mused.
‘And what’s that?’
‘He didn’t seem to me the type who would shield anybody… especially with his own neck sticking out as far as it does.’
There was something virginal and nun-like about Gretchen Huysmann, not altogether accounted for by the large silver cross that depended on her bosom. She was not a pretty woman. Her face was pale and a little long, and she wore her straight black hair divided in the middle and caught up in a flat bun. She had small, close-set ears and dark, but not black eyes, now a little reddened and fearful. There was a waxenness about her complexion. She was above medium height. Her figure, which should have been good, was neglected and bundled anyhow into a long, full dress of dark blue. She wore coarse stockings and flat-heeled shoes. She was twenty-seven.
Hansom said: ‘Sit down, Miss Huysmann, and make yourself comfortable.’ Gretchen sat down, but she did not make herself comfortable. She sat forward on the edge of the chair, her knees together and her feet apart. Her pale face turned from one to another of them quick, frightened glances; her small mouth grew smaller still. She reminded Gently of a plant that had grown in the dark, at once protected and neglected. In this room of three serious men with its alien smell of tobacco smoke she seemed shrunk right back into herself.
Gently motioned to the constable. ‘It’s getting thick in here. Open that top window.’ The constable manipulated the cords that let fall a pane high up in the big window, letting in a nearer sound of rain with a welcome current of new-washed air. Gently beamed encouragingly at Miss Huysmann.
Hansom cleared his throat and said: ‘I’d like you to understand, Miss Huysmann, that we fully appreciate the tragic circumstances in which you find yourself. We shall keep you here the shortest possible time and ask you only those questions which it is absolutely necessary for us to have answered.’
Miss Huysmann said: ‘I’ll… tell you all I can to help.’ She spoke in a low tone with a slight accent.
Hansom continued: ‘Can you remember if your father was expecting any visitors yesterday?’
‘I do not know, he would not tell me that.’
‘Was it usual for him to receive visitors on a Saturday afternoon?’
‘Oh no, practically never. The yard is closed, everyone has gone home.’
‘Did you notice anything unusual in his manner at lunch yesterday?’
‘I do not think so. He did not speak to me very much at meal-times. Yesterday he said, “Your brother is in town. Take care I do not hear you have been seeing him,” but that was all.’
‘Were you in the habit of seeing your brother when he was in Norchester?’
‘Oh yes, I see him sometimes. But my father, he did not like that.’
‘Did you see your brother on this occasion?’
‘I see him on the Friday, when I go out to pay some bills.’
‘Did he speak of calling on your father?’
‘He said he must see him before he leave Norchester.’
‘What reason did he give for that?’
‘He said that the man for whom he worked had offered him to be partners, but he must have five hundred pounds. So he will ask my father to lend it to him.’
‘Did he say lend it?’
‘Oh yes, he know my father will not give it to him.’
Hansom toyed with the little pearl-handled penknife that lay on his blotter and glanced towards his cigar case, but Gently clicked disapprovingly. Hansom proceeded:
‘What time did lunch finish yesterday?’
‘It was about two o’clock.’
‘And what did you do after lunch?’
‘First, I have a wash. Then I go and fetch my coffee from the kitchen, which I take up to my room. As I am drinking it, I get ready to go out to the pictures.’
Gently said: ‘Your visits to the pictures were clandestine, I understand.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You were obliged to go secretly — your father did not approve.’
Gretchen looked down at the two pale, plump hands twisted together in her lap. ‘It is true, I go without his permission. He think the pictures are… all bad. And so, I must not go.’
‘Did you feel that your father was being severe in forbidding you to go to the pictures?’
‘I think, perhaps… he did not know how they were. It was safer that I should not go.’
‘You thought, at least, that he was being unreasonable.’
‘I cannot say. No doubt it was very wrong of me. It may be that this is a judgment, because I do wrong.’
‘Did your father ever find out that you had been to the pictures?’
‘Once, he caught me.’
‘What steps did he take?’
‘I was not to leave my room for two days and must not go out of the house for a month.’
‘And after that, I take it, you were more cautious?’
The pale hands knotted and pulled apart, but came together again immediately. ‘At first, I went only when he was away on business. Then, Susan helped me. I used to pretend I had a headache and go to bed, but I creep downstairs again and out through the kitchen. It was very wrong of me to do this.’
‘Miss Huysmann, when you planned to go to the pictures in the afternoon yesterday, you were surely taking an unusual risk?’
‘I do not know — my father is usually in the study all the afternoon.’
‘But he might easily have asked for you.’
‘Oh yes, it could be so. But if Susan came to my room and find me not there, she tell him I am not feeling well, I am lying down and asleep.’
‘Following the occasion on which you were caught, had you ever ventured out previously on a Saturday afternoon?’
Her small mouth sealed close. She shook her head forlornly.
‘And yet yesterday you did so, without even taking the precaution of first warning Susan. Why was that?’
‘I do not know. There is a film I very much want to see… all at once, I think I will go.’
‘When did you decide that?’
‘Oh… during lunch.’
‘But after lunch you went to the kitchen to fetch your coffee. Why didn’t you tell Susan then?’
She shook her head again. ‘Perhaps I do not really decide till later, till I take my coffee back to my room.’
‘At what time did you leave the house?’
‘I think it is twenty-five past two.’
‘And you left through the kitchen?’
‘It was the only way, if my father is not to know.’
‘Why didn’t you tell Susan when you passed through on your way out?’
‘I do not know… perhaps I did tell her.’
‘Miss Huysmann, Susan was in the kitchen till half-past two, but she did not see you go out. She was surprised to find that you were out. Yet you claim to have left the house at twenty-five past two.’
Gretchen’s dark swollen eyes fixed upon him, pleading and fearful. ‘Perhaps it was later when I left… perhaps it was after half-past two.’
‘How much later?’
‘One minute… two minutes…’
‘It was not as late, say, as four-fifteen?’
‘Oh no! I was not here, no, no!’
‘You were not in the house at all between, say, 2.35 and 5.10?’
‘During all that time I was at the pictures.’
