“No,” he answered. “It isn’t my work, as you say. I’m a dilettante, an enthusiastic tracker-down of the false and phony. I’m not a professional by any manner of means. I don’t even collect things myself.” To fend off that speculative look she was giving him, he nodded toward the paintings on the far wall, the only wall not dedicated to books. “I must say I prefer the paintings in here to the ones in your entrance hall.” That was certainly a safe enough judgment.
Grace smiled. “We all have our blind spots.”
He hoped that was merely a generous assessment of her husband’s lapse in taste and not of his, Melrose’s.
The door opened just then and a woman in her sixties came in with a tray of coffee and biscuits. Her stout figure was wound with a white apron and, as some cooks look the part, she put Melrose in mind of fresh-baked bread and scones. Her hair was pulled back tightly into a bun. It was marsh-brown. Her eyes were darker, the color of peat. She carried herself stiffly, yet her hands were lively. Annie Suggins’s hands got busy setting out the cups, clinking spoons into saucers, worrying off a coffee-cozy. All of her life must have gone into her hands. They were the hands of a fluttery sort of person who might be forever wringing them, or laying them aside her face in looks of astonishment, or jerking a fan about. But Annie did not otherwise strike Melrose as a fluttery person at all. To Grace’s kind thanks, she nodded briefly, stiffly, and left.
As Grace set about pouring coffee, she said, “Annie’s a wonderful cook. Rather conscious now of extra duties on her shoulders.”
Melrose smiled. “Looks like one of those truly loyal servants.”
Grace laughed. “To tell the truth, I doubt it. I think she’s loyal to some Suggins-code that we can’t penetrate. Cream?”
“No thank you.”
“I mean, we all live by some weird notion of propriety. Even honor. Don’t we? Sugar?”
No, he said again. There was that look on her face again. That smile. He thanked her as she handed over the coffee.
She took her own cup back to the window, drank her coffee as she looked out. For those few moments she appeared to be far away and he drank his own coffee in silence, wanting her mind to proceed along its own line. She then came back to the here and now, a much less demanding place to be, Melrose thought, judging from the difference in her expression.
“Sorry,” she said. “Just woolgathering.” She sat back down on the sofa, then leaned forward, and ran her hand over the rug under her feet. “This is one thing.” She looked up at Melrose. “The rug, I mean. Max wants an opinion on it. The man from Christie’s said it wasn’t a genuine Turkestan. Just a reproduction. Or imitation.”
Bending over to look at it, he was pleased that he had at least identified the style. “Oh? That seems unlikely.” He put his spectacles on, hoping that would make him look smarter than he felt, rose and walked to the outside edge of the rug and flipped back a corner. “Thousands of knots here, and a very tight weave. The back’s as clear as the front. It certainly appears genuine to me. And, also, you must consider the size. It’s enormous, much too large to make reproducing worth one’s while.” Was that true? A pound of jellybabies might cost only a little more than half-a-pound; a case of wine would not be as much as twelve separate bottles. But did this two-for-one principle hold with Turkish carpets? Didn’t the value increase incrementally, inch by precious inch? Well, he’d said it and he’d best stick by it.
Grace looked at the carpet doubtfully. “But the man from Christie’s was supposed to be an expert. . . . ” Then she blushed, perhaps thinking she’d insulted him.
Breezily, Melrose said, “Oh, experts can make mistakes too. I’ve certainly made enough in my time!” And then it occurred to him to wonder why Max Owen was getting these people in to do valuations. “Tell me, why is your husband doing this?”
“Max wants to sell some things. He prefers to do it at auction. But the Christie’s man—” She shrugged.
“Sotheby’s then?” Melrose hoped the “Sotheby’s man” didn’t agree with the “Christie’s man.” He would hate to go head to head with that lot, the premiere auction houses of the world. Oh, the hell with it. Most of any business was bluster. Blustering, dissembling—everyone did it until a person couldn’t tell the Bayeux tapestries from granny’s tatting. Melrose hoped she wouldn’t ask for the provenance of that Russian amber necklace under glass—did it, in fact, descend from the Romanovs? The only jewelry he’d ever studied closely was whatever Agatha happened to have on, and that was only to see whether it had belonged to his mother. Indeed, he’d learned something about furniture from trying to ascertain what Agatha had nicked from Ardry End. Even tables and chairs had gone missing.
