Gently With the Painters

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Your playmate rang in – two of the Butters’s went to church, the mother and the eldest daughter, in the eldest daughter’s car. Then the old man came out and had a mooch around the lawn. He’d been sinking it, apparently, wasn’t too steady on his pins.’

  ‘Did nobody else visit the house?’

  ‘No … half a mo’, the paperman.’

  Gently grunted into his soup, imagining the Sunday scene at Lordham. Stephens had taken with him a folding stool of the type familiar to fishermen. His car being concealed, he would have crept to some hedge or shrubbery, and there, with his glasses, have zealously watched the house and grounds. Then, stealing some hasty minutes, he would send his report back on the car’s radio, all the time in a frantic rush in case he were missing the vital moment. To be amused by that sort of thing one needed to be as young as Stephens …

  ‘You tipped him off about the Minx?’

  ‘I did – too true! And I gave him the dope about the slashings and the letter.’

  This would redouble Stephens’s eagerness; now, he would be chafing to capture Johnson. Remembering the Luger, Gently experienced a moment’s uneasiness.

  ‘Remind him when he calls in again, will you …? If Johnson turns up he’s to report and stay with him.’

  So far the ‘arduous routine’ had brought in little of interest, though the fact that it was Sunday was in some degree responsible. The various Palette Group members, heartlessly indifferent to police requirements, had proceeded to disperse on their lawful weekend occasions. Up till lunchtime only three had been questioned – Aymas, Baxter and Seymour – and of these only Aymas had a really firm alibi; with another man, he’d been up tending a sick pedigree cow. Seymour, the shy smiler, was the most pregnable of the three. Stammering and blushing, he had admitted to being out till three with ‘a woman’. He had got himself drunk and didn’t remember where she had taken him – and so another bit of ‘arduous routine’ was in process.

  ‘Did you get anything interesting out of Mallows this morning?’

  Gently hedged. ‘It’s always worthwhile talking to Mallows. He recognized those capitals as being cut from The Times … and he’s got some of the paper. He recognized it directly.’

  ‘Did he now!’ Hansom grounded his irons for a moment. ‘Now that is interesting – very interesting indeed.’

  ‘Naturally, I asked him if he had given any away.’

  ‘And naturally he hadn’t.’

  Gently shrugged, and ate assiduously.

  Why was he wanting to defend the shrewd-eyed artist? Because that, when you boiled it down, was what he was instinctively seeking to do. Right then he was holding back and trying to dampen Hansom’s curiosity – throwing him titbits, as it were, to head him off from the main fact. But yet, while his hand had still lingered on the telephone, he had begun to comprehend, to see the way things had worked …

  ‘Suppose he didn’t give it away, then – suppose he sent that letter himself?’

  ‘In that case, how did Mrs Johnson get the rest of the sheet?’

  ‘He was lying, of course! He did give it to her.’

  ‘Then he might equally well have given her the lot.’

  ‘Yeah!’ It was logical, but Hansom wasn’t quite satisfied. His familiarity with Gently had perhaps taught him something. He sawed a long slice from his piece of steak, but sat looking at it for a while before raising it to his mouth. Then he chewed absent-mindedly, his fork still hovering.

  ‘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 we
re 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!

  ‘Just a moment … let me have that phone!’

  An Inspector Horrocks took the call at Chelmsford.

  ‘In connection with Johnson … he’s an ex-RAF pilot. Haven’t you got a charter-flight firm operating near the town?’

  They had, as he remembered, and Horrocks hastened to put him through to it; the connection all the same took an unconscionable time to get. Hansom, stricken by sudden visions of his prey escaping for good, sat cracking his knuckles in a ferment of impatience. At last:

  ‘Wayland Charter Flights. Can we be of service?’

  Gently carefully explained what he wanted to know.

  ‘Oh, yes. That’s the fellow who chartered our Proctor, X X-ray. He’s got it for a week, doing cross-country flips …’

  Five minutes later they knew all there was to know, which was that Johnson was probably clear of the country. He had taken off with full tanks at nine a.m. that morning, and in the still air conditions prevailing, must long since have touched down in France.

  ‘He drove in here yesterday at half past two and asked if we had any light planes for charter. The Proctor had just come in and he took it up for a flip … he’s a beautiful peelo, his three-point was a natural …

  ‘He might have taken it away then – it had just had a one-twenty-hour inspection, but he preferred to wait and make his start this morning. We had it waiting on the tarmac and at ten to nine he took off for Lympne … yes, he paid for the charter in advance … he had a suitcase, and arrived in a taxi.’

