Alan Hunter - Landed Gently

‘Johnson might have come back…’ murmured Gently apologetically, but the baronet shook his head peremptorily and put a hand on the Central Office man’s shoulder.

‘No good flogging that horse any more… I can see what I can see! We’re going to hang a Feverell, Gently, and no Johnson will save his skin. Mad, he was, mad, and perhaps he’ll get away with it. But into the dock he’s going, like the most beggarly killer before him. It doesn’t need a United States colonel to show me the way of duty.’

Gently fumbled around in his pockets. Somewhere there should be a forgotten peppermint cream! An abashed Dyson, shaken by his chief’s distress, made officious arrangements of the gear on the table.

‘Get Mrs Page in, Dyson.’

The baronet came out of his momentary stupor.

‘We’ll have to have her statement first — needn’t go into details. Don’t suppose the feller’ll run away until we’re ready for him.’

A constable made a move towards the door, but Gently stopped him with a gesture. ‘If you don’t mind… I’d rather you didn’t call Mrs Page for the moment.’

‘What?’ demanded the baronet. ‘Why? Why not?’

‘It’s a difficult question… All this case is a bit involved. There are some psychological oddities about it that don’t quite square, not to mention some of the hard, irreducible facts…’

Sir Daynes didn’t jump down his throat, as he would have done of yore. He was relearning his respect for the apparently vague and unofficial ways of Gently. Also, there might be some excuse for not immediately pursuing that thorny path of duty…

‘Well?’ he prompted, with moderated severity.

‘I’m not sure… I’m not happy about it. I’d like to talk to Mrs Page myself before you have her in here. And Somerhayes too… I can’t quite pin that fellow down. We’ve had two bouts already, and each time he’s slipped through my fingers. I’ve got the impression that it’s going to be the best out of three.’

‘You mean you think he’ll confess?’

‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth.’

‘Then what are you after?’

‘I’m not sure of that either.’

‘Damn you, Gently!’ exploded Sir Daynes, with a flash of his old fire. ‘Why do you want to hang it out, man — why not put us out of our misery?’

Gently shrugged into his ulster and brought out his last, fluff-engrained peppermint cream.

‘It’s a personal matter,’ he said. ‘It has been all along.’

Dorothy, Mrs Page’s snuffling personal maid, re-admitted Gently into the dainty little northwest drawing room. Her mistress was dressing, she told him, she would inform her that the inspector wanted to see her. Left alone, Gently prowled about the room in the habitual way of detectives the world over. He wasn’t looking for anything… but anything that might be looked for he wanted to see. In the present instance there was nothing, except indications of the character of the occupant. An exquisite, almost precious taste was exhibited by the furniture, the pictures and the ornaments. On the wall opposite the fireplace, quite by itself, hung a tapestry recognizable as one of Brass’s designs. It was worked in restrained tints of blue, green and yellow, and depicted a formalized group of two nymphs being chased by a faun, the golden-white flesh colours among the big, arbutus-shaped leaves giving the piece a dreamy, ideal character. The books in the case were a small collection of current reading-matter. They suggested a fondness for the more romantic productions of current literature. On a low stand or plinth in a corner stood a piece of modern sculpture, a primitive torso in beech; it had no arms and no legs above the knee, but the vigorous trunk seemed to have a strange, independent life of its own. Gently was still examining it critically when the door opened and Mrs Page swept fragrantly into the room.

‘Oh — Inspector! You wish me to make my statement now?’

She was rather hectically dressed in a leaf-green gown, the swept shoulders of which made Gently shiver.

‘You — you will have told Sir Daynes, of course?’

She was trying to be poised and relaxed, but the fund of composure with which she entered the room was forsaking her by leaps and bounds.

‘I had lunch with… He told me… Naturally, it was a great relief!’

Only she looked about as relieved as a concert-tuned fiddle.

Gently sighed softly to himself and motioned her to a chair. She felt for it with her hand, her eyes never leaving his face. He closed the door she had left open and stood with his back to it, film-fashion, listening for an instant to the oppressive silence.

‘Who else is in this wing besides ourselves and the maid?’

‘I — nobody. Nobody at all.’

‘I’ve taken the precaution of bolting the door from the state apartments… There’ll be an outer door, will there? Do you know if that’s unbolted?’

‘No… I mean, it’s bolted. Inspector-’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Of course — it’s never open!’

‘Right… I find it necessary to see to these things.’

He left the door and brought his chair over to the fire, and turned it back-to-front as he had done on the previous occasion.

‘Now, Mrs Page — this time I want it with no holds barred. We’ve come to the stage where only the truth is good enough — not bits of it, not slants of it, but the whole truth, and damn anybody’s feelings! You understand that?’

She nodded at him frightenedly.

‘You know what your cousin told me, and you must know what we’re thinking. As the facts stand at the moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sir Daynes arrests him before the day is out.’

‘He — he’s been behaving… very strangely.’

‘I’m glad you appreciate that.’

‘At lunch, I couldn’t understand… Oh, Inspector, I don’t know what to think, I don’t — I don’t!’

‘Would you be good enough to describe what passed between you at lunch?’

She clasped her hands together and sat looking at them, lying on her knee. ‘He told me… what he told you. And after that — I just can’t explain it! — he seemed to be saying goodbye. Oh, Inspector, it can’t be true — you don’t believe it — tell me you don’t!’

Tears flooded up in the beautiful eyes, and she dabbed at them fiercely with an embroidered handkerchief.

‘He told me that I’d be taken care of — that I wasn’t to fret about anything that happened. I’d just got to — got to hold my head high — and tell the truth — that was all that mattered. Oh, what can I think — what can I believe?’

She couldn’t hold the tears back now. They came surging up in great sobs, and soon she was crying helplessly without any effort to restrain it.

‘I’ve known so much of it — so much! I don’t want to go on — I’m tired of it — I’m tired of trying. Once it all seemed worthwhile… Now, I don’t want to go on!’

Gently compressed his lips and remained silent, arms crossed over the chair-back. A hideous business — a cruel, pointless business! What ironic power had set this tragic mechanism ticking on a quiet Christmas morning?

‘Why couldn’t I have done it — why can’t you arrest me?’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Page-’

‘It was my fault… I should be the one to pay the penalty!’

‘I’m afraid the law won’t look at it like that.’

Her tears subsided at last. She wiped her reddened eyes with the inadequate rag, and twisted it repeatedly through her clenched fingers. She had a dulled, beaten expression.

‘Well… what can I possibly tell you?’

Gently made her look at him. ‘To begin with, how much did you leave out of what you told me before?’