“We don’t leave till nine. It’s only quarter to.”
Stone lay down, crossed his paws, rested his muzzle on them.
Jury sighed, shook his head, and pulled over the phone.
Carole-anne’s interest was piqued enough to draw her eyes from the magazine and around to look at Jury. “You making another call?” She frowned.
With an elaborate show of looking round the flat, he said, “Yes, I do believe these are my digs. Right. I’m sure of it. And this is my very own phone.” He patted it fondly.
“Ha ha,” said Carole-anne, returning to her magazine. “Can’t a person even ask? Aren’t we the grumpy one, though.” Then she checked her minuscule wristwatch, slid her legs around, rooted for her shoes with her toes. “Back in a tick. Forgot my perfume. Stay, Stone, and cheer up the grump.”
Jury grunted and as she left, Stone moved over to Jury’s chair and lay down. Cheering up the grump, he supposed as he dialed the Stratford number. One more call to Lasko couldn’t hurt. Lasko practically lived at the station.
It seemed to hurt Lasko, though, who heaved a great sigh when he heard Jury’s voice. “Nothing, Richard. I’ve heard not one thing.”
Jury sat forward, reached down, and scrubbed around Stone’s ears. “Look, Sammy, it doesn’t make sense. Why would he send me that damned fax and then disappear?”
Stone made a few woofy noises and stretched out beneath Jury’s hand.
“He was in Stratford two days ago.”
“Then he went to Exeter,” said Lasko.
“So he was in Exeter two days ago and sent the fax—”
“You’re still right. You were right before.”
“—and then he left Exeter and then went—where? Not back to Northants. Bear with me—”
“I’m bearing. I’ve borne.”
“We’re missing something—”
“Dinner, that’s what I’m missing, I don’t know about you. It’s bloody nine o’clock, Richard, and I’m starved.”
“You and Plant were at Lady Kennington’s.”
Sammy Lasko sighed. “Uh-huh.”
“Look, he must have seen something.”
“Well, if he did he didn’t share the sight with yours truly.”
“What was he doing?”
“Doing?”
“He must have been doing something while you were conducting your illegal search of the premises.”
“Very funny. Mr. Plant was sitting. Reading the paper or doing the crossword.”
“No.”
“No? All right, if you say so. You weren’t there, of course—”
“What paper?”
“Hell, I don’t know what paper. He asked me if it was a Stratford paper.”
Jury sat forward, interested. “Why would he ask that?”
“How do I know. He’s your friend, not mine.”
“It’s a funny question.”
“Hysterical.”
“Was it?”
Lasko must have turned from the phone. Jury heard paper rattling. “Was what what?”
Jury sighed. “Pay attention. A local paper?”
“How in hell should I—no, it wasn’t—oh, and later he asked me where he could buy a paper.”
“Maybe he saw something. In the paper.”
“I’m sitting here eating some of Clarrisa’s leftover crisps. I’m starving, I told you. If I hear anything, I’ll ring immediately.”
Jury was left with a dial tone. He hung up. Well, he could hardly blame Sam Lasko.
Depressed, he reached down and gave Stone another rub. His mind’s eye travelled the length and breadth of Jenny’s house. Plant must have seen something.
He heard Carole-anne’s spiky heels thrumming down the stairs; in another moment she reappeared, scented up. Or down.
“Time to go, Stone. Ta, Super.”
The dog was fully alert and up and shaking off whatever lethargy he’d fallen victim to at Jury’s hands.
“Have a good time. You and Stone.”
He was a handsome dog. Incredibly agile and clever. He wondered why Stan Keeler had named him that. Drugs probably. Stone.
Jury jerked up in his chair.
Stonington.
Good Lord, Stonington.
FORTY-EIGHT
Out of simple politeness—or perhaps it was payment for information—Jury had attempted one of those desultory, ragged exchanges with the publican of the Bold Blue Boy, but had quickly become frustrated by Mr. Ribblesby’s inclination to turn even the simplest conversational gambit into argument. Even Jury’s comment about the weather—it had begun snowing in the night—had been taken under advisement by Mr. Ribblesby.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s getting worse; no, I think it’s slowing. Yes, definitely slowing.”
Jury had merely commented on the increase in the snowfall and the size of the flakes. They fell straight down and looked quite fat to Jury.
But Mr. Ribblesby shook his head as he squinted towards the pub’s leaded glass windows (through which it was difficult to see anything undistorted by the wavery old panes), and slowly turned the tea towel in a pint glass as he shook his head. Solemnly.
But Jury, having secured his information about Jenny Kennington, was slow to irritation. Indeed, he had secured his half-pint of bitter not because he wanted it (for it would only increase his desire for a cigarette) but by way of payment for the information. Indeed he had offered to buy Mr. Ribblesby a drink, too, but Mr. Ribblesby “never touched the stuff, no,” and had given Jury’s glass of bitter a sad little shake of the head. Drink at this early hour?
Jury sat quietly, however, with what Mr. Ribblesby appeared to see as his raving alcoholism, content in the knowledge that at last he’d found Jenny. Now he felt quite sanguine. Or would do, if only he could call up in the publican a drop of consanguinity. Empathetic silence. But Mr. Ribblesby kept turning his tea towel in the glass and challenging Jury’s innocuous comment about the snow. He countered by saying it was the kind of snow that didn’t pack. It wouldn’t stick. No, what there was would be melted by mid-afternoon, Jury could take his word for it. And Mr. Ribblesby continued to talk about snowfalls as Jury waited patiently for him to take a breather so that he could put his next question.
Finally, during a flake-by-flake account of the Great Snowfall of 1949, Jury broke in and put it anyway: “Lady Kennington, did she mention where she was going? Did she happen to mention Stonington?”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have asked this as two questions. Mr. Ribblesby had difficulty enough handling one. It now took him several moments of deliberation to answer. “No.”
It never failed that people who would hold you hostage for hours bending your ear about something you didn’t want to know shut up like clams when it came to what you did.
Jury shrugged into his topcoat. “Well, I’ll be off, Mr. Ribblesby.” He tossed a few pound coins on the bar and turned to leave.
“She left with the gentleman.”
Jury turned—whirled—back. “What?”
“Gentleman that booked a room—let’s see . . . ” Cautiously, he drew the guest register to him. But didn’t open it. Mr. Ribblesby would prefer debating empty air than landing upon proof. “Now this was according to the wife, understand. I mean it’s her what booked him in.” He frowned, his tone doubtful, and the wife’s room transaction suspect. “She’s the one saw him.” He opened the book and ran his finger down a page, turned the page and did the same. And then another. And another.
Why he didn’t begin with the last several entries, Jury didn’t know. The Bold Blue Boy could hardly have catered for the number of guests suggested by these slowly turning pages. Well, Jury wasn’t going to wait for Ribblesby to learn the braille system. “Was this gentleman tall and aristocratic-looking? Blond hair, extremely green eyes? About my height?”
Mr. Ribblesby put his fingers to his lips and with an air of concentration looked Jury over closely as if measures of tallness were highly debatable. And then, instead
of a mere “Yes” that would have settled the matter, Mr. Ribblesby had to embroider on the description. “But ‘quite a handsome gentleman,’ was Mrs. Ribblesby’s words.”
But. Bad enough to hear Plant thus described; worse that Mr. Ribblesby appeared to be using Jury as a yardstick in the looks department. Jury wanted to hit him. Actually, he would probably come back and kill him. If he didn’t kill Melrose Plant first. His fingers, with minds of their own, groped in his coat pocket for a missing packet of Players. Hell. He settled for asking if this chap’s name was Plant, and when he had arrived.
The fingers went to the mouth again, tips tapping on the upper lip again. “Now that would be on . . . let’s see . . . night before last, I’d say. Or was that her came then? No. No, she’s been here—” he was counting on his fingers—“at least four nights. They’re our only guests.”
How cozy. “And they left, this morning, together, you said? Do you mean they checked out?”
“Oh, no. Just went for a little spin in that Bentley of his. Or was it a Rolls? But it don’t signify, really. Both the same, almost. I do believe it was one of them Silver Shadows.”
“Ghost. Silver Ghost.” Jury smiled (a little stiffly) and walked out the heavily beamed door onto the pavement, where the snow, as per Ribblesby’s prediction, was stopping. He stood on the pavement and stared at nothing. Why didn’t he simply get in his car and drive to Stonington? That must be where she was. They were, he corrected himself.
Then Littlebourne Green came into soft focus, and after a moment or two of blinking, he realized he was looking across the green at Polly Praed’s small white cottage with the yellow shutters. Melrose Plant wouldn’t come to Littlebourne without seeing Polly; perhaps he was not at Stonington, but there—
“Inspector! Ho, there!”
Jury knew that voice. He shut his eyes against a God who had no mercy and opened them to see the fast-approaching figure of the Honorable Miles Bodenheim. Sir Miles.
“Knew that was you!” hollered Sir Miles, he being as close to an aristocrat as Littlebourne had. He thumped Jury on the shoulder and grabbed his hand to pump, and declared, “This all but makes up for the torture of a wasted morning with the Pennystevens person.”
Mrs. Pennystevens was the elderly postmistress whose life by now surely should have been snuffed by the obstreperous demands of Miles Bodenheim. Didn’t any of these people ever die? Miles Bodenheim must have been in his seventies when Jury had first encountered him, and Mrs. Pennystevens—well, God knows how old she was. Perhaps it was the perverse presence of Miles, with his constant bickering and arguing and generally making her life hell over a tuppenny stamp, that held her to earth and life as if by magnetic force.
“Ten years,” said Jury, to himself more than Miles. He had first seen Jenny Kennington ten years ago. How could that be? All of those years—
“Ah, yes, another decade gone. Getting on, aren’t you, Inspector, yes, I can see that, bit of the old tattle-tale gray encroaching on the sides.” He laughed, absolutely giddy at this opportunity to take someone down a peg.
Defensively, Jury covered the side of his head with his hand. Not only was he uglier than Plant, he was grayer. He didn’t remember seeing any gray hair. “But you, you haven’t changed at all, Sir Miles.” Jury wasn’t being diplomatic. Miles Bodenheim had looked embalmed ten years ago, and he looked embalmed now. Tight-skinned, rosy-cheeked. Gray hair plastered to his scalp and a mustache so well trimmed and oiled it looked fake.
“Never guess who I saw! Right here, where you’re standing now.”
Jury didn’t bother saying yes, he could perfectly well guess.
“That crazy friend of yours, that Plant chap! Right here he stood.” Miles Bodenheim tapped his walking stick thrice on the ground as if to invoke whatever spirit world Melrose Plant had sprung from. “Never could understand why you two were so matey. Bit of a chump, I always thought him.”
Bit of an earl, you mean. Bit of a marquess, bit of a viscount. That’s why you couldn’t stand him. “He’s been knighted,” said Jury, staring right into Miles’s oyster-colored eyes to watch him react to yet another honor heaped upon Plant’s golden head.
“Knight—”
Why was he telling this lie? It was one thing to want to slug Melrose Plant for keeping Jenny’s whereabouts from him, but it was altogether another to listen to the biggest bore in Littlebourne criticize him. “Distinguished service to Her Majesty—” Let’s see: what did Her Majesty go around knighting people for? Most anything, really.
As Miles, looking decidedly less cheery than before, tried to think of a rejoinder to this (no doubt spurious) knighthood, Jury’s eye was attracted by a figure crossing Littlebourne Green. Here came Polly Praed like a gathering of leaves, dressed in her usual unflattering autumnal colors of pumpkin brown and dark green and russet.
Her expression was set and her eye was clamped on Miles Bodenheim (whom Jury knew she loathed). But then she saw who Sir Miles was standing there talking to. She stopped dead halfway across the road, opened her mouth, shut it, proceeded on her way and up to the pavement.
Jury couldn’t help but smile at her discomfort upon seeing him. “I’m awfully glad to see you, Polly.”
Miles Bodenheim, making hearty noises in his bid for attention, might as well have been a tree for all Polly noticed him. She said to Jury, “Melrose was here. He still might be. He came looking for Lady Kennington—”
“Kennington!” Sir Miles blustered, astonished that something had happened of which he had no knowledge.
