This had become another sore point. Emily had insisted the horse have its rest periods. She would ride the children round for no longer than twenty minutes at a time, and then horse and phaeton were to be parked here by this stand of ash on the edge of the wood where it could crop grass. All of that the Bodenheims insisted was nonsense: the phaeton ride was the most popular item every year at the fête and the biggest fund-raiser. To have it going only two-thirds of the time meant a loss to church funds.
To appeal to Emily Louise Perk’s religious instincts was about as effective as requesting the dead to rise and have a go at the coconut shy. Naturally, she won the day. She always did, so far as Melrose could see. (He wondered how her mother stood her.) No rest, no ride, she had said stoutly. She had them by the throats, and she knew it, for the owner of the horse would allow no one to touch it but Emily Louise.
She had picked out this pleasant, shady spot for the horse and carriage and had managed to erect a sort of crude barricade of logs and boards on which she had hammered a sign: Nobody Beyond This Point. Melrose, having finished with his rococo decoration, turned away from her discourse—not one she was holding with him, but with the horse, some tedious longueur about barley and blowflies.
He looked off into the Horndean wood and thought about Ernestine Craigie and her field glasses. Ernestine knew every inch of that wood—every leaf, feather, marsh, pebble in the stream in which the body of Cora Binns had been lying, face down. He wondered about that stream: How far did it go and in what direction? The River of Blood? He frowned.
The trouble with the map, which Jury had taken off to London, was that it made no sense in terms of simple logistics: even in terms of fantastic and imaginary treasure maps there was some sort of sense in the relationship between details. Even the gnome, after all, had some sensible relationship to the princess . . .
. . . who was at that moment glowering at the little line of hopeful kiddies who had lined up to be first for the ride. She would take, she said, only three at a time (though there was easily room for six), for the horse oughtn’t to pull any more weight than was necessary. All down the line there were groans and blighted little faces. By now there were at least a dozen children lined up and Emily was collecting tickets as if they were tickets to a funeral. The three, allowed through the barrier were quickly admonished for bouncing the carriage as they scrambled up to their seats.
Melrose watched Emily mount up into the driver’s seat, look glumly around at the children inside the carriage, and then click her tongue to move the horse out and away.
He bet it would be a short ride.
Melrose leaned against the nearest tree, looking out over the wood where sun slanted through coppery branches. He drew from his pocket the copy of Ernestine Craigie’s map. It was crude, concentrating only on vantage points from which the Crackle might be expected to launch its next attack on the Royal Birdwatchers’ Society. Here was Coomb Bog, here a specially large rock with an indecipherable name, here a stand of ash and clump of laurel. And, of course, the stream. That cavern Ernestine had marked up toward the top of her map. Possibly the Cave of the Black Bear? He wondered about the bear tracks. Why was the bear going across the moat, the stash of gold, and the grotto? Hell of a gauntlet for a bear to run.
Katie’s map ran against reason. The moat seemed to be protecting nothing. No castle, no fortress, only a meeting of river and grotto and bear’s track. And the Church of St. Pancras—Melrose turned to look at it, perched on its small hill—overlooking all.
As he stood there thinking about Cora Binns, he saw in the distance a flash of a dark suit disappearing into a clump of trees. One of Carstairs’s men. They were going about the business now of searching the wood not only for clues to the murder, but clues provided (or not provided, he was more inclined to think) by the map. If a murder had been done in the Horndean wood and there was a cache of priceless emeralds in that wood, it would not be at all surprising to think the two of them were related. Cora Binns could have been murdered because she was after the same treasure as the murderer. But the circumstances of her coming to Littlebourne did not seem to support that theory. She had been summoned here—hadn’t she?—by the prospect of a job. It was hardly likely that the woman had stumbled on this necklace in the bear’s cave and got her fingers cut off for her trouble. . . .
There was another figure moving out there. Coming toward him was Peter Gere, wiping his face with a handkerchief. Melrose could see, as Gere got closer, that he was shaking his head as if to say No luck.
