The Anodyne Necklace

by Martha Grimes

  “No need to apologize. And, no, I don’t think it was odd—about the cat, I mean.” Jury felt it had all happened, that ride to the veterinarian’s, a year ago, rather than only fifteen minutes. “Mr. Mainwaring says he arranged for this girl to come here.”

  “Yes. Freddie was doing me a favor. He said he’d used the agency and they seemed good. Listen, won’t you sit down?” Vaguely, she indicated the single chair.

  “That’s okay. Sit down yourself.” She shook her head and shoved up her sweater sleeve. “Wouldn’t it have been easier just to get someone local to do the secretarial work?”

  “Yes, certainly. I couldn’t find anyone. And Freddie said this place was quite reasonable.”

  She seemed on good terms with Freddie. “Did Mr. Mainwaring seem, well, to be pushing this idea?”

  “ ‘Pushing—’? I don’t know what you mean.” But she was quick enough to figure out what he meant. “Are you suggesting that Freddie Mainwaring knew the girl in some other way?”

  “It’s possible.”

  She looked at him, considering. As the sunlight died, her gray eyes darkened. “You seem to be saying he had something to do with her death.”

  “It’s a coincidence, at the very least.”

  Smiling slightly, she shook her head. “I seriously doubt he was involved. Freddie’s much too shrewd to go about murdering women. I’m sure he’d get what he wanted more easily than that.”

  “As with Ramona Wey, for instance?” She merely cocked her head at that and made no comment. “Your late husband had some business dealings with her.” She nodded. “Antique jewelry.” She nodded again, giving him the awfully uncomfortable impression she was looking straight into his mind. “Lady Kennington, I’d really like to get some information about the theft of that emerald necklace a year ago.”

  That did seem to surprise her. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Trevor Tree, you remember, was run down by a car after he was released by police. That necklace has never turned up. And it must be somewhere.”

  Her hand went to her throat as if the mention of it had triggered some tactile response. “Yes, I suppose it does. John was extravagant about jewelry. It was some sort of obsession with him. Stonington was mortgaged up to the hilt to indulge it. You’d think he’d have been wise enough to insure that necklace, after all that, wouldn’t you? But he said insurance for jewelry cost the earth. Can you imagine such reasoning? You know, I think John—my husband—had a sort of gambler’s nature. Self-destructive.”

  “So you have to sell up in order to pay for that. You don’t seem very bitter about it.”

  She seemed puzzled, as if bitterness had nothing to do with it, as if it were an alien emotion. “I’d have sold up, anyway. I should have done, a long time ago.” She looked off. “I’ve never much liked jewelry, myself.”

  The woman, he thought, was a master of understatement; she made that emerald sound like something from Woolworth’s. “It was a very rare sort of emerald, I understand. Egyptian?”

  “Yes. John was especially interested in Egyptology. It was a carved stone. It was carved with a crow, and beneath that what appeared to be a crab, or something. The carvings were supposed to ward off ‘disturbance, dreams, and stupidity.’ ” Her smile was fleeting. “It didn’t. I’m no smarter than before. And my dreams”—she clasped her hands behind her and looked off—“are just as bad.”

  “And the case Lord Kennington kept this jewelry in? Has that been sold too?”

  “No. It’s in the next room.” Once again he followed her to a door on the other side of the room.

  The immensity of this next room gave Jury a shock, both its size and its emptiness. Here, the furniture was also gone. At one end of the room—dining room, it must have been once—was a phalanx of French windows facing the courtyard, showing once again the mournful statue in different terms. They were now in another wing of the house, the one he had seen before with a walk screened by tall columns. He felt as though he were seeing the statue through round bars. There was nothing in the room except for heavy green drapes at the windows and a glass-topped display case shoved into a corner by the marble fireplace. This strange circumnavigation of the house—with only that stone statue as some sort of compass point—disoriented Jury. As he bent down over the display case, empty now, he asked, “Did you like Trevor Tree?” He looked up at her.

  “I didn’t mind him, I suppose. I wasn’t that often around him. We were not on intimate terms.” There was a flicker of temper—or was it really humor?—in response to his unasked question.

