HUSBAND AT POLICE STATION FOR THREE HOURS

Victim’s Picture in Exhibition Yard to be called?

For three mornings now Gently had been turning to this news item with an eagerness which, in spite of himself, had continued to grow steadily. And now, for the first time, the ominous words had been invoked: at last they had mentioned Scotland Yard.

He folded back the paper and propped it against his teapot. Of the two photographs reproduced one was a print which had been heavily retouched. This depicted the husband being escorted into the police station; he was a burly, heavy-featured man, with fair wavy hair and a Bomber Command moustache. The other showed a watercolour with a number on its frame — a pale, somewhat indefinite picture of a figure striding through driving rain.

‘Mr Johnson Arriving At The Police Station Yesterday.’

‘The Last Picture Painted By Shirley Johnson.’

At the foot of the column a smaller photograph was cut in. It was of St John Mallows, RA, with whose features Gently was familiar. He was the chairman of the Palette Group of which Shirley Johnson had been a member, and he had gone to press with the statement that her picture would certainly remain on show. Why not, when it was guaranteed to treble the attendance…?

About Gently the established routine of his morning continued its methodical course. After twenty years in his Finchley rooms he went through the ritual with little conscious direction. When he had bathed and shaved he took a walk down the garden — it wasn’t very far, up there in Finchley! — and then he would stand for a moment in Mrs Jarvis’s kitchen, exchanging a few words of domestic commonplace.

‘There’s a bit of fly on those roses of yours…’

‘I know, Mr Gently, Fred was only saying last night…’