Help the Poor Struggler

by Martha Grimes

  • • •

  Macalvie looked over the lot of them. Victoria Gray was sitting patiently enough on the couch facing the girl. The older one was the cook and she wrung her hands. Then there was the rich pastry of a piece named Plunkett. Their backdrop, the drawing room itself, was heavy velvet and brocade, portraits and gilt. No one was hurting for money.

  “This,” said DI Browne, “is Lady Jessica Mary Allan-Ashcroft.”

  • • •

  On facing sofas, Chief Superintendent Macalvie and Jessica Allan-Ashcroft squared off. Jury sat in a heavy brocade chair and Wiggins in a straight one by the fire.

  “You can call me Jessica,” she said, with extreme largesse.

  “Thanks.” Macalvie glared at her, took out a pack of gum, and stuffed a stick in his mouth.

  “Can I have some?”

  Jury was glad to see Macalvie managed to keep from throwing it at her.

  They both sat there, taking each other’s measure, chewing away.

  “Start talking,” said Macalvie.

  “My uncle’s missing.”

  That statement seemed to bring housekeeper, cook, and governess to the edge of hysteria. Victoria Gray, the most controlled, stepped back from it and said to Macalvie, “Robert Ashcroft. Her uncle. He left several days ago, probably for London, but she’s convinced he’s missing. It’s ridiculous; Mr. Ashcroft goes to London now and again.”

  Macalvie’s eyes snapped from Victoria back to Jessica. He chewed and stared. “You know, there’s kind of a difference between an uncle going missing and a friendly call from an ax-murderer. That occur to you?”

  Jury broke in. “What makes you think he’s missing, Jessica?”

  “Because he didn’t leave a note and he didn’t leave a Valentine present.”

  “For a box of candy,” said Macalvie, “you got half the Devon-Cornwall constabulary running across this godforsaken, bloody moor with some cock-and-bull story about a murderer. You know that, don’t you?”

  To that deadly voice, Jessie sighed and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry.”

  She smoothed the skirt of her nightdress, folded her hands, and said gravely, “Yes. I’m sorry you’re so disappointed that there wasn’t a lot of blood and torn-up bodies and we weren’t all murdered, including Henry.” She took out her gum, inspected the pink wad, and put it back in her mouth.

  Macalvie’s eyes were like lasers. He opened his mouth but was interrupted.

  “Don’t forget about that man that got out of Dartmoor.” As if police weren’t keeping abreast of the news, she handed Macalvie a neatly folded paper. It contained the clipping that Drucilla had read earlier.

  Macalvie tossed the paper aside, angrily. “That man was released on good behavior. Your behavior I’m not so sure I could say the same about. Not only the Devon-Cornwall police, but the person sitting over there” — and he nodded in Jury’s direction — “just happens to be a Scotland Yard CID superintendent.”

  “Then why isn’t he asking the questions?” Jessica directed her attention to Jury. “My uncle disappeared five days ago, six, counting today.” She was pleased the thin one was making notes of what she said. At least someone was taking her seriously. “He never forgets any holiday and he always lets me know if he has to go somewhere. Besides that, all of his cars are out there.” She pointed in the direction of the stable-yard.

  “What do you mean, ‘all,’ Miss?” asked Wiggins.

  “All nine. The Zimmer, the Porsche, the Lotus Elite, the Mini Cooper — that’s really mine — the Ferrari, the Jaguar XJ-S that goes from zero to sixty in under seven seconds, the 1967 Maserati, and the Aston Martin.” She sat back.

  Wiggins cleared his throat. “That’s only eight, Miss.” He counted with his lips again.

  Jury thought Macalvie was going to belt one of them; he wasn’t sure which.

  Jessica looked for a thoughtful moment at the ceiling. “Did I say the Benz? I don’t like it that much.”

  Wiggins wrote it down. “Your uncle’s a collector, is that it?” He wet the tip of his pencil.

  “Yes. He’s five-feet-eleven with gold hair and light brown eyes.” She looked back at Jury. “He’s handsome. He took me in when my father died four years ago.”