  “What happened that night, Lady Kennington?”

  Again, that fleeting smile. “I’d rather not be called that, really. Just Jenny Kennington. John kept the family name, said it was much easier. He was a very sensible man in some ways. I don’t think I did very well as a Lady.”

  Jury looked at her for a moment. “I imagine you did fine. Tell me about the night the necklace was stolen.”

  She told him exactly the same story Carstairs had. “Of course, when we found Trevor had gone, we knew. And we wouldn’t have known so soon if our cook hadn’t got up so early.”

  “I see. There were a few other pieces of jewelry that had gone missing over the time Trevor Tree worked for your husband—apparently also taken by him. Would you remember them if you saw them again?”

  “Oh, yes. There was a cameo brooch. It was unusual and quite beautiful. Then there was a small diamond, in what they call a European cut. Not a brilliant and not really valuable. And a gold ring, coiled like a serpent. I liked it.” Quickly, she looked up at him. “You’re not going to tell me you’ve found those things, are you?”

  Jury shook his head. “No, but I think possibly Cora Binns knew Trevor Tree. I even think she might have been wearing a ring—perhaps the one you described—taken from Lord Kennington’s collection. Maybe he took the stuff just to see how much he could get away with. What sort of person was he, from your point of view?”

  “Terribly shrewd. But that’s rather obvious, the way he had the whole thing planned out.”

  “How did your husband meet him?”

  “At Sotheby’s. Or was it Christie’s? John had dealings with both. That’s probably how Trevor knew about this emerald. John was looking for a secretary and this Tree was recommended as very reliable. He was an employee at one of those places. Of course, he was very knowledgeable. Had to be, didn’t he? John trusted him.” She shrugged. “Maybe it was the gambler’s instinct coming out again. Why should he have trusted him? I thought Trevor was too shrewd by half, frankly.”

  The sun had come out again and shown in wide bands across the polished floor like light on water. He could see her eyes were silvery, even though they were standing a great distance apart, he by the case, she by the windows. She pulled the long sleeves of her sweater down, the metallic thread in the loose knit glinting like chain mail. “I’m awfully cold,” she said. “I’d like a cup of tea. Would you?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” he said.

  “I’ll just get it then.” She walked across the expanse of oak floor and through a door at the far end. It closed behind her.

  He missed her the moment she walked out of the room.

  SEVENTEEN

  “WHY are you making that dog purple?”

  “Because I like purple.” Emily Louise did not look up from her coloring book.

  The Bold Blue Boy was empty, save for Melrose and Emily Louise, which was not surprising, as it was barely nine o’clock.

  Looking at the bizarre colors in her farmyard scene, and from there to the map, Melrose was reminded of Miss Craigie’s dreadful slide-show presentation. Something rankled. He felt he should be able to dredge it up from his unconscious.

  “Do you know the Misses Craigie?”

  “Yes. Ernestine’s the one that’s always doing boring things with birds. She goes into the woods with those binoculars and stands about.” Intent upon coloring a gaggle of geese pink, she wetted the cra
yon with her tongue.

  “Don’t chew on crayons. You’ll get Crayola poisoning.” Melrose looked down at the map, smoothed out on the table before him. All of those lines running and crisscrossing. Lord, would he be forced to ask Ernestine for a repeat performance of the migratory patterns of the Crackle? Wasn’t there just so much the human organism could stand in the pursuit of clues? His eyes slid over to Emily’s coloring book. Unable to stop himself, he said, “Those geese are pink.”

  “Yes. They’re quite lovely.” She fluted this, throwing down her crayon and holding up her artwork. A barnyard scene of rainbow animals. Except, Melrose noted, for the horse. The horse was good old horsey-brown. This irritated him almost beyond endurance. “All of the other animals are totally ridiculous colors and the horse is brown.”

  “Of course it’s brown. Horses are brown, some of them. Anyway, it’s supposed to be Shandy.”

  He refused to discuss it. “Might I have a piece of paper from that book?”

