Despite the warmth of the little cottage and his two sweaters and windcheater, Jury felt something very cold move down his spine. Bertie was walking around with what was probably the murder weapon.
• • •
The drop might have been a few seconds or a few hours; all sense of time was lost to him in the black pool of his mind. His hands had found something against the cliffside, something like a thick stub — he couldn’t see it; it might have been an old root, but it was stationary enough to hang onto.
The trouble was, he couldn’t get any purchase with his feet, scrabble as he might against the rock, his toes searching out a toehold. But, the rock seemed to dip inward a bit, and his feet merely passed over lichen and then — nothing. So in the few moments he had hung there, his arms had already tired. His eyes were screwed shut; what good were his eyes anyway? His arms felt pulled from their sockets, nearly. There was a thundering in his ears, more than the waves. “Holy Mary, Mother of God . . . ” he began. But that was all he could remember, all the rest of the words had sunk, fallen from his memory like the shale sliding down this forsaken cliff. Then he heard a scrabbling, a sound drawing nearer and labored breathing. There was that familiar wet-fur smell. He pasted his face against the rock, crying. At least Arnold hadn’t been made a sieve out of too. And then, miraculously, he felt something beneath his feet. He was being buoyed up, just a little, just enough to take the hideous weight off his arms. It moved under him and with the relief to his muscles, the roaring died out in his ears and he could hear Arnold, panting hard, Arnold who knew the little narrow paths on these cliffs and could maneuver them like a mountain goat.
There must have been a ledge just beneath, something wide enough for Arnold, and a kind of path, too, perhaps something left over before part of the cliff had given way so many years ago and sent three houses toppling right into the sea. Mustn’t think about that.
Somewhere between hanging and standing, Bertie shoved his face against the rocks, molded his body to the cold, hard cliff as if it were indeed some soft, human form, what a mum might have been if she hadn’t gone off. But he would not think about that, either. And he forgot about blessing the Holy Mother, Jesus, the angel Gabriel, the stars, the sun, the moon.
He just blessed Arnold.
• • •
There was no one in the cottage on Scroop Street. The panes were black, the door shut. But it was unlocked so Jury went in, felt for the switch, saw the telephone on its little stand in the hall. He called Bertie’s name a couple of times, but didn’t expect an answer.
He dialed Old House and Wood answered. No, he hadn’t seen Master Bertie, and, no, Mr. Plant wasn’t there. He’d gone out less than an hour ago in a terrible hurry—and indeed, Wood thought he had been looking for Inspector Jury.
Nor had Kitty seen Bertie. She answered the phone at the Fox. When Wiggins came on the line, Jury told him what had happened, told him to ring up Harkins and have him bring enough men to scour the village, Howl Moor, the woods near Old House, and the cliffside, too.
“What’s a swallowtail?” asked Wiggins. His voice was thick and scratchy. That meant he was coming down with something, God help them all. “Whyever did Bertie take it?”
“Who knows? Helping out police or playing detective or protecting Percy. Too much American telly. I want him found, now. I’m going up the Angel steps and through the woods. I don’t fancy Bertie walking round with that thing.”
“Is Arnold with him, sir?”
“I don’t know, but isn’t he always?”
“Not to worry, then,” said Wiggins with a bleak attempt at humor.
• • •
A rock, a clod of earth — something loosened and fell down the cliffside. And Arnold’s weight shifted a fraction. Bertie could hear the nails of his paws rasping across the stone and was sure they were both going over the side. Bertie pressed against the wet rocks and used the root to try and draw himself up a bit to take the weight off Arnold’s back. The cold was bitter; he could hardly feel his fingers and he was hanging now by his crossed wrists.
Arnold barked. Bertie took that as a sign he had steadied himself and he brought his feet down again through that one inch of space and rested them on Arnold’s back.
But then he heard a different sound, which came from above. There was a scraping along earth and rock and he realized that someone was making his way down, the same way he had heard Arnold coming.
Relief swept over him in a warm wave. Someone had heard Arnold barking, someone was coming to rescue—
Or was someone coming back to finish the job?