They shouldn’t expect any, thought Melrose. . . . Why did Katie O’Brien’s map seem familiar to him? God knows he hadn’t been out in the Horndean wood in waders and field glasses.
As Peter got within hearing distance, no luck was indeed what he said. “Nothing. No luck at all. God, he” (meaning Jury) “doesn’t really think we can turn up every inch of ground and look in every goddamned hole and cave, does he? Does he think that emerald necklace is hanging from a branch, or what?”
“He doesn’t know. But if you were Superintendent Jury, wouldn’t you have a go at it?”
Reluctantly, Peter agreed. “I’m just an old crock of a village bobby. The most I’m used to doing is hauling Augusta’s cats out of trees and trying to find Miss Perky Perk for her mum. God.” Peter spat a tiny stream of tobacco juice toward a clump of bracken. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just jealous Scotland Yard’s mucking about in our patch. . . . ”
They had to step aside, for the phaeton was returning, hell-for-leather. Emily drove through her homemade barricade to the general displeasure of the three within, whose small faces, one bright red with anger and tears, were popping out of the carriage door demanding more of the ride. Emily looked as if she might gladly grind Melrose and Peter into the dust beneath her wheels, her disgust with her charges being quite palpable.
“Twice,” the red-faced one screamed. “You was to take us two times round the grounds and we only went round once.” The other two sent up a similar roar of protest and nodded their heads in agreement.
Mums had strayed back from whatever they’d been doing, looking almost as unhappy as the children, but probably only because they’d got them back so soon. Now they’d have to collect the kiddies and be yanked about the churchgrounds in search of other treats.
Emily was out of the driver’s seat now and jerking open the carriage door. They were still rabbiting on and refusing to move, so she got hold of the skirt of the fat girl and pulled her stumbling down the single step. “You were rocking the carriage,” she said. Melrose waited there with Peter Gere for the rest of the Sermon on the Mount as she helped each roughly from the carriage. The worst of their sins appeared to have been spitballs aimed at the rump of the horse.
The mothers were now getting into it, in a mild way, but they backed off as they observed the Jovian frown of the driver. Nobody argued with Emily Louise Perk, it seemed. The three children were led away in a landslide of tears.
Three others replaced them. Very quietly they marched, single file, to the carriage door.
“Twice around if you behave,” was the driver’s instruction.
The three chastened faces looked at her and nodded angelically before climbing sedately into the carriage. Once more it pulled away.
“Right little monster, isn’t she?” said Peter Gere, accepting a cigarette from Melrose’s gold case.
“She’d give the Black Bear a good mauling, I’m sure. Did you know this Trevor Tree, Mr. Gere?”
“Not much, except, you might say, in a professional way. Seemed a right villain to me. Smooth as silk. Well, he’d have to be, wouldn’t he, to get Lord Kennington to take him on. Kennington, the little I knew of him, was no fool. Poor sod.” Gere sighed. “I made a proper cock-up of that one, didn’t I?”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Letting Tree make off with that lot. And now all this—” He nodded in the direction of the wood.
“You seem to be taking an inord
inate amount of blame on yourself.” Melrose felt some sympathy for the policeman. He regarded Gere as neither especially bright nor especially dense, but the man had more conscience, apparently, than was good for him. Or perhaps it was a sense of protecting, as Gere had said, his “patch.”
“I was there, man, straightaway when it happened. How could Tree have got rid of that necklace? It’s been bothering me ever since.” Gere ground the stub of his cigarette with his boot. “I saw him in Littlebourne a couple of times, at the Blue Boy, with Derek Bodenheim, playing that damn-fool game. I often wondered . . . well, no matter.” Melrose assumed his wonder was about Derek’s connection with all of this. “Trevor Tree was a type, you know. He put me in mind of those card sharks in old American films that sit facing the door so’s they won’t get pumped in the back.”