  She stopped in the process of outlining a crow she had left out. It was going to be lemon yellow. Suspiciously, she looked at Melrose. “Well . . . ” She leafed through her book, came upon a picture of a Cinderella-like young lady about to have her tiny foot shoved into a glass slipper by a young man with a page-boy. “Here. You can color this one if you want. I don’t like it, anyway.”

  “Color? I don’t want to color, for heaven’s sake. I want the back to draw some lines on.”

  “You mean tear it out?” Sacrilege.

  “I’ll buy you another book!”

  She looked down at the prince holding the foot and back at Melrose. “All right. He looks stupid, anyway.” Carefully she folded, creased, and tore the page from her book.

  “Thank you,” said Melrose frostily. He then took a red crayon and drew a line across the back of the picture. This he crossed at an angle with a blue crayon.

  Emily was interested. “What are you doing?”

  “The migratory patterns of the Great Speckled Crackle.”

  Forgetting her lemon crow, she clamped her chin between her hands and watched as Melrose bisected the red line with a green one, swooping upwards. In a moment lines were going every which way. “That’s not it,” he said.

  “It looks stupid.”

  • • •

  “Don’t fight kiddies.”

  It was Jury’s voice behind them.

  “Make him get his own coloring book,” said Jury, who sat down beside Emily and immediately had her undivided attention. “What’ve you got there?” Jury slid Melrose’s brightly lined paper across the table. “Influence of Jackson Pollock, I’d say.”

  Emily shoved her barnyard scene in his face. “Isn’t this nice?”

  “Very nice. I had a purple dog once.”

  Wonder glowed on Emily’s face. “You did?”

  “It wasn’t born purple, of course. But one day in the alley it liked to ramble in, someone had set out some tins of paint. My dog was always into things and he got it all over him. There was some green in one can, and that overturned and splattered him. Just on the tips of some of the hairs.”

  “He sounds lovely. Did he die from it?”

  “No. But I could never get it out.”

  “When he did die, was he still purple and green?”

  “Yes. Faded, but still rather colorful.”

  She had picked up a green crayon and was putting spots all over the purple dog.

  Melrose shoved the map from Katie O’Brien’s book toward Jury, frustrated that the answer he’d been hoping for hadn’t flashed into his mind, dazzling him with its brilliance, like sun on the wings of gulls . . . there he was, back with the ornithological metaphors.

  Jury studied the map for a few seconds, his face blank. “Where’d you get this?”

  Emily told him about Katie.

  “In case anything happens? That’s what she said?”

  Emily nodded and started to gather up her crayons and book. “I’ve got to be to the fête at ten-thirty.” It was clear that, once having delivered her secret to the Yard, she wanted no more to do with it.

  But Jury had hold of her wrist. “Is that all she told you?” Emily nodded. “Didn’t you think it very strange?” Again, Emily nodded, her brow creased as she looked at Melrose, as if it were all his fault. Jury went on: “She didn’t mention anything about London or her music teacher? Or a game called Wizards?”

  “Once she did, but not then.

  “Once she did what?” asked Jury, patiently. But he was not letting go of her wrist.

  “Wizards. She said it was a game she saw in London and it seemed ever so much fun.”

  “Didn’t she tell you anything else? About the pub in London where she saw it?”

  Emily shook her head hard. Her little look was now piteous, and as contrived, Jury thought, as the frown. “Please, I’ve got to go see to the horses.”

  Jury released his grip. “Okay. Thanks.”

  In the light of Jury’s smile she now seemed somewhat ambivalent about leaving. There was some scuffling of feet before she finally made for the low lintel of the door, brushing by Peter Gere, who was stooping under it.

  “What’s all this ‘Wizards’ business?” asked Melrose.

  Jury put the map in front of him. “This is the sort of map they do for a game—hullo, Peter.”

  Peter sat down with a sigh. “Thought I saw you come in here. The Bodenheims are driving me daft over this fête. They seem to think I’m at fault just because the carousel broke down. How d’ya do?” he said, when Jury introduced him to Melrose Plant.

