Alan Hunter - Gently Does It

Gently broke off, glancing at the three silent men in the lengthening twilight. ‘Well… that’s my case,’ he said, ‘it hasn’t become any easier with the loss of Fisher, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s become absolutely positive.’

The super took a long breath and bored into Gently with his sharp, authoritative eyes. ‘So that’s your case, is it?’ he enquired icily.

Gently nodded without expression. There was a moment or two’s silence, emphasized by the distant rumble of traffic, below them in Queen Street and above them in Burgh Street.

Hansom said: ‘It stinks, if you ask me.’

‘It’s childish!’ snapped the little doctor. ‘I stake my reputation on suicide.’

‘You could put that alibi through a rolling mill.’

The super frowned, still boring at Gently. ‘You realize that I have a very high opinion of you… especially after what you’ve achieved so far,’ he said, ‘and I admit that I am to a certain extent impressed with what you have been telling us. I believe that you believe it, and I believe that you’ve got something about Leaming and the “Straight Grain” business. But really, Gently, have you got anything else? I mean, look at it from my point of view. Three parts of this case of yours is conjecture and for the rest you offer no vital proof. It’s ingenious and not improbable, but what else can you say for it?’

Gently said, woodenly: ‘We can get the proofs… if we work at it.’

‘But proofs of what? If we follow up the lines you indicate we may be able to show that Leaming was a large-scale embezzler and we may be able to show that Huysmann found out about it, but how does that make Leaming the murderer? You say yourself that with Fisher gone, the trail has come to a dead end. If there is anything in what you suspect, Fisher’s evidence was the lynch-pin, and we’ve lost it. What else is there that a counsel wouldn’t shoot to fragments? You say that Fisher was blackmailing Leaming. Where’s the proof? You say that Fisher got the maid off him — but isn’t it just as likely that Leaming broke with her because he had ideas about Gretchen? You say that Leaming’s information about the football match was derived from the pink’un… well, how are you going to make that stand up?’

‘I haven’t done with that one yet…’

‘You’ve got thirty thousand interrogations ahead of you!’ jeered Hansom.

The super cocked his head on one side. ‘It’s no good, Gently, you haven’t got a case, not even the makings of one. If it’s as you say, it can never be proved. And in the meanwhile, there’s nothing in Fisher’s behaviour in conflict with the view that he was the murderer and the thief.’

‘Except that he wasn’t the suicide type.’

‘There isn’t any suicide type!’ broke in the little doctor. ‘Anybody will commit suicide under certain conditions.’

‘Fisher would have stood trial… he was too stupid to want to have avoided it.’

‘That’s quite ridiculous!’

The super said: ‘Even there you’ve only shown that murder was possible, and it’s possible in the majority of suicide cases. You cannot show that murder was likely.’

Gently brooded, felt for another peppermint cream. ‘You’ve searched the flat?’ he asked absently.

‘Of course we’ve searched the flat.’

‘You’ve been through his pockets?’

‘Naturally.’

‘And you found the key?’

The super stared at Gently uncomprehendingly. ‘What key?’

‘The door-key of the flat… it wasn’t in the door.’

‘What are you getting at, Gently?’

Gently ate the peppermint cream slowly and irritatingly. ‘The door was locked,’ he mumbled, ‘if Fisher locked it, you should be able to find the key.’

Hansom said: ‘He’d got a key-ring in his pocket.’

‘One doesn’t keep door-keys on key-rings.’

‘Blast you, Gently!’ exploded the super. He turned on Hansom viciously. ‘What sort of a bloody policeman are you? Go in there and find that key — and don’t come out till you’ve got it!’ He turned back to Gently. ‘All right — so if it isn’t there you’ve made a point — but you haven’t proved your case or anything like it. Meantime I’m giving the Coroner’s Court the OK and this case is going in on its merits. I’m satisfied with what I’ve got. If you want more, you’d better go after it — only you won’t be getting any help from me. Is that clear?’

Gently felt sadly in his pocket and brought out an empty bag. ‘Quite clear,’ he said, screwing it into a ball, ‘quite clear.’

Alan Hunter

Gently Does It

T HE CORONER’S COURT sat on the day following and returned on Nicholas Huysmann a verdict of death resulting from a stab wound inflicted by his chauffeur, James Fisher, and on his chauffeur a verdict of felo de se. Chief Inspector Gently, Central Office, CID, gave immaculate evidence and was publicly congratulated by the Coroner both for this and for his ready assistance, although on holiday. Superintendent Walker and the Norchester Police, CID, also came in for congratulations.

The super muttered grimly as they left the court: ‘You given up this Leaming business then?’

Gently smiled and shook his head.

‘Thanks for letting it ride, anyway.’

Gently shrugged, but as he turned away the super caught his arm. ‘I didn’t mean quite all I said last night… I’d like you to keep me posted. And if you need any help — within reason, of course.’

Peter Huysmann had been released the evening before, the charge against him dropped out of hand. He had been at court, slightly dazed by his sudden return to the world, but had only been required to testify to the accuracy of his statement, which was then read for him. For the time being he was continuing to live at the caravan, where he had been received with much rejoicing and congratulation by his late boss and by the fair community in general. It was considered a signal victory over the auld enemy…

Rejoicing there was also at Charlie’s, for Charlie had come to look on the ‘getting’ of Fisher as almost a personal issue. ‘I knew it was him from the start,’ he told a group of lorry-drivers, ‘right from the time Chief Inspector Gently first come in here, I could smell what was in the wind. Ah, he’s a foxy one, he is! He just let the City Police go on thinking it was young Huysmann and then when they got their hands on him, “No,” he says, “you let young Huysmann be. Just give me twenty-four hours,” he says, “and I’ll have the one you want!” Ah, he played with Fisher like a cat with a mouse. Fisher, he thinks he’s this and he thinks he’s that… but all the time the Chief Inspector was getting nearer and nearer to him, taking his time, never in a hurry, till last of all even Fisher can see that the game is up… well, there you are. There was only two ways out, and he took the handiest…’

Gretchen, subdued, bowed, dressed entirely in black, with a veil which hid any expression in her waxen face, had also made a statement which was read for her in court. It had been drafted by Gently and was exquisite in its restraint. At the point where the hiding of the knife was described the Coroner was moved to raise his glasses and deliver a look of reproof, but a closer view of the dark-clad figure decided him to let the matter rest. With Susan, on the other hand, he was positively genial.

Late final editions carried a full report of the inquest, were scanned perfunctorily in cafes and snack-bars and on the crowded buses carrying city workers back to the suburbs. It was a satisfactory but tame denouement. The affair had raised expectations of a hard-fought trial with all the exciting trappings of judicial slaying… quite a fair stretch of innocent entertainment. As the clerk at Simmonds said to Miss Jones (blouses), ‘You can’t get really worked up over a thing like that. But if it had been the son, now…’ ‘Bloody flash in the pan that was,’ said a news-vendor, ‘thank God for the football, that’s what I say.’