Gently shook his head decidedly. ‘There are two factors concerning the letter which tie it directly to the crime. To start with, the paper was part of the same sheet on which Mrs Johnson painted her picture, and then the composer of the letter knew that Farrer had helped Johnson to escape.’
‘Johnson may have lied about his movements.’
‘I don’t think he did, not in his condition.’
‘You admit yourself that he’s a clever bloke…’
‘There’s a limit to the cleverness that I admit to in anyone.’
Hansom, uncharacteristically, kept out of the argument. His belief in his judgement had taken a bad knock. He lit a cheroot in pretended boredom, and looked at the pictures in the Super’s Forensic Medicine…
To avoid the reporters, Mallows was brought in by the back way, having been driven right round the block to evade passing the main entrance. He stalked fiercely into the office, a folded paper in his hand, but after some moments in the frigid room a lot of his starch seemed to go out of him. He looked tireder, older; there were dark semicircles beneath his eyes. His grey hair clung more limply over his distinguished forehead. But since nobody at first appeared to notice his arrival, he took a chair from the wall and sat down challengingly in front of the desk.
‘A fine time of the day to drag a man out of his home!’ His eyes rested on Gently reproachfully and without their customary twinkle. Then he glanced round the room at Walker, Hansom, Stephens, the stenographer, the latter busy sharpening pencils with a razor blade in a holder. The forces of society…! Suddenly, Gently saw it all much clearer — as though, in a flash of sympathy, he was sharing Mallows’s vision. They were arranged by accident in a crescent, resembling a primitive battle array; a formidable half moon of enemy figures who were no longer individual people. And at the focus, naked in his chair, the artist clutching that folded paper… Gently guessed that it was Mallows’s Times, the innocent copy delivered to his house.
‘We have some questions to put to you, Mr Mallows…’
Once more he was conscious of a painful symbolism. Always, the inquisition was started by the recitation of those words. He could hear Johnson’s mocking rejoinder, speaking for everyone subject to question. ‘Whacko…!’ Did one ever ask questions without implying an accusation?
‘I know why you’re after me — I saw what they found under my door mat. I was watching them, you can bet — you don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you!’
‘Would you like to make a statement?’
‘Damn it, yes, I’ll do your work for you! No, sir, you can put your questions, but here’s an answer for you to begin with.’
He threw his paper on the desk, making with it a stilted, jabbing motion; it was in fact the previous day’s Times, his name scrawled roughly across one corner.
‘You realize, naturally, that this proves nothing?’
‘Touche, my friend. It proves I’ve got one.’
‘Something suggested its use for a certain purpose… what would that be, except familiarity with the paper?’
‘The knowledge that I took it in, perhaps.’
‘Apart from your servants, who would have that knowledge?’
They were sparring like a pair of boxers trying to feel each other out: Gently instantly perceived his mistake, and let the next reply dangle in air. When the expected riposte failed to come Mallows stared at him, but maintained his silence. Walker, who was sitting at the end of the desk, also looked expectantly at Gently.
‘Earlier today you admitted to certain knowledge concerning the recipient of a letter I showed you. You explained it by saying that he had telephoned you, but this he denies having done.’
‘He might have very good reasons for that.’ Mallows said it briskly, inviting a reply. Now, however, Gently was on his guard, and once more Mallows was left without support.
‘Suppose I guessed it, knowing what I knew? One has a brain, and you can’t help it working! From the letter one might deduce that it was Johnson who had eluded you, and after a quick check of suspects… surely Farrer is the obvious one? Naturally, Johnson would go to the bank. It’d be the last thing he would do. From there he’d want to get away quickly — and he was pals with Farrer. You see? It’s deducible.’
‘According to witness, you were more than friendly with Mrs Johnson.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Is it true, or false?’
‘It’s true that people have different ideas of what is friendly — it’s not the same thing in Mayfair and Montmartre.’
‘You were more than friendly with Mrs Johnson.’
‘I don’t say you couldn’t prove it.’
‘She was your mistress for a time.’
‘I’m going to swear at you, in a minute!’
Mallows was visibly put out by this form of procedure, which left him nothing to aim at and pinned him firmly to the defensive. His forte, as Gently had observed, lay in smart repartee, but deprived of openings for this he quickly surrendered the initiative.
‘Derek Johnson suspected you of killing his wife.’
‘If he did, then this is the first time I’ve heard about it.’
‘He got in touch with you yesterday before he left the city.’
‘My dear fellow, you’re talking moonshine. I haven’t spoken to him for days.’
‘He got in touch with you from his office, and this is the gist of the conversation. In acknowledgement of his keeping his mouth shut, you were to pay him a certain sum of money. I’d better inform you that I’ve had an opportunity of talking to Johnson — at this moment he is lying in the West County Hospital, at Fosterham.’
Not only Mallows but the others also sat up at this outrageous statement, rolled out as it was with the most stolid conviction. Until then Hansom had continued his investigation of Forensic Medicine, but now he shut the book with a bang, his eyes opening wide.
‘This is an astounding accusation!’
Mallows had flushed and was really angry: his big eyebrows lifted until they were nearly horizontal.
‘It’s not only astounding but untrue! I have had no communication with Johnson. If he says that I have, then bless my soul! The man is a psychopathic liar, and you can tell him I say so.’
‘Then you didn’t promise to pay him?’
‘I tell you again, I haven’t spoken to him!’
‘He had no money from you?’
‘Good lord! Am I going mad?’
‘You didn’t advise him to leave the country, undertaking to pay him ten thousand pounds?’
‘A little more of this, and I’m going to insist on having a lawyer!’
‘And yet you knew who received that letter?’
‘It was only a guess… must I keep on repeating it?’
Gently paused for an instant, a gleam in his eye: now he had produced a good working sweat! His next aim must be to keep it beading, to give Mallows no time to appreciate his tactics.
‘Where did you have lunch on Monday last?’
‘Monday… at home. I had lunch at home.’
‘You had lunch with Mrs Johnson.’
‘That’s untrue. Until the evening…’
‘According to witness you were seen coming out of Lyons with her.’
‘Not on that Monday…’
‘On that Monday! You went up The Walk with her and drove her off in your car. Johnson had been watching you, and he saw it too — so there doesn’t seem much to be gained by denying it.’
‘This is a fantastic perversion-!’
‘Shall I tell you what followed? You told her that you couldn’t pay her demands any longer. She’d been blackmailing you, hadn’t she? Threatened to cite you as co-respondent! And for a time, till she got greedy, you thought it was worth your while to pay her.’
‘You can’t believe this!’
