Alan Hunter: Gently Does It

‘Unless he’s been cut off, of course,’ added Gently. ‘I’m told his father intended to make a fresh will.’

The stuggy man drew in an enormous lungful of smoke and jetted it out towards the canvas flap.

‘It could be he went to see him about that,’ continued Gently, ‘and then, in the course of the quarrel that followed-’

‘Naow!’ broke in the stuggy man.

‘Why not?’ queried Gently. ‘It’s the line that logically suggests itself…’

‘He didn’t go about no will!’

‘You’ll have a hard time convincing the City Police that he didn’t. It’s the obvious reason, and the obvious reason, right or wrong, is peculiarly acceptable to juries.’

‘But I tell you he never, mister — he knew all along that the old man was going to cut him out!’

‘Then,’ said Gently, sighting his pipe at the stuggy man’s heart, ‘why did he go?’

The stuggy man gulped. ‘I offered him halves in the Wall,’ he said. ‘He reckoned the old man would put up five hundred to be rid of him.’

‘Ah,’ said Gently dreamily, ‘how you make us work for it — how you do!’

He knocked out his pipe and moved over to the canvas flap. The world outside had an arrested, gone-away look, dull and washed out, a wet Sunday. Instinctively, you would be indoors, preferably with a fire. Gently hovered at the flap a moment. He turned back to the stuggy man.

‘Where’s Peter Huysmann now?’ he asked.

‘Where you won’t bloody well find him!’

Gently shrugged reprovingly. ‘I was only asking a civil question,’ he said.

Huysmann’s caravan was small and cheap, but it had been recently re-painted in a dashing orange and blue: neatly too. Some time and pains had been lavished on it. It stood somewhat apart from its neighbours, beside a plane tree. One entered by steps and a door at the side. Gently knocked.

‘Who is it?’ called a voice, subdued, coming with an effort.

‘A friend,’ replied Gently cheerfully.

There was movement inside the van. The door was pulled inwards. A young woman of twenty-three or-four stood framed in the tiny passageway. She was brown-haired with blue-grey eyes and round, attractive features. She had a firm, natural figure. She wore an overall. There was a frightened look in her eyes and her mouth was held small and tight. She said: ‘Oh — what is it you want?’

Gently smiled reassuringly. ‘I’ve come to be a nuisance,’ he said. ‘May I come in?’

She stepped back with a sort of hopeless submission, indicating a door to the left of the passage. Gently inserted his bulky figure with care, pausing to wipe his feet on the small rectangle of coconut-matting. It was a minute sitting-room which at night became a bedroom and at mealtimes was a dining-room. In the centre was a boat-type mahogany table, narrow, with wide, folded-down leaves, on which was a bowl of daffodils. There were three windows with flowered print curtains. A settee built along the wall on the right unfolded into a double bed and opposite it, on the other wall, was a cupboard with drawers, on which stood a row of Penguins and cheap editions of novels. Facing the door hung a framed photograph of Peter in an open-necked shirt.

Gently chose a small wooden chair and sat down. ‘I’m Chief Inspector Gently of the Central Office, CID,’ he said, ‘but don’t take too much notice of it. I don’t cut much ice in these parts.’ He looked around him approvingly. ‘I’ve often thought of buying a caravan like this when I retire,’ he added.

Mrs Huysmann moved across behind the table and sat down on the settee. She held herself very stiffly and upright. Her eyes never wandered from Gently’s face. She said nothing.

Gently glanced at the photograph of Peter. ‘How old is your husband?’ he enquired.

‘Twenty-nine, in August.’ She had a soft, low voice, but it was taut and toneless.

‘I’ve only met him once — if you can call seeing him ride meeting him. I liked his riding. It takes real guts and judgment to do that little trick of his.’

‘You’ve seen him ride?’ For a moment she was surprised.

‘I was here yesterday. I’m on holiday, you know, but they roped me in on this business. I believe they’re sorry they did now. I’m so hard to convince. But there you are…’ He raised his shoulders deprecatingly.

She said: ‘You want to ask me something.’ It was between a question and a bare statement of fact, colourless, something to be said.

‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘but don’t rush it. I know how painful it is.’

She looked down, away from him. ‘They took my statement last night,’ she said.

There was a moment during which the rain beat remotely on the felted roof, an ominous moment, razor-sharp: and then tears began to trickle down the tight, mask-like face. Gently looked away. She was not sobbing. The tears came from deeper, from the very depths of humiliation and fear and helplessness. She said: ‘I can’t tell you anything — I don’t know anything… they took it all down last night.’

Gently said: ‘They had to do it, you know. I’ve got to do it, too. Otherwise there may be an injustice.’

‘He didn’t do it — not Peter — not Peter!’ she said, and sank forward with a great sigh, as though to say that had drained away the stiffness in her body. She was sobbing now, blindly, a foolish little lace handkerchief crumpled up in a ball between her hands, the shock and the pent-up horror of the night finding outlet at last. Gently moved across and patted her shoulder paternally. He said: ‘Cry away now, like a good girl, and when you’ve finished I’m going to tell you a secret.’

She looked up at him wonderingly, eyes glazed with tears. He went on: ‘I oughtn’t to tell you this — I oughtn’t even to tell myself. But I’m a very bad detective, and I’m always doing what they tell you not to in police college.’

He moved away to the other side of the caravan and began looking at the books. She followed him with her eyes. There was something in his manner that struck through the bitter confusion possessing her, something that gave her pause. She choked into the handkerchief. ‘I’m — I’m sorry!’ she faltered.

Gently took down a book. ‘You’ve got Mornings in Mexico,’ he said absently. ‘I read an extract from it somewhere. Can I borrow it?’

‘It’s — Peter’s.’

‘Oh, I’ll let you have it back. There’s nothing at my rooms except a telephone directory, and I’ve read that.’

He came back and sat down beside her. She sniffed and tried to smile. ‘I didn’t mean to cry,’ she said. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’ Gently produced his bag of peppermint creams and proffered them to her. ‘You’ll like these — I’ve been eating them off and on for twenty years. You try one.’ He took one himself, and laid the bag open on the end of the table.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘my secret. But first, you can keep a secret, can’t you?’

She nodded, chewing her peppermint cream.

‘It’s this. I, Chief Inspector Gently, Central Office, CID, am morally certain that Peter didn’t murder his father. What do you think of that?’

Her eyes widened. ‘But-!’ she exclaimed.

Gently held up his hand. ‘Oh, I know, and you mustn’t tell anybody at all. It’s a terrible thing for a Chief Inspector to prejudice himself in the early stages of an investigation. I’ve had to tick people off about it myself. And to tell it to somebody concerned in the case is flat misdemeanour.’ Gently paused to fortify himself with another peppermint cream. ‘I’ve been a policeman too long,’ he concluded, ‘it’s high time they retired me. Some day, I might do something quite unforgivable.’

Mrs Huysmann was still staring at him disbelievingly. ‘You — you know he didn’t do it!’ she cried.