The dry fountain, the elaborate loggia crusted with sun, the flowery walks and wind chimes, so many flowers they might have fallen from the sky.
And yet an inexpressibly lonely place. Jury drove away.
Eleven
LOOKING MORE draped than dressed, Diane Demorney opened her front door.
The former owner, Lorraine Bicester-Strachan, had fit the doorway in much the same way as Diane Demorney fit it now. Both the past and the present mistress had much in common: dark hair, good bones, a haughty tilt to the head, and an equally wolfish desire to get Jury inside. That was certainly the impression he was getting, as she held the door wider even before he’d got out his warrant card.
The house had been completely revamped (as was its owner, he imagined, several times between dawn and dusk). The room into which she led him was now an Arctic glare, where before it had been full of horsey stuff and paintings of driftwood and Cornwall-like coastlines. Yet it had been just as chilly looking then as it was now, since there are some people who can suck the warmth out of anything. The only thing that had looked lived in was Diane Demorney.
In the case of the present owner, he detected something nearly humorous in the way she’d stuck herself in her setting: it was an ensemble look, the lady and the room, as if one would be lost without the other, like foreground and background. Everything was white — carpets, sofa, chairs — right down to the painting on the wall, which was white on white. What didn’t look like Arctic snow looked like Arctic ice; the several tables were glass, with a vaguely blue tint. A martini pitcher and glasses nearly as wide as umbrellas waited on one.
Thus the foreground — Miss Demorney herself — supplied the only stroke of color. And it was quite a stroke, at that: her crimson dress was composed of folds of georgette. From the shoulder-padded top, resembling the hilt of a knife, the material draped across the breasts to an undefined hipline, and from there to the knee, in increasingly tighter folds. It narrowed like a blade, cutting a swath of blood-red across the white walls, as if the room had been stabbed.
As she poured a small Niagara of gin into the pitcher, Jury said, “I’m sorry. Were you expecting a friend?”
“Only you, Superintendent.” She filled the cap of the vermouth bottle, poured half back in the bottle, and added this breath of vermouth to the pitcher. “Olive? A twist? I prefer a bit of garlic rubbed round the glass myself. Or would you rather have vodka?”
“The search for the perfect martini, is that it?”
“The perfect martini, Superintendent, is a belt of gin from the bottle; one has to be slightly civilized, however.”
As she started to fill the second glass, Jury said. “Not for me, thanks.”
Diane gave him a pained look. “God, it’s not really true, is it, about not drinking on duty? I thought that only happened in those dreary mystery stories. ‘Thank you, Lord Badluck, but I’m on duty.’ How boring, though I’m sure Fielding would have approved, had you been a Peeler.”
“I’ll join you if you have a little whiskey. Pretend it’s vermouth and measure accordingly.”
She reached round to the end table, a thing composed of glass and mirrored doors, pulled out a bottle of Powers. “Will Irish do?”
“Fine. If you knew I was coming, then you know why.”
“Simon Lean. I knew him.” She handed Jury a tumbler so wide that the level of whiskey was deceiving. Then she crossed her legs, and the slit necessary to allow for walking gave him a pleasant view above the knee. She screwed a cigarette into a long white holder ribbed with thin, frosty-looking stuff.
A very glacial lady, thought Jury. Intelligent? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. He’d liked that comment she’d worked in about the Peelers and Henry Fielding. In her head, it probably passed for panache.
“As I understand it, you knew Mr. Lean rather well.”
Again, the beautiful wing of eyebrow moved upwards. “And how do you understand it, then? From whom do you understand it?”
“Mrs. Lean says she thought you saw him — rather often. I believe she said she’d seen you having a drink at the Bell in Sidbury.”
“Sitting in the bay window on a main street does not strike me as secrecy. Does it you?” Over the wide rim of her glass, she regarded him.
“I didn’t say you were being ‘secret.’ You could be having an affair and nothing secret about it.”
“Is that what she told you?” She didn’t stop for an answer. “Well, Simon was certainly attractive enough, but always broke. I believe I had to pay for the drinks.”
