M RS TURNER, THE housekeeper, was a clean, neat, bustling person of fifty-five, dressed for the day in a black tailored suit smelling of stale lavender. She had a large bland face with small mean eyes, and her nose was the merest shade red.
She said: ‘I’m sure there’s nothing more I can tell you what I didn’t say yesterday,’ and sat down with an air of disapproval and injury.
Hansom said: ‘You are Mrs Charles Turner, widow, housekeeper to the deceased. You had the day off yesterday till 5 p. m… where did you spend the day?’
‘I told you all that yesterday.’
‘Please be good enough to answer the question. Where did you spend the day?’
‘I went to see me sister at Earlton…’
‘You were at your sister’s the whole of that time?’ Gently said.
The housekeeper shot him a mean look. ‘Well, most of it, like…’
‘You mean that part of the time you were somewhere else.’
She pursed her lips and jiffled a little. ‘I spent the day with me sister,’ she repeated defensively, adding, ‘you can ask her, if you don’t believe me.’
‘Right. We’ll check on that,’ said Hansom. ‘What time did you arrive back here?’
‘I got in about five to five.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I went into the kitchen to see if the maid had got things ready for tea.’
‘You found the maid in the kitchen?’
‘She was sitting down reading one of them fourpenny novels.’
‘Did she mention anything unusual that had occurred during the afternoon?’
‘She said as how Mr Peter had called and seen his father, and they’d had a dust-up over something, but it didn’t last long.’
Gently said: ‘She could not have heard them quarrelling from the kitchen. Did she say where she was at the time?’
The housekeeper frowned. She didn’t like Gently’s questions. He seemed determined to complicate the most clear-cut issues. ‘I didn’t ask her,’ she replied tartly.
Hansom continued: ‘When did you go to the study?’
‘I went there straight away, to ask Mr Huysmann what time he wanted tea.’
‘Was that usual?’ chipped in Gently.
‘Yes, it was usual! He didn’t have no set times for his meals. You had to go and ask him.’
‘That would be a few minutes after 5 p.m.?’ proceeded Hansom.
‘About five-past, I should think.’
‘And you knocked on the door and entered?’
‘That was how he told us to go in.’
‘Tell us what you saw when you entered.’
‘Well, I just see Mr Huysmann lying there sort of twisted like, as though he might have had a fit.’
‘Was he lying in the same position as he was when the police arrived?’
‘I might have moved him a little bit, but not much. I thought as how he was took ill. I tried to get him up, but when I saw all the blood under him I knew that something horrible had happened, so I put him back again.’
‘And then?’
‘Then I went for Susan and told her to get the police.’
‘Did Susan go into the study?’
‘No, I told her not to. That was bad enough for me, who’ve seen dead people. I nearly went out when I got back to the kitchen.’
‘A telephone message was received at headquarters at 5.17 p.m. That was ten minutes after you would have returned to the kitchen.’
‘Well, there I was in a bad way, I had Susan fetch me some brandy. And then Miss Gretchen, she came back and had to be told.’
‘What time did Miss Huysmann return?’
‘About a quarter past five, I suppose it was.’
‘At which door did she enter?’
‘She came in the front, of course. Susan was just going through to phone and she see Miss Gretchen in the hall and tell her.’
‘How did Miss Huysmann take the news?’
‘Well, she’s always a very quiet sort of girl, but she was mortal pale when she came into the kitchen. I gave her a sip of brandy to pull her together.’
‘Was Susan at all surprised when Miss Huysmann came in?’
‘She said: “Oh — I thought you was still in your room, miss.”’
Hansom paused, leaned back in his chair and appeared to be studying the rash his cigar-ash had made on his blotter. The constable beside him scribbled industriously. Outside the rain made a soft quiet noise, like the sound of time itself. The housekeeper sat upright and rocked very gently backwards and forwards.
Hansom said: ‘You have been a long time in this family, Mrs Turner. Certain private matters concerning it must have come to your notice. Can you think of anything which may have a bearing on the present tragedy?’
The housekeeper’s face changed to defensive righteousness. ‘There’s Mr Peter,’ she said, ‘he’s no secret.’
‘Is there anybody else connected with Mr Huysmann who, to your knowledge, may have had a grudge against him?’
‘I daresay there’s several people as weren’t over-fond of him. He was a long way from being open-handed. But I can’t think of anybody who’d want to do a thing like this.’
