The Dirty Duck

by Martha Grimes

  As Sir George went on to report Racer’s comments, Jury simply tuned him out, having heard Racer’s comments so many times before.

  Sir George seemed satisfied with having made it crystal clear that the Warwickshire constabulary could still take care of its own manor. Only then did he give Jury a reluctant nod. “He says you’re to make sure you ring him.”

  “Very well.” Jury was not to move an inch without instructions from Chief Superintendent Racer. He would certainly make it a point to call him one of these days.

  Glumly, Sir George said, “Of course, there’s a connection between this woman’s being murdered and this boy. Got to be.”

  Jury silently agreed.

  “Who else was on this bloody tour? And who runs it?”

  Lasko leafed through the notebook lying on his desk. “Man named Valentine Honeycutt is the director—”

  “Good God, these Americans do trick themselves out with florid names.”

  “He’s not American,” said Lasko. “He’s British.”

  Sir George grunted. “Anyway. You talk to him?”

  Without even exchanging a glance with Jury, Lasko nodded, and explained the operation of Honeysuckle Tours to his chief superintendent.

  “What about the others?”

  “Besides the Farraday family—there’re five of them—a Lady Dew and her niece, and a George Cholmondeley—”

  “Don’t tell me they’re Americans.”

  “No. Lady Dew and her niece have been living in Florida—”

  “That’s where the Bracegirdle person was from.”

  “Sarasota’s not Tampa.”

  Again, Sir George grunted. “That the lot?”

  “Then there’s a Harvey L. Schoenberg.” Lasko closed his notebook. “He was the one who seemed most friendly with the Farraday boy, but says he hasn’t seem him for days. And none of them were particularly friendly with Bracegirdle, that I can tell.”

  “No evidence turned up so far.” Sir George’s heavy sigh made it sound as if the body of Gwendolyn Bracegirdle had been found two weeks ago, rather than twenty-four hours. “Except this.” He picked up the theatre program. “What on earth could the murderer have meant by this?”

  Beauty is but a flower

  That wrinkles will devour.

  Sir George shook his head. “What is it?”

  “A poem,” said Lasko, wiping his nose with a large handkerchief.

  Sir George turned a cold, cut-glass blue gaze on Detective Sergeant Lasko. “I know it’s a poem, damnit. My question is, what poem and why?”

  Lasko shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “I don’t like it. It looks like a message. I don’t like messages to the police.”

  Neither did Jury. That piece of paper made his blood run cold, because it was a signature—just the sort of little loveletter psychopaths like Jack the Ripper enjoyed writing to police.

  The trouble was, such murderers seldom stopped with signing their names only once.

  12

  Cyclamen Dew had about her that sham-supernal, self-deprecating air of one who, not born to sainthood, had gone out to get it.

  Seated next to her aunt, the Dowager Lady Violet Dew, in the bar of the Hathaway Hotel, Cyclamen Dew (an unappealing, angular woman) had been putting Melrose in the picture—a large tableau filled with separate scenes of anguish, disaster, missed opportunities, and dreams turned to dust, as the result of having been in constant attendance to Aunt.

  Lady Violet was a silent, glaring old lady who sat hunched in her chair during this lengthy recital, wheezing in her lace and locket and black lawn dress.

  “So as you see,” said the niece Cyclamen, with her hundredth sad little shrug, “you take us as you find us.”

  Melrose knew no other way to take anybody, and hoped her statement was a wind-up so he could introduce his own topic. But apparently not. Cyclamen was merely changing gears.

  Another huge intake of breath and she continued: “One small dream of mine was always to have gone into service—”

  “You wished to be a waiting-maid . . . ?” asked Melrose innocently.

  She fairly tinkled with laughter. “Oh, my dear man, no! I mean, of course, the Holy Sisterhood. But as you see . . .” A small wave toward the Dowager Lady Dew, who kept her own black button eyes riveted on Melrose. And then Cyclamen perhaps bethought herself, or perhaps thought of her aunt’s rather considerable fortune, and changed her tune. “But, then, of course, could there be a Higher Calling than what I am doing for Aunt?”

  Aunt made the only sensible reply, Melrose thought, that a person could: “Get me a gin.”