“What’s money have to do with it?”
“God, do you live on a star, Superintendent? Is there anything money hasn’t to do with?”
“Were you having an affair with Simon Lean?”
From pursed lips she blew a rapier-like stream of smoke and watched it float and disperse. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be answering your questions. Aren’t you supposed to warn me, or something?”
“Yes; I’m warning you to stop fiddling around and to answer my questions.” Jury smiled. “Let’s leave Simon Lean for a moment —”
“Let’s.”
“I’m surprised someone like you’d choose a place like Long Piddleton to live.”
“ ‘Live’? Oh, but I keep my flat in Hampstead; insofar as ‘living’ is concerned, I do that in London. One must simply have a place in the country, also. For weekend parties, that sort of thing.” She poured herself another drink and drew her skirt up another inch with a casual twist of the hand.
“Must one? Do people still go to parties?”
He wanted to laugh at the instant look of alarm, as if she’d missed out on the newest trend. Then she pretended to misunderstand. “I don’t expect policemen have time for them, no.”
“So you party in London and more or less slop about here, that it?”
The look was so hard he thought the face would splinter, but it lasted only for the instant it took her to work out that any show of anger would disturb the carefully wrought façade of ennui. Ennui shot through with glints of humor, like the silver ribs on the white enamel cigarette-holder.
When she didn’t answer, he said, “Simon Lean?”
The look of ennui back in place, she said, “We met in London two or three times. Nothing serious.”
Jury smiled. “Your idea of ‘serious’ might be different from mine. Or Hannah Lean’s, for that matter.”
She was well into that second martini, which in these glasses, would make it easily her third or fourth. Jury got up, raised his own glass. “Mind? No I’ll get it.” He hadn’t drunk any after the first sip, but thought the act of freshening his drink (which he did with soda) might make her more convivial.
He resettled himself on the cool white sofa that seemed, like Diane Demorney, incapable of retaining body heat, and asked, “What about his wife, then?”
Shrugging, she turned away. “Well, you’ve seen her.”
In other words, one look at Hannah Lean should have sufficed to explain her husband’s infidelities.
“She’s pleasant; she’s attractive.”
Attractive? Her glass poised in midair and then she waved it slightly, dismissively, as if Jury’s taste in women was to be pitied. “She’s dressed by the Army and Navy Stores.”
“Mmm.”
“The only reason she snagged Simon was because of the money. She’s got piles.”
Jury wondered if it had occurred to her that the only reason she’d snagged him was because of the money.
“And I wish you’d explain what you meant earlier about ‘indiscretions,’ plural.” She turned the lazy look on him. “I was under the impression that I was the indiscretion, if we still use that word. Are you married, Superintendent?”
“Would it disturb you if you weren’t the only woman in his life? Besides his wife, I mean.” Thus far Jury knew of three women in Simon Lean’s life. There were undoubtedly more. How many women, he wondered, did a man need? All he himself wanted was one.
“He co
uld have had a little something going with Joanna the Mad, for all I know.”
“You mean Joanna Lewes? Where does ‘the Mad’ come in?”
That she absolutely relished giving him this nugget of information was clear: her eyebrows went up, her glass stopped at her lips. “Why, because of her ex-husband, Phillip. Phillip of Spain. You have heard of him? Drove his queen Joanna insane. She’s the one who calls herself that.”
One would almost think she’d read history. Jury doubted it.
“Why are you smiling, Superintendent? Brilliantly, I might add. That smile must make women absolutely incendiary. You didn’t answer me either. Are you married? Or just living with someone?”
“What makes you think I’m either?”
“What makes me think it? Well, if you’re not, I’m thoroughly ashamed of my sex. As to Simon — look, I know I should have met you at the door with a hankie wadded to my face and wearing an old bathrobe — the distraught mistress, the one left out of things, she who must bear her burden alone. Bloody hell, I wasn’t all that fond of the man. Nor would I mind if he indeed had ‘others’; heaven knows he had enough stamina for it. I don’t like the look on your face. Though I love the look of your face. You think I’m lying?”
