Gently turned about and surveyed him expressionlessly. ‘Why did Leaming turn her up tonight?’ he asked.
‘Leaming!’ Fisher spat on the floor. ‘How should I know why he did it? What’s it got to do with me?’
‘I was just asking…’ replied Gently smoothly.
‘Bloody coppers — always asking questions! But you won’t get anything out of me. And if you’ve got any sense you won’t listen to Susan’s lies… dirty little bitch!’
Gently turned his back and stirred his coffee. Charlie looked at him questioningly, but Gently’s lips framed a negative.
‘What’s she been saying about me?’ blustered Fisher, pushing up and trying to make Gently look at him. ‘She’s been lying… I’ve a right to know!’
Gently placed his spoon in the saucer and drank some coffee.
‘If it’s anything about me and Gretchen, it’s a bloody lie!’
Gently put his cup down.
‘Listen!’ shouted Fisher, ‘I’ve got a right to know — you’re going to tell me!’ and he laid his hand on Gently’s shoulder. He didn’t realize how big a mistake this was…
Unfortunately, the memory of a fragment of masonry bouncing along the pavement came into Gently’s mind at the critical moment and he put plenty of pull into the movement. Fisher lay on his back, completely stunned.
‘My God!’ exclaimed the tug-skipper, ‘I didn’t even see it happen!’
Gently dusted his hands modestly. ‘It’s something they teach you at police college…’ he said. He motioned to Charlie. ‘Put him outside while he’s quiet.’ He looked at the two tug-men thoughtfully. ‘I saw you come up this morning. You dropped a barge at the other side of Railway Bridge. Who was that for?’ he enquired.
The two tug-men looked at each other and the skipper ran his tongue over his lips. ‘It was sawn-out stuff — we drop it there to save time,’ he said.
‘Does that quay belong to Huysmann’s?’
‘Well, no… it don’t. But they handle the stuff there for us.’
‘Who handles it?’
‘I reckon it’s the firm we supply it to.’
‘And who are they?’
The skipper paused reluctantly, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘They call themselves “The Straight Grain Timber Merchants”.’
Gently smiled at the distant reaches of the night. ‘It’s the first time I’ve heard of that particular firm,’ he said.
Alan Hunter
Gently Does It
CHAPTER TEN
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.