Alas for Evans’s confidence! It was to have very little to bolster it, and by the time they called it a day all his original gloom had returned. No sudden solution was round the corner, no neat tying of the ends, rather the indications were that they were getting further away from the mark.
Dutt was waiting in Gently’s office when they returned to the Yard. They found him immersed in an evening paper in which Kincaid still rated the headlines. Gently took it from him. The headlines ran: FRESH MOVES IN KINCAID SAGA Supt. Gently Visits Bow Street Surprise Enquiries at Hendon
‘That’s one in the eye for our friend, Mr Stanley.’
Evans snorted. He was reading the item over Gently’s shoulder. He was much intrigued by the accompanying picture, which showed himself and Gently alighting from the Wolseley. Gently gave him the paper and sat down. He’d seen too many of these things.
‘Was the lady on record?’ he asked Dutt.
‘Yessir.’ Dutt drew out his notebook. ‘But she wasn’t under the name you gave me, though.’
‘Wasn’t she then? So how did you get on to her?’
‘What you might call coincidence, sir. One of the maids there used to work for her, and I chanced to catch her at the desk.’
‘Good for you.’
Gently nodded congratulations and Dutt looked pleased. Evans tore himself away from the picture to stare interrogatively at the sergeant. Dutt continued:
‘She gives the name of Mrs Sterling, sir, but the maid knew well enough that she was Arthur Fleece’s missus. Said she lived at Thames Ditton and was wife of the bloke what was murdered — about forty, a smart sort of woman, wears her hair dyed black.’
Evans groaned. ‘That’s her, man.’
Dutt turned over a page. ‘She booked in at the Suffolk on 16th September and left again last Monday. She was in a bit of a hurry.’
‘September 16th?’
‘Yessir. That’s correct.’
Gently met Evans’s eye. ‘So she was there for three weeks… Was she absent during that time?’
‘No sir. She never went out much. Just shopping and such-like, and once or twice to a show. She used to write a lot of letters and she used the phone quite a bit, but it was always the paybox in the hall, so I couldn’t trace the calls.’
‘What about visitors?’
‘Yessir, I made a note of them. She had her kids there the first weekend; twins they are, about eleven or twelve. Then there was an elderly, professional bloke who called to see her a couple of times — a grey-haired geezer, on the tall side, wore a black suit and carried a briefcase. That’s the lot, apart from a bloke who drove her home once or twice. But he never got out of his car so I couldn’t get his particulars.’
‘Did you get a description of the car?’
‘Yessir. A sports job.’
‘A green and cream Austin-Healey?’
‘The porter didn’t notice, sir.’
‘That’s a pity. What happened on Monday?’
‘She got a trunk call, sir, from Llanberis. It came in around half-past five when she was having tea in the lounge. She took the call at the hall desk and the clerk moved off so’s not to look nosey, but from the way she behaved he’s pretty certain what it was about. She turned as pale as a ghost and ordered a double brandy. Then she went up and packed, and she was off by half-past six.’
‘Any other details?’
‘She had a letter on most days, sir. The address was typewritten, to Mrs Sterling, and they were posted in the London area.’
‘Thanks, Dutt. You’ve done a nice job.’
‘Just a bit of routine, sir.’
‘Tell them to send us up a snack, will you? We’re going to wait here for a call.’
Dutt departed, leaving his paper as a souvenir for Evans. But the big Welshman was no longer enthralled by his front-page billing. He said mournfully:
‘It either means something or else it does not — and either way I can’t see it helping Myfanw Evans.’
‘How do you read it?’ Gently asked.
Evans laid a finger to his nose. ‘A divorce, man, large as life. Fleece was preparing to give her the push.’
‘But if she happened to be Paula Kincaid?’
‘Stop rubbing it in. I can see a barn door. If she happened to be Paula Kincaid then the marriage was probably void in any case.’
Gently shook his head. ‘I’m not so sure. It’s a legal point worth settling. But his reason for divorcing her seems plain enough. She has a boyfriend in the offing.’
‘And he could be an Everest Club member.’
‘That’s almost certain on the facts. The call from Llanberis didn’t come from the police — unless your Welsh police happen to be psychic. They had no reason to contact a Mrs Sterling staying at the Suffolk Hotel in Knightsbridge.’
‘Glory be, that never struck me! Of course, it has to be one of the members.’
