Melrose went to the window, threw it up, and got a lashing of rain on his face. He listened to Mr. Momaday’s guttural vowels and watched his rather violent gesticulations.
“Close that window, Plant!” yelled Agatha. “It’s raining!”
What a brilliant sleuth. To Momaday he said, “Yes, yes, I understand.” Melrose didn’t but he slammed down the window anyway.
This did not, however, deter Mr. Momaday, who apparently assumed Melrose was as conversant with him through a pane of glass as anywhere else. Mr. Momaday’s mouth kept working.
“Whatever is that Momaday person on about? He’s quite crazy. I told you that when you hired him.”
Agatha hadn’t, of course, told Melrose any such thing. She was delighted to have someone new to order about the house and grounds. Melrose had hired this groundskeeper, not to manage his pheasant and grouse, but to manage the occasional hunter who came poking about his property. Momaday roamed around in his green Barbour jacket and gumshoes, shotgun broken over his arm, looking purposeful and doing nothing. But that was, of course, what Melrose wanted him to do: nothing. Nothing but project a sense of danger. He had been hired from amongst several candidates precisely because he was fairly useless and would, therefore, leave both Melrose and muskrat alone. Mr. Momaday looked the part, too: gaunt and with a sort of cuneiform skull, a forehead permanently formed into runnels. And Mr. Momaday also had supplied the unexpected bonus of keeping Agatha out of the drawing room and in the copse, for now she had someone new for whom she could fashion fresh hells.
“If you’re going to London, you can stop in at Harrods and get me some of their Norfolk ham.”
“If you want ham, go to Norfolk. I’m not going to Harrods Food Hall. I wouldn’t surface for days.” He looked at his manuscript page again, frowning. What alibi? He couldn’t remember so he drew a pig. The ham was doing more to inspire him than his own imagination.
The moving pen supplied Agatha with fresh ammunition: “Are you still writing that silly mystery thing?”
“No.” Melrose went on writing.
She sighed and finally sat back on the sofa. “What’s Martha cooking for our dinner?”
Our? “Haggis. And some mashed turnip. Washed down, I think, with a single-malt whisky.”
“Haggis? Good Lord, you don’t really eat that stuff. I don’t believe it.”
“I eat and drink and recite Mr. Burns’s ode to a haggis. That might be the name, actually: ‘To a Haggis.’ ‘Cut you up with ready slight—’ ” here, Melrose pretended to wield a knife—” Trenching your gushing entrails bright—’ ”
“That is absolutely disgusting!”
“You won’t care to join me, then? It does get a bit, well, like a revenge tragedy when Ruthven stabs the skin.”
“You could, you know, make an appointment,” said Norma. “After all, Jonah has never met you.” Yes! That was an excellent idea! And “Jonah” was a popular name, he thought, with psychiatrists.
“A nasty, low dish.” Agatha, apparently still on the haggis, shuddered. She surveyed the wasted tea table and said, “I’ll just have Martha wrap me up a few of those cakes to take with me. I’m sure she’s got more in the kitchen.” She raised her eyes and said, “I don’t know what you think you’re writing, Plant.”
Melrose didn’t answer. He had drawn a fountain and was now settling a little statue near it. Unable to think of anything that Smithson might tell a psychiatrist, he was drawing little pictures on the manuscript page. This garden gnome was no doubt inspired by Trueblood’s absurd plot to get through the doors of Watermeadows.
The voiceover of Agatha thrummed on, but he ignored it, returning to thoughts of the Fludds and Watermeadows. Miss Fludd clearly could not be living at Watermeadows alone, unless . . . Could she have come in advance of Lady Summerston? Perhaps as a paid companion, or something like that? Oh, surely, the girl would not be working in that capacity. Damn it! How could he have been so stupid as not to ask her anything? What a remarkable conversation. Not a moment’s worth of practical exchange of information in it—
“Since you’ve come back from the States, there’s no question but what you’ve changed, Plant; I really think it too bad.” Thrum, thrum, thrum.
