‘Certainly, Superintendent. I’ve just been telling these gentlemen.’
‘You’re James Farrer, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, that’s my name… as you know, I am one of the Palette Group members.’
Gently grunted, his mind switching momentarily to the exhibition. Now he remembered one of the bank manager’s pictures — a rather commonplace affair, a still life of roses.
‘Johnson was shown in here at eleven or thereabouts. I should tell you that I know him socially, that’s to say, he belongs to my club. He informed me that he wanted to close both his accounts — he was in some sort of a crisis; I understood it to be financial.’
‘Did he say it was financial?’
‘No.’ Farrer whipped up his smile. ‘But in a bank manager’s office one rarely hears of any other kind. In any case, I understood him so… I even offered to give him advice. However, he only wanted his money, and it was not my place to question him.’
‘Didn’t it strike you as being just a little bit queer?’ Hansom weighed in with his heavy sarcasm.
‘It did cross my mind, I have to admit… but then, you fellows didn’t seem to be worrying about him.’
‘You could have stalled him and got on the phone!’
‘I’m sorry.’ Farrer shrugged his shoulders politely. ‘I would certainly have done so had I known he was wanted, but of course, in my eyes, he was still a free agent.’
Gently inquired: ‘How much did you let him have?’
Farrer consulted a memo which lay on his desk.
‘From his current account, seven hundred pounds… and another six hundred against his deposits. That was the best I could do at a moment’s notice. In cash, I mean. He wanted small notes.’
‘What about his safe deposit?’
‘He emptied his box. Naturally, I’m not supposed to know what was in it. Since I advised him about his investments, however… if you insist, I can give you a fairly good guess.’
‘It might be useful.’
‘Well… ten or eleven thousand… bearer bonds, preference… some government stock.’
‘And a Luger pistol?’
‘Yes, that… he once showed it to me.’
‘Did he show you his licence?’
Farrer shrugged again, smiling thinly.
‘All right — how long was he occupied by these transactions?’
‘Not more than half an hour. He was in a hurry — did I say?’
‘And then?’
‘Well, then he left, after shaking my hand.’
‘By the back door — through your hall?’
‘It’s the quickest way into Shadwell Street.’
‘And of course — you were friends!’ Hansom bit in again. ‘And of course, you didn’t ask him why he was scuttling out at the back! And of course he didn’t mention that there was a detective watching the front — when we’re all so damned polite we don’t talk about these things!’
Farrer winced under the attack, but clung to the shreds of his official smile. Too clearly he was a man who couldn’t be bullied out of his composure.
‘He asked to use that way out as a favour, as he had done once or twice before. It happens to be nearer for his office. I am very sorry if it discommoded you.’
‘Yeah, I’ll bet you are!’ Hansom could detect the delicate taunt. ‘But don’t think we’re so dumb as people make us out, either. There’s a little misdemeanour called “obstructing the police”, and I wouldn’t like to say that we couldn’t pin it on you.’
‘Always supposing that you had evidence to support it, Inspector.’
Hansom gave one of his snarls, but he knew when he was beaten.
‘This money…’ Gently took up the ball again. ‘Can you remember what sort of notes it was in?’
Farrer glanced at the memo. ‘Mostly in ones and tens. But I had to give him the odd five hundred pounds in fivers.’
‘And you’ve got a note of them?’
‘Yes. They were new and numbered consecutively.’
‘We’ll have the numbers, please, and all you can remember about his securities.’
That was all there was to it: Gently picked up his hat. But Farrer now seemed to be wanting to add something unsolicited. He fiddled with his memo, smiling once or twice at nothing, then:
‘You know… I’ve seen as much of Derek Johnson as most people.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Oh, just that I thought him fairly trustworthy. We don’t come to be bank officials without having a flair for judging character.’
‘You’re saying that he wouldn’t have murdered his wife?’
‘Yes… no. I don’t want to interfere! But I feel it my duty to say that to one who knows him… well, it’s unlikely.’
For once he wasn’t smiling but looking at Gently with an earnest directness, and in a flash Gently understood what the bank manager was trying to convey.
‘And you were prepared to back your judgement?’
‘The bank is always prepared to back it.’
‘It’s kind of you to be so frank, Mr Farrer!’
‘I think, in justice, I could be no less…’
Hansom, as sore as a baited bear, slammed the car door with a fearsome crash. ‘It makes my blood simmer — and we can’t lay a finger on him! For all we can show it was just the way he tells it — and then the grinning chimpanzee has to go and rub it in!’
Gently closed his door more quietly, though he sympathized with Hansom. On the other hand, one had to spare some admiration for Farrer. The man had stood by his friend at a certain risk to himself, and had risked a little more to impress his faith in Johnson on Gently.
Whatever faults the ex-pilot had, at least he could command a great deal of loyalty…
‘So what are we going to do about it, besides sitting on our fannies?’
‘I’m going to have lunch. You dragged me away from it.’
‘But this geezer’s got a gun!’
‘That’s regrettable, of course. But I don’t feel any the less hungry because of it.’
Surprisingly, Hansom didn’t go up in smoke — he was learning to take his Gently more temperately, perhaps. He extricated the Wolseley with much clashing of gears, but Hansom at his best was no trophy winner with a car.
‘I’ve alerted the rail police and put a man on the bus terminus — and one each, of course, on the office and the flat.’
‘You remember young Huysmann?’
‘Hell yes! And you were right there. I’ll ring up the river police and have them check on the boats. That’s it, I reckon, apart from putting out the numbers.’
‘Just one other thing… he left his car behind.’
‘You think-?’ Hansom’s eyes left the road for a moment.
‘We’d better check on it, since he’s so flush with the ready. In his place, my next move would have been to buy another car.’
Also, Gently thought, he would have shaved off that moustache, though whether Johnson could have borne to part with it was quite another matter. With him it was probably a gimmick like the chair and the horseshoe, and he would doubtless sooner hang with it than face the world clean-shaven.
‘You’re not forgetting Miss Butters, sir…?’ These were the first words Stephens had spoken; from his behaviour one would have thought that he was personally responsible for Johnson’s escape.
‘No, I haven’t forgotten Miss Butters.’ Gently eyed his confrere humorously. ‘She’s probably the best bet of
