‘You think he intended to walk out of the bank?’
Gently couldn’t help feeling surprise at the way Mallows had taken that lambasting. Instead of making the artist shrink from him, it seemed to have roused his admiration; he appeared delighted, in retrospect, at the way Gently had got the better of him.
Now, on the Tuesday, when Gently had been scrawling out his report, Mallows had called to take him to lunch without even bothering to ring him first. The lunch had consisted of that missed fried chicken followed by an ice-cream meringue, which being eaten, they had taken their coffee and cognac to a swing sofa on the lawn.
‘I’m certain he did. It was something he often spoke of. I made it a joke, but Farrer took it quite seriously. He was in Paris last year, you know, sort of spying out the land — he came back with a load of addresses, not to mention a caseful of literature.’
‘Yes… we found it in his desk at the bank.’
‘Did you? He showed it to me, at the time. Asked me if I’d ever had rooms in Montmartre… it was the Rue Lepic which seemed to take his fancy.’
‘There were two addresses in the Rue Lepic.’
‘Yes. It was just the sort of spot to attract Farrer. Then he asked me about cafes — where did one meet Picasso, etcetera — all the same, I thought it was foolery till I read the papers on Tuesday. But now, of course, I’m quite certain that he was proposing to leave, and that Shirley was intended to go along with him. When did you first begin to suspect him, by the way?’
‘I don’t know… when I found that his picture wasn’t slashed.’
‘That was a bad mistake, I agree, though completely typical of Farrer’s make-up. And then?’
‘And then the letter… how many people could have concocted it? In actual fact there were only two, and they were Farrer and Johnson. There might have been a leak — one or the other of them might have talked — but it was a very suspicious circumstance and it kept me thinking about Farrer.’
‘After which I made my bloomer!’
‘Yes, that practically put a seal on it. I was positive then that Farrer was the X of your description. It was incredible that you should have known what had happened at the bank, and there could only have been one other reason for supposing that Farrer had received the letter. You knew that he was the murderer. You knew that he had composed the letter.’
‘Guessed, my dear fellow, in deference to protocol. I didn’t see him do it and I didn’t hear him confess. But, between you and me, I never had much doubt about him, and a glance at the letter disposed of any doubt I had. Yet how could I do it? How could I throw him to the wolves? I tell you again that, in spite of his failings, Farrer was a very decent fellow. He was human at his job — which isn’t noted for the humanities — his employees all got on with him, so did his colleagues, and so did we. If his painting was a joke — and it was, behind his back — yet he was the first to reach in his pocket when the Group was short of funds. Did any of the others run him down?’
Gently gave a shake of his head.
‘No — they liked him, you see, whatever they thought of his daubing. The only reason why I was idiot enough to draw you his character was to stop you from nailing the job on Johnson.’
‘Didn’t you falsify his character?’
‘Not I. How do you mean?’
‘About the smile… I wouldn’t have described Farrer’s smile as being “shy”.’
‘Aha, my dear fellow!’ Mallows winked at him delightedly. ‘But it was the smile he used to me and not to his customers that I described. There was a difference, I admit, and you should have been clever enough to tumble to it. I caught you napping there — didn’t I, Superintendent Gently?’
About his grilling he asserted that Gently would never repeat his success:
‘You took me by surprise, you old devil, or we’d still be arguing the toss.’
And of the danger he’d stood in from Farrer, who had clearly suspected what Mallows knew:
‘Now you’re making it melodramatic — he’d never have dreamed of hurting me.’
Their conversation about the case drifted leisurely to other subjects, became a wandering, vagrant chat, in tone with the summer afternoon. They had found, each in the other, something that exactly suited their taste; and what better thing was there to be done than to talk at ease in the bird-haunted garden?
‘You’ll be going back, will you, to start on something fresh…?’
‘Yes… but I’ve got my holiday coming shortly.’
‘Fishing, I thought you said?’
‘I’m spending one week fishing, near Lynton.’
‘And the other week?’
Gently shrugged. ‘I’m supposed to be visiting my sister in Wiltshire.’
‘My dear Gently! Spend it with me. I keep a houseboat on Burton Broad.’
It was arranged as easily as that. It needed no pressing or polite reluctance. Afterwards Mallows took him up to the studio, where a fresh canvas stood clamped to an easel.
‘You see? I’m not entirely disinterested! I’ve begun a portrait and I want to finish it…’
On the canvas, blocked out in charcoal, was Gently caught with his far away smile.
The turn of events had been saddening to Stephens and his cup was filled when they were cheated of an arrest; he had wanted a resounding success so badly, the sort of success that one expected of Gently. He was also a little piqued about Johnson. His efforts there had been slenderly rewarded. Instead of the heroic capture of the murderer they appeared, indeed, as an indiscretion of youth.
‘It wasn’t even as though Farrer were a principal…’
Hansom, too, had made the same complaint:
‘This boyo breezed into the case from nowhere — like somebody had pulled him out of a hat!’
Were they wiser as well as sadder? In Hansom’s case Gently had his doubts; but Stephens, he decided, had learnt a lesson here and there. He himself had learnt something too. He felt his rank sitting easier upon him. He was still a rebel, always a rebel, but hadn’t the world a great many mansions? And at heart, wasn’t there a dash of the rebel in everyone?
Driving back, he came suddenly to a very solemn conclusion. It was time he sold the Riley, time he bought something a little newer…