“I met your nephew. Mr. Price? I stopped in the pub to get directions. And a pint,” he added, not wanting to appear holier-than—Mr. Price.
“Jack? The Case is one of his favorite haunts. Jack’s my husband’s nephew. He has a studio out back; well it’s more of a converted barn, but he seems to like it, having a separate place. Sleeps there, too. Sometimes we don’t see him for days. Sometimes, I think he sleeps rough, out on the fens.”
“Are the police getting anywhere with these murders?”
Her luminous, gold leaf eyes regarded him over the rim of her cup. “If they have they’re not sharing it with us. Poor Dorcas.” Gently, Grace replaced her cup. It tinkled against the saucer because her hand was shaking. “Her body was discovered over on Windy Fen. ‘Wyndham,’ really, but we call it ‘Windy.’ It’s National Trust property between here and the Case Has Altered. What I mean is, we take the pub for our north boundary—”
Melrose didn’t want to get into a discussion of the fens and interrupted. “When did all of this happen?”
She thought for a moment. “Verna was—Verna Dunn, my husband’s first wife—was killed two weeks ago. Her body was found late at night on the Wash. I honestly don’t know what this Lincolnshire detective has turned up. Dorcas, that was just a few days ago—” The sound of an approaching car brought Grace to her feet. “—the night of the fourteenth. Here’s Max!”
11
He was not prepared for Max Owen. Melrose had formed a picture of a fussy, somewhat arrogant dilettante, a proud man, perhaps. Anyone who set such a store by his belongings would be. But Max Owen wasn’t. Melrose had been prepared to dislike him, probably because Owen and his collection were a hurdle he had to jump, a fallen tree across his path.
Now that Owen was standing in the doorway, the image dissolved. Melrose’s irrational dislike of the man had mounted with every long-lived hour in Trueblood’s shop trying to master the finer points of each serpentine chest, saber-legged chair, credenza, or Canterbury that Trueblood dragged to center stage. Once Melrose had actually fallen asleep listening to Trueblood drone on about a japanned chest (“Always be suspicious of japanning—”) only to be shaken awake and forced to repeat the more important points like a catechism. Melrose had complained that he couldn’t possibly remember all of it and Trueblood had reminded him it was only five pieces he had really to know about. Not including the rug. The rest he could bluff.
“Like Diane. She’s got bluffing down to a fine art.”
“If there is anyone I do not wish to be like, it’s Diane Demorney!”
Far from being intimidating, Max Owen was almost boyishly shy. It was this that constituted a large part of his charm, for he was charming. He was not especially handsome—his face too long, too thin, with eyes like muscat grapes. Where Melrose had imagined there would be a bespoke tailor in the background, he saw that Owen was an indifferent dresser: his subdued suit, dark gray worsted; his tie, a boring tartan. Melrose had expected a more flamboyant man—one who would wear a yellow waistcoat and was not to be trusted.
Grace said the coffee was cold, and Max said not to bother. But she would have bothered, of course, had not the cook, Annie, appeared right on his heels, with fresh hot coffee, leaving as quickly as she’d come.
Max sat down on the massive V
ictorian chesterfield, leaning back, legs thrust out before him, as if he were used to this sofa and often sat there. Melrose would have found it hard to get comfortable on such a piece of furniture, but then he imagined that Owen, like Trueblood, related to furnishings—“things”—far more sensitively than Melrose himself did. They could see comfort where he could not.
“Sorry not to be here to greet you. I’ve been all day at Carlton House. They’re selling off the entire contents. You can imagine there were some good pieces.” He looked at Melrose as he sipped his coffee; the look was encouraging, as if he expected something from Melrose.
Given his avocation, Melrose would be expected to have heard about this sale. “Marshall Trueblood told me about it. I would have gone with him had I not been coming here.”
“I don’t know your friend Trueblood. But I couldn’t have picked him out anyway. A horde of people, really crowded.”
