Gently Does It

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘my secret. But first, you can keep a secret, can’t you?’

  She nodded, chewing her peppermint cream.

  ‘It’s this. I, Chief Inspector Gently, Central Office, CID, am morally certain that Peter didn’t murder his father. What do you think of that?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘But—!’ she exclaimed.

  Gently held up his hand. ‘Oh, I know, and you mustn’t tell anybody at all. It’s a terrible thing for a Chief Inspector to prejudice himself in the early stages of an investigation. I’ve had to tick people off about it myself. And to tell it to somebody concerned in the case is flat misdemeanour.’ Gently paused to fortify himself with another peppermint cream. ‘I’ve been a policeman too long,’ he concluded, ‘it’s high time they retired me. Some day, I might do something quite unforgivable.’

  Mrs Huysmann was still staring at him disbelievingly. ‘You – you know he didn’t do it!’ she cried.

  ‘No,’ said Gently, ‘I don’t know it. Not yet.’

  ‘But you said—!’

  ‘I said I was morally certain, my dear, which isn’t quite the same thing.’

  She relapsed slowly into her former forlorn posture. ‘Then they’ll still charge him with it,’ she said.

  Gently nodded. ‘My moral certainties won’t prevent that. Peter’s still in grave danger and unless I can produce some hard, irreducible facts pointing in another direction, he may find his innocence very difficult to establish. Which is why I’m here this morning.’

  ‘But I don’t know anything – I can’t help you at all!’

  Gently smiled at a point beyond the blue horizon. ‘That is something, my dear, which we will now attempt to discover,’ he said.

  The rain had washed out any lurking quaintness there might have been in Queen Street. The raw brick tower of the new brewery seemed rawer, the stale flint-and-brick tower of the old breweries staler, the mouldering plaster-and-lath miserable to disintegration. Gently splashed through puddles formed in hollows of the pavement. He stopped to look at a horse-meat shop. Painted a virulent red, it had crudely drawn upon it the faces of a cat and a dog, with the legend: ‘Buy our dinners here’. Up the middle of Queen Street rode a lonely sodden figure, a bundle of papers covered by a sack in the carrier of his bicycle. Behind him limped a dog, head down, tail down. At the horse-meat shop the dog raised its head and gave a low whine. But it continued to limp after its master.

  Today there were only two cars outside the Huysmann house, a police car and Leaming’s red Pashley. The constable on the door saluted smartly. ‘Inspector Hansom is in the sitting-room, sir,’ he said. Gently disrobed himself of his raincoat and left it hung dripping on the hall-stand. A second constable opened the sitting-room door for him. Inside sat Inspector Hansom at a table, smoking a cigar. Beside him sat a uniformed man with a shorthand notebook.

  ‘Ah!’ cried Hansom, ‘the Yard itself! We’ll have to forget about the third degree after all, Jackson.’

  Gently smiled moistly, took out his pipe and began to fill it. ‘Forgive me for being late,’ he said.

  Hansom spewed forth cigar-smoke. ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said, ‘we can accommodate ourselves to Metropolitan hours. Just sit down and make yourself at home. There’ll be tea and biscuits in half an hour.’

  Gently lit his pipe and sat down.

  ‘I suppose you didn’t look in at the office this morning,’ continued Hansom, a glint in his eye.

  ‘No. Should I have done?’

  ‘It might be an idea, if you want to keep abreast of this case.’

  Gently patted the ash down in his pipe with an experienced finger. ‘You mean the five-pound note you found in a drawer in Peter Huysmann’s caravan, don’t you?’ he enquired thoughtfully.

  ‘You were at the office then?’ demanded Hansom, a little clashed.

  ‘No. But I was at the caravan this morning.’

  ‘Then perhaps you don’t know that it was one of the notes taken from Huysmann’s safe?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘Why else would you have taken it away?’

  Hansom’s eyes gleamed triumphantly. ‘And how do you propose to explain that one, Chief Inspector Gently?’ he demanded.

