“Looks healthy enough to me. Do you live here?” Hard to believe a stranger would put herself out to examine the village tree-bark.
“Yes, over there.” She pointed across the Green. Then she opened up a notebook and seemed to be making notes about the tree. Littlebourne was full of naturalists.
“Are you Blue, Red, Green, or Yellow?” he asked, thinking this rather a clever introduction to a conversation.
He was totally unprepared for her deep blush and indrawn breath. Then she composed herself and said, “You mean Augusta’s telling perfect strangers? She is round the twist.”
Melrose felt confused. “Augusta? No, the other Miss Craigie.”
“Ernestine? She didn’t get one.”
“One what?”
“Letters! Isn’t that what you’re talking about?”
Then Melrose remembered. The Perk child had said anonymous letters had been written in colors. “Good heavens, no. I was talking about the birdwatchers’ map.” Melrose shoved it toward her face like a proof of identity.
“Oh. Oh!” As she almost smiled before she blushed again, he took the opportunity to invite her to tea. He hoped the Bodenheims were not dismantling his Rolls.
• • •
Once settled in the Magic Muffin at a wobbly table with a view of the High, they introduced themselves. Then Polly Praed said, “Why were you talking to Freddie Mainwaring? Are you thinking of property or something?”
“I’m, ah, interested in Stonington.”
“Not really! That’s the Kennington place. He died, you know.”
Death had apparently not cut a very wide swathe in Littlebourne, given everyone’s surprise that one of their number had succumbed to it. Melrose watched a tall, thin woman approach their table. Polly Praed asked for tea and what sorts of muffins she had today.
“Aubergine.”
“Aubergine?” Polly looked doubtful. “I’ve never heard of aubergine muffins.” As the woman walked away, Polly lifted her eyeglasses to the top of her head, and said to Melrose, “Do you suppose they’re some awful shade of yellow?”
“Probably.” He noticed, though, that her eyes certainly were not. They were cornflower blue or violet, depending upon the light when she turned her head.
“Are you trying to tell me Ernestine Craigie and that potty bunch of bird enthusiasts are going out in the Horndean wood after what happened—I’m sure you’ve heard about our murder.”
“Miss Craigie is determined to view the Speckled Crackle. I believe she would step over whole rows of dead bodies to do so.”
Muffins and tea were set before them. They seemed quite ordinary muffins, brown and wholesome-looking.
Polly said, buttering a muffin half, “We’ve even got Scotland Yard here about it.” She became silent, pensive, her hand upraised with the muffin unbitten, crumbs cascading down her jumper sleeve. Melrose thought she’d gone into some sort of fugue. Finally, she came back to life and ate the muffin.
“I take it you, ah, got one of these letters.”
She nodded. “Green. Please don’t ask what was in it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Haven’t the police an idea who’s responsible?” She shook her head. “Have there been many?”
“Half a dozen. They all came at the same time.” Polly explained Mrs. Pennystevens’s parcel.
“That sounds very odd. Hardly the right psychology for poisonpen letters.”
“What do you mean?” She frowned.
“Imagine yourself with this queer perversion. You want to make people suffer. Then you’d draw it out as long as possible. Think of poor old Augusta Craigie in an absolute muck-sweat every time she goes to collect her post, or watches it being dropped through the door, or whatever. She’s wondering, Will I be next? The writer can keep people on a string for ages that way. Finding a letter in an unknown hand. Imagine the letter-writer imagining all that. You see? You wouldn’t want just to go and dump the lot all at once. It would take away all of the imagined secret suffering.”
“You certainly know a lot about the psychology. You didn’t write them, did you?” She buttered another muffin.
Melrose ignored that. “The way this person’s done it, everyone knows who else got one and police are called in straightaway. After some initial embarrassment probably no one takes it awfully seriously. And done in rainbow hues. That’s even more distracting. Very odd. Do you think there’s any connection with the murder?”
“I’ve been thinking and thinking about that. I’m a mystery writer—”
“You are?”