  A further call, to Lympne Airport, provided the necessary clincher. No Proctor from Wayland Charter Flights had been received that day. The only mystery that remained concerned Johnson’s curious lack of urgency – why, in effect, had he delayed, when he might have made his trip straight away?

  ‘He hired a car and doubled back to do this slashing lark!’ – Hansom bit the end off a cheroot, spitting the pieces into an ashtray. ‘It’s clear enough why he did it – he wants to sell us on a crazy killer. So then we go and chase our tails instead of chasing chummie Johnson.’

  It was a theory that fitted and left no visible gaps. Johnson, possessed of means and motive, could easily arrange the opportunity. After he had chartered the plane, no doubt, he had bought a Times and concocted the letter. Then, having sold the too-risky Minx, he had hired a car and returned to the city … It was all of a piece, including the knowledge shown in the letter. There only remained that perpetual query – was Johnson really so fiendishly clever?

  ‘Where do you suppose he got the other knife?’

  ‘What was to stop him from buying one in Chelmsford?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘They’re an obsolete pattern, so he couldn’t have chanced buying one down there. It was the nub of the plot, that other knife, and he must have had it before he did the letter. Thus he must have had it before he skipped, or why did he take the piece of paper with him?’

  ‘He’s a bright lad, you can’t get away from it.’

  ‘He’s a genius – or somebody is.’

  The tracing of the knife was already in hand but was being frustrated, like other inquiry, by the fact that it was Sunday. The owner of the shop which carried a stock of the knives had been reported as having taken his family on a picnic.

  Gently rang through to the Yard, and by luck caught Pagram. ‘I want a watch at all airports, just in case he lands somewhere. And his description to Interpol, with details of the flight …

  ‘And by the way – congratulations on getting Peachfield tied up.’

  Hansom smoked three cheroots in rapid succession, his expression becoming more embittered the more he brooded over Johnson’s escape. He glared tigerishly through the smoke at the now brilliant afternoon, and snapped at the constable who brought them up a tray of coffee. He was, Gently could feel, blaming the Yard man for all this – wouldn’t a policeman with correct principles have arrested Johnson on Friday night? There was the clearest of cases against him, a case to rejoice the public prosecutor, and the passage of time had only strengthened it further …

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell your playmate that he’s wasting his time?’

  Gently grinned distantly at his disgruntled colleague. On the face of it, perhaps … but the face of it was deceptive! It had been so on Friday night, and it was no less so on Sunday. And it was on Mallows, not Johnson, that Gently’s mind ceaselessly dwelt, remembering, checking and persistently setting in balance. The time was surely coming when they must try their strengths together, and as an experienced antagonist, he was weighing up his opponent.
In the academician he could recognize a champion among mental fencers.

  ‘This time you’re going to charge him, I suppose?’

  From the depths of his gloom Hansom dredged the sarcasm.

  ‘I want to talk to him – badly. He’s got the answer to a vital question.’

  ‘You talked to him before – and now he’s in France!’

  What was the use of taking offence? One was obliged to sympathize with Hansom. At his best he was a jealous and surly kind of man. Twice before, once unofficially, Gently had taken a case away from him, and now, without rhyme or reason, he had let Hansom’s ‘chummie’ slide through his fingers …

  ‘Don’t take it to heart … we’ll get him in the end.’ To Stephens he had used almost the selfsame words.

  ‘I can see us doing that now he’s got across the Channel! Don’t forget he isn’t a rabbit – he’s the original cobber from Colditz.’

  ‘All the same, he’ll be up against it. He doesn’t have professional contacts.’

  They were interrupted by the inexorable phone, bringing, this time, a report on Lavery. It was negative; but before Hansom could vent his disgust the instrument clicked and began buzzing again. Gently saw a change come over Hansom’s face. From antagonism it slid into blank perplexity. After a number of surprised-sounding monosyllables he concluded:

  ‘Yeah – we’ll have them sent straight away up!’

  A minute later, during which time Hansom had said nothing, a detective constable entered carrying an official envelope. He had the complacent expression which Dutt sometimes wore, the expression of a man who had pulled off something good.

  ‘Shake them out on the desk.’ Hansom sounded suspicious, and his eye all the while rested pointedly on Gently. The man opened the envelope and slid the contents out cautiously: they comprised one mutilated Times – and a third steel paper knife!

  ‘Tell the Superintendent where you found them!’