Manna from Hades
Page 5
“Before you get started, I have to take your fingerprints.”
“What the hell for? If you think I—”
“Because you were in the stockroom and there are prints all over the place, and we can’t tell which are yours.”
“Ah yes, for elimination purposes. You should read detective novels, then you’d have the jargon at your fingertips.”
“As a matter of fact, when I left London, war was being waged against jargon.”
“Come now, that’s hardly fair to the authors of crime fiction! Still, I don’t suppose there’s much chance of its succeeding.”
Megan took his prints. He cleaned his fingers fastidiously, though apparently oblivious of the paint on his face.
She leant against the bench as Nick took his place before the undraped easel, chose a brush, and resumed work on a half-completed painting of a lifeboat putting to sea.
“What time did you first see Aunt Nell—Mrs Trewynn—yesterday?” she asked.
“Quite late.” He scratched his ear with the wooden end of the paintbrush. “The sun was setting. I’ve no idea what time it was, but no doubt the police have access to such information. I heard her car.”
“From here?”
He gave her a look as if she was a total cretin. “Hardly. I was sweeping up out there, in the gallery.”
“You recognised her car by the sound?”
“I’m not that fascinated by cars. I heard a car stop next door and glanced out of the window. Since it was a pea-green Moggie, one of the few cars I can recognise on sight, I deduced that it was the Incorruptible, and further deduced that Eleanor had just come home. As she’d mentioned the day before that she was planning one of her collection runs, I went out when I finished sweeping to see if there was anything heavy I could help with.” Falling silent, he dabbed delicately at the canvas.
“And?” Megan asked.
“And?” he echoed absently.
“And was there anything heavy?”
“A couple of boxes.”
“Something valuable?” she asked eagerly.
“Paperback books. There may have been a couple of hardbacks. I didn’t check.”
“Oh, books.”
“Don’t you read books?”
“Of course I do! When I get time. But no one’s going to break into a building to steal books. You’d be surprised how often they’re shoplifted, though.”
“I wouldn’t. Any book I particularly want to borrow from the library is sure to have been pinched. Or misshelved.”
She wondered what he like to read. Books about art, probably, or something equally high-brow. “You carried the two boxes to the stockroom?”
“What?” He was concentrating on the painting again.
“The boxes of books.” She held onto her patience with both hands, determined not to end up like Inspector Scumble. “You took them to the stockroom.”
“Well, of course. That’s what I went out there for. And to invite Eleanor out to dinner as I’d had a bit of good luck fleecing a rich American.”
Megan frowned. “Fleecing?”
“Don’t scowl like that. It doesn’t suit you. His wife liked a picture of mine but it wasn’t big enough for the bit of wall she wanted it for. So I painted the same scene the size she wanted, on commission, cash up front. He paid through the nose for it. Bigger equals better equals worth a whole lot more money.”
“Oh.” A disappointing attitude to an artist with aspirations, she assumed. “I suppose you would have noticed if there had been a body in the stockroom when you went in there?”
“Probably,” he said infuriatingly. “I didn’t root around, but Mrs Stearns keeps everything shipshape and Bristol fashion. I can’t state categorically that it wasn’t there, but I’d be surprised to hear I’d overlooked it.”
“Fair enough. What next?”
“I took the Incorruptible down to Eleanor’s shed—you know she rents a shed down by the harbour?—then came home, cleaned myself up a bit, and went to pick her up.”
“What about the car keys?”
“Car keys? Well, I must have taken them out of the car, because the key to the shed’s padlock is on the same ring.”
“Did you have to stop the car, unlock the padlock, and restart the car to drive it in.”
“No, actually. Eleanor leaves the padlock unlocked when she’s using the car. There’s nothing pinchable in the shed.”
“So you could have locked the car away without using the key.”
“You’re right. A deduction worthy of Sherlock Holmes. So I could have locked the keys into the shed, though I’m pretty sure I didn’t as I have a vague memory of handing them back to her. Still, I gather Mrs Stearns holds a spare padlock key against just such an inevitable occurrence.”
