Gently with the Ladies (12 page)

‘Well, Mrs Bannister?’

‘It’s . . . Clytemnestra’s necklace.’

‘You have no doubt of that?’

She shuddered. ‘None. I know it too well. I know it better than anything of mine.’

‘Because Mrs Fazakerly was always wearing it?’

‘Because, yes, she was always wearing it. Whenever we went anywhere together she wore that necklace. It was a symbol.’

‘A symbol of what?’

‘Of domination. Of triumph. Of threat. In one word, of her power. Of the power she had to destroy people.’

‘And she wore it for your benefit?’

‘Entirely for my benefit.’

‘She had the power to destroy you?’

Mrs Bannister shuddered again, and said ‘Yes.’

‘So,’ Gently said, ‘you went in fear of her.’

But now she shook her head vigorously. ‘No. I loved her, you understand? And she loved me, in her own fashion. I loved her even because she wore the symbol, because she had that power over me; it was right, it belonged to her, she had the prerogative of life or death. But I see you don’t understand, and perhaps it’s impossible that you should. You are mere men, and your love is egotism. The esoteric side is beyond you.’

‘Perhaps you thought she wouldn’t have destroyed you.’

‘Quite the contrary. I believed she would. Every loving is a destruction and without it is no love. She destroyed me once and made me live again. The knife of destruction was always pricking me. The sublime of love lies in that knife-point and the belief in the thrust which doesn’t come.’

‘But the knife slipped a little with Beryl Rogers.’

‘The knife destroyed me. It was intended.’

‘And destroyed her.’

‘She came between us. I know that now. Clytemnestra was right.’

She leaned back with closed eyes, her pale face dragged and flat.

‘Clytemnestra was in part to blame,’ she said. ‘She would go over to Paris alone. She had a friend there, I don’t doubt, or some hireling who pleased her. I’ve never stood in Clytemnestra’s way. I loved her too much for petty jealousy. But I missed her, that was what led to it, I was so miserable and lonely; and then I saw Beryl wearing a green costume, and something snapped, and I knew it must be. I made her drunk and took her home and the poor slut was almost grateful. And I was blind with infatuation. I even put some of Clytemnestra’s clothes on her. Oh, I committed every blasphemy; when Clytemnestra came, the knife went home.’

‘In effect, Miss Rogers was falsely accused.’

‘I don’t know what happened. I was sent away.’

‘You know what part this necklace played in it.’

‘Yes. I had to know why Clytemnestra wore it.’

‘And you have no more feelings for Beryl Rogers, Mrs Bannister?’

‘No more feelings. That self was destroyed.’

‘So if I rang this bell and she walked through the door, you would scarcely bother to turn your head.’

Her eyes sprang open, but she didn’t turn her head. She glared at Gently. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘You have found the necklace, and you know what it means. Am I permitted to know where you found it?’

‘Don’t you know already, Mrs Bannister?’

‘Is that what you think?’

Gently said nothing.

‘That I – that I took the necklace from Clytemnestra – and killed her – because – because . . . ?’

Their eyes held for a moment silently.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you do think it! And you’re right to think it, because it’s so credible. So inexorably credible.’

‘Did you take the necklace?’ Gently asked.

‘Yes. In dreams a hundred times. And the dividing line is so thin, isn’t it, between reality and dreams. So perhaps I did take it in reality, though it seems to me like a dream; and the rest of it too, I may have dreamed that, or it may have been real, and I killed Clytemnestra. But it’s a vivid dream, if it’s a dream, and I can see it must be convincing – much more convincing, for instance, than that poor weak Siggy should ever nerve himself to homicide.’

Gently sighed. ‘Mrs Bannister,’ he said, ‘did you in fact take the necklace?’

‘In fact?’

‘In fact.’

‘No, Superintendent. You will hardly believe me, but I didn’t.’

‘Did you see it at any time on Monday?’

‘I saw her with it before lunch. I went to fetch her down to cocktails. She was just unwrapping it from the tissue.’

‘Where did she put it?’

‘In her jewel-box, which is on the dressing-table in the dressing-room. She toyed a little with it first. She always liked me to see her handling it.’

‘What time was that?’

‘Ten minutes to one.’

‘Did she lock the box?’

‘Its lock is broken. She may have locked the flat when we went down. It has a spring dead-lock on the door.’

‘Who has a key for it?’

‘Siggy, myself. I don’t think Mrs Lipton has one. But that’s not very important, is it? Siggy wasn’t there, and I was with Clytemnestra.’

