Unoffended, Wiggins quartered and buttered a breadroll. “Mainwaring didn’t know the murdered woman, and couldn’t imagine why she’d be out in the woods—”
“No one can. Go on.”
“He works part of the time in London, in the City, in insurance. Then he’s got a part-time estate agency in Littlebourne.”
“He commutes to London some days?”
“That’s right.”
“He saw the pictures of the murdered woman?”
“Yes. Said he’d never seen her before. Also said he was with the Wey woman on Thursday night. Which she confirmed. You want him to go along and have a look at the body?”
“No more than any of the others. What about Mrs. Pennystevens? Anything else there?”
Wiggins shook his head. “Just as Carstairs said. She got the packet, thought it was some sort of joke. So did the others. Mainwaring and the Wey woman.”
“They’d need to, wouldn’t they? Since they were accused of being lovers. Do you think they are?”
For Wiggins, who had shoved his soup plate aside and was in the process of medicating himself, this was a two-cough drop problem. Or, at least, the cough drops were stuck together and he popped both of them into his mouth. “Hard to say. She’s good-looking enough.”
“What was her reaction to the murder?”
“Same thing. Didn’t know anything about it, didn’t know why the woman would be out in the woods, et cetera, et cetera. Carstairs had been there before me.”
“Has Carstairs called here?”
“No, why?”
“Augusta Craigie thinks the woman might have been on her way to Stonington, the Kennington estate just outside of Littlebourne.” Jury looked ceilingward. “Do you know which one of the rooms is the daughter’s?” He knew Wiggins would have inspected them all, briefly, to see if he could find a more comfortable mattress.
Wiggins nodded. “First on the right. Lots of flounce and stuffed animals.”
“I’m going to have a look.”
• • •
It was a pleasant room with a slanted ceiling and creaking, crooked floor, white furniture, and, as Wiggins had said, ruffled spread and pillows. It faced the Green; a row of tiny casement windows over a window seat were rolled out, disturbing the climbing roses wandering up the side of the building. Jury looked at the row of books above the window seat: untouched tomes, largely, of classics like Middlemarch; very well-fingered Heartwind Romances wedged between and behind them. A poor ruse if the mother were doing a cleaning. But perhaps the neatness here was Katie O’Brien’s own. Jury looked in the closet and saw carefully hung dresses. He checked the labels, found two of them were Laura Ashleys, expensive. The mother would have had to sell a lot of pints to buy them.
There was an album lying on a little desk, which Jury leafed through. Snapshots recording the life of Katie O’Brien and her family. One of them he removed. It showed a pale girl with a heart-shaped, but unsmiling, face. A lot of dark hair had been rolled away from the face, probably collected in back in a bun or plait. It was an old-fashioned hairdo above an old-fashioned dress, a lace-collared gingham. Did the small, beautiful face look so mournfully out at Jury because the hair was too heavy, the collar too tight? Jury took the picture and closed the album.
III
“Cora Binns,” said Inspector Carstairs. “It was shortly after you called that we got an identification. Not from Lady Kennington—we’re checking that out—but from a Mrs. Beavers. That’s the Binns woman’s landlady, who got worried when Cora never came home on the Thursday night. Cora Binns told Mrs. Beavers she was off to see someone in Hertfield. Said she’d be back that night and probably get home round eleven. Cora has the upstairs flat in the Beaverses’ house and the landlady apparently keeps an eye on her tenants. When Cora didn’t show up again on Friday, she was really concerned. Nosy’s more like it. She put in a missing-person and a call came through not long ago from ‘H’ Division. Not much doubt it’s the same person. Description, clothes, everything fits. I guessed you’d want to talk to her straightaway. Address—” The voice dimmed as Carstairs turned from the telephone, and then came back again. “Number twenty-two, Catchcoach Street.”
“What section’s that?” Jury asked as he made a note of the address.
“Somewhere around Forest Gate, isn’t it? Wait a tic. . . . Yes, here it is. Well.” There was a brief silence. “Wembley Knotts. Coincidence, that. That’s where the O’Brien girl got coshed on the head. Odd.”
