Wiggins was up and over at the murder board. “What? And where are you getting this inspiration from?” As if any inspiration at all were now the stuff of his boss’s fevered dreams.
“‘Little Rita. Marguerite, perhaps? Marguerite Banado, Wiggins? Certainly a possibility. Look at the Reno newspaper picture. The face is obscured here, too; so we’re getting different angles, but—” Jury pressed the cutting from the paper against the whiteboard and then held the gallery shot beside it. “Of the same woman.”
Wiggins squinted and then his eyes snapped open. “Wait a minute, boss. That report from Kione about the Banerjees’ relation to Benjamin Buhari. Well, we knew that the Banerjees were acting more or less as foster parents for the brother’s daughter. Buhari’s daughter. Kione said that Elspeth is Mrs. Banerjee’s name.”
Jury looked puzzled. “Elspeth? Is that relevant, somehow?”
“Somehow, yes.” Wiggins marched to the murder board. Under Nairobi, beside Banerjee, he wrote in the wife’s name. “Her maiden name.” He smiled.
Jury looked at this, hearing in his mind the somber voice of Carole-anne: Times I think she really hated me, wanted me gone. He felt a small shock, a tiny implosion, like one of those cartoon characters pulled up in a puff of smoke. His gaze swerved from the small Abasi painting on the wall of the gallery in the photo to the circle of sand on the wall in front of him.
He stood there in silence, looking at the blue sand.
Plop. Another tiny hillock fell.
It had nothing to do with tanzanite, had it? It had nothing to do with Africa.
The Connaught, London
Nov. 9, Saturday night
42
Diane Demorney, who’d found the Connaught’s famous bar even more easily than she’d found the entire hotel, was sitting with a rink-size martini when Jury entered. The low light, dark wood and walls in some kind of silver-leaf texture, with low-key dark rose and lavender birds and exotic flowers, made the place itself look drinkable.
Jury took a seat beside her. “The cocktails here, I’ve heard, are an experience.”
“I know. I’m having it.” She held up her glass.
“That’s just your usual, Diane.”
“My usual experience. Unbeatable.”
Jury ordered a Jameson, hoping that wouldn’t raise the barman’s eyebrow. It didn’t. “Ready to go clubbing?” he said.
“Oh, rather. I was fascinated by Marshall’s game. I had no idea he was so expert.”
“If he ever wanted to quit the antiques business I think he’d have a second career as a croupier. I’m sure Leonard Zane would keep him on forever.” Although Zane’s forever was probably about to end. “Where’s Vivian?”
“Coming down in a minute.”
The minute was apparently up, for Vivian entered the bar in one of the handsomest gowns Jury had ever seen. It was quite plain, almost tailored, midnight blue, a dress that would have been at home anywhere. It was certainly at home on Vivian.
“Wow,” said Jury.
Vivian blushed. “Thank you.”
“He didn’t ‘wow’ me, if it makes you feel even better.”
“With you, the ‘wow’ is understood.”
Diane smiled. “Come on, Viv, fortify yourself before we lose all of our earthly belongings to the blackjack table.”
Vivian sat on Jury’s other side, asked for a martini.
Jury immediately started in: “Melrose is back from Kenya.” He liked their looks in the mirror, a double dose of turning and staring.
“Why isn’t he with you? With us?” said Diane.
“Yes, why?” said Vivian.
“He was tied up, he said. Has a lot to do before he leaves.”
“Leaves for where?” said Vivian. “You mean he’s going back to Ardry End right away?”
“No. Paris. He’s taking the Orient Express.”
Diane poured the rest of her martini down her throat, gulped, said before Vivian could, “Melrose? Melrose Plant? Our unassuming, unpretentious—”
“Earl? Viscount? Baron de jure? Yes, he’s taking the Orient Express to Paris.”
“For God’s sake, he could just swim there. Another of these, please,” Diane said to the barman.
“But why?” said Vivian.
Jury also raised his glass for a refill before answering. “He’s meeting someone in Paris.”
