Manna from Hades

by Carola Dunn

  “Where?”

  “In the stockroom. It’s a sheet of heavy glass supported by brass dolphins. Four of them, I think.”

  “There is no glass table in the stockroom.”

  “We moved it, Inspector,” Jocelyn said apologetically. “It was a terrible hazard where it was, obviously, since both Nicholas and I tripped over it.”

  “Where did you move it to?” Scumble spoke with a terrible patience.

  “Into the shop.”

  “When?”

  “This morning.”

  “This morning. After the murder.”

  “Before we found the body,” Eleanor mentioned hopefully.

  “No one could possibly have used it as a weapon,” said Nick. “It’s frightfully heavy. One person couldn’t lift it, let alone swing it at someone’s head.”

  “Frightfully heavy, is it? How do you know?”

  “I helped move it. Twice. Last night I walked into it when I was helping to unload the Incorr—Mrs Trewynn’s car. Donna and I—that’s the lass from the Trelawney Arms—we shoved it out of the way.”

  “Which is why I fell over it,” said Jocelyn. “It wasn’t where I expected it to be. We asked Nick to help us carry it into the shop.”

  “So, Mr Gresham, you were in the stockroom and shop this morning?”

  “Yes. I didn’t spot the body, though.”

  “That was before I found it, and Nick didn’t go anywhere near it,” Eleanor assured the inspector.

  The look he gave her suggested he had no faith in her memory whatsoever. “But his fingerprints—all of your fingerprints—will be on the table.”

  “Oh no, Inspector,” said Jocelyn, affronted. “I polished it thoroughly.”

  “You polished it. The brass as well as the glass, I suppose.”

  “Certainly. Eleanor’s dog was sniffing around it, so it had nose prints as well as fingerprints and dust all over the place.”

  “The dog was interested in it, was he?”

  “She,” said Eleanor.

  “I beg your pardon, madam,” Scumble said with heavy sarcasm, “she. How is it that none of you, not one of you, thought to mention either the dog’s interest in the table or this exercise in furniture removal to me or my officers?”

  Eleanor, Jocelyn, and Nick looked at one another. Nick shrugged.

  “It never crossed our minds,” said Eleanor. “I forgot about it entirely. When your mind is on murder, you don’t think about tables.”

  “The police do.” The inspector let his statement stand for a moment. Then he went on, “I’ll have to ask you all to come down to the shop now and show me where the table was before it was ‘shoved’ aside, and where it was shoved to. We’ll be taking it away.”

  “Thank heaven for small mercies,” said Jocelyn, then looked appalled at her own words. “I’ll tell Timothy we’re going out,” she added hurriedly, and made for the den.

  Resigned patience emanated from Scumble as he stood waiting for Jocelyn’s reappearance and for her and Eleanor to get their jackets.

  Nick said to him, “I don’t see what the table has to do with anything. Only a circus strong-man could have used it as a weapon.”

  “You let us worry about that, sir,” the inspector advised, almost benignly.

  He was suddenly so mellow that Eleanor suspected finding out about the table’s peregrination had suggested an answer to a worrisome problem. Pehaps the dolphins’ tails had left odd marks on the floor that the police had been unable to account for. As they all started down the hill, she mentioned the possibility to Jocelyn.

  “No discussion, please!” Scumble snapped. “I want your unbiased recollections.”

  “I was just—”

  “If you’ll kindly refrain from chattering, Mrs Trewynn, then I won’t have to trouble myself as to whether you’re discussing the table or the weather.”

  So much for the mellowing she thought she had detected. His words were not particularly harsh—though “chattering” was a trifle unkind—but his tone of voice was decidedly acerbic.

  After years of dealing constantly with people to whom English was a second language, or third or fourth, Eleanor was very conscious of the power of tone of voice to turn a successful negotiation into a disaster. She wondered whether the police were taught about such things or had to muddle along in hit-or-miss fashion. She was going to ask Megan, who came back to join her and Jocelyn, but stopped herself just in time not to call down Scumble’s wrath upon her head again. They walked on in silence.

  A uniformed constable still stood guard on the pavement in front of the shop.

  The inspector took Nick into the stockroom first, leaving the women in the hall. He shut the door, so they heard only a mutter of voices and the thud of footsteps.

  “I can’t see that the table has anything to do with anything,” Jocelyn said crossly, though in a low voice. “What is he on about, Megan?”

  “He hasn’t told me,” Megan responded.

  “You mustn’t ask her, Joce. If she knew, she shouldn’t tell you.” All the same, Eleanor was pretty sure her niece had a good idea of what was in Scumble’s mind. She was much too tired to try to work it out for herself. She sat down on the stairs.

  “Are you all right, Aunt Nell?”

  “Just a bit weary, dear. It’s not very late, I know, but it feels as if it’s been a very long day. I’m more than ready for bed.”

  “You shall have a hot water bottle,” Jocelyn promised, “and cocoa if you fancy it. Timothy will take Teazle out for her last walkie.”

  “Mrs Stearns.” Nick came out of the stockroom. “The dentist—the inspector, that is—will see you now,” he announced.

  Jocelyn went in, with much the bearing of one bracing herself to enter the dentist’s lair. The door closed behind her.

  “Am I permitted to leave now, Detective Sergeant Pencarrow?” Nick asked.

  “You’re free to go anytime,” Megan said uncertainly, “but I expect Mr Scumble would prefer you to stay in case he has any more questions for you.”

  “Free to go, but your departure will be noted down and may be used in evidence against you. It’s all right, I was going to keep Eleanor company anyway. Does your boss actually suspect any of the three of us of complicity in that wretched youth’s demise?”

  “I don’t think so. If he did, seriously, he ought to take me off the case, because I know all of you—”

  “You don’t know me very well. So it could be just me he suspects.”

  “Stop teasing, Nick,” Eleanor said severely. “It’s not something to joke about.”

  “He’d jump at any excuse to take me off the case, so I’m pretty sure you’re none of you under suspicion. Not of the murder, at least, and he’d have a hard time proving you deliberately failed to tell him about moving the table. But don’t take my word for it. He hasn’t told me—”

  “Eleanor, your turn.” Jocelyn stalked out of the stockroom. As Eleanor went in, she heard Jocelyn behind her saying, “That man had the nerve to—” The closing door cut off her indignant voice.

  “All right, Mrs Trewynn, let’s hear your version of the wanderings of this infernal table.”

  Eleanor turned to point to a space to the left of the door, which from her present perspective opened inward to the right. “It started out there. It was well out of the way of anyone working in here, but directly in the path of anyone carrying stuff in from outside towards the back of the room. Nick had a big box of books in his arms, blocking his view, so it’s not surprising he walked into it.”

  “Mmph. And then?”

  “He and Donna half-carried, half-dragged it over there. I should have realised it would be in the way of anyone coming through from the shop. Jocelyn could hardly have avoided it. I went to fetch Nick to help carry it into the shop.”

  “So you didn’t see Mrs Stearns polishing it?”

  “She was finishing off the dolphins when I got back. She must have done the glass first. She’d cleared a space for it
in the shop, too, but then she’s a very efficient person, and Nick had to wash paint off his hands before he could come.”

  “How long were you gone?”

  “Good heavens, I haven’t the faintest idea. I hadn’t any reason to note the time, and I’m afraid I often forget to wind my watch anyway, since I retired.”

  “How is it that you remember so clearly where the table was?”

  “Two of my friends hurt themselves on it. Of course I remember!”

  Scumble sighed. “Thank you. That’ll be all for tonight, then.”

  “There’s just one thing I ought to—”

  “Can it wait till the morning, Mrs Trewynn? Even the police have to eat and sleep sometimes, you know.”

  Eleanor considered. The tale of the briefcase and its contents was a complicated story that would take some time to relate. It was already overdue, so surely it could no longer be classified as urgent, and another few hours wouldn’t make any difference. Also—the thought flashed across her mind—tomorrow morning she’d be able to blame at least some of the delay on Scumble himself.

  Suppose it was important? But tired as she was, she simply couldn’t face trying to explain tonight to the equally tired and impatient inspector. She’d only make a mess of it. “First thing in the morning,” she compromised.

  “I’ll have someone at the vicarage at eight. If that’s not too early?” he asked with a touch of malice.

  “I’ll be ready. Good night, Inspector. Sleep well.”

  He ushered her out into the passage. “You’re free to leave,” he growled. “You’d better escort the ladies up the hill, Sergeant.”

  “That’s all right,” said Nick, “I’ll see them home. Now that we’ve all told you where we think the table was, it can’t matter if we compare notes.”

  “True. But make sure you see them right into the house. Don’t forget, there’s a murderer on the loose, and Mrs Trewynn is the nearest thing we have to a witness.”

  As they started up the hill, Eleanor shivered. “I wish he hadn’t said that.”

  Scumble beckoned Megan into the stockroom and indicated where the table had started, where it had paused on its journey, and where it ended up, in the corner of the shop.

  “We’re never going to get that into the car,” she said.

  “Not a hope. But never mind that for the moment. What do you think happened?”

  Megan returned to the stockroom and contemplated the table’s intermediate position. The inspector stood in the doorway and contemplated Megan, his expression sardonic.

  “You said there were bruises on his arms, sir? And his chin?”

  “The one on his chin is several days old. He seems to have collided with someone’s fist. The others—looks as if someone gripped his upper arms, hard, very shortly before death.”

  “And the marks on his head are more or less the shape of those porpoises. The edge of the glass could have caused that straight line, couldn’t it?”

  “Very likely.”

  “And there was something there that interested Teazle. It’s a pity Mrs Stearns is such a fanatical cleaner.”

  “Makes it more difficult, but if his head hit the table there’ll be traces left in the crack between the beast and the glass. He didn’t bleed much, because he died almost at once, but there would have been some blood. The murderer must have done a bit of a clean-up job or Mrs Stearns could hardly have helped noticing more than a few smudges from the dog’s nose.”

  “But would it be possible to break someone’s neck by bashing his head against a stationary object?”

  “Possible,” Scumble said, almost approvingly, “but it would take quite a bit of force.”

  “So we’re looking for someone pretty hefty.”

  “Or desperate.”

  “Is that all we know about him?”

  “So far.”

  “That’s not much help, is it, sir?”

  “No help at all until we know who the victim was. We’ve got a halfway presentable photo now. You can take it to show to all the neighbours tomorrow, and if there’s no bites, we’ll go to Missing Persons and the Criminal Records Office. Let’s hope we don’t have to release it to the press. “

  “I was thinking, sir—”

  “Don’t overdo it,” said Scumble with heavy irony, “you don’t want to do yourself a mischief.”

  In the face of this encouragement, Megan held her tongue.

  “Come on, how can I tell if it’s worth hearing till I hear it?”

  “I just wondered, seeing the way the victim was dressed, if they might have broken in looking for clothes, or even for shelter, as much as valuables.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “But it doesn’t actually get us any further.”

  “No. I still have to put a couple of men on to watch the place in case they come back to search for something we don’t know about, or something they’ve taken it into their drug-hazed minds is here, or—”

  “They?”

  “We have no reason to believe there were only two of them.”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  “I can’t see a dozen crowding in here without leaving traces, but there could easily have been three of them, four at a pinch. Now go and radio for a van to fetch away the table. I’m going to poke about in here a bit more.”

  Megan went out to the car to call the Bodmin nick. Someone strong and desperate, she thought in dismay, and perhaps more than one. What if they decided Aunt Nell might be able to identify them? What if they had been watching and seen her go off with the vicar’s wife?

  If the DI didn’t post a man to keep obbo on the vicarage, Megan intended to propose that he should, no matter how much scorn the suggestion drew down on her head.

  NINE

  The sun had cleared the hills surrounding Port Mabyn and shone through spotless windows into the vicarage kitchen. Eleanor and the Stearns were just finishing breakfast when the doorbell rang, at eight o’clock on the dot.

