The Old Fox Deceived

by Martha Grimes

  “Don’t know,” said Jury. “But it could cure a dead horse, I’m sure.”

  “But I can’t drink on duty, sir.”

  “Medicinal, Sergeant.” Jury picked up the folder — since Harkins seemed ill-inclined to proceed on normal lines of communication — and spread out the glossy photographs. He studied one of them.

  The photo showed part of a row of stone steps. There was a crude stone bench on the widest step; it was in an alcove in the wall that bounded the left side of the steps. Jury observed the position of the dead woman.

  The body lay head-downwards, half-on and half-off the landing. The legs were jackknifed, the torso sprawled down two steps, the right arm thrown over the head and down a third step, the left arm pinned between torso and wall. The face was turned towards the high wall on the left. What he could see of it was smeared with blood and greasepaint — black, white and dark red indistinguishable in that light. The black mask which had covered her eyes dangled by its elastic. The white satin blouse was nearly phosphorescent in the camera’s glare, and the boots reflected the light. Her black cape floated down the steps. The picture he was looking at showed her head first and upside down. Very dramatic. He only wished he could have seen the body in situ. Jury closed the folder.

  He rested his chin on his hands and said to Harkins. “The pathologist — what’s his name?”

  “Dudley. He comes in to help out occasionally.”

  “He says he doesn’t know what made these wounds. You have any ideas?”

  Harkins looked off, seemed to be considering, and was about to speak when Kitty came in with Wiggins’s medicinal drink. “There, sir; that’ll fix you up.” She plunked down the pewter mug.

  Wiggins looked into it suspiciously. “What’s in it?”

  Kitty’s laugh was a delight to hear in the otherwise chilly atmosphere. “Bit of sugar, butter, and an egg. An egg can solve anything, I always say.”

  She started off again and Jury said, “Kitty, I’ll need to ask you a few questions later, if you don’t mind. I understand Gemma Temple stayed here.”

  “She did indeed. I’ll be here when you need me.” Her hand wandered up to her hair.

  When she’d gone, Jury turned back to Harkins. “We were talking about the weapon.”

  “Yes.” Harkins dribbled cigar ash against the glass ashtray. “Double-pronged, Dudley says. It’s the way the holes are spaced. There are at least four pairs of them. I wonder why the murderer chose such an unconventional weapon.”

  Jury smiled. “Just for the reason we’re sitting here trying to figure out what it was. I’d like to see these Angel steps.”

  “We’re at your service, Chief Inspector.” Harkins rose, made small adjustments to himself as if he were a valuable figurine about to be moved from mantel to table.

  Wiggins downed his beer. “Snappy stuff, that.”

  Jury wished he had an egg. An egg, Kitty said, would solve anything.

  • • •

  The three of them stood on a wide step just below the point that the Angel steps debouched onto Scroop Street to the left. Jury looked down and then up at the church. “Quite a climb.”

  If one were looking up toward Our Lady of the Veil, the Angel steps were bounded by a high, stone wall on the left; on the right, the wall was only waist-high, presumably for the view of the North Sea over the roofs and chimney pots. Smoke twined upwards in mauve ribbons; herring-gulls perched on ledges and dotted the shingle down below.

  Jury looked down, towards Grape Lane. “Were those gates shut?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then the Angel steps wouldn’t have much traffic at night.”

  “That’s right.”

  “There are other ways down to the shops and pubs, then?”

  Harkins nodded. “From Scroop Street you can go through Dagger Alley alongside of the Bell. It joins the High.”

  “The steps must have been built more for religious or aesthetic reasons than for practical ones.” Jury looked at the pictures he had brought along. He looked from one to the blank space on the steps. All neatly mopped up now, he thought ruefully.

  Wiggins, having gained a vestige of strength from Kitty’s beer, was down on his knees, looking at the step. “Dried blood. What’re these white streaks?” He ran his finger along the lefthand wall. The tiny white lines were barely perceptible.

  “Her head hit it,” said Harkins. “That’s greasepaint. It was a costume party.”

  “Tell me about that, Ian,” said Jury.

  “Sir Titus Crael gives a Twelfth Night party every year. The Craels live up at Old House.”

