result of an attack… we can only offer proof the other way round, viz., that a certain wound could not have been self-inflicted. But there is no suggestion of that here. I am perfectly satisfied that this is a bona fide case of suicide.’
‘I wasn’t querying the present case,’ grunted the super. ‘I could see that for myself with half an eye.’
Hansom said: ‘And Gently recognizes the razor… it’s the one he cut out the models with.’
They came up to the car and Gently got out. ‘You might well say that Fisher was getting worried,’ said the super to him, a trifle grimly.
‘He didn’t seem so terribly worried when I last saw him… just a bit on edge.’
The super shook his head. ‘You must put the fear of the Lord into people without realizing it. Well… I suppose it’s saved a deal of trouble and expense, though personally I should have got a lot of satisfaction out of putting him in dock. We can let young Huysmann go now.’
Hansom said: ‘I still can’t quite get this straight… I feel like a kid who’s got his sums wrong. But I hand it to you, Gently. You were right and I was wrong… I reckon they don’t put you in the Central Office at the Yard for nothing.’
‘You weren’t the only one who was wrong,’ growled the super. ‘It just goes to show… you need specialists when it comes to homicide.’ He glanced at Gently, half-admiring, half-jealous. ‘I suppose it gets to be an instinct when someone’s been on the job as long as you have.’
Gently shrugged. ‘I started with an advantage… I saw young Huysmann riding on the Wall. One doesn’t do that sort of thing straight after murdering one’s father.’
‘All the same… it was a top-grade job.’
Gently smiled wanly at them. ‘I’m glad you’re pleased with me, just this once,’ he said, ‘because you’re not going to be pleased with me for very long.’
‘What? How do you mean, Gently?’ The super glanced at him quickly.
‘I mean that unlike yourselves, I do not regard the death of Fisher as being suicide.’
‘What!’
‘On the contrary, I am as positive as my specialization and acquired instinct can make me that it’s murder.’
There was a pause, fraught and ominous. Three pairs of eyes stared at Gently as though he had suddenly touched their owners with three red-hot pokers.
‘You’re off your chump!’ bawled Hansom, finding his voice. ‘You — you’ve got murder on the brain!’
‘It’s utterly preposterous!’ snapped the police doctor.
‘Really, Gently, I completely fail to understand-!’
Gently bowed and let the storm pass over his head. ‘I don’t expect you to agree with me until you’ve heard my reasons… but that is my conviction.’
‘But there is nothing — nothing whatever to suggest an attack!’
‘It’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!’
Gently turned to the furious little police doctor. ‘Were you able to form an opinion as to the direction in which the cut was made?’ he enquired mildly.
‘Direction? What in the world has that got to do with it?’
‘I’d like to have your opinion.’
‘As far as I can say it was made upwards, from the base of the throat to the ear. But-!’
‘If the cut were self-inflicted, isn’t it more likely to have been made in the other direction… from the ear downwards?’
The little man fumed at him. ‘It could be made in either direction — it is only slightly more likely to have been made downwards.’
‘And wouldn’t you say it was still more likely to have been made on the left side of the throat… bearing in mind that the razor was ostensibly held in his right hand?’
‘I think this is all highly irrelevant, Gently!’ broke in the super. ‘It’s ridiculous to suppose that you can deduce murder from such trivial considerations.’
‘I’m not deducing murder from them… I’m simply demonstrating that the cut was made in the least likely of three ways.’
‘But there is no guarantee that a suicide will choose the likeliest way! If you had seen as many suicides as I have…!’ The medico, his professional skill called to question, fairly chattered with rage. ‘And how likely would it be for an attacker to make the cut upwards? You tell me that! How do you attack a man and cut his throat in that direction?’
Gently extended a disclaiming palm. ‘Suppose you had to cut Fisher’s throat… how would you do it?’
‘It is not a question of how I would do it!’
‘But suppose you did?’
The little man glared at him. ‘I should do it — like this!’ And he made a downward slash that whistled past Gently’s neck.
Gently shook his head gravely. ‘You’d be a very brave man to do that,’ he said, ‘much braver than I should be… also, you’d have to be lucky. Now if I wanted to cut Fisher’s throat… neatly, and without noise and personal danger… I should wait till he was bending over something… something like a bag containing forty thousand pounds, and then I’d do it — like this!’ And he spun the little doctor round, pushed him into a bending position, and drew his right hand smartly across his struggling victim’s throat.
‘I should also be in a good position to avoid the subsequent rush of blood,’ he added, thoughtfully.
‘All right, Gently, you’ve shown us that it could be done!’ snapped the super, ‘and where precisely do we go from there?’
‘That’s right,’ echoed Hansom, ‘who’s it going to be this time — the housekeeper?’
