Two of Harkins’s men, ropes tied round their waists, were making their slow descent down the face of the cliff. But the same rocks’ configuration which had prevented Bertie getting a toehold prevented their going down farther. There was no way down, not even for Arnold this time, on whose collar Bertie had a firm grip.
Lily Siddons was — or had been — walking along the narrow strands of shingle between Rackmoor and Runner’s Bay, the same one her mother must have walked so many years ago. Jury could barely make her out down there, where she stood looking up. The water was already round her ankles and would soon be up to her knees and then —
She raised her arm. She could have been a bather on holiday, halloaing to friends back on shore.
Jury tossed off his coat and was halfway over the edge before anyone knew it, before Wiggins could yell: “My God! You can’t get down there!”
From the people assembled at the top of the cliff came screams of protest, among them Harkins’s and Plant’s, who both yelled in their different idioms to get back up, you goddamned fool!
Only Bertie’s yell was effective. “Get him, Arnold!”
Before Jury had gone another inch, he felt the terrier’s mouth close round his forearm. It gave Plant, Harkins, and Wiggins just enough time to drag him back to the top.
“We don’t need your stupid heroics, Richard!” Harkins threw Jury’s coat round his shoulders.
“It wasn’t that . . . ” said Jury, wiping his hair away from his forehead as he looked, dazed, over the edge. What he saw was the collapse of the last wave over Lily’s head and the arm outstretched against the dark waters of winter.
She might have been waving good-bye.
9
They were saying good-bye to Bertie.
“The Chateau de Meechem was especially fine tonight, Copperfield,” said Melrose Plant as he stuffed an incredibly large tip into Bertie’s shirt pocket. “And the meal excellent, though the promised smoked salmon was once again noticeably absent.”
Bertie snapped the towel he used for wiping tables and draped it over his arm. “Ain’t salmon season, I expect.”
“Bertie,” said Jury. “I have an idea your mother will be in Northern Ireland for some time yet. At any rate, you should be hearing from her very soon. And so should Miss Cavendish. So if any of them — Frog Eyes, Codfish, any of them — come round with their questions, just tell them there’ll be something in the post. And if that doesn’t satisfy them, tell them to ring me up.” He stuffed a card with a New Scotland Yard number into the same pocket Plant had just stuffed the money.
Bertie beamed and squinted in turns. “How’d you—” Then he apparently thought better of it, and simply started rubbing Arnold’s head.
“Not to worry,” said Jury, holding out his hand. “Goodbye, Bertie.”
Bertie shook hands. “Ain’t you stayin’ overnight, then, sir?”
“No. I’m taking a late train from York. But call me sometime, will you? To let me know what happens? Jury winked.
“You bet, sir. Shake hands, Arnold Ain’t you got no manners?”
Arnold held up his paw.
“Good-bye, Bertie,” said Melrose Plat. “And may you never turn thirteen.”
• • •
Outside, Jury and Plant strolled up along the seawall to look at the village for the last time.
“I don’t think it was the money,” said Jury. “I don’t think she wanted the money, or the privilege that went with the Crael name. “I think she only wanted the family.” Plant said nothing, and Jury turned to stare out at the dark waves rolling in. “Sometimes I feel it’s like, I don’t know, a false vocation. And now I’m about to be made superintendent. I feel as if I’m being asked to mete out justice, somehow. How do I do that? You look at someone like Julian Crael or someone like Lily and feel they’re as much victims as the rest of us . . . yet she’s supposed to have done all of this in cold blood?” He looked out to sea as if the sea might give her back. “It’s not up to me to decide, is it? All I’m supposed to do is collar them and bring them in. Only sometimes I don’t bring them in. I wonder about justice.” For a moment he was silent, looking out to sea. “Wonder about being a superintendent, too.”
Plant lit up a cigarette. “It’s cool.”
And they turned from the sea and walked back into the fogs of Rackmoor.
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Copyright © 1982 by Martha Grimes
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The Old Fox Deceived Page 28