When Jury dropped the receiver back into the cradle, Sergeant Wiggins was studying the photograph of Katie O’Brien.
“Pretty girl.”
“Yes. Leave a note for Mary O’Brien, will you, that we’ll be back later this evening. Tell her to tell Mr. Plant. I can’t think why he’s not here yet.”
Wiggins looked surprised. “Where are we going, then?”
“London.”
NINE
I
MELROSE Plant would have been at the Bold Blue Boy, had he not been delayed by Sylvia Bodenheim’s gloved hand pointing her garden shears at his lapel. “This is not public property, young man. You are trespassing.”
As he was forty-two, Melrose appreciated that “young man.” For the rest, he said, “I don’t know about that. But it is a public footpath.” With his silver-headed stick, Melrose pointed back along the narrow path. “There’s a sign yonder.”
Impatiently, she shook her head. The large sun hat, a chartreuse straw unflattering to her sallow skin, cast wavelets of green-yellow across her face, giving her an underwater look. “Whatever the sign says, I should certainly think anyone would understand that the footpath runs right across a bit of our property.”
“Well, then, you oughtn’t to have bought a house on a bit of land with public access, should you?” He smiled.
Sylvia Bodenheim fell back two paces as if he’d struck her. It was abundantly clear that his “house on a bit of land” was not a happy description. “Rookswood is not just a house.”
Melrose Plant looked to his left toward the imposing if somewhat pretentious facade where stone birds of some sort topped two stunted pillars. “Oh? It’s an institution of some sort, then?”
“Certainly not! It is Sir Miles Bodenheim’s estate. The family seat. I am Lady Bodenheim. Who are you?”
“Melrose Plant.” He bowed slightly. “I have just come through a place called Horndean and was wondering if this is the way to Littlebourne village? I parked my car back there—” He nodded to some point behind him. “And decided to find someone to ask directions of.”
After squinting in the direction he pointed to see if the car were also parked on Rookswood property, she turned back to her work, shears snipping. “Just go along and you’ll come out on Littlebourne Green, by the Celtic cross. And when you return, please do go round our property. Not through.”
He certainly wouldn’t. He had already determined to use the public footpath as much as possible. “Perhaps you could direct me to a pub called the Bold Blue Boy?”
She tilted her head in the direction in which he was going, but didn’t look at him as she said, “That way.”
Melrose picked a bit of rose petal from his jacket. “I hear you’ve had rather an awful crime hereabouts. Imagine it plays hell with estate values, doesn’t it?”
She glared at him. “It’s nothing to do with Littlebourne. Just some stranger—” Looking a bit flushed, she backed off.
Whether she was about to cut and run, he didn’t know. Her exit was interrupted by the approach, across the wide, green lawn, of a glistening chestnut horse on which a young woman was mounted. At first, Melrose judged her to be extremely attractive—and indeed she was—if such assessments can be made on the basis of cheekbones, tilted eyes, and a well-shaped mouth.
But Melrose found her about as unappealing as any woman he had seen in forty years. All of the elegance of bone structure was dashed to bits by the petulant, hard-eyed expression. He could see, beneath the young skin
, the hatchet-face of the older woman, who must be this one’s mother. The young lady’s boots glittered as if varnished; her hacking jacket was a violent, unpleasant plaid that no Scot would lay claim to.
“Who’s this, Mummy?”
“No one,” said her mother, turning to attack the roses with her shears.
“That is not precisely accurate,” said Melrose, who introduced himself, again bowing. “I have the pleasure of addressing—?”
She must have responded favorably to this mild imperiousness, it being a shade less than her own, for she smiled frostily. “Have you just got to the village—or what?”
The Bodenheims were nothing if not curious. “Correct. I am a stranger to town. But not, I hope, for long.” He gave what he imagined to be a roguish smile, leering up at her.
Miss Bodenheim dismounted, bringing herself literally, if not figuratively, down to his level. “What are you here for then?” Her fingers played with the reins of her horse. The horse cast a lugubrious eye on the party and Melrose decided it was probably the only one there with any sense.
