The Blue Last

by Martha Grimes

  Jury handed him the book, opened to the page on which Simon had listed the dates. “This book belongs to Simon Croft, Sir Oswald. Joss Neame helped identify some of this marginalia. He thought you’d be able to help.”

  Maples took the book, took up his rimless spectacles and bent over it.

  “And the last page, that list of words, I marked.”

  Turning to the page, Maples read off the list. “ ‘Enigma’… God, I don’t believe this.’ ” Sir Oswald nodded. “Pretty obviously worried about it, wouldn’t you say? Ralph Herrick’s work with the Enigma codes is what I wondered about. It could be what this Croft fellow wondered about, too.” Maples put down his glasses, tented his hands and regarded Jury over the tips of his fingers. “We learned from certain decrypts-and also a POW-about an operation that was going down in the middle of November on the night of a full moon-thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth. It was to be a three-stage operation: code name ‘Moonlight Sonata’-a sonata, you see, being a three-part piece. So the note there-” he pointed to Jury’s book “-refers to that plan of attack.”

  “This was the attack on Coventry? There was no advance warning?”

  Maples seemed to be studying the pattern in the wallpaper behind Jury. “Not precisely true, although a lot of people think it is. We knew Coventry and Birmingham were possible targets, but an enciphered map showed the locations to be London and the Home Counties. I’m simplifying the code business here, but the map misled us; the decrypt was wrong. That wasn’t the only time I wondered,” Maples said, musingly. “Rather I didn’t wonder at the time or I’d have done something. I wondered when it did no particular good.”

  Jury frowned. “You had reason to believe Herrick had something to do with the mistaken decrypt?”

  “Oh, I’m fairly certain he did; it was through his hands the map passed. I mean, he did the final decrypt.”

  “An honest mistake?”

  “Could have been, yes. But the ‘honest mistakes’ were building. There was the Bismarck business.” Maples motioned with two fingers toward Jury’s notes. “That date you have there. May 24, 1941. That was the day of the attack on the Bismarck. We had one hell of a time with the naval Enigma. It was some time before we finally broke it.” Reflectively, Maples scratched the neck beneath his collar. “The biggest problem was not being able to read the code far enough in advance to take action.”

  “But could someone have been working on both keys? The RAF and the Admiralty?”

  “Good question. Ordinarily, no. But Ralph had clearance to go from one place to another. At Bletchley, the keys worked on were in different huts. Security was hard to maintain. It was too easy for things to slip out. And there were so many people involved. I expect it wasn’t until after Herrick had gone to the Orkneys that I seriously started wondering. Hatston, that’s where our Fleet Air arm base was. Also we had one of our satellite interception sections based there.”

  “Herrick died there, I understand.”

  “Hmm. You haven’t, I suppose, talked to anyone in military intelligence? MI5, MI6?”

  Jury shook his head.

  “I mention that because I think they were on to Herrick and posted him there, as a temporary measure. Or, indeed, intelligence outfits being the bastards we always were, sent him on a permanent basis. You see, he was murdered a few months later. Of course, it was made to look like an accident, a drowning. Very convenient, I think.” Sir Oswald puffed out his cheeks and sat forward fixing Jury with steely gray eyes. “Then there was ‘Julia.’ ”

  “Julia? Who was she?”

  Maples smiled. “She turned up in the GAF-German Air Force-traffic. We had been having great success with that particular traffic until ‘Julia’ appeared. This was a word that kept turning up in decrypts that we could never pin down. I’ll tell you it messed things up for quite a while. You see, it’s the main reason I know that Herrick was one of theirs. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover he’d been a double agent. It would have suited his love of game playing. Anyway, just before the end, which I think he could see coming, he wrote me a note.” Maples pointed with one of the canes at the bookshelves behind Jury’s chair. “Would you just get me the large volume on the end of that bottom shelf?”

  Jury rose and pulled out a thick and much-used book. He took it to the sofa.

  Maples adjusted his glasses and opened the book to a page with a note for a marker. “This is quite famous. Listen:

  Whenas in silks my Julia goes,

  Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows

  That liquefaction of her clothes.

