Gently felt sadly in his pocket and brought out an empty bag. ‘Quite clear,’ he said, screwing it into a ball, ‘quite clear.’
Alan Hunter
Gently Does It
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
T HE CORONER’S COURT sat on the day following and returned on Nicholas Huysmann a verdict of death resulting from a stab wound inflicted by his chauffeur, James Fisher, and on his chauffeur a verdict of felo de se. Chief Inspector Gently, Central Office, CID, gave immaculate evidence and was publicly congratulated by the Coroner both for this and for his ready assistance, although on holiday. Superintendent Walker and the Norchester Police, CID, also came in for congratulations.
The super muttered grimly as they left the court: ‘You given up this Leaming business then?’
Gently smiled and shook his head.
‘Thanks for letting it ride, anyway.’
Gently shrugged, but as he turned away the super caught his arm. ‘I didn’t mean quite all I said last night… I’d like you to keep me posted. And if you need any help — within reason, of course.’
Peter Huysmann had been released the evening before, the charge against him dropped out of hand. He had been at court, slightly dazed by his sudden return to the world, but had only been required to testify to the accuracy of his statement, which was then read for him. For the time being he was continuing to live at the caravan, where he had been received with much rejoicing and congratulation by his late boss and by the fair community in general. It was considered a signal victory over the auld enemy…
Rejoicing there was also at Charlie’s, for Charlie had come to look on the ‘getting’ of Fisher as almost a personal issue. ‘I knew it was him from the start,’ he told a group of lorry-drivers, ‘right from the time Chief Inspector Gently first come in here, I could smell what was in the wind. Ah, he’s a foxy one, he is! He just let the City Police go on thinking it was young Huysmann and then when they got their hands on him, “No,” he says, “you let young Huysmann be. Just give me twenty-four hours,” he says, “and I’ll have the one you want!” Ah, he played with Fisher like a cat with a mouse. Fisher, he thinks he’s this and he thinks he’s that… but all the time the Chief Inspector was getting nearer and nearer to him, taking his time, never in a hurry, till last of all even Fisher can see that the game is up… well, there you are. There was only two ways out, and he took the handiest…’
Gretchen, subdued, bowed, dressed entirely in black, with a veil which hid any expression in her waxen face, had also made a statement which was read for her in court. It had been drafted by Gently and was exquisite in its restraint. At the point where the hiding of the knife was described the Coroner was moved to raise his glasses and deliver a look of reproof, but a closer view of the dark-clad figure decided him to let the matter rest. With Susan, on the other hand, he was positively genial.
Late final editions carried a full report of the inquest, were scanned perfunctorily in cafes and snack-bars and on the crowded buses carrying city workers back to the suburbs. It was a satisfactory but tame denouement. The affair had raised expectations of a hard-fought trial with all the exciting trappings of judicial slaying… quite a fair stretch of innocent entertainment. As the clerk at Simmonds said to Miss Jones (blouses), ‘You can’t get really worked up over a thing like that. But if it had been the son, now…’ ‘Bloody flash in the pan that was,’ said a news- vendor, ‘thank God for the football, that’s what I say.’
Inspector Hansom went about his duties, a wounded soul. He hadn’t had much sleep. Into the small hours of the morning he had been at Fisher’s flat and, at the super’s suggestion, all the area within a key’s throw of the flat, searching for the blasted key that had to be there and wasn’t… as dawn had begun to show far off down the Yar valley he had been assailed by unpolicemanlike thoughts. There was a firm in the city who would turn out an identical key for a couple of bob… and wasn’t it worth a couple of bob to get one’s head down? At the same time, if that key really was missing… and you had to admit that Gently was a clever bastard… Hansom lit a bad-tasting cigar and breathed expensively towards the dawn.
Leaming, well-dressed and impressive, had given his brief evidence to the court with precision and conviction. One felt that here was a man of ability, a man who could handle affairs of moment: a man to be trusted implicitly. The Coroner treated him with deference. As he concluded his short statement he glanced round the court and catching Gently’s eye, smiled to him winningly. Gently smiled also, but it would have been more difficult to categorize Gently’s smile.
A police car still stood in Paradise Alley, lone and smart amongst the derelict houses and blank, shabby walls. Gently nodded to the constable who stood by it.
‘Have they had any luck?’
‘Not so far, sir, but they’re just taking the floor up.’
Gently clicked his tongue. ‘They won’t find it there.’
‘There’s a crack where it might have slipped through, sir… they’ve found the head off an old hammer and a threepenny bit.’
‘Well… tell them not to spend it all at once.’
‘Ha, ha! Yes, sir.’
Gently turned away to the row of empty windows opposite. No fierce little head bobbed up to greet him, but then, it was probably Superman’s bedtime. He shoved open a yawing door and went through. The floor above had caved in long since, leaving a rusty fireplace hanging on the wall in hearthless nakedness. The back of the house was a collapsed pile of rubble. Gently climbed over it and looked down at the desolation below. Walls disintegrating, sagging roofs, piles of rubble surmounted by nettles and ragwort… right down to Queen Street, where the shabby thoroughfare arrested the ruins with a narrow bulwark of vitality. He shook his head and picked his way cautiously through a fragment-strewn yard.
‘Gotcher!’ rang out a triumphant shout behind him. Gently put up his hands and came to a standstill. ‘Turn around!’ commanded the voice, ‘and don’t try any funny stuff on the Cactus Kid!’ Gently turned around. ‘Oh… it’s you, mister…’
Gently nodded. ‘Yes, it’s me… can I put my hands down?’
Superman, alias the Cactus Kid, wrinkled his nose in a frown. ‘Guess you can, mister… though you look mighty like Bad Dan from behind. He’s the worsest rustler that ever hit these parts, and I’m sure going to get him one of these days!’
‘It’s time you hit the hay,’ said Gently, lowering his hands, ‘there’s a sheriff’s posse up the alley. They’ll keep watch out for Bad Dan till you get on the trail again. You come along back to the ranch with me.’ He took the Cactus Kid’s grimy paw and led the way round a lurching segment of wall towards Mariner’s Lane. ‘This is heap bad country, pardner,’ he added, ‘you should find up a better range somewhere…’
The Cactus Kid trotted along beside him happily. ‘Mister, they got on to Red Hawk at last… I knew about him a long time ago. Did they find all the gold he’d got hidden away?’
‘Guess they did, kid.’
‘Gee, mister, that must’ve been exciting!’
‘Waal… it had its moments.’
‘I sure do wish I’d been around about then.’
Gently looked down at his small companion. ‘Weren’t you up here yesterday?’ he asked.
‘No, mister, not me.’
‘How come, pardner?’
‘Someone gave me two bob to spend on the fair… but it wasn’t going in the afternoon. So I went round Woolies instead. That’s where I bought my six-shooter, mister — see here!’ He withdrew his hand from Gently’s and held up a new toy gun. Gently examined it gravely, spinning the magazine with a stubby finger. ‘Clean, bright and lightly oiled,’ he murmured, ‘that’s a pretty little shooting-iron, pardner… here’s half a buck to buy it some ammo.’
‘Gee… mister!’ The Cactus Kid’s eyes gleamed as he felt the heavy coin with its rough milled edge. Then he tugged back on Gently’s hand. ‘Mister… would you mind if I spent some of it on a special belt with a holster?’
