‘What was it that Aymas shouted?’
‘That I can’t tell you. I was listening to what father was telling Bob Samson. But later on I heard him bawling that somebody wasn’t genuine, and then that they were a liar and hadn’t ever told the truth.’
‘Who do you think he was referring to?’
‘Why, Mrs Johnson, of course. You could hear her shouting back at him, though naturally, not so loud.’
‘And did you hear what she said?’
‘No, but she sounded more spiteful than ever. You can lay your hand to your heart that she was the one who set it off. Well, then father switched on the wireless and turned it up as high as it would go — Edmundo Ros, it was, and Victor Silvester after that. The boys went on with their darts match, though it was putting them off a bit… they’re a useful lot from the Grapes, they went a long way in the Shield…’
‘Did you hear anything else that was said?’
Dolly shook her head. ‘There wasn’t much chance. And by the time we’d hung the cloth up, they’d managed to cool themselves off a bit. I went down after their glasses. She’d gone by then, had Mrs Johnson. Those that were left were still muttering to each other, but they dried up when they saw me.
‘I asked them what all the fuss was about — like I told you, I know them pretty well; but they shrugged and put me off, said I wouldn’t understand it anyway.’
‘Was Aymas still in the cellar then?’
‘He was leaving just as I was going down.’
‘You couldn’t give me the time, precisely?’
‘Near enough twenty to eleven, I should think.’
Which was almost exactly on cue, if Aymas intended to follow Mrs Johnson — though whether the moment was propitious for offering lifts was a point which a good defence counsel would snatch at. But then, such an offer might not have come into it. The idea of that lift was still hypothetical. And in the meantime a case was slowly tightening around Johnson: they could now show some motive and the appearance of a prior plan.
‘In the morning I’d like you to come along and sign a statement.’
‘To the police station, you mean?’ Dolly looked a little concerned. To have a chat over a beer in the cellar of the George was, apparently, poles apart from the same thing at HQ. Gently grinned at her consternation:
‘I give you my promise not to eat you…’
Still, she looked as though she thought that she might have been mistaken in him.
The bar, when he returned upstairs, had several more customers in it, and the radio over the cigarette display was playing a Grieg dance. A game of darts had begun, played with private sets of darts: it was plain that the sport was taken seriously by the George III patrons.
The publican touched his arm: ‘There’s three of the playmates over there…’
He motioned with his head towards a table near the door, at which was sitting Phillip Watts in the company of two older men. One of them, from Mallows’s description, Gently recognized to be Baxter, and the other, by his smart appearance, he guessed was the bank manager, Farrer. As he studied them Watts looked up, and his eyes encountered Gently’s; after a word to his two companions he rose and signalled to the detective.
‘Can I offer you a drink, sir…?’
Gently went over to them, shaking his head.
‘If I may, sir, I’d like to introduce you… I’ve just been telling them about this afternoon.’
They were, as Gently had supposed, the man from the bank and the poster painter, and it soon transpired that they had a grievance to air. Both their cars had been impounded by the machinations of Stephens; Baxter, who lived far off the bus routes, was particularly biting in his complaints.
‘I assume that the police do have these powers, but all the same, given a modicum of low-grade intelligence…’
He was just as Mallows had limned him, with a small, bony head and greying hair; he spoke in a dry and scratchy manner and wore steel-rimmed glasses over deprecating eyes. The pipe that he ‘whiffed’ at, giving successive little puffs, had a flat round bowl and a spindly stem.
‘I suppose it’s what you’d call routine, Superintendent…?’
Gently found himself taking a little better to Farrer. He was a good-looking man of not more than forty-five, and though his smile was probably professional, he was at least making use of it.
‘You realize that we are obliged to do these things.’
‘Of course, Superintendent. But you can’t expect us to like them.’
‘I could probably arrange some transport for you gentlemen.’
‘No, no, don’t bother. We’ll see it out now.’
He took the opportunity of asking where they had parked their cars on the Monday, though Farrer’s, he knew already, had been on the Haymarket. Baxter’s, it appeared, had been there also, and after a moment or two’s thought Farrer was able to confirm this.
‘Do either of you remember where Allstanley put his?’
Farrer pulled himself up short, but Baxter was not so discreet:
‘Allstanley comes from Walford — he’d have to come in along St Saviour’s.’ And he whiffed with his pipe stuck out at a defiant angle.
But when it came to the meeting itself there was a conspiracy of silence. A curious sort of uncomfortableness seemed to descend on all three of them. It was as though they felt ashamed of the scene which had taken place, and had tacitly agreed to forget all about it.
‘I think I ought to tell you that this is important! I am already aware that Aymas quarrelled with the deceased…’
Farrer admitted that the two of them had disagreed about a picture, but at the same time insinuated that it could hardly be called a quarrel.
‘Yet they were shouting at each other?’
‘Aymas’s voice is naturally loud.’
‘Didn’t he call the deceased a liar?’
‘He’s called me one, too, before now.’
Baxter flatly observed that Aymas was ‘naturally choleric ’, but permitted nothing else to escape past his pipe. As for Watts, he could take a tip from his elders and betters; he simply chimed in assentingly to whatever the others said…
The encounter was broken up by the appearance of Stephens, who had apparently come out looking for his errant senior. The young Inspector had a gleam of excitement in his eye, and it was easy to divine that he was fraught with red-hot information.
‘Could you come back to Headquarters, sir?’
Gently grunted and rose, nodding his conge to the three painters. Since it was too much to expect that Stephens could keep his news till they had returned, Gently took care to steer him the least-frequented way thither.
‘What’s it about — did you find something in one of the cars?’
‘Yes, sir, that is to say, no sir. But I’ve found something else! You remember that there was a chummie called Aymas, sir?’
‘Aymas!’ Gently couldn’t keep the interest out of his voice.
‘Yes, sir, Aymas. One of those who had a car. Well, he hasn’t got it now, sir — he sold it to a firm of breakers. And he sold it on the Tuesday morning, right bang after the murder!’
Gently gave a soft whistle. ‘Have you managed to get hold of it?’
‘That’s the devil of it, sir. The breakers have gone and broken it up. But I’ve got a man over there, and they’re trying to identify the parts, and in the meantime I’ve taken the liberty of pulling in Aymas for questioning.’
And there was another trifling matter, one which Stephens had almost forgotten. He remembered it only as he was whisking up the steps to HQ:
‘Oh, and someone rang you, sir — a person by the name of Butters. He wouldn’t state his business to me, and he wants you to ring him back.’