The hell with it: he could kill three birds with one stone by going to London himself — leave the evidence off at New Scotland Yard, help Jury out by finding the whatever-Palace Restaurant, and stop off in York and do something very cunning to get Agatha off his back. (Not very cunning, considering Agatha.) He checked his watch: not yet one. He could be in York for a late lunch or early tea by two, and in London by nine-thirty or ten at the latest. The way he drove.
He was extremely pleased with himself. Three birds with one stone.
Or two birds and one turkey.
22
The Sherry Club was a sedate, cream-washed, flat-fronted building near the Shambles and in the shadow of York Minster. It had made an earnest endeavor to dissociate itself from anything commercial; its only identification was a small, brass plaque to the right of the oak doors. It had retained the air and function of a men’s club, but did allow ladies in its dining room, as long (one felt) as they were discreet about their sex, and moved silently.
It was no place to meet Agatha.
Melrose was simply irritated to death at having to waste a precious hour or two having tea with his aunt, but he knew she was more malleable once stuffed with food. And he supposed this meeting was a small enough price to pay to keep her out of Rackmoor. Not to mention the Teddy-creature.
He had requested a table near one of the long windows facing the street. Not that he was eager for that first glimpse of his aunt, but in spite of his instructions she was liable to march on by, since the Sherry did so little to make its presence known. Here he could rap on the window if he had to.
Deliberately, he had arrived early, so that he could look over the patrons before she got here. There were few people in the room at this late-lunch hour. At a rear table were a man and two women; they wouldn’t do. The only others were a tiny, birdlike gentleman who was eating muffins, and another who seemed a more likely prospect: black-suited, bowler-hatted, umbrellaed like a Guards officer. His face was stiff and hawklike. The bowler hat lay on the table; the tightly furled umbrella (surely never unwound) was hitched over a chair. He was reading a newspaper.
Melrose motioned the waiter over. “That gentleman, there, looks very familiar to me; I believe we were at Harrow together many years ago. The Honorable John Carruthers-White, isn’t it?”
The waiter followed the direction of Melrose’s glance. “Oh, no, sir. That’s Mr. Todd, sir. He comes in regular for his lunch, as it’s so near the Minster.”
“I’ll be dashed!” said Melrose, looking dumbfounded. “He’s the very image of Carruthers-White. The Minster? And what does Mr. Todd do at the Minster?”
“He’s in charge of the tours, sir.” The waiter flicked his white napkin across the table at some nonexistent crumbs and said, “Very popular is the Minster.”
York Minster might have been the latest appearance of a new rock group. “Yes, I understand it is. And does Mr. Todd conduct these tours in the winter months? Now?”
The waiter did not seem at all curious as to why Mr. Todd, who was not Carruthers-White, was still arousing Melrose’s interest. “Oh, yes. There’s one or two tours this afternoon. Round about three o’clock, I think.”
He might be leaving soon, then. Drat Agatha; she was late. “Bring tea for two, would you, please?”
The waiter whisked off. It was only a few minutes before he was back with the tea, setting out pot and cups and cakes. Melrose saw his aunt. She was standing gawking up at the Sherry Club, managing, as usual, to look out of place, like an émigré from another solar system. The hat she was wearing helped the illusion along: it was a violent combination of purple and blue, topped with a long, green feather. She disappeared.
She reappeared in the dining room, led to his table by the waiter. Melrose glanced over at Todd to make sure he was not preparing to leave now that Agatha had just arrived. No, he seemed quite settled in behind his paper and with his pot of coffee.
“Well, Melrose, I see you’ve started without me.” She plucked back the lid of the silver pot, peered in, and then examined the selection of sandwiches and cakes. She poked her finger at each tier of the plate, mouthing the contents sotto voce. “Hmph. No fairy cakes.”
“The better places don’t do fairy cakes, Agatha. You don’t get them in Fortnum’s, now, do you? You’ll have to make do with the pastries.”
She removed from herself a tatty fox fur piece and settled in to eat. “Did you drag me here from Teddy’s just to talk about cakes, Melrose? Have you been drinking again?”
