a coughing fit — he had spilled some brandy on the carpet.
‘I was home by five past ten — I didn’t go out again after that!’
Gently turned to the spluttering Butters:
‘It’s true… she had a bath and went to bed.’
‘But what were you doing during the evening?’
‘It’s as I said — I was out with Derek!’
‘But nobody has mentioned seeing you with him.’
‘He — he brought me the drinks out to the car.’
Was she still lying, or was it the truth? Gently stared long at those flaming green eyes. As though it were an indicator of her good faith, she was quietly pushing her skirt back into place.
‘I was with him, all the evening, though I admit that we were going round the pubs. I only said that about the cottage because I thought you were more likely to believe it. But I was with him from a quarter past seven, and we were together until he dropped me at ten — I never stayed out later than that. It would have started my father prying.’
‘When had you told him that you were pregnant?’
‘Oh, weeks ago — as soon as I was certain.’
‘What did you intend to do about that?’
‘Derek was trying to find a good abortionist.’
‘Did he speak of his wife on Monday?’
She pouted. ‘You wouldn’t believe he didn’t! Well, he said he was certain that she was carrying on with an artist, but that she was being very clever, and that he was thinking of hiring a detective.’
‘Did he say who it was he suspected?’
‘No. She was playing about with several of them. But that was what he intended to do, and not to stick a paper knife in her back!’
Gently let it go at that, sensing further emotional fireworks — in the morning he would have another chance to see what he could chivvy out of her. Butters, in great relief, hustled his daughter out of the room; Gently thoughtfully lit his pipe and blew some smoke at the collecting mosquitoes.
A most illuminating hour! He glanced at the fallen level in the decanter. Down by the river some points of light showed where a yacht or two had made their moorings. In spite of his pipe he could smell the mustiness which persisted in the room, and he noticed a patch of mould that was growing on the paper beneath the window.
‘Do have a drink, Superintendent…’
Now, it was certain that Butters was drunk. He had to be careful where he put his feet, and his watering eyes had a bemused expression.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At Lordham Village, where he stopped to phone, Gently experienced an even longer delay with the exchange. The country operator answered him with a surly briefness, as though this was really laying it on too thick.
‘Can you bring Inspector Stephens to the phone…?’
His wristwatch was pointing to a minute to ten. As he could hear Stephens picking up the phone to answer him, the hour struck fussily on the church clock outside.
‘How is the session with Aymas going?’
In reality he could tell this from the sound of Stephens’s voice.
‘I’m afraid he’s been terribly stubborn up till now, sir… you were quite right about him not breaking down and confessing.’
‘What excuse does he give for sending his car to the breakers?’
‘He persists in maintaining that that was all it was fit for. He says that he only kept it till Tuesday on account of Monday night’s meeting, and that he’s negotiating for a better one, and hopes to buy it tomorrow.’
‘Have you checked on that?’
‘Yes, sir. With the vendor. He agrees that Aymas spoke to him about it over a fortnight ago.’
Gently clicked his tongue consolingly. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about it! Just smooth Aymas down a bit and find him some transport. Then I want you to go out and to pull in Johnson for questioning… take another man with you. I want to talk to Johnson tonight.’
He hung up before Stephens could ask him for an explanation. He felt no particular exhilaration at being in possession of the conclusive facts. They had come to him by pure good fortune and through no exertion of his own, unless his luck could be counted, the luck that dogged a good detective. And that luck would have belonged to Hansom if Gently had not been called to the case.
Or would it? He stood brooding, his hand on the Riley’s door, partly conscious of the buzz from the pub across the way. If Gently hadn’t arrived, wouldn’t Butters have continued to procrastinate, probably drowning his courage, at last, in the bottom of the decanter? That was at least on the cards. Butters had much to gain from silence. And nobody had actually seen Johnson thrust that knife into his wife. There was a damning case, certainly, one which would convince any jury, but juries had made mistakes before, and there was a sop left for the conscience…
Gently pulled the door open with a grunt of annoyance. He too was finding a degree of temptation in this viewpoint! But the facts were the facts, and they hung together in a perfect symmetry; unless the circumstantial were accepted, there were cases one would never close.
Before he started back he scraped out his pipe and relit it. The evening was continuing fine and the sky was dusted over with stars. As he drove he could see before him the soft umbrella of the city’s lights, at first no more than a shallow mushroom, then spreading out to suffuse the horizon.
Then, with the first of the street lights, the luminosity abruptly ended: at precisely that point the country ended and the town began its authority.
He hadn’t hurried on the way back, wanting to give Stephens time to act, and now, threading through the haphazard streets, he slowed the Riley to a crawl. He was in an indecisive mood. He would have liked time to think, and yet wanted to be doing. He was conscious of a growing irritation without being able to assign a single reason for it. Was he even sorry, perhaps, that the case was caving in so suddenly — sorry, and just a little bit suspicious? There was something about it which had got under his skin!
When he arrived at HQ he went through to the canteen, and bought himself there a plate of sandwiches and some coffee. While the former were being cut he strolled across to the window, and drawing aside a rep curtain, stared out at the car park. It was true that there wasn’t a lot of light in the park. The distant lamps of St Saviour’s showed precious little here. A better source of illumination was the wall lamp in the footway, but even by this the terrace wall was merely a dim shadow. And it was fifteen minutes to eleven… and four days later.
‘Miss… were you serving here on Monday night?’
The counter assistant was a homely woman with hair which she had dyed to a bluish tint.
‘Yes… I’m regular on nights this week. But I didn’t hear anything — didn’t want to, either! And I’m keeping those windows bolted shut, from now on…’
He nodded sympathetically, glancing round the empty canteen.
He found Stephens waiting for him in Hansom’s office. The younger man had got his pipe on and was puffing away at it earnestly.
‘I grabbed him at the first try! Have you got something fresh on him? He was just putting his car away, and made a devil of a stink…’
Gently himself was feeling weary and droop-eyed, but Stephens looked as fresh as he had done that morning. He walked up and down while describing his interrogation of Aymas, drawing briskly on the pipe as he paused between sentences.
‘So you think, sir, that after all…?’
He was revelling in the case — far from being discouraged, he was eager to grapple with the newest angle. Gently, busy with his sandwiches, gave his Lordham findings disconnectedly. More than ever he was wondering if he ought not to have slept on them.
‘So you guessed it all along, sir!’ Nothing, apparently, escaped Stephens. Now he remembered Gently’s quip
