A Colourful Death_A Cornish Mystery

by Carola Dunn

  Recalling past battles with Scumble, Eleanor said firmly, “Margery is right, Joce. I don’t want to put Mr Pearce’s back up before I get a chance to tell him everything. There’s no need for you to stay, though. I’m sure someone will give me a lift down to Padstow later. You must have parish business calling you, not to mention the vicar wanting his lunch.”

  “Are you the vicar’s wife, Mrs Stearns?” Margery asked. “No wonder I felt an urge to confess to you. It’s supposed to be good for the soul, isn’t it?”

  “The English Church does not in general practise the rites ofthe confessional,” Jocelyn said primly, “though some High Churchmen … However, it’s true that telling all to a sympathetic listener can often have a salutory effect. ‘Getting it off one’s chest,’ in the common expression.”

  In general, Eleanor would not have described Jocelyn as a “sympathetic listener,” but she had been remarkably restrained, so let her accept the kudos. Margery looked as if she were trying not to smile.

  Eleanor just said, “Were you going to pick peas, Margery? We could do that, or I could, if Jocelyn has to get back. And I love shelling them, if you don’t mind a few finding their way into my mouth.”

  “Sorry, I planted mange-tout this year. But by all means eat some uncooked, if you like them that way.” She handed over the colanders. “It would be a help. Will you stay, Mrs Stearns?”

  “Yes, since you’ve been kind enough to invite me, I wouldn’t dream of deserting Eleanor to face the police on her own.”

  Just as well, thought Eleanor, remembering that Nick had her car keys.

  Margery went back to the house, her step noticeably lighter.

  “I don’t know about the soul,” said Eleanor, who frequently doubted the existence of such a figment, “but having told us, she’ll certainly find it easier to tell the police. As she said, it’s no good trying to conceal that sort of thing if a number of people already know it.”

  They went over to the row of peas, flourishing like everything in the garden, and picked for a few minutes in silent thought. Eleanor crunched a sweet pod or two, and offered one to Teazle, who rejected it with a disdainful sniff.

  “Adultery is a sin,” said Jocelyn broodingly, “and a terrible one, because it involves a breach of trust. Yet I can’t help feeling sorry for the woman. Geoffrey Clark was a really nasty piece of work.”

  Eleanor rarely agreed with her friend on matters of theology, but on this, though she would have phrased it differently, they were at one. Unfaithfulness was not a crime, but nor was it victimless. It was a breach of trust, and Eleanor had spent most of her life as roving ambassador for LonStar working to build trust, so she felt strongly about it. She was sorry for Margery, who had believed herself in love and had been discarded like a worn-out cardigan, but she was sorrier for Doug, the victim, innocent of anything except perhaps dullness. Who could guess what he had suffered?

  Who could guess what grudge he might have nursed and nourished, unable to avoid constant contact with the man who had cuckolded him?

  FIFTEEN

  Megan had omitted to ask Scumble how long she was expected to keep Nick occupied elsewhere. When she realised, she compounded the error by mentioning it to Nick.

  “Whenever we get back, he’s bound to say he’s been waiting for hours,” she said glumly.

  “In that case, there’s not much point worrying about it.” Nick took a bite of the sort of gooey pastry he hadn’t indulged in for years—or so he claimed—that he’d ordered after assuring himself that Megan could put it on her expense sheet. As it was a mille-feuille, cream oozed out of the other side and he had to scoop it up with his finger. The fork provided lay neglected on his plate.

  Megan was too wrapped in gloom to object to his far from public-schoolboy manners. “It’ll be all my fault for not asking, not his for not telling me.”

  “Of course.” Nick licked his finger—very Tom Jones, Megan thought sourly. “What’s the point of attaining rank if you can’t blame your subordinates? He’s not my boss, though. Tell him I’m responsible.” He took another squishy bite.

  “He won’t have any difficulty believing that.” She took advantage of his temporary inability to retort. “I wouldn’t care to bet that he doesn’t put DI Pearce’s lapse down to your uncooperative behaviour last night.”

