Gently chuckled among his smoke-wreaths. ‘And why should Fleece want to meet her so badly?’
‘Well, man, I reckon I’ve done my bit — you’ll have to imagine the rest for yourself!’
They both laughed, but then they grew thoughtful again: Evans’s fancy wasn’t as bizarre as he had made it sound. Fleece’s visits to Wales had begun and ended with Kincaid; was it stretching matters much to suppose a correspondence in between?
‘Anyway, we netted one small tiddler,’ Gently mused. ‘We’ve confirmed the divorce angle, and soon we’ll know who the beau is.’
Evans nodded. ‘Though I’m looking on the bright side,’ he said. ‘He could be someone quite harmless, notwithstanding that trunk-call.’
They came in down the Mile End Road, through Whitechapel and past the Bank, with Evans craning his neck to view the sooty antiquity of St Paul’s; and then off Fleet Street into the quieter waters of the Temple, where the sun, still holding its own, brightened the quadrangles and sad trees. Agnew, Sharp, and Adams had chambers overlooking the Garden. There Gently’s inquiry, after a legal interval, gained them the audience of the second partner.
‘Yes, I handled Fleece’s affairs. Also those of Electroproducts.’ Mr Sharp belied his name; he resembled an affable country squire. ‘I’d like to put in a claim for privilege but it would scarcely wash, would it? Death is the great nolle prosequi, and takes advice from no lawyer. What do you gentlemen want to know?’
‘We’ve got four questions,’ Gently replied.
‘Four only? Then you’re more economical than most policemen of my acquaintance. What’s number one?’
‘Can you tell us where Fleece got the capital to start in business?’
‘Not I, sir. But he had some. He was never short of cash.’
‘Number two. Had he started a divorce suit?’
‘Answer. Yes, he had.’
‘Number three. When did he start it?’
‘Answer. Let me get his file.’
From a row of venerable and dusty box files Sharp pulled out one with a new label: the last of a considerable sequence which had been pasted on it during past decades. He opened it and took out some papers.
‘Fleece first consulted me on the nineteenth of August. I gave him some advice which doesn’t matter, then he returned on the sixteenth of September. I filed his suit on the same day. Does that answer the question?’
Gently briefly inclined his head.
‘I know what number four will be, but I’d better let you ask it.’
‘Who was the co-respondent in the case?’
‘Yes, that’s the jackpot question. He was Raymond John Heslington of Hadrian’s Villa, Wimbledon Common.’
Sharp glanced surprisedly at Evans. He had said something very powerful in Welsh…
CHAPTER SIX
‘ Would you really credit it, man? Could any case be such a bastard?’
They had gone to the Cheshire for their elevenses; Gently, Evans, and the driver. About them, dallying over coffee, sat the regular clientele: City men, law men and pressmen, the last with a speculative eye for Gently. It was a relaxed and somnolent atmosphere of refreshment and conversation, and Gently was relaxing: Evans had forgotten how it was done. The lawyer’s revelation had stunned him. He seemed unequal to exchanging ideas. He could only, between blank reveries, express his feelings in exclamations. The driver was exercising his professional phlegm and drank his coffee in strict anonymity.
‘I mean we’re never sure of anything. It’s up and down the whole time. A step forward and a step back, that’s the way of it, in a nutshell…’
Gently nodded, not really listening though taking it in at the same time. A step forward and a step back…? It was more like the treading of an intricate dance measure. And what did it signify, that figure which the movements sought to describe: was it the guiltiness of an adulterer, of an unhinged husband, or of something quite different? For look at it how you would, a perplexing dichotomy was showing. The facts divided themselves into groups though the groups were closely linked to each other. On the one hand were Fleece and Kincaid, dancing their diabolical duo, as though between them lay a malignant secret which drew them on to violent ends; and on the other was the dance of the antlers, no less sinister in its setting, separate and several from the first yet counterpointing it all the way. Kincaid had appeared: Fleece had gone to Wales. Fleece may have married Paula Kincaid; Kincaid may have discovered it. Heslington loved Mrs Fleece, may have loved her husband’s property. Fleece attempts to get a divorce, Fleece is pushed over Snowdon. Kincaid is inexplicably on the spot, Heslington is there quite explicably. And from Llanberis, from someone, comes the news to Mrs Fleece Kincaid’s hideout; over and above which strange background shufflings from the father-figure of Metropolitan Electric. Two themes, yet interacting in a unified spectacle: one climax, but separately danced to by two diversely motivated principals…
Gently paused before this picture: a slender consequence had suddenly struck him. For hadn’t they conferred on one occasion, those two apparently isolated dancers? They had; it was public knowledge. It had happened during the original notoriety. Heslington had paid Kincaid a visit and had afterwards been loud in the Kincaid cause. Was it credible for them to have conspired together, one to act and one to take the blame? Heslington to clear himself by bearing witness, Kincaid to take the risk of a weak persecution? But no, their motives could not be reconciled, supposing Mrs Fleece to be Paula Kincaid; and if she were not then they were back with Everest for Kincaid’s motive to do the deed. And was that enough? Gently had his doubts. Kincaid had never shown signs of grudge-bearing. On the contrary, he’d seemed unconscious that any injury had been done to him…
But Kincaid had appeared and both he and Fleece had gone to Wales: that was the point to which one kept returning. Their visits might still have to be connected to be shown more than a coincidence, but on the acute balance of Gently’s instinct they levelled one with the other. And what else had been reported from Wales, apart from the circumstances of the tragedy? One thing only, a shy pirouette on the very edge of the ensemble. The witness who had first reported having seen Kincaid had left a false name and address, and one suggesting that he was resident in or familiar with the district. Could this obscure individual have been the reason for the visits? It seemed unlikely; but it was all there was, and Gently didn’t like to pass it over.
He drank the last of his coffee.
‘I’d like you to give Caernarvon a ring. I want to know if they’ve traced Fleece’s movements and if they’ve found that witness.’
‘Do you think he was Kincaid’s missus in disguise, man?’
Gently chuckled. ‘I’d like to think it was possible. Also, in view of Fleece’s visits, we’d better increase the scope of the inquiries. All the district about Caernarvon: give your man what we got from Bemmells.’
Evans nodded. ‘Then do we pick up Heslington?’
‘No… I’m not quite ready for him yet. I want a little more background material. I think we’ll go for our chat with Overton.’
They collected their car and drove to the convenient Bow Street, but Evans drew a blank in his talk with Caernarvon. Fleece had stayed with the club party during their weekend in Wales, and no information had come in yet relating to ‘Basil Gwynne-Davies’. Inquiries had been made at Bangor, at the University College, but if any students had been adrift on Monday it was unknown to the authorities. Evans gave the new instructions and rang off with a shrug. He was resigned, the gesture said. Out of Wales could come no comfort.
Richard Overton was an architect and he lived in Bayswater, but he had an office in Bedford Place only a short distance from Bow Street. It was contained in a terrace house, a gracious segment of Bloomsbury, its brickwork seedily metropolitan but its paintwork professionally gay. Overton’s studio was on the first floor. It was a large room lined with shelves and racks. It contained a vast table, some bentwood chairs and a pair of mechanized- looking drawing boards, and it smelled of paper and rubbers and indian ink and cigarette smoke. When they were announced Overton was busy at an elevation on one of the boards. He extended a warning finger towards them