They stood there for ten minutes, talking and staring into the wood. Melrose wondered if the Horndean wood was just the right metaphor for the whole puzzle. Too dense to see into or through. There were only transitory glimpses of Carstairs’s men, and outlines cast by the sun dropping bright coins through the leaves onto a carpet of needles. The colors were thick and dim, figures melting into it. “I don’t think you’re going to find—”
Melrose’s remark was interrupted once again by the arrival of the horse and carriage, more quietly this time. Obviously the three passengers had outdone themselves in hewing to the line set up by the driver. They made their way, wordlessly and uncomplaining, back to their mothers.
Emily Louise jumped down from her seat, checked the inside of the carriage and yelled to the waiting line that it was rest time for the horse and that the rides would commence again in twenty minutes. A general air of mourning hung over the assembled group as she released the horse from the carriage, tethered it to a tree, and said to Melrose, “Time for tea.” She jingled some coins in her pocket. Emily had struck a bargain with Mr. Finsbury, allowing her to keep one-quarter of what she earned. She had turned in the ticket stubs, and he had produced the coins. The Bodenheims had been shocked beyond belief.
“Well, back to work,” said Peter Gere, moving off through the wood. Coming the other way toward Melrose was Miles Bodenheim, like Moses parting the Red Sea. No wonder Peter’s departure had been precipitate.
“Rude and loutish bunch this year,” said Miles, without preamble, as he came up to Melrose. “I see that awful Winterbourne brood is here.” He looked off over the crowd. “Well, old chap! What do you think? A bang-up job we’ve done this year, and so long as they stay away from Rookswood, I think it should be a tolerable success. Old Finsbury stands about with his hat in his hands—if we had to depend on him there wouldn’t be a new window. Same thing every year. We do the job; God gets the credit. Julia’s over in the tea tent, in case you’re interested.” He winked broadly.
Melrose wasn’t, until he saw Polly Praed carrying what looked like a great load of napkin-draped plates into the tent. She was swallowed up by darkness on the other end. “Considering what’s happened in the Horndean wood, Sir Miles, I’m rather surprised people mightn’t find its proximity to the church a bit off-putting.”
Miles looked rather blankly at Melrose, as if murder had its place, after all, and, like the Winterbournes, should keep off when it wasn’t absolutely wanted. “Oh, well . . . I imagine it’ll be sorted out. . . . Derek’s over there, doing an A-one job at the Bottle Toss. Clever boy.”
Melrose wondered how clever one had to be to stand up rows of bottles so people could throw hoops at them.
“ . . . And Sylvia’s already sold at least fifty pounds’ worth at the Jumble.” He pointed toward a clutch of women squawking like chickens. Sylvia was probably knocking up the prices on everything.
As they strolled through the gathering crowd, Sir Miles took a swipe with his stick at a child whose fingers were sticky with cotton-candy and who had had the gall to get too near to Sir Miles’s plus-fours. With his argyle socks and plaid beret, he was looking quite jaunty. The effect of this bit of Aubrey Beardsley in Littlebourne was somewhat dashed by the dab of crusted egg yolk on the cashmere sweater. “So, where are you off to?” he asked Melrose, as if they’d only just met on a railway platform.
“Thought perhaps I’d try the tea pavilion.”
Again, Sir Miles winked. “Thought you would, my boy, thought you would.”
II
“I was just thinking,” said Polly Praed, her violet eyes alight as she handed over a cup of tea to Melrose, “of the most marvelous way to murder Derek Bodenheim.”
“Join me for tea and tell me all about it.”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ve got to serve. But just listen: you see, Derek, the oaf, is in charge of the Bottle Toss, isn’t he? Everyone brings a bottle full of something, but no one knows what. There’s only the name on each of the bottles to tell you who brought it. Well, of course, the murderer simply puts a sham name—excuse me . . . ” Polly moved down the table to help some children—or hinder them—who were trying to get at the cake plates. Having disposed of them, she came back, and picked up the thread of her story. “ . . . a sham name. Now, that bottle contains strychnine. Derek tosses the hoop and it lands on that one and Bob’s your uncle. Can’t you imagine—?”
“Wait a minute, how do you know he’d land the hoop on that bottle?”
“ . . . imagine him lying there, writhing on the ground. Strychnine does such ghastly things to one—excuse me.” Happily she poured out three cups of tea, which were collected by three ladies who looked at them with disapproval.