  Wiggins got up, folded a jackknife he’d used for a bit of scraping. “She was from London, wasn’t she?” Harkins nodded. “Well, it’s not likely someone followed her here. The murderer must have known Rackmoor.”

  Jury was surprised. Wiggins was the most industrious of policemen and an efficient note-taker. But he seldom ventured deductions. “It’s all this about the Angel steps. Had to be someone from around here who knew they wouldn’t be much used.”

  “You’re right, Wiggins.” Jury looked down at the photos, shuffled them around. “Gemma Temple . . . ” He shook his head.

  “If that was her name.” Harkins smiled bitterly, seeming almost glad to throw a spanner in the works.

  • • •

  “It’s a question of identity,” Harkins said. They were back in the Old Fox Deceiv’d. “According to Colonel Crael — Sir Titus, but he likes to be called ‘Colonel’ — Gemma Temple, or at least, the woman calling herself Gemma Temple, actually claimed to be Dillys March, who disappeared fifteen years ago when she was eighteen or nineteen. Hasn’t been seen since. Unless it’s now. Dillys March was the Craels’ ward.”

  “ ‘Claimed’? Couldn’t Crael tell for certain?”

  “Colonel Crael thought she was the March girl. But his son, Julian, says no. I should think it would be easy to establish, but it’s not proving so. We got her roommate up here from London. Name’s Josie Thwaite. Identified the body as Gemma Temple, but didn’t know damn all about her. The Temple woman went to share digs with her about a year ago.”

  “Where does this Thwaite girl live, then?”

  With elaborate patience, Harkins pointed to the folder. “Kentish Town. It’s all in there.”

  “Go on.”

  “She did remember Gemma Temple mentioning a family named Rainey in Lewisham, I think it was. We’re checking on them. Now: handwriting, some of Gemma Temple’s, none of Dillys March’s. Not a scrap, not a signature. Dental records: same thing. The Colonel says Lady Margaret — his dead wife — took care of all that sort of thing, he doesn’t know what dentist she took Dillys to. Someone in London, he said.”

  “Then comb them. Dentists are thick on the ground, but there’d be a record somewhere. It’s hard for me to believe someone could live that long and not leave behind proof she wasn’t someone else.”

  Harkins answered testily: “Well, this one has done a bloody good job of it.”

  “Why did the March girl leave? What happened?”

  “Just got in her car and took off.”

  That wasn’t much of an answer, but Jury imagined it was the best he’d get. “How did the Temple woman get here? Car?”

  Harkins nodded, touched a match to another of his Cuban cigars. “Her roommate’s, Josie Thwaite’s. We went over it. Didn’t tell us anything.”

  “I take it Gemma Temple looked like Dillys March.”

  “Obviously.” Harkins blew a series of smoke rings. “Allowing for the changes of fifteen years, she was a ringer.” Harkins opened the folder, detached a small photo from a paper clip, and dropped it on the table, wordlessly.

  Jury examined it. The snapshot showed a very pretty girl leaning—posing, really—against a stone wall. Dark, straight hair, chin-length and curling slightly under, bangs, dark eyes. She was dressed in riding habit. Her face was sharp, with tilted eyes and a foxy-pointed chin. And indeed her whole expression, the upturn
ed corners of her mouth not a real smile at all, seemed foxy also. She looked exactly like the murdered woman, or, more precisely, as that woman might have looked alive and fifteen years younger. “I guess this is the ward, Dillys.”

  Harkins looked disappointed, as if Jury had cheated on a test. “What makes you say that?”

  “Only because of the riding habit. Colonel Crael has a real passion for hunting, doesn’t he? I’d assume his ward would have taken to it—” Jury stopped. Harkins looked openly hostile. He changed the subject: “So the father and son disagree?”

  Harkins nodded and extracted from his vest pocket a small, silver nail clipper, as if there were nothing weightier to apply his mind to than a manicure.

  “Tell me about this Colonel Crael.” Blood out of stones.

  “Rich. Very rich. The baronetcy was conferred upon his father. The Craels were in shipping, amongst other things. He’s Master of Foxhounds. And he owns half of Rackmoor, from what I can judge. It’s on the historic buildings listings, you know.”

  “The whole village?”

  “That’s right. Worth keeping, apparently.”

