by Alan Hunter
The Cactus Kid shook his head vigorously.
‘Ah!’ sighed Gently, ‘we mustn’t strain providence too far, must we, pardner?’
The front doorbell of the Huysmann house was engulfed afar off, giving back to the ringer not the faintest vibration to encourage him in his practices: one rang, and waited unhopefully. Eventually Gently heard the soft pad of feet down the hall and the shooting of’ the bolt. It was Susan who melted in the doorway.
‘Oh, Inspector …!’
Gently remained on the step. ‘I just want some information,’ he said.
Susan’s blue eyes chided him softly. ‘Won’t you come in, Inspector? Miss Gretchen has gone to bed, and Mrs Turner has gone to tell her sister about everything … it’s lonely in here, on your own.’
‘I don’t think I’ll come in at the moment …’
‘Inspector, I thought you were wonderful in court … absolutely wonderful.’
‘Thank you, my dear … I’ve had considerable experience.’
‘The way you stood up there in front of them all – so cool and strong – ohh! It just did something to me!’
‘I hope it was nothing irremediable. Now, my dear—’
‘You’re sure you won’t come in … just for a little while?’
Gently sighed. ‘I’m busy,’ he said.
‘Oh … I see.’ Susan’s face fell. ‘We-ell … what did you want to know?’
‘I want to know where I’m likely to find Mr Leaming.’
‘Him! I s’pose he’s gone home.’
‘He didn’t strike me as the home-loving kind … I thought he might be around in the city.’
‘Well, he might have gone to a show … or he might be at the Venetian. He used to go there a lot.’
‘Is that the place near the Castle?’
‘That’s right. It’s a classy sort of place with an orchestra. He was always one to flash his money about.’
‘Thank you, my dear … you’ve always been a great help.’
Susan’s eyes swam up to him. ‘It’d be so nice to have someone to talk to for a bit.’
But Gently had gone.
The Venetian Club was underground, beneath one of the larger and more expensive hotels. One reached it by a long, wide, sweeping stairway with a rail supported on criss-cross steel rods, painted maroon and ivory. Below was a large floor, open in the centre for dancing, carpeted at the sides with deep-pile carpet, also maroon. At the far end was the orchestra rostrum, and on the right the bar. Down each side and along the top ran the tables, glass tops on criss-cross ivory legs, spaced out with tubs of ferns and an occasional settee upholstered in ivory leather. The lighting was soft and diffused. There was an atmosphere of leisured peace and timelessness.
Gently left his coat and trilby upstairs, went jerkily down the stairway, aware of the out-of-placeness of his rather shabbily dressed, heavy figure. He knew Leaming was there. He had seen the vermilion Pashley parked just over the way. Near the foot of the stairs he paused to run his eye over the floor, table by table. Leaming was seated by himself not far from the bar, eating, a bottle of champagne in ice beside him, his back half-turned to the stairs. Gently continued down the stairs.
‘A single table, sir?’ The head waiter looked down his nose at the incongruous arrival.
‘I’ll take that one over there,’ said Gently, pointing to a table near the wall at the side opposite to where Leaming sat. The head waiter ushered him across and he seated himself heavily in a padded, criss-cross chair. Another waiter slid into position at his elbow. Gently grabbed the menu and examined it, frowning. ‘Bring me a coffee,’ he said.
There was a pregnant interval. ‘… only a coffee, sir?’ queried the waiter.
Gently turned slowly about and faced him. ‘Only a coffee,’ he said.
The waiter wilted. ‘Very good, sir … a coffee.’
Gently lapsed back into his chair and tossed the menu aside. The orchestra was playing its pale, emasculated semblance of music, obviously not to be listened to, and two or three couples on the floor were obviously not listening to it: the rhythm alone guiding their sauntered steps. On Gently’s right an elderly man in evening dress sat with his wife. They were silently eating asparagus and drinking white wine. On his left, partly obscured by a tub of ferns, sat a party of four, rather noisy, busily attended by two waiters.
