The Case Has Altered

by Martha Grimes

  If there was one thing Melrose knew it was secretaires à abattant. Or at least he thought he did, until his eyes fell on Max Owen’s. This one was completely different from the one that had been in Trueblood’s shop several years before. You couldn’t have stuffed a body into this one, that was certain. It was black lacquer with gilt ornamentation, the front at a forty-five-degree angle which fell down to reveal a writing surface. He nodded; he frowned in turn in response to Max Owen’s comments, understanding practically nothing of Max’s antiquarian jargon, fashioned largely out of French. Demi-lune; menuisier. And it was amazing how the man could go on about marquetry and parquetry, soffits and jappaning. Why in the devil did he need any other opinion? Melrose stifled a yawn; he felt he could have communed with the secretaire on its own terms. By the time Max was finished, there wasn’t an inch of gilding, a corner of ormolu, a tracery of acanthus leaves that Melrose wasn’t intimately acquainted with.

  Max lowered and raised the writing surface and asked, “What do you think?”

  Melrose looked seriously thoughtful for several moments, chin resting in his hand, finger tapping his cheek, and said, “I think you’re absolutely right.”

  Max Owen looked quite smug. “Even about the hidden drawer, the secret drawer? The Sotheby’s fellow said he’d never encountered anything like that in the genuine article.”

  Had he missed the secret drawer? “You mean Tim Strangeways?” Melrose suddenly remembered that Strangeways was a name Trueblood had told him to invoke, if Max got onto some discussion about the people at Sotheby’s. So Melrose’s smile was even smugger than Max’s. Strangeways had already been brought to heel.

  Max laughed. “Good.” Then he turned to another commodelike piece and started a little lecture on bureaux-de-roi.

  Melrose’s attention span was turning into that of a four-year-old. He simply couldn’t keep his mind on this stuff for five minutes running. He decided not to open up a stall in Camden Passage. Pay Attention! he ordered himself.

  “. . . de-roi. This is an excellent specimen of the type.”

  Melrose was studiously examining the legs, running his hand up and down one, then he rose and pulled out one of the drawers, again running his hand along the joining, closed it, and sighed. “I’m not so sure.” Well, he had to take issue at some point with the genuineness of one of these objets d’art so he might as well with this one, especially since it hadn’t been on the list.

  At this point, Max asked him to examine another, much smaller rug near the windows. Hell, not another rug. Melrose couldn’t even remember what kind of Persian carpet was in his own drawing room, the one Trueblood drooled over and said was priceless . . . a priceless—what? Now he was forced to inspect what Owen told him was an antique Fereghan. It was quite beautiful, a light blue background with a pattern of interlinked medallions.

  “My friend Parker says the design isn’t right for it to be a genuine Fereghan.”

  Melrose smiled. “Oh, I’m sure the medallion is genuine enough. But is your friend Parker?”

  Max’s laugh was a bellow; it seemed clear to Melrose that Owen and this Parker were highly competitive. And Max Owen wasn’t looking for an expert; he was looking for somebody to tell him he was right. Melrose was happy to oblige.

  Max had turned to the whiskey decanter, splashed more whiskey into his glass, held up the decanter in silent query to Melrose. Melrose shook his head.

  Max replaced the stopper, asked, “Did you know her well?”

  The question took Melrose completely by surprise. He feigned ignorance. “Know who?”

  “Jennifer Kennington.”

  “No. As I said, I met her only the one time. In Stratford-upon-Avon. I think she lives there.”

  Max nodded. He was standing now, swirling the whiskey in his glass, his eyes seemingly fixed on the fog beyond the windows. “She needed investment money for some pub or restaurant she wanted to open. I’m the investor.” He drank his whiskey, still looking out on darkness. “The few days in the country certainly turned out to be pretty unhappy for Jennifer, I’m afraid.” He picked up a wooden chalice, examined it, replaced it.

  From his expression, Melrose thought they’d been pretty unhappy for Max Owen, too.

  • • •

  The Owens’ friend Major Linus Parker joined them for dinner at the last minute. He preferred people call him, simply, “Parker.” Melrose could sympathize with this ridding oneself of rank and title. Parker was a large man in his sixties whose house (which he had baptized “Toad Hall”) lay off the public footpath, halfway between Fengate and the pub.