  “Who are Colonel Crael’s heirs?”

  “Heir. There’s just one. Julian Crael, his son.”

  Wiggins had been sitting there with a fresh cup of tea, thinking and stirring. “The prodigal daughter,” he murmured. Jury and Harkins both looked at him. “The last person the son’d want is the one that’s been away for donkey’s years and having people blubbering all over her return.” He tapped his spoon against his cup and drank.

  That drive across the moors must have aired out Wiggins’s brain and loosened his tongue. This was his second pronouncement in the past hour. “You’re quite right. She’d be the very last person,” Jury said.

  “It would surely account for the son’s denying she was this March person,” said Wiggins.

  “Yes. Of course, he could be right. Her story sounds fishy to me.” When he saw Harkins look up apprehensively — as if there were something else coming he hadn’t thought of—Jury changed the subject. Looking again at the police photographs, he said: “There must have been a lot of blood. It’s hard to believe some of it didn’t splash on the murderer’s clothes.”

  “We found a large piece of stained canvas. Spattered with blood.”

  Thanks for telling me, thought Jury glumly. “What sort of canvas?”

  “Kind an artist uses. To stretch over frames. It might have come from Adrian Rees’s place. Studio, whatever he calls it. And he did a lot of mouthing off about murder.” Harkins slipped another piece of paper out of the folder and shoved it towards Jury. “I’ve done a list of names here for you. We must have interviewed nearly the whole damned village” — the Little Red Hen again, thought Jury — “and I’ve winnowed out most of them, got it down to the names here that you might want to talk with first. The Craels, naturally. And Adrian Rees is the last one we know of to have seen Gemma Temple alive. He passed her on Grape Lane just before she was killed.”

  Jury folded and pocketed the list. “I’ll see him first, then, before the Craels.”

  Harkins nodded and drew on his gloves. “I hope you won’t mind my getting back to Pitlochary. I’m expecting a report from London.”

  It was unusual — not to say unprofessional — for this provincial D.I. to take himself off, but Jury said nothing.

  Having shrugged into his coat, Harkins dropped (Jury was sure) his pièce de résistance: “Oh, by the way, there’s a bit of a complication. Lily Siddons — she’s the young woman who runs the Bridge Walk Café — claims the murderer made a rather dreadful mistake.”

  “Mistake?”

  “Lily Siddons claims she was the intended victim.” Harkins smiled all round the table as if to let them know the code they had just finished breaking had all been misinformation in the first place. “I think it’s all eyewash, frankly. Big for the limelight, she probably is. But the costume, she says, was her own, and that’s where the killer made his mistake. I’ll be on my way. It’s a bit of a drive to Pitlochary. Hope I’ve been of some help.”

  Jury stared at the floor at his feet. “I’m most eternally grateful to you.”

  2

  As the exhaust of the Lotus Elan roared in Jury’s ears, Kitty Meechem was readying up for the eleven A.M. trade, wiping the china beer pulls, polishing the dark counter. Jury decided he’d sooner talk to Kitty’s satin curls than Harkins any day. “Which rooms did you give us, Kitty?”

  She tossed the bar towel over her shoulder and tugged down her dress, giving Jury the advantage of a bit more cleavage. “Oh, indeed, I’ll show you—”

  “Never mind, I’m sure Sergeant Wiggins can find the rooms. Just tell him where. I’d like a bit of a chat with you.”

  She directed Wiggins through the door and up a dark and narrow staircase to the right of the public bar. “There’s only the three rooms, you know. And the police don’t want anyone using hers.” No one, Jury thought with an inward smile, seemed to be taking them for police. “So you’ll not be havin’ trouble findin’ the right rooms, Sergeant. First two at the top. They face the sea: plenty of nice sea air for you, Sergeant. You’re looking a bit peaked.”

  Wiggins smiled bleakly.

  “Have a lie-down,” said Jury. “I’ll dig you out later.”

  Wiggins looked grateful, picked up the two small suitcases inside the door, and left the room.

  “You’re not Dublin Irish, Kitty, are you?” Jury smiled. It was a smile which had melted harder hearts than Kitty Meechem’s.

  “Well, aren’t you the clever one. And which part would you say?”