  “I’ll get it,” said Eleanor, putting down her coffee mug, blue and white striped Cornish pottery like the rest of the breakfast service. So like dear Joce to have a matching set, though she’d had to collect it piece by piece from the LonStar shop. “It’ll be whoever Inspector Scumble sent—I do hope it’s Megan.”

  Megan it was. She followed Eleanor into the kitchen.

  The Vicar unfolded. “Good morning, my dear young lady. You want to talk to Jocelyn and Eleanor, I know, so I’ll make myself scarce.”

  “No, please stay a moment, sir. I’ve got a photo of the victim I’m showing everyone. We still don’t know who he was.”

  “Is it . . . is it very unpleasant?”

  “No, no, they cleaned him up. Here.”

  He took it between thumb and forefinger and peered at it. “No,” he said, with obvious relief. “Never seen him in my life. Here, Jocelyn, what about you?” He handed the photo to his wife and sidled out of the room.

  Eleanor looked over Jocelyn’s shoulder. The thin face was young, but not too young to be badly in need of a shave. The dark, fuzzy stubble softened but didn’t conceal a bruise on the right side of his jawbone, an inch or two up from the point of his chin. The long hair had been combed but still gave an impression of uncleanness.

  “No, I’ve never seen him before,” said Jocelyn, handing the photo to Eleanor. “Do sit down, Megan. Coffee?”

  However hard Eleanor tried to be charitable, tried to make allowances for the changes wrought by death, she thought the youth looked shifty, even unsavoury. Was it just because he had been found in unsavoury circumstances in the room below her flat? If his eyes were open, his expression full of life, would she feel different about him?

  “Do you recognise him, Aunt Nell?”

  “No, dear, I’m afraid not. I can’t help wondering about his parents. Not knowing what’s become of him, I mean.”

  “Sometimes ignorance is bliss,” said Jocelyn. “I expect you’ll identify him sooner or later, won’t you, M
egan? That’s when his family will need sympathy.”

  “We’re pretty well bound to find out sooner or later, one way or another. Then we’ll start tracking down his associates.” Megan put the photo in an envelope and stuck it in her pocket. “It’s still a mystery what he was doing in the LonStar premises in the first place. Aunt Nell, the DI said there’s something you were going to tell him last night?”

  Jocelyn stood up. “Well, I’ll just leave you two to it—”

  Eleanor caught her arm. “Don’t desert me, Joce.”

  “I never saw them, after all. And it’s Megan you’re facing, not that man.”

  “Them?” asked Megan. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s nothing but hearsay as far as I’m concerned,” said Jocelyn firmly. “Leave the washing-up. I’ll do it later.” She hurried out.

  “Aunt Nell?”

  “I tried to tell him last night.”

  “But?”

  “But I should have told him sooner. He’ll never believe I just kept forgetting.”

  “He’ll believe it,” Megan said with absolute conviction. “Come on, let’s do the washing-up while you tell me. You wash and I’ll dry, in case I have to write anything down.”

  “You will,” said Eleanor gloomily. “I don’t know what it all means, but I can’t believe it has nothing to do with the murder.” She started running hot water into the sink, adding a good squirt of Sqezy, the Washing-up Wizard. “That would be just too much coincidence to swallow.”

  “For pity’s sake, Aunt Nell, spit it out!”

  “What a very ungenteel expression! All right, all right. I’ll ‘spit it out.’ It wasn’t until I got back to the shop that I found it.” She handed over a cup to be dried. “When I started unloading the Incorruptible, there it was, and I simply had no idea who had given it to me.”

  “It? You were talking about ‘them.’ ”

  “The container and the thing contained,” said Eleanor, with vague memories of English lessons and Nick’s earlier remark. “Things, rather. The briefcase I mean, dear, or perhaps attaché-case is the correct term. It’s one of those thingummies businessmen carry, but not the flat, soft-sided kind, more like a small suitcase, if you see what I mean. But thin, a couple of inches I’d say.” She gestured to show the overall dimensions—perhaps two feet by eighteen inches—and soapsuds flew. “Quite heavy for its size.”