  Gently patted away at his pipe till the ash was perfectly level, then dusted off his finger on his trousers. ‘I don’t explain anything,’ he said. ‘I’m a policeman. I ask questions.’

  ‘It’ll take a lot of questions to make this look silly.’

  ‘I should ask myself,’ proceeded Gently, ‘why Peter left a note there at all, just one. And I should ask myself whether it was likely to be one of those on your list – he had so many others.’ He paused.

  ‘And is that all you’d ask?’ enquired Hansom with a sneer.

  ‘And I think,’ added Gently, ‘I’d ask Mrs Huysmann if she knew how it came to be there.’

  Hansom sat up straight, his cigar lifting. ‘So you would, would you?’ he said.

  ‘I think I would. Very nicely, of course, so I didn’t make her feel she was being kicked in the teeth by a size fifteen boot.’

  ‘Har, har,’ said Hansom, ‘give me time to laugh.’

  ‘And I should find out that Peter never had but that one note and brought it back with him yesterday in a seething temper and put it in the drawer with express instructions that it wasn’t to be touched. Of course, it’s technically possible that he had his pocket picked of the balance … perhaps that’s why he was so angry.’

  Hansom snarled: ‘And you believe that bosh?’

  ‘I don’t believe anything,’ said Gently mildly. ‘I just ask questions …’

  The ash dropped off Hansom’s cigar and fell neatly on to the blotter in front of him. He grabbed it away savagely. ‘See here,’ he snapped, ‘I know you’re dead against us. I know you’d go to any lengths to get young Huysmann off, even though you’re as sure as we are that he did it. Because why? Because you’re the Yard and you think you’ve got to show us we’re a lot of flat-footed yokels. That’s why! That’s why you’re going to upset this case – if you can. But you can’t, Chief Inspector Gently, it’s getting much too one-sided, even for you. By the time we’ve lined this case up there won’t be a jury in the country who’ll give it more than ten minutes – if they give it that!’

  Gently leaned back in his chair and blew the smallest and roundest of smoke-rings at the distant ceiling. ‘Inspector Hansom,’ he said, ‘I’d like to make a point.’

  ‘What’s that?’ snarled Hansom.

  ‘There is between us, Inspector Hansom, a slight but operative difference in rank. And now, if you will start sending these people in, we’ll try to question them as though we were part of one of the acknowledged civilizations.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MRS TURNER, THE housekeeper, was a clean, neat, bustling person of fifty-five, dressed for the day in a black tailored suit smelling of stale lavender. She had a large bland face with small mean eyes, and her nose was the merest shade red.

  She said: ‘I’m sure there’s nothing more I can tell you what I didn’t say yesterday,’ and sat down with an air of disapproval and injury.

  Hansom said: ‘You are Mrs Charles Turner, widow, housekeeper to the deceased. You had the day off yesterday till 5 p.m … where did you spend the day?’

  ‘I told you all that yesterday.’

  ‘Please be good enough to answer the question. Where did you spend the day?’

  ‘I went to see me sister at Earlton …’

  ‘You were at your sister’s the whole of that time?’ Gently said.

  The housekeeper shot him a mean look. ‘Well, most of it, like …’

  ‘You mean that part of the time you were somewhere else.’

  She pursed her lips and jiffled a little. ‘I spent the day with me sister,’ she repeated defensively, adding, ‘you can ask her, if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘Right. We’ll check on that,’ said Hansom. ‘What time did you arrive back here?’

  ‘I got i
n about five to five.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I went into the kitchen to see if the maid had got things ready for tea.’

  ‘You found the maid in the kitchen?’

  ‘She was sitting down reading one of them fourpenny novels.’

  ‘Did she mention anything unusual that had occurred during the afternoon?’

  ‘She said as how Mr Peter had called and seen his father, and they’d had a dust-up over something, but it didn’t last long.’

  Gently said: ‘She could not have heard them quarrelling from the kitchen. Did she say where she was at the time?’

  The housekeeper frowned. She didn’t like Gently’s questions. He seemed determined to complicate the most clear-cut issues. ‘I didn’t ask her,’ she replied tartly.