  There was a slight laugh from Victoria Gray: “Wasn’t it more like your taking him in?”

  Jury looked more closely at her: good-looking, eyes heavy-lidded, as if she preferred not to have her thoughts read in her eyes. She seemed embarrassed now, having given voice to one of those thoughts. “Pardon me, but I’d like to get dressed.” She drew the velvet wrapper more closely around her.

  “Go ahead,” said Macalvie. “Except for missing uncles there’s no reason for us to be here.”

  Jessie looked around the room. “You’re not even going to look for him, are you?”

  Jury was impressed with the little girl’s conviction that something was really wrong. Her uncle must be a very dependable person. “We will.”

  Macalvie was standing now, hands in pockets, turning the blowtorch look on Jury. “Isn’t there enough on your platter already?”

  “I just thought I’d ask Lady Jessica a few questions.”

  “Hell, ask away. I’m going down to Freddie’s. Browne can drop me off and you can bring the car along whenever you’re finished fooling around here. Come on, Wiggins. One drink of Freddie’s cider and you’ll never be sick a day in your life. You’ll be paralytic.”

  Wiggins looked at Jury; Jury nodded. It amused him that Wiggins — or the pharmacy Wiggins carried with him — had become indispensable to Macalvie.

  III

  There in the drawing room, Jury listened patiently to the fabrication of faithless loves and deaths from broken hearts attributed to her mother. She had gone to a table on which stood some framed pictures and brought back the one of Barbara Allan Ashcroft. The woman in the picture, even squinting and half-blinded by the sun, Jury could see was herself blindingly beautiful. She might indeed have broken many of the hearts Jessica claimed she had.

  The second picture was of her father: he was an older and more wasted version of the man in the portrait above the fireplace; a grave illness would explain it.

  “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

  “She’s more than pretty. She’s quite beautiful. You look like her, you know.” The woman was probably in her twenties, at any rate she was a good twenty years younger than her husband. Jury could almost believe the tale of woe and heartbreak Jessica had spun. Unfortunately, though, Jessica suffered from the Scheherazade syndrome. Whenever there came a pause in her tale of gloom and doom and Jury made to get up, Jessie would spin out an even richer thread. Scheherazade or Hephaestus — Jury wasn’t sure which. He would start to rise and plunk, the golden net would fall and toss him back once more onto the couch. Her contriving the ax-murderer’s visit was small potatoes, compared with the tragedy of Barbara Allan. If as many suitors had died for love of Jessica’s mother as Jessica would have him believe, the population of London W1, Devon and Chalfont St. Giles would have been considerably diminished. Jessie was careful to assure Jury, however, that her mother would never have deliberately hurt whatever Sweet William happened to be in love with her at a given moment.

  Barbara Ashcroft had died a few months after Jessie was born. When her Uncle Robert had gone off to Australia, Jessie had not yet been born. Victoria Gray (according to Jessie) had come to her mother’s funeral and, being a cousin, had been urged to stay on by her father. There was an old cook who was especially fond of Lady Ashcroft and who had preferred to leave once she was dead. Thus, Mrs. Mulchop had come on the job afterwards. And so had the string of governesses.

  No one in the present household had known Robert Ashcroft before he came back from Australia.

  Jessie went on about her father, her uncle, her other relatives (all of whom were very distant). “After the will was read, they kept coming and calling, until Uncle Rob got rid of them.”

  • �
�� •

  “Do you know who your family solicitor is, Jessie?” asked Jury. They were out in the stableyard now, behind the house, a handsomely converted stableyard.

  “It’s Mr. Mack. Or, at least, he’s one of them. We have —”

  She seemed uncertain as to how much they had. “— trunks full of money. Do you like cars?”

  “How long has he been with the family?”

  She frowned. “Who?”

  “Your solicitor, Mr. Mack.”

  “Forever. Do you like cars?”

  He felt an odd presentiment. Wynchcoombe, Clerihew Marsh, Lyme Regis, Dorchester. Only the last was outside a forty-mile radius. But the Ashcroft place was certainly within it. And she was ten years old.

  “Yes. I like cars,” said Jury.