  There are at least a dozen poems, all written for Julia, not just that one. That one, though, is the best known. It’s that wonderful word ‘liquefaction’ that makes us remember it, I suppose.”

  Sir Oswald paused and Jury prompted him: “And-?”

  “Well, it’s the poet, isn’t it, Superintendent? Robert Herrick.”

  There was a lengthy silence in which they regarded one another. Then Jury said, “It really was a game for Herrick, wasn’t it?”

  Sir Oswald nodded. “It was, yes.” He removed the paper and unfolded it. Adjusting his glasses, he read: ‘I’m surprised at you, Ozzie, for never having worked out Julia. You, such a lover of seventeenth-century poetry.’ It’s signed, simply, ‘Ralph.’”

  “What a bastard.”

  Maples nodded again. “Exactly. Especially”-here he shut the book with a snap-“for calling me Ozzie.”

  IV Fear Wearing Black

  Forty-seven

  Snow fell, carelessly, languidly, large flakes drifting by the window of the drawing room at Ardry End where Melrose sat, musing. It was Christmas Eve, or rather Christmas Eve late morning. He was waiting for Jury to arrive.

  He imagined some weary sojourner stopping to look in from outside, finding the scene so agreeable he might be transported back to his childhood in a cozy house, sitting before a fireplace with a dog like Sparky and a cat like Cyril. Melrose could almost see a pale face at the window, begging, Letmein letmein letmein.

  Misguided soul.

  “Did you finish your shopping, Melrose, or did you just waste your time in London?” Agatha set about dolloping jam on her scone.

  How many scones was that? Eleven? “You mean after Marshall and I wasted our time all over Florence?”

  “Now that would be the place to do one’s Christmas shopping!”

  “It was and one did.” Melrose checked his wristwatch. Ten-thirty. Jack and Hammer not open yet.

  Agatha was so surprised by this answer she nearly forgot to put double cream on top of the jam. “Really?” She simpered, spooning on the cream. “Well, I’ve always said you can be quite thoughtful when you want to be.”

  “Isn’t it a shame how seldom I want to be?”

  “It’s too bad you had Trueblood along. With his ridiculous picture.”

  “It’s the reason we went to Italy in the first place, Agatha. If the ridiculous picture is really a Masaccio, it’s worth a fortune.” Which was not the point, certainly, but money was one of the few things Agatha could understand as a motive for doing anything.

  “I seriously doubt it was.” She polished off the scone. “I saw one just like it in Swinton Barrow.” She looked at the cobalt blue plate. “Are there no more scones?”

  Melrose stared at her. “What?”

  “More scones.”

  “No, I mean what painting?”

  “A painting just like Trueblood’s in a Swinton Barrow shop. Well, not exactly like it, but the same sort of subject.”

  “Where in Swinton Barrow?”

  “One of those antique shops; you know Swinton Barrow has so many of them. Trueblood thinks he’s so lucky in that painting. Wait until he finds out!”

  “The shop wasn’t Jasperson’s, was it?”

  “I don’t recall the name. It faced the green… yes, and directly opposite a pub. The Owl, I think it’s called. I’m sure you could find the pub.” Simper, simper. “I told Theo about i
t. He was so amused. Both of us were.”

  To think the painting’s fate-meaning Trueblood’s fate-lay in the hands of Agatha and that snake, Theo Wrenn Browne, was not to be borne. Melrose sat with his unlit cigarette, his fingers turning the lighter over and over, his mind in time with it-over and over: buy her silence, scare her witless, kill her where she sits. He rather favored the last of these (as it was the only surefire way of stopping her). The trouble was that Agatha never kept her word so he couldn’t really buy it; she would be holding the blackmail bag and could hit him for money whenever she felt like it. The only way he would have half a chance to shut her up was to convince her that this new painting she’d seen made no difference to anyone. “Oh, yes, I’ve just remembered. That painting. You needn’t bother telling Trueblood; he’s already seen it. He isn’t interested.”

  She looked crestfallen, having been deprived of her bad news. “He isn’t?”

  “He went over to Swinetown-”

  “Swinton.”

  “He went there yesterday afternoon. He doesn’t want it, anyway.”

