Vertigo 42

by Martha Grimes

  Jury picked it up, folded it, returned it to the envelope and waited for some sign of encouragement from John McAllister, some sign he should leave it. But he got none. He left it anyway.

  “Good-bye, John.” He had never seen a sadder look on any man than the one on John McAllister’s face.

  Brown’s Hotel, Mayfair

  Wednesday, 2:30 P.M.

  45

  * * *

  An hour after leaving Plaistow Street, Jury was sitting in Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair with Phyllis Nancy. He’d phoned her and asked her if she could get away for an hour or two. He told her he needed help. He chose Brown’s because it was so comfortable, so beautiful, and so old-fashioned.

  Phyllis agreed. “I’d never have thought of Brown’s for tea. I’m glad you did. I love real teas.” She sighed and settled back comfortably in her armchair. Between them on the table was a tiered plate from which she took a little scone.

  They sat in wide, soft, cretonne-covered armchairs in a section of the hotel’s lobby that was given over to afternoon tea. There were perhaps a dozen other guests sitting about on sofas and in armchairs.

  “What is it you need help with?” She poured each of them more tea.

  “This.” Jury pulled the letter from his pocket and handed it to Phyllis. “When I went to Laburnum, I found this. It had been shoved under the door of Tom Williamson’s study and had also gone under the rug. It’s been lying there for seventeen years.”

  “Why haven’t you turned it over to Tom Williamson?”

  “Because I couldn’t. I think it would break his heart all over again.”

  “That’s not for you to decide,” she said, a little testily. She pulled the sheets from the envelope. As she read, her face bore an increasing expression of alarm. When she came to the end, she turned the page over. “Where’s the rest of it?”

  “There isn’t any ‘rest.’ That’s it.”

  Phyllis shook her head. “No. There’s at least one more page.”

  “There wasn’t.” He told her how he’d continued searching for a missing page.

  “ ‘Mackey, the love of my life’ ”? She shook her head. Is it this you don’t want Tom Williamson to see?”

  “No. ‘Mackey’ refers to Doctor John McAllister; that is, he’s a doctor now; then he was only ten years old, and Tom told me Tess had a way of making exuberant declarations of love and affection. She was very sentimental. That appears to be what that is.”

  “It’s too unlikely she’d end there. No, there’s another page somewhere . . . unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Could she have been interrupted?”

  “It’s possible. But the letter still went under the door in that form. I mean, being interrupted wouldn’t explain the missing page.”

  “It would if somebody else shoved it under the door, not Tess.” Phyllis pushed part of her scone to the side of her plate, drank her tea. “If the person with her thought it could be read as a suicide note. Which it could.”

  “You think someone could have turned up while she was writing this—”

  “The someone might have read it and become crazy-jealous or angry.”

  “Her husband, you mean? No, not him.”

  “If not jealous, then very angry over her protecting ‘Mackey,’ the one who’d killed Hilda Palmer. Or could it have been he himself who was there and didn’t want to be found out?”

  “Doctor McAllister?” Jury shook his head. “I no more think he could have hurt her than could her husband.”

  “Isn’t this dated the same day that she died?” She showed Jury.

  “It is. Of course anyone could have added a date.”

  “Yes, I expect so, which suggests murder.” Phyllis leaned across the table, shoving aside a basket of sweet rolls. “How do you see what happened? The sequence of events? I mean, assuming I’m right about her being taken by surprise?”

  “Okay. Say that someone she knew turned up, uninvited, and she asked him or her in. This person might have asked what Tess was doing. She says, ‘Writing a letter.’ She offers the visitor a drink—‘tea, coffee, whiskey’?—then leaves the room to get it. Visitor reads the letter, is angered by it, so much so that he threatens to kill her. And does. Then tries to make it appear as if she fell down those steps. On the other hand, the person could have come in the first place with that intention, and the letter had nothing to do with it.”

  “I still say it could have been this Doctor McAllister discovering in the letter that what happened was about to be revealed and he had to silence her.”

  “But surely he’d have got rid of the incriminating letter, were that the case, or rather that page of it, since he might have wanted to leave the letter as a suicide note,” said Jury.

  “The page that’s missing, Richard. What if she discovered that she hadn’t put it with the rest? What would she have done? Probably shoved it under the door too.”

  “It wasn’t there.”

  “You mean not under the rug. What if the loose page had gone on top of the rug? Then someone would have found it. Her husband might have done.”

  Jury shook his head. “He’d have told me; it would have been too important a detail to omit.”

  “Before you show him this, though, go back and find the missing page.”

  “Phyllis, there is no other page.”

  “Yes, there is.” Phyllis cut a Bakewell tart in two. “Find it.”

  Bloomsbury

  Wednesday, 3:00 P.M.

  46

  * * *

  Kenneth Strachey opened the door, looking more billowy than on Wiggins’s previous visit. The white shirt had long balloonish sleeves and gave Strachey a poetical or piratical look. Wiggins couldn’t decide which.

  “Sergeant Wiggins! Good to see you. Come in, come in?”