Melrose found he had doodled in three chickens by the fountain. He turned his gaze to his ceiling, an Adam ceiling that he found soothing, its elegant spirals and garlands almost soporific, and wondered why he hadn’t thought of the extremely simple overture of inviting the Fludds (assuming “Fludd” was some sort of family name) over for tea. Surely, it would be a neighborly thing to do; Watermeadows was, after all, the property next door to his—although the acres and acres of land in between must have put the distance at perhaps half a mile. Still—
“What are you doing?”
Melrose looked up. The thrumming, he noticed had stopped, like the sudden cessation of a vibrating string. “Hmm? Oh, I’m just making a list for Momaday.”
“List? What sort of list?”
“Things we’ll need.” Melrose sketched in the tiny snout of a pig. He had had little to do with pigs, true, but he quite liked them, he decided. This one had a pot belly, like one of that Korean lot. Or was it the Vietnamese pigs? “Feed, fertilizer. Probably a tractor.”
“What? Why would you need a tractor?”
Melrose drew a fence around his farm animals. “It’s for the farm. Or farmling, perhaps. I don’t want to overextend myself. We’ll need the tractor to turn over the loam. Loam.” He repeated the word, liking the sound of it. Earth had such nice words connected with it: “soil,” “loam,” “moss,” “moor” . . .
“You must be mad! This is Ardry End! Why, it’s . . . it’s a manor house!”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It would be if it were a bit larger.”
“If it were a bit larger, so would Mrs. Withersby’s cottage.”
Outraged on behalf of Ardry End, on behalf of the late Earl of Caverness, Melrose’s father; on behalf of the late countess, Melrose’s mother; on behalf of the crystal and carpets, the diamonds and Derby, Agatha rose in indignation—but first not forgetting to wrap up in a napkin the scones that remained on the Derby cake stand—and announced: “I’ve done, finished, I wash my hands!” She gathered up Lady Marjorie’s silver notebook and said, “You need a psychiatrist, Plant.”
“But it’s only to get information, darling,” said Norma.
Melrose’s smile was sly. At least it would save him from seeing a psychiatrist. Writing, he decided, was wonderfully therapeutic.
EIGHTEEN
He made it to Heathrow with over a glum hour before his flight, but, of course, the airlines always wanted you there with three to spare. Most of the time was taken up with depositing his hired car together with a hefty surcharge for not returning it to its original London source. He’d driven it from Exeter.
Bad boy, the grizzle-haired and slightly matronly booking clerk seemed to be saying. Still, she settled for telling him how fortunate he was that her firm was one of the bigger car-hire companies, and thus could accommodate the vicissitudes of their customers. And furthermore, he hadn’t notified them in advance—
(Here the stapler banged down on the tissuey order forms.)
—which was always the understanding, and even more so, you’re fortunate it’s our firm—
(Tissuey papers were being stuffed in an envelope.)
—because the others would never—
“Furthermore,” said Jury, breaking out his ID and shoving it up to her face, “the day I think Dame Fortune smiles upon me just because I’m using some particular bloody car-hire firm is the day I quit the Murder Squad.” He never used that term; there was no “Murder Squad.” Quickly, she stepped back, and then, with a diffident forefinger, pushed the envelope across the counter.
“Thank you,” said Jury, as he pocketed it and smiled, brilliantly, which reassured her.
Brightly, she said, “When you next need to hire a car, sir, remember—”
“I fancy DimeDrive,” she whispered. “Down there.” Elaborately, she pointed.
Rapport restored, they saluted each other in a comradely fashion.
• • •
SOMEONE STEPPED AWAY from one of the pay phones just as Jury came up to the kiosks; for that, at least, he was grateful. Usually, you couldn’t get near them.
No answer, still. He had about given up expecting one, paid little attention to the distant double note of Jenny’s cradled telephone receiver.
He thought a moment, dialed Stratford police headquarters, got himself put through to Sammy Lasko. All right, Lasko shouldn’t, as a detective inspector, be called upon to go looking for one’s tearaway friends (the image of Jenny Kennington being a “tearaway” rather amused him). But his failure to find her over the last three days was making him more and more apprehensive.
“Lasko,” said Sammy, managing to sound tired, bored, and intrigued all at the same time.
Jury told him what he wanted; that Sam Lasko would send somebody around to check on a friend of his. “Her name’s Jenny Kennington, Lady Kennington, and she lives in Ryland Street, one of those little cottages.”
