Gently to the Summit (5 page)

‘Your friend is certainly an excellent photographer.’

‘Yes … of course, that’s another of his.’

‘I’ll borrow these two if I may.’

‘Yes, certainly.’ But she seemed reluctant. ‘I’ll get them back again, won’t I?’

‘They’ll be returned in a few days.’

He gravely wrote out the receipt while she was finding him an envelope, then she accompanied them to the door, the receipt still held in her hand. On the steps Gently turned.

‘You’ll be called at the trial, naturally. But would you have any objection to seeing Kincaid in his cell?’

She gave a gasp. ‘No – no! Not that!’

‘You have specific reasons for refusing?’

‘I couldn’t. I couldn’t. Not the man who did that to Arthur!’

Gently touched the brim of his trilby. ‘We wouldn’t press you, of course, Mrs Fleece …’

Back in the Wolseley Evans tackled their driver about the owner of the sports car, but the circumstances had been against any accurate observation. The man had appeared from the rear of the house and had entered his car on its far side, while their driver had had no reason to be especially curious about him.

‘It was raining like the devil and he’d got his collar turned up; a bloke around five feet ten, light-coloured raincoat and peakless cap. He was medium build and looked light on his feet. His age I wouldn’t like to say. The car was a new Austin-Healey.’

Gently looked at Evans. ‘Does that suggest anyone to you?’

Evans shook his head regretfully. ‘Not a soul, man,’ he said. ‘I was hoping he would tie up with one of the Everest Club people, because she seemed a little tender when you got on to them.’

‘Could it have been Richard Overton?’

‘It could and it couldn’t. He’s about that height and of a medium sort of build. It would help to know about his car.’

‘We’ll check all their cars while we’re at it. We may be throwing away our time, but you can never know too much.’

He directed their driver to Bow Street and then switched on the car’s radio. By the exchange he was connected to the homicide charge-room. He asked for Dutt and was lucky: the Tottenham sergeant had just
come in; within moments he had taken over the line at the other end.

‘This is the Kincaid business, Dutt. I want you to run an errand for me. Go over to the Suffolk Hotel in Knightsbridge and check there on a Mrs Arthur Fleece. She’s supposed to have spent the weekend there and I’d like all the detail you can get: what nights, whether visited, and if absent for any considerable period. Her Christian name is Sarah. Over.’

Dutt’s cheerful voice came back to him. ‘Yessir. Mrs Arthur or Sarah Fleece. Where would you like to have the report, sir?’

‘I’ll be in my office in about an hour.’

Next he got on to Information and asked them to contact Dorking. He gave them a résumé of Mrs Fleece’s information about her wedding.

‘The church register isn’t enough. I want the details investigated. Especially the Baxter-Blackstable people, and the names of anybody who knew the Amies.’

He switched off, lit his pipe and remained silent for some moments, watching the wet Putney streets as the Wolseley hissed through them; then, as the Thames swept darkly under them, he blew an inquisitive ring at Evans.

‘Come on. Let’s be having it. You’ve got a dozen theories by now …’

Evans grinned at him, nodding. ‘You knew, I can’t keep my mind still. It’s a disease with us Welshmen; we’ve got unsettled brains. But I was just setting it up in a proper order so to speak; trying to fit it all in and to make out a pattern.’

Gently puffed. ‘It begins at Met. L.’

‘Aye. The three of them there together. Fleece, Kincaid, and Paula Blackman; three small people out of thousands. Now, Fleece and Kincaid probably know each other because they’re both keen on climbing, and they have to be known by some of these other people or they wouldn’t have been chosen for the expedition. By the way, we don’t know much about that, how it was organized and financed.’

‘We’ll talk to Overton tomorrow. He should be able to throw some light on it.’

‘A good idea, man. But to continue. We will take a hypothesis. Fleece is smitten by Paula Kincaid, and Paula Kincaid is not indifferent to him. In the light of that, view the expedition, of which remember Fleece was the leader, and the opportunity it gave him of quietly doing away with Kincaid. There wasn’t any violence called for: Fleece might have drawn a line at violence. But it was as good a way as another and in my book it stands as murder.’

