Gently with the Ladies (Inspector George Gently 13) by Alan Hunter Read Free Book Online

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 tears. He’d know how to use them.’
    ‘But you’d have no need for crocodile tears. Tears from you would be genuine.’
    Her eyes flashed at him across the flames.
    ‘What do you know of grief?’ she snapped. ‘Some maudlin hypocrisy in a witness-box would be the extent of your comprehension. Did I offer to exhibit my grief to you?’
    Gently shook his head. ‘Does one exhibit grief . . . ?’
    ‘Oh, I could exhibit it if I wanted to, if I wasn’t too numbed to put on a show!’ She let her