‘My dear, I thought it was because Gerald wasn’t coming …’
‘Did you really think he wouldn’t come … I mean, did you?’
‘Well, I mean, under the circs …’
‘Tony sounds as though he knows more about it than we do … my dear, it’s just possible that he does!’
Followed by laughter.
Gently received his coffee in a small, exquisite cup. Across the way a waiter was pouring out Leaming’s champagne. Leaming seemed to be cracking a joke with him about something, and they both laughed as Leaming took the filled glass and the waiter returned the bottle to its ice. Leaming was having a little celebration, no doubt. As he lifted the glass, Gently caught his eye. Leaming hesitated a brief second, the glass poised and winking: then he drank it off, turning again to the waiter and laughing.
Gently stirred several lumps of sugar into his inadequate cup. Leaming didn’t look his way again. Handsome, smiling, polished, well-dressed, the manager of Huysmann’s fitted the picture as though he were made to measure. The waiters admired him, the management rejoiced in his patronage … and ‘He was always one to flash his money about.’ Yes, there was no doubt that Leaming fitted the picture.
He had got to his cigar now. As the waiter lit it for him, Leaming took the waiter’s pad and scribbled something on it and sent him off with a motion of his head. Gently watched the waiter threading his way through the tables with bland indifference.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
The waiter made a slight bow. ‘The gentleman at table seven sends you this note, sir.’
Gently took it. It read: ‘Join me in celebrating your success.’ He took out his wallet and ostentatiously folded the note into it. ‘Give my regrets to the gentleman at table seven and tell him I’m here on business,’ he said.
The waiter bowed again and departed. Out of the corner of his eye Gently watched him gliding back between the tables. Leaming received his message with a shrug of his elegant shoulders, laughed, and pushed forward his glass for more champagne. But the sparkle had gone out of him now. The laughs were a little forced and came between intervals of brooding over his cigar, over his glass. Once or twice he tried to catch Gently’s eye, but each time Gently was resolutely looking in some other direction, or drinking his coffee. He never seemed to be looking at Leaming. He was just there, a dark, remorseless presence.
Leaming called for the evening paper and read it, frowning. It contained a full account of the inquest. There, with complete finality, the Huysmann case was dissected, analysed, judged and put away … solved and dismissed. Everyone had been satisfied. Yet there sat Gently like the Old Man of the Sea, clinging, watching, unshakable in his obstinacy, a ratiocinating limpet who refused to be given the slip. What did the stupid little man think he could do now?
The band was playing a popular hit tune of the moment. Several couples got up to dance. A woman Leaming knew came over to his table, gushing, looking for a partner.
‘Darling! I didn’t know you were here all alone …’
‘I just looked in for a bite to eat …’
‘Oh, but you simply must dance this one with me!’
‘I couldn’t, Laura … too soon after dinner.’
‘Just the teeniest weeniest hop, darling?’
‘Look – there’s Geoffrey Davis over there … rouse him out for a dance.’
He was staring at Gently more directly now, trying to catch him out. But Gently was not to be caught. The only indication he gave that he was interested in Leaming was that he never looked at him. Now, he was ordering another cup of coffee. With the waiter standing before him, his eyes had
only to slip a fraction to one side for a glance at Leaming, yet they firmly refused to make that slip. It was silly, childish … like a schoolboy game. He became suddenly furious with Gently. If the man was there to watch him, why didn’t he watch him, instead of playing the fool like this? How much longer would he sit there, drinking coffee at one-and-six a cup?
Gently was beginning to wonder about that himself, though with such small cups it represented no hardship, and the coffee was quite good. He was getting hungry, of course … but the Venetian’s menu had been drawn up for Chief Constables rather than Chief Inspectors. So he toyed with an empty pipe instead. Dancing had become more general now and there was a steady trickle of new arrivals. Supper was being served to the tables all round him. A younger and more romantic couple had taken the table previously occupied by the asparagus-eaters, a callow young man cutting loose with his boss’s secretary, perhaps.
