“Quite correct.”
“But she was only eighteen. When she left here.”
“Chronologically.”
“What were her relations with men?”
“She probably had one with any man she came in contact with. She liked to cause trouble, to make sparks fly.”
“Yet the question remains: if this woman was not Dillys March, well, where is she? Why hasn’t Dillys ever come back?”
Julian looked down, studying the rug, as if some pattern might emerge there. “I thought perhaps, you know, she might be dead.”
Winter, with that remark, seemed to settle in the room. Jury had the oddest sensation of snow driven into corners, ice formed on sills, rime on mirrors. Of gray, unfiltered light hanging like lead. From where he sat he could see the long, bleak windows facing the terrace. Fog pressed against them. The mantle of depression to which he was never wholly a stranger wrapped him in even heavier folds.
7
“All shipshape and Bristol fashion!”
Bertie switched off the Hoover and saluted the small statue of the Virgin which stood on the mantel over the electric log. Bertie’s notion of religion leaned heavily towards the concept of salvation through duty, not grace.
“Come along, Arnold.” Smartly he turned on his heel, picking up the Hoover and throwing one arm across his chest with the hand like a blade on the neck of the vacuum. “Hip, hip!” He marched it to the closet in the tiny, dark hallway.
Arnold always watched the hoovering closely and sometimes rooted things like old sweet wrappers out from under chairs. Bertie marched back to the parlor for a look round. “That ought to satisfy Frog Eyes.”
Arnold’s bark was as smart as Bertie’s salute. The name “Frog Eyes” always elicited a hostile response.
Frog Eyes — or Miss Frother-Guy, as she was known to the village — was one of several women who had appointed themselves Bertie’s guardians in the absence of his mum. There were also Miss Cavendish, the librarian, and Rose Honeybun, the vicar’s wife. They took turns looking in on Bertie. Of the three, Miss Frother-Guy was the most disliked, largely because of her clear antipathy towards Arnold, whom she regarded as wholly unsuitable as a companion for the motherless boy.
The feeling was mutual. As far as Arnold was concerned, Miss Frother-Guy didn’t go down a treat, either. Arnold would plant himself four-square in front of her and subject her to ruthless stares.
Miss Frother-Guy had a thin-lipped, peevish little face that reminded Bertie of one of those sharp-nosed mice in the Roly-Poly-Pudding story. Miss Cavendish, on the other hand, was not quite so sharp but was annoyingly dusty. Bertie always found trails of grime, either from muddy boots or bits of fluff deposited in the folds of her clothing. He put it down to the constant dusting of shelves in the Rackmoor Lending Library. Codfish (Miss Cavendish) did not seem to enjoy the charge she had been given by Miss Frother-Guy, and would do little more than poke her head in Bertie’s front door, her pale eyes darting here and there like little silverfish. She did not stay to tea.
Rose Honeybun was the best of the lot, and she did stay to tea, and supplied most of it, since her Christian duties were released largely through supplying Bertie with cakes and Bath buns. Although she was the vicar’s wife, she had a certain salacious interest in the sexual side of Rackmoor and a kind of raw bonhomie, which made her better company. She liked to sit at the table downing cup after cup of tea and smoking cigarettes and trying to pry out of Bertie whatever chunks of gossip she could, as if she were searching for plums in the tart. Also, she liked Arnold and brought him bones. These he promptly hid.
Bertie was sorry it was Miss Frother-Guy who had jailer’s duty today, rather than Mrs. Honeybun. He wouldn’t have minded a good natter about the murder.
Among the three of them it was like a relay-race, with Bertie the stick handed from one to the other. It was Frog Eyes who was causing the most trouble; it was she who kept wanting to get the “authorities” in. His mother had been gone for six weeks, now close to two months. Frog Eyes was certain more “suitable” arrangements could be made. He recoiled at the thought. He held her off — he held them all off — with assurances that he had heard from his mum, but had misplaced the letters, and that she was still nursing a dying gran in Northern Ireland.
The letter he did not want them to see was the one his mum had written. He took it out of the dresser less and less often these days but still often enough that light was beginning to show through the creases of the paper worn thin by folding it into smaller and smaller squares. Unfolded now, it looked like a little leaded-glass window. Bertie did not understand its contents; her motive confused him, what motive there was.
