Alan Hunter - Gently to the Summit

‘When that happened the rest of the party were climbing the Zigzags to the ridge. Overton, the secretary, was nearest to the top. He had the sense to take the time — it was one twenty-five — and he called down to the others to make an attempt to reach the body. Then he hurried up the Zigzags and along the ridge to the summit, where he came upon Heslington still eating his lunch. He didn’t waste time on him, but went and broke into the cafe, and from there he phoned down to Llanberis for the Mountain Rescue Team.’

Evans paused to lick his lips. ‘So far so good. But then we heard something from Heslington which gave the business a different look. While he was sitting beside the cafe he’d seen a third party about there, a man wearing a brown tweed jacket and a pair of grey slacks. Only a glimpse of him he’d caught, just as the man was going away from him: he was on the railway track, here, and running down it like the devil. And this is the interesting part. He puts the time at one-thirty. Which is five minutes, look you, after Fleece took his tumble.

‘As you can imagine, I went over the ground with a magnifying glass, but it’s mostly bare rock and there was nothing for me to find. A bit of shale was kicked out where I’ve put the cross, only that told us nothing one way or the other. It was one of my constables who showed the best sense — he climbed up the cairn and had a poke around there. And he spotted this small item.’ Evans dived his hand into his pocket. ‘When you see it, you will think we were a little slow in drawing conclusions.’

He produced a silver cigarette-case and handed it to Gently. It was of silver, a tubby design which had fallen from favour years earlier. A florid pattern was engraved on it though this was wearing thin, but on an oval plaque in the centre appeared clearly the monogram: RTK. Pasted down inside it was a faded snapshot of a climber.

‘Did you find any latents on it?’

Gently passed it to the Assistant Commissioner.

‘No; it was smeary.’

‘It’s a poor surface for prints. Was there anything inside it?’

‘A couple of Churchman’s No. 1. And we found one he’d lit and thrown away, about a couple of feet distant.’

‘You examined them, of course?’

‘Oh yes, you bet I did! But there were only smears on them, and just the edges of prints.’

Gently nodded. He puffed several times without speaking. Chummie had lit a cigarette… thrown it away… dropped his case. And his hands would seem to have been sweating on that cool October mountain. It made an interesting picture: he filed it away in his mind.

Evans continued: ‘You’ll say I was dumb not to have connected the case with Kincaid, but when we found it Kincaid hadn’t been mentioned in the business. I showed it to Overton and Heslington and the rest of the party, and none of them admitted having seen it before. Then Overton rang me from his hotel; he wanted to have the initials again. When I gave them to him he told me that they were the same as Kincaid’s. I got them to look at the case again, especially the snapshot inside it, but none of them would commit themselves to a positive identification.

‘But now, with Kincaid’s name brought in, we could begin to see daylight. The next step was to inquire whether he’d been seen in the district. And you know how it is once you’ve got the right lead — people tumble over themselves to give you a helping hand. I got a call from Llanberis to say a young man had been in there. On the day of the crime he’d stopped at Llanberis and had coffee at the Snowdon Cafe. While he was having it he saw another customer who looked like the pictures of Kincaid, and since we were investigating Fleece’s accident he thought we might like to know.

‘That started it. I went to Llanberis directly. In a couple of hours we had Kincaid properly taped. He’d been making inquiries about his wife — that’s the story he tells, anyway — and he’d given his name and some particulars at a boarding-house he’d inquired at. Then he was remembered at the Snowdon Cafe, where they packed him some sandwiches, and was seen heading up the street towards where the Llanberis track begins. To round it off he returned at four and took a local hire-car back to Caernarvon. He was dropped at the Bangor Hotel, where he had booked for two nights.’

Gently asked: ‘Did anyone notice how he was dressed?’

‘Oh yes. He was wearing a tweed jacket and slacks.’

‘The same as Heslington described?’

‘Well… the slacks must have been lovat. But he had on a brown jacket, and I found the clothes at his hotel here.’

‘What’s his story?’

‘He admits he was there all right. Couldn’t very well deny it, in the face of the evidence. I came up here yesterday as fast as I could, and I had a long talk with him down at Bow Street Station.’

‘Where did he say he went?’

‘Not up Snowdon, you can bet your life! No, a nice lonely scramble up to the Devil’s Kitchen. I’ve given Llanberis a tinkle to have them check his story. There might have been climbers from Ogwen who can give him the lie.’

‘So you’ve no independent testimony to show he actually climbed Snowdon?’

‘Wait a minute!’ Evans ventured a wink. ‘You’re getting along too fast. Of course, I made some inquiries at the bottom of the track, and I’ve two witnesses who saw someone like him going up at about half-past ten.’

‘Would that fit in?’

‘It couldn’t be better for us. Like that he would arrive there around twenty minutes before Heslington.’

‘How good is the identification?’

‘Well, I admit it might be stronger. They only saw him through their windows, and the houses stand back, like. But then I’ve a separate witness who saw him coming down again. There isn’t much doubt, man. I had to charge him on the facts.’

‘Mmn.’ Gently scratched a match. ‘And you showed him the cigarette-case?’

‘Of course. And it shook him. He pretended he couldn’t remember it.’

‘Is that snapshot anything like him?’

‘It might have been him at one time. They’re going to blow it up for me and try a superimposing job.’

The Assistant Commissioner removed his glasses and gave them a polish with a handkerchief. He beamed from one to the other. ‘So now you see, Gently,’ he said. ‘As long as Kincaid is Kincaid we’ve got a good fighting case; but if he isn’t, then our best evidence is tantamount to irrelevant. It doesn’t matter that we can show he was up that mountain. It doesn’t matter that we can show he was standing on the cairn. We’ve got to show that he had a motive for shoving Fleece over the edge, otherwise his defence can write it off as an accident.’

Gently reached for the cigarette-case. ‘This is a paradox in itself, of course…

‘How do you mean, Gently?’ The Assistant Commissioner shot him a quick look.

‘Well… if Kincaid isn’t Kincaid, how did he come by this case? And if Kincaid is Kincaid, where did he get it from?’

The A.C. swung his glasses for a moment. Then he said: ‘Yes… I take your point. The first involves us in a wild coincidence; the second in a wild improbability. It’s difficult to believe that a mere hoaxer could have acquired the case, and even more difficult to believe that Kincaid would still possess it. In the first place he would hardly have taken it with him up Everest. It’s solid silver and weighty. He’d have left it behind.’

‘Just so.’ Gently took a sight down his pipe at the trinket. ‘And that leaves the situation rather open, don’t you agree? He left it behind — a likely souvenir for some other member of the party. And they were each and all of them on Snowdon when, or soon after, Fleece got the push.’