  Nick choked slightly and took a swig of coffee to wash down the crumbs. “I was extremely cooperative!” he said indignantly. “I walked from the gallery to the police station with Jerry Roscoe like a lamb. I was perfectly prepared to answer any questions put to me. Pearce never asked. Wilkes can tell you.”

  “DC Wilkes? That’s right, I saw his initials on Pearce’s report. He took notes. I’d forgotten you knew him.”

  “A good bloke. He sacrificed half a sandwich to Teazle.”

  “No! Tell me.”

  Interrupted by lengthy pauses for consumption, Nick obliged with the tale of Teazle’s adventures at the Padstow police station. Megan enjoyed the story, but she listened with an ear also for any discrepancies with the reports she and Scumble had read. Everything seemed to mesh.

  For a wonder, Nick used the fork to scrape up the last bit of cream. He looked ruefully at his fingers and grinned at Megan. “You’ll have to excuse me for a moment. I don’t dare touch anything till I’ve washed my hands.”

  Oh hell! she thought. Had he ordered the mille-feuille just to have an excuse to escape her surveillance? Surely he had too much sense to make a run for it, but what if he telephoned Aunt Nell?

  His grin broadened as he read her mind. “No, that’s not why I chose it. I’m not going to make a run for it and I’m not going to ring Eleanor. I’m on the side of the guys in the white hats.”

  “I believe you. All the same…” She raised her hand to summon the waitress. “Have you got a public phone, miss?”

  The girl shook her head. “’Fraid not. There’s one at the post office, over in the next street.” She gestured towards the kitchen in the rear.

  “Is there a back door? Can we cut through?”

  “No, it’s a shared back wall.”

  “What about a Gents?” Nick asked.

  She shook her head. “There’s a public toilet over in the Shire Hall.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows at Megan.

  “You’re serving food,” she pointed out. “You must have a staff washroom.”

  “Oh yes, but we’re not s’posed to let people use it.”

  Megan was not about to let Nick disappear into the public loo. Reluctantly, she took out her identification card.

  “Oooh, police! Is he under arrest?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I shall never be able to show my face in Bodmin again!” Nick moaned.

  “Go and wash your hands,” Megan snapped, “before I get out the handcuffs.”

  He stood up. “Do you think by any chance the police will spring for another cup of coffee, Sergeant? That thing was delicious but rather sweet.”

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Don’t push your luck, chum.”

  Still grinning, Nick weaved his way between the other tables, fortunately sparsely occupied as it was early for elevenses, and disappeared.

  “What’d he do, Sergeant?” the waitress asked breathlessly.

  “Watch the newspapers. That’s all I can say. And bring two more cups of coffee, please.”

  When Nick returned, no longer sticky, Megan asked him, “How well do you know these people at the farm, or commune, or whatever it is? Mates of yours, are they?”

  “Mates—that’s exactly the right word. Birds of a feather, after all. They’d drop in if they happened to be in Port Mabyn, and I’d do the same when I was in Padstow, to the shop—they have a co-op shop—if not all the way out to the farm. Then we’d meet at darts matches. Doug is on the Gold Bezant darts team, as is Jerry Roscoe, the local copper, and I play for the Trelawny Arms.”

  “What about Stella Maris Weller? You had a closer relationship with her.”

 
Nick glanced round. The tea-shop was beginning to fill up with shoppers and the odd tourist. “This isn’t the place to talk. Let’s go and gawk at the old gaol.”

  Megan paid, making sure she got a receipt, hoping she’d be reimbursed. They set out along the street, past the Shire Hall and on up St Nicholas Street.

  “Well?” she said. “You show Stella’s stuff in your gallery, and none of the others’. Whatever you told the gov’nor, there must be something special between you two.”

  He strode on faster, making her hurry to keep up. The hill was quite steep, but the side streets they passed were even steeper, leading up towards the Beacon. Nick’s gaze was firmly fixed ahead so Megan couldn’t see his face well, but she thought he looked embarrassed.

  “As a matter of fact, when I said Stella once made googly eyes at me, I was being kind. The first time I met Stella, she offered to sleep with me if I’d sell her sculptures in my shop.”