  It was Parker who said, “It was almost comical, the police coming round. ‘And where were you, sir, at the time of the murder?’ ” He said this in a deep voice, exaggerating the Lincolnshire accent. “I didn’t think police actually said things like that. Sounded more like a parody of police.”

  “They apparently do,” said Max Owen. “And did you give a thorough accounting of your movements?”

  Parker said, “I was right here until eleven.”

  “After that, I mean.”

  “You’ve got me dead to rights; I was walking home.”

  Jack Price, who’d been silent for most of the meal, said, “And I went back to the studio.”

  “And Grace went to bed, and I went into my study. Not an alibi amongst us, too bad.”

  “I went to sleep immediately,” said Grace.

  “Ho-ho. Try telling that to our chief inspector!”

  “Have done,” said Grace. “Anyway, Max does have an alibi. You said sometime between eleven-thirty and midnight Suggins brought you a drink.”

  Max nodded. “Right. So it seems my future lies in the hands of our gardener, who likes a nip himself now and again.”

  “Which takes care of his testimony,” said Parker.

  Max said, “Mr. Plant’s a friend of Lady Kennington.”

  “An acquaintance, rather,” said Melrose.

  “So you said.” Max was looking at Melrose with a depth of glance that made him extremely uncomfortable and kept him turning the stem of his wineglass. “Jenny was with Verna, seems to have been the last person to see her alive. Or at least that’s what I gather the Lincs police have deduced.” He gazed at Melrose as if to see how he’d take it.

  Melrose didn’t take it at all; he made no comment.

  “Verna’s done quite well with a boutique in Pont Street. But not quite enough to back this play she wanted to star in. She was hoping I could help her there.” Max shrugged. “I thought it would be an investment. Verna wasn’t a bad actress.”

  There was a lively debate about this, whether Verna was, or wasn’t.

  Melrose frowned. It occurred to him they’d all been going on at some length about Verna Dunn, the ex-Mrs. Owen. Yet, no one was talking about the servant girl, Dorcas. “But what about the second murder? Your housemaid.”

  Both Grace and Max looked unhappy, slightly ashamed. He said, “Yes, you’re right. You’d think we’d be more mindful of Dorcas. It’s only been three days.”

  Price said, “It’s because Verna was so flashy. Beautiful, or so most people thought. And somewhat famous.”

  “Yes, and Dorcas was so much the other . . . I mean, none of those things.” Grace was looking down at her dessert plate. “Poor Dorcas.” She picked up her fork.

  Melrose bit into his gâteau and found it to be doused with cognac and a coating of dates and nuts; he took a moment to appreciate its moist richness. Then he said, “This young woman, Dorcas, I presume she had a gentleman-friend?”

  “Dorcas?” Price sounded surprised. “I doubt it; she wasn’t any too good-looking.”

  Melrose answered, I’ve never known that to absolutely stand in one’s way.” It occurred to him that Price knew a good deal about beauty, but probably not about people.

  “You think a lover might have done it?” Parker asked.

  Grace shrugged. “Don’t police usually suspect one’s nearest and dearest?”

 
“That’s true,” said Max Owen, who was concentrating on his dessert.

  Parker, who had brought his whiskey glass to the table, drank off the remainder of the contents and looked around the table. “How could one suspect Lady Kennington of that murder?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m surprised that man Bannen let her go back to Stratford,” said Price.

  “Had to,” said Max. “They couldn’t keep her any longer. And she had no motive.”

  “But that,” said Grace, “is true of all of us, isn’t it?” She shoved back her chair. “We’ve none of us any discernible motive.”

  • • •

  Melrose lay deep in a literal featherbed, his hands folded neatly over the duvet as he supposed he’d folded them as a child. His eyes rested on the pale ceiling, watching the shifting, watery light and lacy shadows reflected from the lamps outside around the drive. He turned his head and let his eyes play over the humped forms of furniture, relieved not to have to give out their provenance or state their value. Near his bed was an ancient rocking horse, picked up, no doubt, at one of Owen’s country auctions. Its mane was tattered, its eyes dull from paint rubbed away. He had had such a horse, or thought he had. These drowsy reflections occupied his mind and kept him on the edge of sleep for some time. He thought about Dorcas Reese, Jenny, Verna Dunn. He stretched, lay with his hands behind his head. Now he knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Even the roots of his hair awakened with wide-eyed follicle-amazement.