  Agatha was truly miffed. It was Marshall Trueblood who had made fools of both her and Theo Wrenn Browne at the trial, the one now known as the Chamberpot Caper. Melrose smiled just thinking about that. What a moment!

  “Not only that,” continued Melrose, “a triptych did go missing from a chapel-where? I can’t recall-in 14-something, and for all we know that might have been it. Or one of them, I mean one of the panels, and wouldn’t that be a find!” Melrose then loaded on every scrap of information he had about “clumsy Tom” (which was what Masaccio was called by his friends), and was pleased with himself that he remembered so much. “St. Peter Healing the Sick with His Shadow is one of the marvelous frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel; you really should see it, Agatha, it’s quite magnificent.” Then he described, in lavish detail, the Tribute Money, “restored after that terrible fire in the 1770s and you can imagine what a job that must have been!” For even Agatha’s weasel imagination could operate on this level.

  But wouldn’t, since her eyelids were fluttering and she was swaying on the sofa, eyes now shut against Masolino’s and Masaccio’s friendship and their painting together many of those frescoes. Melrose went on until he heard a hiccupy snore.

  He went to the sofa and shouted “Agatha!” Scaring her awake was always so much fun.

  Her eyes snapped open. “I have to be going. Good heavens, Melrose, how long have you kept me here with your nattering?” She gathered up purse and carry-all (which she had not had a chance to fill with his cook Martha’s confections), got up and tugged at her girdle.

  “Going?” Thank the lord.

  “I’m off!”

  Bloody hell! he thought, as soon as she’d left. “Find my car keys, Ruthven!”

  Swinton Barrow was twenty-five miles to the southwest of Long Piddleton and was a little like it, but on a larger scale. Swinton just had more of everything-larger village green, antique shops, bookstores.

  At this moment Melrose was sizing up the antique shops on the other side of the green. He had slanted the car in between others outside of the sign of the Owl. He was looking across the green, which was a flat expanse of box hedges and benches, still with snow clinging to them, trapped in the hedges’ wiry surface. Frills of snow lined the backs of the benches. It was a pleasant, wintry scene. Jasperson’s was directly across from the pub, as Agatha had said (in one of her rare moments of accurate reportage).

  A bell jangled as he opened the door on a large room that smelled of wood polish and money. Trueblood could spend a week here. C. Jasperson knew his stuff. In the middle of the room was a center table with a green marble top on a gilded pediment adorned with putti. To someone else, the piece would have been quite gorgeous, but Melrose couldn’t stand cherub adornments; he had a hard time to keep from kicking them. To his right was a Queen Anne mirrored bookcase he wouldn’t have minded having for Ardry End. Near it was an inlaid walnut writing table on which sat an ormolu tea caddy. Melrose loved to find things inside other things and was delighted to see three little tea caddies nesting inside the big one. He smiled and put the cover back on. Near these pieces was a work table, a porcelain plaque inlaid on its top, the interior mirrored. Vivian would like this. He appeared to be doing his Christmas shopping all over again. As he moved from piece to piece, his eyes traveled over the walls, looking for the painting-or plaque-Agatha had claimed to be like Trueblood’s. He didn’t see it until he’d stepped closer to a little alcove on his left, and there it was. For once Agatha was right. The painting was either of a saint or a monk and could have been a companion piece to Trueblood’s. That this painting too might be a section of Masaccio’s altarpiece was ludicrous.

  “Hello.”

  The soft voice made him jump. He turned and found himself face-to-face with the Platonic Idea of Grandmother. It was this pink-complexioned, sky blue-eyed, rousingly coral-lipsticked mouth that everyone wanted for a grandmother and nobody ever got. She smiled and looked, well, merry. “Could I help you?”

  Melrose made a slight bow. “I’m interested in this. You know, a friend of mine told me he’d found one in Swinton very much like this. Are you Miss Eccleston?”

  “Yes, I am. Amy Eccleston. Why, he was here very recently, about two weeks ago it must have been. He was quite taken by that panel. I believe both could be the side panels of a triptych or polyptych. Excuse me for a minute.” The telephone was ringing and she whisked herself away into another room. He spent the odd few minutes studying the so-called Masaccio (as she hadn’t yet called it) and trying to remember what Di Bada had told them about Vasari’s description of the Pisa polyptych in that church in Pisa. St. Jerome? St. Julian? St. Nicholas?