“What?” Vivian almost slid off her stool. “What do you mean?”
“I thought it was pretty clear: ‘meeting someone.’”
“Don’t be smart!” said Diane. “Of course it’s not clear.”
Drinks replenished, Jury said, “I think it’s someone he met in Kenya.”
Diane said, completely exasperated, “I assume you don’t mean Jane Goodall. Or one of the Leakeys.”
Jury smiled. “I didn’t know you were into paleontology.”
Diane ignored this. “It’s completely unlike him. I’m sure you’re mistaken.”
“I agree,” said Vivian. “Melrose doesn’t go round meeting people. He hates meeting people. He hates new people.”
“Perhaps, but remember he was on safari, in close quarters with a number of people, and, like it or not, he must have met them.”
Diane slugged down her fresh martini, pulled her long ebony cigarette holder from her sequined purse and said, “I can see you intend to be impossible about it, so maybe we should just go along to the casino.”
It was clear that Vivian, biting her lip, was not as willing to give up on this inquiry into Melrose’s mercurial behavior. “How did he meet her?”
Jury thought about this for one moment and smiled. “Patty Haigh?”
“Patty Hay?”
“Patty Hay?”
They chorused it as the three of them walked toward the door and a black cab.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you her name? That’s it.”
“That doesn’t sound like a Kenyan name,” said Vivian, now having a name, wanting to walk it back.
The cab was there, and Jury opened the door and helped them into it. He himself took one of the jump seats. “I didn’t say the person was Kenyan. Patty Haigh is English.”
Vivian glowered. Walk it back, but not to England. Vivian had always found that the greater the distance, the looser the attachment. “But then why meet her in Paris?”
“People do go to Paris.”
Said Diane, “Why else go to London?”
“We’ll see in a couple of days. There’s a little send-off party at Victoria. It’ll just be us, Trueblood and a half dozen kids. You both are free, aren’t you? You wouldn’t want Melrose to go off without seeing him.”
“You make it sound as if he’s not coming back! Don’t be ridiculous!” Vivian’s face was burning. “Does she live in Paris? Is that it?”
“I don’t think so. No, I think Patty Haigh lives in London.”
Vivian sank in her seat and turned her face to the window. They drove for some moments in a heavy silence as the taxi maneuvered through Covent Garden to the Embankment and toward the City.
Into this silence Diane dropped another man: “How could one be as attractive as this Leonard Zane, so charming and so successful, and still be unattached?”
“I don’t know,” said Jury, “but unattached he won’t be in a few days, so enjoy him while you can.”
Diane frowned. “What on earth do you mean?”
“He’ll be attached to the Metropolitan Police.”
The cigarette holder nearly got Jury in the eye in her sudden swerving toward him. “What?”
Vivian said, “You mean this Leonard Zane is the—culprit, Richard?”
“One of them, yes.”
“My God, did he murder that couple?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Is your case wrapped up, then?”
“Not yet. Not quite.” Not by a long shot, he thought.
“Can you tell us,” said Vivian, “why that couple were murdered?”
“Not precisely; but ge
nerally speaking, money.”
“How banal!” said Diane. “How pathetic. Not even for love or revenge.”
The cab pulled up in front of the Artemis Club. Jury got out, held the door for Vivian and Diane and then turned to the driver and paid the fare.
“’Night, mate,” said the driver.
As Jury said good night, a young fellow with fair hair and wearing a uniform jacket rushed down the stairs and seemed a little crestfallen that they had managed to exit the cab without his help. Did he realize how fortunate he was not to have been handed this task a week ago?
But he did manage to shepherd them through the front door before another car pulled up and he dashed off.
Jury stood by Vivian, who seemed uncertain of her presence here. He said, “Diane seems to like to play with black chips. That’s confidence. Let’s sit at the bar.”
But she still stood there, unmoving.
“Something wrong, Vivian?”
“What? No. Oh, no.” She followed him to the bar, where he ordered whisky for himself and a martini for her.
