Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13)

years old, in the salad-days of her disturbing beauty. How had it gone? At first discreetly, a furtive crush on both sides; with Clytie, probably already an initiate, making the running from the start. Then it developed and became bolder, with the inevitable arrogance of a Lesbian relationship, till, after warnings and lectures, the crash came, and Ferndale purged itself of the sinners. What followed? Trouble at home. Clytie would behave like a caged tigress. Her step-father, Merryn, would be only too happy to find someone to take her off his hands. And sooner or later, probably sooner, she had gravitated to the care of a lecherous relative – though a rich one, it went without saying – and finally to independence and marriage. Meanwhile her partner in crime had retired to the shelter of her well-to-do family, and had also become rich. And, in a way not dissimilar.
    Gently stared very hard at the pike. Was the pattern coincidental? Both these women had attached themselves to rich, elderly men, who had not for long troubled them by continuing in the world. Then they had come together again, enriched by the spoils of the beasts; Clytie, certainly, with the foolishness of a husband, but with only enough of one to make them sport. And how had the beast-providers died? One, at all events, in a road smash. And a road smash was simple enough to engineer if one brought a modest intelligence to the problem . . .
    He took the phone again and began to dial, but was interrupted by the entry of Mrs Jarvis.
    ‘Sorry to trouble you, Mr Gently,’ she said. ‘But there’s a woman downstairs asking to see you.’
    He laid the phone down. ‘Who is it?’
    ‘She wouldn’t give her name, Mr Gently.’
    ‘Then tell her—’ he began, and stopped.
    For Brenda Merryn stood in the doorway.
     
    The den was illuminated by a reading-lamp and Mrs Jarvis made a silent comment. On going out she switched on the room-light and paused with her fingers on the switch. Then she went.
    Brenda Merryn winked at Gently. ‘I don’t think your good lady trusts us.’
    She went deliberately back to the door and switched the room-light off again.
    ‘All right with you?’
    Gently hunched a shoulder. Brenda Merryn came back into the room. She was dressed to kill in a plunging gown of crimson
crépe
with a frilled bosom. Over this she was wearing a black three-quarter coat, but now she slipped it off and threw it over a chair. She stood hands-on-hips, smiling down at Gently, pervading the den’s pipe-smoke with Blue Grass.
    ‘Like me?’
    She swung her hips.
    ‘I’m a dangerous woman when I’m roused. Your Mrs Mop was quite right. Nobody would believe I’m here to talk ballet.’
    ‘So why are you here?’
    ‘Seduction, perhaps. You annoyed me so much this afternoon. But you were on duty this afternoon, so you had to be strong and incorruptible, didn’t you? Only now you’re not on duty. You’re just a man. In a room. With a woman.’
    ‘I wouldn’t rely on me not being on duty.’
    She gave a laugh. ‘That would be too dull. If policemen were always, but always, policemen, and never did anything about pretty girls. She wasn’t your wife, was she?’
    ‘That was Mrs Jarvis.’
    ‘You’re not married, engaged, emotionally involved?’
    He shook his head.
    ‘So what’s wrong with me? We’re free and white, so why not be friends?’
    ‘And that’s your only reason for coming here?’
    She gave a twirl. ‘I thought it was a good one. You can see I’ve put some effort into it – bath, perfume, lace undies, the lot. And if you were chivalrous you’d leave it at that, and only put up a token resistance. I know I’m part of a case by day, but I’m something else again at eleven p.m.’
    ‘How did you come by my address?’
    ‘My dear Watson. It’s in the phone-book.’
    ‘What made you look for it in the phone-book?’
    ‘Your eyes and hands. Say your hands.’
    ‘Before or after you’d talked to Fazakerly?’
    ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘This is bigger than both of us. But have it your way if you like. It was after I’d had my talk with Siggy.’
    ‘And what did he talk about.’
    ‘He said you were wonderful. He said you were a devil, but you were wonderful. And I agreed with him, of course, because that was exactly my impression. And I got to wondering where you lived and how and with whom you spent your evenings, and well, one thing led to another, and there were your hands, and here I am.’
    ‘Did Fazakerly