The Man with a Load of Mischief

by Martha Grimes

  Wiggins’s head snapped up. “I beg your pardon . . . ? ‘Getting it,’ sir? Why, yes, of course.”

  Jury nodded at his sergeant, and then turned to Vivian Rivington. “Just go on, Miss Rivington.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, really. Simon had to go to Dorking Dean, and we decided to meet for lunch at the Swan at eleven.”

  “Do you go there often?”

  “No, but I like it sometimes. It gets me out of Long Piddleton; and as he had to go to Dorking . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Jury was tearing up little bits of Pluck’s blotter. He cleared his throat. “You didn’t see this man?” She shook her head. “You didn’t leave the table whilst you were at the Swan?” Again, she shook her head. “And this Mrs. Willypoole — was she in the saloon bar all the time?”

  Vivian creased her brow in thought. “I honestly can’t say. I think she was.”

  “And you and Mr. Matchett left at around noon?”

  “Yes.” She had inched up to the desk, and put her fingers along its edge, saying, “What’s going on, Inspector Jury?” Jury looked at her finger — unvarnished nails like a little chain of opals — and drew, his own hand away from the blotter. “That’s what we’re attempting to discover.” Never had a reply sounded so weak.

  “You arrived after Mr. Matchett? Together?”

  “We drove our separate cars. Got there at the same time, really. I couldn’t believe —” She dropped her head in her hand, but quickly rescued it, as if the gesture had been overly dramatic. Then she sat straight, like a reprimanded child. Jury got the impression that Vivian Rivington held constant, chiding talks with herself. “The thing is: this man must have been murdered when I was right there. I can’t get over that, I really can’t.”

  Neither could Jury.

  “Inspector? Are you quite all right?” She was leaning toward him, looking concerned. “You must’ve been working too hard, that’s all.”

  “I’m all right. Look, there are a number of questions I need to ask you, but right now I’d like to see Mr. Matchett.” He was really dying to ask her about Matchett. He wet his mouth, but held his tongue. He turned to Wiggins: “Show Miss Rivington out, Sergeant. Then tell Mr. Matchett I’ll be with him in a moment.”

  “Yes, sir.” Wiggins rose, handkerchief and notebook in hand, and opened the door for Vivian, who, after looking at the chief inspector uncertainly, turned and walked out.

  Jury sank back into his chair and took several deep breaths. You great nit, he said to himself. You clod.

  • • •

  Jury was still upbraiding himself when Matchett walked in, and took a seat.

  After offering him a cigarette, Jury asked him the same questions he had asked Vivian Rivington.

  “I have the most uncomfortable feeling,” said Matchett, “that I’m going to be It.”

  “ ‘It’?”

  “Oh, don’t come the innocent over me, Inspector. I know the superintendent must have passed along the information to you about my wife. How many other suspects have you with a murder in their past.” He tried to smile, but didn’t make a very convincing job of it. Jury could understand why.

  “I suppose everyone has something he’d rather not have hung out with the Monday wash, Mr. Matchett.”

  Simon Matchett grimly studied his cigarette. “But not the murder of a wife, I daresay.”

  Jury observed him closely. Unlike Oliver Darrington, Matchett did not incline toward Italian silk suits and Savile Row tailors. Jury thought he had expensive tastes, only he was not quite so flashy in displaying them. Matchett’s image was a kind of careless understatement of dress, speech, and mannerism. He was wearing a cotton shirt, sleeves rolled just above the wrists, and blue jeans. Simple enough. It would have taken someone with Jury’s powers of observation to see the shirt was expensive Liberty lawn, and that the same store had supplied the pants. You didn’t get them cut like that off the peg at Marks and Sparks. No, he was much more subtle than Darrington. Darrington made of himself a kind of handsome window display. Matchett, however, had a shuttered look — a kind of shadow moving behind the blind. He would convey to any woman he wanted that the power to raise that blind was hers alone.

  “Let’s talk about this particular murder, Mr. Matchett. Was there any special reason you chose the Swan for lunch?”

  “Only that it was on the way back from Dorking.”

  Jury looked at him. Coincidences did happen, of course. But he wasn’t getting paid to believe in coincidences, was he?

