The Old Contemptibles

by Grimes, Martha

  “What did the family think of that relationship?”

  Fellowes frowned. “I’m not sure they knew, or thought anything.” He left off the drawing and turned to Jury with a slight smile. “And remember, when you speak of ‘the family’ you’re talking about two different entities. There’s Adam. And then there’s everyone else—Genevieve, Crabbe, George and even Madeline.”

  “Alex? What about him?”

  Fellowes was shaking his head before the question was finished. “He’s in a class by himself. He’s the one who’ll get the lot.”

  “The inheritance.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course, there’ll be bequests to everyone else, me included, though I’m only a distant cousin. Millie will come in for a very large chunk, more than anyone else, I’d say, after Alex. Adam doesn’t believe that blood is thicker than water. He was very fond of Millie’s mother, and of Virginia, and of Graham.” Fellowes chewed on the tip of his brush again, thinking. “You see, these particular people aren’t after his money. They are—were—genuinely fond of him. And Alex, well, Alex and Adam are two of a kind. They love schemes and scams.” Fellowes smiled. “I’m glad the boy’s back.” He looked at Jury again. “And very sorry about Jane.”

  Jury was silent for a moment, drinking his ale. Then he said, “Don’t you think, Mr. Fellowes, this family is terribly accident- or suicide-prone? To the point, really, that one begins to wonder if the deaths of people Adam was so fond of were precisely that. As you yourself put it, why kill them off piecemeal?”

  Fellowes’s pencil hung in midair as he stared at Jury. “Who in hell told you that?”

  • • •

  “I did.”

  Melrose Plant stood at the table, looking down at his friend Richard Jury. “I’m sorry about—” With Francis Fellowes present, he stopped. “I’ve been out walking. It wasn’t until dinner at Tarn House that I found out you’d arrived and were staying here. Where’s Sergeant Wiggins?”

  Jury had risen to shake hands. Now he smiled. “Sleeping it off—the five-hour drive to Penrith and the far worse drive along the worst road I’ve ever seen.”

  “Hard Knott Pass. I’m an old hand, if you ever need a chauffeur.” He finally plunked himself down. “A pint of something. Where’s our dear old Con? Ah, here she comes.”

  Fellowes looked from one to the other, arms folded. “You two know each other?”

  “We do,” said Jury, smiling at Melrose. “Have done for years.”

  Fellowes laughed. “I never did think you were a librarian.”

  “I wonder if anyone did. Thank you, Mrs. Fish.” His tweed sleeve was torn, one of the elbow patches loosely sewn, and his face was scratched.

  “You look pretty bunged up,” said Jury, pleasantly.

  “I am bunged up, but never mind; it was worth it.” Briskly, he went for his rucksack, opened it, pulled out Fellowes’s painting, which was carefully sandwiched between two squares of cardboard to protect it. Beside that he put the leather pouch, and beside that, a Polaroid camera. “Now.” He shot his cuffs as if he were preparing for a little magic act.

  Both Jury and Fellowes were looking at the table display and then at him.

  “What’s all this?” Jury nodded toward the painting, the leather pouch, the camera.

  “This is basically Mr. Fellowes’s valuable contribution toward solving these crimes.”

  “Crimes?” Fellowes’s eyebrow shot up. “I solved?”

  “One crime, and this one strongly implies at least one other.”

  Jury was examining the mirror he’d taken from its leather holder.

  “It’s called a Claude glass,” said Fellowes. When Jury looked blank, Fellowes explained. At Melrose’s further request, he explained how the painting had been done.

  “You remember the picture of Broad Stand and Fat Man’s Agony?”

  Fellowes nodded. For Jury, Melrose pointed out the cleft in the stone through which a ribbon of light showed. “And in this Polaroid shot: you see the light coming from the exit, or the entrance. As Francis told the story, Virginia Holdsworth had walked some way ahead of him. She was”—Melrose explained to Jury—“determined to get to Mickledore by way of Broad Stand. That’s here.” He pointed it out on the map. “When he’d got up here, on this small plateau near Broad Stand, he didn’t see her.”

