The Old Contemptibles

by Grimes, Martha

  “Oh. Yes.” Again she bent over the map spread on the glass case that housed souvenirs of the Lake District. “By way of Ravenglass, I expect. That’d take you along Windermere, down and up—”

  “But that road goes north and we’re wanting to go southwest.”

  “It’s the only decent road to take you most of the way. Wast Water is so isolated. Now, nearly all of the other lakes you can get to on good roads.”

  She clearly wished they’d go to some other lake. “Then give me a bad road. There must be one that would cut off going so far out of the way.”

  She had now pulled the lock of hair through her mouth and was regarding him deeply and mournfully.

  Jury pointed to a lesser road that looked like a fairly straight shoot from Ambleside, a few miles north of Grasmere. “What about this one?” It went right across to the area of Wasdale. “Wrynose Pass, it says.”

  “Oh, but you wouldn’t want that.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s awful bumpy and twisty. And—” She looked out the window and checked her little watch. “—it might be going on for dark before you get off that road.”

  Jury smiled, folded the map, and dropped a pound coin on the case. “We’re not afraid of the dark.”

  He pulled Wiggins from the postcards and turned and waved to the girl. She looked worried, perhaps thinking she was sending him to certain death.

  • • •

  By the time they were over Wrynose Pass, Wiggins was chalk-white. “Bumpy? Twisty? Is that what you said?”

  “Nice view, though,” said Jury, who wasn’t looking at it. It was too far down. He traced the road with his finger.

  “Nice? We’re surrounded by mountains—” Wiggins looked up. “—and ravines.” Wiggins looked down. He had pulled the car over to a lay-by. There were a lot of them.

  “Never mind, Wiggins. You’ve always been a great driver. And it’s only a few more miles.” True. But what miles. “Right here, see, is a pub. We can stop there for a drink—a beer, a cuppa, whatever.” Jury proved it by showing Wiggins the map, directing his attention to the Woolpack, which stood at the end of this godforsaken road.

  But he was careful to keep those innocent-looking sideways V’s overlying Hard Knott Pass hidden by his finger. The gradient was one-in-ten, ascending through high fells and deep gulleys.

  The worst was yet to come.

  • • •

  “Never again,” said Wiggins, mopping his forehead an hour later.

  Jury squeezed his eyes shut. If he said it once more—

  “Never again. You’ll never get me on that road again.”

  A coffee at the Woolpack hadn’t mollified him at all. He wanted his nice hot bath and his dinner at the pub in Boone.

  “For God’s sake, Wiggins, it isn’t as if there weren’t other cars on that road.” Of course, the other cars had been driving at about four miles per hour, like Wiggins. “Some of the drivers even smiled and waved at us.”

  “Tourists, sir. Tourists don’t care if they die, as long as they’re on holiday.”

  • • •

  At the sign of the Old Contemptibles, color returned to Wiggins’s cheeks.

  After leaving the Ford in the tiny car park, they entered the pub through a door on which was scrolled ENTRANCE in flaking white paint, and which stood opposite the door to the bar.

  The hall was dark, quiet and bare except for a heavy mahogany chair, a few bird prints, and a writing desk on which lay a register book. Beside the desk a tiny sign directed the prospective guest to push the buzzer below. Jury did.

  The woman who flounced in from the back was carrying a mug of tea on a plate of biscuits and looking as hopefully at Jury as Wiggins was looking at the biscuits. They’d had no lunch and, except for the coffee at the Woolpack, no sustenance since leaving Penrith. And that had been more coffee and a stale and sticky doughnut that Wiggins had disdained, preferring to keep up his strength on charcoal biscuits.

  Mrs. Fish (as she introduced herself), Manageress, went very heavy on the makeup, the necklaces, the bracelets and rings. Oh, she’d be more than happy to offer them accommodation and appeared to be debating over the three keys hanging on a little board above the writing desk.

  “You’ll be wanting a private bath, I expect.”

  Wiggins nearly snapped at her. “Yes, indeed.”

  “That’s all right, then. It’ll be two pounds more apiece, of course. Have you signed? Good. Just follow me.”