‘Did you know that Mr Huysmann proposed to make a fresh will disinheriting his son?’
‘Oh yes. He’d been talking about that ever since Mr Peter got married.’
Gently said: ‘How long ago was that?’
The housekeeper thought for a moment. ‘It’ll be just on two years,’ she replied.
‘Did Peter know about it two years ago?’
‘Mr Huysmann told him before he got married.’
Gently nodded his slow, complacent nod. Hansom glared across at him. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to ask before we let Mrs Turner go?’ he asked bitingly.
Gently placed his fingers neatly together. ‘Was the safe door open or closed when you discovered the body?’ he said.
‘It was open.’
‘And how about the outer door?’
‘I think it was closed.’
‘Ah,’ said Gently. He leaned forward in his chair. ‘At the time the murder was discovered, are you positive that Susan and yourself were the only persons in the house?’ he asked.
The housekeeper’s face registered surprise followed by indignation. ‘If there had been anyone else I should have said so,’ she retorted magnificently.
‘Is there anybody not so far mentioned whom you would not have been surprised to find in the house at that time in the afternoon?’
She paused. ‘Well, there’s the chauffeur, but he was off duty. And there might have been someone from the yard about business.’
Gently nodded again and rested his chin on his thumbs. ‘This room we’re in,’ he said, ‘was it last cleaned before lunch yesterday?’
‘You’d best ask Susan about that. It should have been done.’
‘To your knowledge, did anybody enter it after the discovery of the murder?’
‘There was nothing to come in here about.’
Gently leant far back into his chair, elevated his paired fingers and looked through them at the ceiling. ‘During the time when you were not at your sister’s yesterday,’ he said, ‘would you have been… somewhere else… for the purpose of taking alcoholic refreshment?’
The housekeeper’s face turned scarlet. She jumped to her feet, her eyes flashing, and seemed on the point of a scathing denial. Then, with an effort, she checked herself and flung out of the room like an outraged duchess.
Gently smiled through the cage of his fingers. ‘Pass me,’ he said dreamily, ‘there’s one alibi less on my list.’
Gently was eating a peppermint cream when Susan came in. He had offered one to Hansom as a sort of olive branch, but Hansom had refused it, and after counting those that remained in the bag Gently was not sorry. He had a feeling that Norchester would not be very productive of peppermint creams on a Sunday, especially a wet Sunday, and the prospect of running short was a bleak one. Life was hard enough without a shortage of peppermint creams.
Susan was a pretty, pert blonde girl with a tilted bra and an accentuated behind. She wore a smile as a natural part of her equipment. She had a snub nose and dimples and a pleased expression, and had a general supercharged look, as though she was liable to burst out of her black dress and stockings into a fierce nudity.
The constable with the shorthand notebook sighed as she took her seat. He was a young man. Hansom ran through the preliminaries of identification and association.
‘What time did the family finish lunch, Miss Stibbons?’ he asked.
Susan leant her bewitching head on one side. ‘It would be about two o’clock, Inspector. It was quarter past when I went to clear away.’
‘Did Mr Huysmann go to his study directly after lunch?’
‘I wouldn’t know, Inspector. But he was there when I took him his coffee.’
‘When was that?’
‘It would be about half-past two, I should think.’
‘What was he doing then?’
‘He was standing by the window, looking at the garden.’
‘Did he make any remark out of the ordinary?’
The bewitching head dipped over an errant blush. ‘We-ell, Inspector…’
‘Did he lead you to suppose he was expecting a visitor?’
‘No… he didn’t give me that impression.’
Hansom looked her over thoughtfully. He was only forty himself. ‘What did Miss Huysmann do after lunch?’ he asked.
‘She took her coffee up to her room.’
‘She apparently left the house shortly afterwards to go to the pictures. She says she left at half-past two. You didn’t see her go?’
‘No, Inspector.’
‘Did she take her coffee to her room before you took Mr Huysmann’s to him?’
‘Oh yes, she came and got it from the kitchen.’
‘You didn’t hear the front-door bell between the time she took her coffee and the time you went to the study with Mr Huysmann’s?’
‘No, Inspector.’
‘Nor while you were in the study?’
‘No, I didn’t hear it at all till Mr Peter came.’
‘Because of that you were surprised to find that she had, in fact, gone out?’