His blood barely had time to freeze up when he heard a voice very close to him say, and in a commanding tone rather than a friendly one, “Give me your hand.”
The voice was unfamiliar and cold. Bertie sensed, rather than saw, an arm outreached toward him. Whoever it was could come no closer; whoever it was could not have had much room to stand nor a very good foothold, either.
“Give me your hand!”
The voice stabbed into him, and the terror he felt toward the cliffside turned round in him, and he clung to it now as if it were his own mother’s body. A paroxysm of fear shuddered through him and he was afraid its very vibration would send him hurtling.
And then Arnold moved out from under him.
Bertie shot his hand out toward the voice, toward the other’s breathing, aware only of that one more moment of life before the hand which closed round his own would drop him into the darkness forever.
It was just that: one more moment of life.
But then he heard other sounds coming from above him. Voices. Hounds. For one crazy moment, as the hand grasping his swung him down from his perch and another arm grabbed him round the shoulders, he wondered if the bloody fools were out riding to hounds.
“Bertie!”
That voice came from the top of the cliff and he knew it; it was Inspector Jury. He was being dragged upwards, hard going by the sound of the breathing from the turbid figure beside him. With one final lurch, he was swung up by his arm, set finally and firmly on solid ground.
Bertie could see nothing but vague lights and amorphous shapes, moving dream-wise across his vision. But he wasn’t thinking of them.
“Arnold!” he yelled. The terrier barked and Bertie dropped on his knees and threw his arms round the dog’s wet fur.
Someone was beside him, wiping the boy’s face with a handkerchief. “Bertie, old chap.” It was Inspector Jury. “Look, we found your glasses.” He positioned them on Bertie’s nose.
The scene sprang to life as if someone had raised a curtain. Bertie wondered if it was what you felt like if you were blind and could suddenly see again. In the night as black as jet the people stood out like white statues in a dark garden.
One of them stepped forward and he recognized. Inspector Harkins, hands cupping a match as he lit a cigar. Jury was speaking to someone behind Bertie—not Harkins, but someone else. “It’s a good thing you were out here.”
Bertie turned to see Julian Crael standing behind him.
He stood just beyond the rim of light thrown by the electric torches. He was wiping his hands with a handkerchief. Across his shirtsleeve was a large tear. The coat, which he must have thrown on the ground so as not to impede his downward climb, he now picked up and put on.
“Quite a coincidence,” said Harkins.
Julian said nothing.
As if the bitter pill were his own, Jury swallowed. It would be hard to take — to be accused of trying to kill the person you’d just saved.
“I think we’d better go back to the house and talk,” said Harkins.
“I’m taking Bertie home,” said Jury.
“We need to question the boy,” Harkins snapped.
“I can do that once he’s home. Not here.” Harkins turned away in disgust, and Jury pulled Wiggins aside. “Go with them to Old House and see Harkins doesn’t lynch him, and then come along to Bertie’s cottage.”
Harki
ns gave some directions to two of his men to keep searching for the weapon and then set off with Julian.
“Mr. Crael!” Bertie broke from Jury’s grasp, ran up to Julian, and threw his arms round his waist, as if Julian too were covered with rich, damp fur.
When he let go, Julian sketched a small salute in the air. “Anytime, sport.”
Arnold barked and his tail swished once like a whip.
Close as he’ll ever come to wagging it, thought Jury.
· VII ·
Simon Says
1
SINCE Bertie had nearly fallen asleep on his feet, they’d put him to bed and Jury had insisted on staying with him, said he’d take a kip on the couch. Nobly, Wiggins had forgone his room at the Fox Deceiv’d and stayed also. And Melrose Plant, not wanting to miss out on anything, had awoken in the early hours of morning with a very painful shoulder from having slept in a chair.
• • •
Now they were all crowded round the oil-clothed kitchen table: Jury, Bertie, Melrose, Wiggins and Arnold. Melrose had given over the last chair to Arnold and he himself sat on a high stool.