  She was back. “I’m sorry. It’s been busy today.”

  “Mr. Trueblood is under the impression his is an original Masaccio. Is that what you told him?”

  “Oh, my goodness, no.” Her laugh was breathy. “But there’s a possibility it might be. Mr. Jasperson’s been trying to authenticate them. You’re familiar with Masaccio? A fifteenth-century painter of the Italian Renaissance-”

  “And is Mr. Jasperson having some success in doing this? What’s the provenance?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t know. I found them in a little old church in Tuscany. Of course, I didn’t guess at their value then, but when I brought them into the shop, well, Mr. Jasperson was more than a little astonished.”

  “Because they were so valuable?”

  “Because they were so divine.”

  Turning to the panel, they breathed in a little divinity.

  She said, “I’ll tell you what might be possible. Possibly, your friend mentioned that his might be a copy of a panel by Masaccio. On the other hand, they could be panels of the polyptych originally in a church in Pisa. The Santa Maria del Carmine. An altarpiece, most of which was recovered. Part, you see, is still missing.”

  That little morsel wafted down as gently as the morning’s snow, as quietly and unobtrusively as a snowflake.

  “Then this,” Melrose said innocently, “might be original?”

  “I tremble to think.” Her blue eyes widened.

  Melrose laughed. “I’m sure you do. Though if you believed it, the panel wouldn’t be selling for-” Melrose fingered the white tag-“two thousand pounds.” He dropped the tag and looked at her.

  “No, of course it wouldn’t.”

  “At auction how much might it fetch?”

  “Oh, heavens, it would be priceless.”

  In his mind’s eye, Melrose saw Trueblood clutching his picture, carrying it all over Tuscany. He smiled. “Priceless, I agree.”

  In silence, they regarded the panel.

  Melrose said, “Now, Miss Eccleston, here’s the thing: that friend of mine believes he possesses something utterly unique. He’s been to Florence to try to authenticate the work. It doesn’t surprise me your proprietor here has had no luck. No one could swear either way. The thing is, though, wit
h this-” Melrose nodded toward the second St. Who “-that if other pieces keep turning up, Mr. Trueblood will be terrifically disappointed, for I’m sure you agree any more panels would seem to dilute the notion of originality, wouldn’t they? To find even one under the circumstances you’ve related appears nearly impossible. And more than that… well…” He shrugged.

  She nodded and nodded.

  “What I propose is that I purchase this, which would prevent his seeing it and, and, Miss Eccleston, should Mr. Jasperson-or you-come across any other such, you will be so good as to let me know right away. Agreed?”

  Oh, she was happy! “Why, yes, of course. Yes.”

  Melrose took out his checkbook, slapped it open on the writing table, pushed over the tea caddy and said, “I want this too.”

  “Oh,” she said, as if he’d pinched her. “Certainly. That’s three hundred, that is.”

  Melrose wrote out a check for twenty-three hundred pounds and ripped it out. “There you are. Now, I’d like you to keep the panel here until I can come and collect it. The thing is, I’m meeting Mr. Trueblood and wouldn’t want him to start asking what’s in the parcel.”

  “Delighted, delighted to hold it for you. I’ll just put it in back.”

  “I’ll take the tea caddy. You needn’t wrap it.”

  She ferried the panel away.

  On the way to the door, Melrose hauled off and kicked the putti.

  Then he drove back to Long Piddleton; he had shut up Agatha and now he would have to shut up Theo Wrenn Browne.

  The bell over the door of the Wrenn’s Nest Bookshop jangled unpleasantly, like a pinched nerve, as if anything coming under the purview of the store’s owner reflected the owner’s temperament.

  Melrose waited, tapping his fingers on the counter, looking out of the shop’s bay window at the Jack and Hammer directly across the street. His friends were gathered there, apparently having a merry time. Trueblood, in particular. Theo Wrenn Browne would be waltzing right over there when he saw them in that window seat, eager to impart any unwanted information he had to share about Trueblood’s painting.