  Hansom continued: ‘When did you go to the study?’

  ‘I went there straight away, to ask Mr Huysmann what time he wanted tea.’

  ‘Was that usual?’ chipped in Gently.

  ‘Yes, it was usual! He didn’t have no set times for his meals. You had to go and ask him.’

  ‘That would be a few minutes after 5 p.m.?’ proceeded Hansom.

  ‘About five-past, I should think.’

  ‘And you knocked on the door and entered?’

  ‘That was how he told us to go in.’

  ‘Tell us what you saw when you entered.’

  ‘Well, I just see Mr Huysmann lying there sort of twisted like, as though he might have had a fit.’

  ‘Was he lying in the same position as he was when the police arrived?’

  ‘I might have moved him a little bit, but not much. I thought as how he was took ill. I tried to get him up, but when I saw all the blood under him I knew that something horrible had happened, so I put him back again.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I went for Susan and told her to get the police.’

  ‘Did Susan go into the study?’

  ‘No, I told her not to. That was bad enough for me, who’ve seen dead people. I nearly went out when I got back to the kitchen.’

  ‘A telephone message was received at headquarters at 5.17 p.m. That was ten minutes after you would have returned to the kitchen.’

  ‘Well, there I was in a bad way, I had Susan fetch me some brandy. And then Miss Gretchen, she came back and had to be told.’

  ‘What time did Miss Huysmann return?’

  ‘About a quarter past five, I suppose it was.’

  ‘At which door did she enter?’

  ‘She came in the front, of course. Susan was just going through to phone and she see Miss Gretchen in the hall and tell her.’

  ‘How did Miss Huysmann take the news?’

  ‘Well, she’s always a very quiet sort of girl, but she was mortal pale when she came into the kitchen. I gave her a sip of brandy to pull her together.’

  ‘Was Susan at all surprised when Miss Huysmann came in?’

  ‘She said: “Oh – I thought you was still in your room, miss.”’

  Hansom paused, leaned back in his chair and appeared to be studying the rash his cigar-ash had made on his blotter. The constable beside him scribbled industriously. Outside the rain made a soft quiet noise, like the sound of time itself. The housekeeper sat upright and rocked very gently backwards and forwards.

  Hansom said: ‘You have been a long time in this family, Mrs Turner. Certain private matters concerning it must have come to your notice. Can you think of anything which may have a bearing on the present tragedy?’

  The housekeeper’s face changed to defensive righteousness. ‘There’s Mr Peter,’ she said, ‘he’s no secret.’

  ‘Is there anybody else connected with Mr Huysmann who, to your knowledge, may have had a grudge against him?’

  ‘I daresay there’s several people as weren’t over-fond of him. He was a long way from being open-handed. But I can’t think of anybody who’d want to do a thing like this.’

  ‘Did you know that Mr Huysmann proposed to make a fresh will disinheriting his son?’

  ‘Oh yes. He’d been talking about that ever since Mr Peter got married.’

  Gently said: ‘How long ago was that?’

  The housekeeper thought for a moment. ‘It’ll be just on two years,’ she replied.

  ‘Did Peter know about it two years ago?’

  ‘Mr Huysmann told him before he got married.’

  Gently nodded his slow, complacent nod. Hansom glared across at him. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to ask before we let Mrs Turner go?’ he asked bitingly.

  Gently placed his fingers neatly together. ‘Was the safe door open or closed when you discovered the body?’ he said.

  ‘It was open.’

  ‘And how about the outer door?’

  ‘I think it was closed.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Gently. He leaned forward in his chair. ‘At the time the murder was discovered, are you positive that Susan and yourself were the only persons in the house?’ he asked.

  The housekeeper’s face registered surprise followed by indignation. ‘If there had been anyone else I should have said so,’ she retorted magnificently.

  ‘Is there anybody not so far mentioned whom you would not have been surprised to find in the house at that time in the afternoon?’

  She paused. ‘Well, there’s the chauffeur, but he was off duty. And there might have been someone from the yard about business.’