  Up the rickety stairs they went and into a narrow little hall, companion to the one downstairs off which debouched three rooms, two one side, one the other. A fourth door faced them at the hall’s end.

  “Here we are, then,” said Mrs. Fish, opening the doors to two rooms and placing the key in each lock. “Bath’s just there at the end of the hall.”

  “But that’s a public bath!” said Wiggins, hungry, dirty and indignant.

  “Well, there’s no one else here, is there?” said Mrs. Fish. She fairly twinkled with her improvisational scheme and took herself off after assuring the sergeant that she’d have a pot of tea waiting for them in the bar.

  2

  Out of the narrow window inset to the left of the front door to Tarn House stared a pair of eyes. The little girl was probably ten or eleven. Before Jury could raise the knocker, the door opened.

  Not only had she large and beautiful eyes, she had lovely russet-colored hair that fell to her shoulders and a fringe that nearly covered her eyebrows.

  Jury told her who they were and added, “I’ll bet you’re Millie.”

  The little girl started slightly, yet kept her countenance, as if to show the world held no more surprises. Sucking the inside of her mouth she nodded, arms folded. For distraction, she looked down at the black cat at her feet and said something sharp; but the cat, too, was proof against surprises and sat its ground, staring up at the interlopers.

  Jury asked if Mr. Plant was about.

  “Out. He went out to walk after lunch and he hasn’t come back.” She made it sound as if she were worried he never would.

  “If you could take me to either Mr. or Mrs. Holdsworth, and take Sergeant Wiggins here to Miss Galloway, I’d appreciate it.” Since Jury had already seen Madeline Galloway in London, they had decided Wiggins would talk to her and George Holdsworth; Jury, to Genevieve and Crabbe.

  They were police. Scotland Yard policemen. Millie Thale kept the excitement in her eyes from glimmering in the rest of her face as she commanded Wiggins to “stay here” and led Jury to a huge set of double doors.

  The black cat stayed with Wiggins, who pretended not to notice.

  • • •

  “Virginia?” Crabbe Holdsworth was obviously surprised that her name would even arise. “Deliberately pushed? What on earth makes you think that?” He rose from his chair with a jerk as if a puppeteer had pulled the strings. “I thought you came about poor Jane!”

  “I did,” said Jury. “It’s possible there might be some connection between your first wife’s death and hers.” The man appeared genuinely shaken. “Mr. Holdsworth, I’m sorry if this upsets you, but there have been so many misfortunes in this family.”

  Rather than reseating himself, Crabbe took a few steps over to the wall where hung the Ibbetson prints and a Gilpin aquatint. “I don’t need you to remind me of that.” For a few moments he studied the pictures; then he moved, hands behind his back, to the bookcases. “That’s why you find me here.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Crabbe turned. “Amongst my books and my paintings. This library is my sanctuary, as Robert Southey’s was his. They had their misfortunes too, you know, the Lake poets. Wordsworth seemed to escape, for the most part. Perhaps it was his temperament,” he added, reflectively.

  The man stood there, stiff and starched, and Jury waited for the inevitable lecture, the delving into personal interests that so often had to be got through before the witness, the suspect, or whoever he was questioning could be led to
the point. Oddly, Crabbe Holdsworth stopped talking. But he seemed to be dreaming of that old century; he seemed altogether a dreamy sort of man, a man with little common sense, but one who could escape or forget.

  He would be little help.

  The dinner party had occurred only the previous night, and yet Jury had the guest list more clearly in mind after Melrose Plant’s one report early that morning than Crabbe Holdsworth had after spending hours with these people. He could not recall what had been discussed (except for his own comments); could not remember (except that there had been such a woman) the lady that his father Adam had invited as guest; nor remember anything about the meal except for the excellent oysters and the hare his brother had killed.

  It was interesting to Jury, as he watched the man’s eyes move again amongst the prints and paintings, that Crabbe himself had no inner eye that could capture, in little views and vistas, the various scenes undoubtedly thrown up by that arrangement of guests round the dinner table.

  To Jury it was almost shocking that a man whose best company included Wordsworth, Coleridge, and De Quincey was also a man utterly lacking in imagination.

