Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

perfectly cast for the murderer. Nobody was better situated than myself to have gone up there and killed Clytemnestra. I heard the quarrel, I saw him run off, I could easily have gone in to console her. And then, remembering the money she was going to leave me, I could have reached that belaying-pin down from the wall. I’d know where to go for it, you see, because it was hung there at my suggestion.’
    Gently stared at her over his pipe. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That fits exactly.’
    ‘Doesn’t it? Exactly? And I’m an invert into the bargain.’
    She was breathing a little fiercely, and she stubbed out her cigarette with venom. She had large though well-proportioned hands and the fingers looked strong.
    ‘Then all I had to do was wait for Lipton, phone the police and get in my story. And the longer it took them to find Siggy, the more convinced they’d be of his guilt. Well, Superintendent, if I were you I think I’d arrest me on the spot. Or did I leave something out – something that raises a minor doubt?’
    Gently stared, didn’t say anything. She got up quickly from the settee.
    ‘Now I’ll just show you something,’ she said. ‘Something that’s bound to raise your interest.’
    She strode across to the bureau-bookcase and unlocked one of the drawers. From it she took two folded documents, each secured with red tape. She exhibited them to Gently so that he could read the titles. They were the wills of Clytemnestra Anne Fazakerly and Sybil Edith Elizabeth Bannister.
    ‘Didn’t I say you’d be interested?’ she jeered. ‘These are the veritable documents. We made them together four years ago, leaving our money to each other. There, please examine the signatures – I want you to be certain these are not copies.’
    They were not copies. She flipped over the sheets to show him the signatures and seals, watching, her eyes intent, for any change in his expression.
    ‘There,’ she said, ‘the disposal of above half a million pounds is in these documents. What do you make as a Chief Superintendent? Vaguely four figures? Something like that?’
    Gently shrugged woodenly. ‘I make what I earn,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, I see – and I earn nothing – on every count I’m despicable!’
    ‘Do you earn something?’
    ‘No. Not a penny. I’ve lived on society all my life. So you can despise me from the height of your righteousness – I am a criminal before I start.’
    ‘Why are you showing me these wills?’
    ‘Because I’m about to be melodramatic. And that’s another ugliness of the social parasite – it insists on dramatizing itself.’
    She went to the bell-pull and pulled it. Albertine appeared directly. Mrs Bannister spat some French at her, and she retired hastily and without a curtsey. When she returned she was carrying a chafing-dish, which she placed on a stand before Mrs Bannister. Mrs Bannister dismissed her with a gesture. Then she began opening and crumpling the two wills.
    ‘Am I committing an offence?’ she asked.
    ‘A technical offence.’ Gently made no motion.
    ‘And you’re not going to stop me? How kind! No doubt all is grist to your mill.’
    She considered the pile of crumpled paper.
    ‘I think this deserves a libation,’ she said. ‘Poor Clytemnestra would have enjoyed that touch, also the paper doesn’t seem very combustible.’
    She went to a tantalus on the side-table and fetched a decanter of cognac. She lifted the decanter high above the dish and let cognac pour from it in a stream. Then she ignited it. A clear, liquid flame spread about the dish and paper, becoming yellow and smoky as the paper began to char. At last the paper burned fiercely, sending angry tongues towards the ceiling.
    ‘There,’ Mrs Bannister said, ‘Clytemnestra’s manes receive again Clytemnestra’s gift, and the money can go where it likes. I’ll see that Lipton isn’t a loser.’
    ‘Does this prove something?’ Gently asked.
    ‘If it doesn’t, I’ve wasted a lot of cognac. Just see the hunger in those flames – how they lick from sheet to sheet.’
    ‘If Fazakerly gets off he’ll have the money.’
    ‘Never. The deed was in his face.’
    ‘You may not convince a jury of that.’
    ‘Does it matter? With the facts?’
    She was staring at the flames in a sort of abstractedness, and now she stiffened and raised her arms. Her fine-featured face, looking downwards, caught a flickering ruddiness from the blaze.
    ‘At least, Fazakerly showed some grief.’
    ‘Crocodile