Alan Hunter - Gently Does It

Fisher jumped to his feet. ‘But I didn’t do it!’ he cried, ‘I didn’t — and you can’t say I did! You’re asking me all these things and twisting them round to make it seem like I did it, but I didn’t, and you can’t prove that I did!’

‘I haven’t suggested that you did,’ said Gently smoothly. ‘I’m merely establishing that you could, perhaps, be more helpful to this enquiry than in fact you are.’

Fisher stood breathing quickly and staring at him. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he said, a note of sullenness in his voice. ‘I’ve told you what I know, and you can’t prove anything else.’

Gently looked from Fisher to the chair on which he had been sitting. ‘Your chair,’ he said, ‘we had it finger-printed last night.’

The chauffeur moved away from it involuntarily.

‘Do you think it possible that we shall find your prints on it?’

‘You’d find them there now, wouldn’t you?’

‘But would they have been there last night?’

‘They might be there any time. I’m about the house. I move the furniture for them sometimes.’

Gently sighed and extended his palm towards Hansom, who had been following the proceedings very attentively.

Hansom said: ‘Were you or were you not in this house at the time of the murder?’

‘I told you I wasn’t.’

‘Did you witness the murder by standing on that chair and watching through the transom lights?’

‘No! I was nowhere near the place.’

‘The answers you have given to Chief Inspector Gently suggest to me very strongly that you had knowledge of the crime prior to this morning. Think carefully, now. Are you sure you’ve nothing to add to what you’ve already told us?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘You’ve told us the whole truth?’

‘Yes!’

‘You wouldn’t like to reconsider any part of it?’

‘It’s the truth, I tell you!’

‘And it had bloody well better be, for your sake!’ bawled Hansom, suddenly dropping his official mask in exasperation. ‘Now get out of here and hold yourself ready for further questioning.’

Fisher flushed angrily and turned towards the door.

‘Just a minute,’ said Gently. Fisher paused. ‘Why did you put it in the chest?’ enquired Gently confidentially.

The chauffeur stared at him with complete lack of understanding. ‘Put what in the chest?’ he asked.

Gently swam back into the depths of his chair. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘run along. Do what the Inspector tells you…’

Hansom blasted the butt of his cigar in the ashtray and took one of his very deepest breaths. He said: ‘I’ve got to hand it to you. I never thought there was much in that hoo-ha about the chair, but I’m beginning to have my doubts.’

‘It’s just guess-work,’ replied Gently deprecatingly. ‘The maid might have missed those marks when she brushed the carpet.’

‘I’m willing to swear that fellow was in here like you said.’

‘There’s nothing to prove it, yet. Fisher’s got an alibi that’ll take a lot of breaking and you’ve seen what luck I’ve had trying to establish that there was someone else in the house.’

‘He was lying. He was lying himself black in the face. I’ll have him down at headquarters and see what I can get out of him there.’

Gently nodded a pensive nod.

‘Not that I can see how it’ll help young Huysmann,’ added Hansom suspiciously. ‘If Fisher is shielding him and we make him talk, that’ll put the kybosh on you, good and proper.’

Gently smiled agreeably. ‘Always supposing that Peter is your man.’

‘You know he’s our man!’ snorted Hansom. ‘Good grief, why not admit it? Apart from anything else, who else would want to rub the old man out?’

‘Well, there was forty thousand pounds lying about.’

‘That’s all my eye! That could have been sprung without deliberately knocking him off first. They’d only to wait till he wasn’t there. And whoever did it didn’t come armed — they did it on impulse, after they got there, after they’d chewed the rag with the old man — which means it was somebody he knew. I tell you, the jury’ll be solid.’

Gently’s smile grew further and further away. ‘There’s one thing that puzzles me about our friend Fisher,’ he mused.

‘And what’s that?’

‘He didn’t seem to me the type who would shield anybody… especially with his own neck sticking out as far as it does.’

There was something virginal and nun-like about Gretchen Huysmann, not altogether accounted for by the large silver cross that depended on her bosom. She was not a pretty woman. Her face was pale and a little long, and she wore her straight black hair divided in the middle and caught up in a flat bun. She had small, close-set ears and dark, but not black eyes, now a little reddened and fearful. There was a waxenness about her complexion. She was above medium height. Her figure, which should have been good, was neglected and bundled anyhow into a long, full dress of dark blue. She wore coarse stockings and flat-heeled shoes. She was twenty-seven.

Hansom said: ‘Sit down, Miss Huysmann, and make yourself comfortable.’ Gretchen sat down, but she did not make herself comfortable. She sat forward on the edge of the chair, her knees together and her feet apart. Her pale face turned from one to another of them quick, frightened glances; her small mouth grew smaller still. She reminded Gently of a plant that had grown in the dark, at once protected and neglected. In this room of three serious men with its alien smell of tobacco smoke she seemed shrunk right back into herself.

Gently motioned to the constable. ‘It’s getting thick in here. Open that top window.’ The constable manipulated the cords that let fall a pane high up in the big window, letting in a nearer sound of rain with a welcome current of new-washed air. Gently beamed encouragingly at Miss Huysmann.

Hansom cleared his throat and said: ‘I’d like you to understand, Miss Huysmann, that we fully appreciate the tragic circumstances in which you find yourself. We shall keep you here the shortest possible time and ask you only those questions which it is absolutely necessary for us to have answered.’

Miss Huysmann said: ‘I’ll… tell you all I can to help.’ She spoke in a low tone with a slight accent.

Hansom continued: ‘Can you remember if your father was expecting any visitors yesterday?’

‘I do not know, he would not tell me that.’

‘Was it usual for him to receive visitors on a Saturday afternoon?’

‘Oh no, practically never. The yard is closed, everyone has gone home.’

‘Did you notice anything unusual in his manner at lunch yesterday?’

‘I do not think so. He did not speak to me very much at meal-times. Yesterday he said, “Your brother is in town. Take care I do not hear you have been seeing him,” but that was all.’

‘Were you in the habit of seeing your brother when he was in Norchester?’

‘Oh yes, I see him sometimes. But my father, he did not like that.’

‘Did you see your brother on this occasion?’

‘I see him on the Friday, when I go out to pay some bills.’

‘Did he speak of calling on your father?’

‘He said he must see him before he leave Norchester.’

‘What reason did he give for that?’

‘He said that the man for whom he worked had offered him to be partners, but he must have five hundred pounds. So he will ask my father to lend it to him.’

‘Did he say lend it?’

‘Oh yes, he know my father will not give it to him.’

Hansom toyed with the little pearl-handled penknife that lay on his blotter and glanced towards his cigar case, but Gently clicked disapprovingly. Hansom proceeded: