The porter led her through the long sitting room and outside to a white corridor, up a few steps, down a few, and past rooms (or suites) that had been named after famous Africa-connected people. He stopped at one and unlocked the door for her.
The room was wonderful, with its crisp white window curtains, creamy bedspread and pillows and private bath. Immediately, she checked all of the little bottles and soaps and asked the porter if the shower was easy to work. He assured her it was by turning it on himself. Simple, see?
Patty peeled off a bill and was truly delighted by his gratitude, his shocked look, and wondered how much she’d given him. She didn’t care.
First she called room service and ordered its version of hot chocolate and Triple Decadence Chocolate Cake. Then she undressed and took a shower. She reckoned it was her fourth in twenty-four hours.
In the morning she could have breakfast in bed and then another shower.
She would not have to abide by the check-out time. The Nelsons wouldn’t be checking in until Tuesday. That meant she could spend two whole days using all of the facilities of the Hemingways Hotel—the pool, the restaurants, the cream tea in the lobby, room service room service room service. On Tuesday, all she had to do was pick up her backpack and leave. After her morning shower.
Ardry End, Northamptonshire
Nov. 2, Saturday evening
14
“Safari?” said Melrose Plant, as he sat before his living-room hearth, uncluttered by embers and his aunt, thank God. Richard Jury had to be joking. “Kenya? Me? Leave on Monday?”
“Or Tuesday.”
“Don’t be daft. That’s only two days to prepare for a trip to Africa?” Melrose’s voice was beginning to squeak with disbelief.
“It’s either a safari or a croupier. The croupier job would involve coming to London on Monday. Take your pick.”
“Croupier? What the devil are you talking about, Richard?”
“Artemis Club. In the City.” Jury paused. “This is a onetime offer. It won’t come again. Choose.”
Melrose prepared to laugh like hell, but managed only a bark. “Onetime offer? You mean if I don’t take you up on either of these jobs here and now, you’l I never ask me again?”
“That is correct.”
“Is this the most ridiculous conversation we’ve ever had?”
“No, we’ve had more ridiculous.”
“Richard, read my lips—”
“This is a telephone.”
“I don’t want to be either a croupier or a great white hunter—”
“Okay. I’m ringing Trueblood.”
“Trueblood? Hold on! May I ask—”
No, he mayn’t. Melrose did not so much hear the deadness of the line as feel it. He shook the receiver. It was one thing to turn down an offer from Jury to work on a case; it was quite another to turn down an offer that would then be extended to Marshall Trueblood.
As soon as he hung up, Melrose called for Ruthven, who came with all deliberate speed (for Ruthven), and asked him to tell Martha to hold dinner back as he would be going out for an hour. The butler collected Melrose’s cap and coat, helped him on with them and held the door.
It was a fine evening. He should walk. No, he shouldn’t. It would take too long. In another five minutes he was in the garage and in his Bentley.
In another fifteen minutes he was out of his car in front of the village’s single pub, the Jack and Hammer. He saw them through the window—Vivian Rivington, Joanna Lewes, and Diane Demorney. All three women appeared to be concentrating on something in front of them, but from his position on the walk outside he couldn’t see it. He took a few steps. Ah, there was Marshall Trueblood, who owned the antiques shop next door. He was bending down, looking at something. Melrose stopped peering at them from the outside and went inside.
They were looking at cards. Playing cards. There were chips. There was a card shoe.
Melrose checked his watch. Twenty minutes since he had hung up the phone. Twenty minutes and Marshall Trueblood was sharpening his dealer skills.
“Ah, Melrose,” said Trueblood. “Just in time! Care to sit in?”
“Absolutely not. I just talked to Richard Jury.”
“Did you? So did I. He needs a croupier.”
“How did you get all of this together in twenty minutes?”
“Well, it’s just a deck of cards and some poker chips.”
“And a shoe. Where’d you get a shoe? And isn’t that thing Mrs. Withersby appears to be polishing a roulette wheel? Where’d you get all of this stuff?”
“My shop. Have you forgotten it’s right next door?”
“But who in hell had a sale? The Hippodrome?”
“One finds the odd lot here and there—”
“In Monte Carlo, maybe.”
“Good grief, Melrose, why so agitated? I just gathered the few things I’d picked up here and there and came here to get my hand in. Place your bets, please!”
Melrose squeezed his eyes shut. It was absolutely infuriating to hear Trueblood already in dealer mode.
Joanna and Diane shoved several white and green chips out. Vivian appeared to be considering.
Diane asked for one card; Joanna asked for two. Vivian scratched her head.
“What in hell are you playing?” asked Melrose.
“Twenty-one. Join us.”
“No.”
Trueblood slapped two cards down for Joanna, a nine of hearts and a two of clubs; one card for Diane, a king of hearts.
Diane smiled. “Twenty-one,” she said, turning over an ace.
Trueblood also smiled. “Good, but no better than mine.” Trueblood turned over another ace.
“Hell,” said Diane.
“Not to worry. At least you didn’t lose.” He shoved back her chips, then scooped up Joanna’s and Vivian’s. “How about a hand, Melrose? Come on.”
“I’m no good at cards.”
“Don’t be daft. This is the simplest game in the world. You’re not playing against one another, only against the house.” He went on to establish the rules and the value of the chips: “White, one pound; red, five; green, twenty-five; black, a hundred.”
“I’d be playing against you, you mean?”
“Correct. I’m the house.”
“No, thanks. What did he tell you?”
Trueblood frowned. “Who?”
“Richard Jury, of course. The job shop manager.”
“Offered me a job. Two jobs, actually: this one—” He held up some chips. “—as croupier at a London casino, or another, which was a safari in Africa: Kenya, to be exact. Possibly even Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa.”
“You don’t have to list them all,” said Melrose irritably. “Where is this casino?”
“In the City. The owner’s been interviewing prospects.” Trueblood dealt one card to each of the three players.
They looked at their cards.
“Place your bets, please.”
“But you have no experience as a croupier.”
“Well, good Lord, I’ve been to enough casinos in my time to know what they do.”
“That’s all? I think you’d need a lot of practice for the kind of sleight of hand dealers need.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s not sleight of hand. It’s just quickness.” Trueblood picked up a fresh deck of cards and butterflied the entire pack from one hand to another without dropping a single card. It was all a blur, a flutter of cards.
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
Trueblood laughed, but said nothing. “Bets? Viv?”
Vivian shoved two green chips forward. Diane pushed in a black one.
“Wow!” said Melrose. “A hundred quid?”
Diane gave him a look
“Anyway,” said Trueblood, “there’ll be a trial period before the post is definite. Cards?”
“One,” said Diane.
“One,” said Vivian.
“Two,” said Joanna.
Trueblo
od slapped down their cards. Joanna’s showed a king and an ace.
“Too much!” said Trueblood, raking her chips across the table into the plastic holder.
“Bloody hell,” said Joanna, turning over her third card, a six.
“What about the safari job?” said Melrose. “Didn’t you like the sound of it?”
Trueblood was sifting a pile of chips in his hand. “I did, rather. But I thought the casino job would be less taxing.”
“What did he tell you about the safari?”
“That he wanted someone in Nairobi. The safari would begin in a luxury tented camp on the outskirts of the city.”
Scoffingly, Melrose said, “That’s not much of a safari! Hemingway would laugh himself sick.”
“You talked to Jury. Why are you asking me all of this?”
“Because he didn’t give me any information. Not a scrap.”
“Did you evince any interest in his plan?”
“No.”
“Then why should he?”
“You two just kill me,” said Diane.
They both looked at her.
She went on: “You’re talking about casinos and safaris and neither one of you knows why, do you?”
“Why what?” said Trueblood.
“Why he wants you to do these things.”
Trueblood neatened his cards. “He has his reasons.”
“It’s all a game to you, isn’t it?” said Vivian.
“You got that right. Bets, please!”
Chelsea, London
Nov. 3, Sunday, late afternoon
15
Although Jury usually found that these little mews enclaves tried much too hard to hold on to their barn door origins while at the same time being cloyingly cute, he thought the Moffits’ first-floor flat pleasantly old-style British: three-bar firelit, with cretonne-covered furniture, breezy draperies, solid tables, and general no-nonsense livability.
Or he supposed it was now Claire Howard’s flat and felt unaccountably annoyed that it should be. He wanted to be met at the door, not by the mother-in-law, but by David Moffit himself; he wanted to talk to him about the stars; wanted to go over that huge volume on the planets he saw was now unshelved and lying on the floor; wanted to position that telescope on the little balcony that Jury was sure was its rightful place, not hobbled in a corner by an umbrella stand.
This went through his mind in the few seconds after he’d stepped inside the living room. He looked into the cobalt-blue eyes of Rebecca’s mother, a woman whose beauty he didn’t give a damn about. “Mrs. Howard? I’m Richard Jury. Scotland Yard CID. I’m sorry about your daughter and son-in-law.”
“It’s inexpressible.” She seemed to gulp in air. “So I won’t say anything.”
“I understand that. But I expect you have questions—”
Eyes closed, she held out her hand, a restraining palm warding off “questions.” Eyes open, she said, “Please come in.” She held the door wide and it was then that he saw the signs of clearing-out. Inside the door were boxes packed with clothes and crockery. Immediately his eye had fallen on the forlorn telescope, left to rove not the sky but a dark corner. He felt ridiculous, being so saddened by this sight.
Inviting him to take one of the cretonne-covered easy chairs, she offered him a drink. Interesting: not tea, not coffee, but whisky. Nevertheless, he took it.
While she went to get the drinks, he noticed on the desk near his chair a group of silver-framed photographs, family, he supposed: Claire Howard and her daughter, Claire alone, the two of them with a good-looking man Jury thought might be the father. A shot of what looked like a gallery event, people milling and drinking champagne (if the flutes were evidence). He got up and looked more closely to see if it could be the Zane Gallery, but it clearly wasn’t, not with that configuration of other rooms visible through the doors. In the first room there appeared to be an ice sculpture on a table holding bottles and glasses. So this was, apparently, an event, a show. Claire Howard was talking to a dark-haired woman whose back was to the camera, face partially turned to Claire. One stunning photo of Rebecca and David (but how could it be other than stunning with those two?), another with what must have been family members round a Christmas tree in an old house. High Wycombe, perhaps? Two more of Claire with different women friends. Claire Howard missed no opportunity to get her face in front of a camera, it seemed.
On the walls, Jury saw more signs of the denuding: lighter squares where pictures had been removed, one small vaguely familiar-looking painting resting against the floor molding below the nail on the wall where it had apparently hung. The bookshelves were half empty, many of the books stacked on the rug that ran the length of the shelf, one very large one opened to a brilliant photo of the constellations. There were small items stacked in one corner, all of these things being readied for packing, he supposed, given the several brown boxes already closed up and standing in the kitchen.
On the lower shelf of the bookcase several photograph albums were heaped. Jury asked whose collections they were.
“Oh, those are mine,” she said, pressing a glass of whisky into his hand. “I expect I’m overly sentimental.”
No, he thought, you’re not sentimental, certainly not overly. He sipped the whisky. Why hadn’t she peppered him with questions about the shooting of her daughter? Painful, yes. But not knowing, surely more so. Yet some response to her remark was apparently required, some sort of nice assessment of her sentimentality.
“Either that or you prefer representations of objects rather than the real thing.” He didn’t add to that, letting her process it herself.
“I’m sorry?” she said, not comprehending.
