Alan Hunter - Gently With the Painters

‘Have you pinned the charge on him?’

‘No — not yet! There’s one or two more things which need tying up. I’ll be back in about an hour and we’ll talk it over then… in the meantime, will you post a man outside Mallows’s house?’

‘Mallows! Has he got something to do with this?’

‘I think he can help us…’ Gently made a face. ‘I’ll want him for questioning as soon as I get back. But don’t waste any time about putting a man on him.’

His second call was to Chelmsford, to Inspector Horrocks, to whom he gave the details he had learnt from Johnson.

‘It’s urgent to have them checked with the least possible delay. Ring me back at City Headquarters — I’ll be available all night.’

All night… or as long as it took Mallows to crack. He went in search of Stephens and Hansom, and took them off for a cup of coffee.

It was curious how, with no direct information available, everybody had a sense of approaching climax; even the remote subordinates in distant corners of HQ who seemed linked together by some psychic grapevine. In part it was perhaps an intelligent reading of events. Though Johnson had been found, he had not been proceeded against. Nor had Gently taken himself off to his hotel by the Castle, and as late at night as this he was prepared to summons Mallows. Unless he was hot on a scent, wouldn’t the morning have done as well? And would Walker, who liked his eight hours, be preparing for a nocturnal session?

This odd feeling of tension had extended itself to the press men, half a dozen of whom Gently found playing rummy in the waiting room. There was a rush and a scrambling for notebooks when they saw him come up the steps — they had had a handout already, but they wanted some live quotes.

‘Is it a fact that you don’t intend arresting Johnson?’

‘Isn’t there a woman in this…?’

‘Was the plane smashed deliberately?’

Even now there would be photographers bumping out to Rawton Aerodrome, and in all probability getting lost in the dark.

But the reporters were not satisfied with details of l’affaire Johnson. Their professionally developed instincts warned them that this was only secondary. After exhausting all their questions they didn’t rush off to the nearest phone, but instead returned to the waiting room, taking care to post a sentry. Then they picked up their cards again and automatically continued the game.

Having been through it once with them Gently had to repeat his performance for Walker, and the Super, like his man of parts, could see no alternative to the arrest of Johnson. Gently was masterful in his evasion, but he emphasized the salient point:

‘That letter must have been sent by the culprit — and Johnson couldn’t have sent the letter.’

‘But suppose you leave the letter out of it.’

Gently shook his head decidedly. ‘There are two factors concerning the letter which tie it directly to the crime. To start with, the paper was part of the same sheet on which Mrs Johnson painted her picture, and then the composer of the letter knew that Farrer had helped Johnson to escape.’

‘Johnson may have lied about his movements.’

‘I don’t think he did, not in his condition.’

‘You admit yourself that he’s a clever bloke…’

‘There’s a limit to the cleverness that I admit to in anyone.’

Hansom, uncharacteristically, kept out of the argument. His belief in his judgement had taken a bad knock. He lit a cheroot in pretended boredom, and looked at the pictures in the Super’s Forensic Medicine…

To avoid the reporters, Mallows was brought in by the back way, having been driven right round the block to evade passing the main entrance. He stalked fiercely into the office, a folded paper in his hand, but after some moments in the frigid room a lot of his starch seemed to go out of him. He looked tireder, older; there were dark semicircles beneath his eyes. His grey hair clung more limply over his distinguished forehead. But since nobody at first appeared to notice his arrival, he took a chair from the wall and sat down challengingly in front of the desk.

‘A fine time of the day to drag a man out of his home!’ His eyes rested on Gently reproachfully and without their customary twinkle. Then he glanced round the room at Walker, Hansom, Stephens, the stenographer, the latter busy sharpening pencils with a razor blade in a holder. The forces of society…! Suddenly, Gently saw it all much clearer — as though, in a flash of sympathy, he was sharing Mallows’s vision. They were arranged by accident in a crescent, resembling a primitive battle array; a formidable half moon of enemy figures who were no longer individual people. And at the focus, naked in his chair, the artist clutching that folded paper… Gently guessed that it was Mallows’s Times, the innocent copy delivered to his house.

‘We have some questions to put to you, Mr Mallows…’

Once more he was conscious of a painful symbolism. Always, the inquisition was started by the recitation of those words. He could hear Johnson’s mocking rejoinder, speaking for everyone subject to question. ‘Whacko…!’ Did one ever ask questions without implying an accusation?

‘I know why you’re after me — I saw what they found under my door mat. I was watching them, you can bet — you don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you!’

‘Would you like to make a statement?’

‘Damn it, yes, I’ll do your work for you! No, sir, you can put your questions, but here’s an answer for you to begin with.’

He threw his paper on the desk, making with it a stilted, jabbing motion; it was in fact the previous day’s Times, his name scrawled roughly across one corner.

‘You realize, naturally, that this proves nothing?’

‘Touche, my friend. It proves I’ve got one.’

‘Something suggested its use for a certain purpose… what would that be, except familiarity with the paper?’

‘The knowledge that I took it in, perhaps.’

‘Apart from your servants, who would have that knowledge?’

They were sparring like a pair of boxers trying to feel each other out: Gently instantly perceived his mistake, and let the next reply dangle in air. When the expected riposte failed to come Mallows stared at him, but maintained his silence. Walker, who was sitting at the end of the desk, also looked expectantly at Gently.

‘Earlier today you admitted to certain knowledge concerning the recipient of a letter I showed you. You explained it by saying that he had telephoned you, but this he denies having done.’

‘He might have very good reasons for that.’ Mallows said it briskly, inviting a reply. Now, however, Gently was on his guard, and once more Mallows was left without support.

‘Suppose I guessed it, knowing what I knew? One has a brain, and you can’t help it working! From the letter one might deduce that it was Johnson who had eluded you, and after a quick check of suspects… surely Farrer is the obvious one? Naturally, Johnson would go to the bank. It’d be the last thing he would do. From there he’d want to get away quickly — and he was pals with Farrer. You see? It’s deducible.’

‘According to witness, you were more than friendly with Mrs Johnson.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Is it true, or false?’

‘It’s true that people have different ideas of what is friendly — it’s not the same thing in Mayfair and Montmartre.’

‘You were more than friendly with Mrs Johnson.’

‘I don’t say you couldn’t prove it.’

‘She was your mistress for a time.’

‘I’m going to swear at you, in a minute!’

Mallows was visibly put out by this form of procedure, which left him nothing to aim at and pinned him firmly to the defensive. His forte, as Gently had observed, lay in smart repartee, but deprived of openings for this he quickly surrendered the initiative.