“Yes. But it’s not all that fascinating. Pretty routine, really. And it’s very discouraging I can’t come up with some idea. I imagine that superintendent from the Yard thinks I’m quite stupid.” Sadly, she looked down at her muffin half. “Trouble is, if you’re clever in fancy, you’re not always clever in fact, I’m not. I’m even awful at the simplest kind of conversation, as you’ve probably noticed.”
“I’ve noticed nothing of the sort.”
“You must have done. I’m an absolute nincompoop in social situations. I don’t go to dinners or teas because I just stand in the corner like a stick trying to think what to say.” In blistering detail, and with a mouth full of muffin, she ran down her list of social failings. Then she tossed it all over her shoulder like salt, ending with, “May I have the last muffin?”
“Yes. I think all that you just said is absurd. You might have been describing someone else. I mean, you’ve been sitting here talking to me sixteen-to-the-dozen—”
“Oh, you.” She waved her hand dismissively.
Was it a compliment? Or did she mean they were in the same basket, two nincompoops together?
She shoved her plate and cup aside and leaned toward him. “Listen. I know you’re not here to buy Stonington. You’d have to have packets of money. Though it would be nice if you were to buy it. That would kill the Bodenheims, to have someone else in the area taking over the number one spot. The only worse thing for them would be to have someone titled move in—” Polly looked hopefully at him. “You’re not, are you?”
Sadly, Melrose studied his cup. “Well . . . ”
“You are! Say you are!” Her face was shoved closer to his in her enthrallment. The proximity was not displeasing.
“I’m not.” The face moved back and he almost felt he had betrayed her. “But I used to be,” he added, brightly.
“Used to be? Whatever do you mean?”
“The Earl of Caverness. And twelfth Viscount Ardry, et cetera. But now I’m plain Melrose Plant.”
What he was now did not seem to interest her in the least. Open-mouthed astonishment was her response to the loss of the title. “How did you lose all that?”
“Oh, I gave them up.”
“Why?” She simply glared at him, obviously furious he had given away something that would have come in so useful. Then her expression softened. “Ah, I see. You had gambling debts or did something awful and didn’t want to heap disgrace on the family name.” Her eyes sparkled, now that she had forged out a history for him. In another moment, she’d have him inside an Iron Mask.
“Unfortunately, nothing so romantic as all that.” He wondered what tempted him to justify his action to her. He found her unsettling, though he couldn’t understand why, violet eyes or not. There was nothing at all wonderful about the rest of her, sitting there dressed in that unbecoming shade of brown. Her curls were havocking all over her head, and the upswung glasses and pencil stuck there did nothing to enhance the general appearance. “I didn’t want them anymore, I guess,” he ended, weakly.
She shrugged. “Oh, well, even without the title, Julia Bodenheim’ll be prancing herself up and down on horseback before you. You’d best clear off; you’re the perfect catch.”
Gratified by this, he said, “I’m glad you think so.”
“I didn’t say I thought so,” she said, munching the last of the muffin.
V
“I have come,” said Sir Mi
les Bodenheim to Melrose Plant, “to invite you to cocktails at Rookswood.”
It was said in what Melrose supposed might have been the tones used by the Angel Gabriel when he made his announcement to Mary. One should only stammer one’s grateful acceptance.
Sir Miles apparently inferred why Melrose did not immediately do so. “Please don’t think that just because you are a stranger to town you need hesitate about accepting. It is quite true that we are very particular, but I am sure you will find the gathering the sort you yourself are used to. We are all there—” Which wonderful revelation was accompanied by his swinging his walkstick over his shoulder and giving a good crack to one of the Blue Boy’s Tiffany-style chandeliers. “—Derek is home. You haven’t met Derek, our son. He’s reading history, you know. Besides ourselves there will be only the Craigie sisters. I just now passed them on the walk and Ernestine was very particular in wanting to include you in one of our jaunts. And as you have our map—she gave it to you—you can see this will be an excellent opportunity to get acquainted. We need to straighten out the details of the fête, which is to be tomorrow. So say no more and come.” Sir Miles scratched at the egg on his ascot, and added, “I know you’ve just been having tea with Miss Praed, but as you probably had nothing decent to eat at the Magic Muffin, I imagine a few canapés would suit you. How did you meet Miss Praed?” Sir Miles seemed clearly put out that this stranger to town was already looking toward fresher fields beyond the boundaries which he himself had so recently erected. “The woman writes rubbishy thrillers. I mean, if you like that sort of thing . . . ” He shrugged off the possibility of liking it at all. “I know you will find Ernestine interesting. She’s—”
“I wish I were clever enough to write mysteries.”
