Alan Hunter - Gently to the Summit

‘I assure you I’m very interested.’

‘Then would you like to ask me some questions?’

‘I would. I would indeed.’

Mrs Askham complacently smoothed her skirt.

‘When did you engage Paula Kincaid, Mrs Askham?’

‘When? Oh, in the summer of nineteen-thirty-seven. She was a widow, you know, or thought she was. Rather teary and mournful. Though she soon got over it.’

‘Did you engage her through an agency?’

‘Oh no. My husband suggested her.’

‘Your husband?’

‘Harry Askham. He knew I was looking for a secretary. When you’re running three establishments and that sort of thing, then a secretary becomes essential. Otherwise you’d go mad.’

‘But how did your husband come to know of her?’

‘He employed her, of course; she worked at the firm. He thought it would be doing the girl a good turn, or so he said at the time.’

‘And his firm?’ Gently gaped.

Her lilac eyes opened reprovingly.

‘Metropolitan Electric. Harry was Met. L.’

Did she know she was a bombshell, sitting there so expensively, with a hint of the air of a duchess extracting amusement from a clown? If she did, she didn’t show it. She’d learned not to wrinkle her precious skin. And her eyes, cool and bold, merely stared at him interestedly.

‘You mean… before the merger?’ Gently grasped for the phrase blindly.

‘Oh yes. And afterwards too. It was we who took over Intrics, you know. Harry continued as managing director up to his death nine years ago; then Clarence Stanley was appointed, chiefly at my instigation. I was never actually on the Board, though of course I own the controlling interest.’

‘Then Mr Stanley is… well known to you?’

‘Naturally. I wanted a man I could trust.’

‘He would follow your instructions?’

‘He would consult me on matters of policy.’

Her eyes twinkled and she added: ‘He hadn’t consulted me about yesterday. But he knew the girl had been my secretary, and he was doing his loyal best to protect me. Clarence has always been a dear.’

‘Hmn.’ Gently didn’t sound so certain of it. ‘And that’s the reason for your visit today? Because Mr Stanley was unsuccessful?’

She regarded him archly. ‘That’s not a kind way to put it, but it’s close to the truth, so I’ll forgive you. Also I thought if I saw you myself I might persuade you to spare me publicity. I dread an appearance in the popular press. I prefer the greater sympathy of the Illustrated.’

Gently shrugged. ‘I can give you no promises.’

‘You’ll do your best. I feel confident of that.’

‘If I can lay hands on Paula Kincaid I won’t be ungrateful. That’s the most I can offer.’

She nodded. She picked up her sharkskin bag, which she’d laid on the desk with her pair of lilac gloves. She produced a slender silver case and a butane lighter, both flowingly monogrammed and engraved with a crest.

‘May I offer you a cigarette?’

Gently accepted from curiosity. But they were honest-to-goodness Player’s and not the gold-tipped confection he’d expected. She held out the lighter with a long-fingered hand, the nails of which were polished only. She held it steadily. Her only ring was a circle of gold on the third finger.

‘Now that we’ve examined my motives, shall we continue with Paula Kincaid?’

‘If we may.’ The unaccustomed cigarette smoke was making Gently squint.

‘I engaged her after Ascot, it must have been the end of June, and in July she accompanied us to Trecastles, at Beaumaris. Trecastles is Harry’s family place. We were both very fond of it; it looks across the Straits to Llanfairfechan, with the Great Orme in the distance. Paula wasn’t a secretary, of course, she’d worked an adding machine or something, but she was an adaptable sort of girl and soon picked up the job. She was rather flighty, I’m afraid to say. She was always doing things with her hair.’ Mrs Askham inhaled delicately and allowed herself the luxury of a frown.

‘She found a boyfriend, did she?’

The frown lingered. ‘I’m coming to that. I may be doing her less than justice, but I made up my mind I would confide in you. That was the summer I was having Henry, who is our only child, so I couldn’t keep an eye on things as much as I’d have liked. Harry kept a yacht down there, and I didn’t always feel like sailing. Then there were excursions I was sometimes out of. Having a baby is no joke. Am I making myself plain?’

‘Reasonably plain, Mrs Askham.’

‘I’m glad, because I shall never know the truth of it myself. Harry was a man and inclined that way, he would have been unhealthy if he wasn’t; but there are limits, you’ll agree. I drew a line at the servants.’

‘Did you tackle him about it?’

‘No. Not beyond hinting. There was never sufficient to go on, not till the day I sacked her.’

‘When was that?’

‘It was during the war, it would be in nineteen-forty-one. I caught him kissing her in the shelter during an alert. And out she went.’

‘What was your husband’s reaction to that?’

‘What could it be? He simply saw nothing. Harry was a husband of the greatest tact. It was a quality I always appreciated in him.’

‘Do you know if he saw her again after she left?’

‘He may have done, since she certainly remained in the district. My housekeeper at Trecastles ran across her in Caernarvon perhaps a year after that. But she no longer concerned me.’

‘And that was positively the last you’ve heard of her?’

‘Yes, positively. When Davies saw her.’

‘Did she tell your housekeeper what she was doing?’

‘No. Davies received the impression that she wasn’t in employment.’

Gently drew at the cigarette, which his clumsy fingers were making squashy. Surely l’affaire Kincaid couldn’t be reduced to these proportions? The passing whim of a millionaire for the wife of one of his obscure employees, involving murder by proxy and the disbursement of two large sums? It was top-heavy; it was taking a steam-hammer to crack the shell of a nut. Askham’s purpose could have been served at a far lesser rate. It looked more as though he’d accepted an opportunity already made, adding to his household a likely recruit whom he could seduce at his leisure. Unless… unless his motive was something other than it seemed: such as the deliberate seclusion of Mrs Kincaid and the severing of her ties with her past. But why? What did she know? From whom was her information to be kept? From the returning members of the expedition; from the designing Fleece; could that have been it? He ground the cigarette into his tray.

‘Where did Paula Kincaid spend most of her time?’

Mrs Askham’s eyes looked wondering. ‘With us, of course. Wherever we were.’

‘In Wales for the most part?’

‘For the most part in Wales. We always looked on Trecastles as being our home. And that first year, having Henry, I didn’t bother about the season.’

‘So she was in Wales during all her first year with you?’

‘Except at Christmas, when we went to a party at Cannes. Then the next summer we went to Scotland: Harry wanted to cruise the Western Isles; and after the shooting we returned to Wales, and after that on to Cannes. Then I suppose it was Wales again. It was dull in town; too many war scares.’

‘But you’d go to town to do your shopping. To see your dressmaker and the like?’

Mrs Askham said very coldly: ‘I buy my clothes from Balmain.’

‘So in fact Paula Kincaid was rarely in London?’

‘I suppose she wasn’t. But she didn’t complain.’

‘Did she ever go there to visit her mother?’

‘Her mother was dead, I seem to remember.’