‘And if you’re thinking the way I’m thinking…’
Evans looked sick. ‘Raymond Heslington,’ he said.
‘He was the one with the opportunity. He may not be the one with the car.’
Gently opened a drawer of his desk and fetched out the file on Kincaid. Inside it, prominent amongst the statements, was that of Heslington, containing his particulars. Gently rang Information:
‘Note this name and address. I want a description of his car; just the make and colouring will do.’
While they waited Evans’s face seemed to grow sadder and sadder and not even the advent of coffee and sandwiches served to relieve his dolour. He munched largely but unfeelingly, a steady mechanical champ, and took big mouthfuls of coffee without looking at his cup. He was either up or down. There were no half-measures with Evans.
‘I can see it all now. I’m the biggest arse going. He lied to me, that fellow, and I swallowed it down to the tail. Never thought, never doubted; just trusted my own stupid judgement. I could see a wonderful case, man, and I couldn’t see anything else.’
‘He might still have been telling the truth,’ Gently mumbled over a sandwich.
‘No he mightn’t, man. I can sense it. We can forget about Kincaid. He was just a red herring, he happened along very convenient.’
‘Heslington’s description fitted him, didn’t it?’
‘What sort of a description was that? A brown jacket and grey slacks — and he might have seen him somewhere, anyway. No, no, you’ll never convince me now that Kincaid was up there. I have an instinct, I tell you. My promotion is down the drain.’
At that moment the phone went. Gently limbered it to his ear. Evans watched his face fearfully, trying to read there his own perdition. Better men than Evans, however, had failed to read Gently’s poker face, and the call turned out to be a longer one than the description of a car would require. Gently reached for a pad and pencil and scribbled down some unintelligible notes. Finally, he adjured his telespondent to try again in the morning. He hung up and sighed humorously.
‘It’s been and done it on us again.’
‘Who was that, man?’ Evans asked.
‘Dorking, reporting on Sarah Amies. They’ve never heard of her in Penwood. They’ve never heard of Baxter or Blackstable. The village church has been converted to a hall and they can’t for the moment lay hands on the register. Penwood is one of the new overspill areas. Most of the original inhabitants have hopped it.’
Evans gestured with shoulders and hand. ‘Does it matter now, the way things are?’
‘It matters to me, if nobody else. I’ve been told off to identify Kincaid.’
‘But if Heslington is Mrs Fleece’s boyfriend-’
The phone buzzed again to interrupt him. This time, while Gently listened, an expression did flit over his face. He replaced the phone. He dusted his hands.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘That’s that for the evening. Heslington’s car is a new Ford Anglia. It’s Cambridge blue, and its been garaged all day.’
Evans was staying in a wretched hotel in the vicinity of Euston Station, and Gently, still feeling responsible for him, invited him home to his Finchley rooms. Elphinstone Road was a gem of its kind. It had come into being during the eighteen sixties; a sedate thoroughfare, little disturbed by traffic, with public gardens on one side and ice-cake villas on the other. Its atmosphere had always held a charm for Gently. It was hansom cab, parasol, hard hat, and bustle skirt. The teardrop street lamps had never been ravished and war had spared the cast-iron railings, while of twenty complacent villas, twenty still lined Elphinstone Road.
Evans, who came in glum and silent, soon warmed to the snugness of Gently’s retreat. He browsed over the books and the photographs and the fishing rods, and the big stuffed pike with its glassy eye. He too was an angler, it appeared, though his talk was of Gwyniads and bottomless llyns; and by the time they’d eaten supper and were sitting over the fire his mercurial spirits were once more to rights.
‘But I don’t mind telling you I’m foxed by all this. We’ve had plenty of bites, but we never strike a fish.’
‘All the same, it’s interesting. Some of the bites are unexpected. We were using paste over at Hendon, but we got a pike-size in nibbles.’
‘He’s a deadly liar, man, is that Mr Stanley.’
Gently yawned. ‘I agree… he’s also an actor of some talent. And still the questions are: what’s behind it? Why was he covering up on Kincaid? Why didn’t he want us to meet Piper and get the information we did from him?’
‘Do you think it’s her he was protecting?’
‘That’s a very seductive theory. Fleece was in the same line of business; there’d be an esprit de l’electricite or something. They’re both liars, Stanley and her. We can’t take their words for the extent of the acquaintance. And if Mrs Fleece is Paula Kincaid, she’d have reason enough to want it kept quiet.’