“Clever? I don’t see anything clever about it. What’s clever about killing someone and then having everyone run about cock-a-hoop trying to decide who did it? Seems an infernal waste of time to me. And as you can see, it doesn’t happen in real life that way, does it? You don’t see anyone like her detective inspector—all that sharp-witted slyness—in on this case, do you? Ho ho, not by a long chalk.”
“So you’ve read her books,” said Melrose, smiling.
Having given up on the egg yolk, Sir Miles stared at the air above Melrose’s head. “Oh, I glanced over one we decided to give Cook for Christmas. Well, if this lot of police comes up with anything, I’ll be the more surprised. That Carstairs person seems a bit slow-witted; and the Scotland Yard chap certainly puts himself forward, I must say. But come along, come along, old chap.” Sir Miles exhorted Melrose to rise from his chair. “It’s already gone five and we might as well go along together.”
Inwardly, Melrose sighed. If he meant to ingratiate himself with the locals, he guessed he had better trot along to Rookswood. And Mrs. O’Brien had said Jury would be several hours, so dinner would be very late. “And what is to be the subject of Miss Craigie’s talk?” he asked as they left the Bold Blue Boy.
“The molting habits and flight patterns of the Great Speckled Crackle.”
“How jolly,” said Melrose.
VI
“The molting habits of the Crackle are not at all what one would expect . . . ” The voice of Ernestine Craigie droned on.
Funny, thought Melrose, his tepid glass of whiskey sweating in his hand, he had never expected much of anything from the Crackle, including that it might molt.
It was a slide show.
Was there anything worse, he wondered, except perhaps pictures being handed round of everyone’s vacation or baby? Derek Bodenheim had walked in over an hour ago, poured himself a very large whiskey, invested his “Hullo” to Melrose with as much boredom as was humanly possible, and walked out, bottle in hand: all of this despite his father’s assurances in their walk from the Bold Blue Boy to Rookswood that Melrose was to expect only high entertainment from his son.
Augusta Craigie had found herself a chair within reaching distance of the drinks table and was having a marvelous time with the sherry decanter, something that had escaped everyone’s notice but Melrose’s.
One plate of cardboard canapés had been handed round by a maid—a small, olive-skinned person whose movements were silent and parsimonious.
The only relief from tedium was Julia Bodenheim’s trying to engage Melrose in something other than conversation by continuously crossing and recrossing her silken legs and heaving her silken bosom to lean toward glass, ashtray, or canapé plate.
Melrose had simply not been able to keep their minds on murder. From Sylvia’s announcement that it should not have occurred, so to speak, just beyond their property line; to Augusta’s shuddery silence; to the Honorable Miles’s brief lecture on police inefficiency and pushiness—their minds could only light on the subject like small blue tits, peck, and flutter away. Even Ernestine, solid and square as a pint of stout in her brown suit, seemed to resist the subject.
There had been, however, an enthralling discussion of the plans for the fête—flinging up tea tents and coconut shies and phaeton rides before Melrose’s eyes like an image of Atlantis. The carousel had arrived and most of the stalls gone up.
Could Emily Perk (Miles had asked) really be trusted to deliver the goods and not short the children on time during the carriage rides? You know how she hates the idea of horses pulling people. Yes, Daddy, but she’s the only one who can do it and who’s willing, Julia had replied, flipping through a Country Life and, apparently not finding herself in it, flinging it aside. Then Sylvia Bodenheim’s knitting needles had flown like twin rapiers over the refusal of Lady Kennington to take the Jumble table.