  “I assumed she’d done it, managed to get over to Mickledore, since she wasn’t around.”

  “She wasn’t. My guess is that someone pushed her off Broad Stand.”

  Fellowes stared. “How? There wasn’t anyone up there.”

  “Yes, there was.”

  “Go on.”

  Fellowes was still objecting. “But I was there for a good half hour or more. No one could have got past me. And I didn’t see anyone.”

  “But you had your back turned all of that time. You were using this.” He held up the convex glass. “The person who sent Mrs. Holdsworth over the edge didn’t know it, thought he or she was safe if he merely waited you out.”

  “I’d have seen him in the glass, wouldn’t I?”

  Melrose shook his head. “Not if he was hiding in Fat Man’s Agony, waiting you out.”

  “But—”

  “Look at the way you painted the entrance to the opening.”

  Fellowes and Jury looked.

  “There’s a figure in there. You were painting, in the best picturesque fashion, exactly what you saw. Only the barest pinpoint of light is coming through. Whoever was in there thought he was safe enough since he must have assumed, with your back turned, you were simply doing a view of Wast Water. ‘Fat Man’s Agony’ is a good name; anyone with some pounds on him would have a hellish tight squeeze.” Another pint came; more thanks were given Connie Fish. “I took my Polaroid shot from as near the same point as you painted with the Claude glass. All right, there wasn’t any mist, but still you can see the difference. Even with the naked eye, you can make out something; with a magnifying glass you can make out the curvature of a human being. Not fat, obviously.” He handed over a small magnifying glass.

  Both Jury and Fellowes looked from painting to Polaroid for some time. “I’ll be damned.” Jury had moved round to look over Fellowes’s shoulder. “You’re right.”

  “I know,” said Melrose. “Your forensics people, or your sophisticated police equipment, could enlarge this to the point you could see the person, couldn’t they?”

  Jury frowned. “It’s a painting, remember, not a photograph. Whether the figure’s a man or woman might not be discernible.” He smiled over at Plant. “Good job.”

  Fellowes leaned back, let out a puff of breath. “How do you know this person didn’t see I was painting with a Claude glass?”

  “Simple. You wouldn’t be sitting here tonight drinking your beer.”

  2

  “Apted? You mean Pete-Queen’s-bloody-Counsel-Apted? My God, you do have friends in high places. I know you’re supposed to be valuable, but I’m surprised the Metropolitan Police would spring for Apted.”

  “Thank you for that ‘supposed to be,’ and, no, the Met would hardly pay for him. But thanks to him, I’m back on rota.”

  Melrose was on his third pint of Jennings, but finding it difficult to get drunk. He was too concerned about Jury. “Sorry about that. And it never occurred to me for a moment that you were in any real trouble.”

  “It occurred to someone. An anonymous someone. Who do you think?”

  Melrose frowned. “Trueblood’s got the money. . . . Who am I kidding? Trueblood being anonymous?” His face lit up. “Vivian! Good Lord. It would have to be Vivian. Trueblood would have let her know immediately. It’d be a far better way than being hit by a lorry.”

  “Better way? For what?”

  “Private joke.” He hurried on. “You’ll want to read these.” From his backpack he pulled the bundle of letters and tossed them on the table. “I thought I’d better keep them with me. They were simply turned over to me—if you can believe it—at the dinner party last nigh
t.”

  “Turned over by whom?”

  “A Lady Cray.” He put his head in his hands. “She’s a patient, guest, take it as you will, at Castle Howe. She came with Adam Holdsworth. To the dinner party, I mean. She’s quite . . . unusual.”

  “They’re addressed to Jane.” Jury sat very still. “What’s in them?”

  “They have the sort of . . . I don’t know . . . sound of love letters, yet they’re . . . well, first off, they’re very short . . . second, they’re typed. Word-processed.” He looked at Jury. “Would you process love letters?”

  “No.”

  Melrose moved his nearly empty glass round in little circles. “Ever written any?”

  “One or two. How did this Lady Cray get hold of them?”

