H ANSOM WAS SMOKING again: the air was thickening with the fulsome smell of his Corona. Gently, too, was adding smoke-rings to the upper atmosphere. The constable sniffed in a peaked sort of way. ‘Go on,’ said Hansom, ‘be a devil. Have a spit and a draw.’ The constable said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and fished out a somewhat tatty cigarette. Hansom gave him a light. He said: ‘The super doesn’t smoke, and he’s the one person around here who can afford to.’ Gently said: ‘You’ll have to transfer to the MP and get the London scale.’ Hansom grunted.
They could hear the rain still, outside. There was a drain by the pavement just outside the big window which made little, ecstatic noises. To hear that made the room seem chill. ‘There’s the chauffeur and the manager and Miss Gretchen,’ said Hansom. ‘Who’d you like to have in next?’
Gently said: ‘Was there anyone in the yard yesterday?’
‘Nope,’ Hansom said. ‘Saturday.’
Gently blew a few rings. ‘Let’s have the chauffeur,’ he said. ‘He’s probably sweating on his pint before lunch. After him I’d like to see Miss Gretchen. We’ll keep Leaming for dessert.’
Hansom called in the constable from outside.
The chauffeur’s name was Fisher. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, athletic-looking man of thirty, dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a strong but rather brutal face and lop-ears. He had a small moustache, carefully trimmed. He wore a beach-girl tie and a cheap American-style jacket in two patterns.
Hansom said: ‘What time did you go off duty yesterday?’
‘About twelve or just after,’ Fisher replied slowly. ‘I’d just cleaned the car down.’ He had a hard but slovenly voice.
‘What did you do when you went off duty?’
‘I had a beer in the “Lighterman”.’
‘And after that?’
‘Had something to eat in the snack-bar — Charlie’s, they call it.’
‘What time did you leave the snack-bar?’
‘I dunno. Might’ve been half-past one.’
‘Where did you go then?’
‘I went back to my place and had a lie-down.’
‘Where’s your place?’
‘5 A Paragon Alley. It’s up the hill towards Burgh Street. It’s a flat.’
‘Do you live alone?’
‘There’s a woman comes in of a morning.’
‘Did anybody see you there?’
‘I dunno. There may’ve been someone about, but it’s quiet up the Alley.’
‘How long were you lying down?’
‘Hour, maybe.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I got on with my model.’
‘What’s that?’
Fisher moved his long, sprawling legs. ‘I make scale model planes — it’s a hobby. I’m making an S.E. 5.’
‘How long were you doing that?’
‘Till four o’clock.’
Gently said: ‘You remember that time very precisely. I wonder why?’
Fisher stirred again, uneasily. ‘I just thought I’d work on it till four, that’s all. There wasn’t any reason. I just thought I’d work on it till four.’
Hansom continued: ‘What did you do after four?’
‘I went up to the fair.’
‘Did you meet anyone you recognized?’
‘I saw Mr Peter go across to the Wall from his caravan.’
‘Time!’ snapped Gently, beating Hansom to it by a fair margin.
Fisher jumped at the suddenness of the question. ‘It was twenty-five past four.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just looked at my watch.’
‘Why?’
‘I dunno — I just looked at my watch!’
‘Do you often just look at your watch, or is it only when you know you may have to account for your movements?’
‘I didn’t know anything — I just looked at it!’
Gently paused like a stalking jaguar. Fisher’s brow was tight and moistening with perspiration. ‘What was he wearing?’ purred Gently.
‘He was going to the Wall — he’d got his overalls on.’
‘You mean the red leather ones he rides in?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And he was going to the Wall?’
‘I said he was!’
‘Then how do you account for the fact that the overalls are kept at the Wall and not at the caravan?’
‘I dunno — perhaps he wasn’t coming from the caravan-’
‘But you said he was.’
‘I thought he was — he was coming from that way-’
‘How many things have you thought up to tell us?’
‘I haven’t thought anything — it’s the truth!’
‘When did you hear about the murder?’
‘They told me when I came in this morning.’
‘Who’s “they”?’
‘Mrs Turner.’
‘When did it take place?’
‘About four.’
‘How do you know?’
‘She told me!’
‘But Mrs Turner didn’t find the body till five. How did she know that the murder took place at four?’
‘I dunno — she just told me!’