Gently said: ‘The person who killed Fisher was the same person whom Fisher saw killing Huysmann. He killed Fisher for three reasons. First, Fisher was blackmailing him. Second, there was a risk that the money he paid Fisher would be traced back to Fisher, and thus to himself. Third, he knew that I had discovered his motive for killing Huysmann, and that he would have to make some sort of move to draw the police off. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize he would make it quite so soon.’
‘And who is this mythical person, Gently?’
‘He is Leaming, Huysmann’s manager.’
Hansom set up a howl. ‘What — Leaming kill the old man? You’re bats — completely bats! Why, Leaming had the one alibi that stood the steam-test — he’s fire-proof!’
‘It was a good alibi,’ Gently admitted reluctantly, ‘but that’s all it was — an alibi. He probably parked his car at the ground, where no doubt it was known to the attendants. There was then nothing to prevent him from making his way through the crowd back to the yard. I am not certain of his exact movements, but I imagine that he watched the quarrel from the summer-house and emerged from it soon after Peter Huysmann left. With regard to the alibi, I questioned him about the football match on the Saturday evening before he had time to gen up on it. He had three things to tell me about it and they formed the three headlines in the pink’un, in exactly the same sequence. On the following day he had the match at his fingertips — he even knew the precise minutes when the scores were made, a detail which a man on the terrace is never aware of.
‘Also on Saturday evening — and later during the questioning — he introduced obliquely every point which would tell against Peter. Under cover of a pretended solicitude he suggested things which were absolutely damning — such things as Huysmann’s resolution to cut Peter out of his will, which he represented as being of recent origin. In addition to this…’
‘Hold hard!’ broke in the super, ‘you’re making my head spin, Gently. There doesn’t seem to be any end to you. When you made your report in the office an hour ago it was Fisher, Fisher, Fisher. So we go out, and find it was Fisher. And immediately you turn the record over and begin on Leaming. If this isn’t a sudden spasm of madness, would you mind telling me why you didn’t mention Leaming in the office, but only now when the case has cancelled itself out?’
Gently sighed deeply, and felt around for the support of a peppermint cream. ‘I was going to tell you about Leaming,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t get a chance. You’re all so impulsive round here. I’d just got through telling you what I knew about Fisher when Hansom came in with the note and you straightway jumped to the conclusion that Fisher was the man. I didn’t say he was… in fact, I was pretty certain that he wasn’t, and what we’ve found up there convinces me to the hilt. Fisher was an extrovert if ever there was one — he would no more have cut his throat than spoken English. But you got so sold on the idea, and I wanted Fisher picked up for questioning… so I let the rest of it ride till we’d laid hands on him.’
‘Then you’re not just hanging out this case for the fun of it?’
Gently looked shocked. ‘Really, superintendent!’
‘All right, all right! Now — you say Leaming killed Huysmann. Why?’
‘Because Huysmann had discovered how Leaming bought his cars and his houses and his hand-made cigarettes.’
‘And how did he do that?’
‘He was flogging timber on the side, about one-fifth of the entire intake… twelve thousand pounds’ worth a year. That was the leak which Peter said his father suspected, and it had been going on quite a few years. Mind you, Leaming didn’t scoop the entire twelve thousand. The tug-skipper and his mate were in it, though I don’t think they knew much, and there was a mysterious firm called “The Straight Grain Timber Merchants” who took the stuff away. I imagine they’re dissolved as from today, but we might get a line on them… the tug-men may talk, with a little persuasion. There’s another angle in the books. I went through the Huysmann books on Sunday, so I knew the “Straight Grain” outfit was not in the regular line of business with them. Leaming has got a very thin excuse that they kept separate books for the “Straight Grain” transactions and he’s prepared to produce them: I think an expert comparison between the two sets of books will give us an opening.’
The super said: ‘Granted that you’re right about Leaming’s fiddling, how do you know that Huysmann had found out about it?’
Gently drew out his wallet and produced the green postcard. ‘I found this in Huysmann’s desk. According to Miss Gretchen it is the most recently received card — it is postmarked on the twentieth — and Huysmann took it with the rest of his mail on his last trip to London. Ostensibly it was during this trip that he got scent of the “Straight Grain” set-up, and though he may not have tumbled to the significance of it straight away, his suspicions were aroused and he made this note of the name. That gives us a further angle. If we trace Huysmann’s movements on that trip we may find the source of his information… though the trail has got a little sketchy now Fisher’s dead.
‘When he got back off his trip I imagine Huysmann began to make some guarded enquiries about “Straight Grain”. He apparently found out enough, and it’s my conjecture that his visit to Leaming’s office last thing on Saturday morning was to summon Leaming to produce an immediate explanation. It isn’t difficult to imagine Leaming’s reaction to that. He might be able to satisfy other people with his twin set of books, but there was no prospect of satisfying Huysmann. He faced a long term of imprisonment, plus utter ruination — you will remember in conjunction with this that the last firm he managed went bankrupt, though he got clear from that one — and Leaming was not the sort of man to let that happen if there was a loop-hole. And there was a loop-hole. He could silence Huysmann.