  • • •

  She remembered.

  “Maurice Kingsley was quite drunk. Well, you can imagine, having had his several go-rounds with police. He was in London the night Jane died, I understand.”

  She seemed unabashedly pleased as she sat herself in her snug-fitting rose-wool dress on the end of the chaise longue, which allowed her much more latitude for arranging herself than any chair would have done. She could lean back on her outstretched arm; she could lean forward and accept a cigarette. “He was there.”

  Jury was in a wing chair, reaching over to light her cigarette. “So were you, Mrs. Holdsworth.”

  That caught her in the midst of holding back her dark hair from the flame. “But not on a bench on the woman’s doorstep!”

  Jury said nothing. He let her fiddle with her whiskey and soda, let her go on.

  “I can’t understand why Jane’s death is being . . . investigated so thoroughly. Of course, it was shocking.” She inspected a rose-painted fingernail. “But she did kill herself.”

  “Probably.” Jury thought of Pete Apted, not for the first time since they’d talked that morning. “Probably.”

  She shrugged. “Then it makes no difference who was where.”

  “The thing is, Mrs. Holdsworth: in the past six years there have been two alleged accidents and two alleged suicides in this family. Doesn’t that strike you as against the odds?”

  “Why ‘alleged’? What are you saying?”

  “A year after Virginia Holdsworth had her fatal fall, her son hanged himself in the gatehouse down there. Several weeks later, your cook, Annie Thale, took another fatal fall from the property here above Wast Water. Now, some five years later, Jane Holdsworth kills herself. Assume the suicides really were,” Jury said, sadly, “and let’s take these ‘accidents.’ Start with Virginia Holdsworth.”

  She rolled her glass so that the finger or so of whiskey made little waves. “Talk to Francis Fellowes. He was there.”

  “I’m talking to you.”

  With a gesture of supreme confidence, she smoothed her hair. “Mr. Jury, the local police looked into that; well, I expect they had to, since it was a violent death. It was either Francis—who’d no reason to do it—or it was no one. No one. People were quite satisfied with the ob-vious.”

  She drew the word out, and Jury thought again of Pete Apted.

  “For heaven’s sake, accept it: a February day, with sliding rocks and ice and that tricky little prospect. Ginny fell.”

  “I’m not accepting the obvious just yet. You call her ‘Ginny.’ Did you know her well?”

  “No, not really.” Her slight shrug seemed truly indifferent. “I met her and Crabbe—if that’s what you’re thinking—when I was up here six, seven years ago on holiday with a group of friends.” She sighed. “Fatal holiday, that was. I prefer London.”

  Jury almost laughed at the woman’s priorities. “Smoking your credit card through Harrods, that sort of thing?”

  Genevieve did laugh. “Absolutely.”

  “It was fatal, certainly, for Virginia.” Jury was surprised that the implication elicited no heated response from Crabbe’s second wife.

  “I simply happened to be around, Mr. Jury. Let’s say I got him on the rebound.”

  Jury smiled. “We could say, but you don’t look like the rebound type.”

  “That seems to be a crazy sort of compliment.”

  “Would anyone have had a reason to murder Virginia Holdsworth?”

  Again she sighed, looked at the drinks table. “Compliment rescinded. You mean me, don’t you? To get my hands on the Holdsworth money?” She looked almost bored. “I’d have done better to have tried for Adam.”

  In a way, he found her chilly candor disarming. But candor was often the stock-in-trade of villains. “What about Graham Holdsworth and Annie Thale?”

  She thought for a bit, making those little circling waves with what was left of her drink. “Why do you mention them together, Superintendent?”

  “For the obvious reason that that’s the way they died. Very closely together.”

  This seemed to interest her. “Well, I know that Graham and Jane were heading toward divorce. But I can’t imagine Annie had anything to do with it. Or do you always think that another woman is waiting in the wings?” She knocked back the rest of her whiskey in a gesture that was far more likable than her earlier poses and mannerisms.

  “Why were they having problems, do you think?”

  “Jane was broody; Graham was spoiled. Neither one of them had ever done a stint at hard labor. Don’t look at me like that. The uncallused hands you are pointedly observing were once those of a shorthand-typist.”