“To view some property.” He had decided on this as a reason that would allow him to poke about without anyone’s knowing he was a friend of Superintendent Jury.
The elder Bodenheim woman was snipping her way back round to them and offered her judgment on the matter. “It’s that rickety little cottage next the Bold Blue Boy, I suppose. You’ll be disappointed, mark my words. I should think twice about buying it; it’s been on the market for nearly a year, even though simply everyone’s coming to Littlebourne and snapping up cottages. Roof leaks, there’s dry rot, and the garden’s a disgrace. The family who last lived there—” She shuddered. “You’ll see how awful it is. You’ll need to get the roof rethatched, though, frankly, I would suggest tiles. Thatch simply attracts the birds and sends up one’s premiums. Look at the Craigie sisters’ thatch if you don’t believe me. I do not suggest thatch. But if you must rethatch, the only person to do it is Hemmings. I will give you his number. Personally, I believe him to be much too dear, but at least he does an honest day’s work. You can’t say the same for Lewisjohn. You’re not thinking of Lewisjohn, are you? Put it right out of your mind; he’s a thief. No, Hemmings is the only reliable person in the area. But you should do tiles. You’ll regret the thatch.” She sniffed and snipped her way down the hedgerow, leaving the roofing of Melrose’s cottage to her daughter.
“Willow Cottage,” said Julia, “It’s just the other side of Littlebourne Green where the Blue Boy is.” She pointed her riding crop beyond the hedgerow. “It does need doing up. But, frankly, I wouldn’t get anyone round here to do the work.” Considering the polished nails on the hand which held the crop, it was doubtful the daughter could recommend anyone in the way of work.
Melrose had definitely decided against Willow Cottage. “That isn’t the place I’m interested in, actually.” He turned his face toward the Horndean Road; along it he had discovered the sort of thing he might be interested in. The stone fence must have run both sides for half a mile. The house itself could not be seen from the road, but he judged it to be considerably larger, more formidable than Rookswood. The high iron gate had borne a discreet bronze plaque. There was a For Sale sign, equally discreet, near it.
“Stonington. That’s the property I’d like to view.” Melrose twitched a bit of old leaf from his coat, idly.
Even the horse shook its mane at his announcement. And somehow, the elder Bodenheim woman had managed to be within earshot. Now there came the general confusion of female voices:
“Stonington! . . . Oh, out of the question . . . Totally unsuitable for you . . . Can’t think . . . It’s so big! . . . a bachelor . . . You are a bachelor?”
“But I find it eminently suitable,” said Melrose, breaking in. “Not quite so large as I’m used to. And Aunt Agatha will miss her rookery and the groves of ornamental trees. And the swans. Servants’ quarters perhaps a bit small. Stables not quite adequate for my hunters. And . . . ” He sighed unhappily. “—My sister, ah, Madeleine, needs her separate wing. She’s a bit offish, you know.” That could mean anything from being in a family way to simple insanity. “But my surveyor can handle the changes. Oh, well, chap can’t have everything, can he?” Here he managed a sweet little smile and a deprecating shrug. “It’s a jolly old place, isn’t it?”
It was quite clear to him from their expressions that Stonington was a good deal jollier than Rookswood. They were—the two Bodenheim women—drawn as if against their wills to follow the direction of his gaze toward the Horndean Road, down which lay Stonington in the blue distance, the manor of manors. When she turned back, Julia was looking at Melrose afresh, reevaluating the situation. But whatever she was about to say was cut off by Melrose’s calling happily, “And who’s this coming now?”
Miles Bodenheim was stumping across the lawn. Perhaps he had seen them from an upstairs window and could no longer contain his curiosity, or perhaps he had got wind that the first family of Littlebourne might soon become the second and was on his way to scotch that plan.
“Sylvia! Julia!”
Instead of calling an answer, Sylvia said to Melrose, “No, I think you are not serious. You cannot be serious. Lady Kennington has not kept the place up. You know he is dead—Lord Kennington. I really don’t think they were well-matched. She’s most antisocial. True, there is nothing to hold her there. But I think it preferable, if Stonington is to be sold, it had better be sold to some sort of company or used as a Home for some sort of Unfortunate. You don’t want to live at Stonington.” She turned away and pinched a brown bud from its stalk in a mean way, like a child pinching a cat.