‘Provided,’ Gently inserted, ‘Kincaid’s story is the true one.’

‘Provided that of course. I must admit to prejudice there. Well, Fleece comes back to England to console the widow, and it may or may not be relevant that he came into money just then. But he sets up in business and he marries Mrs Kincaid, and it goes like a song for twenty-two years. Then this fellow turns up, this so-called Kincaid. He has a nasty story to tell and he’s determined to find his wife. What would you expect Fleece to do about it? Why, exactly what he did do.
He would try to discredit the man, he’d go to law to stop his mouth. But either Kincaid had a friend or Fleece had an enemy, because someone told Kincaid where to look for his wife. Then it was Everest all over again with, this time, Kincaid as the survivor. Man, it’s justice when you look at it. It’s almost a shame for us to step in.’

Gently said unkindly: ‘You’ve forgotten the
cigarette-case
.’

‘Oh, but I haven’t.’ Evans faced him in triumph. ‘You worried me about that, so I took special note of it. And I can tell you who dropped it. It was Fleece himself.’

Gently nodded twice, reluctantly. ‘Yes, man. That’s
brilliant
.’

‘Isn’t it obvious when you think of it? Who else was so likely to have had the case?’

‘It’s obviousness is a little contingent. It depends on the identity of Mrs Fleece.’

‘But either way, man, it’s the answer. It answers the objection about the case.’

Evans sat nursing his triumph as they passed through Chelsea, where the teatime traffic began to build up around them. Then he said:

‘I wouldn’t bank too much on any theory about Kincaid, but I’m telling you now that I have a certain small confidence. He’s going to recognize that
photograph
; then we’ll confront her with him. And the rest can go hang. We’ll have our case sewn up.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know the identity of Mrs Fleece’s latest?’

Evans chuckled. ‘I would, too. I’m afraid he’s a dirty dog, that one.’

At Bow Street, which was smelling even sootier and damper, Kincaid was fetched from his cell and given a chair. He looked unhappy, but he brightened when his eye fell on Gently; then his expression changed again, to one of pettish irritation. He said:

‘I’ve been talking to my lawyer, and he won’t do what I tell him.’

Gently shrugged. ‘They won’t always. What did you want him to do?’

‘I told you that. I asked him to search for evidence to establish my identity, but he refused point-blank to do it until after my trial was over. I shall change him, of course. I don’t put up with that sort of thing.’

Evans murmured: ‘You may find lawyers a little difficult, man.’

Gently produced the critical photograph, but he held it with its back towards Kincaid. The latter immediately fixed his eyes on it, regarding it with a tremulous sort of fascination. Gently waited. Kincaid’s emotion grew with each added moment; till finally, unable to bear it longer, he gave a little sob and reached out his hand.

‘Is that my w-wife you’ve got there?’

‘How would you recognize her, Kincaid?’

‘I’d know – I would. Oh please let me see her!’

‘She had grey eyes, hadn’t she?’

Kincaid’s own eyes opened wider.

‘She used to dye her hair, didn’t she? Her
complexion
was pale and clear?’

Kincaid’s hand flew to his mouth. His breath came
in a ragged gasp. He stared idiot-like at Gently, his teeth were cutting into his fingers.

‘Isn’t that how you’d know her?’

Kincaid gave a strangled cry. ‘Yes … yes!’ He went on repeating it in a hysterical gabble.

Gently reversed the photograph and thrust it into Kincaid’s hand. The man seized it, bent over it, twisting himself away from Gently. Then the tension seemed to snap in him and he began to laugh uncontrollably. He dropped the photograph on the floor, a smear of blood on it from his hand.

‘Is
that
your wife, Kincaid?’

He only laughed the more. Though they waited for half an hour, they could get nothing sensible out of him.

A
LAS FOR EVANS’S
confidence! It was to have very little to bolster it, and by the time they called it a day all his original gloom had returned. No sudden solution was round the corner, no neat tying of the ends, rather the indications were that they were getting further away from the mark.

