‘Lordham one-five-eight.’
‘This is Superintendent Gently.’
‘Ah! I’m very glad to hear it. I’ve been trying to get you since lunch, sir.’
It was indeed a ‘county’ voice — a blend of Eton and the hunting field; one imagined that its owner was wearing spurs, or at the least, was flicking a dog whip.
‘My name is William Butters and I am acquainted with Sir Daynes Broke. He has always given me to understand that one can talk to you, Superintendent.’
‘Is it about the death of Mrs Johnson?’
‘Yes, it most certainly is. I have what I feel to be some vital information, and I would like you to call on me without further delay.’
Gently made a face at Stephens. ‘Couldn’t you tell me over the phone, sir?’
‘No, Superintendent, I couldn’t. It involves some highly personal explanations.’
In spite of his brusqueness a note of anxiety had crept into Butters’s voice — it was as though he wanted to ask a favour, and didn’t know quite how to set about it.
‘You are busy, sir, I am sure, but I am positive that you won’t be wasting your time… this may well affect the whole case. It is essential that you should see me at once.’
‘Then if you would care to drive over, sir…’
‘No, I’m afraid it won’t do.’
‘Then if you could give me a little idea…’
‘No, Superintendent. You must come here.’
There was obviously no help for it, and Gently hung up with a sigh. Stephens, who had divined the state of affairs, was watching his senior’s expression anxiously. Gently gave him a grin:
‘You don’t have to wait for me, you know. Just carry on with Aymas according to the rules they gave you at Ryton.’
‘You mean me… I’m to interrogate him?’
‘Why not? It’s all good practice.’
‘But I thought, sir — since a charge is so near-’
Gently chuckled and punched the younger man’s shoulder.
The drive out to Lordham took him through familiar country, it being at Wrackstead that he had arrested Lammas, the burnt-yacht murderer. There, and at Lordham Bridge, the moorings were busy with pleasure craft, and Gently needed to drive slowly through the careless crowds of yachtsmen. The address he had been given was The Grange House, Lordham, a premises not to be found without a due amount of inquiry; he was directed down narrow lanes which seemed to have lost their raison d’etre, and it was by following his instinct that he at last arrived at his destination. It was a moderate-sized property of Regency period, and stood palely among trees on a slope above the River Ent. A portico with an elegant flight of steps graced the front, commanding a panoramic view of the sedgy, twining river. Its decoration, Gently noticed, was not in first-class order, and there were signs of neglect in the rather fine terrace gardens. The garage doors stood apart to reveal a highly polished Rolls, but it was a Rolls of a period which predated the Second World War.
He parked his Riley on the notched tiling in front of the garage, and made his way to the portico, of which the door was also open. Then, quite unconsciously, he threw a glance at the upper windows — to find that a pair of frightened eyes were staring down into his. It was only for a second. In the next, they had disappeared. From such a glimpse he had been unable to register either the sex or age of their owner. An instant later a curtain was pulled, though actually this was quite unnecessary; the room behind it was already darkened by the subdued light of the evening.
‘Superintendent Gently, is it?’
He found himself staring blankly at Butters. The man had approached him down the steps and was offering his hand with mechanical politeness.
‘I’m glad that you decided to call… I’m afraid this interview has been delayed too long. But perhaps if you are a family man, you will appreciate my position…’
Gently shook hands and mumbled something in reply — had they been an illusion, those fear-struck eyes? Butters led him into the house and along a wide, deserted hall, ushering him finally into a room which had a faintly mouldy smell. It was large, and period-furnished, but there were pale areas of damp on the wallpaper.
‘Can I offer you a drink to begin with…?’
Butters closed the door carefully behind him. He was a man of sixty or over and had a flushed and alcoholic face. His figure had probably once been athletic, but now was thickening and running to fat. He wore a suit of Donegal tweed of which the waistcoat seemed too small for him.
‘If you don’t mind, I’ll have one myself… I always talk better with a drink in my hand. But you’d better sit down, Superintendent. This… I’m afraid it may take a little time.’
Obediently, Gently took possession of a petit point easy chair, one of a set of half a dozen which stood about the handsome room. Butters seated himself in another and swallowed down some brandy and water. From the slight tremulousness of the glass, Gently suspected that it was not his first.
‘Have you ever been to Norway?’
Once again, Gently was staring blankly. It was the merest coincidence, of course, and yet he couldn’t help feeling struck by it
…
‘It’s a first-rate country for fishing, and I’ve been up there several times. You take the Bergen Line out of Newcastle — it gets you across in nineteen hours.’
‘Is this to do with Mrs Johnson, sir?’
‘Yes, and you’ll see how in a minute. But let me tell the tale my own way… it puts me out when people ask questions.’
Gently held back the ghost of a shrug and fixed his gaze on a French Empire clock. In Butters’s manner there was too much of the club bore: one could hear his ‘county’ tones droning on into the night
…
‘I was there in ’53 at a hotel in Stalheim — just Phoebe and myself, the girls were in Switzerland that year. I can recommend the hotel if you’re up that way — usual incompetence with meat dishes, but that’s the same everywhere. Well, I was fishing one day some miles out of Stalheim, and I dropped into the local pensjonat for a spot of middag. I was put on a table kept reserved for another Englishman, and this other fellow turned out to be Johnson.
‘We fell to talking, of course — a treat to hear your own tongue; I can snakker a bit of the native, but only enough to get along with. He told me where he came from and the line of business he was in. Then we got on to the war, and fishing yarns, and places we’d been to…’
The upshot of it had been that Butters had taken a liking to Johnson. He had invited him back to his hotel and introduced him to Mrs Butters. Then, their holidays ending together, they had travelled back in company, first by coastal steamer to Bergen and then on the Venus home to Newcastle.
‘Well, just at that time I was selling my Lynge property, in fact it was already in the hands of an agent. But the local men are much too slow, Superintendent, all they know about selling are these nasty little bungalows…’
And so, quite naturally, he’d handed the job to Johnson, and Johnson had come up trumps by the end of a fortnight. He’d produced a retired company director from somewhere in Sussex, and what was even better, had got an advanced price from him.
‘It was a genuine deal, sir?’
‘As genuine as that clock! Nobody can have any complaints about the way he does business. He’s keen, sir, and he’s got the brains, and he knows where to find the buyers. He’s moved off a lot of stuff that had been hanging fire for years.’
‘And you recommended him, did you?’
Butters had done, with enthusiasm. He had commended this pearl to his wide acquaintance of ‘county’ people. As a result Johnson’s business had flourished like a bay tree, and he had established a monopoly in the selling of cumbersome properties.