‘It surprised me at the time, Inspector, but after I’d thought about it I realized she must have gone out through the kitchen.’
‘Why should she have done that?’
‘We-ell, I don’t think she would want her father to know she had gone to the pictures.’
Gently broke in: ‘Was it unusual for Miss Huysmann to go to the pictures?’
Susan embraced him in a smile of melting intensity. ‘Mr Huysmann didn’t think it proper for girls to go to them. But she went when Mr Huysmann was away on business and sometimes she pretended to go to bed early and I would let her out by the kitchen.’
‘Wasn’t it unusual for her to slip out in the afternoon, when her father might enquire after her?’
‘Ye-es… she’d never done that before.’
‘You have no doubt that she did go out?’
‘Oh no! I saw her come in with her hat and coat on.’
‘You heard nothing during the afternoon to suggest that she might still be in the house?’
‘Nothing at all.’
‘Miss Huysmann deceived her father over the matter of the pictures. Do you know of any other way she may have deceived him?’
Susan placed a smooth, conical finger on her dimpled chin and appeared to consider deeply. ‘He was very strict,’ she said at last.
‘You haven’t answered the question, Miss Stibbons.’
Susan came back with her take-me smile. ‘We-ell, she used to read love-stories and other books that Mr Huysmann didn’t know about…’
Gently shrugged and extended an open palm towards Hansom. In his mind’s eye the figure of the deceased timber-merchant began to take form and substance. He saw the foxy, snarling little face, the sharp, suspicious eyes, the spare figure, the raging, implacable temper of a small man with power… the man whose son had kicked free at any price, whose daughter was in league with the maid to deceive him: who declared the cinema improper while he ruffled Susan in his study… An alien little man, who had spent most of his life in a new country without making friends, shrewd, sudden, tyrannical and hypocritical…
Hansom continued with the questioning. ‘What did you do after you had taken Mr Huysmann his coffee?’
‘I cleared away the lunch things and washed up, Inspector.’
‘What time would that be?’
‘I couldn’t say, exactly. I finished washing up about quarter past three, because there was a change of programme on the wireless just then.’
‘What programme was that?’
‘It was a football match.’
‘At what time did it finish?’
‘It was just before four, I think.’
‘Who won?’ put in Gently curiously. Susan flashed him another smile. ‘The Rovers beat the Albion two-nought,’ she said. Hansom snorted.
‘Did you hear the whole programme?’ he proceeded.
‘We-ell, I had to go and let Mr Peter in.’
‘What time was that?’
‘It was just as the Rovers scored their first goal.’
Hansom drew his fingers wearily across his face. ‘And what time would that be, if it isn’t too much to ask?’
The constable with the notebook cleared his throat. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but the Rovers scored their first goal in the twenty-ninth minute.’
Hansom stared at him.
‘If the kick-off was at three, sir, it would make the time exactly 3.29 p.m.’
‘Ah,’ said Hansom heavily, ‘so it would, would it? Thank you very much. Make a note of it. You’re a credit to the force, Parsons.’
‘I’m a student of soccer, sir,’ said Parsons modestly.
‘So am I,’ said Gently.
Hansom drew a deep breath and looked from one to the other. ‘Why don’t you get your pools out?’ he yapped. ‘Who am I to butt in with my homicide? Send out for the papers and let’s get down to a session!’
Parsons retired to his notebook, crushed, and Gently took out his peppermint creams.
‘Now!’ said Hansom, ‘you appear to have let in Peter Huysmann at 3.29 p.m. Greenwich. Who did he ask to see?’
‘He said he’d come to see his father, Inspector, and asked if he was in.’
‘Was there anything unusual in his aspect?’
‘He did seem a little off-hand, but Mr Peter is like that sometimes.’
‘Did you show him into the study?’
‘I told him his father was there, and then I went back to the kitchen.’
‘It must have been an exciting match,’ said Hansom bitterly. ‘What happened then?’
‘I got on with washing the salad for tea.’
‘How did it come about that you heard Mr Huysmann and his son quarrelling?’
‘Well, there wasn’t a salad bowl in the kitchen, so I had to fetch one from the dining-room. I heard them at it as I was passing through the hall.’
‘Time?’
‘I don’t really know, Inspector.’
‘Nobody scoring any goals?’
‘Not just then.’
Hansom rolled his eyes. ‘I wonder if I could pin anything on those boys for withholding assistance from the police… Was it much before the end of the programme?’