“Aunt Nell’s sure to do it sooner or later,” Megan agreed, “if she hasn’t before now. She has no idea which doors, if any, she locked last night. If you’re not absolutely sure you gave her back the keys, and we don’t find them in the flat, at least we’ll know to look in the garage. What time did you pick her up?”
“No idea. Just a minute, this is a tricky bit.”
He picked up a different brush and bent close to the canvas. When he straightened again, it looked no different to Megan, but Nick gave a sigh of satisfaction.
“Sorry, what was the question?”
“You said you don’t know what time you picked up Aunt Nell.”
“You’d better make sure you write ‘Mrs Trewynn’ in your report, not ‘Aunt Nell.’ They might be able to tell you at the Wreckers what time we got there.”
“You went straight there?”
“Yes, and they know me pretty well, though I go to the Trelawney Arms more often.”
“Why the Wreckers last night then?”
“Oh, er . . . As a matter of fact . . .” His face turned pink. “You see, the . . . er . . . the daughter of the house—the Arms—seems to have taken a bit of a shine to me.”
“You don’t return her affections?”
“I do not!”
“Pity. You could have celebrated your sale with her last night.”
“She’s half my age! Too young to go out for a drink, even if Eleanor weren’t much better company.”
“She’s twice your age.” Megan felt as if she was betraying her aunt.
“But very good company. Is this relevant? Or are you trying to protect Eleanor from the heartbreak of falling in love with a younger man? No chance of that.”
“We can never be sure what might turn out to be relevant,” Megan said with as much dignity as she could muster. She would have to leave that bit out of her report. “How long were you at the Wreckers?”
“Long enough for me to quaff a pint and Eleanor to sip a small sherry. Again, you’ll have to ask the landlord if you want times. Come to think of it, I did look at the clock, but only to make sure we weren’t going to be too late to eat at Chin’s. The actual time didn’t register.”
Megan’s sigh was not expressive of satisfaction. So far she hadn’t learnt a damn thing Aunt Nell and Mrs Stearns hadn’t already told Inspector Scumble. “You left the Wreckers at some yet to be determined time, and . . . ?”
“Walked back down the hill and up to Chin’s. Oh, we stopped en route to drop off Teazle.”
“You what?”
“We stopped to drop off Teazle,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Your aunt’s dog? We took her to the pub, but Chin’s is a restaurant, so we left her at home.”
“ ‘Left’ as in put her inside the street door, or ‘left’ as in ‘took her up to the flat’?”
“ ‘Left’ as in I waited by the street door while Eleanor took the dog up to the flat. She didn’t mention it?”
Cultivate inscrutability, Megan reminded herself sternly. He shouldn’t have been able to guess from her manner that at last she had garnered a tidbit of new information. She ignored his question and asked another of her own.
“Did you go into the passage
?”
“No. The evening was still remarkably pleasant for April. I stood outside and admired the moon. The door was open, though, and I think I’d have heard if anything violent was going on in the stockroom.”
“Could anyone in there have heard you?”
“I doubt it. I don’t remember saying much, certainly not loudly. I mean, I didn’t call out to Eleanor, nor she to me. I don’t recall hearing her footsteps in the passage or on the stairs—she walks very lightly. And I oiled the hinges for Mrs Stearns just the other day, the street door and both doors off the passage.”
A regular Boy Scout—Inspector Scumble would have said it aloud, sarcastically. Megan was alarmed to find herself thinking it, sarcastically. Scumble’s view of the world was contagious. “They’d have heard the door close, though, wouldn’t they?” she said quickly.
“Maybe. She didn’t slam it, just pulled till the latch clicked.”
“And locked it?”
He pondered. “Now that I can’t tell you. I have a picture in my mind of her locking it, and another of her not locking it, but which belongs to that particular moment I couldn’t say.”
“Try putting the moon in your picture.”