“That’s a quaint way of going about it,” he said, drinking his tea and trying to ignore the beckoning hand of Julia Bodenheim, sitting at one of the tables.
“Quaint? I thought it excruciatingly horrible, myself. I like the image, you see. All of the bottles neatly lined up, all different colors. And then the innocent-seeming church fête where one would hardly expect anything like that to—excuse me.” Farther down the table went Polly, and Melrose could no longer ignore the fingers of Julia, diddling at the air as if she were practicing scales.
When he appeared at her table, she said, “Please do sit down, Lord Ardry.”
“Just plain Melrose Plant. I don’t have a title.”
Her smile was conspiratorial, as if that Melrose Plant were like the fake name on Polly’s bottle. “Of course. It’s all rather hideously boring, isn’t it?”
“The fête? I’ve always found them interesting. One could make quite a study of human nature here.”
Julia sighed. “Perhaps you haven’t been subjected to them every year. I can’t think why Mummy will insist on taking charge of the damned things, as it puts me and Derek in the most awful position . . . ” She rambled on as Melrose wondered what position she could be talking about since she seemed to be nothing but sitting here drinking tea and smoking Balkan Sobranies. As Julia talked herself blue, Melrose let his mind wander off to Katie’s map. Where had she found it? Through the open flap of the tent he saw that the phaeton had started up again and was moving out of the pool of shadow at the far end of the churchyard. Emily would certainly die with her boots on, since she never took them off.
Ten more minutes was about all Melrose could endure of Julia’s life story, the only interesting part of which was a fall from a ’chaser which had broken her jaw, rendering speech impossible. He tried to extricate himself by saying he was going to have his fortune told.
“By old Augusta, you mean? Whatever for?”
“To see if some mysterious woman is going to enter my life.” He tried for an enigmatic smile. She loved it. As he turned to go, Melrose asked her suddenly, “Tell me, Miss Bodenheim—did you know Lord Kennington’s secretary very well at all?”
“Trev—?” She stopped before the name was completely out and he thought a shadow passed over her face. “No. No, of course not. We had very little to do with the Kenningtons, and certainly not with the secretary.”
Melrose considered. “Your brother did, though, didn’t he?
”
She frowned. “What on earth’s all that to you? How do you know about all that business?”
“Oh . . . chitchat, chitchat. Since I’m thinking of buying the place, well . . . you know.”
It was doubtful she did. But the slight flush left her face as she regained her composure—or, rather, the Bodenheim arrogance which was supposed to pass for it—and said, “I hope you’ll be more sociable than she ever was.”
Melrose hoped he wouldn’t.
III
Madame Zostra, with her crystal ball, jeweled turban, and redoubtable accent was not much like that same Augusta Craigie who followed her sister about like a lapdog. Perhaps the costume permitted her to reveal some cutthroat self, for she had no compunction about grinding all of Melrose’s hopes for the future into the ground. Fortune-tellers (he had always thought) were there to make one feel happy and hopeful: beautiful strangers and money and exotic ports-of-call were supposed to fall into one’s lap as easily as autumn leaves. But having crossed Madame Zostra’s palm with silver, all Melrose could look forward to was a life of ravaged dreams. He wouldn’t make a fortune, but lose one, very probably at the hands of a dangerous (not beautiful) stranger, who would fall across his path, not like a scattering of leaves, but like a dead tree.
Melrose left the tent and did not wonder at the lack of customers outside. Word must have got round that to enter this tent was truly to abandon hope. If the fête’s fortune were left to Madame Zostra’s fund-raising abilities, the church window would have to wait until hell froze over. That appeared to be where all of her clients were headed, anyway.
• • •
Sylvia Bodenheim was in her métier at the Bring ’n Buy, haggling with a thin woman over the price of a ratty-looking shawl knitted by Sylvia’s own hand. As Sylvia was also manning the Jumble table, set up in a booth next door, she was having the time of her life flying betwixt the two like a great scavenger bird.
The Anodyne Necklace Page 17