‘But where does the bloke in the sports car come into it?’
‘Where indeed? We shall have to know that. And there’s another idea that’s struck me. We may have jumped at the divorce angle too quickly.’
‘How do you mean, man?’
‘Can’t you see the alternative? Kincaid was moving heaven and earth to find her. She may have been using the hotel as a hideout when his inquiries were getting too close.’
‘Aye. That’s possible too.’
‘And one of the club members may have been in the secret. That would account for her getting that trunk-call. The sports car johnny may be a blind.’
A grin spread delightedly over Evans’ face. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘you’re cheering me up something wonderful. But what about Kincaid’s reaction to that picture — you aren’t going to tell me you accept it as positive?’
‘He talked to his lawyer, don’t forget.’
‘I know. And little good it seems to have done him.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Kincaid is far from being a simpleton. He may have decided to change his mind about his policy of being himself; in which case he wouldn’t recognize fifty photographs of his wife. And we’d be the more likely to believe him if he kept up the pretence, so why should he drop it? His course of action is plain.’
‘That’s a beautiful piece of reasoning, and I wish I could believe it.’
Gently chuckled. He tapped out his pipe on the serpentine bar of the grate. ‘Tomorrow we’ll do some more fishing. We’ll cast a line in Fleece’s business. And perhaps a little quiet ledgering in the Everest Club waters.’
The morning was fugitively fine with a bright sun among darkling clouds. In the gardens across the way the autumn trees steamed and sparkled. Gently was finding it rather pleasant to have a guest sharing his breakfast routine, even though the papers were subdivided and his reading time was diminished. Evans was enjoying himself too and his appetite delighted Mrs Jarvis. Her cousin had married a Welshman, she told them, and really he was quite like one of the family…
The arrival of their Wolseley put an end to the domestic interlude. Fleece’s firm, Electroproducts, had an address at Ilford. They took the North Circular Road, bending through Edmonton and Woodford, the great reaching arc that spanned the metropolis like a dome. Electroproducts occupied a site not far from Seven Kings station. One saw at a glance that it was unable to challenge comparison with its vast competitor at Hendon. A range of plain crook-roofed buildings, some subsidiary sheds and erections and a yard enclosed with wire mesh: these comprised its entirety. In the yard was a roofed rack in which cycles were stacked. Beside it were parked a few cars and a number of scooters and motorcycles. The office section, a long lean-to at the side of the workshops, was approached through fence-gates which stood open and unattended.
They drove in and parked. They were met by no palatial reception. Beyond the door was a narrow passage which received a dim light from the workshops. A girl came hurrying out of a doorway with a sheaf of work sheets in her hand. She stopped on seeing the two detectives and stared inquiringly before asking:
‘You want Mr Bemmells, is it?’
Mr Bemmells was the general manager; he was a lean and hard-faced man of about fifty-five or so. He had a haggard, harassed look, his eyebrows slanting down from the centre, but this seemed a natural condition with him and no reflection of the current circumstances. He found them seats in his cluttered office and listened attentively to Gently’s preface.
‘So you want to know how we started up? Then you’ve come to the right person. I was in this firm from the beginning, back in nineteen-thirty-eight. We were in Walthamstow then, in a converted warehouse in Sibley Street, and we stayed there till forty-two, when Jerry copped us with incendiaries. Then we moved to this site — a priority job, building this was; we were turning out aircraft stuff in those days, cable conduit, jennies, starters. Then after the war we went back to appliances — you’ve probably seen our products about — and now we’re working up an export connection besides our regular contract work. That’s the story of Electroproducts: a good investment, if I may say so.’
Gently grinned. ‘I’ll have to mention the name to my stockbroker. But I’d like more detailed information about the way the firm was formed. How did you come to be associated with it?’
‘I answered an advert in our trade journal. I was with London Insulated at the time and finding promotion rather slow. So I took a chance with a new firm, and I’ve never regretted it. We’ve been expanding all the time and we’ve acquired a site for a new premises.’
‘Was the firm organized when you joined it?’
‘No. It was just in the process. But Mr Fleece had formed a nucleus of technical staff and designers.’
‘Were there share issues at that stage?’
‘No, that came a little later.’
‘Where did the initial capital come from?’