  “Now, Auntie Violet, you know what Dr. Sackville says about that! You are not to touch spirits. A nice cup of tea, now—”

  The ebony stick banged smartly against the table leg. “I don’t give a good goddamn what that lecherous old fart says—” Here she turned to Melrose. “—he’s laid every woman in Tampa—” And to Cyclamen: “I said a gin. Make it a double.”

  Melrose started to rise with the intention of getting the drink, but Lady Dew fanned him back to his seat. “Never mind; she’ll get it. What’s your business here, young man?”

  Cyclamen knew when she was licked and, blushing, headed to the bar. Melrose was a bit surprised that she didn’t make the journey on her hands and knees.

  “I’m making a few inquiries for the police. No, I’m not police, but Superintendent Jury of Scotland Yard asked me to come here.”

  Her heavy black brow, beneath tendrils of gray hair, furrowed. Her dentureless gums receded like a dent between the hooked nose and protruding chin. Lady Dew seemed in an imminent state of collapse, physically. Mentally was another story. “If somebody’s gone and killed that tart Amelia Farraday, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

  Melrose was. “You mean you’ve some reason to suspect that somebody on your tour is in danger?”

  “You just said police, didn’t you?”

  “Ah . . . yes. But, actually, it’s to do with a Gwendolyn Bracegirdle—”

  “That dope. What’s she been up to? Can’t imagine she’s been in on the old slap-and-tickle, not with her shape. That Amelia, now—”

  Cyclamen was back, glass in hand. “Really, Aunt, you mustn’t go saying things about—”

  “Oh, put a sock in it. Say what I like. I buried three husbands; lost and made two fortunes; got arrested five times; tried to climb Nelson’s pillar and danced stark on the grass outside the Crystal Palace; fornicated with most of the princes of Europe—”

  Cyclamen shut her eyes. “Don’t excite yourself, Aunt.”

  “I only wish I could. So what’s all this about the Bracegirdle person?” she asked, drinking off half of her gin neat.

  “Gwendolyn?” asked Cyclamen, eyebrows shooting up. “What about her?”

  “I was just telling Lady Dew. Miss Bracegirdle has met with an . . . accident. Rather serious. She’s dead.”

  Although Lady Dew did not seem too perturbed, Cyclamen was irritatingly aflutter, asking all sorts of broken questions which Melrose finally had to cut across. “No. It was murder.”

  That rather delighted the old woman who seemed to take her excitement like her gin, neat; but the younger one did a fair imitation of a Camille-like swoon.

  “Oh, stop it, Cyclamen. If the woman’s dead, she’s dead.” Then she turned to Melrose with fresh interest. “Sex crime, was it?”

  “The police are not sure.”

  “Well, I could tell them. Wasn’t any of that with old Gwendolyn. She wouldn’t know it if it walked straight up to her and barked. Believe me, I can tell.”

  When she leaned closer and dropped her arthritic and beringed little hand on Melrose’s knee, he got it off by offering her a cigarette. While Cyclamen reminded her of Dr. Sackville’s instructions regarding smoking, Lady Dew lit up.

  “What can you tell me about the rest of the people on this tour?” asked Melrose, sliding his chair out of reach.

  “Nothing.”

 
“Plenty.”

  “Really, Auntie—”

  “Shut up.”

  “But common gossip!”

  “So what?” Had the bullet-spray of these responses been actual ammunition, Melrose would have died where he sat.

  Smoking and wheezing, the old lady inched her chair toward Melrose. “You’ve seen that Farraday crowd. That Amelia’s twenty years younger than him if she’s a day. Obvious why he married her.” Lady Dew drew a shape in air. “Daughter’s just as tarty as the mother. It was quite a scene in Amsterdam, both of them rubbing up against that Cholmondeley person—you met him?”

  Cyclamen wore her Patience-on-a-monument expression as she dropped her hand over her aunt’s clawlike fingers. It was quickly shaken off.

  “Don’t look so innocent, Cyclamen, with what you were getting up to—”

  “That’s a lie!” the niece fairly bellowed, reacting appropriately for the first time. Her raised voice had caused the few other customers in the dark bar to turn. She then rose from her chair, announced that she had a dreadful headache, and marched off, presumably to her room.