  He yanked away the pillow he’d just finished positioning under his head and tossed it on the floor. Now he would be awake the entire night unless he could think of something less hectic than murder. Counting sheep. Actually, that had worked once or twice. It was the awful boredom of the exercise that sunk you into oblivion . . . immediately he had a vision of Agatha’s hand going back and forth to the cake plate. One fairy cake . . . two fairy cakes . . .

  He was snoring before he’d gotten to ten.

  12

  Morning was at seven, happily for Browning, unhappily for Melrose. That was when he had snapped awake, muscles tense.

  From what, Melrose couldn’t imagine. A muscular dream? A pea under the mattress? No, the featherbed was actually too soft. Bleary-eyed he had risen, washed, dressed, and, still bleary-eyed, descended to the dining room. No one was there, but he did hear clattering in the kitchen and a tune half sung, half spoken in a low voice. Melrose stuck his head in the door.

  Mrs. Suggins, the source of both the clatter and the tuneless tune, stopped singing and stirring as she looked around in surprise. She quickly wiped her hands on her apron and said, “Oh, sir, I’m just stirring the porridge and haven’t started on the eggs yet. What would you have?”

  “Nothing at all but a cup of tea. Ordinarily, I’m not up so early.” That was the understatement of the year. He was never downstairs before nine-thirty. Melrose worshiped sleep as much as Trueblood worshiped things; all of that “knitting up the ravel’ed sleeve of care” went down a treat with him.

  Of course she had a pot of tea ready and poured him out a mugful; she placed milk and sugar within his reach. “There you are.” She smiled up at him. She was a short woman. Short and somehow the quintessence of Cook. Round-faced, round-bodied, like a couple of dumplings stuck together, she cheerily announced, “Breakfast when you like, sir.”

  Melrose thanked her. “What time do the Owens breakfast?”

  “Between eight and nine is usual. Sometimes they eat together, sometimes not. Breakfast’s a hard meal, keeping things hot, and they like different things too. And me with no help.”

  There wasn’t any rancor in the tone; it was the sort of obligatory complaint one hears. (His own cook, Martha, occasionally muttered about lack of help.) Here was an opportunity Melrose hadn’t foreseen. “I understand the young woman who helped you . . . met with an accident.”

  “Accident? Is that what they’re calling it now?” Annie Suggins looked him over as if to say, Oh, the fastidious rich. She tapped her wooden spoon against the rim of the pot and went for plain speaking. “Murder, that’s what it was. Awful thing, and her just a young girl.” She clapped a lid on the pot, bent, and opened the door of the big oven.

  A scent drifted out that made Melrose think twice about settling for tea only. He said, “Yes, an awful thing. Had she worked here very long?”

  “Two years, about. Good worker, was Dorcas, even if she couldn’t cook. She did the vegetables, you know, scraping and peeling, but times I let her cook them, they came out mush.” Annie seemed to shudder, not with a vision of the murdered Dorcas, but one of overdone carrots. “A worse cook I’ve never seen.” Annie Suggins was clearly a no-nonsense type of woman; she could still state plain facts even though Dorcas was dead.

  Melrose sipped his tea and hoped she’d go on. Which she did after transferring the roasting pan from oven to table. When she lifted the lid to inspect the contents, he got the full, heavenly force of the aroma. Looked like a chicken or goose. He asked Annie.

  “It’s pheasant, a Scottish pheasant to be truthful.”

  (As if one were in danger of lying over pheasant.)

  “—with apricots and dates.”

  Melrose took another whiff. “Lord, it’s enough to make you forget about murder.”

  Annie laughed. “I hope not, sir. That’d be a tragedy. Though sometimes I think they’ve forgotten Dorcas was murdered, too.”

  Melrose agreed that Dorcas lay dead in the shadow of Verna Dunn. “Was she a local girl?”