Bemmells looked blank. ‘From Mr Fleece, I suppose.’
‘Did he mention how it was acquired?’
‘Not to me he didn’t. But then it wasn’t my business. There’s no question about it, is there?’
‘Nothing of any importance.’ Gently’s tone was reassuring. ‘But since you’re second-in-command here I thought that Fleece might have dropped you a hint. You were fairly intimate with him, were you?’
‘Our relations were always excellent.’
‘You met his wife and family of course?’
‘I did on occasion. I’ve been invited to his home.’
‘Did you go to his wedding in thirty-nine?’
‘No… it occurred out of town, I believe.’
‘Did you know his wife before he married her?’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t. I moved in rather different circles.’
Gently made a break. Bemmells’ expression had become increasingly wary, as though by degrees it was dawning on him that all was not entirely innocent. He flickered looks from Gently to the desk and again to Evans; but he didn’t, as Gently hoped, come out with something unsolicited.
‘Mrs Fleece told us that her husband was often away from home on business. That’s something you’d know about. Where did his business use to take him?’
‘Wherever there was a chance of a contract. Mr Fleece was all business. He’s been as far as Pakistan — South Africa — the West Indies.’
‘Had he been abroad lately?’
‘He went to Holland in the spring. And just lately he’d made one or two trips into Wales.’
‘Into Wales? What was that for?’
‘He didn’t tell me, I’m afraid. He simply mentioned that he had business there which needed following up.’
‘Could you give a shrewd guess?’
Bemmells frowned. ‘There’s the Conway project. Or the installation at Corwen. We might contract for either of those.’
‘Wouldn’t he have told you about that? Wouldn’t he have taken a technical adviser with him?’
‘It would have been more usual, I admit. But it was entirely up to him.’
Gently could hear Evans’s feet stirring: this was interesting information! A coincidence it might be, but it had a tendentious ring to it. Had Fleece’s trips been on business his manager would surely have been in his confidence, and had they been personal… what personal reason would have taken Fleece to Wales?
‘Exactly when did these trips take place?’
‘I didn’t make a note of them, naturally. But the first one was in August during the week following our works’ fortnight. There were two or three in September and another last week: four or five altogether. Then, of course, there was last weekend.’
‘On what days of last week?’
Bemmells considered. ‘The Tuesday and Wednesday.’
‘Was that the usual length of the visits?’
‘Oh yes. A couple of days.’
‘Would he have driven down by car?’
‘Yes. He rarely used the trains.’
‘At what address were you supposed to contact him?’
‘I never did, because he didn’t leave one.’
‘And your works’ fortnight — when was that?’
‘At the usual time. The first two weeks in August.’
In effect, Fleece’s trips had begun a few days after Kincaid’s appearance: and had continued at frequent intervals until a fatal one supervened.
‘Have you anything to add to this, Mr Bemmells? It could have some bearing on Fleece’s death.’
‘No… I assure you. That’s all I know about it.’ Bemmells had paled as this aspect was put to him.
‘There’s one other matter, touching Mr Fleece’s personal life. It’s important, you understand, or I wouldn’t be asking about it. Would you say he was happily married?’
A mottled flush replaced Bemmells’ pallor. ‘I–I’m not quite certain if I should answer that question. There was a coolness between them, I believe, from certain things Mr Fleece said… and I did have the impression… but it’s nothing I want to repeat.’
‘I’m not idly curious, Mr Bemmells. Was your impression that she had a lover?’
‘I… well!’ Bemmells was rocked. He looked heartily uncomfortable. ‘Yes, I certainly had the impression of — er — something of that sort. Mr Fleece said cynical things… not always seriously, I may add.’
‘Did he cynically mention a name?’
‘No. No name was mentioned. Believe me, I never knew anything for a fact.’
‘Was a divorce talked about?’
‘Well… very loosely, he did refer to it…’
‘In that case I’d like the name and address of his solicitors.’
Bemmells found it for him, quite flustered, spilling papers over his desk. The solicitors were Agnew, Sharp, and Adams and the address in the Temple. Bemmells followed them out to the car, fluttering around them like a broody hen, and at last he screwed up his courage to ask:
‘It won’t affect the poor lady’s rights, will it…?’
When they drove away towards the city Evans was doubled up with laughter. He appeared to have found something unbearably comic about the manager of Electroproducts.
