The Man with a Load of Mischief

by Martha Grimes

  “Find anything?” asked Melrose.

  Jury shook his head, and then noticed the lamp, which was hung over the pulpit on a brass arm. He reached up and pulled the beaded cord. A pool of warm light spread across the pulpit and fanned out through the chancel, where it ended weakly before the altar.

  He descended the steps and the three of them walked under the chancel arch, Lady Ardry still plucking at Plant’s coat as if the murderer were at that moment breathing heavily in the dark seclusion of one of the unlit aisles. The altar had been freshly decked with flowers for the holiday services. In the dimly lit and damp enclosure, they gave off a fragrance that was heady and exotic. There was a small sacristy in the southeast corner, which opened into the church by a door in the chancel wall. Jury went through it, played his light over the tiny room, and let it stop a moment on the chalice. Perhaps it was his insatiable policeman’s curiosity. He walked over to it and drew the napkin off the top.

  Inside the cup was a gold charm bracelet.

  Quickly, he pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket, shook it open, and reached into the chalice. He went back out to the altar, where the two others were standing, looking at the altar.

  “Goor Lord!” said Agatha when she saw what he was holding.

  “In the chalice, if you can believe it.”

  There was a brief silence as they considered their prize. “But wouldn’t it have been found last Sunday?”

  “No Communion,” said Lady Ardry. “Denzil was always forgetting Communion. Anyway, he’d not have used that. Thought it unsanitary. He used small, silver cups, occasionally.”

  “You’re assuming,” said Melrose, “it was Ruby left it there? Before she disappeared?”

  “Yes. It was rather clever, really. I think it was a kind of insurance. She knew the bracelet was important, and knew it would eventually be discovered, if she didn’t get back to claim it herself. One would almost think she’d a head on her shoulders.”

  “That,” said Lady Ardry, “is doubtful.”

  • • •

  When they returned to the Man with a Load of Mischief fifteen minutes later, Jury found that Pluck had managed to arrive and detain the others, and that they were none too happy about it. They were bunched up at the bar: Trueblood, Simon Matchett, the Bicester-Strachans, and Vivian Rivington. Isabel sat alone at the bar drinking a syrupy liqueur. Sheila Hogg, according to Pluck, had left before he got there, apparently in a fit of temper over a flirtation between Darrington and Mrs. Bicester-Strachan.

  Jury asked Daphne Murch to bring him cigarettes and read through the statements Pluck had taken down. There was not one of them who could substantiate an alibi for the hour or two before they got to the inn. He seemed to remember Plant’s saying that Lady Ardry had been with him during that time, and, if so, she might be clear. But Jury would take a bit of delight in keeping that to himself for a while. As for the others, any one of them could have left the inn here at almost any time without attracting undue attention. It was only a few minutes to the vicarage, and cars were always pulling in and leaving the cobbled courtyard. Jury learned from Pluck’s notes that Darrington had driven Lorraine home to get her checkbook. Likely story, that. Sheila Hogg must have thought so too. At one point, Jury remembered Matchett’s leaving the lounge bar. And at another, Isabel had been missing. Maybe just to the loo, but, still, there it was. Everyone and no one.

  When he looked up from his notes, everyone was staring or fiddling with buttons, or laces, or hair. Jury told Wiggins to go after Sheila Hogg and get a statement from her; he would stay here and follow up on Constable Pluck’s notes.

  It was Simon Matchett who broke the tension by saying: “I’ve a feeling of déjà vu about this. One might think we were all back here the night that man Small was . . .” But his voice broke over the last few words.

  “How true, Mr. Matchett. And now, if I could see each of you? Constable Pluck, I think the best place might be the small room in the front.”

  • • •

  “Mr. Bicester-Strachan, I’m sure this is extremely painful for you. I know you were a very good friend of the vicar.” Bicester-Strachan kept his head averted, taking out his handkerchief, then stuffing it back in his pocket. “You were supposed to meet Mr. Smith here, I believe you said?”