He was not immobilized by her absence. He and Arnold carried on in the way they always had. Even when his mother had been around it was Bertie who really took care of the house, who cleaned, cooked meals, got himself off to school. His mother mostly daydreamed about London or sat eating Cadbury Fruit & Nut bars and reading thrillers.
So it wasn’t that he really needed her to take care of him. But he could still feel the sense of privation, especially when he saw other boys with their mums. It was almost the way a boy might look longingly at a two-wheeler and think, Everybody else has one, why can’t I?
For a while after she had left, he would forget she was no longer living there, and he would set out the usual three places for tea instead of just two. Then he and Arnold would eat their tea and stare out of their separate windows until Arnold would get bored with this and yawn and jump down from his chair and want to be let out. Sometimes they would walk in the drizzle together, Bertie hoping the rain would fertilize his mind, would implant some ingenious explanation for the absence of his mum which would hold off Frog Eyes and Codfish. He would stand looking out to sea while Arnold took one of his death-defying walks along the cliffs—narrow ways which were never paths, but which Arnold loved to go down (perhaps rooting out nesting birds, Bertie thought); Bertie would stand and wait for Arnold to come back and seem to search the waves breaking way out for some answer. It was during one of these vigils when he had come up with the Belfast idea. Frog Eyes, nor Codfish would want to go sticking their long noses into the affairs of Northern Ireland. Who would?
Bertie knew there were “homes” and he certainly knew there were police stations. Those were the only “authorities” he assumed would be at all interested in his case. So when Inspector Harkins came knocking at his door, he got all whoozy and thought for the first time in his life he might faint. If that detective hadn’t come to lead him away to a “home” then he must have come about the cheques.
But he hadn’t come about either. He had come about a murder.
8
But it was neither Frog Eyes nor the police to whom Bertie opened the door this afternoon. It was to Melrose Plant. In an effort of concentration, Bertie screwed up his eyes and drew his mouth back, disclosing one missing tooth and others in a poor state of repair. A lock of brown hair stood up at the crown of his head like a small flag. There was a darned hole in the knee of his mud-colored breeches and his cardigan was misbuttoned, leaving a small wave of brown wool on his shoulder, which made him look slightly hunchbacked.
All in all, thought Melrose, the caramel-colored terrier with the luminous brown eyes was distinctly the handsomer of the two. Melrose stood in his velvet-collared coat, his silver-headed walking stick against his shoulder. “Would you get your father, please, there’s a good lad?”
Bertie squinted. “Me dad’s dead.”
“Oh. Sorry. Well, may I have a word with your mother, then?”
A brief silence. “Mum’s away. There’s only me and Arnold.”
“Well, perhaps this Arnold wouldn’t mind a word with me. Scotland Yard asked me to stop by,” Melrose was happy to add.
The boy gasped. “You from the Yard?”
“Not exactly. Let’s say I’m helping out. My name is Melrose Plant.” He was searching the air behind the lad for somebody bigger. �
�And your name is —?”
“Bertie Makepiece.” He held the door wide. Melrose saw that behind the boy the house was silent and what rooms he could see — a triangle of a parlor, a bit of a kitchen — were empty. Two unpleasant-looking aspidistras flanked the narrow hallway. Somewhere a clock was ticking.
“This here’s Arnold.”
Melrose looked down. “This is a dog.”
“I know.”
Melrose tried to smile, all the while silently cursing Jury. He wondered now how to jolly the lad along.
There were certain things Melrose had always tried to avoid — children and animals among them — and was always nonplussed when they seemed to regard him with interest, as if he might do something awfully clever, be good for a sweet or a bone or something. He did occasionally carry sweets and biscuits in his pockets for impromptu meetings on trains (for example), but only by way of getting rid of these invaders of his privacy. Why was he surprised when it worked just the opposite effect, often involving him in interminably wrought, baroque tales about their schools or their nannies or their hated little sisters? You would think if you kindly produced a sweet and said to the recipient, “I hear Auntie calling, hop along now,” the other would take the hint. Not so. They only produced even stickier smiles or thumping tail waggings and stuck you up for another prize. He sometimes wondered if he were kidding himself.