Dutt was waiting in Gently’s office when they returned to the Yard. They found him immersed in an evening paper in which Kincaid still rated the headlines. Gently took it from him. The headlines ran:

‘That’s one in the eye for our friend, Mr Stanley.’

Evans snorted. He was reading the item over Gently’s shoulder. He was much intrigued by the accompanying picture, which showed himself and Gently alighting
from the Wolseley. Gently gave him the paper and sat down. He’d seen too many of these things.

‘Was the lady on record?’ he asked Dutt.

‘Yessir.’ Dutt drew out his notebook. ‘But she wasn’t under the name you gave me, though.’

‘Wasn’t she then? So how did you get on to her?’

‘What you might call coincidence, sir. One of the maids there used to work for her, and I chanced to catch her at the desk.’

‘Good for you.’

Gently nodded congratulations and Dutt looked pleased. Evans tore himself away from the picture to stare interrogatively at the sergeant. Dutt continued:

‘She gives the name of Mrs Sterling, sir, but the maid knew well enough that she was Arthur Fleece’s missus. Said she lived at Thames Ditton and was wife of the bloke what was murdered – about forty, a smart sort of woman, wears her hair dyed black.’

Evans groaned. ‘That’s her, man.’

Dutt turned over a page. ‘She booked in at the Suffolk on 16th September and left again last Monday. She was in a bit of a hurry.’

‘September 16th?’

‘Yessir. That’s correct.’

Gently met Evans’s eye. ‘So she was there for three weeks … Was she absent during that time?’

‘No sir. She never went out much. Just shopping and such-like, and once or twice to a show. She used to write a lot of letters and she used the phone quite a bit, but it was always the paybox in the hall, so I couldn’t trace the calls.’

‘What about visitors?’

‘Yessir, I made a note of them. She had her kids there the first weekend; twins they are, about eleven or twelve. Then there was an elderly, professional bloke who called to see her a couple of times – a grey-haired geezer, on the tall side, wore a black suit and carried a briefcase. That’s the lot, apart from a bloke who drove her home once or twice. But he never got out of his car so I couldn’t get his particulars.’

‘Did you get a description of the car?’

‘Yessir. A sports job.’

‘A green and cream Austin-Healey?’

‘The porter didn’t notice, sir.’

‘That’s a pity. What happened on Monday?’

‘She got a trunk call, sir, from Llanberis. It came in around half-past five when she was having tea in the lounge. She took the call at the hall desk and the clerk moved off so’s not to look nosey, but from the way she behaved he’s pretty certain what it was about. She turned as pale as a ghost and ordered a double brandy. Then she went up and packed, and she was off by half-past six.’

‘Any other details?’

‘She had a letter on most days, sir. The address was typewritten, to Mrs Sterling, and they were posted in the London area.’

‘Thanks, Dutt. You’ve done a nice job.’

‘Just a bit of routine, sir.’

‘Tell them to send us up a snack, will you? We’re going to wait here for a call.’

Dutt departed, leaving his paper as a souvenir for
Evans. But the big Welshman was no longer enthralled by his front-page billing. He said mournfully:

‘It either means something or else it does not – and either way I can’t see it helping Myfanw Evans.’

‘How do you read it?’ Gently asked.

Evans laid a finger to his nose. ‘A divorce, man, large as life. Fleece was preparing to give her the push.’

‘But if she happened to be Paula Kincaid?’

‘Stop rubbing it in. I can see a barn door. If she happened to be Paula Kincaid then the marriage was probably void in any case.’

Gently shook his head. ‘I’m not so sure. It’s a legal point worth settling. But his reason for divorcing her seems plain enough. She has a boyfriend in the offing.’

‘And he could be an Everest Club member.’

‘That’s almost certain on the facts. The call from Llanberis didn’t come from the police – unless your Welsh police happen to be psychic. They had no reason to contact a Mrs Sterling staying at the Suffolk Hotel in Knightsbridge.’

‘Glory be, that never struck me! Of course, it has to be one of the members.’

‘And if you’re thinking the way I’m thinking …’

Evans looked sick. ‘Raymond Heslington,’ he said.