  “That’s even odder. She said she got them from Kingsley’s office.”

  “How?”

  “Didn’t tell me; the conversation was very brief.” Melrose scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I assume she’s in treatment with him, I don’t know. It was all very—surreptitious. I mean, the way she did it. I felt I was in the middle of a spy novel.” He described the room, the mirror, the purse.

  Jury said nothing.

  “Look, I’m sorry about Jane Holdsworth.” Melrose wiped at the wet rings his glass had left with a balled-up napkin.

  “I am too. Thanks,” Jury said, gravely. Then he took the clip from the letters.

  “Alex said Kingsley was outside the house that night. To retrieve these, do you think? But why would he take such a risk just to get them back?”

  “Why are you assuming he wrote them?”

  “I expect simply because they were in his office. Hidden, I take it. But look at them—they’re so . . . oblique. You can’t even tell what this ‘illness’ that’s mentioned is. The homosexuality, presumably?”

  “Why would Maurice Kingsley be writing about that? And why would he be concerned about the state of their marriage if he wants her himself? Hell, you’d think he’d be relieved.”

  “They’re so oblique they could have been written by anyone—Kingsley, Fellowes—even Crabbe or George. Or some man we don’t know about. But who would type love letters?”

  “If they are love letters. The writer didn’t want the handwriting analyzed—if it ever came to that.”

  “Typewriters have distinctive characteristics. But what about word-processing? If the software’s the same? Madeline has an IBM and that’s the same system Castle Howe has, she told me.”

  “Even so, look how short each one is. Could have been typed on, say, Madeline Galloway’s computer by someone at Castle Howe; or on one at Castle Howe by a person from Tarn House. Hell. Whoever this is must have thought of that. No handwriting, no signature. ‘You know how I feel—but not to the point of doing damage to your marriage’ could mean almost anything. The ‘feeling’ could be resentment as well as love. And we don’t know what this person means by Graham’s ‘illness.’ Not necessarily what Tommy Thale told me, although I’d bet my life she’s right—that her sister knew.”

  Jury returned each letter to its envelope, restacked them, clipped them as they had been. He picked them up and turned them round. “This is how Lady Cray gave them to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “The clip certainly isn’t five years old. It looks new. I’m wondering who removed whatever was used to tie them?”

  Plant frowned. “ ‘Tie’?”

  “You can see the indentation at the sides; you can see a lightening of the typeface across the top one. They were tied with something. She didn’t read them?”

  “No, she said not. Neither did Adam.”

  “You believe her?”

  “Yes.” Melrose sat looking at the letters for a while and then said, “I think we should talk to Alex; he said something was missing from his mum’s room; I think perhaps this is it.”

  There was a silence broken by Melrose’s suddenly saying, “Mon amour premiere.”

  Jury leaned over, looked at him closely. “What do you mean? You seem distracted.”

  “Do you ever run into people, well, women, who remind you of other, well, women?”

  “Yes.”

  “Helen Viner. It occurred to me that women often remind one of one’s mother. Sounds damned silly.” Melrose’s laugh was embarrassed.

  “Why silly? Is that the ‘first love’ you meant?”

  “I don’t like my personal feelings getting mucked around in a case. For you, well, it’s even worse. The whole thing must have been godawful.” He shoved aside his pint, said, “Let’s have some wine. Chablis Contemptible. Nineteen-ninety was a good year for that. What do you say?” Melrose asked again, urging Jury. “I’m sleeping here tonight; there’s another room.”

  “See Connie Fish doesn’t charge you another two quid for the private bath.”

  Jury sat there, turning the letters over and over while Melrose got the wine. He also brought back two wineglasses, fairly clean.

  As Melrose poured the dubiously labeled white wine, Jury thought of that first afternoon, the flight of the swallows. “ ‘Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae.’ ”

  Melrose took refuge in annoyance. “I wish you’d stop saying that.”

  “You were spouting French, weren’t you? Anyway, I’ve only said it twice—” Jury counted on his fingers. “—in ten years.” He did not mention the third time, over two weeks ago.

