answer any more questions.’
‘I thought that perhaps his manager could have told me.’ Gently drank his coffee, looking at Leaming across the cup. ‘It’s an interesting problem… I should like to know more about it. Have you got these people’s address?’
‘Actually, I don’t think we have.’
Gently’s eyebrows lifted. ‘But surely you must have…?’
‘No.’ Leaming put down his cup and faced Gently. ‘You see, Inspector, they pay cash on delivery. We simply bring the wood up and they collect it and pay. And that’s all we know about them.’
Gently shook his head puzzledly. ‘I never did know much about business…’ he said. ‘All the same, I’d like to look over the books. Was it a very large turnover?’
‘About twelve thousand a year… but we only took fifteen per cent on that.’
Leaming rose, producing his gold cigarette case as he did so. Gently accepted a cigarette. ‘I shall have to be getting back,’ Leaming said, ‘sorry if I have to rush you.’ Gently followed him out to the Pashley and settled his bulky figure in the seat. ‘It was a very good lunch… you must ask me again some time.’ Leaming smiled automatically and sent the Pashley bounding down the drive. ‘I like having a chat over lunch,’ he said, ‘I think it helps to keep you in perspective… don’t you?’
Queen Street was somnolent in a warm afternoon. The mild, sun-in-cloud sky produced no shadows, only a pervading brightness, and the few vehicles making their way to and from the city seemed to move drowsily, as though the machines themselves were infected by the atmosphere. Even the sawmill seemed subdued, and the bundling and clanking noises from the breweries sounded sleepy and far away. Gently stood on the pavement feeling stupid. He had overeaten rather at lunch.
He pulled himself together and went into Charlie’s. Two of the inevitable transport drivers sat at a table eating rolls and drinking tea, one of them wearily turning the pages of a ragged Picture Post. The girl Elsie was at the counter. She sniffed as Gently entered and poked her head round the curtain, then disappeared through it. A moment later, Charlie himself came out.
‘I was hoping you’d look in,’ he said, a gleam of satisfaction in his eye.
‘You’ve got something to tell me?’
‘Something what happened about half an hour ago.’ He darted a quick glance at the two transport drivers and another at Gently. Gently leaned across the zinc-topped counter. ‘He was in here having his lunch,’ proceeded Charlie in a lowered tone, ‘and he’d got the girl Susan with him — right friendly they was together — having a long talk about something or other… they was over there in the corner.’
Gently leaned forward a little further.
‘I brought their stuff out for them, and I got to hear a little bit of what they was saying. It was about you asking Miss Gretchen questions, Inspector, how you’d been there a long time this morning, and how she’d listened to it and how it was all about Mr Fisher. And they was that friendly together, you’d hardly believe it. He give her some sort of trinket — a bracelet, I think it was, anyway it was something what pleased her — and when I take their tea over, I heard him arranging to take her out.’
Gently’s lips formed a soundless whistle. ‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Heard it with my own ears!’
‘And she agreed?’
‘That she did, first time of asking.’
Gently slowly shook his head. ‘Fisher seems to have got a very long way in a very short time… a very long way.’
‘That’s how it struck me, sir. And I couldn’t help bringing to mind how he’s been talking this last day or two about how things was going to change and all that. Well, they seem to have changed now all right, and that’s a fact.’
Gently said: ‘There’s only one thing that has any weight with Susan…’
‘But that isn’t all, sir. Fisher, he come back here a few minutes later, seems like he was looking for somebody. “What’ve you lost?” I say, a bit sharp-like. “Never you mind,” he say, “but if that b-Inspector Gently comes snooping around here, just you tell him I want to see him, see?” And out he stalks again. So what do you make of that?’
Gently shook his head again. ‘He didn’t say where I could find him, I suppose?’
‘Well, no, he didn’t…’
‘Never mind, Charlie — you’re doing well. Keep your eye on him.’
Gently went out of Charlie’s with slightly more zest than when he had entered it. Things were undoubtedly whipping up a bit, he told himself. Something was beginning to move… He glanced up and down Queen Street for a sight of the familiar figure in the American-style jacket, then ambled slowly away in the direction of the city. At Mariner’s Lane he came to a standstill. Had Fisher gone back to his flat? But it was a long climb up there… and Gently had overeaten at lunch. Moreover, he could still see the fragment of masonry lying at the side of the pavement where he had placed it… and Fisher might be quieter when he dropped the next piece. So Gently continued to promenade along Queen Street.
He passed the Huysmann house, aloof and withdrawn, its great street-ward gables almost windowless, wended round thick-legged women pushing decrepit prams, stopped to light his pipe in a yard-way. He had just completed this operation when the American-style jacket loomed up beside him. He turned his head in mild surprise. ‘You do it better than a policeman…’ he said.
Fisher’s dark eyes glared at him. ‘You been looking for me?’ he asked smoulderingly.
‘I thought you were looking for me,’ said Gently.
‘I got something to say to you.’
‘So I gathered, one way or another.’
Fisher indicated the yard from which he had emerged. ‘Come up here, Mr Inspector Gently… I’m not telling it to half Norchester.’
Gently moved into the derelict yard, glancing round quickly at the disintegrating walls, at rotted flooring from which the nettles sprang, at falling plaster chalked on by children. Fisher sneered: ‘You don’t need to be afraid… nobody’s going to jump on you.’ Gently shrugged and puffed complacently at his pipe.
‘You been trying to get Miss Gretchen to say I was up at the house on Saturday,’ began Fisher challengingly.
Gently removed his pipe. ‘Well — weren’t you?’ he asked.
‘That’s what you’d like to know, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve been getting at all the while?’
‘It’s one of the things,’ admitted Gently.
‘And now you’re going to hear about it — straight — just like it happened!’
Gently blew an opulent smoke-ring. ‘You wouldn’t like to step into headquarters for this little scene, I suppose?’ he enquired.
‘What — and have it all taken down and twisted about by you blokes? What a hope!’ Fisher laughed raucously. ‘You just listen to it here, if you want to listen.’
Gently nodded gravely. ‘There’s just one thing I’d like to know first… why are you telling me this now, when you took such pains to hide it before?’
Fisher glowered at him. ‘It’s on account of you getting at Miss Gretchen.’
‘I didn’t think you worried a great deal about Miss Gretchen these days.’
‘I aren’t worried about her — but if she’s going to tell her tale then I’m going to tell mine… see?’
‘Sort of getting it in first…’ murmured Gently.
‘Never you mind.’ Fisher came a little closer to Gently, but getting into the line of fire of the smoke-rings he moved back again. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘just suppose I was there that afternoon — suppose he was there — suppose we were in her room together all the time that was going on — that don’t make us murderers, does it?’
‘It makes you liars,’ said Gently affably.
‘But it don’t make us murderers… that’s the thing. Naturally, you weren’t going to expect us to be mixed up in it if we could help it.’
‘Not even with a man’s life at stake?’
‘Well, how could us being mixed up in it help him?’