No, but he wished he’d fortified himself with several large brandies before trying to talk to her. It was like swimming upstream into shoals of minnows. She drank off her first cup of tea, polished off a fish-paste sandwich, and then settled down to the real business of eating.
Melrose buttered a fruit scone. He did not like scones plugged up with bits of fruit, really. “I — we — have something we want you to do. But you must keep very mum about it.”
“What is it? And how is Jury? And why isn’t he here? Pity they’re always sending him to these out-of-the-way places. Isn’t he good enough to do the job in London?”
“You know perfectly well he’s good enough. He’s one of the Murder Squad. He apologizes for the murder’s not being done somewhere more fashionable, like Belgravia or Mayfair. Anyway, I thought you admired Jury so much.”
“Oh, admire. That’s a bit strong. He’s a good enough chap, I expect.” She topped a scone with clotted cream.
It was clear she was smarting under Jury’s absence from this scene. “Agatha, there’s a gentleman sitting over there behind you to the left — No! Don’t turn round or you’ll attract his attention.”
Elaborately, she did not turn. Having finished her scone, she started nibbling on a rock cake, decided she didn’t want it, and, like a bad-mannered child, put it back and took a fruit tart. “What about him?”
“I believe he’s following me. I can’t be certain, of course, but —No! Don’t look! Jury thinks he must be an agent provocateur.”
Agatha’s curiosity, he knew, would have killed off the entire cat population of York. Melrose moved his silver about and went on. “There’s something that I — ah, Jury, that is — would like you and Mrs. Harries-Stubbs to do for us—”
“Teddy? What is it, then?”
“Whilst I was staying there I was, I hate to admit it, very careless . . . ” She smiled happily at this hoped-for fall from grace. “A claim check was lost. It was in my wallet, and I can’t think how it could have fallen out. But I know it was lost in the house somewhere, for I missed it right after I left.”
“What’s this claim check for?”
Melrose debated several possible answers, finally settling on “The Lost Luggage at Victoria.” Weren’t people always leaving things in the Lost Luggage?
“And what’s this Todd person to do with it?”
“Mr. Todd is also interested in the claim check.” Melrose lit a cigarette casually as if he were not, for all the world, being pursued by secret agents.
Her eyes bulged. “Is he dangerous?”
“I shouldn’t think so; after all he doesn’t know it’s in Teddy’s house, does he?” Melrose smiled brightly. That should ensure they hang about the house searching before Mr. Todd descended upon them. “You and Teddy must turn that house upside down. It’s so small it could easily go unnoticed.”
“What if the servants have swept it up?”
Melrose studied the tip of his cigarette. “Search the dustbins, then.”
As she seemed to balk at this, he put his hand over hers. It was a gesture so uncharacteristic of him she looked at it as if a fish might have landed on the table. “Agatha, this is deuced important. You won’t let me — us — down, now will you?”
Brushing some crumbs from her scone onto Melrose’s sleeve, she said, “Well, I expect if it’s for old times’ sake . . . ” Apparently it didn’t occur to her that if Jury needed a search done he had the entire Yorkshire constabulary at
his disposal. “When will I see him? To report?”
Blackmail, probably. Perhaps he could induce Jury to stop off on the way back from London. Surely, he would be just as eager to keep Agatha out of Rackmoor as Melrose was himself. Hell, no. He wouldn’t be bothered. Jury would manage to ingratiate himself and ignore her simultaneously and she’d never be the wiser. Where did he get his style, anyway? Glumly, Melrose thought once again of Percy Blythe. “Jury’ll be coming back with me. Tomorrow, the next day, the day after, maybe.” Or never. It was doubtful that Agatha would visit the Minster, but he’d better touch that base too. “Mr. Todd works at the Minster, incidentally. That’s his cover. Tour guide.”
“Really? But what’s this Todd person to do with the Craels, anyway?”
