by Alan Hunter
For a moment he did not see how anybody could live in Paragon Alley. It seemed too completely forgotten and neglected. And then he noticed, well down on the right-hand side, a warehouse over which were two curtained windows. It had access by a paintless side-door and two worn steps, and the number was chalked on the door: 5A.
Gently brooded before this footprint in the desert sands. ‘It’s quiet up the alley,’ was what Fisher had said, ‘there might have been someone about …’ He turned to take in the blank face of the wall that closed the alley and the sightless windows that stared across the way. From the corner of his eye he saw the figure that slid out of sight at the entry …
There was a face at one of the windows, a dirty little urchin’s face. It stared at Gently with mock ferocity.
‘Hullo,’ said Gently.
‘Zzzzzzzz!’ said the face, ‘I’m Superman. I’m going to carry you away to the Radio Mountain.’
‘Well, you’ll have to come out here to do that,’ said Gently.
‘No, I won’t – I’ll get you with my magnetic ray!’ A piece of stick came over the window-sill and levelled itself at Gently. ‘Zzzzzzzzing!’ said the face, ‘zing! zing! Now I’ve got you!’
Gently smiled affably. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘I’m Jeff, the Son of Superman.’
‘Do you often play in these old houses?’
‘Mister, this is my headquarters. This is where I bring all my prisoners, after I’ve paralysed them with my magnetic ray.’
‘Were you here on Saturday? Saturday afternoon?’
‘Course I was. That was the day I caught Professor X and his Uranium Gang.’
Gently moved over, closer to the window. ‘Do you know who lives across there – over the warehouse?’ he asked.
The little brow wrinkled itself ferociously. ‘Course I know. He’s my arch enemy. That’s the hide-out of the Red Hawk, the biggest plane bandit in all England. That’s where he builds his planes, mister, real ones, and then he goes out and shoots down other planes with gold in them. Oh, I’ve been watching him for a long time. One day I’m going to get him real good, and all the stolen gold he’s got.’
‘What was the Red Hawk doing on Saturday afternoon?’
‘Saturday afternoon? That was when he shot down the mail-plane carrying all the gold. I tried to stop him, mister, I was firing the magnetic ray at him all the way down the alley. But do you know what I think?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think he’s got wise to the magnetic ray. I think he’s got an atomic plate on him that stops it.’
Gently fumbled for his peppermint creams. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘these are G-men hot-shots. They’ve got radioactive starch in them – they’ll put sixty miles an hour on you.’
Superman took two and tried out one for effect. ‘Gee – thanks, mister!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll get that Red Hawk now, just you see.’
Gently said: ‘Now this is important, Superman. What time did Red Hawk light out to rob the mail-plane on Saturday?’
Superman injected the second hot-shot. ‘He went right away, mister, as soon as he’d come back for his Z-gun.’
‘When was right away?’
‘Right away after dinner.’
‘And what time do you have dinner?’
‘Oh, when my father gets back from the factory.’
‘And after dinner you came right along here to headquarters?’
‘You bet, mister. I’d got a special code message from Mars that Professor X was going to attack right after dinner. I wasn’t going to miss him – he’s been preying on s’ciety too long.’
‘Did you see the Red Hawk come back again with the gold?’
Superman corrugated his brow. ‘He’s mighty cunning, is Red Hawk. He brought it in the back way – through all these old houses. But I saw him, mister. I saw him come in from my look-out post.’
‘What time would that be?’
‘Oh … I don’t know. He’d been gone a good while, but it wasn’t tea-time. I caught Professor X before tea-time.’
Gently pondered a moment. ‘You can hear them at the football up here, I should think.’
‘I’ll say you can, Mister! You don’t ever need ask how they’re getting on, not up here.’
‘They scored three times on Saturday. You hear them?’
‘Course I did!’
‘How many had they scored before the Red Hawk came back with the gold?’
‘They’d just scored the second one as he was coming back.’
‘You’re sure of that, Superman?’