  “The West Country. Sligo, maybe?”

  She was astonished. “Quite right you are. You really are clever, Inspector, to tell the difference.”

  “No, I’m not.” He held up the folder and tossed two 50p pieces on the counter. “Harkins wrote it down in here. Buy us a beer, Kitty.”

  She laughed. “I don’t mind if I do.”

  “I’ll have a Guinness. It’s medicinal.”

  “Right you are. Me mother had to drink two pints every day, the doctor told her, to get her strength back.”

  “Why are you in Yorkshire, Kitty? Ireland’s a grand country.”

  “Husband was a Yorkshire man. I met him when he was on holiday in Galway. We lived in Salthill for a bit. But he hated Ireland. Most English do, of course. It’s the Troubles.”

  “It’s been going on for two hundred years, Kitty.”

  She stood with her hands on her hips waiting for the foam to settle itself. “Do you know Bertie Makepiece, sir? Lives in Cross Keys cottage up on Scroop Street?” Jury shook his head. “It’s the one nearest the Angel steps. Anyway, his mum went to Ireland a few months back. I look in on him, but it’s more’n I can understand, going off like that and leaving the child to fend for himself. I give him a bit of work now and then. Sick gran, that’s what she said.” Kitty shook her head, plumped up their glasses, shoved Jury’s over.

  “Cheers,” said Jury, raising his. “What happened the night of the murder, Kitty? Did you see Gemma Temple?”

  “I did. Went up to my room around ten and she was in hers; called me in, she did, to have a look at her costume. Quite smashing, she was, all that white satin and black velvet. Black boots. Said she was about to put this greasepaint on her face. Half-white, half-black she was going to do it, and wear a black mask over her eyes . . . ” Kitty paused and looked away. “She was an awful mess, I heard, when they found her.”

  Jury didn’t comment on that. “You say this was at ten?” Kitty nodded.

  “Ten or ten after, I’d say.”

  “And she was about to leave, after she’d put on the makeup?”

  “That’s what she said. She’d be leaving directly. And that’s the last I ever saw of her, poor thing. Of course, I didn’t know her well, but one can still feel pity for her.”

  “Yes. She was bound for the party, as far as you know?” Again, Kitty nodded. “Nobody, apparently
, in the pub here saw her go out. Why’s that?”

  “La, and that doesn’t surprise me a tall, a tall. Drunk as lords, weren’t they? Anyway, she’d not have come through here. She’d have come down the stairs and straight out the door. I asked meself, Kitty, what was she doing on the Angel steps? You see, if she’d wanted to go to the manor house the easiest way, she’d go round to the seaside, up the Fox steps and along the seawall. We just call them the Fox steps so as not to get mixed up with the Angel steps.” Jury nodded. “And from the seawall you’d reach a path that goes along the cliff to Old House.”

  “It’s not the only way to get there, though?”

  “Oh, no. You could go up the Angel steps all the way to Our Lady and along Psalter’s Lane and up and through the wood. But whoever’d want to go that way? It’s dark and creepy.”

  “Who’d she get friendly with while she was here — anyone?”

  Kitty shook her head. “No one in here, except she did talk to Maud Brixenham a few times. Maud comes in regular at lunchtime. She lives in Lead Street. The other side of the dock. And then there was Adrian —” She hesitated.

  “Adrian?”

  “Adrian Rees. I think she talked to him once.”

  “Why’d you not want to mention it?”

  “Oh . . . ” Then she leaned over the bar, treating Jury to yet more cleavage. “I’d not be wantin’ to get Adrian in trouble. But he was in here that very night going on about murder. About some character in a book. And the awful thing is Adrian was the last to see her alive. That Mr. Harkins was all over him.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Kitty waved her hand. “Tush. Adrian couldn’t kill anyone. He gets loud, he does, and throws himself about, but —” She shook her head and drank her beer.

  “How about the Craels? Apparently, the woman was a friend or relation of theirs.”

  “I don’t know about that, except that she did go up to Old House. You know Colonel Crael owns half this place. He bought it up when it was the Cod and Lobster and I was only barmaid. The Colonel’s a real gentleman; everyone in Rackmoor likes him.”

  “What did Gemma Temple say about the Craels?”