  Bicester-Strachan nodded: “Yes. We were to have a game of draughts after dinner. That is, he wasn’t coming here for dinner, but after he had done his sermon for tomorrow . . .” The voice cracked.

  “When did you see him to make these arrangements?”

  “Just this afternoon. About two, I suppose it was.” The old man’s gaze wandered round the room, as if he were trying to fix on something to take his mind off the vicar’s death.

  “You went outside for a walk — did you leave the premises?”

  “What? Oh, no. Just walked up and down in the lot. It gets so stuffy in the bar with all the cigarette smoke. And I was concerned about Denzil.” He looked puzzled. “He’s always so prompt.” And Bicester-Strachan turned toward the door as if he might expect the vicar to walk through it, even then.

  “Do you recognize this, Mr. Bicester-Strachan?” Ruby Judd’s bracelet was lying on the gate-legged table, resting on Jury’s handkerchief. Bicester-Strachan shook his head and looked annoyed, as if Jury really shouldn’t be so frivolous as to bring the subject around to jewelry.

  “But you knew Mr. Smith had found it this morning.”

  Bicester-Strachan frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Didn’t the vicar inform you he had found a bracelet belonging to Ruby Judd?”

  “Ruby? That poor girl who was . . . yes, I suppose he did. But I didn’t think much about it.”

  Jury thanked him and excused him, thinking the man looked as if he’d aged a good ten years in the course of these two hours.

  • • •

  “Mr. Darrington, you drove Mrs. Bicester-Strachan home for her checkbook, is that right?”

  “Yes.” Oliver didn’t meet his eyes.

  “Why did she need it?”

  “Why? Good Lord, how should I know?”

  “Well, surely, Mr. Bicester-Strachan had money for dinner. Or Matchett would put anything on a chit for any of you, surely.”

  “Inspector, I don’t know why Lorraine wanted it.”

  “Do you recognize that bracelet, Mr. Darrington?”

  “It looks vaguely familiar.”

  An impossible liar, thought Jury. Darrington couldn’t keep his eyes from it. “You’ve seen it before.”

  Oliver lit up a cigarette, shrugged, and said, “I may have done.”

  “On Ruby Judd’s wrist, perhaps?”

  “Possibly.”

  “According to your statement, you dropped Mrs. Bicester-Strachan at her house, and then went to yours. Why?”

  “Why? I wanted some money, that’s all.”

  “Everybody seems short of money tonight. You’re quite sure that you didn’t go home with Mrs. Bicester-Strachan?”

  “Look here, Inspector! I’m sick of your insinuations —”

  “She didn’t go home with you?”

  “No!”

  “I see. Well, that’s too bad, in a way. I mean, if she had that would have given both of you an alibi, wouldn’t it?”

  • • •

  Lorraine Bicester-Strachan pulled her chair as close to Jury as she could get and crossed her silk-stockinged legs. And since her long tweed skirt was buttoned only from the waist to above the knee, it showed a great deal of leg. “No, I’ve never seen it,” she said of the bracelet. “Is it supposed to be mine, found at the scene of the crime?”

  Jury was always amazed at the callousness of some people. “Your husband is terribly upset over the death of the vicar. They must have been close friends.” She merely flicked the ash from her cigarette over the fireplace fender at that remark. “Of course, it’s quite possible friendship — and loyalty — don’t mean all that much to you.”

  “What
’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That information your husband was supposed to have let slip into the wrong hands some time ago. They were your hands, weren’t they? Or, at least, your hands passed that information along to someone who was not exactly wearing the Old School Tie.”

  She might have been sculpted from ice.

  “Your lover, right? And also a ‘friend’ of your husband. And to save your reputation, Mr. Bicester-Strachan let his own go right down the drain. And has continued to do so. That’s loyalty. Some people even call it love —”

  Lorraine leaned toward him suddenly; her hand flashed out. But Jury merely caught it in midair, almost like a ball, and pushed her back, not overgently, into her seat. “Shall we get back to the present business? Were you bored this evening, Mrs. Bicester-Strachan? Is that why you invited Mr. Darrington home?”