“Well, well, this is a pleasant little cottage,” said Melrose with a heartiness he certainly didn’t feel. He would get Jury for this. Melrose had neither children, dogs (unless he counted Mindy, who had followed him home and hung about thereafter), nor aspidistra at Ardry End. Yet this house seemed awash with all three, and all seemingly together, as if they had grouped themselves to sit for a portrait with him.
Now the lad was smiling in a silly way and when he looked at the dark line of the dog’s mouth he thought he detected a smile there too, as if they were expecting him to do something rather jolly.
“Come on in the kitchen. I thought you was Frog—Miss Frother-Guy.”
Melrose followed him into the spotless kitchen, tossing his coat over the banister and planting his stick in the aspidistra.
Two places were laid for tea. Arnold slunk under the table and lay there, head on paw, looking bleakly up at Melrose. Melrose was not quite sure how the Yard would go about extracting information from one so young as Bertie. Should he pick him up and shake him, for instance? He settled on what he hoped was a tone both friendly and authoritative. “Apparently, your cottage here is the closest one to the Angel steps. Where the body was found. We thought perhaps you might have seen something.”
“Stabbed a dozen times, that’s what I heard. Summat bloody, she was.”
Melrose would have preferred a little less relish in his tone. “An exaggeration. The question is: Did you see or hear anything at all?”
“No.” Even the one syllable was weighted with disappointment. He moved a bowl from the table to underneath it. “You needn’t sulk, Arnold.” To Melrose he said, “You’re sitting in Arnold’s chair, see.”
“Oh. I could sit under the table.”
“No need. Have a cuppa. I’m just wetting the tea.”
Given his general lack of congress with people of this age, Melrose thought he should lose no chance to be instructive. “Don’t you think your mother might prefer you to say ‘allowing the leaves to steep.’ ”
Bertie shrugged, and the wide, white apron he had donned rose and fell on his chest. “I could do. But me mum ain’t here, and it sounds awful mouthy. As long as them leaves is lying there getting wet, I might as well say so. Care for a bit of Madeira cake or a fruit scone, then?”
“No, thank you. But what about a Weetabix?”
Bertie had his arm down in the box. “These’s for Arnold. He always gets two for his tea.” He put two biscuits under the table by Arnold’s bowl. But Arnold did not let his gaze waver from Melrose Plant for so much as a second. His look was not hostile, merely concentrated.
Melrose thought they had somehow strayed from the subject. “Chief Inspector Jury—”
Bertie’s gaze was rapacious. “That’s that Inspector from the Yard.”
“Yes. Did you hear or see anything?”
Bertie held the teapot, swirling it round and round. “I didn’t, no. Only now I think on it, there was a kind of screech, but it was probably a gull.”
Or your imagination, thought Melrose. “What time was that?”
“Not too sure. Maybe eleven, or half after.”
“Late for you to be up. Don’t you have to get up early for school?”
“Wasn’t no scule that day.”
“You said your father’s dead. Where’s your mother?”
“Away.” He held the teapot aloft. “Wonder whatever happened to Miss Frother-Guy? She looks in on me till Mum comes back.”
“Oh. And when will that be?”
“Soon.”
Melrose couldn’t think of any proper questions. Arnold’s stare was extremely disconcerting. He kind of toed the dog’s nose to make him stop. But Arnold merely shifted his nose to his other paw. “Do you think there’s anything peculiar going on in Rackmoor?” Jury liked to ask general questions like that. Get the reaction. Milk them for knowledge they didn’t even know they had.
Bertie shrugged and sat. “No more’n usual.”
“Well, good grief. What’s usual?”
“Oh, I dunno.” He plucked a bun from the plate and nibbled round it, mouse-wise. “Percy Blythe says . . . You met Percy?”
“No.” Melrose watched Arnold munch his Weetabix, still with his brown eyes cast upward.
