‘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?’