  “And you didn’t?” She managed to keep her voice level. “Not even once?”

  “I did not! I told her if I wanted a prostitute, which I didn’t, I’d go and troll the streets of Plymouth.”

  Megan was surprised at how relieved she felt, as well as amused. Trying not to laugh, she commented, “That must have got her goat.”

  “It did. She pretended I’d misunderstood her. She claimed she’d just meant that if we were to happen to get friendly, I might find a spot in my extensive premises to display her art.”

  “Which you did.”

  “For the sake of peace, I told her I’d take it if I liked it and if it didn’t compete with my stuff, and if she’d run the shop occasionally to give me a day off. Luckily her seals and dolphins and such are excellent of their sort and fulfil both conditions.”

  “And if they hadn’t?”

  “I hate to contemplate the thought. She’s never quite forgiven me, even though I’ve been selling quite nicely for her. She’s got the co-op shop in Padstow as well, and I believe she has arrangements with a number of arty-crafty-gifty shops up and down the coast.” He held up his hand. “Don’t ask me how many of the owners she’s slept with. I don’t care to speculate on the subject.”

  “It does rather boggle the mind. What alternative inducement could she offer? A commission, I suppose.”

  “Yes, and Stella had much rather part with her favours than her pounds, shillings, and pence.”

  “Miaow. I thought it was women who are supposed to be catty.”

  “Come now,” Nick reproved her, “that’s a very sexist remark. I don’t see why you should have a monopoly.”

  “True. She’s hungry for money, is she? I shouldn’t have thought she could make all that much from her sculpture.”

  “Just enough, at a guess, to keep her interested. She’s not the sort to starve in a garret for the sake of her art, but she is genuinely talented and she enjoys it. All the same, she makes more with her nursing, and I keep expecting to hear she’s thrown over the sculpture to go into that full-time.”

  “Nursing?”

  “Oh, haven’t you heard about that? I don’t know why you should have. She works weekends at a convalescent home outside Wadebridge. She’s sort of half qualified, I gather. I don’t know the details. She doesn’t seem to like it much, but as I said, it pays much better.”

  “Sounds as if she’s got the best of both worlds. May I ask you a question?”

  “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the past half hour?”

  “Well, yes, but…” Megan desperately tried to think of the best way to word her query. “Umm … If you’re really not gay…”

  “I already told Scumble I’m not.”

  “Then why, really, did you refuse Stella’s … offer? Not that rubbish about ‘saving yourself for the right girl.’ He’s going to want a proper answer, sooner or later. If you’d rather talk to him—”

  Nick shuddered. “Good god, no! It’s simple enough. I find the use of sex as a bribe distasteful,” he told her bluntly. “Gorgeous as she is, I could tell right away that Stella is not the sort of woman with whom I could contemplate a long-term relationship. Any woman who would offer a quid pro quo like that within minutes of first meeting is not for me.”

  “Don’t tell me: ‘Sugar and spice and all things nice.’ That ghastly rhyme, is that your ideal?”

  He burst out laughing. “Certainly not. But I really don’t believe the police can have any legitimate interest in my vision of ideal womanhood. We seem to have come to the end of the town. Shall we turn back? We don’t want Scumble to think I’ve abducted you.”

  They had, in fact, come to the end of the pavement, just past the barracks of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, and the top of the slope. Ahead, the road dipped beneath a railway bridge—they had passed the boarded-up central station halfway up the hill. Beyond, a wide valley spread lushly green to the next ridge.

  “Yes,” Megan agreed, “we’d better be getting back. I didn’t realise we’d come so far.” She checked her watch. “Or been gone so long! He’s going to kill me.”

  “I doubt it. You’ve extracted plenty of information to keep him happy.”

  Extracted? Megan wondered. She felt more as if she had been force-fed a quantity of information, most of which tended to show that Nick had no motive for being jealous of Geoffrey Clark. How much of it could she believe?

  On the other hand, Nick already had a credible motive for killing Geoff in the destruction of his work. Either his alibi was valid, or he was still in big trouble. All in all, Megan realised with irritation, she had no good reason for her relief that his relationship with Stella was purely a matter of business.