“Melrose’s action strikes me as—inscrutable, I don’t mind saying. Entirely unlike him.”
“You probably know him as well as anyone does.”
But her look said she did not know him at all. “One thing I do know is that he does not behave spontaneously where women are concerned.”
“When have you seen him behaving unspontaneously?” said Jury unhelpfully.
As she raised an eyebrow at this conundrum, Leonard Zane walked up to the bar looking fluid in a three-piece merino wool suit, light gray with a razor-sharp darker gray stripe. “Superintendent Jury! Delighted to see you. Miss Demorney appears to be winning.” He turned to look at Trueblood’s table. Then back at Vivian. “I’m Leonard Zane,” he said, holding out his hand.
Which she took, with a smile. “You’re very busy tonight.”
“I know it sounds macabre, but murder is good for business.”
“Until,” said Jury, “it’s bad for it.”
Leonard, undisconcerted by this odd comment, smiled slightly. “What eventuality might bring about that change?”
Jury shrugged. “Another murder? That might make the place seem a bit too dangerous for your everyday gambler.”
“But you aren’t expecting that to happen.”
“No, but we didn’t expect it to happen before, either.”
Diane had risen from Trueblood’s table and was coming toward them.
“That didn’t take long,” said Leonard. “Good?”
“Bad,” said Diane, sliding onto a bar stool and pointing to Vivian’s martini with a finger raised. “Surely by now some of your customers realize you can’t beat him.”
Vivian looked surprised. “But you can. You did. You won hundreds, you said, last time.”
“And managed to give it right back. He let me win—oops!” She looked at Zane. “Pretend I didn’t say that.”
He laughed. “You’re right. He does appear to be unbeatable. He’s a genius at the game. I don’t know how he does it. I do know he isn’t cheating.”
“Psychology.” Diane was rooting in her sequined bag for her cigarette holder. “He can read people. I was watching him watching the play. He picks up tells immediately. There’s no way you can’t give yourself away.”
She found her holder, planted a cigarette in it, waited for a light. Zane supplied it.
She added, “He can’t control the cards, so he controls the room.” She slid a look at Zane as smoothly as he had slid his lighter to her cigarette. “If you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Mr. Zane,” said Diane.
“Leo, please.”
“Would it be completely against the rules for us to invite that croupier to dine with us? Or is that forbidden?”
“It’s forbidden, but for you I’ll make an exception.”
“Perhaps you’d join us?” she said.
“No, thank you. I’ve work to do in the gallery.”
“Well, what about you, Superintendent? You’ll dine with us, won’t you?”
“Happily. What time?”
They would wait for Marshall Trueblood’s next break.
An hour later the four of them were sitting down at a table in the gallery’s dining room and being handed large menus.
“I don’t know how you do it, Marshall,” said Diane.
“That’s good,” said Trueblood, snapping his napkin awake and laying it across his lap.
“Seriously. You can look at a player and know immediately what she has in her hand.”
“More ‘if’ she has it; if she has a winning hand.”
“You knew just from looking at my face.”
“Well, it was that look. The giveaway look.”
“But I made my face perfectly blank.”
Trueblood laughed. “That was the giveaway.”
Diane was saying she thought she’d have the baba ghanoush as an appetizer and then the mujadara.
“My God, Diane, we might as well be at the Blue Parrot,” said Trueblood, who looked at the door of the dining room and suddenly sprang from his chair. “Melrose!”
Melrose Plant was standing in the doorway. He moved to their table and said to Jury, “We need to talk.” Smiling around the table, he greeted Diane and Vivian.
Trueblood had pulled a chair away from the table beside them and set it between Vivian and Jury.
Vivian looked almost lustrous, as if a light had switched on behind her eyes. Well, he had always known about Vivian; it was Melrose Plant who had been the question. She said, “What are you doing here? Not that we’re not glad to see you, but—”
As Melrose sat down, Vivian said, “What’s all of this about the Orient—?”