“If you are, you’re doing it beautifully.”
“Ah. As long as I’m doing it beautifully, I don’t much care what I’m doing.”
Jury leaned forward, turning — almost caressing — the tumbler. “And what about murder? How would you do that beautifully?”
Her intaken breath was not prompted by fear, he knew, but by her liking for the star role —
“I certainly wouldn’t stuff someone in a Regency breakfront.”
“Secrétaire à abattant.”
“Pardon?”
“Not a breakfront.”
She seemed amused. “I do know antiques.”
“So do I.” The corners of Jury’s mouth twitched. Shallow as she was, and silly, he was developing a perverse affection for Diane Demorney. “How would you do it, then?”
“It depends on the circumstances.” She unplugged her cigarette, put down the holder.
“We’ve got the circumstances.”
“Simon? What motive would I—”
“I’m not talking motive, just how you’d do it.”
“Will this incriminate me?”
Was he supposed to say, Yes, but go ahead? “No. It’s just a game.”
“Ha! I imagine the last game you played was when you were five.” She leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, as if she were reflecting deeply on the puzzle. “First, one wants to avoid blood. God knows, one wants to avoid it on an Armani silk suit —”
“Was that what he was wearing?”
She sighed. “You don’t really think you’d catch me with that old trick? Simon always wore Armani, and one of them’s sand-colored silk. I merely threw that in for color.”
“Mmm. Go ahead. What would your method be, then? Garroting? Poison?”
“Drowning. Just drug him and overturn one of those rowboats.” She leaned forward, chin on fisted hand. The martini warmed in the glass she seemed to have forgotten, now. “I’m telling you what I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t do something so absolutely bizarre as put the body in a piece of furniture.”
“But if you wanted to hide it —?”
“Oh, really, Superintendent. There’s a perfectly adequate lake just beyond the cottage. Dump it there. Faster and simpler and safer. A dead body in a secrétaire would begin to pong the room up in a couple of days, surely. Although my acquaintance with dead bodies is minimal. As for the method, yes, strangling would do, I expect. The details, naturally, I’d have to think about. I’m merely filling in the brushstrokes, taking the larger view.”
“Tell me, though. You’ve never been to Watermeadows. How’d you know about the position of the cottage?”
She just looked at him. “All you’re trying to do is trap me. How disgusting, after I’ve done half your work for you. Simon described the place, of course.”
“Right down to the rowboats?”
She sighed. “Oh, very well. Yes, we’d had an assignation — I’m sure that’s the sort of word you like — in that summerhouse several times.”
“What did he tell you about his wife?”
“Same things all men tell me. A bit of a frump, a bit of a bore — but with” — her teeth flashed whitely — “a bit of the ready. So obviously he preferred to put up with boredom and frumpdom instead of give up the lolly.” She stared at him. “Good Lord, Superintendent, you’ve brought out the shopgirl in me. I haven’t used language like that in years.”
“You’ve got a bit of the ready yourself, Miss Demorney.” He smiled. “He’d give up his wife for you, surely.”
He was amused she took this buttering-up as a serious compliment. Diane Demorney did not have quite as much of anything as she wanted to think — brains, money, beauty. “Well, thank you. I, however, didn’t want Simon. And anyway, I’m not talking about my kind of money. I’m talking about serious money. The sort that’s been around so long it looks specially made for the Leans, like a new wardrobe. Money, Superintendent. You know.”
“Not on my salary.”
She leaned forward so that he could light her cigarette and get a better look at the cleavage. “What do you have, then? Two up and two down?”
“Nothing nearly so attractive. One up and one beside it.”
“That must be difficult.”
He was glad Wiggins wasn’t there to take notes. “Did he tell you anything about her divorcing him?”
“Hannah? Divorce Simon? Don’t make me laugh. But what makes you think I was the only local who went to that summerhouse?”
“Who’re you hinting at?”
“I’m not about to name names, Superintendent.”
“That’s obstruction.”