He raised his eyebrows. “All right.” Another moment’s thought brought forth: “Good idea. I can see the moonlight glinting on the keys. She locked it that time. Which means I didn’t leave the keys in the car,” he added, his tone self-congratulatory.
“Had she unlocked it previously, when you stopped after the pub to leave Teazle?”
“I think not, but I wouldn’t be prepared to swear to it either way.” He grinned. “Isn’t it lucky I’m not a policeman?”
“Very.” He really was a most irritating man.
“I expect Mr Chin will be able to tell you what time we got to the restaurant,” he said soothingly, “and how long we were there. He’s good with numbers. If you go Dutch with a group, he can work out in his head what each of four or five people owe. And he keeps his eye on the clock, I daresay. Restaurateurs usually do.”
“We have someone asking him.”
“Look here, you don’t think I had anything to do with this murder, do you? I’m a pacifist.”
“Don’t tell the inspector. He was hit over the head with a nuclear disarmament sign by an Aldermaston marcher.”
“Strewth, you’re having me on!”
“It’s a fact. It’s much too early for us to rule out anyone, but in answer to your earlier question, I doubt DI Scumble suspects Aunt Nell in particular, even if it did happen in her house. In his view, a woman’s weapon is poison, not ye olde blunt instrument.”
“That’s what was used, is it?”
Oh hell, she shouldn’t have said that! And he knew it, judging by his knowing smile. Her cheeks felt hot. But she refused to ask him not to tell Scumble. “We won’t know for certain what killed him till after the autopsy,” she said haughtily.
“Don’t worry, I shan’t tell on you. If you’re finished, I’d like to get back to work.”
Megan was sure there must be more probing questions she ought to ask, but her mind was a complete blank. “You can’t think of anything at all out of the ordinary, or anyone, that you heard or saw?”
“The only unusual thing was that it wasn’t raining. I had a delightful evening with your aunt and I just hope you catch the bugger who’s disturbed her peace of mind.” With that, he turned back to his painting, immediately engrossed.
Ignored, Megan took herself out through the shop. Nicholas Gresham had no social graces, she fumed. If he was so self-absorbed painting one of his tourist daubs, what would he be like when working on his arty-farty abstracts? Unbearable! His one redeeming quality was his concern for Aunt Nell.
She went to look for Scumble.
SIX
A uniformed constable Megan didn’t recognise—from Bodmin, presumably—guarded the street door into the passage beside the LonStar shop. “Move along, please, miss,” he said to Megan in the automatic monotone of words oft repeated. “No one allowed in until further notice.”
“Detective Sergeant Pencarrow. I’m working with DI Scumble.”
“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.”
In silence Megan took her warrant card from the pocket of her suit jacket and held it up six inches from his nose.
His eyes crossed and he moved back half a step, till his back was pressed against the door. “Oops, sorry, miss. No one told me we got lady detectives nowadays. No offence meant.” Saluting, he moved aside.
Megan wasn’t sure of the truth of either statement, but he wasn’t openly grinning, so she let it pass. She’d met the same attitude before in the few months since she moved from London back to Cornwall, in spite of her promotion to sergeant. Perhaps because country manners were still old-fashioned compared to the modern lack of manners in the city, so far no one had been openly rude. Until and unless that happened, she had decided the best way to deal with it was to ignore it.
At least the present oaf had reached behind him as he moved to swing the door open for her. She had feminist friends who would have objected to the assumption that a woman was incapable of opening a door for herself, but Megan was not looking for confrontation. With a nod of acknowledgement, she went in.
The door from the passage to the shop was open. Within, surrounded by racks of second-hand clothes and shelves of second-hand books and china, Scumble stood glowering at a bin of colourful woolly animals. A grass-green, yellow-bellied, goggle-eyed frog grinned back at him.
Megan stopped in the doorway, behind the counter and cash-register. The inspector transferred his scowl to her.
“Dusted! Everything in this place that can be polished has been polished within an inch of its life,” he said gloomily.
“Mrs Stearns,” Megan assumed. “Did the intruders get into the shop, sir?”