  Matchett went on: “I find it strange the man would have stayed out in that garden all that time in the cold.”

  “Well, he wasn’t necessarily alive all that time, was he?”

  Matchett winced. “Am I attracting murderers?”

  “I don’t know. Are you?”

  “This is the second time I seem to have been there when one was done.”

  At least he was gallant enough not to include Vivian Rivington.

  “Was Mrs. Willypoole in the saloon bar all the while you were there?”

  Matchett thought a moment, then nodded. “Yes. She was having a drink and reading the paper, there behind the bar.”

  “And you saw no one else? No one went through that door to the court?”

  “No. I’m sure of that. We were sitting there facing the door.”

  “Tell me about your wife, Mr. Matchett. I’ve read the report, yes, but you might clear up a point or two.”

  “Yes, of course. Well, we lived in Devon. We owned — she owned — several inns. The Goat and Compasses was one, that’s where we lived. I’m just putting you in the picture, Inspector. You see, the Goat and Compasses was one of those old galleried inns. I thought it would be rather fun to put on the odd play or two in the inn yard. We had the necessary construction done: the stage, some benches done up for the audience. We used the gallery to seat people too, when there were a lot, and there were a surprising number, after that first summer. It was no Chichester Festival, but it was successful. We had floodlights for light after dark.

  “I did mention, didn’t I, that I was an actor? Not a very good one, perhaps, but I had my share of small parts in the West End. It’s how I met Celia, my wife. She fancied herself an actress, and turned up in some summer production in Kent. Probably her father bought her the role. He had a lot of money, mostly in property. All of those inns, you see. Two others in Devon, the Iron Devil and the Bag o’Nails. When Celia took them over, she kept a very tight rein on the purse strings, believe me. I’m not going to gloss over the fact that there were many reasons for my dissatisfaction with the marriage. I hated her after five years of it. She was so horribly possessive. I wanted out. We had some awful rows, I can tell you. And so,” he added acidly, “could the servants. And did tell the police.”

  “Why didn’t you leave her?”

  “I was going to. That was when Harriet Gethvyn-Owen came along. She was lovely, really lovely. And another amateur actress. Only she had talent, quite a bit of it. One thing led to another — the old story. We fell in love. Which gave me even more reason to leave Celia.

  “During this one summer we were doing Othello. Ambitious of me, but I’d always wanted to try the part. Harriet played Desdemona. Celia suspected something between us and took to keeping a little office in a room just across the corridor from the stage. The rear of the courtyard, with that second level, the gallery running all the way round — you know such inns were the precursors of the theaters? That’s what gave me the idea in the first place. Well, Celia’s office was just a few feet from the stage, as I said. That’s how possessive she was. On the night she was killed, the maid — Daisy something — had brought Celia her usual hot drink. Not more than a half an hour later, the cook, Rose Smollett, came to retrieve the tray and found Celia slumped over her desk. She was dead.” Matchett took a long draw on his cigarette. “The desk was gone through, the safe open. It was finally put down to ‘person or persons unknown.’ ”

  “But not imm
ediately.”

  Matchett laughed with some bitterness. “Oh, certainly not immediately. As you can well imagine. I was the prime suspect, wasn’t I? Good Lord, look at the motive I had. If I hadn’t been on stage when Celia was killed, I’m quite sure I’d have been in the dock. And Harriet, too, perhaps. It would have been the obvious solution — husband and mistress murdering jealous wife — but it wouldn’t do. The play was going on at the time.”

  “I assume there were plenty of people to swear it was you?”

  “Thirty or forty. If that’s enough witnesses.” It was Matchett who smiled now.

  “The perfect alibi.”

  Matchett crushed out his cigarette and leaned forward. “Inspector, in all of Darrington’s imbecile mysteries, people are always talking about ‘perfect’ alibis, or ‘unbreakable’ alibis, or ‘airtight’ alibis. Always with that same sardonic tone you just used. It seems to me, though, that if an alibi isn’t perfect it’s hardly an alibi. So aren’t you being a bit redundant? A redundancy I rather resent.”

  “You certainly have a point there, Mr. Matchett.”

