The Anodyne Necklace

by Martha Grimes

  As the train swayed through the black tunnel, he thought it was nice that equal rights for women predominated even among dips.

  TWELVE

  I

  AS if disease and death were only one more commodity in the Fulham Road, the Royal Marsden Hospital melted into its surroundings. Across from it were the usual shops, launderettes, pubs, boutiques, restaurants.

  The nurse who finally led Jury to Katie O’Brien’s room could not disguise the fact that she was very pretty, despite her uniform—striped dress, black stockings, a white cap and apron that might have taken a dent, but not a wrinkle. Starched right down to her voice, she said, as she pushed open the door to the room: “Don’t be too long, Superintendent.” She walked off, uniform crackling.

  • • •

  He was not prepared for the way she looked—porcelain skin, black hair brushed to such a shining neatness it might have been painted against the pillow. Her small, delicate hands were folded across the top of the sheet updrawn over her breast. To one side of her bed stood an oxygen tent, and it made him think of a glass bell on which leaves would drift in autumn, petals in spring, snow in winter. On her face was the memory of a smile.

  “Hello, Katie,” said Jury.

  Against the wall by the night stand rested the black-cased violin. Odd it hadn’t been removed, taken home by her mother. He wondered how long it had taken her, standing in some windy tunnel—Victoria, Wembley Knotts, Piccadilly—before she ever could have earned enough money to buy those jeans and that shirt. Months, probably.

  Jury walked across to the window to look down at the darkening Fulham Road. Across the street was a pub on the corner whose lights painted its windows with a mysterious burgundy glow. Directly across was a greengrocer’s, striped awning rolled in for the night. Beside that sat a launderette. Did Jury really remember this street from the war years, when he was a boy, or only imagine he did?

  “Where that grocer’s is,” he said more to himself and the windowpane than to Katie, “there used to be a sweet shop. I spent most of my time looking through its windows during the war. Long before your time, that was. I remember one of our neighbors had her basement stocked full of tinned stuff, soup and golden syrup and tea. It was just like a shop, her basement, and she even had sweets down there. I used to visit her all the time and she’d take me down and show me all this stuff—shelves and shelves of things. . . . ”

  Outside the launderette, a little girl stood rocking a doll’s carriage to and fro. Waiting for her mother, probably. She picked the doll up from the carriage and held it in the air. There was a pram there, too, waiting for one of the women within to collect it after the wash was done. He could make out the forms of women sitting, probably watching their wash, like little worlds, go round. Momentarily, his vision was blocked as one held up a sheet or blanket like a curtain against the glass.

  Jury saw himself again in his room standing with his face pushed up against his bedroom window. The black-out curtains should have been drawn, but since there was no light in his room, he supposed it would be safe to look out. There was nothing to see, though, except a big, pale moon. There had been no noise and no warning before there was no wall and no window. He could remember being thrown through the air, as if he’d been trying to do a high jump. How he had escaped with only a few cuts, he had never understood. His mother hadn’t escaped.

  A woman came out and collected the pram, pushed it past the covered vegetable bins. Clean clothes and food: life went on in the Fulham Road. In the burgundy light of the pub called the Saracen’s Head, a young man seemed to be waiting impatiently. He was carrying a guitar, looking up and down the street.

  Not even the air stirred above Katie O’Brien’s bed. She lay outstretched like an effigy in a marble dress. The tape recorder her mother had brought in sat on the bedside table. He wondered if the nurses bothered playing it for her. Jury flicked the On switch, and the tinny strains of an old music-hall rendition of “Roses of Picardy” filled the room.

  Dusk was coming on in the Fulham Road. The little girl and her doll carriage were gone.

  “Good-bye, Katie.” Jury left the room.

  • • •

  The pretty nurse, in a vexed tone, said to him, “You’ve got a telephone call, Superintendent.” It seemed to make her cross, the notion that police were not only tramping through her corridors but receiving calls from dangerous places beyond the fastness of the hospital walls.