At eleven fifteen Leaming paid his bill with two five-pound notes, waiving the change. Gently made no move as he left his table and sauntered casually towards the foot of the stairs. There he paused to light a cigarette. The gold cigarette case opened and closed with a distant snap, and a waiter appeared from nowhere with a lighter. Leaming stood with his head bowed, apparently in thought. Then, as though remembering something, he raised his head with a smile and slipped across to the table where Gently was sitting.
‘You run to late hours in your business?’ he said brightly.
Gently eyed him without expression. ‘It depends on our clients … some of them never go to bed.’
Leaming took the seat opposite. ‘I thought you were down here on holiday … naturally, since our business was cleared up, I didn’t expect to find you engaged in something fresh.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Not on something fresh?’
‘No.’
Leaming looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘But I thought this thing came to an end at the inquest … there doesn’t seem much left to explain.’
‘Some things come to an end at inquests, but this isn’t one of them.’
‘Well … if I can assist you in any way, don’t be afraid to ask. If it’s some silly little complication to do with the firm I dare say I can put you straight.’
Gently rocked a little in his chair. ‘It concerns the main issue,’ he said, ‘the person Fisher saw stabbing Huysmann … and the person who cut Fisher’s throat subsequently.’ His green eyes fixed on Leaming, still completely without expression.
Leaming remained silent, taut, cigarette angled from the corner of his mouth.
‘That doesn’t surprise you?’ enquired Gently, with a trace of sarcasm.
‘Yes … it does.’
‘You’d like to make a statement about it?’
Leaming’s eyes met his, brown and powerful, cautious as a wild animal’s: they broke into a smile. ‘Why should I make a statement about it?’
Gently shook his head, as though acknowledging the point. ‘Would you like to tell me how you spent yesterday afternoon?’
‘I’d love to … where do you want me to start?’
‘Start where you dropped me after lunch.’
‘Very well. I went to the office and looked through the afternoon mail … then I dictated some letters … then I took some specifications over to Sainty’s the contractors.’ Leaming paused, mockingly. ‘I was gone about an hour,’ he added.
‘And the time?’
‘Ah … the time. I felt that would be important. Well, I left the office at half-past three and re-entered it at twenty-six and a half minutes to five.’
‘And you were at Sainty’s during all that time?’
‘Dear me, no – only for about twenty minutes.’
‘Where were you during the remainder of that time?’
Leaming’s smile came back, strong, confident, almost reproving. ‘Oh, just driving around, you know. I’ve got a nice car. I get a kick out of negotiating the traffic with it.’
‘And that’s your official story?’
‘Yes, I think so … unless somebody can give me a reason for putting out a better one.’
Gently nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on Leaming’s. ‘Suppose I say that the little boy to whom you gave two shillings saw your car parked in Burgh Street … would that be reason enough?’
‘There’s a lot of cars get parked in Burgh Street.’
‘But this one was a red sports car … it had an aeroplane mascot. The little boy blew the propeller round. Also, it was parked near Mariner’s Lane.’
There was a pause, charged and vibrant. The smile still flickered in Leaming’s eyes. ‘No,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t think it is. Somehow, I’ve never relied very much on little boys as witnesses … have you? They forget things so easily … they rarely make a convincing impression. No, I’ll stick to my story.’
Gently said: ‘Then there’s the bag …’
Leaming made no response.
‘The gladstone bag that had the money in it, the bag that Fisher was bending over when his throat was cut.’ He leaned forward, his eyes boring at Leaming’s compellingly. But Leaming met them, hard and impenetrable. There was no give in him at all.
‘So it was a gladstone bag?’
‘Yes, a gladstone bag. And during the murder it got bloodied … so did some of the notes which were lying on top. The blood was wiped off the bag temporarily, but one can’t get rid of blood as easily as that – not so that it becomes undetectable in laboratory tests – so the bag had to be destroyed.’