  A brief nod. “Spalding, if you call that local. Plain, decent family, though the father likes his whiskey.” She stopped in the act of whacking at a small hill of dough and set her hands on her hips. “I don’t think the lass had too happy a life, not her. I mean, I don’t think she was treated bad, just that she was none too pretty, and that always tells against a girl.” She remained in this stance, her expression mournful, and then started in on the dough again, slapping and pummeling it into a stain-smooth mound.

  Melrose helped himself to more tea from the pot. He wandered about the kitchen as he drank, finding it quite splendid that she didn’t think his presence a bit odd for a guest. What was an antiques appraiser doing (she might have wondered) in her kitchen? But, no, she appeared to take him as she found him and was happy to have him share her battle with the pastry dough, to which she was now doing something odd—fanning out a chunk of it, lifting it on her fist like a pizza-crust, and sending it circling around. “Burt!” She called over her shoulder. “You get out there and see to that hen!”

  Burt was Suggins, her husband and the gardener. He slouched through a doorway, which Melrose took to be the one that would have been to the butler’s pantry, had there been a butler. Burt Suggins tilted toward the door to the outside and, presumably, the henhouse. Melrose hated to think of the hen’s fate as the door shuddered shut.

  “That’s Mr. Suggins what just went out,” she said, as if the two of them had been watching an identity parade. “I expect he knows more about flowers than any gardener they ever had.” She turned back to the cooker and the pot on the back burner, which was holding a pudding basin, covered with a cloth. Its simmering water puffed forth steam. She placed the steaming basin on the table and removed the cloth and set it aside. Then she stood with lips pursed and one hand on her cheek, considering the basin. He watched as she pulled over an assortment of tiny charms, picking up one, then another. He was curious. “What’ve you got there?”

  “The bits and bobs you put in the Christmas pud.”

  “Christmas? In February?”

  “Never you mind. Mrs. Owen loves her pudding. Sometimes I think that girl never grew up proper.” She gave Melrose a patronizing look. The rich seldom do.

  Melrose loved the motherly tone of “that girl.” And it was true: Grace Owen did have a child’s spontaneity. “It’s very sad about her son.”

  Annie stopped counting the silver charms, looked off toward the door as if someone were coming through it. “Aye. Only
twenty he was. As nice a lad as you’d ever hope to find.” Businesslike once more, she went back to the pudding, stabbing the little charms into its surface. For all the excellence of her food, he thought Annie Suggins was on somewhat adversarial terms with the food she prepared. First was the beating of the batter, and now she was pushing the tiny charms into it as if she were driving rivets.

  Melrose decided that Annie was such a plainspoken, uncomplicated woman that she would not be suspicious were he to revert to the subject of the other murder. She, herself, had brought it up. Verna Dunn. Given Annie’s whirlwind movements from pastry table to fridge (getting out butter and milk), to kitchen door (calling for Suggins to be quick about the hen), to stove (clattering the pot off the burner), back to the “pud”—Melrose was surprised she could follow any conversational line at all.

  He said, “It must have been appalling to find out their guest, Miss—Dunn? Was that her name? To find out she’d been murdered. Thank you—” he added, for she had poured him his third cup of tea. “Two murders. That’s shattering.”

  It would take more than a couple of murders to shatter Annie Suggins. “Whatever she was doing out at night on the Wash, I can’t imagine. And now they’re saying it was the two of ’em might’ve drove there.”

  “ ‘Two of them’?”

  “Her and that Lady Kennington.” Annie leaned over the table to say in a whispery voice, “Last one ever saw Verna Dunn alive, I don’t wonder that policeman from Lincoln thought she must’ve had something to do with it. Wouldn’t you? It’s a serious business, a very serious business.” She frowned, sighed, set her hands on her hips. “It’s hard without the extra help. Dorcas worked at the pub, too, the Case. Our local pub.”

  “Two jobs. She must have been ambitious.”

  “Not her!” Annie laughed. “ ’Twasn’t ambition got her going. Saving up for something, she said she was. The something must’ve had a man in it.” She paused and seemed to be studying the pudding. “Anyway, she was right happy there for a while, not like she usually was, moody. Didn’t last long, though,” Annie said, ruminatively. “She was moping about the kitchen and saying as how she ‘shouldn’t have listened.’ Dorcas was a right nosy little thing.”