‘Oh yes… quite a long time before.’
‘Did you go down the passage to listen?’
Susan gave him a well-taken look of sad reproof. ‘No, Inspector.’
‘Why not? It should have been worth listening to.’
‘But there’d been so many of them before.’
‘And then, of course, the Albion might have equalized. Did you hear anything at all of what was said?’
‘We-ell, I heard Mr Peter say his father hadn’t got any human feelings left.’
‘And what did Mr Huysmann say?’
‘He said something that sounded nasty, but he had a funny way of speaking. You couldn’t always understand him.’
‘And that was positively all you heard of a quarrel following which Mr Huysmann was stabbed to death?’
Susan frowned prettily and applied her finger to the dimple in her chin again. ‘We-ell, when I was coming back from the dining-room I heard Mr Peter say something about he’d take it, but there’d be a time when he’d give it back.’
‘Have you any idea to what he was referring?’
‘Oh no, Inspector.’
‘You didn’t,’ mused Gently, ‘you didn’t hear anything to suggest that the object referred to… wasn’t… a five-pound note?’
Susan looked puzzled. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
Hansom breathed heavily. ‘So you went back to the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Well — what did you do then?’
‘I finished the salad and cut some bread and butter.’
‘Did you hear nothing unusual while you were doing that?’
‘No, Inspector.’
‘Nothing resembling cries or a struggle?’
‘You can’t hear anything from that side of the house in the kitchen.’
‘How about the warning bell on the front door?’
‘I didn’t hear it ring.’
‘After the sports interlude — did you turn the wireless off?’
‘Oh no, it was dance music after that. I had it on all the while. It was Mrs Turner who switched it off when she came in.’
‘How long did it take you to finish preparing the tea?’
‘I’d done by ten past four. After that I made a cup of tea and some toast, and sat down for a bit till Mrs Turner got back at five. It should have been my evening off,’ she added glumly.
‘What happened when Mrs Turner got back?’
‘Well, she took her things off and looked to see if I’d done the tea properly, then she went to ask Mr Huysmann when he’d be wanting it.’
‘And then?’
‘She came back a minute or two later looking as white as a sheet. “Oh God!” she said, “there’s something terrible happened to the master. Don’t go near the study,” she said. It was awful, Inspector!’
‘Mrs Turner sent you for some brandy. Where was it kept?’
‘I got the decanter from the dining-room.’
Gently leant forward. ‘When you passed through the hall to the dining-room, did you see anybody?’ he enquired.
‘No, nobody.’
‘Did you hear or see anything unusual?’
‘I can’t remember anything.’
Gently brooded a moment. ‘Mrs Turner then sent you to telephone the police. Which telephone did you use?’
‘I used the one in the little place under the stairs.’
‘As you entered the hall you met Miss Gretchen. Where did you first see her?’
‘She was just come in. She was taking her hat off.’
‘Was the door open or closed?’
‘It was closed.’
‘Did you hear the warning bell just before or as you were leaving the kitchen?’
‘We-ell… I might have done.’
‘Can you say for certain that you did?’
Susan bathed him in her dissolving smile. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think I can.’
Gently eased back in his chair and studied illimitable realms of space. ‘Do you not think it strange,’ he said, ‘that Miss Gretchen should re-enter the house by the front door with its warning bell, which she was at such pains to avoid when she went out?’
For a brief second the blue eyes stared at him in complete blankness. Then they swam to life again. ‘She’d got an evening paper,’ said Susan, ‘I dare say she’d have said she went out to buy one.’
‘Ah!’ breathed Gently, ‘an evening paper. That’s the second one that’s cropped up in this case.’ He waved her back to Hansom.
‘The Chief Inspector has forgotten to ask you his most telling question,’ said Hansom acidly.
Gently inclined his head.
‘He wants you to tell him if you entered this room any time after lunch yesterday.’
Susan glanced at Gently in puzzlement.
‘Well, go on,’ said Hansom, ‘tell him.’
Gently said: ‘Not after lunch but after you cleaned the room out.’
Susan wrinkled her snow-white brow. ‘I put the flowers in the window. I didn’t go in after that. I don’t think anybody did.’
‘You’ve made him happy,’ said Hansom, ‘you’ll never know how happy you’ve made the Chief Inspector.’ And he laughed in his semi-handsome way.
Alan Hunter
Gently Does It