“Trueblood was after a couple of carved boxes. Sixteenth century. I wonder if he got them.” A small acquisition such as that probably would go unnoticed. He hoped he was being vague enough that Max Owen wouldn’t question him.
Max frowned. “Don’t remember seeing them in the catalogue. Anyway, I managed to walk off with the Carlton House writing table.”
“Lord, do we have room?” Grace’s laugh was rueful.
Melrose was glad she’d interceded since he was sure Owen was about to put a question to him about the writing table. He sat back down on the hard settee, hoping he would not thereby call attention to this ornately carved piece, as he had no idea about its origins. But he had to sit somewhere. He should have chosen the leather wing chair, which was straightforward Chippendale.
Grace spoke as she poured the coffee. “I was telling Mr. Plant about—”
Melrose smiled and accepted more coffee. “Melrose will do, thanks.”
Max sat forward. “I understand you have a title. May I ask what?”
“Caverness, Earl of. But I prefer the family name.”
“Why?”
Oh, hell. Was Owen going to be one of these quite literal types who had no use for nuance or intuition? “Titles are cumbersome.”
“Wish I had one.” Max sat back.
“Well, don’t distinguish yourself in any way and perhaps you will.”
They laughed, and Grace continued what she’d been about to say. “I was telling him about—what happened. Mr. Plant is a friend of Jennifer Kennington.”
“Ah! She too had a title she disavowed. But she’d married one, so I expect it doesn’t count for much. She didn’t like it, either.”
Melrose corrected Grace Owen again. “Acquaintance only. I met her once in Stratford.” He told Grace he knew Jenny to avoid the consequences of some future slip that would make it clear he did know her.
“A coincidence.” Was there something in Owen’s expression, the trace of a smile, that said it couldn’t possibly be coincidence?
Grace said, “And Dorcas. It was just three days ago,” she added sadly.
Max did not reply, but looked out of the long window at the rising mist. It was by now early evening and getting dark. Fog blanketed the driveway and the flower beds and cut off the roots of trees, making the wood look impenetrable. “Poor girl,” he said.
They were lost in a moment of silence and Melrose hoped they’d go on. He could certainly show a legitimate interest—a double murder was surely grounds for curiosity, no matter what your mission—but he felt it was too soon after his arrival to carry the brunt of the questioning himself.
But Max carried it on. “That place, Wyndham Fen—where Dorcas was found—that’s what all of South Lincolnshire used to be like—real fen country.”
“Max. You make it sound as if you mourned the loss of the fens more than the loss of Dorcas.”
“I didn’t know her well enough to mourn her, dear one.” He held out his cup for fresh coffee.
This unadorned admission was rather refreshing, thought Melrose. Why indeed would he “mourn” an employee with whom he’d probably had very little contact. “That’s what they said in the pub; one old regular claimed we shouldn’t call it the fens: ‘It ain’t fens no more.’ ”
Max laughed. “I’m sure. Sometimes I think we’re as fragile as the landscape.”
“This must be pretty horrible for you,” said Melrose. “Police in your home and all the questioning.”
“The whole thing is completely beyond me,” said Grace. “What on earth was Verna doing late at night on the Wash? People don’t walk out on those saltings for exercise.” Grace looked thoughtful. “Two murders within two weeks.”
Max put down his cup. “ ‘Alleged’ murders, you should say.”
“Well, the alleged shot from the alleged gun caused quite an outpouring of alleged blood.”
Melrose laughed, but without humor. He was too busy taking impressions. Grace Owen, for one, didn’t appear to resent the ex-wife’s presence at Fengate, alive or dead.
“Jennifer Kennington was the last person to see Verna alive.” Calmly, she sipped her coffee.
No. The last person to see her alive would have been the killer, thought Melrose. “I find it hard to believe that Lady Kennington would be a suspect. She appeared to me to be so . . . gentle.” They were miles from antique bonheurs-du-jour Turkestan rugs. But the Owens didn’t seem to notice, submerged as they were in the strange business of murder at Fengate.
Grace nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Except I think it’s true that one can’t tell what another’s capable of in such circumstances. On the other hand, what on earth would her motive be? They didn’t even know each other.”