  Now she was confused in addition to being furious. There was no way she could tell from Jury’s blank expression whether Oliver really had told him anything.

  “Well?” asked Jury, amused at the horns of a dilemma on which Darrington and Lorraine found themselves impaled.

  “He’s lying if he said I went with him.” She twisted the diamond circlet of her watchband.

  Jury smiled. “I didn’t say he said it, Mrs. Bicester-Strachan. I merely made that assumption.”

  He wanted to laugh at her smugness, at the little half-smile bestowed more upon her own cleverness than upon him. As she walked out, swaying her hips just so, it occurred to him that the idea of Oliver and Lorraine making love in some dark corner was unutterably boring.

  Pluck sent in Simon Matchett.

  • • •

  “Ruby Judd’s,” said Matchett, without hesitation. He rolled his thin cigar in his mouth.

  “How are you so sure, Mr. Matchett?”

  “Because the girl came over here rather often, to see Daphne. She always wore it.”

  Jury nodded. “Did you leave the premises this evening? Say, between six and eight?”

  “Meaning, have I an alibi? Inspector, I haven’t a clue.”

  Jury asked again, “Did you leave the premises?”

  “No. I did go out to check on the electrical box. Something shorted out in the kitchen.”

  “What time?”

  “Around seven, seven-thirty.”

  “According to this” — Jury indicated Pluck’s notes — “you had gone to Sidbury and got back here at about six-thirty.”

  “Yes, as well as I can remember. Shops close there at six and it takes about half an hour to get back.”

  “I see.” The name of the last shop he had visited was in the notes. Easy enough to check if he’d been there. Jury took another tack. “Mr. Matchett, what is your relation with Isabel Rivington?”

  “Isabel?”

  “Yes. Isabel.”

  “I don’t think I understand you.”

  “Yes, you do. I get the impression that her feelings for you are more than friendly. I’m sure you get the same impression.” Jury smiled thinly.

  Matchett was a long time in answering. Finally, he said, “Look, that was all over a long time ago. A very long time ago. At the risk of being less than gallant, I’ll only add, at least for me it’s over.”

  That rather threw Jury. Somehow, he hadn’t taken into consideration that there might have been something in the past. It would certainly explain his suspicions about Isabel’s feelings for Matchett. “And does Vivian know about this old liaison?”

  “I hope to God not.”

  Jury glared at him. “A generous thought, Mr. Matchett.”

  • • •

  Isabel Rivington sat across from him, looking expensively composed. Her deceptively simple dress, of some coarse, brown material, Jury bet had cost the earth.

  “Where were you, Miss Rivington, before you came up to the Load of Mischief this evening?” He reached over and lit a cigarette that she had extracted from a pack she had balanced on the arm of her chair.

  “I told Constable Pluck.”

  He smiled. “I know. Now tell me.”

  “I went for a walk. Up the High Street. Poked about a bit in the shops. Then I walked up to the Sidbury Road and along the path that goes across the fields.”

  “Anyone see you?” Isabel did not strike Jury as being much of a walker.

  “On the High Street, yes, I imagine so. But not later.” As she leaned toward the table to flick ash from her cigarette into the china tray, her eye went to the bracelet. She said nothing, and leaned back.

  “Have you seen that bracelet before, Miss Rivington?”

  “No. Why?”

  “What is your relationship with Mr. Matchett?”

  The sudden change of subject startled her. “Simon? What do you mean? We’re friends, is all.”

  Jury made a sound in his throat which he hoped suggested that he didn’t believe her, and changed the subject again. It was the question he had been burning to ask her for two days. “Miss Rivington, why have you let Vivian live all of these years with the idea she was responsible for her father’s death?”

  Mouth open, cigarette frozen in position, she looked as waxen as a dressmaker’s dummy. When she spoke, her voice was unnatural, the pitch high and shaky. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Come now, Miss Rivington. Assuming it was an accident at all, it was you up on that horse, wasn’t it? Not Vivian?”

  “She remembered? Vivian remembered?”