  “And furthermore, innocent men do have your ‘perfect’ alibis, precisely because they are innocent.”

  “Another point I’ll admit. But I wasn’t really implying anything.”

  “The hell you weren’t.”

  Jury let that pass. “Had your wife no enemies?”

  Matchett shrugged. “I suppose so. She wasn’t popular, that’s certain. But no one, surely, with motive enough to kill her.” Matchett wiped his hands over his face in a gesture of extreme weariness. “Afterwards, Harriet just left. Went to the States.”

  “Why would she do that? The way was finally clear. You could have been together, then, despite the unhappy circumstances. Why would she leave?”

  “Guilt, I suppose. The publicity. She was a very sensitive person. Rather retiring.”

  Jury doubted that.

  “And she just decided to pack it in. Said she couldn’t live with me, not with the cloud of Celia’s death hanging over us . . .” Matchett shook his head as if trying to clear away memories. “Well, it’s sixteen years ago. Sleeping dogs, and all that.” He looked at Jury. “At least I hope it will lie still, but somehow I doubt it.”

  “Nothing ever really does, does it?” Jury smiled, making a note to tell Wiggins to get the file of the Celia Matchett murder sent to Weatherington. “Now,” he said, trying for as casual a tone as possible, “What about these rumors you’re engaged to Miss Rivington? Vivian, that is.”

  Matchett was surprised by the question. “What’s that to do with anything?”

  Jury smiled bleakly. “I’ve no idea. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Well, I can’t deny that there is something between Vivian and me.”

  “ ‘Something’ can mean a lot of things.”

  “Let’s say I have asked her to marry me, yes. But that’s far from her accepting.”

  “Why?”

  Matchett shrugged and smiled. “Who knows what goes on in women’s minds, Inspector?” He lit a cigar.

  It was not the chauvinism of the comment that was so irritating; it was the lumping of Vivian Rivington with Women in general. “I should think you’d need to know what’s going on in Miss Rivington’s mind, if you intend to marry her.” It was absurd to be defending a woman he’d met less than an hour before. But Matchett’s banal remark grated on him because his work brought him too close to the heart of things to suffer such suave generalizations as Matchett had uttered.

  Matchett merely inhaled on his cigar and regarded Jury from half-closed eyes. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  Picking up a pencil and doodling to distract himself, Jury asked, “Are you in love with her, Mr. Matchett?”

  Matchett rolled the cigar in his mouth and studied Jury’s face. “What a very cynical question, Inspector. I’ve just said I’d proposed marriage to her.”

  How about a direct answer, mate? Jury wanted to say, but said, instead: “Her sister, I take it, knows of this liaison?”

  “I should think so. I’d say she approves.”

  Jury knew the man was neither stupid nor that insensitive, so why was he pretending? “It would be hard on the elder sister if Vivian were to marry. That is, as it stands now, Isabel more or less had the say-so over all of this money.”

  “Out in the streets, that sort of thing? Vivian would never do that to Isabel. And Isabel is absolutely devoted to Vivian.”

  Again, Jury was sure he didn’t believe that, not for a minute. He returned to his original line of questioning: “So you got to the Swan with Two Necks about eleven —?”

  “That’s right. It opens then.”

  “Where were you around ten? Or between ten and eleven?” There was still about a half an hour unaccounted for in Matchett’s alibi.

  “In Dorking Dean. Doing a bit of shopping.”

  “And what time did you leave?”

  “Oh, about a quarter to. I was stuck in traffic moving round the circle, I remember, for a good fifteen minutes. Christmas shoppers.”

  “I see. Well, I suppose that’s all for now, Mr. Matchett. I’ll be in touch.”

  As Matchett was leaving, Pluck popped his head in the door and told Jury that Mr. Plant was outside, wanting to speak to him. Jury said to show him in.

  Refusing a chair, Melrose Plant said, with some urgency, “I think you should come along to the vicarage, Inspector. The vicar has some information that might be relevant. He was outside the Swan for some little time before we got there and he heard those policemen say something about the condition of the body.”

  Jury was up and putting on his coat. “What about the body, Mr. Plant?”

  “The vicar says he’d heard the man’s face was cut up a bit. Cuts on the nose? Very odd.”