  II

  “It’s in King’s Cross, sir,” said Wiggins, who had called Jury to tell him he’d found the Smart Girls Secretarial Service. “And you’ll never guess what I found out.” Wiggins paused as if he were, indeed, waiting for Jury to guess. “Miss Teague—she’s the one who runs it—went back through her files to check on Cora Binns’s jobs. It seems the last job was arranged, not by Lady Kennington, but by Mainwaring.”

  “Mainwaring?”

  “That’s right. And checking back, Miss Teague found he’d used Cora Binns before.”

  “Did he specifically ask for Cora Binns?”

  “She doesn’t know. The call was taken by one of the girls. She’s supposed to be on sick leave, but Miss Teague doesn’t think she’s sick at all. Thinks she’s gone off with the boyfriend. Bunny Sweet, her name is.”

  “See if you can find her. Get some help from ‘H’ Division. But let’s not tell Miss Teague where we find her. With a name like Bunny Sweet, I’d say the girl’s got enough on her platter.”

  THIRTEEN

  I

  “CORA Binns?”

  Freddie Mainwaring looked extremely puzzled that Scotland Yard should put the question to him.

  “The woman in the Horndean wood, Mr. Mainwaring.”

  “Was that her name? No, I don’t—didn’t know any Cora Binns. I’ve already told that Inspector Carstairs I didn’t know her.”

  “Inspector Carstairs didn’t know her name when he talked with you. A couple of months ago you engaged the services of Cora Binns as a shorthand-typist.” Mainwaring didn’t respond, apparently waiting for Jury to go on. “You called the Smart Girls Secretarial Service and asked for a typist to go to Stonington.”

  “You’re not telling me . . . ?” When it became all too evident that that was what Jury was telling him, he said, “I think I’ll have a drink.”

  As Mainwaring unstoppered the whiskey decanter, Jury said, “You didn’t recognize her from the picture Carstairs showed you?”

  Freddie Mainwaring thrust the stopper back into the decanter, rather careless of its cut-glass elegance, and turned to glare at Jury. “No. Of course I didn’t or I’d have said so, wouldn’t I?” That the question was not rhetorical didn’t seem to occur to him. “For God’s sakes, I only must have used her the one time and that was months ago. They all look alike, anyway, don’t they? She wasn’t important.”

  Typists being beneath one’s notice, presumably. “She was to someone.”

  Mainwaring flushed and sank into the rich, brocade sofa. He lived in a renovated Tudor house at the other end of the High Street from Rookswood. “All right So I rang up that agency—”

  “The Smart Girls Secretarial Service—”

  “Silly bloody name. I rang them up and made the arrangements. It was merely a favor to Lady Kennington. When I was at Stonington one day, going over the details of the property, she said she needed someone to help clear up her late husband’s paperwork. I don’t know what it was. Debts, most likely. I take it you’ve heard about the theft of that necklace of Lord Kennington. That and a few other pieces. Lady Kennington would be a rich woman if she had that lot. The necklace is still going missing, isn’t’ it?”

  “Lady Kennington is hard up; is that why she’s selling?”

  “I expect so.”

  “What time did you tell Cora Binns to appear for the appointment?”

  “Look, I didn’t tell this Binns person anything. I talked to some woman at the agency—wait a minute. They asked me who I’d had in the past and I said I could
n’t remember the name.” He relaxed a bit, pleased with himself. “There you are, Superintendent; just you contact that agency and talk to whoever it was took the call. That should certainly prove this was nothing more than coincidence.”

  “We have done. The girl’s on holiday at the moment.”

  Frustrated again, Mainwaring said, “Well, why in hell would this Binns person have been going to Stonington through the Horndean wood?”

  “What directions did you give the agency?”

  “To take the train to Hertfield. And for them to advance her five pounds for a cab and Lady Kennington would make good.”

  “Cora Binns didn’t take a cab. She took the Littlebourne-Horndean bus. She got off in Littlebourne.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about that, do I?” His face was suffused with blood.

  “Your wife’s away, Mr. Mainwaring?” asked Jury, suddenly changing the subject.

  It unnerved him even more. His drink stopped halfway to his lips. “Away, yes. Visiting her mother.” The relationship obviously didn’t sit well with the husband.