  Well, he thought, with a sigh of relief, there it was. If she could have maintained more control, she might have swaggered her way through. After all, he had no proof. “No. She didn’t remember. It was just that neither your story nor hers made much sense. And her story seemed almost learned by rote. From you, I expect. Vivian was obviously very fond of her father, and if the little girl was anything at all like the woman, she hardly seems the type to have been always rowing with him. But mainly, there was that description both of you gave of the night in question. ‘It was very dark, a moonless night’ when she supposedly went out to the stables. Now, she was only eight, and though it’s certainly possible a child of that age might be up after dark, this is Sutherland we’re talking about. I’ve an artist friend who loves the Highlands, loves to paint there. Not only because it’s beautiful, but because of the light. He jokes about being able to stand on a street corner and read a book at midnight because it’s still light. It’s highly unlikely a little girl would be all dressed and dashing about at midnight.” Jury drew the typed report on James Rivington from the folder which he had been holding. “Time of accident: eleven-fifty P.M. I’m surprised the police didn’t make more of that at the time.” He had watched Isabel grow progressively paler as he talked. “So I came to a couple of different conclusions: whether or not the horse business was an ‘accident’ or deliberate on your part, I don’t know. I envision something like this: you’re up on the horse, the horse kicks your stepfather, you rush to your little sister’s room, pull some clothes on her, and bring her down to the stable. You don’t even need to put her up on the horse. All you had to do was implant the idea in her mind that she was on it. And over the years you kept insinuating into her mind a lot of nonsense about the ‘fights’ she had with Rivington, to keep her feeling guilty, to keep her under your influence as much as possible.” Jury, who seldom allowed himself an editorial comment, could not help it now: “How vile, Miss Rivington. How utterly vile of you. Why did you kill him? That will of his must have been an enormous disappointment to you.”

  Her mouth was so red against the pallor of her skin, she looked like someone in pretty clown makeup. “What are you going to do?”

  “Make a bargain with you. You’ll have to tell Vivian—” When she started to protest, he held up his hand. “— Tell her enough of the truth so she won’t have to be weighed down under what must be unbearable guilt. Tell her you caused the accident. You may give as your reason for foisting it off on her that if you had had to admit to the authorities you were the one on that horse
, they would have had you up for manslaughter. You can put on a big act of having been terrified, et cetera, et cetera. Cry a bit. I’m sure you can manage it. You’ve been deceiving her for twenty years; I’m sure you can bring off one more deception.”

  Some of the color had returned to Isabel’s face, and much of the old hauteur. “And if I don’t? You can’t prove one damned thing!”

  Jury leaned forward. “That may be. But remember that you’ve got a lovely, lovely motive for murder, haven’t you?”

  “That’s absurd —”

  Jury shook his head. “And if you don’t tell her, be damned sure I will. And I may leave out that it was an accident.”

  She shot out of the chair and made for the door.

  “. . . And, Miss Rivington, all I need do is drop a word in somebody’s ear around here and you’d be finished.”

  At the door she whirled round. “That’s absolutely unethical. No decent policeman would do such a thing.”

  “I never claimed to be decent, did I?”

  • • •

  Vivian sat across from Jury, in a plain rose-wool dress, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I can’t believe it. Whoever would want to hurt the vicar? That harmless old man.”

  “The victims usually are harmless. Except to the murderer. Do you recognize this bracelet, Miss Rivington?” And he shoved it toward Vivian.

  “That’s the one he found.”

  “You knew about it, then? When did he tell you?”

  “Today. This afternoon sometime. I’d just stopped round to the vicarage to chat with him.”

  Jury’s heart sank. “What time was that?”

  “Oh, about five. Perhaps later. I’m not —” Her hands went to her face. “Not again. You’re not going to tell me I was about when another one’s happened.”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything, no.” Jury smiled, but didn’t feel like it. Why the hell didn’t she stay home and write poetry? He looked at the notes Pluck had made. “Were you at home after that? Between the time you left the vicarage and the time you got here?”

  “Yes.” Her head was bent over her lap and her hands were pleating her skirt.