  “What about Annie Thale?”

  “What about her? An extraordinary cook. Is cooking in the genes, do you think? Her daughter Millie is also remarkable. Sometimes, I wonder just how much Mrs. Callow does in the kitchen.”

  This little puzzle seemed to interest Genevieve more than the death of Millie’s mother. Her memory was better than her husband’s, but her priorities weren’t. He doubted she’d be much more help. Still, he asked, “You’re quite sure it was an accident, then?”

  She rose, took a heaving breath, and headed once again for the decanter. “I’m not sure of anything. But why in God’s name would it have been anything other?” After a glance at the mantel clock, she said, “You’ll have drinks with us? Or dine, perhaps?”

  Jury thought it was a very ingenuous invitation, in the circumstances. And she had already made an inroad on the cocktail hour. “Thanks, but I’d like to talk to others. Francis Fellowes, for one.”

  “Francis? He lives in the gatehouse. You passed it. But since there’s still a bit of light left, he’s probably out with his paints. He’s always painting Wast Water, for some reason. It seems to spellbind him.”

  Genevieve gave Jury directions and seemed almost sad to watch him go. Even police made a change, perhaps.

  • • •

  “Not a very likable person, Madeline Galloway,” said Wiggins, removing the cap and pulling up a little plastic cup. It expanded in tiers. “Cold-fishy sort.” From his back trouser pocket he took the sort of leather-covered pint that was a staple, together with binoculars, at racecourses. Wiggins’s held mineral water. “I can tell you she didn’t like her sister; I can also tell you she didn’t like Virginia Holdsworth and doesn’t—” He took a drink of water, shook a two-toned capsule from a vial and popped it in his mouth. “—like Genevieve Holdsworth.” He returned the paraphernalia to the individual compartment pockets.

  He went on. “George Holdsworth wasn’t much help. Had to compete with damned hounds for an audience. He was fond of Virginia, he said. It’s hard to tell his feelings for the others. He liked Jane Holdsworth, though. ‘A tragedy. Not surprised, though.’ That’s what he said. I was a bit surprised. He thought
she was driven. That was his word: ‘driven.’ And he uses precious few words.”

  Jury was silent. They were getting into the car. “The servants?”

  Wiggins made a face. “Awful pair. Hawkes was polishing silver and seemed by way of wanting to let his hair down, you know, for a good natter.” Wiggins’s nose was twitching. He yanked out his big handkerchief just as a sneezing fit came on.

  “Let’s go, Wiggins; a little lake breeze’ll do you good.”

  Wiggins just looked at him.

  3

  The surface of Wast Water was gray, ruffled and icy-looking, not a body of water to do his sergeant much good. Volcanic rock had thrown up a view at once awesome and somewhat threatening. At the far end of the lake rose the steely rockface of Scafell and Great Gable. On the far shore rose the Screes, a totally different surface of reddish-brown scree, a huge fell disintegrated, crumbled in the rain.

  What was left of light was changeable. In the few moments it took Jury and Wiggins to leave their car and plod over the rocks and mosses, the lake color had changed from gray to slate green to umber, depending upon the movement of cloud cover.

  In anticipation of swift changes of light and shadow, the painter had set up not one, but three canvases and, as Jury and Wiggins walked toward him, he was hastily moving from one to another to another, imitating the action of the light.

  “Mr. Fellowes?”

  The painter turned from the nearest canvas quickly, stared at them and turned as quickly back, crying out, “Damn all!” He slapped the brush down on the easel. “That’s done it!” he yelled, not to Jury and Wiggins but to the shifting clouds, the Screes, and the lake itself. In this eerie, early spring light, it looked sinister. “Thank you very much!” he bellowed.

  This shout was probably meant for them, but he could as easily have been blaming Nature for refusing to sit for his painting.

  “Sorry to disturb your work. You’re Francis Fellowes?”

  He set about wiping his hands on a rag as he said, “Yes, I expect so.” Just as indifferently, he muttered when Jury and Wiggins produced identification. He might not have cared who any of the three of them were.