  “Hell it is,” said Lady Dew, fanning herself briskly as she watched the niece go. Melrose wondered if the old lady’s goading wasn’t in direct proportion to the young one’s martyred acceptance of it. “Buy me another gin and I’ll tell you the works,” she said happily.

  “With pleasure,” said Melrose.

  • • •

  “Cholmondeley and the Farraday woman were absolutely glued together. Saw them with my own eyes out on the terrace of that hotel in Amsterdam some of us were staying in.” Lady Dew was clearly enjoying the story as much as the gin, which Melrose had set before her. “Amelia Farraday went on and on about how she’d been an actress when she met him. Let me tell you, that one never saw the inside of a theatre dressed in anything but feathers and fans.” Her own black fan went faster and faster as the gossip got hotter.

  “Vertically or horizontally?”

  The fan stopped. “What?”

  Melrose smiled. “You said you saw them ‘glued together.’ I was only wondering—”

  Lady Dew snickered, snapped her fan shut, and hit him on the knee. “You’re my kind of person. Ever cheat on your wife?” she asked, lowering her voice.

  “I can’t do. I’m not married.” As her beady eyes sparkled, he reverted to the other topic: “Were you implying that your niece was interested in Mr. Cholmondeley? She seems much too—spiritual.”

  She flashed him a dark and bladelike smile. “Don’t be a damned fool. Her? She’s—” She changed the subject. “But that Farraday’s no fool,” she said, continuing with her story. “Made a fortune in coal. Strip mining. He knows some racy stories, I’ll give him that. Limericks especially. I collect them. Know any?”

  Melrose wondered if it were possible to keep the woman’s mind on murder. “A few. But much too mild for you, I’d wager.”

  “Try me.” The cavernous mouth collapsed and recollapsed in her version of a salacious sort of smile. “You know, you ought to come to Florida, young man. Get a bit of tan in those rosy English cheeks of yours.”

  “Unfortunately, I burn. Lady Dew—”

  “Not to worry. We could go round the tracks. I could teach you my betting system. We could dump old Cyclamen, have a crackerjack time.” She slapped his knee. “Don’t think I can’t move it. I can get to the windows before those bookies can—”

  Melrose interrupted. “There’s nothing I’d like better. But tell me—what about Gwendolyn Bracegirdle?”

  “Colorless wench. All that talk about ‘Mama this’ and ‘Mama that.’ Bracegirdle really had problems.”

  “She must have been especially friendly with some of the others.”

  “ ‘Friendly’ is the word. AC/DC if you ask me.” When Melrose only looked puzzled, she slapped his thigh and said, “You know. Men, women, and maybe the odd animal. She liked that Schoenberg chap with his crazy machine, but he didn’t seem interested. Of course, he’s so busy with his computing he hasn’t time for fooling around. Not a bad egg, just silly. Wears shirts with those little alligators and awful bow ties. Talked a lot to the Farraday boy, James-whatever. The boy’s the only one who can understand him. Me, I couldn’t understand a word of it. Better things to do than fool around with that, ’ey?” She winked.

  “Actually, the Farraday boy’s missing.”

  She shrugged. “Makes no odds. He’s always wandering off. Frankly, I think it’s because he can’t stand the family. Who could blame him? Neither can his sister, that Penny. Oh, he’ll turn up, never fear.”

  “And you can’t think of anyone on the tour, or in Stratford, for that matter, who would wish Miss Bracegirdle dead?”

  “Heavens, no. She was harmless enough, I suppose. Of course, I don’t know what she’s been getting up to in Stratford. Haven’t seen the woman for two or three days. That’s one thing I like about this tour. We can pretty much go our own way, no one the wiser.” Here she winked at Melrose.

  . . . Who hastily rose, collecting his cigarette case and stick. Lady Dew and murder did not seem at all convivial. He felt the need of a little talk with Jack the Ripper. “Thank you for your time, Lady Dew.”

  “Call me Vi—oh, hell’s bells, here she comes, the Lady with the Lamp.”

  Cyclamen, headache better, was crossing the room, looking horribly determined. “Din-dins, Aunt Violet,” she fluted.

  “Get me a gin.”

