The Anodyne Necklace
Page 23
“Thanks very much, Mr. Potts. We’ll be in touch,” said Jury, steering Wiggins toward the stairs.
The door closed behind them and Sergeant Wiggins said, “It’s good to know that, isn’t it, sir? I’ve always wondered.”
V
The grate was almost directly across from the spot where Katie O’Brien had slumped. It was at floor level and beneath the Evita poster. With the help of two London Transport security police, Jury found it.
The necklace had been wrapped in a thin, dark handkerchief, fed through the opening in the grate—something which would have taken hardly more than a matter of seconds—where it had lain on a ledge collecting the soot of the whole last year. Had anyone actually looked, the small bundle would have been easy to see. But why would anyone bother to look into a ventilation grate in a tube station?
TWENTY-THREE
“KILL you?” exclaimed Melrose Plant to the bedraggled bit of child standing before him in the Bold Blue Boy. It was true that she did look as if she’d spent the night in hand-to-hand combat with thorny thickets and bogs and hedgerows. Her ordinarily unkempt hair was even more tangled than usual; her face was muddy, her jeans ripped.
She nodded, frowning at the floor.
Melrose had been looking for her everywhere for the past forty-five minutes. Peter Gere was not at the station. Polly Praed had seen Emily around eight, she had said. The Bodenheims denied any knowledge of her at all. Her mother was not at home.
It was ten o’clock when he had settled down to wait with a pint of bitter and a cigar and had been scared nearly witless by the sudden appearance of the small white face at the casement window and the demand to help her crawl through. No, she refused to come through the saloon bar or the public bar. So crawl in she had done, Plant dragging her by the armpits.
Melrose got up from the window seat to look out through the top of the glass pane where the lamp just outside the pub illuminated part of the road. He could see her pony tethered to the lamp. It seemed to be munching at a bit of grass. Why was her coat hooked to the bridle?
When he asked her, the look she returned him was one of withering scorn. “To make them think I was still on Shandy, of course. Then I was afraid maybe they’d run into him. But when I went across the pasture and finally got to the High he was just walking round Littlebourne Green. Shandy’s very smart.” The look clearly added: More than some. “I want to find Mr. Jury.” The mouth downturned, prelude, he thought, to a fit of tears, although it was hard to imagine her crying.
“At the moment, he’s in London. I expect he’ll be back very soon. As a matter of fact, he wanted me to keep an eye on you.”
The look now told him what a bang-up idea she thought that was.
“Come on.” He dragged her over to the turnstile of crisps, went behind the little bar himself, and got out the lemon squash. If her mouth was full, she’d forget her misery. “Who knew where you were?”
Emily shrugged. “Lots of people. I always feed the horses Sunday nights. Here.” The colored map, now damp, muddy and wrinkled, had been in her pocket all along. She showed it to Melrose.
He looked from the map to her. “When did you do this?”
She told him while rooting out the last crisp from her bag.
“Did you show it to anyone?”
“To Polly. We figured out what it was. It’s the Underground. Why would anyone want to do a map like that of the Underground? London’s ever so exciting, though. I hardly ever get to go to London.” She sighed dramatically and glared at Melrose as if he were personally responsible for her countrified existence.
“Did you tell anyone else?”
Emily had made a ball of the empty crisp bag and was bouncing it in the air.
“Stop that and pay attention!”
She frowned mightily and slid down in her chair. “You needn’t be nasty. I only told Mrs. Lark.”
The Bodenheim cook. Wonderful. She, no doubt, immediately told all of the family.
He looked at Emily, wondering what to do. Young ladies in distress had never been Plant’s métier. He expected mothers, nannies or old cooks to present themselves for such emergencies. Emily’s mother seemed to be, as usual, unavailable. He hadn’t seen Mary O’Brien. Polly Praed? He suggested it.
“No!” The single syllable was explosive. “I don’t want to talk to anybody.” She had gone round behind the bar to find her coloring book and crayons. Having secured them, she returned to her stool, all kitted out, seemingly oblivious to the awfulness of the previous hours.