Thus, from the way they all managed to avoid the subject, a person might have thought, One: the murder hadn’t occurred at all; or Two: they were so used to fingerless corpses being flung out in the Horndean wood, what did one more matter?
Or, Three: someone here was feeling rather uncomfortably guilty.
The slide show continued: now flashed upon the projection screen was a pattern of multicolored lines running off from east to west, north to south, and curved variants thereof. The Crackles seemed to be having a right old rave up, flying all over the British Isles from the Outer Hebrides across Manchester and down to Torquay. As Melrose began to doze off, Miss Craigie’s pointer was tracing a horizontal red line indicating one of their favorite flights, apparently. He squinted his eyes and tried to remember what it reminded him of. Emily’s River of Blood, perhaps? Or maybe just an advert for British Air. . . .
He yawned and wondered how soon Jury would be back. It shouldn’t take too long to drive from London to Littlebourne. He wondered if somewhere a Great Speckled Crackle was having a slide show, demonstrating to a roomful of captive and bored Crackles, the British Motorway System. This is their flight pattern: note this red line ending in a clover leaf. That is the exit to Doncaster. . . .
Part Two
WIZARDS and WARLORDS
TEN
I
IT was clear how Catchcoach Street had come by its name: it was a daggerlike, blind alley, far removed from the fashionable cul-de-sacs of Belgravia and Mayfair. Narrow, rundown houses huddled together, closer at the blade-tip end. The air smelled of fish and brakish Thames water.
Number twenty-two was distinguished from the houses on either side only by virtue of its fresher trim, tidier yard. Nell Beavers, the slum landlady of the street (she had told them proudly that she owned this and both houses on either side) was adding to their store of information on Cora Binns. She had left the house on the Thursday evening, sometime around six, and saying something about hoping she’d get to the Highbury station after rush hour in the Underground.
“I think it was six. I don’t keep tabs, do I?”
Jury bet. He could tell she was the type who lifted the lids of dustbins and counted the empties. Cora Binns had the upstairs flat and Jury was sure the landlady knew every creak in the floorboards.
“A bit late for a job interview, wasn’t it?” asked Wiggins.
Nell Beavers shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, would I? Expect she didn’t want to lose a days work. Anyway, she said she was going to Hertfield,” continued Nell Beavers, rocking slowly, and proud of her control. She was not one to crumble in a crisis. They knew because she’d told them three times. “She told me the agency—Cora was a temp-sec—rang her up and said someone in Hertfield needed a steno. All you have to do is check with the agency. It’s called the Smart Girls Secretarial Service. I’d just hop right round there if I was you.”
Jury thanked her. He was often taught his job by the British citizenry. “You told Inspector Carstairs she said she was coming back that same night.”
“That’s right. That’s what Cora said. And then the agency rang up and asked me did I know where she was, and she never did go to the place she was supposed to. Right shirty the woman got about it and all I said was, well, I don’t keep tabs, I’m not her mum, am I?” Nell Beavers smacked dry lips. “But after Cora doesn’t come back Friday night, I says to myself, Nell, time to call the authorities. Beavers—my late husband, God rest him—always did say a problem don’t take care of itself.”
“You did exactly right, Mrs. Beavers.” She remained tight-mouthed, proof against the compliment she was so well aware she deserved. Her rocking got a bit brisker, though, when she said, “If I was you, I’d ask the Crippses.” She hooked a thumb to her right. “Next door. Though why Cora’d want to hang about with her beats me. It’s disgraceful, it is, landlords ain’t got no rights in this country? Just tenants. God knows I been trying to get rid of that one for years. Ash the Flash running around getting up to Lord knows what.” Primly she folded her hands in her aproned lap. “I ain’t no stranger to police, believe me. Seen enough of them come round about Ash Cripps. Beavers always did say that sort of pervert had a problem.” And then to Jury’s and Wiggins’s infinite surprise, she opened her old blue cardigan and quickly closed it again. “You know what I mean. Been in most of the parks and lavatories in the East End and probably no stranger to the West, I’d say.”
The Anodyne Necklace Page 10