  “Have a look at this, Peter.” Jury put the diagram before him. Gere studied it for a moment, frowned, turned it this way and that, finally said, “What’s this in aid of?”

  “Katie O’Brien for one thing. And for another, maybe, that necklace stolen from Lord Kennington a year ago.”

  Peter stared at him, disbelieving. “How?”

  “You said you’d seen Trevor Tree and Derek Bodenheim in here a few times playing a game called Wizards.” Peter nodded. “Doesn’t this make you think of one of those diagrams?”

  “It could be, yes. Where’d you find it, then?”

  “I didn’t. Katie O’Brien did. Whether she found it in London or Littlebourne, I don’t know. Tell him, Mr. Plant.” Melrose gave Peter Gere an account of that morning’s activities.

  “Are you really suggesting Tree hid that emerald somewhere in the Horndean wood?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s a bit too much of a coincidence—Katie O’Brien, Cora Binns, Trevor Tree, the Anodyne Necklace—”

  “What’s the Anodyne Necklace when it’s at home?”

  “Pub in the East End where Tree was a regular. A place where they play Wizards.”

  Gere tried to get his pipe going, sucking in his cheeks, finally tossing the matches on the table and dropping the pipe back in his pocket, bowl upwards. “I guess he could have done. It looks like somebody meant to draw the Horndean wood. There’s the stream, and the church. . . . ” He pointed. “But what always puzzled us was how he nicked that emerald in the first place. There wouldn’t have been time to get out and secrete it anywhere. And it wasn’t on him. I searched the bastard. That could be Spoke Rock, right there.” Again he pointed to the map, to the Black Bear’s Cave.

  “There must have been someone, an accomplice, or at least someone who knew Tree had that emerald.”

  Peter Gere looked upset at Jury’s implicating one of the villagers. “That’s eyewash. Although Derek Bodenheim might just be low enough—”

  “I don’t think it’s eyewash, Peter. Katie’s in hospital and Cora Binns is dead.”

  EIGHTEEN

  I

  THE graveyard looked very gay. Balloons had loosened from their moorings in the field beyond to float and bob in the breeze across the old graves. A gentleman in a clerical collar, whom Melrose presumed to be the Reverend Finsbury, was standing with his hands behind his back looking pleased with himself. Sylvia Bodenhei
m, who had come along a while ago to argue with Emily about the horse, was now arguing with a young man, one of the workers with uprolled shirt-sleeves, about the setting up of the coconut shy.

  The fête was scheduled to begin at noon, and Melrose saw off to his left that the fun-seekers were already paying their fifty-pence admittance fee to Sir Miles, who then herded them through the gate with full instructions as to how they were to disport themselves. His other aim was to make sure they did not stray from the public path and onto the adjoining grounds of Rookswood.

  Melrose could not actually hear whatever exchanges he was having with those whose fun he sought to spoil even before they started having it; he merely deduced this from the elder Bodenheim’s waving about of his walking stick. Still they paid up and were allowed to enter the grounds made more holy by virtue of his standing in them.

  Already the spirited cries of what Melrose knew would be entirely too many children were reaching his ears, children who would soon be advancing upon the small plot Emily had staked out for horse and carriage, the side just at the edge of the Horndean wood. Melrose was here supplying unasked-for (and, she had made it crystal clear, undesired) aid to Emily Louise, who was readying horse and carriage for what Sylvia Bodenheim insisted on calling the “phaeton ride,” although it was a closed carriage. Some few minutes had already been given over to haggling between Emily Louise and Sylvia over the loss of the ribbon from the mare’s golden mane. Emily denied ever having such a ribbon. After Sylvia beat a retreat up the grass, Emily and Melrose continued their job of decorating the phaeton, Emily losing no opportunity to tell him he was getting all the bows and loops wrong. The carriage was an impressive, if funereal ebony, its high doors outlined in gilt and looped about with golden ribbon. All in all, it was quite a sight, fit for a royal wedding or funeral. The golden ribbon almost matched the elegant horse that had been entrusted into Emily’s hands by the farmer whose pride and joy it was.