  “These anonymous letters—you have any ideas about that?”

  He almost laughed as he said, “I told your sergeant, no. They’re all rubbish, of course.”

  “You seem very sure. Why? I mean, you might be sure in your own case, but as to, for instance, Dr. Riddley or Ramona Wey?”

  Mainwaring didn’t like that coupling, that was clear. “That’s absurd.”

  “You’d vouch for the character of each?”

  “I certainly—”

  What he’d do was interrupted by the rather plummy tones of the door chime, dropping its mellifluous treble into the dark hallway. Mainwaring looked toward the door, rather nervously. “Excuse me, will you?”

  It was a woman’s voice that came to Jury from the hall, first in normal and then in hushed tones.

  II

  Ramona Wey held out a hand to Jury which was marble-white and marble-cold. She was wearing a very short black velvet cape over a white wool dress and a fall of jet beads. With that white skin and black helmet of hair, Jury imagined Ramona Wey went in for that black-and-white ensemble rather often. She was a woman, clearly, who strove for dramatic effects; she was trying to have one on Jury right now, and not realizing, as she looked him over carefully, that she was failing. Except, perhaps, for the one effect, probably induced by Jury’s memory of Katie O’Brien, lying like the princess beneath the glass bell. Looking at Ramona Wey, he could only think of the queen and the poisoned apple.

  Despite the presence of Scotland Yard, she seemed to feel right at home. She knew where the cigarettes were and the drinks cabinet and did not bother waiting to be offered either. Jury inferred it was an announcement of proprietorial rights. When she had supplied herself with cigarette and whiskey, she sank into a comfortable chair by the fire.

  “I’m glad you stopped by, Miss Wey,” said Jury. Mainwaring wasn’t, that was. clear. He obviously realized how her making free with the house would look to police. “You have an antiques shop in Hertfield, I understand.”

  “Yes. The Jewel Box. I deal most exclusively in antique jewelry and semiprecious stones. You’re here about this murder, I expect?”

  “You didn’t know the woman?”

  “Of course not. I told that inspector from Hertfield everything I did know—which was nothing. I supposed she was some stranger, passing through.”

  “Funny sort of place to pass through, that wood.” Jury waited, but Ramona Wey made no further contribution to Jury’s speculations; she simply moved her shoulders in a vague sort of way. “Cora Binns was her name.”

  “Really?” The tone was flat and rather bored.

  Such indifference to a bloody murder on her doorstep could only be studied.

  “You’re one of the people who got an anonymous letter—”

  “Yes. They were all rubbish, of course.”

  “You were seen as having a liaison with both Dr. Riddley and Mr. Mainwaring.”

  She laughed. “Obviously, whoever wrote them wasn’t very observant.”

  Mainwaring must have picked up a hint of something to come. “Ramona—” He was trying to check her, but failing.

  “Oh, don’t be silly, Freddie. All the superintendent has to do is check with Stella.”

  Mainwaring returned to his gloomy contemplation of the fire.

  She looked at Jury, waiting for him to ask. He didn’t; she was, obviously, only too eager to tell him. “Freddie and Stella are divorcing. That’s why she’s gone to her mother’s. We’re planning on marrying.”

  “Don’t stand there looking so ashen, darling,” said Ramona Wey to Mainwaring. “It’d have to come out soon, anyway. Besides, it does give us an alibi, doesn’t it?” She smiled archly, looking at Jury. “All that ‘where were you on the fatal night’ stuff the inspector was asking. Well, we were together, weren’t we? He seemed to think that woman’s getting murdered had something to do with these poison pen letters. Do you?”

  “Indirectly, yes. How long have you been living in Littlebourne, Miss Wey?”

  She considered. “Oh, about a year and a half, I suppose. I was very fortunate; my aunt died and left me a bit of money. So, as I’ve always been interested in old jewelry, I bought up this little shop. I’ve done rather well, if I do say it.”

  “You had dealings with Lord Kennington?” That he would bring this up did seem to surprise her. She reached out her glass to Mainwaring for another drink before she answered. “Yes. He had quite a wonderful collection of jewelry. He bought bits and pieces from me over the months—nothing terribly valuable; I don’t deal in things like that emerald necklace that got stolen. I expect you heard about the secretary making off with it?” Jury nodded. “Trevor Tree.” She looked off.

