Gently went back to his chair. He let his eyes rest on the open book. He said:
‘Mr Stanley, you go out of your way to make yourself interesting. First you try to stop me obtaining some apparently innocent information, then you pretend not to have known to what the information related. Don’t you think I’ve got grounds for being a little bit curious?’
‘That is perfectly fantastic.’
‘I don’t think so, Mr Stanley.’
‘I deny absolutely having tried to prevent your inquiries!’
Gently gave a faint shrug. ‘Then why are we sitting here now? Why wasn’t I taken to the personnel manager, who was the man I asked for?’
There was a pause; Stanley shot him a number of most unfriendly looks. He obviously would liked to have flown at Gently and was preventing himself with difficulty. Finally he threw out a couple of ‘Tchas!’ and stalked across to a cabinet. There he poured himself a whisky, which he tossed back with a sweeping gesture. He returned to the desk.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I was foxing. I admit it. I knew about Kincaid all along, and I was afraid this would happen.’
‘Afraid what would happen, Mr Stanley?’
‘Why — you, the press, everything! Do you think I want Met. L dragged into it, and to have it spread all over the papers? It’s — it’s senseless, that’s what it is.’ He swept the air with two large hands. ‘It’s been a scandalous business from start to finish. You take my tip — you hang the fellow.’
‘Mmn.’ Gently kept watching the book. ‘And that’s your reason for being uncooperative?’
‘Good Lord, what other reason do you want? Should a firm like us be dragged through the mire?’
‘You wouldn’t be dragged very far, I hope.’
‘Quite far enough, when you’re doing our scale of business. How do you suppose our customers are going to react to it — Met. L linked with a scandal and a murder? People in America — Europe — Asia: hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of contracts! Why, the market is as sensitive as a piece of raw flesh. A thing like this could do us incalculable damage.’
‘All we want are a few facts about Kincaid’s past.’
‘A few facts!’ Stanley’s hands fell chopper-like on the desk. ‘And tomorrow, in all the papers, “Murder Hunt at Met. L” — that’s what your few facts are going to do to this firm. I ask you, gentlemen, see it my way for a moment! Look at it purely as business, as exports, as wage-packets. You’ve got your man and presumably you’ve got a case against him: is it worth what it’s going to cost to come scandalmongering here?’
Carried away by his own rhetoric, Stanley went to fetch another drink. He brought it back, sipping it slowly, like a man who felt he’d made his point. Gently’s shoulders hunched higher; he angled a glance towards Evans. Further and further did Mr Stanley go out of his way to be interesting…
Gently said: ‘Did you happen to know Fleece personally?’
Stanley resumed his surprised look. ‘Actually, yes. I have met him.’
‘Was that recently?’
‘Fairly recently. We’re in the same line of business. His firm is Electroproducts — domestic appliances, mainly goods for the home market. He’s subcontracted once or twice, so I’ve met him in the way of business.’
‘And you know Mrs Fleece?’
The surprise yielded to a frown. ‘I think so. In fact, I’m certain. I must have met her at social functions.’
‘So you knew the Fleeces socially?’
‘Good Lord no! Not in the way you imply. But being in the trade you attend the same functions, and so you meet a lot of people on — what shall I call it? A limited social basis. Now I think of it, I do remember her. She’s a rather attractive dark woman.’
‘Strong… energetic?’
Stanley laughed. ‘I couldn’t say. But she’s the feminine sort of woman. And, as I say, rather fetching.’
‘What is Mrs Kincaid’s colouring?’
Stanley went completely still. His grey eyes seized on Gently’s, probing, thrusting at the detective’s blankness. Then his eyes switched away.
‘Of course, I never met either of them.’
‘Her name was Paula. Paula Kincaid.’
‘I can only repeat that I never met them.’
‘But you remember now that Kincaid was employed here?’
‘I admitted I did. But dash it, only as a wage clerk.’
‘Thank you for the information.’ Gently inclined his head politely. ‘I didn’t know that. But now I do, we’ll be getting along to the appropriate department.’
Stanley’s lips compressed tightly. He seemed about to defy Gently. Instead, he shrugged well-tailored shoulders and rose without another word.
The wage-accounts department of Metropolitan Electric was housed on the second floor of the new executive block. They went up to it in a lift which was heated and quite noiseless; it bore the company’s trade-plate on its chaste ivory panelling. Stanley, still saying nothing, led them into the brightly lit offices, down an aisle between banks of desks and into a smaller, glass-partitioned room. Here, at desks of weathered sycamore, sat the head accountant and his lieutenants; the former a heavy-built, grey jowled man with sleeked black hair and a small moustache. At Stanley’s approach he rose. He gave them a deferential smile.
‘This is Dunmore, our wages chief, Superintendent. Dunmore, Superintendent Gently of the C.I.D.’
Dunmore seemed trying to decide whether this called for a handshake, but after a tentative movement with his hand he dropped it again nervously. Stanley congratulated him with a grunt. He said:
‘The superintendent has a query. He appears to think we can tell him something about this Kincaid who used to work here. I feel certain we’ve nothing for him, but of course we must assist the police. So if you know anything about Kincaid, don’t be afraid to come out with it.’
Dunmore looked worried. ‘But wasn’t he here rather a long time ago, sir?’
‘He was, Dunmore. Twenty-two years ago, I’m told.’
Dunmore brightened. ‘Then I’m afraid I couldn’t know anything about him, sir. I was with Intrics, like yourself, sir. I didn’t come here until the merger.’
‘What about Wilson, Dunmore?’
‘No, sir. He was with me at Intrics.’
‘Spence? Baker?’
‘We can ask them, sir. But I feel positive you’ll find…’
He went through the farce of summoning his junior assistants, but one saw at a glance that they were strictly post-Kincaid. Baker, a man of forty, remembered hearing about him when he joined the firm, but even hearsay was dead by the time Spence had arrived there. Gently tried a pass at Baker.
‘When did you join Met. L?’
‘In nineteen-forty. I escaped war service on medical grounds.’
‘Who told you about Kincaid?’
‘Oh, it was just general talk. He was famous in a sort of way, and his having been here gave us a kick.’
‘Name some people in this department who were here in nineteen-forty.’
‘That isn’t easy… there were a lot of changes made here during the war. People left and didn’t come back; most of the clerical staff were temporaries. Bayntun, he knew Kincaid, but he went west at Tobruk
…’
‘Give me just one name.’
Baker glanced uneasily at Stanley. ‘I don’t think I can. The war changed things so much…’
‘You see?’ Stanley broke in smilingly. ‘We’re being reasonable, Superintendent. But we just seem to lack the information you require.’
Gently stared at him; then he turned his back and stumped over to the door. Through it came the clatter of typewriters and the rhythmic cadence of computers. There were fifty employees in the room at least, sitting at desks, moving about with papers; girls, youths, men of Baker’s age: they seemed a positive conspiracy of youth. Then a flash of light caught Gently’s eye, reflected from the far corner of the room. The head of someone wearing