“Plant. Melrose Plant,” he said to the latest addition to their number.
“Mr. Plant was thinking of buying Stonington, Miles, but we told him how unsuitable it would be.”
“Stonington! Good God, man. You wouldn’t want to live there. Big as a barn and cold. No, you shouldn’t like it at all. And someone’s died there recently, Lord Kennington, that was. You wouldn’t want to move in where someone’s just died.”
“They’ve got to die somewhere,” answered Melrose, wondering if Jury was at the pub, but wondering also how many more there were of this family who might drift toward him like dandelion heads across the lawn.
“I’ve told him not to buy,” said Sylvia, closing the matter for all time. Her large hat bobbed as she moved along the hedge, her expression more set, her face more chartreuse.
“Mr. Plant hunts,” said Julia. “You mentioned hunters. You were talking about stables.”
Melrose dashed a benighted bud from the path. It landed on the elder Bodenheim’s shoe. He had to be careful here; he knew nothing about hunting and found it a perfectly awful sport. “I hunt, yes. But only in Ireland. With the black and tans.” Then he wondered if that were hounds or some defunct segment of the I.R.A.
“When do you plan on moving in?” asked Julia.
“A bit premature for that, isn’t it? Well, this has been most pleasant, but if you’ll excuse me?” Melrose touched his cap with his stick and went whistling down the public footpath, hoping he’d find someone in Littlebourne, besides Jury, more amiable than this lot.
II
Amiable was not precisely the word he would have used to describe the next person he passed, standing hard in the middle of the Green, carefully noting his progress across it. She wore a giant frown. It made Melrose slightly uncomfortable to think he had called up such a look of affliction on the face of one so small.
It so unnerved him he was forced to turn on the other side of the Green and look back. Like Lot’s wife, he shouldn’t have done it. She had also turned and was staring at him. The little girl was standing with her ankles turned in; her yellow hair fell in strands round her pointed face. The hacking jacket had seen better days; it was mud-bedewed and too small for her.
As he continued on his way across the High Street, he could sense, rather than see, she was following him. The Littlebourne vi
llagers had precious little to do with their time if he could excite such interest.
• • •
The Bold Blue Boy was empty at near four in the afternoon. Although it was not yet opening time, the door to the saloon bar was open. He went in that way and found a long, low room with a huge, cold fireplace. To the right of this room was another, the entrance to which was effected by stooping under its low lintel. It was small and cheerful, full of polished copper, a smaller fireplace which was lit, and snug window seats cushioned in a faded, flowery chintz.
Melrose sat down at one of the tables to wait for the proprietor, who must know Superintendent Jury’s whereabouts, and began to make himself at home. He always carried a book with him—Rimbaud, usually, but lately mystery stories had begun to supplant the French poets—and now he drew from his coat pocket his latest acquisition for emergency-waiting-periods, The Affair of the Third Feather. Before he began to read, however, he looked through the small casement window, pushing back the flowered curtain to gaze out over the Green. He saw no one except for one old pensioner making his arthritic way towards the post office stores.
As he settled down to read, he heard a popping noise that made his skin prickle. He turned. The little girl was standing in the doll-like doorway, entertaining herself by sucking in her cheeks, bunching up her mouth, and making small, popping noises.
“Mary’s over to the shops,” she said.
“Mary?”
“Mary O’Brien. She runs the Blue Boy.”
“I see,” said Melrose, returning to his book. “Well, I shall just have to wait, I daresay.” He wondered why the little girl didn’t leave.
Far from leaving, she went behind the bar. As the bar was tall and she was short, he could hear rather than see her rooting around. Soon her fair head popped up over the top. She must have got herself a stool to kneel on.
“Want something, then? There’s Bass and bitter and Abbot’s.” She touched all of the enameled beer pulls.
The Anodyne Necklace Page 8