  “Do you have to say it?”

  “Yes.”

  Melrose looked up. “Why?”

  “It’s the only Latin I know.”

  The glasses clicked.

  3

  Gray light was bleeding through the cracks around the blind. Jury hadn’t realized it was morning until he took his arm from his eyes and turned his head to the window.

  The bed was littered with notes, documents, letters. He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t undressed. He had read and thought and thought and read.

  Now he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat staring at the floor and the pot of coffee Connie Fish had supplied him with last night. Cold dregs looked pasty in the cup.

  Jury walked to the window and raised the blind. Smoke rose from the chimney pots of the few cottages in a drunken line on the other side of the narrow road down which now a drover and his boy were steering a flock of Swaledales. On the corner at the T-junction was the post-office store. And that was Boone. In the distance he could see Great Gable shrouded in vapor.

  Had he felt in a better mood, he imagined he would have seen it all as bucolic, peaceful, and that range of mountains as grand.

  His mood wasn’t good. He felt drained. It was strange to him how his rage at Jane had been extinguished in the course of one little day. She had used him, yes, but only in a sense. She must have suspected what had happened five years ago, and seen her own behavior as compliantly evil, though Jury saw it merely as confused and complex.

  Poor Jane. She had wanted him, and only him to investigate. Had her suicide been too obvious a “murder,” there would be no way of controlling the results—and the one that concerned her most was that Alex not be hurt any more than he would already be.

  Probably, she had thought he could find the evidence to prove it all. Well, he couldn’t; there was no hard evidence, not these letters, and not this painting. It was a figure without a face, and there could be no face if Fellowes hadn’t painted one in.

  Alex would suffer if the truth came out.

  Millie would suffer if it didn’t.

  39

  “For a psychiatrist, you seem to be in a muddle,” said Lady Cray. “It’s only nine; our appointment is for this afternoon.” Although she hated to admit it, she felt some trepidation, and couldn’t help but rake her eyes again over those rows of books.

  Maurice Kingsley laced his hands behind his neck, leaned back and smiled. “I thought I’d like to see you now. Is this a problem?”

  “Problem? Certainly not.” He was being a bit superior. From her black leather bag she drew the black Pors
che lighter and lit her cigarette.

  “Never did find mine,” said Kingsley, nodding at the lighter.

  She arched an eyebrow. “It wasn’t on the bookshelf? Where you left it?” Her gaze shifted to the shelf behind him, the one that had held the letters. Might as well call his bluff. Proprietorially, she ran her index finger over the lighter, felt something on the bottom. Her glance slid to it, then straight back to the doctor. It was the first time she noticed it—a tiny gold band with the minuscule inscription From A. Oh, hell.

  “I don’t recall leaving it there.” His eyes held hers. “I wouldn’t care that much, except it was given me by a friend. Sentimental value, you know.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I certainly do know. My grandson gave me mine. You know. Andrew.” She fingered the inscription.

  “Ah, yes, Andrew. Your favorite person.”

  “Umm.” She smoked away. Was he suppressing a smile? One had to be careful with psychiatrists. They were tricky, untrustworthy. “Well? Why did you want to see me this morning?” What, she wondered, was he up to?

  “About last night—”

  She shifted in her chair, kept her face expressionless.

  “Does the sight of blood make you ill?” asked Kingsley, suddenly.

  She stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He’d brought down his arms, was leaning over them, doodling on a pad. “You went white at the dinner table when Mr. Plant cut his hand. I thought you were going to pass out, really. What were you thinking?”

  “Thinking? Nothing, really.” She laid the lighter on the desk, nearly midway between them. “Why?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you, Lady Cray.”

  The trouble was, she didn’t know. It had been more of a feeling. A feeling-thought. As if words were imprinted over a feeling, or run into it, the mortar that held the bricks together. One couldn’t separate mortar from stone or the whole structure would topple—Oh, what in hell was she doing? Calmly exhaling a thin line of smoke, she said, “You seem to be chasing some idea of your own.”

  He sat back, smiled. “I am.”