  They walked back into town mostly in silence. Megan was afraid it had been a mistake to ask Nick whether he’d lied to Scumble about not being a homosexual, but whether from the police or the personal point of view she couldn’t decide.

  Nick started whistling the tune from “Pomp and Circumstance” again.

  “Can’t you get that out of your head?” Megan asked. “It’s so annoying when something keeps going round and round like a stuck record.”

  “What? Oh, no. I’m planning a painting. I don’t so much hear it as see it.”

  “All red, white, and blue?”

  “Good god no! Sorry if it’s irritating.”

  “Could be worse. I once got caught by ‘I’m ’Enery the Eighth, I am’ for hours. Now that was ’orrible!”

  “I hope you haven’t just given it to me!”

  Megan sang softly, “‘Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,’” to put him back on track. She wished she could understand just what was going on in his head.

  When they reached the Bodmin nick, Scumble greeted them with the expected, “Where the bloody hell you been, Pencarrow?” but he couldn’t suppress a gleeful smile. Rubbing his hands together with satisfaction, he went on, “Forensics and the medical report both agree with your version, Mr Gresham. We’ve got the bastard cold. Pending autopsy—these doctors are always cautious buggers—Dr Prthnavi says the deceased died before three o’clock, latest. And, as the dagger was left in the wound, there would have been next to no flow of blood.”

  Megan and Nick both let out long breaths.

  “Then, Forensics analysed the red ink. It’s the kind the deceased used for his adverts, all right, and SOC found a couple of empty bottles, or canisters, or whatchamacallems, in the waste bin under the sink. Wiped clean of prints, as you’d expect these days.”

  “So what’s next, sir?”

  The inspector’s smile turned malevolent. “First things first.” He glanced at the wall-clock. “I’m going to see the Bodmin Super, Egerton, in three minutes. You made it back barely in time. Want to come along and see how to demolish a colleague without saying anything actionable? No, on second thoughts, you’d better read these reports. We’ll have to get going immediately after.”

  “Taking me home?” Nick said plaintively.

  “Eh? Oh, yes, of course. Eventually.” Scumble
heaved himself out of his chair.

  “Sir, I could read the reports in the car, couldn’t I? I do think I ought to be present to witness your … to learn the proper way to … er…”

  “Stab a colleague in the back?” Nick suggested.

  “I may never have another chance,” Megan said quickly.

  Scumble turned on Nick and snarled, “I wouldn’t talk about stabbing colleagues in the back if I were you. You’re not out of the woods yet.” He picked up the phone. “Scumble here. I want adetective constable up here on the double to … keep Mr Gresham company for a few minutes … No, he’s not bloody under arrest! He’s feeling lonesome and homesick … That’s right, laddie, got it in one. I don’t want him buzzing off, and no phone-calls.” He slammed down the receiver. “Come along, then, Pencarrow, if you’re coming!”

  As they left the room, a hefty man came puffing up. “Sir! You want an eye kept on that artist bloke, right?”

  Scumble stared at him. “Wilkes!” he said in disgust. “Think you can manage not to let him outwit you this time?”

  “This time, sir? But last time it wasn’t—”

  Scumble didn’t wait to hear his protest. Megan following, he swept on into Superintendent Egerton’s office.

  Egerton reminded Megan of a toad. He appeared to be wedged inextricably into his chair, as toads like to wedge themselves into a rocky niche. Doubtless he had his uses, snapping up societal pests as toads snap up horticultural pests. Megan had nothing against toads. Her mother had always been happy to find one in the garden. His appearance was unprepossessing, however, though at least he was not visibly warty.

  “DI Scumble, sir,” his secretary announced, “from Launceston. And…?”

  “DS Pencarrow, sir.”

  Egerton signed the paper in front of him and moved it from one neat pile to another. Raising his head, he fixed them with a cold, black, unblinking stare. “Ah yes.” His voice was diconcertingly high and thin. “Scumble. Bentinck sent you down to tie up the loose ends on that case of Bixby’s. You’ve dotted all the i ’s and crossed the t ’s, have you?”