‘You didn’t dream of an excuse for stepping out during lunch.’

She closed and opened her eyes. ‘I was serving lunch, remember? And I was already dreaming of going back with her and killing her. Slipping out for the necklace would have been superfluous.’

‘So who do you think took it?’

‘Is a burglar too banal?’

Gently nodded. ‘Not inexorably credible.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t have been Siggy, I don’t believe that either. Nor Mrs Lipton. So it has to be me.’

‘But suppose Beryl Rogers was back in London?’

Mrs Bannister shivered. ‘No, she’d never have come back here. Besides, after five years it’s too improbable. She’ll have married some sheep-farmer and be having ten kids.’

‘She had a big score to settle with Mrs Fazakerly.’

‘But the improbability! She has nothing to do with it.’

‘To her, the necklace was more than a necklace.’

‘Nothing will convince me. The idea is too horrible.’

‘Then what is the alternative, Mrs Bannister?’

She stared at him with desperation. ‘Me, of course. I’m the alternative, the perfect and only convincing answer. You won’t have Siggy now, will you? Not with this necklace turning up where it shouldn’t! Oh, I can see why you let him go, especially when you’d dug up the story about Beryl.’

She jumped to her feet.

‘Are you going to detain me?’

Gently shook his head. ‘But you could be more helpful.’

‘Helpful! I’m admitting I must have done it.’

‘That won’t do. Without some details.’

‘So who will you arrest, if not me, not Siggy, and with Beryl Rogers in New Zealand?’

Gently shrugged. ‘The murderer, I hope.’ He picked up the necklace. ‘And the thief.’

When she had gone Reynolds turned to Gently.

‘Chief,’ he said, ‘this is going too fast. Nobody mentioned a Beryl Rogers to me. I’ve a feeling I’m being left down the line.’

Gently grinned. ‘Perhaps you should have asked Fazakerly.’

‘Yes – but where did I get my questions?’

‘You went to Brenda Merryn for those.’ Gently paused. ‘Though I’m still wondering why she made me a present of them.’

He ran over his information to Reynolds, who sat listening with silent attention. At last the C.I.D. man said:

‘Then I wasn’t so crazy when I let Fazakerly loose.’

‘He isn’t off the hook yet,’ Gently said. ‘But the case against him is looking sick. Unless this necklace being stolen is a coincidence there’s a chance we were wrong about him.’

‘We could make a case against Mrs Bannister.’

‘Macpherson wouldn’t like that either. A case with two suspects, equally hot, is a prosecutor’s nightmare. But then there’s Miss Johnson and Brenda Merryn. And a whiff of sulphur from New Zealand. And even Stockbridge down in the basement: he may have taken a fancy to this bauble.’

‘We checked his alibi. He’s clear.’

‘He’d have a master-key to the flat. But what I’m getting at is there are too many cases against too many people, and somehow . . . it smells.’

‘How do you mean, Chief?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s just a hunch grumbling in my belly. Too much colour, too much decoration, and perhaps something very simple behind it. Maybe I’ll see it when I’ve slept on it. But as of now, it’s a smell.’

He lit his pipe and blew rings into the conditioned sameness of the office air. Reynolds gazed at them frowningly and dug in his pocket for some form of confection.

‘So what will I do, Chief?’ he said.

‘You’ll find Beryl Rogers,’ Gently said. ‘Sarah Johnson says she has family in Worcester, so you can make a start there. Then check with the United Press, where she used to work, and the New Zealand Office in the Haymarket, and the Immigration Office. Find where she went to, if she came back, where she is now.’

‘What about Fazakerly?’

‘Take your man off. He won’t stray far from his money. You made him rich when you didn’t charge him. He’ll be on to his lawyers tomorrow.’

He blew more rings.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You changed the direction of quite a sum.’

I
T WAS AFTER
nine when he garaged the Sceptre at 16 Elphinstone Road, but Mrs Jarvis, his ‘jewel’, had a mixed grill waiting for him on the hotplate. He ate it in the den and drank some rough red wine along with it, propping the late editions around him on cruet, tea-pot and fruit-bowl. This was his habit in the evening, whether the meal was at six or midnight. From his particular problems he withdrew into the wider world reflected here. It was not escape, since his own problems were an aspect of the panorama, but a change of view, a standing back to merge the trees with the wood. The papers gave him a reference, a monitor glance at all cameras. He ate, drank, read and stood at one again with his world.