‘And you just happened to be looking at the time and deciding to go out at four?’
‘Yes, I did!’
‘Would you describe that as being coincidental in any way?’
‘I dunno, but it’s true!’
Gently swam forward in his chair. ‘It’s true that you can give no verifiable account of your movements between 1.30 and 4.25 p.m. yesterday. It’s true that you know the approximate time at which the murder took place and that Mrs Turner could not have done. And it’s true that you’ve taken care to give your movements precise times at and immediately after the murder took place. All these things,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘would be equally true of the murderer himself.’
Fisher jumped to his feet. ‘But I didn’t do it!’ he cried, ‘I didn’t — and you can’t say I did! You’re asking me all these things and twisting them round to make it seem like I did it, but I didn’t, and you can’t prove that I did!’
‘I haven’t suggested that you did,’ said Gently smoothly. ‘I’m merely establishing that you could, perhaps, be more helpful to this enquiry than in fact you are.’
Fisher stood breathing quickly and staring at him. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he said, a note of sullenness in his voice. ‘I’ve told you what I know, and you can’t prove anything else.’
Gently looked from Fisher to the chair on which he had been sitting. ‘Your chair,’ he said, ‘we had it finger-printed last night.’
The chauffeur moved away from it involuntarily.
‘Do you think it possible that we shall find your prints on it?’
‘You’d find them there now, wouldn’t you?’
‘But would they have been there last night?’
‘They might be there any time. I’m about the house. I move the furniture for them sometimes.’
Gently sighed and extended his palm towards Hansom, who had been following the proceedings very attentively.
Hansom said: ‘Were you or were you not in this house at the time of the murder?’
‘I told you I wasn’t.’
‘Did you witness the murder by standing on that chair and watching through the transom lights?’
‘No! I was nowhere near the place.’
‘The answers you have given to Chief Inspector Gently suggest to me very strongly that you had knowledge of the crime prior to this morning. Think carefully, now. Are you sure you’ve nothing to add to what you’ve already told us?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘You’ve told us the whole truth?’
‘Yes!’
‘You wouldn’t like to reconsider any part of it?’
‘It’s the truth, I tell you!’
‘And it had bloody well better be, for your sake!’ bawled Hansom, suddenly dropping his official mask in exasperation. ‘Now get out of here and hold yourself ready for further questioning.’
Fisher flushed angrily and turned towards the door.
‘Just a minute,’ said Gently. Fisher paused. ‘Why did you put it in the chest?’ enquired Gently confidentially.
The chauffeur stared at him with complete lack of understanding. ‘Put what in the chest?’ he asked.
Gently swam back into the depths of his chair. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘run along. Do what the Inspector tells you…’
Hansom blasted the butt of his cigar in the ashtray and took one of his very deepest breaths. He said: ‘I’ve got to hand it to you. I never thought there was much in that hoo-ha about the chair, but I’m beginning to have my doubts.’
‘It’s just guess-work,’ replied Gently deprecatingly. ‘The maid might have missed those marks when she brushed the carpet.’
‘I’m willing to swear that fellow was in here like you said.’
‘There’s nothing to prove it, yet. Fisher’s got an alibi that’ll take a lot of breaking and you’ve seen what luck I’ve had trying to establish that there was someone else in the house.’
‘He was lying. He was lying himself black in the face. I’ll have him down at headquarters and see what I can get out of him there.’
Gently nodded a pensive nod.
‘Not that I can see how it’ll help young Huysmann,’ added Hansom suspiciously. ‘If Fisher is shielding him and we make him talk, that’ll put the kybosh on you, good and proper.’
Gently smiled agreeably. ‘Always supposing that Peter is your man.’
‘You know he’s our man!’ snorted Hansom. ‘Good grief, why not admit it? Apart from anything else, who else would want to rub the old man out?’
‘Well, there was forty thousand pounds lying about.’
‘That’s all my eye! That could have been sprung without deliberately knocking him off first. They’d only to wait till he wasn’t there. And whoever did it didn’t come armed — they did it on impulse, after they got there, after they’d chewed the rag with the old man — which means it was somebody he knew. I tell you, the jury’ll be solid.’
Gently’s smile grew further and further away. ‘There’s one thing that puzzles me about our friend Fisher,’ he mused.
‘And what’s that?’
‘He didn’t seem to me the type who would shield anybody… especially with his own neck sticking out as far as it does.’