  • • •

  They had come to the last of the nine — one of Jessie’s favorites — the Lotus Elite. “Nineteen fifty-seven,” she solemnly pronounced. Then she went on to interweave fact and fiction, using expressions like “stroke dimension” and “wishbone front” with all the assurance of an expert.

  It was during this recital that there came a rush of footsteps and raised voices and a man striding across the courtyard toward the old horse-boxes. “Jess! What the devil’s going on?”

  The look on her face made it clear to Jury that Uncle Robert was no longer missing.

  FOURTEEN

  HE would have needed no introduction. The way Jessie hurled herself like a discus into his arms would have told Jury that this was Robert Ashcroft.

  “But I did leave a note,” he was saying as Jury walked up. “I slipped it under your door. Who’s our visitor?” He looked from Jessie to Jury.

  “Scotland Yard.” Jury handed Ashcroft his card, smiling to show his was a friendly visit. “It seems Lady Jessica got a little worried and told police you’d gone missing. The Devon police have been and gone.”

  Ashcroft looked down at his niece, astonished. “Good God, Jess. You called in police —” He looked at Jury and down at Jury’s card. “Scotland Yard? I can’t believe it.”

  “Well, I happened to be working on another case and came along with the divisional commander —”

  Again, amazement was stamped on Ashcroft’s face. “A superintendent and a divisional commander, Jess? Where’s the Prime Minister? You left her out? How in the name of heaven did Jess manage to drag you all out here on a missing person case?”

  Jessica was studying an interesting cloud formation and saying maybe they should go in as it looked like rain. Inspired by another means of changing the subject, she called for Henry. “Where’s Henry? He came out with us. Henry!”

  The sad face of Henry appeared slowly, rising behind the windscreen of the Ferrari.

  “He likes to go for rides,” said Jessie, as she pulled away from her uncle and made Henry clamber down from the car.

  Out of sight, out of mind, thought Jury, smiling. “Sorry about the police intrusion, Mr. Ashcroft. All a mare’s nest. I’ve been working on a case in Dorchester —”

  “I read about it. Terrible.”

  “What’s more terrible is there’ve been two others since then.”

  Ashcroft looked at his niece and went a little white. “Children?”

  Jury nodded.

  Jessica was back with Henry in tow. “One got stuck with a knife and the other one got his head bashed in, or something.” She made a dreadful sound, apparently her version of bashing.

  “It’s nothing to be making light of, Jess,” said her uncle, sharply.

  “I wasn’t. I was just showing you — it happened in the church, too.”

  Ashcroft looked puzzled. “What church?”

  “Over in Wynchcoombe.”

  Her proximity to murder did not seem to faze her, but Ashcroft looked worried enough as he studied Jury’s face for some reassurance. Jury doubted he wanted to go further into details in front of his niece, and said nothing.

  Jessie, however, had garnered plenty of details: “It’s Drucilla who told me. She likes to read me the worst part of the papers. An ax-murderer got out of the prison in Princetown —”

  Jury laughed. “Hold it a minute. The man was released, Jessie. There was even some question whether he’d ever done that — business. And he certainly wasn’t an ‘ax-murderer’; the papers like blood and thunder.”

  Ashcroft was angry, though not at Jury. “Drucilla’s days are numbered. She shouldn’t have been reading you that sort of stuff. And didn’t you get the candy I paid that stupid bloke she runs about with to deliver?”

  “Drucilla said the chocolates were for her! She’s been stuffing them in till she’s bloated.”

  “I’ll see to her. At any rate, I’ve found you a new governess. This one I think will finally do.”

  Jury could almost hear the Oh, no directed toward her uncle. Beseeching eyes. Down-turned mouth. “But you always let me choose before!”

  “I’m sorry, Jess. But they’ve all turned out to be such a bad lot — well, anyway, this time I advertised in the London papers. That’s why I went up to London. You’ll like Sara. I’m sure of it. And if you don’t —” Ashcroft shrugged. “— she goes. Okay? In the meantime, I think you might want to meet her. She’s in the drawing room.”

  Jessie didn’t answer. Her eyes were on the ground.

  “If there are no further questions, Superintendent —?”