Bertie had been over it and over it as they’d filled him with tea and toast fingers. No, he had seen nowt; no, he had heard nowt; no, he had smelled nowt to give him a clue as to who had pushed him.
As if bribery might charm memory, Jury shoved a couple of more rashers out onto Bertie’s plate and some onto Arnold’s too. “There must be something, Bertie.”
“Well, but there ain’t,” said Bertie decisively, forking his rasher. “Who’s payin’ for these?” He held a rasher on the end of his fork.
“It’s on me,” said Melrose. “Sergeant Wiggins here knocked up that old shopkeeper in the wee hours.”
Wiggins did not look at all well after his sleepless night. He was probing the yolk of an egg with a toast finger.
“Well, thanks, then. We do like rashers, me and Arnold.”
“Someone followed you up there,” said Jury. “Whoever it was must have thought you were going to take that thatching tool to Old House or to the police, and that you’d seen who’d taken it from Percy’s cottage.”
“But I didn’t did I?”
“The murderer didn’t know that. Why else would you have taken it?”
“To keep Percy from getting in trouble.”
“That’s very loyal of you,” said Wiggins, through a mouthful of toast, “but it’s tampering with evidence, lad.” He pointed his fork at Bertie.
Bertie went a shade paler. “What’ll they do to me?”
“Oh, give you a medal, probably,” said Melrose, shifting uncomfortably on his stool. Then he sighed. “I just missed being spot-on with the goods again. I think I’d best retire from the force.”
Jury smiled and drank his tea. “I’m the one should retire. Didn’t even think of Percy’s tools.”
“Well, you weren’t studying them like I was. They were all over the walls. Since there was nothing else for me to do that night . . . ” It still rankled.
“It’s old Arnold that deserves the medal,” said Bertie.
“I agree,” said Melrose Plant. “Maybe you could get him one of those ties you told me about. A Murder Squad tie. It’d look good on Arnold.”
Bertie gave him a look. “I know who it wasn’t, I can tell you. That Inspector Harkins’s daft. It wasn’t Mr. Crael.”
Melrose stopped in the act of lighting his cigar and looked over the sputtering flame of his lighter at Bertie. “You mean because he crawled down there and then lugged you up. That, of course, would be most commendable, had he not shoved you over in the first place. Hearing all of us up there, he could hardly let you drop then.”
Bertie shook his head. “It’s because of Arnold.”
“I must be dim,” said Jury. “Explain that.”
“Arnold moved. When Mr. Crael told me to let go, Arnold stopped barking and he moved out from under me. I had to let go then. Didn’t have no choice, did I? You don’t think he’d a done that if it’d been that same person that went for me and him with the swallowtail, do you? You don’t think Arnold’s dim, do you?”
“Decidedly not,” said Melrose, opening the morning paper and searching for the crossword.
“Bertie’s got a point there,” said Jury.
Wiggins said, “But you can’t always depend on a dog, can you?”
Jury looked at him, to see if he were joking. But Wiggins’s expression as he spooned sugar into his tea was almost holy in its seriousness. Jury lit a cigarette. It tasted like old socks.
“You can on Arnold,” said Bertie to Wiggins. “Smartest dog I ever did see. Bertie stuffed another toast finger in his mouth. “He can play ‘Simon Says.’ ”.
“How jolly,” said Melrose, trying to figure out a six-letter word for obfuscate.
“Just watch. Arnold, Simon says do this.” Bertie jumped up from his chair.
Arnold imitated the movement, rearing up his hindquarters.
“See?” said Bertie. Then to Arnold: “Arnold. Simon says do this!” Gleefully, Bertie clapped his hand over one side of his face.
Arnold raised his paw up to his eye.
“Aw, come on, Arnold!”
“Well, he did it, didn’t he?” said Melrose, fascinated, in spite of himself, by the dog’s movements.
With a deprecating gesture, Bertie said, “ ’Twas the wrong side.”
Melrose clapped his own hand against his brow. “For heaven’s sakes, you can’t expect Arnold to figure out a mirror-image, can you?” Melrose rooted into the bottom of the Weetabix box and lined up two more by Arnold’s empty plate.