‘Course I’m sure! I went up to my look-out post to see if I could see it – you can see one of the goals, mister. And then I saw the Red Hawk creeping back through the houses.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Oh, he slipped into his lair with the gold and hid it with the rest, I ’spect. Then he went out again, down into the Lane, and asked somebody about the football.’
‘And after that?’
‘He just went off up the Lane.’
Gently administered another hot-shot. ‘You’re a good boy, Superman,’ he said, ‘you’ve got your head screwed on tight. What are you going to be when you grow up – a policeman?’
Superman’s face wrinkled with disgust. ‘Not me, mister. I’m really clever. I’m going to be the one who catches them when the police have given up … What’s your name, mister?’
‘Me?’ Gently grinned. ‘I’m Dick Barton Senior,’ he said.
The Red Hawk stood at the entry to the alley, hands in pockets, scowling, disdaining any further concealment. The two-day growth of beard that darkened his face gave it a slightly sinister look. He still wore the beach-girl tie and American-style jacket, but had changed his slacks, which were formerly inconspicuous, for a pair of Cambridge-blue ones. He stood, as though barring Gently’s egress. His eyes were aggressive and slightly mocking.
‘You been asking questions about me?’ he demanded.
Gently stopped, stared at him stolidly.
‘Was that kid telling you a pack of lies?’
Gently remained silent.
‘They aren’t going to believe a kid. Nobody’ll believe a kid – not that kid, anyhow. They had him in the home once. He’s cracked.’
Gently said: ‘Are you just going back to your flat?’
Fisher eyed him nastily. ‘Suppose I am. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’
Gently said: ‘I’d like to come in and look it over.’
‘Oh, would you? And s’pose I don’t like policemen coming into my flat – what are you going to say to that?’
Gently shrugged. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said. ‘I could phone down for a search-warrant, if I thought it was worth it.’
Fisher swayed a little, his scowl deepening. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘all right. You come in, Mr Chief Inspector Gently – you come in, and see where you get then.’
He led the way down the alley, Gently following a few paces in the rear. As they drew opposite the flat there was a warning cry from Superman. ‘Watch out, mister! I’ve got the ray on him, but he’s a desperate character!’ Fisher made a threatening movement and Superman’s face and ray-gun disappeared with great promptness. Fisher unlocked the door. There was a short section of dingy passage leading to a steep flight of steps. At the top of these was a dark landing from which opened three doors. Fisher threw them wide. ‘There, Mr Chief Inspector Gently,’ he said, ‘go in and find some clues.’
Gently glanced around him impassively. The first room was a kitchen, combining, apparently, the duties of wash-room. The second was the bedroom, narrow, unornamented, its furniture an iron bedstead, a chair and a varnished chest-of-drawers. The third room was the living-room. It contained three chairs, a couch, a cupboard, a table and a stool. Its walls, from damp patches in which pieces of plaster had fallen, were decorated with coloured drawings of tight-skinned nudes taken from American magazines. Several nude photographs adorned the m
antelpiece. The table stood under the window. On it stood several built-up scale models of aircraft, together with an untidy assemblage of balsa wood, tubes of cement, coloured tissue, piano wire and odd-shaped parts, amongst which lay a blunt-nosed skeleton fuselage. A printed sheet of balsa, partly cut out, was at the front of the table. Beside it lay an open cut-throat razor.
‘Go on,’ jeered Fisher, ‘go right in and pull things about – I don’t mind!’
Gently went in and slowly circumnavigated the room, touching nothing. Fisher watched him scowlingly from the doorway. ‘You don’t know anything,’ he said, ‘think you’re so clever, coming from Scotland Yard, but you don’t know a thing.’
Gently paused before the razor.
‘That’s it – have a good look at it! I go out cutting little girls’ throats with that.’
Gently picked it up, tried the blade on his thumb and laid it down again. He turned and regarded Fisher distantly. ‘What don’t I know?’ he asked.
‘You don’t know anything – that’s what you don’t know. You just think you do!’