“Do policemen really say things like that? Now, if you’re absolutely dying for a murderer, I might go along with it for a bit of fun. But how do you like my theory?”
“Seems perfectly plausible, Miss Demorney.”
The martini pitcher pressed to her breasts as if she were the nubile maiden about to be anointed, she said, “Oh, call me Diane, won’t you? And my theory’s far more plausible than what happened, that’s certain.” Annoyed now, she retrieved her glass, tossed the contents into the fireplace, and refilled it from the pitcher. “I can’t imagine anyone’s doing what someone did; it simply screams for attention. You’d think someone simply wanted the body to be found.”
“Yes, you would, wouldn’t you?”
• • •
Constable Pluck had grown (in his own mind) several inches in stature in his role as Long Piddleton’s single policeman and therefore keeper of the keys to Trueblood’s Antiques. Even though Superintendent Pratt had been disposed to return them and let Trueblood open up shop, Pluck was hanging on to them as long as he could, the massive ring strung through a loop in the waistband of his uniform trousers.
Right now he was jingling them, as he tilted backward on two legs of his chair and planted his feet on his wooden desk very near Jury’s downturned face. “Bit of a cipher, inhn’t it, sir?”
Jury was reading what remained of the blue page found amongst the cinders of the summerhouse fireplace. The documents expert at the Home Office lab not far from Northampton had managed to virtually reconstruct the letter. Deducing the size of the burned-off bottom portion from the singed upper part had further enabled him to calculate the spacing between words, working with the few letters that remained. These he had placed in what must have been their original position. The characters and words had been lined up — the word pub, followed by an n, the rest of whose letters were burned out, followed by a th, followed by the word church.
“Do you know where Mr. Plant is?” Jury asked, head still propped in his hands, studying the words through the protective coating. “Ring Ardry End, would you?”
That Pluck did not like being reduced
in rank to mere secretary was clear from his huge sigh and his being in no hurry to pick up the phone. When finally he got Plant’s butler, Ruthven told him that he had gone to Plague Alley.
Pluck returned the receiver to its cradle and said sagely: “I’d let him have a look at that, if it was me. Mr. Plant does crosswords; he’s good at filling in blanks.”
• • •
Which was what Melrose felt he was doing, sitting here listening to his aunt and drinking tea he was sure had been wetted from this morning.
“Twenty-seven thousand pounds!” She was sitting in the same chair, rattling a newspaper clipping in Melrose’s face.
“What’s that to do with me?”
“Haven’t you been listening? Paid for a title, Plant. You are worth far more than that!”
“I’ve never before heard you express such a sentiment. I’m touched.” He studied the dregs of his tea.
“Not you! Your titles. If titles are bringing that sort of money at auction, think what you could have done with yours!” She adjusted her half-glasses and read off sums and buyers. An Egyptian had made off with the lordship of Mumsby and Thrysglwnyd Manor for sixteen thousand, five hundred. An American had topped that with thirty-six thousand for something that had to do with Abraham Lincoln. “And you simply gave yours away.” She glared at him.
“Not to an Egyptian, as I recall. And I didn’t give them away, I gave them up. There’s a difference.”
The difference meant not a jot. “You could have been rich.”
He yawned. “I am rich. Somehow the idea of putting my titles on the auction block strikes me as a bit too trendy. Is that what you got me over here for? You made it sound to Ruthven as if you’d run into that pig again.”
“Well, it is to do with my case.” She leaned over to adjust the bandage on her ankle. “I thought you might like to get hold of Angus Horndean —”
Of Horndean, Horndean, and Finch, the very proper and very pricey firm of solicitors that had taken care of the family for a hundred years. Melrose sat back and studied the binestem choking the small windows, then the low-beamed ceiling and the cobwebs there that Mrs. Oilings had included in her live-and-let-live cleaning program. He was merely trying to think of a sensible response to this silly request. “Angus Horndean’s success in writing briefs to prosecute papier-mâché pigs is limited, Agatha.”
The Five Bells and Bladebone Page 9