When Mrs Jarvis had cleared away he selected and filled a large bent pipe, then went to his shelves and after a search located Andre Maurois’
Quest for Proust.
Yes, Illiers was Combray. It was a small market town near Chartres. Only a short step from Paris, a step easily taken by an Albertine. A girl of poor family, no doubt, with few prospects in her home town, but with a sturdy pulchritude that would have its value in the great city a few miles distant. How had Clytie Fazakerly and La Bannister picked her up? In the regular way, through an employment agency? In a café on the Left Bank or in Montmartre? At some special establishment catering for Lesbians? He grunted, put the book away and picked up the one he was currently reading. No more of Fazakerly till the morning! At least, the fellow was sleeping outside a cell.

But he’d barely sat down in his consecrated chair when the phone rang on his desk. He went to it and jerked it up with loathing, ready to jump down somebody’s throat.

‘Is that you, George?’

The voice was his sister’s.

‘George, I can’t talk for very long. Geoffrey didn’t want me to ring you at all, but I felt I must . . . he’s in the study with someone.’

Gently lapsed into the desk chair. ‘It’s about young Fazakerly, is it?’ he growled.

‘Yes, Johnny Fazakerly. We know him, George, he’s a nephew of Aunty May Fazakerly’s. And in the paper tonight . . . well, there were headlines. He’s local, of course. That makes it news.’

Gently grimaced. ‘It’s news, period.’

‘But George, what’s happening? Did he do it?’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’

‘George, how terrible. I mean, someone we know . . . actually a relative.’

Gently swivelled the chair a degree and fixed his gaze on the stuffed pike. He liked his sister, but there were times when dear Bridget jarred with him a little. To her he was still a small boy playing wilful and incomprehensible games . . .

‘He gave himself up to me this morning,’ he said.

‘What . . . ?’

‘Walked into my office. Gave himself up. Said he wanted me to believe in his innocence because the facts were all against him.’

‘Poor Johnny! What did you do?’

‘Handed him over, what else? He was right about the facts, and I’m not prescient. So over to Chelsea he had to go.’

‘But . . . couldn’t you do anything to help him, George?’

‘Oh yes. I could pull my rank on the officer in charge. And as a result I’ve gummed-up a perfectly good case and perhaps robbed a deserving spinster of a fortune.’

‘But what about Johnny?’

‘He’s free as the air. He’s living it up at a swish hotel.’

‘You mean you’ve got him off, George?’

‘He’s out for the moment.’

‘Oh George, that’s wonderful!’

‘So happy you think so.’

He sneered at the pike, which sneered back. It was a twenty-four pounder, caught in Norfolk. Perhaps it didn’t much resemble his sister Bridget, but just now it pleased him to imagine a likeness.

‘George?’

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t know his wife, did you?’

‘I’m getting to know her. Little by little.’

‘She was a bitch, George. I don’t like saying it, but she deserved whatever happened to her. You know how she got her money, don’t you?’

‘Fazakerly told me.’

‘And that isn’t all. She used to have relations with other women. She was expelled from school for that sort of thing.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You forget she’s local. She went to Ferndale Grammar School with Charlotte Manners. There was a business there with one of the mistresses – another bitch. A Sybil someone.’

‘A Sybil someone?’ Gently came alert.

‘Yes, Sybil . . . Tremaine, that’s the name. She lost her job, but it didn’t matter. Her family have money and she married well. But Clytie was funny, George, that’s the point. I’m sure poor Johnny went through hell. He was silly to marry her, but she was quite a good-looker, and she was rich, of course. But it wasn’t worth it.’

‘I’m sure poor Johnny is agreeing with you. Who did Sybil Tremaine marry?’

‘What . . . ? Just a minute, George, let me listen. I think it’s Geoffrey coming out . . .’

‘Was it a Fletcher Bannister?’

‘Yes, that’s right. He was killed in a road smash, remember? George, I must hang up . . . and George, thank you! I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’

Her phone descended; but not before Gently had heard Geoffrey’s interrogative bass off-stage.

After the call he sat some minutes still exchanging glances with the pike. So the Fazakerly–Bannister relation went back further than its blossoming at Carlyle Court! Around twenty years ago it must have begun, in that select school near Taunton, which he had once visited with Geoffrey and Bridget to watch their niece receive her prizes. And La Bannister had been a teacher there (yes, that sorted with her bearing!), a young graduate, as she must have been, from one of the senior universities; and Clytie, Clytemnestra, her maiden-name unknown, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen 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.