Gretchen twisted herself in her chair. ‘I just think it best if you think I have nothing to do with it…’
Gently shook his head. ‘It doesn’t seem worthwhile to me. People in murder cases who can prove their innocence are usually very keen to tell the truth.’
‘But it was as I say!’
‘It was not to shield someone other than your brother?’
‘No!’
‘It was not because Fisher was with you?’
‘I tell you he is not!’
‘Not because he might be suspected of having been here, unless you could prove you were somewhere else?’
Gretchen covered her face with her hands again and sobbed.
‘And not,’ continued Gently remorselessly, ‘because you knew him to be the murderer?’
‘No, no! It is not so! Oh why are you asking these things… why… why…?’
Gently sighed and reached for the penultimate peppermint cream. The saws in the yard screamed savagely, two, three, four of them. In his mind’s eye Gently saw the blades tearing into the ponderous trunks, cruel and merciless, ripping them into the geometrical shapes of man.
‘Do you intend to marry Fisher?’ he asked.
Gretchen sobbed on.
‘I understand that you have been refusing to see him.’
She looked at him for a moment, tear-wet. ‘I shall not see him any more.’
Gently shrugged. ‘I don’t blame you,’ he said, ‘he’s not the sort of man to make a good husband…’
Gretchen sobbed.
‘Still, I’m surprised to find him thrown over so quickly.’
‘It is to do with me!’ she burst out. ‘Why have I to tell you about this? Leave me alone!’
‘I was wondering if it had to do with me.’
‘I tell you nothing more… nothing more at all!’
Gently rose, went over to the small window and stood for a moment looking out at the neat little garden with its high walls and quaint summer-house. ‘You haven’t told me the truth, Miss Gretchen,’ he said.
There was no answer but her sobbing.
‘I’m going now, but I shall be coming back. In the meantime I would like you to think over your situation very, very seriously.’ He moved back into the room. ‘Your brother’s life is in danger and it may be only by your telling us everything you know that his innocence can be established. I want you to think about that during the next few hours.’
She looked up suddenly. ‘I’d like to…’ she began, her hands gripping each other convulsively.
‘Yes…?’
‘Please, I’d like to…’ She broke off as a brisk tap sounded at the door. Gently’s lips compressed and he strode across and opened it. Leaming stood in the doorway.
‘Hullo, Inspector!’ he said, ‘I didn’t realize you were here… I’ve come to fetch a check-list.’ He glanced at Gretchen in surprise. ‘Why, Miss Huysmann… you’ve been crying!’ he said.
Alan Hunter
Gently Does It
CHAPTER ELEVEN
L EAMING’S VERMILION PASHLEY slid out of the yard with a surge of conscious power and rode superbly down Queen Street towards Railway Bridge. Gently adjusted himself in the well-padded seat and lit a hand-made cigarette. ‘I hope your housekeeper isn’t going to mind my coming to lunch…’ he said. Leaming smiled handsomely. ‘Don’t worry about that. She always cooks for half a dozen.’ ‘If I took home someone on spec my housekeeper would go on strike…’
The Pashley swept over the bridge and into Railway Road. On the right reared the long, high, windowless back of the football-ground stands. Leaming indicated it with a movement of his head. ‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘one of the best grounds outside the First Division. They’ve got another home match on Saturday… the Cobblers… usually a hard game. Going to see them?’
‘I might,’ said Gently. ‘Are you?’
Leaming made a face. ‘This business is meaning a lot of extra work
… we’ve got the accountants in next week. I shall have to spend the weekend preparing for them.’
‘You’ll have to make sure of your pink’un.’
Leaming dashed away some cigarette ash and was silent. The Pashley sped on through the narrow, smoke- visaged streets adjacent to the marshalling yards and out to the east-bound road. Here it went through Earton, a residential suburb built round a village, and the narrow, twisted road packed with traffic gave Leaming plenty of opportunity to display both his car and his skill. They passed Earton Green, a narrow, tree-shaded strip bounded by the Yar, where rivercraft, spick and span from their winter grooming, lay fresh-launched and naked at boat-yard quays. Past the Green the road widened, still going through suburbs, hesitating before it shook off the last straggling cottages and plunged into the country beyond.
Here Leaming gunned the Pashley till it was leaping eastwards in the eighties. He would probably have gone faster, but the road wasn’t built for really high speeds and there was a good deal of outgoing traffic to be passed.
‘Like it?’ he jerked at Gently.
‘Not really,’ admitted Gently frankly.
‘I can get a hundred and fifteen out of her on the Newmarket road — going down to London I reached Hatfield one hour dead out of Norchester.’
‘You must miss an awful lot that way.’
‘I’ve missed everything so far!’
Gently’s ordeal did not last long. Three miles beyond Norchester they came to the side turning which led to Haswick. Monk’s Thatch, Leaming’s house, stood at the nearer end. It was a beautiful modern riverside dwelling standing amongst trees, hidden from the road by a shrubbery. The verandaed front looked over a terraced lawn to the river and a thatched boat-house, standing apart, suggested that Leaming had other interests as well as cars.
Gently said: ‘All this must have cost you a penny.’
Leaming shrugged. ‘My father left me a little money, you know…’
He led the way into the house and showed Gently where he could wash. The indoor appointments matched the outdoor ones in opulence. By the time he was sat down to lunch on a Chippendale dining-room chair, one of a suite, Gently had formed quite a respect for Leaming’s father.
Leaming said: ‘Of course, you must have guessed that I had a double motive in asking you to lunch. I very much want to hear what’s happening with young Peter.’
‘Ah…!’ Gently said, and helped himself to new potatoes.
‘I was flabbergasted when he wasn’t charged. It seemed more than we could hope for… at the same time, it set me wondering what was at the back of it.’
Gently crunched a piece of pork crackling. ‘Just means there’s some doubt,’ he said.
‘You mean you’re on to something else?’
‘Could mean that.’
‘And is it likely that young Peter will be cleared, without it ever going into court?’
‘That depends on a lot of things.’
‘But there’s a good chance of that? I know I’m asking you rather a lot, Inspector, but you can’t know how much this business means to me. Peter has been — well, almost a nephew to me, if you can understand that, and I’ve committed myself to stand by him now, whatever the cost. So if you can give me a little information — strictly off the record — I shall be extremely grateful.’ He glanced at Gently winningly.