There was a silence that managed to sound “troubled” on the other end of the phone. There was the sound of Sammy’s breathing. Heavy. “Kennington?”
“Yes.” Everything in Jury’s body tightened, not just his stomach. He felt an adrenaline rush that would help an Olympic runner off the starting line.
“Hold it just a tick, Richard.”
Oh, my God. “Just a tick” was quite long enough for his mind to fill up with more lurid pictures of broken and mangled bodies lying by equally mangled automobiles along the Stratford-Warwick Road than Jury wanted.
“Richard.” Sammy was back and seemed to be rattling papers. “I just wanted to make sure. This is weird, one weird bloody coincidence.”
“Weird” he could stand; “weird” was okay, for, given Lasko’s tone, “weird” definitely did not mean “dead.” Relief flooded him. “Meaning what?”
“I was telling you about that case in Lincolnshire. You weren’t listening. CID up there in Lincoln wanted me keep an eye on a lady who’s involved in a murder investigation—”
Jury was ahead of him. He gripped the phone. “You’re not saying—”
“Jennifer Kennington. Listen, where in hell you calling from? Sounds like an airport.”
“It is. Are you telling me Jenny’s one of their suspects?”
“Witness, witness. What I am telling you is, I’ve been looking for her too.” Pause, troubled. “You going somewhere?”
“The States. What do you mean you’ve been ‘looking’? Can’t you find her?”
“No. Maybe she’s scarpered, as we quaintly say over here; as they quaintly say in the U.S. of A., she’s boogied. So where’re you going? Which part?”
“Santa Fe. And that’s ridiculous, Sammy; Jenny wouldn’t ‘scarper.’ ” How did Jury know it was ridiculous? The public-address system blasted. Calling his flight? He checked his watch. Time yet.
“Maybe,” said Sammy, equably. “Anyway, she’s not at home. Santa Fe, huh? Why don’t I ever get sent places like that? Hell, you just got back.”
Jury was rubbing his temple, as if this action might get through to his brain. The awful thing was, of course, that she had called him, and clearly for help. He had a sudden unreasoning rush of anger at Carole-anne. . . . No. It wasn’t her fault. Jenny had made the one try, and he wasn’t there, and that was it. “Sammy, do me a favor.” If anyone owed him a favor, it was Inspector Lasko, and Lasko knew it. “Remember Melrose Plant? If I give you his Northants number, will you get in touch with him?”
“Plant? Plant—oh, the duke. Sure, I remember him.”
“Earl. Or, rather, ex-earl. Don’t call him ‘Lord Ardry.’ He gave up his various titles some years back.”
“Why? Politics? Does he want to sit in the House of Commons or something?”
“Plant? Hell, no.” Jury remembered a little lecture Plant had given once on nobilary entitlement. But all he said was, “I don’t know why. Ask him, don’t ask me.”
Jury fumbled out his address book, recited the number, which Lasko repeated after him with the studied rote of a child. “I can try ringing him myself, but I think he’s in London today. At any rate I’ll leave word with someone there to tell Plant you’ll be calling.”
“My pleasure. But why am I?”
“To find Jenny.” Again, his hand gripped the receiver. “She’s not in any danger, is she?”
“Don’t see why she would be. Maybe she’s just staying with a friend; maybe she’s gone to London.” Then he added, uncertainly. “Only I told them all to stay put in Stratford.”
Jury thanked him, rang off. Another flight call.
Jenny.
Scarpered.
Boogied.
Hell.
• • •
JURY LEANED against the uninviting plastic surround of the phone and held a brief argument with himself. Jenny was a friend and she’d called him for help. He wouldn’t go. But he’d promised Macalvie. He would go. It was a wild goose chase, damn it. He wouldn’t go. It wasn’t his case, dammit. He wouldn’t go. He rubbed his head. No. Macalvie had never chased a wild goose in his life.
He found Plant’s number and rang up Ardry End. Yes, Mr. Plant had indeed gone up to London, only a little before noon. Ruthven told him this, conveying extreme sadness and sympathy that the superintendent wanted to speak to Lord Ardry and Lord Ardry wasn’t to be found in his usual place.