  Gently nodded again and rested his chin on his thumbs. ‘This room we’re in,’ he said, ‘was it last cleaned before lunch yesterday?’

  ‘You’d best ask Susan about that. It should have been done.’

  ‘To your knowledge, did anybody enter it after the discovery of the murder?’

  ‘There was nothing to come in here about.’

  Gently leant far back into his chair, elevated his paired fingers and looked through them at the ceiling. ‘During the time when you were not at your sister’s yesterday,’ he said, ‘would you have been … somewhere else … for the purpose of taking alcoholic refreshment?’

  The housekeeper’s face turned scarlet. She jumped to her feet, her eyes flashing, and seemed on the point of a scathing denial. Then, with an effort, she checked herself and flung out of the room like an outraged duchess.

  Gently smiled through the cage of his fingers. ‘Pass me,’ he said dreamily, ‘there’s one alibi less on my list.’

  Gently was eating a peppermint cream when Susan came in. He had offered one to Hansom as a sort of olive branch, but Hansom had refused it, and after counting those that remained in the bag Gently was not sorry. He had a feeling that Norchester would not be very productive of peppermint creams on a Sunday, especially a wet Sunday, and the prospect of running short was a bleak one. Life was hard enough without a shortage of peppermint creams.

  Susan was a pretty, pert blonde girl with a tilted bra and an accentuated behind. She wore a smile as a natural part of her equipment. She had a snub nose and dimples and a pleased expression, and had a general supercharged look, as though she was liable to burst out of her black dress and stockings into a fierce nudity.

  The constable with the shorthand notebook sighed as she took her seat. He was a young man. Hansom ran through the preliminaries of identification and association.

  ‘What time did the family finish lunch, Miss Stibbons?’ he asked.

  Susan leant her bewitching head on one side. ‘It would be about two o’clock, Inspector. It was quarter past when I went to clear away.’

  ‘Did Mr Huysmann go to his study directly after lunch?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Inspector. But he was there when I took him his coffee.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘It would be about half-past two, I should think.’

  ‘What was he doing then?’

  ‘He was standing by the window, looking at the garden.’

  ‘Did he make any remark out of the ordinary?’

  The bewitching head dipped over an errant blush.
‘We-ell, Inspector …’

  ‘Did he lead you to suppose he was expecting a visitor?’

  ‘No … he didn’t give me that impression.’

  Hansom looked her over thoughtfully. He was only forty himself. ‘What did Miss Huysmann do after lunch?’ he asked.

  ‘She took her coffee up to her room.’

  ‘She apparently left the house shortly afterwards to go to the pictures. She says she left at half-past two. You didn’t see her go?’

  ‘No, Inspector.’

  ‘Did she take her coffee to her room before you took Mr Huysmann’s to him?’

  ‘Oh yes, she came and got it from the kitchen.’

  ‘You didn’t hear the front-door bell between the time she took her coffee and the time you went to the study with Mr Huysmann’s?’

  ‘No, Inspector.’

  ‘Nor while you were in the study?’

  ‘No, I didn’t hear it at all till Mr Peter came.’

  ‘Because of that you were surprised to find that she had, in fact, gone out?’

  ‘It surprised me at the time, Inspector, but after I’d thought about it I realized she must have gone out through the kitchen.’

  ‘Why should she have done that?’

  ‘We-ell, I don’t think she would want her father to know she had gone to the pictures.’

  Gently broke in: ‘Was it unusual for Miss Huysmann to go to the pictures?’

  Susan embraced him in a smile of melting intensity. ‘Mr Huysmann didn’t think it proper for girls to go to them. But she went when Mr Huysmann was away on business and sometimes she pretended to go to bed early and I would let her out by the kitchen.’

  ‘Wasn’t it unusual for her to slip out in the afternoon, when her father might enquire after her?’

  ‘Ye-es … she’d never done that before.’

  ‘You have no doubt that she did go out?’

  ‘Oh no! I saw her come in with her hat and coat on.’

  ‘You heard nothing during the afternoon to suggest that she might still be in the house?’