‘Consider for a moment how favourable the circumstances were for such a step. First, it was well known that Leaming spent his Saturday afternoons at the football. Second, it was known that he proposed to spend that Saturday afternoon at the football — he would have warned his housekeeper that he wanted lunch promptly, and his gardener was expecting to get a lift down with him. Third, nobody knew that Huysmann had summoned him to his study. Fourth, the study was isolated from the rest of the house, and fifth, it could be entered quite secretly by way of the yard.
‘Everything, then, favoured the attempt. I don’t know whether the theft of the money was premeditated, because he didn’t know that the safe was going to be open. It may have been an afterthought when he saw Peter given one of the notes, or to suggest an outside job if Peter got off, or simply from greed. With regard to weapons, you will notice that in both murders he used the weapon on the spot, that they were the same class of weapon, and that they were used from the same position — behind. The knives in the study he had always known about. You will remember how well they were placed for an attacker entering from the garden — especially a tall attacker. The razor he had undoubtedly seen on his previous visit to the flat… I am conjecturing that he went to the flat previously for his first deal with Fisher.
‘Huysmann, then, was disposed of, with the unlooked-for piece of luck of Peter being on the spot to collect the blame. Leaming’s alibi was fire-proof, he made a good impression on the police, and a little annoyance of myself asking to see the books could be attributed to a policeman’s officiousness. Everything was going swimmingly… until Monday morning. On Monday morning Fisher visited Leaming’s office — I saw him — and Leaming made the spine-chilling discovery that the murder had been witnessed. And it had not been witnessed by his best friend.
‘The bone of contention between Leaming and Fisher was the maid, Susan. Fisher had always had a fancy for her, but he was never in the running — it took money to get Susan — and he bore Leaming a deep grudge about her. Naturally, with Leaming completely in his power, his first demand was for Susan… with a small cut in the forty thou, to be going on with. And he got her. That same evening Leaming picked her up and brought her into town, told her abruptly that everything was over and left her flat. The deal then was for Fisher to take up the running, but he was a little late on cue. Susan, reacting to a crisis like most women, went in search of a cup of tea, and while she was getting it she bumped into me. She told me the story without much prompting — also, she told me about Fisher’s affair with Gretchen and about Gretchen’s pregnancy. I kept her by me the rest of the evening… when we left the cafe Fisher was there, watching. Later in the evening I met him at Charlie’s, in Queen Street, and he tried to find out what Susan had told me.
‘Fisher was beginning to get worried by then. I had been up to his flat in the morning and he had seen me interrogating a little boy who makes a playground of the ruins up there, and probably guessed — which was a fact — that I had obtained an account of his movements on Saturday afternoon which did not tally with the one he’d put on record. Also, I hinted to him that I knew of his affair with Gretchen. This upset him so much that he made his clumsy attempt at inspectorcide… I was beginning to know far too much.’
‘Then it was Fisher who tried to drop the masonry on you?’ broke in the super. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday?’
Gently’s shoulders rose a fraction. ‘There wasn’t any proof… it just happened that the masonry was dropped on me immediately after I had interviewed him, from a vantage point familiar to him and which he could have attained in the interval.
‘With Fisher worried but nowhere near cracking, I decided that Gretchen was my best move, so this morning I interviewed her and got part of her story. I might have got the rest of it then and there, but oddly enough, just as she was working up to it, we were interrupted by Leaming, who hung around with a blanket of small talk until Gretchen cooled off and wouldn’t come across. You can imagine that if Fisher was worried, Leaming had got the feeling that he was living on the edge of a volcano, and one that was beginning to rumble ominously. Quite apart from the notes turning up, Fisher was behaving in a way that drew attention to himself — boasting of the changes that were going to take place, and the things he could tell the police if he wanted to — and there was no telling when he would start throwing the money about, thus raising immediate suspicion. In addition to this something had gone wrong about Peter — he hadn’t been charged. And there was myself, working on Gretchen, and Gretchen just about to spill the beans.
‘All in all, things seemed to be going to pieces in an alarming manner and he invited me to lunch to get from me, if he could, the precise state of affairs. He certainly got value for money. I showed him the card, which I had just found, and showed a good deal of scepticism for his explanation of the “Straight Grain” business… especially when he admitted himself unable to produce their address. He knew then that I’d seen past Fisher, that I understood his motive. It only remained for me to crack Fisher — and I could do that fairly easily by getting Gretchen to talk — actually, it became easier still, because Fisher made a partial statement which was instrumental in making Gretchen talk.