‘He was the one with the opportunity. He may not be the one with the car.’

Gently opened a drawer of his desk and fetched out the file on Kincaid. Inside it, prominent amongst the statements, was that of Heslington, containing his particulars. Gently rang Information:

‘Note this name and address. I want a description of his car; just the make and colouring will do.’

While they waited Evans’s face seemed to grow sadder and sadder and not even the advent of coffee and sandwiches served to relieve his dolour. He munched largely but unfeelingly, a steady mechanical champ, and took big mouthfuls of coffee without looking at his cup. He was either up or down. There were no half-measures with Evans.

‘I can see it all now. I’m the biggest arse going. He lied to me, that fellow, and I swallowed it down to the tail. Never thought, never doubted; just trusted my own stupid judgement. I could see a wonderful case, man, and I couldn’t see anything else.’

‘He might still have been telling the truth,’ Gently mumbled over a sandwich.

‘No he mightn’t, man. I can sense it. We can forget about Kincaid. He was just a red herring, he happened along very convenient.’

‘Heslington’s description fitted him, didn’t it?’

‘What sort of a description was that? A brown jacket and grey slacks – and he might have seen him somewhere, anyway. No, no, you’ll never convince me now that Kincaid was up there. I have an instinct, I tell you. My promotion is down the drain.’

At that moment the phone went. Gently limbered it to his ear. Evans watched his face fearfully, trying to read there his own perdition. Better men than Evans, however, had failed to read Gently’s poker face, and the call turned out to be a longer one than the description of a car would require. Gently reached for
a pad and pencil and scribbled down some unintelligible notes. Finally, he adjured his telespondent to try again in the morning. He hung up and sighed humorously.

‘It’s been and done it on us again.’

‘Who was that, man?’ Evans asked.

‘Dorking, reporting on Sarah Amies. They’ve never heard of her in Penwood. They’ve never heard of Baxter or Blackstable. The village church has been converted to a hall and they can’t for the moment lay hands on the register. Penwood is one of the new overspill areas. Most of the original inhabitants have hopped it.’

Evans gestured with shoulders and hand. ‘Does it matter now, the way things are?’

‘It matters to me, if nobody else. I’ve been told off to identify Kincaid.’

‘But if Heslington is Mrs Fleece’s boyfriend—’

The phone buzzed again to interrupt him. This time, while Gently listened, an expression did flit over his face. He replaced the phone. He dusted his hands.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘That’s that for the evening. Heslington’s car is a new Ford Anglia. It’s Cambridge blue, and its been garaged all day.’

Evans was staying in a wretched hotel in the vicinity of Euston Station, and Gently, still feeling responsible for him, invited him home to his Finchley rooms. Elphinstone Road was a gem of its kind. It had come into being during the eighteen sixties; a sedate thoroughfare, little disturbed by traffic, with public gardens on one side and ice-cake villas on the other. Its
atmosphere had always held a charm for Gently. It was hansom cab, parasol, hard hat, and bustle skirt. The teardrop street lamps had never been ravished and war had spared the cast-iron railings, while of twenty complacent villas, twenty still lined Elphinstone Road.

Evans, who came in glum and silent, soon warmed to the snugness of Gently’s retreat. He browsed over the books and the photographs and the fishing rods, and the big stuffed pike with its glassy eye. He too was an angler, it appeared, though his talk was of Gwyniads and bottomless llyns; and by the time they’d eaten supper and were sitting over the fire his mercurial spirits were once more to rights.

‘But I don’t mind telling you I’m foxed by all this. We’ve had plenty of bites, but we never strike a fish.’

‘All the same, it’s interesting. Some of the bites are unexpected. We were using paste over at Hendon, but we got a pike-size in nibbles.’

‘He’s a deadly liar, man, is that Mr Stanley.’

Gently yawned. ‘I agree … he’s also an actor of some talent. And still the questions are: what’s behind it? Why was he covering up on Kincaid? Why didn’t he want us to meet Piper and get the information we did from him?’

‘Do you think it’s her he was protecting?’