‘And what do I think I know?’
‘You think you know I wasn’t here when I said I was here, for a start.’
Gently said nothing.
‘You think maybe I was at the house when it was done, don’t you?’
Gently raised his eyebrows slightly.
‘You think I heard them quarrelling and nipped into the other room and got a chair and watched it done – you think I could tell you how he got the knife off the wall and stabbed the old man as he was at the safe. That’s what you think you know, Mr Chief Inspector Gently – that’s what it is. But you don’t know nothing really, nothing at all! And you’re never going to know nothing, for all your cleverness.’
Gently took out a peppermint cream without moving his gaze from Fisher.
‘You think you can find out things that Inspector Hansom can’t find out. You’ve been bloody clever, haven’t you? But there’s as clever people about as you, don’t you forget it. They know how much you can prove and how much you can’t, and that’s not a damn sight and never will be.’
Gently said: ‘I might be able to prove that you’re the father of Gretchen Huysmann’s child.’
Fisher’s mouth hung open. ‘You’ll what?’ he gabbled.
Gently chewed his peppermint cream.
Fisher came closer. He thrust his face close to Gently’s. There was anger and fear in his eyes. ‘You’re lying!’ he spluttered, ‘she isn’t going to have a child!’
Gently chewed on.
‘If she told you that, it’s a lie – it’s nothing to do with me!’
Gently swallowed.
‘Anyhow, they can’t prove things like that, not really. You’re trying to trap me, that’s what it is. You can’t prove anything, so you’re trying to make me say something by lying.’
Gently smiled at him seraphically.
Fisher breathed hard. ‘You don’t know anything!’ he repeated fiercely, ‘you only think you know!’
Gently placed a hand firmly on Fisher’s chest and pushed him to one side. ‘Think about it,’ he said, ‘take an hour off and think about it.’
He went down the stairs. From the top Fisher shouted after him: ‘You can think what you like … you can’t prove it!’
Gently completed his climb to Burgh Street and stood for some minutes by the bombed-site, partly to see the view and partly to get his breath back. A steep climb like that came as a warning that retirement was not so very far ahead. And then, he thought, I’ll buy a cottage somewhere, quite away from all superintendents with bad cases of murder, and fish … Having got his breath, he set off down the hill again. Near the bottom, as he was passing the ruined shell of an old factory-building, he heard a slight movement high above his head. He jumped without stopping to look. At the same moment a fragment of masonry about the size of a football crashed on to the pavement where he had been walking, bounced once and trundled away down the steep slope.
Gently stood motionless, pressed against the wall. There was a sudden clambering and rush of footsteps on the other side. Up the hill, down the hill the wall stretched blindly, completely without access. The footsteps died away in the distance.
Gently picked up the fragment of masonry and placed it carefully at the side of the pavement. It weighed nearly half a hundred-weight. ‘You can think what you like,’ he quoted to himself, ‘but you don’t know nothing … and you can’t prove it.’ He fed himself a peppermint cream and walked on down the Lane.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE LATER LUNCH-TIME fly-sheets carried the news: PETER HUYSMANN CAUGHT. It was scanned by typists in snack-bars and discussed by housewives over their lunch-time coffee. The heavy, red-faced man who sold papers outside the bank shouted: ‘Huysmann Taken Off Ship – Latest!’ – and sold the thick sheaf under his arm as quickly as he could take the money. Two painters on a cradle high above the Walk heard his cry. ‘Ted, get you down after a paper,’ said the elder one, ‘I used to know young Huysmann when he was knee-high to a tin of paint.’ Ted went down the scaffolding like a monkey, but by the time he got to the pavement the papers were all sold. So he had to go round to the door of the printing shop and wait while the grumbling machines flapped out a fresh, warm-smelling edition.