“If you’re in London, sir, you might be able to find him at his tailor’s. That would be in the Old Brompton. I can let you have the number. He has been known to spend a good deal of time with Mr. Beaton, they being old friends. Mr. Beaton was tailor to his late father—”
Jury interrupted. “If you could just give him a message for me, Ruthven. I have to catch my plane in another fifteen minutes or so. Simply tell him that Inspector Lasko, Stratford-upon-Avon CID, will be ringing up about a matter I’d like him to take care of for me. It’s rather important.”
Ruthven assured him he would convey the information immediately. Mr. Plant would probably be returning late that evening.
Stressed, Jury automatically went for the pocket where he usually kept his cigarettes, finding instead the packet of pills Wiggins had pressed on him during a recent flu epidemic. With directions. A small sheet of paper was inside the packet. Looked like some sort of colored code. He took it out, studied the damned thing, tossed it away. Bad enough a gift of pills without the additional suffering of decoding them.
He could have chewed up an entire pack of Players or Silk Cut at this point, and made for the magazine and newspaper kiosk. With what he felt was impressive self-control, he kept his eyes away from the counter, the case, the racks where Temptation Beckoned.
From the multitude of magazines—was there one for every subject?—he chose a couple and then found, amongst the rows and rows of paperbacks, one of Polly Praed’s books. He was surprised that Polly was airport-popular, as she was always making it sound as if her books weren’t selling, or they were being remaindered, or going out of print, or the object of book burners. Polly was an extremely pessimistic woman. The cover was lurid; he was sure the content was not.
Jury put his purchases in Temptation’s way—he could not avoid the cigarette display, for it was directly behind the cashier and her computerized register. She looked over it somewhat sadly, shaking her dark blond hair away from her shoulders. Tobacco-brown, he thought, was the color. How ridiculous. And her eyes were merely light brown, not nicotine-stain-brown. Longingly, he looked at the colorful display of cigarettes as one might observe the skyline of some exotic land that grew the more enticing as it grew the less corporeal, balanced along a shoreline that receded in the watery dis—
Oh, shut up! he screamed inwardly. Jenny’s scarpered and you’re thinking about a s
moke? Is it absolutely necessary to get poetic about a killer habit? But then he stopped in the middle of this self-flagellation: Wait a moment, old son. The trouble was that, yes, one bloody well could wax poetic about tobacco. Wasn’t that, indeed, the trouble? One could remember many, many times when a cigarette was an integral part of some pleasant, lovely experience. One could remember standing perhaps on a balcony overlooking a sea the color of jasper, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other; or the comfort of a cigarette as you stood at the window watching someone walk away. It was a loss, and no matter how much you rationalized and turned your inner eye to the hideous X-rays of ruined lungs, there was still, superimposed over that deadly picture, the other: the balcony, the sea, the cigarette, the whisky, the sunset, the window, the smoke, the rain. It was a loss as exquisitely painful as the loss of love or beauty, because although viciously neither it had insidiously wedded itself to both.
You devils, he thought, glaring at the rows of glossy packets.
At least he thought he had merely thought it, until the cashier jumped. “What?”
Jury blushed, apologized. “Sorry. I wasn’t meaning you, but them.”
She looked around, turned back to him with an uncertain smile. “You, too, then? I been trying to stop for ever so long. Haven’t had one for a week; don’t know how much longer I can hold out. Especially working in this place. I been thinking of joining one of them groups, you know, like Alcoholics Anonymous, only for smokers.”
“For me it’s been two weeks. It’s hell.” He slapped a packet of mints and one of chewing gum on the counter. “I hate mints. The gum’s not so bad, but I never chewed gum before.”
“Me neither.” She rang up these items, slipped them into a bag. “I don’t think I can last. All you need to do’s look at me to see I’m going fast.”
This was said in a tone of such gravity that Jury had to laugh. And she laughed in response. “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s make a bet. Or a pact, say. I’ll be gone maybe three or four days. When I get back to Heathrow we’ll check up on one another. But we should get some sort of prize—” He looked across the top of this counter to one behind that held costume jewelry, perfume. “Anything there you’d like?”
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