  Jury wished the police around here could keep their information — a little of it, at least — to themselves. “Yes, that’s right. I agree, it’s most puzzling.”

  “Well, the vicar knows what it means, or so he says.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “It’s a corruption of the real meaning, you see.” The Reverend Denzil Smith was pointing at a picture in a book of inn signs. The book lay open on the small table between Jury and Plant, next to a plate of sandwiches and the beer the vicar’s housekeeper had provided for them. Looking at the book, Jury marveled at the inventiveness of the signpainter, or whoever had thought up the double-necked swans.

  “It used to be,” continued the vicar, “that the royal birds were marked by cutting small notches into their bills. And the vintners did that sort of thing too, I understand, so that ownership of the swans could be distinguished by the nicks. So, you see, it would really have been a ‘swan with two nicks’. But what you see here is the work of some illiterate signpainter, who either couldn’t read or couldn’t spell.” The vicar sat back complacently, after selecting a half of a cheese and pickle sandwich for himself.

  “Good Lord,” said Jury, still looking at the picture. “So the murderer ‘nicked’ Creed —”

  “I would presume so, yes,” said the vicar. “It was done on the nose, wasn’t it?”

  “But why on earth — ?” said Plant. “Having his little joke?”

  Jury lit a cigarette. “ ‘Having his little joke?’ I don’t imagine so, not exactly. Probably another red herring.”

  The vicar, having got the stage for the moment, was not about to relinquish it. “There are other examples of this sort of thing — I mean, corruptions of the original meaning. Just outside Weatherington there’s the Bull and Mouth. Never guess where that comes from, would you? Without waiting for them to guess, he went on: “It was a sign made up to commemorate the taking of Boulogne Harbor by Henry the Eighth. You see? The mouth of the harbor. Boulogne mouth.” The vicar shoved his glasses back on his nose. “One of my favorites is the Elephant and Castle. A lot of theories are tossed about on that one, all the way from finding elephant bones on the spot to Eleanor of Aquitaine. But I imagine the �
��castle’ was merely meant to represent the howdah on the back of the elephant. Do you know, an officer was once actually appointed to roam the City and check the signs? It was his duty to rid the place of blue boars and flying pigs and hogs wearing armor.” The vicar laughed, and went on. “Yes, that was reported in the Spectator back in seventeen-something.”

  Jury, who wanted to get out of the seventeenth and into the present century, still felt that, since the vicar had supplied him with information he would never have got elsewhere, he should indulge him a bit.

  “Did you know Hogarth painted the original sign for the Man with a Load of Mischief? There are a few inns by that name. Some called just the Load of Mischief, or the Man Loaded with Mischief. Not so many as there are Bells, of course. Must be five hundred of those in England. The inns around here are all popular names. There’s the Bull and Mouth, that I was just talking about. Not too many Swan with Two Necks, though there’s one in Cheapside that’s got a gallows sign. Like the White Hart in Scole. Cost over a thousand pounds, that sign did and that was back in 1655, if you can believe it. Those signs stretch clear across the road, and were always falling and killing people. Outside Dorking there’s the Bag o’ Nails, that’s a popular name. But I think it was originally the Devil and the Bag o’ Nails. Now that’s an interesting —”

  Jury could stand it no longer and tried to divert the vicar’s attention from etymological absurdities and signs falling on people to their own more pressing murders. “I certainly do thank you for this bit of information, Vicar. I can’t imagine anyone of us — the police — would have hit on it.” The vicar beamed. “You were at the Man with a Load of Mischief on the Thursday night, and I just wanted to ask you a question or two about that.”

  “Terrible, thing, terrible.” His recounting of the dinner the night Small was killed was even less promising in detail than the accounts of the other guests. The vicar had been with Willie Bicester-Strachan playing draughts between nine and ten, he said. “I can’t imagine this happening in Long Piddleton. Been here forty-five years. Came originally as curate. My wife died nine years ago, God rest her. But Mrs. Gaunt has been doing for me very nicely together with whatever housemaids we’ve had, like Ruby.” He looked puzzled. “Ruby’s been gone longer than usual, this time.”