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking aloud and not very well. I wonder, could I see those?” He nodded toward the albums.
A little stiffly, she rose, went to the bookcase and brought back one.
He took it and turned pages. Most of the snapshots were of Claire herself or her and one friend or another. There were a few of Rebecca, but only one he noticed of David. When he turned another page he found what must have been the occasion of their wedding in Connecticut, so it must have been on the Moffit estate. The album was largely of the wedding. And David was largely cut out of it. There were many shots of Rebecca looking ethereally beautiful. Yet only two of these showed her with David, who didn’t look too much of this world himself. Had Jury been the parent of either, he would have wanted the two of them plastered poster-size all over his walls.
There were as many pictures of Claire Howard as of the bride. Most of them with her arm slung about the shoulders of one or another of the wedding guests. One where she posed between a good-looking couple, another of her with her arm round the female half of that couple, who seemed to bear a resemblance to David.
“Could this be David Moffit’s mother?” He turned the album, tapped the picture.
“Oh, that. No. They were friends of the Moffits. Exceptionally nice people. I met them sometime later in the Caymans.”
“Where is his mother in all of these pictures? His father is dead, I know. We’re having a hard time locating his mother.”
“Well …” She had taken the album and was looking. “You know, I don’t see her … Somehow, this particular photographer must have missed her.”
Jury laughed shortly. “But this was her particular photographer, wasn’t it? Isn’t this her estate? Be a bad PR stroke to miss her.” It would be unthinkable.
“You seem to know a good deal about them.” Claire Howard’s tone was quizzical. When Jury made no comment she went on: “I agree. Or perhaps I just wasn’t given those pictures.” She seemed to want to keep the album, so Jury held out his hand. “Mind?”
She turned a couple of pages, telling him there was a beautiful photograph of Rebecca here. Then she handed it back.
Indeed there was, and Jury went back to the pages she’d skipped. Two pages of random, unrelated pictures, unposed, just people caught. Yet Claire managed a pose even if caught,
as here on some beach, there on some dance floor: it was as if she noticed a split second before the shutter came down that the camera was aimed at her and adjusted herself—time to throw out a hip, to arrange a hand. Just in time, he could tell. There were a few loose pictures of the Christmas tree and a family round a dinner table—ten or twelve—Claire and Rebecca both there. Children, dogs, cats, presents. A smaller shot of Claire in the same gallery, with the same paintings through open doors. There were two very posed shots of Rebecca and Claire on a settee, the same handsome man as appeared in one of the silver frames on the desk leaning over them, his arms crossed on the back of the settee. Another of him with Rebecca alone. There were several at what could have been any racing venue, this one looking to Jury like Cheltenham, as he thought he recognized the track. Rarely did he have a chance to go to the races, but a case had taken him to this one.
“You seem truly fascinated by those pictures, Superintendent.”
He was looking now at one of Claire Howard in which she was wearing a necklace the color of her eyes, further enhancing the blue.
“This necklace is something.” He turned the album toward her. “Is it tanzanite, by any chance?”
She looked surprised. “You must know gemstones.”
“No. I’ve just been to the Zane Gallery. It’s his thing.”
“Really? I got this at a jeweler’s.”
“Where? I’m rather surprised an actual jeweler would be selling tanzanite.”
That was disconcerting.
“Oh. Well, this one was. Somebody in Bond Street. I can’t recall the name.”
He was tempted to ask her to get the necklace, but that wouldn’t have helped him and would merely have put her on her guard.
She was adding another drop of whisky to his etched-glass tumbler, more than another drop to her own.
He picked his up and looked again round the room. “You’re clearing things,” he said.
“Clearing—”
“Packing up everything.” And it was only Sunday, he didn’t add.
She sighed. “Yes, but I can hardly bear to pack things up.”
The Knowledge: A Richard Jury Mystery (Richard Jury Mysteries) Page 11