  “Thank you, sir. I’d just like to ask you a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Absolutely ask away, but let’s do it over tea. I’ve just wet the tea leaves.”

  “Be glad to join you.” Wiggins followed him into the kitchen where steam was coming out of the spout of the blue-glazed pot. Again, Wiggins pulled up a stool, put his mobile on the counter at the end of which sat a beautifully decorated cake. “Did you do this, sir?”

  “I did. Care for a slice?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I’d better not start in eating again. It looks delicious. Is that caramel icing?”

  “It is. Chocolate cake.”

  “And did you do all of the fancy decorations?”

  “Yep. Sure you won’t have some?”

  “Not today, I’m afraid. I’ll forget why I’ve come again.”

  Strachey laughed. “No harm done.” He went to one of the cupboards to pull down cups and saucers. While his back was to the counter, Wiggins pulled a small camera out of his pocket, and took a quick picture of the cake. He dropped the camera back in his pocket, and as the mobile was close to hand, he picked that up as Strachey turned back. “Been trying to call Superintendent Jury. He’s in Devon. Exeter.”

  Strachey poured Wiggins a cup of tea, shoved the jug of milk and sugar to him. “So what do police want to know?”

  “Just me, sir. I was thinking of that unfortunate day at Laburnum for all of you kids and got to wondering, have you kept in touch with any of the others into adulthood?”

  “Yes. Madeline Brewster, somewhat.”

  “What about John McAllister?”

  “John? Not really. He seems to do rather a lot of traveling, and he’s not in this country much of the time.”

  “How about Arabella Hastings, sir? The one who’s dead.”

  Kenneth sighed. “ ‘The one who’s dead.’ Right. Poor girl. Threw herself off a tower, the paper said.”

  “From what we’ve gathered, Arabella, or Belle, as she called herself,
had quite a case on you when you were kids. That so?”

  “That’s so, yes. It was rather tiresome.”

  “And did this tiresome crush linger into adulthood?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No? I thought it quite a clear question. Was Arabella still devoted to you?”

  “I’ve no idea,” replied Kenneth, a little irritably. He drank his tea.

  “You don’t? What we were told was that her feelings for you were very intense. That she was one of those needy people who stick on you like a limpet. That was the description.”

  Kenneth didn’t respond.

  “Did you take her out at all in the last year, say? Go clubbing? Go for a meal? That sort of thing?”

  Kenneth’s irritation increased. He also looked a little wary. “No. I wouldn’t have given Arabella any encouragement.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because it was bad enough as it was, her suddenly turning up at places where I was. Coffeehouses like Nero’s; Dillon’s books; other public places. If I’d invited her for a meal, I’d never have been able to get rid of her.”

  “Is that what you mainly wanted, sir? To get rid of her?”

  Kenneth had raised his cup, but now he set it down. “Sergeant Wiggins, are you implying that I did it?”

  Wiggins raised his eyebrows. “Did what?”

  “Got rid of her. In other words, murdered Belle—Arabella?”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course not. Furthermore, at the time of her death in Sidbury, Northants, I was here in Bloomsbury, London. I’ve already told you this, Sergeant. I came in sometime between eight and nine and had an early night.”

  “And your housemate can confirm that? Austin?”

  Impatiently, Kenneth nodded. “Of course.”

  Wiggins had taken out his small notebook and ballpoint pen. “Does Austin have a last name?”

  “Smythe, with a y. What motive would I have for killing her?”

  “That of course I couldn’t say.” Wiggins’s cup was empty. He was sorry his questions were offensive; that undoubtedly accounted for the lack of scones. He picked up the pot of tea. “May I?”

  “Sorry. Of course, have more.” As Wiggins refilled his cup, Kenneth said, “Her death must have been accidental.”

  “Oh? Why do you say that?”

  “The shoes, Sergeant. The four-inch heels. According to the papers, she was wearing the shoes when she fell. She’d surely have removed them if she’d meant to fall.”

  “Why’s that, sir?”

  “Because of where the window was. She’d have had to climb up on a chair or a bench in order to get herself in place to jump. Automatically, she’d toss off her shoes.”

  “If it were an accident, wouldn’t there have been the same problem? Getting herself in place?”

  “Perhaps so.” Kenneth poured himself some more tea.

  “But one wonders why she’d have worn those high heels in the first place, seeing as how she’d have to climb that long circular staircase.” Wiggins paused. “At least, you’d think she’d have worn her other shoes.”

  Kenneth looked a bit surprised, then said, “What shoes?”

  “Oh, sorry. We got some prints left by a low-heeled shoe, though we didn’t find any low-heeled shoes, which was very odd in itself. It’s especially odd that she didn’t keep them on for climbing that staircase. Given she wore them to tramp across the mud.” A fact that Wiggins was not sure of, but he put it out there anyway. “She climbed those stairs in high heels, when she’d got this other pair. It strikes me as being significantly overprepared for suicide.”

  “So you’re quite sure she was murdered?”

  “Yes. Why and by whom we don’t know. Yet. We also have an idea that it’s tied to the death of Tess Williamson.”