“Probably not.” His gaze returned to the frog and its companions. “We haven’t found anything they might have been after. I’m wondering whether there could be something hidden in one of these ghastly animals. No doubt Mrs Stearns will disembowel me if we disembowel them.”
Megan was stunned by this evidence of a sense of humor, however grim, in her grumpy boss. “Couldn’t we just squeeze them?” she asked cautiously. “That would catch anything but a very small piece of paper. Or drugs.”
“Drugs are a possibility. The boy ponged of Mary Jane, remember, though the doc didn’t find any obvious sign of the hard stuff. We’ll have to impound them, at least until we find out where they came from. Anything helpful from Mrs Trewynn’s arty boyfriend?”
“Not her boyfriend, sir!” Megan realised too late that he was just trying to get a rise out of her. And succeeding. Lamely she added, “Just a friend. He’s half her age.”
“What’s wrong with him that he can’t get a girlfriend his own age? A pansy, is he?”
“Could be, I suppose. I don’t think so.”
“Drugs?”
“Not noticeably. The smell of turpentine in his studio would cover pot, but I can’t see him smoking in there, with customers in and out of the gallery.”
“All right, get on with it.”
Megan gave her report. She knew she hadn’t extracted much useful information from Nick Gresham, but under Scumble’s sceptical gaze it shrank to virtually zero. “At least we know Aunt—Mrs Trewynn locked the street door when they went to the restaurant,” she finished in desperation.
“Unfortunately,” he pointed out, “we still don’t know whether she locked the back door. You didn’t ask whether he waited long for Mrs Trewynn to come back down?”
“No, sir. Uh, why?”
“Oh, just in case he said she came straight back, and she said she was gone for several minutes, feeding the dog, say.”
“Sir, you can’t think he was downstairs knocking the victim on the head while she was upstairs feeding the dog!”
“You never know. However, having forgotten to mention bringing the dog home, your aunt is no
t in the least likely to remember how long she took about it.” He went over to the door to the stockroom and stuck his head in. “Not finished with that bloody list yet?”
“The list’s just about done, sir,” said Chapman, the scene-of-crime sergeant, “except we’re still going through all the blasted pockets.”
“Well, don’t be all day about it. What have you found in the way of possible weapons?”
He went in. Megan followed him. Laid out on the long, narrow table were a rolling pin; a bundle of brass stair-rods tied with garden twine; an old-fashioned flatiron; an even more old-fashioned copper warming-pan, for which some rich American might pay a pretty penny; and a bent golf club that could conceivably be of use as a garden stake.
“That’s it?” Scumble demanded. “Load of rubbish. Any blood or hair?”
“Not that we can see, sir.”
“None of ’em looks likely, but we’ll let the experts decide. Where’s the man who went to the Chinese and the pub?”
“Golloping or gulging,” said PC Killick enviously. A true Cornishman, he was given to deliberately incomprehensible pronouncements in the local dialect, though not attempting the renascent Cornish language.
“He better not be,” said Chapman, who apparently understood at least those two words, as did Megan. After all, she had grown up in Cornwall.
“Eating or drinking,” she translated discreetly to Scumble, who was turning crimson.
It did not noticeably decrease his choler. “He’d better not be!” the inspector seconded the sergeant.
“All the same, sir,” said Chapman, “is it okay if we get some pasties in from opposite?”
“I suppose so. Let’s have your list of the stuff in here. When the house-to-house people come in, and that includes the grub and booze man, get their reports. If we’re not back, bring them to the vicarage. DS Pencarrow and I are going there now.”
His sigh was deep enough to have originated in the Antipodes.
Eleanor was invigorated by the walk up the hill with Jocelyn to the vicarage, Teazle trotting at their heels. The sea breeze was refreshing and she didn’t mind that it brought with it the beginnings of a sea mist. Crookmoyle Point and Slee Head, to the south of the harbour, were already invisible, and from the lighthouse came the hollow moan of the fog-horn. But the village would probably suffer no worse than a pervading dampness in the air.