There was something virginal and nun-like about Gretchen Huysmann, not altogether accounted for by the large silver cross that depended on her bosom. She was not a pretty woman. Her face was pale and a little long, and she wore her straight black hair divided in the middle and caught up in a flat bun. She had small, close-set ears and dark, but not black eyes, now a little reddened and fearful. There was a waxenness about her complexion. She was above medium height. Her figure, which should have been good, was neglected and bundled anyhow into a long, full dress of dark blue. She wore coarse stockings and flat-heeled shoes. She was twenty-seven.
Hansom said: ‘Sit down, Miss Huysmann, and make yourself comfortable.’ Gretchen sat down, but she did not make herself comfortable. She sat forward on the edge of the chair, her knees together and her feet apart. Her pale face turned from one to another of them quick, frightened glances; her small mouth grew smaller still. She reminded Gently of a plant that had grown in the dark, at once protected and neglected. In this room of three serious men with its alien smell of tobacco smoke she seemed shrunk right back into herself.
Gently motioned to the constable. ‘It’s getting thick in here. Open that top window.’ The constable manipulated the cords that let fall a pane high up in the big window, letting in a nearer sound of rain with a welcome current of new-washed air. Gently beamed encouragingly at Miss Huysmann.
Hansom cleared his throat and said: ‘I’d like you to understand, Miss Huysmann, that we fully appreciate the tragic circumstances in which you find yourself. We shall keep you here the shortest possible time and ask you only those questions which it is absolutely necessary for us to have answered.’
Miss Huysmann said: ‘I’ll… tell you all I can to help.’ She spoke in a low tone with a slight accent.
Hansom continued: ‘Can you remember if your father was expecting any visitors yesterday?’
‘I do not know, he would not tell me that.’
‘Was it usual for him to receive visitors on a Saturday afternoon?’
‘Oh no, practically never. The yard is closed, everyone has gone home.’
‘Did you notice anything unusual in his manner at lunch yesterday?’
‘I do not think so. He did not speak to me very much at meal-times. Yesterday he said, “Your brother is in town. Take care I do not hear you have been seeing him,” but that was all.’
‘Were you in the habit of seeing your brother when he was in Norchester?’
‘Oh yes, I see him sometimes. But my father, he did not like that.’
‘Did you see your brother on this occasion?’
‘I see him on the Friday, when I go out to pay some bills.’
‘Did he speak of calling on your father?’
‘He said he must see him before he leave Norchester.’
‘What reason did he give for that?’
‘He said that the man for whom he worked had offered him to be partners, but he must have five hundred pounds. So he will ask my father to lend it to him.’
‘Did he say lend it?’
‘Oh yes, he know my father will not give it to him.’
Hansom toyed with the little pearl-handled penknife that lay on his blotter and glanced towards his cigar case, but Gently clicked disapprovingly. Hansom proceeded:
‘What time did lunch finish yesterday?’
‘It was about two o’clock.’
‘And what did you do after lunch?’
‘First, I have a wash. Then I go and fetch my coffee from the kitchen, which I take up to my room. As I am drinking it, I get ready to go out to the pictures.’
Gently said: ‘Your visits to the pictures were clandestine, I understand.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You were obliged to go secretly — your father did not approve.’
Gretchen looked down at the two pale, plump hands twisted together in her lap. ‘It is true, I go without his permission. He think the pictures are… all bad. And so, I must not go.’
‘Did you feel that your father was being severe in forbidding you to go to the pictures?’
‘I think, perhaps… he did not know how they were. It was safer that I should not go.’
‘You thought, at least, that he was being unreasonable.’
‘I cannot say. No doubt it was very wrong of me. It may be that this is a judgment, because I do wrong.’
‘Did your father ever find out that you had been to the pictures?’
‘Once, he caught me.’
‘What steps did he take?’
‘I was not to leave my room for two days and must not go out of the house for a month.’
‘And after that, I take it, you were more cautious?’
The pale hands knotted and pulled apart, but came together again immediately. ‘At first, I went only when he was away on business. Then, Susan helped me. I used to pretend I had a headache and go to bed, but I creep downstairs again and out through the kitchen. It was very wrong of me to do this.’
‘Miss Huysmann, when you planned to go to the pictures in the afternoon yesterday, you were surely taking an unusual risk?’