‘That’s a very seductive theory. Fleece was in the same line of business; there’d be an
esprit de l’électricité
or something. They’re both liars, Stanley and her. We can’t take their words for the extent of the
acquaintance
. And if Mrs Fleece is Paula Kincaid, she’d have reason enough to want it kept quiet.’

‘But where does the bloke in the sports car come into it?’

‘Where indeed? We shall have to know that. And there’s another idea that’s struck me. We may have jumped at the divorce angle too quickly.’

‘How do you mean, man?’

‘Can’t you see the alternative? Kincaid was moving heaven and earth to find her. She may have been using the hotel as a hideout when his inquiries were getting too close.’

‘Aye. That’s possible too.’

‘And one of the club members may have been in the secret. That would account for her getting that
trunk-call
. The sports car johnny may be a blind.’

A grin spread delightedly over Evans’ face. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘you’re cheering me up something wonderful. But what about Kincaid’s reaction to that picture – you aren’t going to tell me you accept it as positive?’

‘He talked to his lawyer, don’t forget.’

‘I know. And little good it seems to have done him.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Kincaid is far from being a simpleton. He may have decided to change his mind about his policy of being himself; in which case he wouldn’t recognize fifty photographs of his wife. And we’d be the more likely to believe him if he kept up the pretence, so why should he drop it? His course of action is plain.’

‘That’s a beautiful piece of reasoning, and I wish I could believe it.’

Gently chuckled. He tapped out his pipe on the serpentine bar of the grate. ‘Tomorrow we’ll do some
more fishing. We’ll cast a line in Fleece’s business. And perhaps a little quiet ledgering in the Everest Club waters.’

The morning was fugitively fine with a bright sun among darkling clouds. In the gardens across the way the autumn trees steamed and sparkled. Gently was finding it rather pleasant to have a guest sharing his breakfast routine, even though the papers were
subdivided
and his reading time was diminished. Evans was enjoying himself too and his appetite delighted Mrs Jarvis. Her cousin had married a Welshman, she told them, and really he was quite like one of the family …

The arrival of their Wolseley put an end to the domestic interlude. Fleece’s firm, Electroproducts, had an address at Ilford. They took the North Circular Road, bending through Edmonton and Woodford, the great reaching arc that spanned the metropolis like a dome. Electroproducts occupied a site not far from Seven Kings station. One saw at a glance that it was unable to challenge comparison with its vast
competitor
at Hendon. A range of plain crook-roofed
buildings
, some subsidiary sheds and erections and a yard enclosed with wire mesh: these comprised its entirety. In the yard was a roofed rack in which cycles were stacked. Beside it were parked a few cars and a number of scooters and motorcycles. The office section, a long lean-to at the side of the workshops, was approached through fence-gates which stood open and unattended.

They drove in and parked. They were met by no palatial reception. Beyond the door was a narrow
passage which received a dim light from the
workshops
. A girl came hurrying out of a doorway with a sheaf of work sheets in her hand. She stopped on seeing the two detectives and stared inquiringly before asking:

‘You want Mr Bemmells, is it?’

Mr Bemmells was the general manager; he was a lean and hard-faced man of about fifty-five or so. He had a haggard, harassed look, his eyebrows slanting down from the centre, but this seemed a natural condition with him and no reflection of the current circumstances. He found them seats in his cluttered office and listened attentively to Gently’s preface.

‘So you want to know how we started up? Then you’ve come to the right person. I was in this firm from the beginning, back in nineteen-thirty-eight. We were in Walthamstow then, in a converted warehouse in Sibley Street, and we stayed there till forty-two, when Jerry copped us with incendiaries. Then we moved to this site – a priority job, building this was; we were turning out aircraft stuff in those days, cable conduit, jennies, starters. Then after the war we went back to appliances – you’ve probably seen our products about – and now we’re working up an export connection besides our regular contract work. That’s the story of Electroproducts: a good investment, if I may say so.’

Gently grinned. ‘I’ll have to mention the name to my stockbroker. But I’d like more detailed information about the way the firm was formed. How did you come to be associated with it?’