‘At Hiverton she picked up with someone — never mind who it was. She was clever at concealing such things, and his identity doesn’t matter. But the knowledge that she had a lover was eating into you like poison: you followed her, watched her, kept an eye on everyone, and on Tuesday you had a row about it and pretended to go off in a pique.
‘In reality you were following a plan, and the first part of it was an alibi. For this you went into Starmouth and built up the story you’ve since told. Then you returned to spy on Rachel. You intended to catch her in the act. You had made up your mind to murder her if you found her with her lover.
‘You did catch her and you strangled her. You were going to put the body in the sea. But then, when you got it to the beach, you found the fishermen there with their boats, and later on, when you returned, the tide was flooding and you couldn’t put her in. So you left her on the beach. It was the only thing you could do. And you crept back to your bedroom, ready to be surprised at nine.
‘Only — and this is the curious point — your Starmouth alibi doesn’t cover you. She may have been dead when you say you got back, but on the other hand you still had time in which to do the job. Either way it’s a fair case, and we might make it stick.
‘Do you still think we’re being unreasonable in viewing you as a suspect?’
Gently had rarely seen a human being reduced to such a mess. Mixer’s streaming face was grey, his eyes staring like a sick dog’s. His whole aspect, in fact, suggested that of a distempered animal. He breathed quickly and fiercely through dilated nostrils.
‘On the other hand there’s this in your favour.’
It was a toss-up whether Mixer was listening or not.
‘You’ve given this alibi in apparent good faith, which suggests that you didn’t know when Rachel Campion was killed. That doesn’t let you out — it might simply mean that you’re being clever! But on the whole, it would have been easier for you to have squared it than not. Only another things hangs to it. For what, then, was the alibi? There’s an odd smell about that, and I should like to know what it is.’
Mixer tried to wet his lips but they and his tongue seemed equally parched. His eyes had an unhinged expression as though he were losing touch with his surroundings.
‘When did you say?’
He had to swallow several times.
‘When did you say it happened?’
‘I didn’t, but it was some time between eleven and one.’
‘Then!’
Colour rushed back. The eyes appeared to switch on.
‘What were you going to say?’
‘Nothing — only it wasn’t me!’
A bell rang somewhere, perhaps the tea bell in the lounge. It was followed by a voice calling from one of the upper windows. Two youngsters ran up the path and disappeared into the hall: one heard the double clang of feet as they bounded over the door grille.
‘I think you’d better listen to this.’
Gently was stung by the mistake he’d made. Mixer was dabbing his face again and flapping his shirt-front to cool himself. A moment ago he’d been putty, but now, inexplicably…
‘You did two years for embezzlement — that’s on the official record. But just in case you think we’re asleep, here’s the other part of the story.
‘We know what your business is — you’re a promoter of fake companies. Up till now you’ve been lucky with it, but don’t let it kid you. And there’s something else that interests us. A little matter of warehouse robberies! There’ve been six of them in the last two years from which connections have been traced to a certain Alfie Mixer.
‘To be blunt, your career is just about to catch up with you, and this time it won’t stop at a paltry couple of years. So if you know anything about this business you’d better spit it out — it might be worth a few summers spent in Pentonville or Wands-worth.’
He had struck the right note. Mixer’s craven look returned. Twice he had tried to get a word in and now, when he did, his voice came in a sorry croak:
‘You can’t prove nothing about that!’
But the words lacked conviction — you could read his mind at a glance; as though his thoughts were being written across that sloping, sweating forehead.
‘Have you nothing else to say?’
‘I’m going to ring up my solicitor.’
‘You’d do better to come clean.’
‘I ain’t done nothing. I’m going to ring him!’
People were coming in to tea and one could hear their muffled voices. A man laughed, a woman responded, perhaps with a touch of reproof in her tone. In the background a chink of cups had a cooling, relaxing sound.
‘Get out then — I’ve finished with you!’
He felt a sudden surge of disgust with Mixer. A sweating, fearful lump of humanity — a criminal type, if such a thing existed! — and ugly: he was abominably ugly. What could it have been… with a woman like Rachel?
When the man had gone he sat a long time musing, then, for no reason, went over to the window. The reading room faced north and the building’s shadow lay that way. A deckchair was placed in it and in the deckchair sat Maurice. He turned to grin at Gently from a racing paper he was reading.
‘After tea I’ve got a job for you.’
Dutt, as always, never obtruded himself. Now he was sitting on the verandah and patiently awaiting his senior’s direction. After a dozen cases with Gently he knew roughly what was required of him.
‘You’re to take the car into Starmouth and to check on Mixer’s alibi. Get in touch with Inspector Copping and show him a copy of the statement. While you’re having tea I’ll make a note or two in the margin.’
Dutt jerked his chin impassively; he, too, was down to his braces and shirtsleeves.
‘Think there might be something there, sir?’
‘I’m not sure, Dutt. And I’d like to be.’
‘I’ve been having a word with the kids, sir, and it all seems to hang together. It was a joke with them how jealous he was, and once or twice they saw him come out of her room. Trust youngsters to notice a thing like that.’
On the phone he talked to Pagram, his colleague at the Yard.
‘What’s it been like today?’
‘Bloody awful! You’re well out of it.’
‘It couldn’t be hotter.’
‘You listen to this. We fried some eggs and bacon on a paving stone in the courtyard. Johnson had them for lunch and his picture’s in all the evening papers.’
‘I want some digging done.’
‘You would, wouldn’t you?’
‘It’s this woman who was strangled. I want to know who she was. Her last address before she went to West Hampstead was a furnished room in Camden Town.’
‘Have you got the address?’
Gently thumbed open a sheet of notepaper. It was scribbled across in Mixer’s primitive handwriting.
‘Eighty-two Dalhousie Gardens. She left in June a couple of years ago. No next of kin and no known acquaintances. Lower middle-class cockney — could be a native there.’
‘What exactly are you after?’
‘Every single thing you can get.’
Against the instrument Gently had propped his photograph. Its eyes, which had faced the camera, followed him about as he talked to Pagram.