‘I do not know — my father is usually in the study all the afternoon.’
‘But he might easily have asked for you.’
‘Oh yes, it could be so. But if Susan came to my room and find me not there, she tell him I am not feeling well, I am lying down and asleep.’
‘Following the occasion on which you were caught, had you ever ventured out previously on a Saturday afternoon?’
Her small mouth sealed close. She shook her head forlornly.
‘And yet yesterday you did so, without even taking the precaution of first warning Susan. Why was that?’
‘I do not know. There is a film I very much want to see… all at once, I think I will go.’
‘When did you decide that?’
‘Oh… during lunch.’
‘But after lunch you went to the kitchen to fetch your coffee. Why didn’t you tell Susan then?’
She shook her head again. ‘Perhaps I do not really decide till later, till I take my coffee back to my room.’
‘At what time did you leave the house?’
‘I think it is twenty-five past two.’
‘And you left through the kitchen?’
‘It was the only way, if my father is not to know.’
‘Why didn’t you tell Susan when you passed through on your way out?’
‘I do not know… perhaps I did tell her.’
‘Miss Huysmann, Susan was in the kitchen till half-past two, but she did not see you go out. She was surprised to find that you were out. Yet you claim to have left the house at twenty-five past two.’
Gretchen’s dark swollen eyes fixed upon him, pleading and fearful. ‘Perhaps it was later when I left… perhaps it was after half-past two.’
‘How much later?’
‘One minute… two minutes…’
‘It was not as late, say, as four-fifteen?’
‘Oh no! I was not here, no, no!’
‘You were not in the house at all between, say, 2.35 and 5.10?’
‘During all that time I was at the pictures.’
‘Ah.’ Gently sighed, and directed her back to Hansom with an inclination of his head. Hansom picked up the questioning neatly where it had been taken away from him.
‘You dressed to go out while you were drinking your coffee. You left the house by the kitchen at a few minutes after 2.30. What did you do then?’
‘I went straight to the Carlton cinema.’
‘What were they showing there?’
‘The big film is called Scarlet Witness.’
‘Is that what was showing when you entered the cinema?’
‘Oh yes, but I came in at the end, I saw only the last twenty minutes. Then there was the interval and the news, and then the other film.’
‘What was that called?’
‘It was Meet Me in Rio, with Joan Seymour and Broderick Davis.’
‘When did that finish?’
‘At five o’clock. I wanted to stay and to see the big film through, but it was already late, I was afraid that my father had already begun tea. So I bought an evening paper in order to pretend I had been out for one and went in through the front door.’
‘This film, Scarlet Witness,’ murmured Gently, ‘is it the same one as I saw in London a fortnight ago? How does it end?’
Gretchen turned towards him, her hands snatching at each other. ‘I did not see much of it… I do not remember. It was not very good.’
‘But you saw the end of it?’
‘It was… complicated.’
‘Was it the one where they get taken off the island in a helicopter just as the volcano erupts?’
The two hands gripped till the knuckles whitened. ‘No! It wasn’t that one… I was worried about whether my father would find out, I did not see it properly.’
‘They made an appeal after the one I saw — some fund for the maintenance of an aerial rescue force. Did they make an appeal here?’
‘Yes — yes! There was an appeal for something. A man spoke from the stage and they sent round boxes. I put something in.’
She bent her head away from him as though his eyes reacted upon her physically. Gently shrugged and felt in his pocket for a peppermint cream. She continued, without looking at him: ‘The big film came on at a quarter to two and finished at a quarter past three. The other film started at half-past three and finished at five.’
Gently said: ‘Thank you, Miss Huysmann, for such precise information.’
Hansom said: ‘When you re-entered the house, whom did you see?’
‘It was Susan. She was coming out of the passage from the kitchen.’
‘What did she say to you?’
‘She said, “Oh, I did not know that you had gone out,” and then she told me that something was wrong with my father.’
‘Did you go into the study?’
‘No, after I was told I did not feel that I could. I sat down in the kitchen and Mrs Turner gave me some brandy to drink.’
‘Then it wasn’t you who hid the knife in the trunk?’ demanded Gently suddenly. Gretchen writhed in her chair. ‘I know nothing, nothing about that!’ she exclaimed.
‘And you wouldn’t know if Fisher the chauffeur was in the house during the afternoon?’
