‘Ah.’ Gently sighed, and directed her back to Hansom with an inclination of his head. Hansom picked up the questioning neatly where it had been taken away from him.
‘You dressed to go out while you were drinking your coffee. You left the house by the kitchen at a few minutes after 2.30. What did you do then?’
‘I went straight to the Carlton cinema.’
‘What were they showing there?’
‘The big film is called Scarlet Witness.’
‘Is that what was showing when you entered the cinema?’
‘Oh yes, but I came in at the end, I saw only the last twenty minutes. Then there was the interval and the news, and then the other film.’
‘What was that called?’
‘It was Meet Me in Rio, with Joan Seymour and Broderick Davis.’
‘When did that finish?’
‘At five o’clock. I wanted to stay and to see the big film through, but it was already late, I was afraid that my father had already begun tea. So I bought an evening paper in order to pretend I had been out for one and went in through the front door.’
‘This film, Scarlet Witness,’ murmured Gently, ‘is it the same one as I saw in London a fortnight ago? How does it end?’
Gretchen turned towards him, her hands snatching at each other. ‘I did not see much of it… I do not remember. It was not very good.’
‘But you saw the end of it?’
‘It was… complicated.’
‘Was it the one where they get taken off the island in a helicopter just as the volcano erupts?’
The two hands gripped till the knuckles whitened. ‘No! It wasn’t that one… I was worried about whether my father would find out, I did not see it properly.’
‘They made an appeal after the one I saw — some fund for the maintenance of an aerial rescue force. Did they make an appeal here?’
‘Yes — yes! There was an appeal for something. A man spoke from the stage and they sent round boxes. I put something in.’
She bent her head away from him as though his eyes reacted upon her physically. Gently shrugged and felt in his pocket for a peppermint cream. She continued, without looking at him: ‘The big film came on at a quarter to two and finished at a quarter past three. The other film started at half-past three and finished at five.’
Gently said: ‘Thank you, Miss Huysmann, for such precise information.’
Hansom said: ‘When you re-entered the house, whom did you see?’
‘It was Susan. She was coming out of the passage from the kitchen.’
‘What did she say to you?’
‘She said, “Oh, I did not know that you had gone out,” and then she told me that something was wrong with my father.’
‘Did you go into the study?’
‘No, after I was told I did not feel that I could. I sat down in the kitchen and Mrs Turner gave me some brandy to drink.’
‘Then it wasn’t you who hid the knife in the trunk?’ demanded Gently suddenly. Gretchen writhed in her chair. ‘I know nothing, nothing about that!’ she exclaimed.
‘And you wouldn’t know if Fisher the chauffeur was in the house during the afternoon?’
A shiver ran through her dark-clad form, her eyes widened and her mouth opened. For a moment she stared at Gently horror-struck. And then it was over, as quickly as it had begun: the eyes narrowed, the mouth closed, the lips were forced deliberately into a tight line. ‘I do not know, I was not here,’ she said.
Gently sagged a little in his chair. He looked tired. ‘How long has Fisher been chauffeur here?’ he asked.
‘Oh… three or four years.’
‘Would you describe him as being honest and trustworthy?’
‘Otherwise, my father would have got rid of him.’
‘I am asking for your personal impression.’
‘He is honest… I think.’
‘What are your personal relations with Fisher, Miss Huysmann?’
‘I do not see him, very much. Sometimes he is in the house to move things about. One day, he drove me to service at the cathedral, because I has a poisoned foot and could not walk there.’
‘He is respectful and obedient?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Was he on good terms with your father?’
‘I do not know — my father was not… a condescending man.’
‘He had no reason to harbour a grudge against your father?’
‘Oh, no.’
‘The maid, Susan, is an attractive girl. Is there anything between her and Fisher?’
‘… No! Nothing whatever!’
Gently’s eyebrow rose the merest trifle and he transferred his gaze to the top of the far window. ‘Would it be correct to say that you were in considerable fear of your father?’
‘I do not know… fear.’
‘You had observed how Peter was treated, how he was driven out and completely disowned. Did it not suggest to you that a similar fate might be yours on some other occasion?’
‘Peter took money… he got married.’
‘But you also disobeyed your father in the matter of going to the pictures.’
‘That was very wrong of me, very wrong.’
‘Miss Huysmann, were you deceiving your father in any other matters, perhaps more important ones?’
‘I do not know how you mean!’
‘You were very isolated here. You went out very rarely. You were denied all the usual facilities for meeting people and making friends. And you are twenty-seven. Did you propose to continue in this way of life indefinitely, or had you resolved to, shall we say… assert your rights, in some manner?’
‘I cannot understand!’
‘Your visits to the pictures, for instance, were they always made alone? Was it always to the pictures that you went?’
‘Always — to the pictures! — always!’
‘And always alone?’
‘Every time I was by myself!’
‘You were never accompanied by… Fisher, for example?’
A hot blush sprang into the pale cheeks. ‘No! Never! Never!’
‘Your association with him has always been that of mistress and servant?’
‘How can you ask such things! How can you ask them!’ Tears welled up in the dark eyes and she covered her face with her hands.
Gently said: ‘I don’t like asking these things, Miss Huysmann, any more than you like being asked them. But if justice is to be done, we must have a clear picture of all the events surrounding this crime. You may think that these questions are unnecessary, you may be tempted to answer them untruthfully; but remember that they are the steps by which a man may be brought to the gallows and that no personal feelings should be allowed to dictate what you will answer.’
She cried: ‘It isn’t true… I cannot help him!’
‘You wish to answer that your association with Fisher is completely impersonal?’
She raised her face from her hands, agonized and tear-wet. ‘Yes, that is my answer… O God! Please, let me go now, please!’
Hansom said: ‘That stuff about the pictures — did it add up?’