  Kenneth looked completely taken aback. “Why in God’s name would you think that?”

  “Because Arabella Hastings was one of the six children Mrs. Williamson took along to Laburnum.”

  Kenneth forced a laugh. “That’s really a stretch, Sergeant. Just because Arabella was at Laburnum that day twenty-two years ago.”

  In a mild tone, Wiggins said, “Why didn’t you report her stalking you to police?”

  “Stalking?”

  “What you described certainly sounds like it. It must have been dreadfully annoying, her turning up that way.”

  “Well, perhaps I exaggerated.”

  “But you were very clear about this incident, like the description of the window in that tower.” Wiggins added, with a spring in his tone, “I must say, sir, you’re really up on the details—”

  “All from the papers, Sergeant. Journalists were making a meal of that event.”

  “I expect you’re right there.” Wiggins collected his notebook and clipped his pen into his shirt pocket. “Thanks for your help. Sorry I can’t stay and share that cake with you.”

  “You’re very welcome, Sergeant Wiggins.” Kenneth got up too.

  At the door, Kenneth said, “I’ll be sure to put a piece of the cake by for you for your next visit.”

  “Two pieces. Superintendent Jury will come along too. Ta, sir.”

  Laburnum, Devon

  Wednesday, Noon

  47

  * * *

  Jury remembered Tom Williamson’s speaking of the housekeeper at Laburnum: “She comes in from time to time.” He called Tom for her number.

  “The Sturgises, they’re not on the phone, Superintendent. But they’re located nearby.” Tom gave him directions. “When would you be going?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  ____

  “I’d always put bits and bobs of papers on his desk,“ said Mrs. Sturgis, who had been extremely surprised to have police on her doorsill and still inquiring into the death of her former employer at Laburnum.

  “Chuck it in the dustbin?” she had earlier responded to Jury’s question as to how she handled papers left lying about. In her tone was a kind of housekeeping horror. “I should say not! Who am I to tell if a piece of paper is worth keeping or disposing of?”

  “I realize it’s been seventeen years, Mrs. Sturgis, but can you cast your mind back and try to visualize the room and the things in it. Do you recall whether you found a page of stationery—plain, white paper, about five inches by seven inches—lying on the rug close to the door to Tom Williamson’s workroom?”

  Mrs. Sturgis sat quite still, apparently trying to visualize, as Jury had asked her to. Laburnum following Tess’s death. She had earlier weighed in with conventional comments regarding the awfulness of that death.

  “All right, I remember how brown the flowers in that crystal vase looked, so I took it upon myself to throw them out. I didn’t think dead flowers would be much solace to her husband, would you?” She didn’t expect an answer and went on. “Now I was lugging in the Hoover through the study door . . . my foot came down on something—yes, a small sheet of paper. I picked it up but didn’t, mind you, read what was written on it, as that was none of my business. It wasn’t full of writing, I could tell that. So I pushed it onto one of those metal spearlike things Mr. Williamson used to hold papers. He had more than one. It kept ’em from flying about, I expect. Since I didn’t know what the paper said, I thought no more about it.”

  “Good for you, Mrs. Sturgis. You’ve a remarkable memory. Few people would recall a thing after so many years, something that must have struck you as trivial at the time.”

  Now she seemed a little distressed. “Actually, Mr.— What did you say your name was?”

  “Richard Jury.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, actually, Mr. Jury, I’m not sure I thought it trivial, not after police were looking all over for a suicide note. But I knew it wasn’t.”

  “You said nothing to police about that paper you’d f
ound?”

  “No. The notion of Mrs. Williamson committing suicide was preposterous. It would never have happened.”

  “You’re quite positive.”

  “Of course I am. Not in a million years. Never would she have done that to her husband, for one thing. She was not an unhappy woman, either. Kill herself? Suicide and Tess Williamson? Different as chalk and cheese, Mr. Jury. Chalk and cheese.”

  Jury wished only that he could find more witnesses as sure of their testimony as was Mrs. Sturgis. “Let me ask you something else, Mrs. Sturgis. I’m sure you remember that awful day at Laburnum when Hilda Palmer was found dead in the empty pool.”

  “Do I remember? Well, of course I do. Police thought the girl was hit with something hard. I asked Sturgis could it’ve been one of his rakes or hoes. His tools were always lying about.”

  As if on cue, a tall, rangy, elderly man came into the parlor, looking displeased. “Where’s my lunch, Edna? It’s gone noon already.”

  “Well, pardon me for living, Gabriel. I was interrupted making your sandwiches by police at our door. Scotland Yard, in case you’re interested.” She turned back to Jury. “This here’s my husband, Gabriel. He was gardener at Laburnum for over thirty years. Still is, in a manner of speaking.”

  Gabriel Sturgis had stopped dead when he heard “Scotland Yard” and stood blinking away his astonishment.

  Jury rose and extended his hand, but Gabriel seemed to take the outstretched hand as a threat and took a step back.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sturgis. I’ve been speaking to your wife, who’s been extremely helpful. You weren’t there, either of you, the day Hilda Palmer had her fatal accident?”