Melrose could have stopped here the rest of the afternoon constructing a whole history of Todd and the Craels, but he wanted to get to London. In any event, he saw that Mr. Todd was gathering up his newspaper and umbrella. If Melrose wanted to be followed, he’d better be quick off the mark. In a low voice he said to Agatha, busy with a brandy snap, “If we leave now, we might just ditch him, Agatha.”
Grumpily, she answered. “Well, I’ve not finished my tea, but if we must . . . ”
He hooked his hand beneath her arm and pulled her up.
• • •
At the bottom of the steps to the Sherry Club, Melrose delayed a little by dropping his car keys. He observed the door opening behind them and Mr. Todd appeared. “Not quick enough, I guess,” he whispered. “Pretend you don’t notice him. He’ll have to walk on, you know; he can’t stop here staring at the sky, can he?”
And, just as Melrose predicted, Mr. Todd started off up the street at a jaunty pace.
“Clever, isn’t he?” said Agatha. “Never know he was following you at all.” Now it was her own hand placed comfortingly on her nephew’s arm. “Remember this, Melrose: if anything should happen to you, Ardry End is in safe hands.”
Looking down now at the pudgy hand clamped on his arm, Melrose took that as gospel truth. She was wearing two of his mother’s rings.
“That’s decent of you, dear Aunt.” He tipped his hat.
And the three of them — Melrose, Agatha and Mr. Todd — stepped off in their different directions.
· V ·
Limehouse Blues
1
JURY stopped off at his flat to pick up his mail, which consisted of bills, circulars, and a letter from his cousin in the Potteries. She was — she never stopped reminding him — more like a sister to him than a cousin. But the reminder always seemed to be aimed not at her sisterly obligations, but at his brotherly ones.
He ripped open the envelope and read the letter as he walked up the two flights of stairs to his flat. As usual, she was going crazy with Alec (her alcoholic husband), her kids, too little money, too much work. Jury looked at the postmark. The letter had lain weeping in his mailbox for three days.
Had he been gone only three days? Tiredly, he stretched. It felt more like he’d been walking the moors for three weeks. He switched on his desk lamp, surveyed the mess — the sitting room awash in books in various stages of being read, the old coffee cups — and took up the telephone and positioned it in his lap. He rested his head on the back of the single easy chair and thought about his cousin. Granted, the husband was not much good. But she had chosen him, hadn’t she? Don’t we choose our lives, at least somewhat? Why then must the people we live with always be taking us by surprise, things we stumble over like furniture in the dark — who put you there?
Reluctantly, he picked up the telephone, knowing it would be a good quarter-hour of counting over her troubles. It turned out to be more like a half-hour, with all the crying. At the end of it all, Jury told her to take a vacation, to hire a housekeeper and go off for a week, to Blackpool or somewhere, and that he’d send her the money to do it. When she hung up she seemed almost happy. He knew he was really doing it more for her parents than for her. They had been so decent to him after the war, taking him out of that home to live with them. They were dead now. And he was thinking, too, of her kids. If she was at the raw-nerve stage, they would have to pay for it. Their faces rose in his mind like a row of polished coins. And that made him think of Bertie Makepiece. He was certain Bertie’s mother was in London. Jury took the envelope Adrian had given him out of his pocket and studied that return address: R. V. H., S.W. I. He dismissed the initials as being those of the correspondent: the return address was insufficient for that. A business establishment, probably. He tapped the envelope against his thumb and thought for a while. Could the letter H possibly stand for “Hotel”? It would be easy enough to check it out down at the Yard.
• • •
As he was writing a short note to his cousin, there was a light tapping on the door, apology sounding in the very knuckles.
“Oh, Inspector Jury.” It was Mrs. Wasserman. She was still wearing her black coat and hat and clutching her purse tightly to her breast. She always wore black. Mrs. Wasserman was in perpetual mourning. “Forgive me, I bet you just got in, but you know what happened?”
“Come on in, Mrs. Wasserman.”