‘Go on,’ said Leaming, ‘you’re interesting me.’
‘This evening, just before I came up here, I stepped into the timber-yard for a moment.’
‘Well … I hope everything was in order …’
‘I noticed a fire smouldering in a corner near the quays, so I went over and had a look at it. It was the remains of a large, sawdust-rubbish fire, apparently one that is kept burning there almost continuously …’
‘You make a good detective.’
‘… and after stirring it about a little I came across two interesting items. One of them was the handle-frame of a gladstone bag … and the other was the key to Fisher’s flat. They were both together in one part of the fire, which suggested to me that the key had been in the bag at the time it was introduced into the fire. The murderer, it seems, had forgotten to take it out … which was certainly a mistake, don’t you think?’
The stare of Leaming’s eyes never wavered. ‘It could have been chucked in the river, I suppose.’
‘I think that would have been safer.’
‘At the same time, there’s nothing to connect it with any one person.’
‘Oh yes … there’s the maker’s name on the handle-frame, and what may be a serial number on the lock. A little routine work should indicate the owner to us.’
Leaming shook his head slowly. ‘It won’t do, you know, it isn’t a clincher. There’ve been dozens of those bags sold, and the number on the lock is merely a convenience, in case you lose the key. Nobody keeps a record correlating it with the purchaser.’
‘Nevertheless, it will be useful to show that a certain person was the owner of such a bag. It’s surprising how points like that increase in significance when taken with other points.’
The smile glided back into Leaming’s eyes. ‘They might, if you could arrange them convincingly … but you’ve first to convince the authorities that Fisher was murdered at all. At the moment their considered opinion is that he wasn’t … we mustn’t forget that, must we? If you go to them saying, “There’s a case against A for murdering Fisher,” they will simply look blank and say, “But Fisher wasn’t murdered.” And what have you got to say to that?’
Leaming leaned back in his chair, his eyes lit and triumphant. Gently sat still and unmoved, one stubby hand clasped in the other.
‘Of course, you could talk about finding the handle-frame and the key,’ continued Leaming, ‘you could tell them all about your imaginative idea of somebody ta
king Fisher the money in that bag, of how Fisher was murdered over it and how the bag would then have to be destroyed. But how would you set about proving it? And as for the key, they might want to know if there couldn’t have been two of them – there usually is, isn’t there? – and how can you be sure that the one you found was the one that a murderer locked the flat with? Well, I don’t know what you could say to that, but if they asked me …’
‘Yes,’ breathed Gently, ‘and if they asked you?’
‘… I should say that the key was most probably Fisher’s spare, and that the bag was an old one that I had given him at some time.’
Leaming broke off, pleasantly, as though intrigued by an interesting speculation.
‘And how about the key which wasn’t Fisher’s spare?’
Leaming shrugged his shoulders gracefully. ‘It’s a little puzzling, of course. But the fact that it was missing didn’t seem to affect things much at the inquest … it was such a small point, after all, when the rest of the evidence was so irresistible.’ He leaned right back, tilting the chair, quizzing Gently.
Gently twisted his one hand in the other. ‘You seem to have given this matter a lot of thought …’ he said.
‘I try to help the police to the best of my ability.’
‘There’s just one thing, though.’
Leaming’s eyebrows lifted, almost negligently. ‘Something I’ve overlooked?’
‘You may not have overlooked it, but at the same time you may not have realized its full significance.’
‘Go on,’ said Leaming.
Gently spread his clumsy hands wide open on the top of the table. ‘The case that’s building up against Fisher’s murderer may be good, may be bad … that’s something we shall both find out. But if anything should turn up to suggest that Fisher may not have been the one to kill Huysmann, then that case is going to spring to life overnight.’
Leaming leaned forward off his chair. ‘Such as?’ he demanded.
‘Such as somebody’s alibi springing a leak.’