  Mainwaring handed her drink to her and said, “I didn’t know you knew him, Ramona.”

  “Well, I didn’t, not well. He came into the shop once or twice for Kennington. I suppose he was handsome in a common sort of way.”

  Jury doubted Tree’s looks being “common” would really put off Ramona, who had a good touch of it herself. “Did you know him, Mr. Mainwaring?”

  “No, no, I didn’t. He came into Littlebourne a few times, I heard afterwards. Hung about the Blue Boy with one or two of the regulars. Derek Bodenheim, as a matter of fact, who’s no stranger to the place. But I doubt the family knew Tree. Why’s all this coming up now?”

  “This emerald of Kennington’s was quite valuable, I understand.” She nodded. “Was it such a large stone, or what?”

  “No, not large, relatively speaking. But large for its history and its quality. Maybe six or seven carats, twenty-three or more millimeters, I think. It was Egyptian, you see, and flawless. No defects, no irregularities. It was a saturated, intense green—what they call a ‘muzo’ green—with a little blue in it. And it was carved. Very old, and very fine. Worth easily a quarter of a million pounds, I’d say.”

  Jury looked at her. “You seem to have studied it pretty closely.”

  She returned the look with a cold one of her own. “It is my business, isn’t it?”

  “What sorts of things did he buy from you?”

  She thought for a moment. “Several brooches. Mourning pins, mostly. Some rings, several of those over the months. A lapis lazuli bracelet and necklace. Other odds and ends. I can’t remember the whole lot. Anyway, what’s that to do with all of this other mess?” She smiled at him, her purplish lip rouge glistening black in the firelight. “Shouldn’t you be asking us instead, ‘Where were you on the night of the murder?’ ”

  Jury smiled. “You’ve told me that.” He looked from one to the other. “Together. Where were you on the Tuesday afternoon, two weeks ago?”

  Both Mainwaring and Ramona Wey looked at Jury with surprise. “Whatever happened then?” she asked.

  FOURTEEN

  I

  JURY looked at his hand, the one which had just shaken Melrose Plant’s, and asked, “Why would
you cut off the fingers of one hand, Mr. Plant?”

  It was nine-thirty in the Bold Blue Boy as Melrose Plant drew his napkin across his lap, and answered, “You’ve only just arrived, have neither inquired about the menu nor Aunt Agatha, and you’re already talking about hacked-off fingers. You certainly do get down to cases, don’t you, even when you’re two hours late for dinner. Mrs. O’Brien, who seems kindness itself in spite of her troubles, has kept the kitchen open. Molly, our waitress, showed no similar inclination until I crossed her palm with silver. I have taken the liberty of ordering; I hope you don’t mind. They do steak and chips, mullet and chips, plaice and chips. An elaborate menu, to be sure, but I was assisted in my choice by Molly, who informed me that they were out of mullet and the plaice had gone off. Thus I plumped for the steak. How are you, Superintendent? Congratulations on your long overdue promotion.”

  Jury smiled. “Sorry I’m so late. And I’m sorrier yet about the weekend in Northants. My DCS heard I was planning a short holiday and immediately erased all the other names from the frame.”

  “How is Chief Superintendent Racer? Awful, I hope.”

  “He may not be around much longer. There is growing dissatisfaction on the part of the higher-ups.”

  “Can’t imagine why. Where is Molly with our wine?” Melrose craned his neck around at the approach of a heavyset girl with a thick braid and a tray.

  Molly had returned with a bottle of wine, which she set, unceremoniously, on the table. “Let’s not look at the label,” said Melrose, pouring wine into their glasses. “Shall we return to the cut-off fingers? Agatha will be crushed not to have been here. I didn’t tell her I was coming, of course. When she finds out, she’ll cry all over her fairy cakes. Puts me in mind of the walrus weeping over the oysters just before he devoured them. Now to your question: ‘Why would I cut off one hand?’ First of all, which hand was it?”