There was nothing in the press reports to suggest that the local police were flagging, and really, it looked an open and shut case against the husband. It belonged to him – but he wasn’t going to get it! At least, that was the impression he’d received since Tuesday. It had occurred in the district on which he was regarded as a specialist, and more and more he had the feeling that the case belonged to him. That business about the Johnsons had taken a hold on his imagination. It formed a sort of hors d’oeuvre, an appetizer to the day, and he was always irritable if something interrupted it.

There were the usual bills and perhaps a letter from his sister he would conscientiously read it first before turning to the news.įor six days in the week it went on like that, whenever he wasn’t called out on a case. His mail and his papers always lay beside his plate. Then he went to his room, where the table was set. ‘Have you been to the Golder’s Green Hip this week?’ ‘I know, Mr Gently, Fred was only saying last night …’ ‘There’s a bit of fly on those roses of yours …’

When he had bathed and shaved he took a walk down the garden – it w asn’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. After twenty years in his Finchley rooms he went through the ritual with little conscious direction. Why not, when it was guaranteed to treble the attendance …?Ībout Gently the established routine of his morning continued its methodical course. 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. It was of St John Mallows, RA, with whose features Gently was familiar. ‘The Last Picture Painted By Shirley Johnson.’Īt the foot of the column a smaller photograph was cut in. ‘Mr Johnson Arriving At The Police Station Yesterday.’ The other showed a watercolour with a number on its frame – a pale, somewhat indefinite picture of a figure striding through driving rain. 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. Of the two photographs reproduced one was a print which had been heavily retouched. He folded back the paper and propped it against his teapot. And now, for the first time, the ominous words had been invoked: at last they had mentioned Scotland Yard. Victim’s Picture in Exhibition Yard to be called?įOR THREE MORNINGS now Gently had been turning to this news item with an eagerness which, in spite of himself, had continued to grow steadily. HUSBAND AT POLICE STATION FOR THREE HOURS

Hyperlinks on book titles are to reviews by 'Euro Crime' reviewers, supplemented by reviews from 'Reviewing the Evidence' (to 2013) and 'Crime Review' (from 2019).Who suggested, but are not portrayed as, the Palette Group of the novel.

Gently With the Painters by Alan Hunter