‘Thus it was merely a question of time and routine before Leaming stood revealed… and not very much of either. Somehow he had to break the chain that was forging round him and break it in such a way that it would never come together again. And there was only one way to do that — to get rid of Fisher. With Fisher gone, all direct evidence was swept away… and if it could be made to look like suicide, with the money carefully planted, then the trail would come to a dead end. Suspicion of embezzlement might remain, but that would be all.
‘I don’t know whether he had an arrangement to deliver the rest of the money to Fisher this afternoon, but that is what happened, and the murder took place as I described it… I am certain of that because there is some blood on the notes, which there would not have been unless they were closer to Fisher when his throat was cut than when we found them. The evidence to look for in that connection will be the bag in which the notes were brought, which is bound to have extensive blood-stains. We can print the notes, of course, but my feeling is that Leaming is too careful a man not to have used gloves.’
Gently broke off, glancing at the three silent men in the lengthening twilight. ‘Well… that’s my case,’ he said, ‘it hasn’t become any easier with the loss of Fisher, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s become absolutely positive.’
The super took a long breath and bored into Gently with his sharp, authoritative eyes. ‘So that’s your case, is it?’ he enquired icily.
Gently nodded without expression. There was a moment or two’s silence, emphasized by the distant rumble of traffic, below them in Queen Street and above them in Burgh Street.
Hansom said: ‘It stinks, if you ask me.’
‘It’s childish!’ snapped the little doctor. ‘I stake my reputation on suicide.’
‘You could put that alibi through a rolling mill.’
The super frowned, still boring at Gently. ‘You realize that I have a very high opinion of you… especially after what you’ve achieved so far,’ he said, ‘and I admit that I am to a certain extent impressed with what you have been telling us. I believe that you believe it, and I believe that you’ve got something about Leaming and the “Straight Grain” business. But really, Gently, have you got anything else? I mean, look at it from my point of view. Three parts of this case of yours is conjecture and for the rest you offer no vital proof. It’s ingenious and not improbable, but what else can you say for it?’
Gently said, woodenly: ‘We can get the proofs… if we work at it.’
‘But proofs of what? If we follow up the lines you indicate we may be able to show that Leaming was a large-scale embezzler and we may be able to show that Huysmann found out about it, but how does that make Leaming the murderer? You say yourself that with Fisher gone, the trail has come to a dead end. If there is anything in what you suspect, Fisher’s evidence was the lynch-pin, and we’ve lost it. What else is there that a counsel wouldn’t shoot to fragments? You say that Fisher was blackmailing Leaming. Where’s the proof? You say that Fisher got the maid off him — but isn’t it just as likely that Leaming broke with her because he had ideas about Gretchen? You say that Leaming’s information about the football match was derived from the pink’un… well, how are you going to make that stand up?’
‘I haven’t done with that one yet…’
‘You’ve got thirty thousand interrogations ahead of you!’ jeered Hansom.
The super cocked his head on one side. ‘It’s no good, Gently, you haven’t got a case, not even the makings of one. If it’s as you say, it can never be proved. And in the meanwhile, there’s nothing in Fisher’s behaviour in conflict with the view that he was the murderer and the thief.’
‘Except that he wasn’t the suicide type.’
‘There isn’t any suicide type!’ broke in the little doctor. ‘Anybody will commit suicide under certain conditions.’
‘Fisher would have stood trial… he was too stupid to want to have avoided it.’
‘That’s quite ridiculous!’
The super said: ‘Even there you’ve only shown that murder was possible, and it’s possible in the majority of suicide cases. You cannot show that murder was likely.’
Gently brooded, felt for another peppermint cream. ‘You’ve searched the flat?’ he asked absently.
‘Of course we’ve searched the flat.’
‘You’ve been through his pockets?’
‘Naturally.’
‘And you found the key?’
The super stared at Gently uncomprehendingly. ‘What key?’
‘The door-key of the flat… it wasn’t in the door.’
‘What are you getting at, Gently?’
Gently ate the peppermint cream slowly and irritatingly. ‘The door was locked,’ he mumbled, ‘if Fisher locked it, you should be able to find the key.’
Hansom said: ‘He’d got a key-ring in his pocket.’
‘One doesn’t keep door-keys on key-rings.’
‘Blast you, Gently!’ exploded the super. He turned on Hansom viciously. ‘What sort of a bloody policeman are you? Go in there and find that key — and don’t come out till you’ve got it!’ He turned back to Gently. ‘All right — so if it isn’t there you’ve made a point — but you haven’t proved your case or anything like it. Meantime I’m giving the Coroner’s Court the OK and this case is going in on its merits. I’m satisfied with what I’ve got. If you want more, you’d better go after it — only you won’t be getting any help from me. Is that clear?’
Gently felt sadly in his pocket and brought out an empty bag. ‘Quite clear,’ he said, screwing it into a ball, ‘quite clear.’
Alan Hunter
Gently Does It