‘CAUGHT WHILE FLEEING COUNTRY’ ran the revised headline, ‘PETER HUYSMANN ON DUTCH SHIP BOUND FOR AMSTERDAM: Intercepted by Police at Haswick.’ It continued: ‘Peter Johann Huysmann, 28, son of the murdered Norchester timber-merchant, was discovered this morning hiding in the Dutch motor-vessel Zjytze, which was returning to its home port of Amsterdam after discharging a cargo of timber at Norchester. Wanted by the police for questioning in connection with the death of his father, Huysmann was discovered concealed in a hold when the vessel was intercepted and searched by the Yar River Police patrol boat at Haswick. Captain Hoochzjy, master of the Zjytze, in a statement to the Norchester City Police, denied all knowledge of the presence of Huysmann on board his vessel. Huysmann was taken to Norchester City Police Station. He was given a meal of bacon and fried sausages in the Police canteen …’ And there was a photograph of Peter in his riding helmet, a bad one, deliberately chosen for its villainousness.
The elder painter scrutinized the photograph broodingly. He removed the tab-end of a Woodbine. ‘Always something queer about that fellow,’ he said, ‘never quite like you and me, he was …’
Gently found Hansom closeted with the super in the latter’s neat, bare office. ‘He’s got that look about him,’ Hansom was saying, ‘you know, it gets to be an instinct.’
The super rose as Gently came in. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said. ‘Judging from the reports I’ve had in, you’ve put a finger on some complications which will need a thorough going over. At first – and I don’t mind admitting it – I thought you were just being awkward. But I see now there are points here that would be a gift to the defence unless we get them straightened out first. Also, I think they will help us. If we can get the chauffeur to talk, our case is fool-proof.’
Hansom leered at Gently, but said nothing.
Gently said: ‘You won’t have charged him yet?’
‘I’m going to charge him now, when we have him in.’
Gently said: ‘May I offer some advice?’
The super glanced at him sharply, frowning. ‘I’m always willing to take advice – sound advice.’
Gently’s face was completely expressionless. ‘My advice is not to charge him with murder,’ he said.
Hansom let out a bellow. The super exclaimed: ‘But good lord, Gently, it’s impossible – completely impossible!’
Gently proceeded smoothly: ‘I know it’s a great deal to ask, and I wouldn’t suggest it except for the best possible professional reasons. But, for your own sake, I advise you not to charge him.’
‘I’m sorry, Gently, but it’s completely out of the question.’
‘You mean we should just question him and let him go?’ yappe
d Hansom, ‘just like that – with a conviction staring him in the face?’
Gently pursed his lips. ‘I was not suggesting that,’ he said.
‘Then what are you suggesting?’ snapped the super. ‘To let him go now is as much as my post is worth and if I don’t charge him, I can’t hold him. What possible alternative have I?’
‘You can hold him on a charge of unlawful possession.’
‘Unlawful possession?’
‘You found a bank-note in his caravan which was one of those stolen from the safe. I don’t think you’ll get a conviction, but it’s enough to hold him on. And, it’s one thing to fall down on a case of unlawful possession, quite another to fall down on a case of murder.’
‘You know something that’s not in these reports?’ demanded the super, like the crack of a whip.
Gently sighed. ‘I do,’ he said.
‘And what is that?’
‘It’s a lot of little things that I couldn’t prove to your satisfaction, but they keep adding together in a way that doesn’t point towards Peter Huysmann.’
‘Then where do they point?’
‘I don’t want to be positive about that, yet.’
‘You don’t know?’
Gently shrugged his shoulders. ‘I think it’s safest to say that.’
‘But, good heavens, Gently, what am I to think? You realize that there’s people above me who want to know chapter and verse the reasons for my decisions? What am I going to tell them?’
‘You could tell them you wanted a little more time.’
‘But these reports speak for themselves.’
Gently felt around in his pocket hopefully and produced a part-worn peppermint cream. ‘It’s a very good case against Huysmann,’ he said; ‘if you could put him in dock tomorrow, you would get a conviction. Unfortunately you can’t do that, and by the time you can, to the best of my judgment, there won’t even be a case of unlawful possession against him. That’s why I’m offering this advice, which you needn’t accept.’