  With a gracious farewell, Melrose left where he’d come in.

  13

  Jury found George Cholmondeley in the Welcombe Hotel’s dining room, his corner table bathed in a gauze of light streaming through the high window behind him.

  “Mr. Cholmondeley?”

  The handsome man looked up at Jury.

  “Superintendent Jury, Scotland Yard CID. Could I have a word with you?”

  Cholmondeley smiled a little coldly and indicated the chair across from him. “I expect if I said no, you’d turn right around and go away.”

  Jury returned the smile with a genuine one of his own. “But you’re not going to say no, are you? Sergeant Lasko has already talked to you.”

  Cholmondeley nodded. “Care for something? Coffee? Tea?” he asked quite civilly. Dressed in an Italian silk suit, a watery taupe shade that matched his eyes. Cholmondeley was a very handsome man. The fair coloring, the artistically thin fingers now engaged in boning a trout, the languid air which was vaguely decadent—all of this would appeal to women. Iced in a bucket beside him was a Château Haut-Brion.

  The man was clearly not a middle-class clerk who had to save up for a year for a two-week holiday in the summer.

  Jury said no to the coffee and tea, and to the wine, when Cholmondeley raised the bottle to replenish his own glass. “How well did you know Gwendolyn Bracegirdle, Mr. Cholmondeley?”

  “Hardly at all. Certainly I was distressed to hear what had happened to her, though.” The distress did not seem to affect his appetite. He ate the fish with considerable relish.

  “What were her relations with the other members of your group?”

  Cholmondeley looked up, vaguely puzzled. “Well, I couldn’t say. She spent quite a lot of time with the Dew woman. The younger one, that is.” He broke off a bit of roll, dabbed it with butter. “Why do you want to know that?”

  Jury shrugged. He did not want to put Cholmondeley on his guard any more than he might already be. “Well, we’ve got to start somewhere.”

  Cholmondeley frowned. “Then why not start with the seamier side of Stratford underlife? The Most Wanted list? Why start with Honeysuckle Tours? And, incidentally, why Scotland Yard? I should think Warwickshire has an adequate constabulary.”

  “It’s got a very good one. But to answer your questions. Stratford hasn’t much of a seamy side. Of course, we’re checking all possible sources—but one is inclined to believe that murderers are usually close to home.”

  Perhaps, but we’re none of us home, are we?” Cholmondeley p
olished off his fish, took out a cigarette case. “What I mean is, I’m surprised you would think—as you apparently do—one of us had something to do with it.”

  Lasko must have made more of an impression than, perhaps, was good. “It’s early days for us to be thinking much of anything, Mr. Cholmondeley—”

  Cholmondeley gave him a sharp glance that said he didn’t believe a word of this as he lit his cigarette and then leaned back, apparently all at ease.

  “—but surely the members of a group with whom Miss Bracegirdle had been at pretty close quarters for a month could throw some light on her character, personality, habits, friends . . . ?” said Jury.

  “Not I. I barely passed the time of day with the woman.” And he gazed off through the light-saturated window as if the only thing either of them had on their minds was a stroll through the hotel’s gardens.

  “Who did you pass the time with, then?” asked Jury pleasantly. “Mrs. Farraday, maybe?”

  That got just the reaction Jury wanted: massive annoyance. The man had been too glib, too unconcerned up to now, and consequently, too confident. “I beg your pardon? And who’s been saying that?”

  The arrow must have struck home. Otherwise, Cholmondeley wouldn’t have assumed that anyone had been saying “that.” Having seen Amelia Farraday, it would be hard to believe Cholmondeley wouldn’t have had some attraction for her and she for him. A little tour romance, when Farraday was looking the other way. Jury smiled. “No one, really. It’s just that Mrs. Farraday is a very attractive woman.”

  “Also a very married one.”

  “Does that mean anything these days?”

  Cholmondeley did not answer, just kept looking, turned to one side, out the window.

  Jury dropped the subject of that possible liaison. “Did anyone on the tour appear to dislike Miss Bracegirdle?”

  “Not to my knowledge. To me she wasn’t the sort one likes or dislikes, really. I found her a bit too . . . effervescent. You know. Too much talk, too many bubbles.”