‘Suppose — just suppose for the moment — suppose he’s the co-respondent himself, man!’
The idea was too much for him. He almost sobbed with mirth.
Gently wasn’t so much amused and he filled and lit his pipe sombrely. Something had clicked in his mind when he’d heard of those visits to Wales. It was as though then, for the first time, he’d made a genuine connection with the case; as though at that moment, from all the heaped uncertainty, something certain had fallen into his hand. There was no logical reason for this. There never was in these matters. At the best it was a dark motion in a carefully prepared unconscious. But he knew the signal when it reached him and it had reached him now: he was positive that those visits were part of the pattern he was seeking. Evans too, when he’d controlled his chortling, found something disturbing in the information.
‘Are you thinking, man, that Fleece stirred up something in Wales?’
Gently hunched. ‘I haven’t got round to being definitive,’ he replied.
‘That was a peculiar little timetable which the Bemmells lad gave us. I had a sensation we were on to something which didn’t overplease me.’
‘It has to do with Kincaid somehow, if it affects the case at all. Kincaid’s appearance triggered those visits. They follow each other much too neatly.’
‘Goodness gracious, you give me ideas. Couldn’t Kincaid also have made trips to Wales? Couldn’t that be the reason for Fleece’s going there, to keep an eye on the foolish fellow?’
‘In what connection?’ Gently exhaled smoke.
‘Why, I don’t know. But I’ll do some imagining. Suppose Mrs Fleece isn’t Paula Kincaid, and suppose they both went to Wales in search of her? Kincaid, he’s got a notion she’ll be there, and Fleece, he’s got a notion that Kincaid’s got a notion. So he follows Kincaid about in the hope that he’ll lead him to Mrs Kincaid, and in the end Kincaid gets tired of it and gives Fleece a shove over Snowdon.’
Gently chuckled among his smoke-wreaths. ‘And why should Fleece want to meet her so badly?’
‘Well, man, I reckon I’ve done my bit — you’ll have to imagine the rest for yourself!’
They both laughed, but then they grew thoughtful again: Evans’s fancy wasn’t as bizarre as he had made it sound. Fleece’s visits to Wales had begun and ended with Kincaid; was it stretching matters much to suppose a correspondence in between?
‘Anyway, we netted one small tiddler,’ Gently mused. ‘We’ve confirmed the divorce angle, and soon we’ll know who the beau is.’
Evans nodded. ‘Though I’m looking on the bright side,’ he said. ‘He could be someone quite harmless, notwithstanding that trunk-call.’
They came in down the Mile End Road, through Whitechapel and past the Bank, with Evans craning his neck to view the sooty antiquity of St Paul’s; and then off Fleet Street into the quieter waters of the Temple, where the sun, still holding its own, brightened the quadrangles and sad trees. Agnew, Sharp, and Adams had chambers overlooking the Garden. There Gently’s inquiry, after a legal interval, gained them the audience of the second partner.
‘Yes, I handled Fleece’s affairs. Also those of Electroproducts.’ Mr Sharp belied his name; he resembled an affable country squire. ‘I’d like to put in a claim for privilege but it would scarcely wash, would it? Death is the great nolle prosequi, and takes advice from no lawyer. What do you gentlemen want to know?’
‘We’ve got four questions,’ Gently replied.
‘Four only? Then you’re more economical than most policemen of my acquaintance. What’s number one?’
‘Can you tell us where Fleece got the capital to start in business?’
‘Not I, sir. But he had some. He was never short of cash.’
‘Number two. Had he started a divorce suit?’
‘Answer. Yes, he had.’
‘Number three. When did he start it?’
‘Answer. Let me get his file.’
From a row of venerable and dusty box files Sharp pulled out one with a new label: the last of a considerable sequence which had been pasted on it during past decades. He opened it and took out some papers.
‘Fleece first consulted me on the nineteenth of August. I gave him some advice which doesn’t matter, then he returned on the sixteenth of September. I filed his suit on the same day. Does that answer the question?’
Gently briefly inclined his head.
‘I know what number four will be, but I’d better let you ask it.’
‘Who was the co-respondent in the case?’
‘Yes, that’s the jackpot question. He was Raymond John Heslington of Hadrian’s Villa, Wimbledon Common.’
Sharp glanced surprisedly at Evans. He had said something very powerful in Welsh…