“You’re talking to me.”
“That’s different.”
Either that meant he wasn’t anybody, or that he had been admitted to that very select company thus far comprised of Superintendent Jury and whatever horses happened to be about. “I’m glad to know you trust me.”
Her look would have turned anyone more unused to her to stone. “Only because you’re a stranger, and you don’t ride horses, so it wasn’t you.”
Implying that in any other circumstances, he’d have all the makings of the born killer.
“You don’t think it could have been Polly?” Emily didn’t answer. “But that’s—” He wanted to say ridiculous, but it stuck in his throat.
“It’s why I didn’t want to come in through the front. I don’t know who’s out there.” From the other side of the wall came the warm if indistinguishable voices of the regulars, like something wrapped in cotton wool.
“Well, you can stay here the night. I’m sure Mary O’Brien can find you a nightie—”
“Nightie! I don’t wear those! I sleep in my knickers.” She finished up her green Bambi and slapped the page over.
Melrose got up. “I’m going to call the police.”
“I’ll only talk to that Scotland Yard man.”
“He’s in London. I’ll call Hertfield. Maybe Peter’s—”
She looked up from the blue squirrel she was coloring, with steel in her eyes. “Mr. Jury.”
Part Three
MUSIC and MEMORY
TWENTY-FOUR
MR. Jury was, shortly after this exchange, talking to six other policemen—Wiggins among them—who had been routed from their Sunday evening activities to assemble in the Wembley Knotts Underground station. Since three of them belonged to the Flying Squad, it probably wasn’t the telly which Jury had interrupted when he made his call to Scotland Yard. The other two were security guards with London Transport.
“Nasty,” said Detective Inspector Graham. “But what makes you think this villain will come back here tonight?”
“Tonight, or early tomorrow morning. Tonight is most likely because there won’t be the Monday morning commuters. No matter how early, you always seem to run into someone who has to be at work spot on six, or something.”
“Still,” said Graham, “if this necklace has been lying in that grate”—he pointed below the Evita poster—“all this time, why now?”
“Because our friend knows that there’s not much time, that’s why. Ever since Katie O’Brien found that map, the whole thing must have been pretty nerve-wracking. Two women dead and another one in a coma. Don’t tell me this person’s going to wait around for us to find the bloody necklace.”
“Then he’s got exactly one hour and thirty-three minutes before this tube stop closes down.” Detective Inspector Graham stopped at the sound of the echoing footsteps coming round the curve of the wall.
It was Cyril Macenery, carrying a violin case. He kept his eyes down, as if he were searching for something.
Jury introduced him to the assembled company. “Our itinerant musician,” he said. “We’ve cleared the place out—not that it took much clearing—and the only ones here now are you”—he looked the group over—“and Cyril, Katie’s teacher. I think it should be business as usual, and the thing that will make our friend least suspicious is if there’s someone playing down here. As far as I’m concerned,” Jury added, grimly, “it’s only poetic justice.” He looked at Cyril Macenery, w
ho did not reply. He’d agreed to do this, to play his violin, but with some resistance, answering Jury in monosyllables when Jury had got hold of him at the hospital.
Temporary Detective Constable Tyrrwhitt, who was leaning against the wall, dressed in leather coat, Hawaiian shirt and jeans, said, “So there’s two of us on the platform—not counting you two—one of us in the tunnel and one on the moving stairs. You’re sure this creep knows where that necklace is?”
“I’m pretty sure,” said Jury.
“Pretty sure,” echoed Tyrrwhitt, stashing his gum behind the poster of Evita. She still dangled, dreadfully insecure, but sticking it.
Jury liked Tyrrwhitt. He was a T.D.C. now; he’d be in Graham’s shoes, or shoes like them, inside a year, Jury bet. The sarcasm went, Jury thought, with the persona, half-developed through the clothes Tyrrwhitt wore for cover. He would have beat out the leather jackets Jury saw earlier any day.
“It’s the best I can do,” said Jury, handing round the photo he’d brought with him. “That’s who you’re looking for.”