Jury said hurriedly, “Let’s talk over there.” He pulled Melrose out of his chair and they walked across the foyer to the library.
Artemis Club, London
Nov. 9, Saturday night
43
They did not sit down.
Melrose pulled the snapshot from his jacket pocket. “This shot—”
“Right. I finally worked it out. Masego Abasi told you about Little Rita. ‘Rita’ could be ‘Marguerite.’ Kione told us that Banerjee’s wife’s maiden name was Elspeth Banado. The question is: what in the hell is Claire Howard doing with Marguerite Banado from Reno?”
Melrose shook his head. “More than that, the question is: what is Claire Howard doing with Maggie Benn, from God knows where?”
Jury frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Look at the two of them again.”
Jury looked. “This woman Claire Howard is talking to—” Jury squinted.
“You don’t see it? Even the name is a clue. People seem to like to keep initials. Like ‘Danny Morrissey.’” Melrose drew a small holder from his pocket, opened it to disclose what looked like pince-nez but was actually a magnifying glass.
Jury held it up to the picture. “For God’s sake! It can’t be.”
Melrose nodded. “Marguerite Banado, Maggie Benn. I thought: where have I seen this before? A slight attack of déjà vu.” He pointed to the small picture in the Reno newspaper—Leonard Zane and Marguerite Banado coming out of the Metropole. “When I was at the gallery with Bea Slocum, Maggie Benn walked into the library. Her face was down; she was reading something. In this newspaper account, she’s holding a paper that’s hiding part of her face. The poses are similar. The glamorous Marguerite. Maggie’s anything but glamorous, but one thing you can’t change is bones. The forehead, the cheek, the chin. In both pictures, an outline of bone.”
“I’ll be damned. You know, I wondered about Maggie Benn’s fitting in at this casino.”
“The opposite of Marguerite Banado,” said Melrose.
“How could Leonard Zane not have known?”
Melrose shrugged. “Maybe he did.”
“Maggie Benn claims never to have been to Kenya.”
“There are
more people in this case who’ve turned up in Kenya who’ve never been there than I can count,” said Melrose.
“So Leonard Zane—”
“May very well have no connection to Claire Howard; or he may have a connection, just not the one we’ve been thinking he has. Remember Reno.” From his other pocket Melrose took a copy of the article from the Reno Gazette-Journal. “The couple in the casino heard an argument in one of the offices. The wife here said she heard the woman exclaim, ‘I’ll never let you’— Leave? Go?” Melrose read from the paper: ‘The shooting of Mr. Morrissey occurred an hour later. The hotel operator said she got a call from his room: She immediately got in touch with the police. The couple identified Mr. Morrissey as the man whom they’d seen come out of the office. The shooter walked into his room and shot him in the back? Not a very good shot; the door couldn’t have been that far from the window.”
“Twenty feet, about,” said Jury.
“Bad shot. What did he say about it later?”
Jury recalled the newspaper’s follow-up: “Said he didn’t see anyone; didn’t hear the door open. He remembered falling and grabbing at the phone. The desk was near the window. Then he remembered nothing until he woke up in the hospital, his shoulder patched up—left shoulder is where the bullet nicked him—and hurting, but nothing more serious.”
“So Marguerite Banado,” said Melrose, “sounds like the obvious suspect. Didn’t he tell the police who she was?”
“No. He said he was sure there was no relation between the argument and the shooting.”
“Ha! I bet the Nevada police went along with that.” Melrose paused. “Do you think he felt so guilty about breaking up with her that he didn’t want to cause her any more pain? What about Leonard Zane? It’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, that both times David Moffit is shot the site of the shooting is Zane’s casino.”
“It is indeed. Except that Marguerite Banado and Maggie Benn were also in both casinos.”
“But we know she didn’t shoot him in front of the Artemis Club.”
“No …” Jury’s ‘no’ sounded uncertain.
The Knowledge: A Richard Jury Mystery (Richard Jury Mysteries) Page 28