“You remember her, don’t you?” she said to Jury. “But . . . obviously! He said it was you that was trying to find her.” Now her tone took on a mildly hectoring quality. “I can’t understand why everyone comes to me to find out things—”
“Nor can I,” said Miles. “You keep yourself bunged up in that tiny place of yours day in, day out. As for Lady Kennington—!”
Polly still had her eyes on Jury, and they had turned a much darker shade of violet. A stormy color that made Jury think of a thunderous sky over the last violet light across the mountains. Knowing Polly, it was thunder all right. “She’s at Stonington,” Polly snapped.
“Stonington! What on earth is the woman doing at Stonington? Good Lord, she’s not thinking of letting—well, she can’t be thinking of buying. Poor as a churchmouse now Lord Kennington’s gone. Sylvia always says, ‘Proud persons are soonest brought down.’ Certainly true in her case. What can you expect, the woman’s got no talent, no profession—” Miles thrashed a hedge with his walking stick.
“You could ask Freddie Mainwaring, he’s still estate agent for it. She must’ve been to see him. Do you want to go to the Magic Muffin? I was just on my way—”
Jury opened his mouth to refuse, gently, but Miles Bodenheim answered for him. “Ho ho! Miss Pettigrew’s probably got nothing but aubergine today, awful things. But I have a few minutes to spare, might as well spare them there as anywhere!”
“I’m in a bit of a hurry, Polly.”
Disappointment seemed to weigh her down. But she perked up a little as she asked, “What’d she do? Melrose said police wanted her for something.”
“What?” Miles walked back the few steps he had walked off (assuming everyone was following him to the Magic Muffin), eyes round. “The Kennington woman? Police after her? I’m not surprised, nor will Sylvia be. Now, Superintendent, how do you account for that?” He was pleased as punch.
“I don’t.” Jury gave Polly a salute and walked off towards his car.
2
NO BENTLEY, no Silver Ghost stood without or within the high, gray walls of Stonington.
Indeed, no sign of life whatever, no cat, mole, mouse. Nothing.
Jury walked up the wide steps and lifted a heavy door knocker in the shape of a fish, copper once, greenish-gray now, oxidized by the weather. The pressure caused the door, unlocked, to open a fraction, and he placed his hand against it, shoved it farther. He was being careful, he thought, as if h
e might walk in on something.
But the door ushered him into greater silence, a wider emptiness, almost, than he’d met in the drive and the grounds. He stopped in the entrance hall, bigger than most rooms, black-and-white checkered marble underfoot, green marble commodes against both walls, white marble sculpture of a woman by the curving staircase. It was an abominable reproduction of what had been an abominable original, graceless and unlovely, of a figure with arm extended that Jenny (who hated it) had used to drape her coat over. Her hat she had removed from her head to the head of the statue. At least I get some use of it, she’d said. There was no coat there now, nor hat, either.
But there were voices, faint in some distance Jury couldn’t get the direction of. He walked into the first room off the marble hall, a small study with a french door, open an inch or two, and it was through this opening the voices came. He could not see their owners. He walked into the next room. The rooms all around the house were interlocking, joined each to each by a doorway, and one could move from one to another, always with the courtyard in view. The architect must have planned this, a home resembling a convent.
This room was enormous, a dining room, he thought. He remembered all those years ago standing in it with Jenny (and it had been just as empty of furnishing then as now, for she was moving away). She and Melrose Plant were outside now in the courtyard, talking. Or looking at the house; she was pointing to the first floor, to something up there. He laughed.
Had Jury seen them from the study, where he could have walked through the french windows to the courtyard, probably he would have done so. But there was no such door here in the dining room, so he proceeded to the room beyond, a drawing room. Here he stopped and watched them again, from this slightly different vantage point. And then he went on, into the long gallery. This ran the entire length of the east side of the house, and was empty of portraits. He could see rectangles of the deep red wall covering faded around where they had hung. Along the length of the gallery were three french doors, and he could have exited through any of them.
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