“Percy says this woman that got, you know” — and Bertie drew his forefinger across his neck — “Percy says she used to live here. A bad lot, name of March, Percy says. He says she lived up at Old House and there was no end of trouble because of her. She disappeared years ago and now Percy says she’s come back. Like a curse. And he must be right for look what happened.”
“Your friend Percy is ignoring the fact that March wasn’t this woman’s name.”
Bertie shrugged and slowly stripped the fluted covering from a fairy cake. Melrose was uncomfortably reminded of Agatha, who had called him twice in the last twenty-four hours.
“Don’t know about that,” said Bertie. “Percy says when she lived up there she was always getting up to something. A bad lot. Percy says that’s what’s wrong with that Mr. Crael.”
That surprised Melrose. “Do you mean the old one or the young one?”
“You know. That Julian. Don’t he act summat queer, though? He never comes down to the village nor nothing. And he’s out walkin’ at night along them cliffs up there. Percy says he’s come across him in t’fog and it give him a turn, it did.”
“What’s this Percy person doing running around on the moors at night?”
“H’earth-stopper. Works for the Colonel. For the hunt.” Bertie drank off his tea, holding the cup with both hands.
“Percy says Mr. Crael’s been funny-acting for years — ever since this girl went off. And now she’s back. I mean, she was.” Bertie drew his finger across his throat again.
“Percy, then, must have decided who did the dirty deed, he knows so much.”
“Probably. He never said, though.”
“I should love to meet this oracle.” Melrose looked at his watch. It was still not five, and he might get one up on Jury, who had sent him, on this wild-goose chase.
Bertie’s eyes widened behind his thick lenses. “We could go round there now. I’ve time before I have to go to work. Percy lives down Scroop Street on Dark Street. That’s the street round the corner from the library. He’d be through his tea by now and might like a bit of a chat. Talks a lot, he does.” Bertie got up from the table, leaving his second cake unfinished.
While Melrose was mumbling his agreement to this plan, Bertie was already out at the coat closet wiggling into an oversized black overcoat. He looked doubtfully back into the kitchen, at
the table with its dirty cup and plate. “I guess I can do the washing-up later.”
“Leave Arnold to do it,” said Melrose, putting on his own coat, and watching as Bertie did his buttons up wrong.
“Can’t you get the buttons straight, for heaven’s sakes?” Melrose set his stick aside and unbuttoned and rebuttoned Bertie’s coat. It was much too large for him. He had pulled on a black stocking cap and now all that showed was his small white face and thick glasses. “Where do you get your clothes? At a jumble sale for seals?”
“There’s more to life,” said Bertie, looking carefully at Melrose’s velvet collar and silver-headed stick, “than fancy duds. Let’s go.”
Going up Grape Lane, with Arnold in the lead, Bertie said, “You mustn’t mind Percy’s place. He’s not too neat, not like us. And he’s got lots of stuffed things sitting round. It’s a bit dirtier than it should be. Funny-looking things on the walls and in bowls and all. There’s lots of strange sights in Rackmoor.”
Watching Arnold sloping up the street through a dust of snow, and the small, black gnome beside him, Melrose said, “Do tell?”
9
All he needed was an owl on his shoulder.
Percy Blythe sat behind a Jacobean monstrosity of a library table, amidst the dark, dusty and Gothic confusion of stuffed birds and fish, tallow candles, driftwood, fish-netting, Nail-sea balls, rank bits of clothing, old newspaper and books. Although the papers and books lent an air of intense scholarship to the proceedings, Percy Blythe seemed engaged in nothing more studious than pushing a few bits of seashell round the desk. He was small, with peaked, Satanic ears and rimless spectacles. When Bertie introduced them, he looked without interest at Melrose over the tops of these spectacles. He was dressed — or overdressed — in jacket, sweater, and scarf and wore a knitted cap similar to Bertie’s. He went back to pushing the seashells about.
“I do hope we haven’t interrupted your meal,” said Melrose, noticing the dark rind of a sandwich and a milk-incrusted glass — both looking several days old — sitting on the edge of the table. Percy Blythe merely bent his face more firmly over his shells. “A most interesting room, Mr. Blythe. Most interesting.”
The Old Fox Deceived Page 8