After they’d all had the picture, Graham passed it back. “Nasty, very nasty. I’d sooner suspect my old gran.”
“Be glad it isn’t your old gran. You might wake up with no fingers.”
• • •
They were standing around the curve from the Evita poster, out of sight of the grate. Macenery had the violin—it was Katie’s—tucked beneath his chin. He plucked a string, stared at the wall, and said, “She’s dead.”
They had just been talking about what Macenery would play as a signal to the men on the platform if he saw the person they were looking for. Jury had turned to walk back down the corridor and thought he couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?”
“She’s dead. Katie. She died just before you called.”
Jury swallowed. “I don’t believe it.”
Macenery plucked a string of his violin. “Neither do I.”
As he drowned himself in music, Jury stared for a moment, and then walked back down the corridor towards the platform.
• • •
They sat, Wiggins and Jury, in a murky corner at the end of the platform.
“You’re kidding,” said Wiggins, in as plaintive a voice as Jury had ever heard him use.
“I guess not. I wish I were.” Jury took out his packet of cigarettes.
Wiggins was mournfully silent for a while and then he said, “But aren’t you afraid Macenery will lose his head the minute he sees—?”
“No. If he could come here and do what he’s doing, no, I don’t. He’s disciplined, see. I expect that’s why he’s so good.”
• • •
The two passengers who got off the next train seemed to think he was good too. They stopped and listened before they started through the exit that led up to the little bridge and out the other side of the Wembley Knotts station.
And so it went for the next half-hour—Jury chain-smoking and studying the gray floor of the platform; Graham and Tyrrwhitt pacing; the others in the far corridor or the stair; Macenery playing the violin.
“What’s he playing now, Wiggins?”
“I never heard it done except on a piano,” said Wiggins gloomily. “It’s called ‘Pavanne for a Dead Princess’.”
“Oh,” was all Jury replied.
After another ten minutes, and thinking that he must be wrong, that nothing was going to happen that night, he heard the sound of the beeper. He pushed the button and over the speaker of his small radio he heard the quiet voice of the sergeant on the stair telling him the subject had just been spotted.
In a couple of minutes, they heard the first strains of the song Macenery had said he’d play—one of Katie’s favorites—“Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”
Now they had to allow enough time for retrieval of the necklace. Jury gave it another three minutes and then signaled to Graham and the other detective sergeant. T.D.C. Tyrrwhitt was stationed in the corridor, ostensibly to listen to the violin and then to follow the suspect at a respectful distance.
The four of them—Graham, the D.S., Jury and Wiggins—went through the archway to the short flight of stairs and down.
Jury heard Tyrrwhitt commanding, “Hold it right there, mate.”
The person frozen in a crouch by the grate was now looking from Tyrrwhitt behind him, gun leveled, to the others bearing down on him.
“Hello, Peter,” said Jury.
Peter Gere had the handkerchief-wrapped necklace in his hands and said, “I should have bloody known. The minute I heard that goddamned song, I should have known. It was the same one she was playing, that afternoon.”
Jury did not know where Cyril Macenery was. The music had stopped. But he was glad Macenery hadn’t heard Gere say that.
In a voice so cold it could have frozen hell over, Detective Inspector Graham issued the usual warning to Gere. The provincial policeman—one of those whose incorruptibility was legendary. Apparently, Graham wanted to think they still existed.
Jury asked, “Why did you kill Katie O’Brien, Peter? Did you think she knew what that map meant?”
“I didn’t kill her, did I? Just roughed her up a bit.” Jury said nothing. “She found it when she was cleaning one day. Like a bloody idiot, I forgot to lock the desk drawer. Nosy little lass, that girl was. I overreacted. She gave me a funny look and went away. But then she came back: she got at it again by taking out the drawer on the other side. Well, I couldn’t have her see me in Wembley Knotts station, could I?”
“And you wanted to take everyone’s mind off Katie’s accident, so you wrote those letters.”
“It worked, didn’t it? Anyway, I didn’t kill her. She’s in hospital.”
“She’s dead.”
