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Walling shook his fluffy head. His bowed shoulders were more deeply bowed; he looked like an old lady who had taken a cowardly blow in the wind.
    ‘But he said . . . he swore he would give me a chance!’
    ‘How long did you have to find the money?’
    ‘A week. He swore he wouldn’t . . .’
    ‘On Thursday, was that?’
    Walling hugged himself, groaning.
    Gently pulled the Sekurit report from his pocket. ‘Then of course, you’ve seen this before?’
    Walling turned, fearfully; he flinched. His seamed features looked blurred, ill.
    ‘B-but we were friends!’ he stammered. ‘Friends. I’d always found him backing . . . always. I used to stay with him, travel with him – he was the closest friend I had! And there was Nina . . . he loved Nina. How could he do this thing to me?’
    ‘You took his money,’ Gently said.
    Walling’s hands waved anguishedly. ‘But that was just figures! I’m a man of figures – making figures work for people is my business. I had to make the figures right for his musical – that was Nina’s big chance, too. And who was taking the risk? It wasn’t Adrian! I had still to produce figures for him, based on Torotours.’
    ‘All the same, you were deceiving him.’
    ‘Couldn’t he have trusted me?’
    ‘Not after
Chairoplanes
flopped, I imagine. Then all you had going for you was Torotours, and this report showed him what that was worth.’
    ‘But if he’d just kept calm! I could have made it come right.’
    Gently shook his head. ‘Torotours was doomed.’
    ‘No, I could have sacked the manager and put things right if only he hadn’t shown you that meddlesome report!’
    Gently fanned himself with the report. ‘He didn’t,’ he said. Walling’s pale eyes jumped. ‘He didn’t?’
    ‘No. We found this in his flat. Stoll kept his word; he didn’t shop you.’
    ‘B-but—!’ Walling jerked off the desk and stood staring at Gently, his eyes wild. Then, with a moan, he dropped into the desk-chair. He covered his face.
    ‘I want my lawyer,’ he said.
    A knock sounded at the door, and Messiter entered. His unwavering eyes took in the scene. He crossed silently to the desk and straightened the telephone, which Walling had replaced askew. He stood before Walling.
    ‘Did you call me, sir?’
    Walling’s hands dropped from his face. He was trembling. He stared up at Messiter with a haggard, unfocusing expression.
    ‘No – no. I didn’t call.’
    ‘I wondered if you wished me to telephone.’
    Walling shook his head.
    ‘I was about to bring you a drink, sir. Perhaps you would like me to fetch it now.’
    Walling said nothing; Gently said nothing. Messiter left and returned with a brandy. He stood by obstinately while Walling sipped it, then collected the glass and retired. Walling looked less grey now. He had ceased to tremble, and his eyes had lost their muzziness.
    ‘That was a trick, Superintendent,’ he said, thickly. ‘You trapped me into making those admissions.’
    Gently shrugged. ‘Nothing I can’t prove. And it saved us time at the outset.’
    ‘I needn’t have admitted all that about Adrian.’
    ‘You would have to have done, sooner or later. Stoll didn’t commission Sekurit for kicks. Once he’d seen this report, he’d have been after you.’
    ‘But you couldn’t
prove
that!’
    ‘Didn’t he show you the report?’
    ‘He . . . I . . . !’ Walling faltered wretchedly.
    ‘So your dabs are on it,’ Gently lied. ‘Why do you have to make us work for it?’
    Walling ran fingers through his wool-like hair. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I didn’t kill him. All the rest, I admit that. But I didn’t kill him. Please believe me!’
    ‘Then what were you going to do?’ Gently said.
    ‘I was going to pay him back his money.’
    ‘The whole fifty thousand?’
    ‘Yes – yes! Though perhaps not all of it, not within a week.’
    ‘Within how long?’
    ‘I don’t know!’ Walling moaned. ‘It’s a matter of figures, it takes time. But a