  Jury was fascinated by Jessie’s little act. She might have been going to a hanging. “Questions? No, Mr. Ashcroft. No questions.” He looked back toward the boxes that housed not horses but cars. “I was wondering, though, if I could have another look at your collection —”

  “Certainly. Help yourself.”

  Jessie held him back, saying, “That’s another thing. Why didn’t you take one of the cars? Why didn’t you drive?”

  Ashcroft smoothed back her dark hair. “Because there was an advert in the paper about a Rolls; I was sure I’d buy it and drive it back. But it wasn’t what I wanted. And as it turned out, Miss Millar — that’s Sara — had her own car. So we drove back.”

  Looking at Jessie’s face, Jury thought the news couldn’t have been worse. He only hoped, for the niece’s sake, Miss Millar’s car was a beat-up Volkswagen.

  Jessie and Ashcroft walked off, hand in hand. Jury doubted it would take much time for Jessie to sort out the new tutor.

  • • •

  He walked along the courtyard, looking at each of the expensive automobiles in turn: the Ferrari, the Porsche, the Aston Martin, the incredible Zimmer Golden Spirit (he whistled under his breath), the Mercedes-Benz (that probably didn’t get much of a workout), the Jag — there was a fortune here.

  His skin prickled. Jury took out his notebook and wrote down the name of the solicitor, Mack. Robert Ashcroft’s explanation had been plausible enough: note slipped under the door (that Jury bet had been mistakenly tossed out by a maid); chocolates meant to be delivered by surprise — and clearly were, since Miss Plunkett had been eating them . . .

  Yet there was that same reluctance to leave as there was when Jessica had been spinning her stories. He wished he had some legitimate reason for coming back —

  He could suggest to Ashcroft that, with a killer loose nearby, his niece might need police protection. But Robert Ashcroft would hire a personal bodyguard and get a matched set of Alsatians if he thought his niece was a target for a killer.

  Jury was standing in front of Jessie’s car, the Mini Cooper. It might as well have been a police-issue Cortina for all of Jury’s interest in cars.

  But then he smiled and ground his cigarette out on the stone and left.

  V

  The Jack and Hammer

  FIFTEEN

  AN air of somnolence hung over the Jack and Hammer’s saloon bar, an air not altogether owing to the fly droning around the black beams overhead, nor to Mrs. Withersby’s dozing by the fire, nor to the report of the latest takeover bid of another shipyard, which was what Melrose Plant was reading about in t
he Times. Indeed, the only thing moving — and possibly responsible for the general heaviness — was Lady Ardry’s mouth.

  “Gout! That is ridiculous, Melrose.” She addressed the London Times, behind which was the face of her nephew. “It most certainly is not gout!” Now she addressed the painful foot, elastic-bound and supported by the cricket stool that Mrs. Withersby ordinarily claimed for herself. On this occasion, the usual Withersby enterprise had exchanged it for a double gin, compliments of Melrose Plant, the nephew Lady Ardry was now upbraiding. “And if it is gout, you’d have it, not I!”

  He lowered the paper. “I’d have your gout, Agatha? That would be a first in the annals of medicine.”

  “Please do not try to be witty with me, my dear Plant.”

  “That would be difficult.” Melrose turned to the book reviews, having exhausted global conflict.

  “What I meant was, as you perfectly well know, that it’s you who drinks the port, not I.” She raised her glass of shooting sherry, toasting her own powers of deduction.

  Melrose lowered his Times once again and turned his eyes to the beams above, wondering if the fly would fall like a bullet in the vacuum of their conversation. “Gout has many causes, Agatha. Perhaps you have fairy-cake-gout. Who knows but that if you eschew those rich pastries, your foot might become less inflamed, as the condition is not irreversible.” He wondered if life were, though, when talking to his aunt. He continued. “Gout comes from the Latin gutta. It means ‘clot’ or ‘drop.’ Surely, you don’t believe that every old pukka sahib drinking port beneath the palms wound up with gout? Gout is caused by uric acid. Sort of thing you get with too many sardines or smelts or offal. You haven’t been at the offal again, have you?”