Bertie was all nonchalance. “The dog shoulda knowed.”
Wiggins giggled.
Jury stared.
Like a petrel splitting the water and ascending with his treasured catch, that elusive image at the bottom of the well of Jury’s mind swam upward. An image of himself in the mirror, changing a handkerchief from one side to the other . . . another image . . . the hand of Les Aird going over his face to describe the strange look of the person in the fog . . . and more than anything, Adrian Rees. That picture. Yes, everyone had made the same mistake. And he had been the biggest fool of all. His mind traveled back over the description in the police report of the body of Gemma Temple . . . or maybe he had just resisted it, the answer which lurked, fugitive, at the bottom of his mind.
They were all looking at him.
Without even realizing it, he had stood up. “I’ve got a call to make. Wiggins, I want you to meet me in about fifteen minutes. Finish your breakfast.” Absently, he pocketed his cigarettes.
Wiggins looked surprised. “Meet you, sir? Where? Is something wrong?”
“No. I want you to meet me at Adrian Rees’s place in fifteen minutes.”
2
“What was that all about?” said Melrose Plant to everyone at large, Arnold included.
“Looked like he’d seen a ghost, or something,” said Wiggins, drinking the last of his tea.
Melrose returned to the crossword puzzle. Perhaps it was frivolous, but he was done with detection, so he might as well return to a pastime to which he seemed more suited. One could play music on her name. A Shakespearean character. Five down. He chewed the pencil. Fifteen across was Idiot. A fitting entry, he felt.
Play music. Piano. No, Shakespeare had never named anyone piano. At this rate he would not finish in under fifteen minutes, his usual time. Oh, for God’s sake, he thought. Viola. From Twelfth Night. Propitious, all things considered.
Viola and Sebastian, twins . . .
His mind started clicking over. For the next fifteen minutes, he thought about it, finally turned to Bertie and said, “May I borrow Arnold?”
3
She came out of the fog, walking toward him on Grape Lane, hatless, a wind off the sea lifting her fair hair.
“Kitty just told me about Bertie,” said Lily. “I was having coffee with her at the Fox just now. That’s awful, awful.” Tears shone in her eyes. “W
hoever could do such a thing?”
She looked at him sadly, expectantly, and he was struck afresh by her pale beauty and the pathos of her life. He tried to answer, but his mouth was numb. Finally, he said, “We don’t know.”
“I’m just going to the café. Were you on your way there?”
“No. No, I’m going to the gallery.”
“Please come by later for coffee; please do.”
Jury thanked her and watched her walk away. Had it been just yesterday when he’d seen her up on that chestnut mare, elegant in green velvet. He still watched the spot where she had vanished, disappearing into the fog which closed round her like a glove.
4
The gray brindled cat was trying to catch snowflakes hitting and melting on the windows of the Rackmoor Gallery by mashing its paws again and again on the glass. It kept up this frustrating pursuit even when the bell tinkled and Jury walked in.
It was darker inside than out, but not by much. Snow had started when Jury had left Bertie’s cottage and now, with the fog, Rackmoor lay hunched in a dusk-dark gloom.
From the little kitchen at the rear came a clatter — a pan dropped, perhaps — and then assorted obscenities, followed by some out-of-tune whistling.
“Mr. Rees!” called Jury.
Adrian appeared, the dim yellow light of the kitchen silhouetting him in the doorway. “Ah, Inspector! Just in time to share my humble breakfast of dried oatcake. That’s what poor little Jane Eyre had to eat at that dreadful school. Well, actually, I’m doing eggs and rashers, but I always feel a bit Brontë-ish on days like this. What’s the matter?”
“I’d like to see that painting again, the one you did of the Temple woman.”
“A customer at last! How much will you give for it?” Adrian leered and led Jury upstairs.
• • •
The oil stood on the easel which Adrian had set up near a window to catch what weak light it could. The effect on Jury was the same; ghosts stalked his mind. “Are you sure this is the way she looked?”
The Old Fox Deceived Page 26
