Gently grunted indifferently and felt for his pipe and pouch. He had issued Johnson a warning, and now the ball lay with him. Rather sooner than he had intended he had made this concession, though in view of the facts it probably mattered very little. He filled his pipe with scrupulous care, pressed it down and struck a match.
‘You’ve figured out the way of it — good! I was wondering about that. I couldn’t think how he’d got her there, unless… it doesn’t matter! But you’re tackling the wrong kiddie… I don’t care what you’ve found out…
‘I’ve had to listen to your version — now just you listen to mine!’
He could hardly find the words, so fast did he want to bring them out; the stenographer’s pencil sounded like a mouse as it nibbled at the paper. Johnson’s legs weren’t folded now. He was leaning forward towards the desk. His frowning brow was creased with ridges and his eyes were staring and protruded.
‘I’m glad that Butters had the sense to speak up… it was me who hadn’t got the guts! I knew you’d hold it over my head — I could see that coming from the start. But I’m glad, you understand? Because I’m fond of old man Butters! You can say what you like about his bottles of brandy — he’s a decent old stick, and I’m here to say so.
‘And I like his wife… I like his family… and Anne, she isn’t just the floozie you seem to think her!
‘She’s my wife, you understand? Not the way that Shirley was! But she’s my wife all the same, in spite of not having been to church. She loves me and I love her… it’s been like that ever since we met…
‘And I didn’t give a damn about the blasted business. I’d have thrown it all up for a chance to marry Anne…’
Stephens, who had begun to sneer, was now gazing at Johnson in perplexity; he also glanced in Gently’s direction, trying to glean a cue from his senior. This wasn’t at all what he had expected to hear from a man with a murder tied on him! Johnson was blurring an open and shut case, he was upsetting its nice, clean lines…
‘Something else… I didn’t have anything on Shirley. She was too darned clever to give me a chance! You’ll never understand, because you never met her alive… as for offering her a lift… it’s funny, don’t you see?
‘She was a sadist — she liked to see other people squirm. She got a kick out of sticking to me, though we couldn’t stand each other. But if you think for a minute… I’m not going to blame her!.. Only that’s the way she was, and you’ve got to accept the facts.
‘And I did try for a divorce, whether it would have mucked me up or not — it wouldn’t have done, either. Butters wouldn’t have let me down! Just ask my solicitor… I’ve talked it over with him. But I didn’t want a detective, I tried to do the job myself, and the long and the short of it was that I never caught her at anything…
‘Then that alibi — that’s rich! My God, I could have done better than that. But the whole idea is cockeyed — we always hit the pubs on a Monday. On Sundays we used to visit the cottage, and you don’t need me to tell you… so on Mondays we toured the pubs — having a rest, if you want it in words!
‘And the abortion, too — did you ever try to fix one? You’d be surprised just how easy it isn’t! You’ve only got to hint at abortion to a medico, and the next minute he’s slinging you out on your ear. Then, after a couple of clangers like that…
‘In any case, I was dead against the idea… when I’d talked Anne round a bit, I was going to have it out with Butters. You think you know Butters, but you don’t, and that’s a fact. When he’d realized how it was with Shirley… hell, there’s nobody who’s quite an angel!’
He was brought up at last by sheer lack of breath and sat for some moments panting, a blond lock fallen across his forehead. The stenographer dropped his pencil on the desk and, in massaging his fingers, produced an unusual cracking sound. Then he selected another pencil from a supply in his breast pocket.
‘I know how it looks to you and I don’t blame you for a moment… but you can’t know, you’re only guessing about things that really matter.
‘What do you know about me, for instance? You only met me seven hours ago! You look at my car, at this moustache… and then you tack a label on me.
‘It says: “Flying Officer Kite” — all right, so I deserve it! But do you know how people came to be Flying Officer Kites? They were scared into being them — scared silly by what they were doing! They were driven into behaving like clots by sheer terror. Because there aren’t any heroes in the whole state of nature… only cowards, who one day get shoved into the breach…
‘But underneath that, what do you know about me? You must be able to see how crazy it all is. By guessing and a few facts you’ve made me out to be inhuman — an egoistic monster, a psychopath at the very least! And I’m not — I’m not like that. It’s too utterly bloody ridiculous. Get on to my friends — I’ve got plenty of them! The worst they can call me is a line-shooting bastard… I’m human, I tell you, I’m not a bloody monster…’
He flung the hair out of his eyes and dragged his chair closer to the desk; with his hands gripping the edge of it, he was only a couple of feet from Gently.
‘Listen to what I tell you, cocker… I want to see that swine collared too! Not out of revenge, or anything like that, but because he ought to be put inside. Shirley… you know how I felt about her. She wasn’t any credit to the human race. But damn it, she had a right to live, and only a madman would take it away from her…
‘But now you’re playing the madman’s game, because it was someone who knew about me and Anne. He gambled that you’d pin it on me for certain, as soon as the rest of the tale came out. So for Christ’s sake try to see this straight — I wouldn’t have laid my little finger on Shirley!
‘On Monday night I did just what I told you. I was never near here, and I didn’t kill my wife…’
Gently had never stopped puffing at his pipe, but now he put an entirely gratuitous match to it. Having done that, he broke the match in two pieces and arranged them fastidiously in the ashtray.
Always, with Johnson, it was the selfsame question — was he being honest, or was he being clever? Before, they had given him the benefit of the doubt, and even now he was keeping his foot in the door. He had no defence against the charge, and yet… what was the answer going to be?
‘Take Mr Johnson back to the charge room, will you?’ He swung on Hansom’s revolving chair, so that his back was towards them. From the reluctant way in which Stephens got to his feet, Gently knew that the Inspector was critical of the order.
‘You’re holding me… is that it?’
‘I may want to ask some more questions.’
‘And meanwhile I’m in custody?’
‘You are assisting the police…’
They took him out while Gently was still savouring the irony of the phrase.
Stephens came back quickly, his face wearing a worried look.
‘Super, I don’t know…’
‘Sit down and light your pipe.’
‘Yes, sir. But my impression-’
‘Take a seat! I’m trying to think.’
Stephens did as Gently bid him with the best grace possible, but his pipe, that pride and joy, seemed unable to absorb him. Gently continued to face the wall, his cogitations marked by smoke rings; Stephens was not the first person to have noticed that the Super’s back was like an iron curtain.
‘So you’d slap him inside, and no more nonsense?’
Ten minutes had passed in the silent smoke rings.
‘Under the circumstances, sir-’
‘I’ve got no option. But suppose I was damn fool enough to make myself the option?’
Stephens was thoroughly unhappy and didn’t know what to say. He had never before come across Gently in this awkward, angular mood.
‘I must admit, sir… to my way of thinking…’
‘Just tell me straight out, Stephens.’
‘Very well, sir. I wouldn’t think twice about it. He’s our chummie, and we’d get a conviction.’
‘Hmm.’ Some more smoke rings rose towards the ceiling, and again the office was broodingly silent. Then suddenly Gently swivelled round in the chair, the ghost of a grin spreading over his face.