Gingerly, she stepped inside, checking the corners for intruders. “I’m just on my way out to visit my friend, Mrs. Eton, you know the one. Anyway, today, earlier, I was followed all the way from Camden Passage. There was this man—”
The streets, for Mrs. Wasserman, were full of dangers. They leapt at her like slavering dogs behind ironwork fences. Jury wondered if the streets made her think of that limbo of ground which lay between the train she was once herded from and the camp. The fear which had begun there had rooted firmly in her mind and could not be confined to its proper time and place.
“What’d he look like?” asked Jury. Knowing it would be useless to allay her fears by denial that she had been followed, he took out his small notebook, clicked his ballpoint pen into place.
Immediately, she looked relieved. She only wanted to be taken seriously. “Short —” Her hand sprang out to measure off air. “Kind of skinny and a face like a skeleton, narrow eyes — mean, you know. He had on a brown hat and coat.”
Watching her watching him, Jury took it all down. “He shouldn’t be hard to find; we keep tabs on all the dips that work the Passage.” Mrs. Wasserman always loved to go there and look through the stalls for bargains which she never found. “Did you buy anything? Show any money?”
“Only this —” she clicked open her bag and drew out a small, tissue-wrapped ring. Predictably, it was a mourning ring, the tiny braid of hair wound inside. It was rather pretty, though. “I paid for it with a ten-pound note.”
“Well, you know these pickpockets and purse-snatchers. They see folding money and think they’ve hit on El Dorado.” Jury pocketed his notebook. “Don’t worry, we’ll get him. Ever seen him before?” Vigorously, she shook her head. “Camden Passage attracts lots of nickel-and-dime crooks. Fairly harmless, they are.”
“It’s not safe to go in the streets any more, Mr. Jury.” Her small, ringed fingers clutched her purse to her. “Nothing’s safe.” Her eyes were like black worry-beads.
The fear which must have begun when she was young and pretty had metasticized and spread to everything, Jury thought. She would always be a prisoner.
“Never mind, Mrs. Wasserman. I’ll tell you, though. If I were you I’d get myself one of those money-belts. So you won’t need to carry a purse with you when you go there. They make them so you can put them inside your skirt band. It’s simple. Or you could get one on a garter and wear it round your leg. Of course, then when you reached for your money you might have other problems besides purse-snatchers.” He winked.
She whooped with laughter. “My legs, Inspector? Varicose veins, I’ve got. I’ve been thinking of having them tied, even. My legs I’m not worrying about anyone wanting a peek at!”
Jury smiled. “Did you take along that whistle I gave you? Did you carry it with you?”
She blushed and looked do
wn. “I admit I forgot it. So good you were to give it to me, too.”
“Oh, well, not to worry. Take it next time. I have to go out, too. Are you going to the Angel?”
“Yes. Yes, I am. In Chalk Farm Mrs. Eton lives.”
Josie Thwaite lived in Kentish Town. “Well, you’re in luck, Mrs. Wasserman. I’m going to Kentish Town, and that’s only a tube stop away. So you get a police escort.”
“Oh, Mr. Jury, that would be indeed wonderful.” Her grip on the black purse relaxed.
2
The eyes which peered at him through the chainlocked door were a soft, vulnerable brown. Jury assumed they belonged to Josie Thwaite.
“Miss Thwaite? I’m Inspector Jury of —”
Her indrawn breath cut him off. “Have you come about the L-plates, then?”
“No. I wanted to ask you a few questions about your friend, Gemma Temple.”
“Oh, sorry.” The door shut slightly as she drew back the chain. Then she opened it wide, scooping black hair away from her shoulder. The white jumper she wore emphasized the thin shoulders. She was thin all over, Jury saw, when she stepped back and motioned him in. Her walk was a little stoop-shouldered. Everything about her was apologetic — her posture, her look, her voice. The air stirred with sadness.
But not, apparently, about her roommate. There she was quite matter-of-fact. “See, Gemma borrowed my car. It’s because she’d just gotten her L-plates and she wanted to go on this holiday, only she wouldn’t say where, except that she was afraid of getting stopped, and her only with the L-plates.” Realizing that she was keeping Jury standing, she said, “Oh, sorry,” and waved him to a squarish lump of lounge chair. The cover prickled his skin. “So it was my car they found at this place—”
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