“You mean, as far as we know they didn’t.”
Melrose felt a cold spike of fear. They were seriously entertaining the notion that Jenny might have done this.
“Max would be a better candidate for chief suspect,” Grace said, laughing. “Or I would, or even Jack. In fact anyone would make more sense than Jennifer Kennington.” She sighed.
He would have loved to ask what motives she had in mind, but the question would wait.
“Grace—” Max put down his coffee cup. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His tone was perfectly amiable. Then he turned to Melrose. “This detective from New Scotland Yard—he’s a friend of Mr. Trueblood.” He paused and searched through his pockets, finally drew out a card. “Superintendent Richard Jury, no less. Pretty high up, a superintendent.” He looked at Melrose quizzically. “But you know him, don’t you? Didn’t he recommend you? Grace? Isn’t that true?”
As Grace nodded, Melrose said, “I know him slightly, yes.” He was feeling more and more uncomfortable, for he couldn’t make out Max Owen. He couldn’t make out whether he was being baited or whether Owen’s questions were simply innocent. Melrose decided that he should be the one to turn the conversation to Owen’s collection. “Where are the pieces you wanted me to have a look at?”
Grace broke in, tapping her toe against the carpet. “The rug. Mr. Plant says it’s the real thing.”
Quickly, Melrose said, “It’s my opinion it’s, as you say, the ‘real thing.’ ” He turned a self-deprecating smile on Max Owen, who was clearly happy to believe that his guest’s opinion was also the real thing.
“So Christie’s and old Parker were wrong!”
“If they told you otherwise.”
“Parker is a friend of Max,” said Grace, “who loves to take issue with whatever Max acquires. He’s knowledgeable, yes, but I suspect he’s quite jealous, really.”
Looking toward another room, Max Owen said, “Come on in here, Mr. Plant. There’s another rug I’d like an opinion on.” He was moving toward the door, and said over his shoulder, “Darling, bring the booze, will you?”
How wonderful! thought Melrose, trailing after Owen as Grace went to the sideboard and picked up a cut-glass decanter. If it’s rugs I have to classify, by all means, bring the booze.
In the next room, Max and Melrose stood looking down at a rug of b
lues and reds and graceful swirls as Grace pulled glasses out of one of the many cabinets housing them. They would never be at a loss for a glass, the Owens.
“It’s a Nain. You know, that very fine rug from Iran. But Parker says it isn’t, says it’s the wrong design. Supposed to be Ispahan.”
Melrose put on a thoughtful expression. He only wished Grace weren’t there, with her lovely lack of guile. He found it extremely difficult to put on his act in the face of her artlessness. He cleared his throat. “That depends on what one means by Ispahan, I suppose.”
Max Owen looked puzzled. “Well, surely, people agree as to what that is!”
Melrose smiled, gave Owen a sad little headshake. “Mr. Owen, in this business there are very few things people agree upon.”
Max smiled. “Since you seem to know rugs, you might give me your opinion of the ones upstairs.”
Hell’s bells, thought Melrose. Well, it was bound to happen, wasn’t it, that Max Owen would go trolling beyond the boundary of Jury’s list?
“I’m going to see Annie about dinner, then.” She set cups on the tray, picked it up, walked out, calling over her shoulder, “Around eight? Will that give you time?”
Max said, “No, but eight’s fine. I’m starved. Thirsty, too. Thanks.” Grace handed them both a glass of whiskey, said she hoped the brand was all right with Mr. Plant. Any brand was all right with Mr. Plant at this point, threatened with a mess of upstairs rugs.
Max moved over to an open court cupboard (at least that’s what Melrose thought it was, Don’t call it for God’s sakes a “buffet,” Trueblood had warned him). He picked up a deep blue ashtray of what looked to Melrose like Murano glass and brought it over to set between them on an old trunk. But Max Owen was so drowned in his antique sea, he forgot to light up, if that was his intention. “That table à la Bourgogne you brought I told Suggins to put upstairs in a small study I use. The pieces I’m wondering about are in here.” Max handed Melrose a thick glass tumbler. “Such as that secretaire.”
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