‘He was pally enough with Mrs Johnson, wasn’t he? Used to take her out for lunch and that sort of thing?’
‘So did a lot of others.’
‘But they haven’t got that paper! And she only had that piece, because I’ve sent Ephgrave to the flat to check. Now if Johnson sent the letter he might have destroyed some remaining paper — that’s possible. I agree, though, it could be more probable; but it’s probable enough that she got half a sheet from Mallows — and that that’s all she ever had: it’s as probable as hell!’
‘Then why did he admit to me that he had some?’
‘You tell me, you’ve made a study of the bloke. All I can say is that he’s making me curious… yeah, and wasn’t he the last one to see her?’
‘You’ve forgotten something important.’ Still he was defending Mallows! Reluctantly, he was letting Hansom draw a decisive point from him. ‘He couldn’t have composed that letter because he didn’t know about Johnson and Farrer. We didn’t release it to the press, and Mallows wasn’t there to be an eyewitness.’
‘How do you know he wasn’t there?’
‘I had an appointment with him at eleven. He was waiting for me in his studio, and I found him working on a canvas.’
‘Supposing Farrer rang up and told him?’
Gently with difficulty suppressed a smile. This was the first thing that people thought of; the easy, automatic, but quite transparent, explanation.
‘I checked with Farrer, and Farrer didn’t.’
‘Huh! All the same, I keep being curious.’
‘There could be another source for the paper, you know.’
‘You bet — it’s as common as muck, round here!’
Gently had succeeded nevertheless in heading Hansom away from Mallows, and the Chief Inspector was back to his old love by the time the rice pudding arrived. In a way, they had each of them made personal issues, Hansom with Johnson and Gently with Mallows. Though at first Gently had not regarded the artist as a ‘hot’ suspect, had he not been preparing himself for the moment when he would? Judas-like, he had let himself be attracted by Mallows… and now he felt compelled to keep the man to himself.
It was beginning to be a mystery where Johnson had disappeared to, whether or not he had shaved off that undisguisable moustache. The subject of an all-stations, the description of his car known, he had still completely eluded the attention of authority. Two reports had come in before the car details were available, and neither had stood up to a moment’s scrutiny, but since the details had gone out there had been a uniform silence — Johnson’s Minx appeared to have vanished, with the estate agent inside it.
Did he have some other bolt hole of which the police knew nothing? The Nearstead cottage was already under surveillance. On the chance, Hansom dispatched a detective to Johnson’s office, with instructions to list all unsold property on the books.
After lunch Gently was able to fill in some details of his ‘X’ list. Allstanley had been traced: he was visiting some friends in the city. The balding teacher, who smoked a comfortable-looking cherrywood, drove voluntarily to Headquarters and was brought up to Hansom’s office.
‘Your people rang me up from my digs at Walford — asked me to come along to answer some questions.’
He had a quiet, pleasant voice and sensitive, retiring features, so that one wondered how he kept discipline in a crowded council school. After a while, however, one noticed a gentle authority. He thought before he spoke and made statements that were positive.
‘No, I don’t mind telling you where I was last night. I’m spending the weekend with the Todds, and we went to the Playhouse.’
‘You slept at the Todds’, did you?’
‘They’ve put me up in their parlour. The kids being at home means they’re without a spare bedroom.’
‘So in fact you slept downstairs?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘You were the only one sleeping downstairs?’
‘Of course — what’s happened?’
On being told, he showed signs of dismay and wanted to hear the details. He looked solemn when he learnt the fate of his own precious exhibit.
‘And I’d sold it, too — the first of my “wires” to go! But it’s probably just as well. I would hardly have bashed my own “wire”…’
Having got him Gently was in no hurry to let Allstanley escape, but fired other questions at him, about the meeting and about Shirley Johnson. He was not so much interested in the answers as in the man’s personality — there were several points about Allstanley which answered to Mallows ’s portrait.
‘You were good friends with Mrs Johnson?’
‘I’m not sure that I’d say that. I liked her well enough, but it didn’t blind me to her faults.’
‘Suppose I told you that she expressed herself as being fond of you, to Mr Mallows?’
An unbelieving stare, and then: ‘He should know — he made the running with her.’
Gently hadn’t bargained for that, but he couldn’t let it pass: he could feel Hansom’s dark eyes boring in from beside him.
‘He took notice of her, did he?’
‘You can put it like that if you want to.’
‘Are you saying more than that?’
It was a challenge, and Allstanley shook his head.
But it continued to hang in the air, that unexpectedly dangerous response, and though Gently covered it up he couldn’t entirely remove its impact. After Allstanley had gone Hansom tapped him on the shoulder:
‘What do you say to her having blackmailed Mallows?’
It took Gently back to where Stephens had come in…
The reports, as they slowly arrived, bore a painful air of sameness. Few of the members could give foolproof alibis, though such as they had stood up to inquiry. Shoreby had spent the night on a houseboat, Wimbush was visiting his mother in Starmouth. Seymour’s ‘woman’ was a well-known prostitute who occupied lodgings off Riverbank Road. The results of the searches were equally negative — no mutilated Timeses or sheets of ‘Leonardo da Vinci’; only Baxter, besides Mallows, was a subscriber to the former, and he produced his back numbers in a beautifully even pile.
It was ten minutes past three when the first excitement occurred, until when the day had seemed booked to end in a stalemate. Gently had just lit his pipe and was gazing down into the street — the sun had lately broken through, to evoke a higher incidence of strollers. Behind him he heard the phone buzz and Hansom picking it up.
‘Chief Inspector Hansom… yes… that’s right… come again? He sold it?… well, the cheeky so-and-so!.. yeah… I’ll say!.. yep, do that for me… thanks a lot… yeah… thanks.’
The receiver clunked down and Hansom made a crowing sound: ‘So what do you know about that! The chummie goes and flogs the car!’
‘You were talking about Johnson?’
‘Yeah — that was Chelmsford on the wire. They’ve just spotted the Minx in a dealer’s window — Johnson flogged it to him last night — made a tenner on the deal! Chelmsford are checking the buses and trains to see if they can pick up his trail for us.’
‘Chelmsford, eh…?’
‘Yep — heading for the Smoke. He must have decided that the Minx was a bit too risky to stay with. But the craftiness of the boyo, flogging his car to another dealer! If Chelmsford hadn’t been so spry, we might not have heard of it for days.’
‘At what time did he sell the car?’
‘It was yesterday evening, round about eight.’
‘Did they ask if he’s bought another?’
‘Not from that establishment he didn’t.’
Hansom picked up the phone again and Gently puffed some steady smoke rings. If Johnson had sold the car around eight, then how had he spent the rest of the time? To drive to Chelmsford would take two hours: he had been in possession of the Minx before noon. Thus there were six hours to be accounted for — a surprising delay, for a man on the run!