Gere went ashen. Jury knew, while the awful news was sinking in, that he had the advantage. “What about Cora Binns? Did you know she was Tree’s lady friend? Or was she wearing some of Kennington’s jewelry?”
Gere looked at Jury almost blindly. With Katie dead, it was a little late for denials. “I knew he had a girlfriend. Men like Trevor Tree always do, don’t they?” he added. “What a fool he was to give her those rings. She’d got off the bus and was searching for Stonington. Said she had business with Lady Kennington. How the bloody hell was I to know what her ‘business’ was. I didn’t know how much she knew or how much Tree had told her. And there she was with that jewelry that Kennington’s widow was bound to recognize—I could hardly talk it off her fingers.”
All of this was brought out in a rush, like a man fighting for oxygen, before he seemed to realize how much talking he himself was doing.
“What about Ramona Wey?”
Gere didn’t answer.
Jury thought perhaps he could appeal to Gere’s vanity. “You must have been damned shrewd, Peter, to get Trevor Tree to trust you.”
“That’s a laugh. Other way round, I’d say.” He fell silent again.
“Get him the hell out of here,” said Jury, turning away.
With false heartiness, Detective Inspector Graham said, “Well, Mr. Gere. We might just as well take the tube.” Jury knew he was joking, and the joke didn’t pay off.
As Graham was about to put cuffs on Peter Gere, the train stopped, disgorged a couple of passengers—a woebegone woman with hair to her waist and a gypsy skirt dragging a four- or five-year-old girl. Late for a kid to be up, thought Jury, his mind on Emily Louise. The mother seemed all unaware of this phalanx of men and commenced plowing straight through them.
Jury could not see how anyone could have been that quick, but Peter Gere grabbed up the little girl and backed off with her. A look of surprise and then unspeakable horror crossed the woman’s face.
Automatically, Tyrrwhitt went for his gun, realized that with the child as a shield, it was no good. He stood there, mutely staring. No one was close enough to Gere to get him before he was out of the exit door leading up to the bridge. Jury raced after him and reached the bridge as the doors of the train sucked shut and it
began to move. He yelled to Peter Gere over the noise of the train and the sudden rush of wind to put the girl down, he hadn’t a prayer, there were police at the other exit too. He made a grab for the little girl’s skirt.
Gere looked desperately both ways—back at Jury, forward to that other exit—and thrust the child from him. Jury grabbed her back as Gere went crashing through the makeshift barrier across the broken wire mesh, hoping, apparently, to ride the top of the train.
Peter Gere’s hands scrabbled wildly for purchase, but there was nothing there now to give it. He missed the last car by inches and hit the track.
Jury looked down, the little girl shoved against his shoulder, and was glad William F. B. Potts hadn’t mentioned the voltage on the outside rail.
TWENTY-FIVE
I
WHEN Jury found Melrose Plant at two o’clock in the morning, he was sitting with an overflowing ashtray, a bottle of Remy, and a book of French poetry.
“There’s a message from Mainwaring. He wants to see you, no matter what time you get in.”
Jury sat down heavily. “Let me have some of that, will you?”
Melrose shoved the bottle toward him. Then he told him about Emily Louise.
“Oh, my God,” said Jury. He was silent for a moment. “And how’s Mary O’Brien?”
“Dr. Riddley gave her some sort of sedative and I suppose it worked for a while, since he managed to get her upstairs and into bed. I was about to go to bed myself when she came down in her nightdress with a terrible blank sort of look on her face. Do you know, she was carrying an oil lamp. She made a slow circuit of the place; she held it up to all the windows, looking out; she might have been looking for some late traveler. . . . It was eerie.” He lit a fresh cigar. “I think I know now what’s meant about someone’s being ‘a ghost of his old self.’ She was flesh and blood turned to vapor. Really, I thought I could put my hand through her.” He was silent for a moment, and then added: “There’s no such thing as being prepared for death. I’m glad I never saw her. . . . ” He looked at Jury, as if half-afraid Jury might tell him about Katie O’Brien. Jury said nothing, and Melrose went on. “When Riddley told me about Peter Gere—I was baffled.”