A shiver ran through her dark-clad form, her eyes widened and her mouth opened. For a moment she stared at Gently horror-struck. And then it was over, as quickly as it had begun: the eyes narrowed, the mouth closed, the lips were forced deliberately into a tight line. ‘I do not know, I was not here,’ she said.
Gently sagged a little in his chair. He looked tired. ‘How long has Fisher been chauffeur here?’ he asked.
‘Oh… three or four years.’
‘Would you describe him as being honest and trustworthy?’
‘Otherwise, my father would have got rid of him.’
‘I am asking for your personal impression.’
‘He is honest… I think.’
‘What are your personal relations with Fisher, Miss Huysmann?’
‘I do not see him, very much. Sometimes he is in the house to move things about. One day, he drove me to service at the cathedral, because I has a poisoned foot and could not walk there.’
‘He is respectful and obedient?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Was he on good terms with your father?’
‘I do not know — my father was not… a condescending man.’
‘He had no reason to harbour a grudge against your father?’
‘Oh, no.’
‘The maid, Susan, is an attractive girl. Is there anything between her and Fisher?’
‘… No! Nothing whatever!’
Gently’s eyebrow rose the merest trifle and he transferred his gaze to the top of the far window. ‘Would it be correct to say that you were in considerable fear of your father?’
‘I do not know… fear.’
‘You had observed how Peter was treated, how he was driven out and completely disowned. Did it not suggest to you that a similar fate might be yours on some other occasion?’
‘Peter took money… he got married.’
‘But you also disobeyed your father in the matter of going to the pictures.’
‘That was very wrong of me, very wrong.’
‘Miss Huysmann, were you deceiving your father in any other matters, perhaps more important ones?’
‘I do not know how you mean!’
‘You were very isolated here. You went out very rarely. You were denied all the usual facilities for meeting people and making friends. And you are twenty-seven. Did you propose to continue in this way of life indefinitely, or had you resolved to, shall we say… assert your rights, in some manner?’
‘I cannot understand!’
‘Your visits to the pictures, for instance, were they always made alone? Was it always to the pictures that you went?’
‘Always — to the pictures! — always!’
‘And always alone?’
‘Every time I was by myself!’
‘You were never accompanied by… Fisher, for example?’
A hot blush sprang into the pale cheeks. ‘No! Never! Never!’
‘Your association with him has always been that of mistress and servant?’
‘How can you ask such things! How can you ask them!’ Tears welled up in the dark eyes and she covered her face with her hands.
Gently said: ‘I don’t like asking these things, Miss Huysmann, any more than you like being asked them. But if justice is to be done, we must have a clear picture of all the events surrounding this crime. You may think that these questions are unnecessary, you may be tempted to answer them untruthfully; but remember that they are the steps by which a man may be brought to the gallows and that no personal feelings should be allowed to dictate what you will answer.’
She cried: ‘It isn’t true… I cannot help him!’
‘You wish to answer that your association with Fisher is completely impersonal?’
She raised her face from her hands, agonized and tear-wet. ‘Yes, that is my answer… O God! Please, let me go now, please!’
Hansom said: ‘That stuff about the pictures — did it add up?’
Gently leant a freshly filled pipe to his lighter. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it didn’t. She didn’t go to the pictures.’ He gave a few puffs and adjusted matters with his thumb.
‘Then you’re reckoning that she was in the house during the afternoon?’
‘It could be that.’
‘And Fisher was there with her and she set him on to get rid of the old man and they swiped the money just for a blind. It’s not a bad line at that!’ exclaimed Hansom admiringly.
Gently smiled at the far-flung Pylades. ‘You’ve got a lurid imagination,’ he said.
‘And young Peter comes in and nearly messes things up. They watch him quarrelling through the transom lights, and see the old man give him a note which might be traced and realize it’s a pip. Fisher goes in and does the job, and then they slide out and collect alibis. Why, it’s a natural!’
‘And how about the knife in the trunk?’
‘Oh blast, you can surely think of something to cover that!’
Gently’s smile widened to include the still-vexed Bermoothes. ‘It’s an interesting conjecture. There’s only one element lacking.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘Proof,’ said Gently simply, ‘there isn’t a grain of it.’ And he blew a playful little smoke-ring over his colleague’s close-cropped head.
Alan Hunter
Gently Does It