The Anodyne Necklace(14)

"No more than any of the others. What about Mrs. Pennystevens? Anything else there?"

Wiggins shook his head. "Just as Carstairs said. She got the packet, thought it was some sort of joke. So did the others. Mainwaring and the Wey woman."

"They'd need to, wouldn't they? Since they were accused of being lovers. Do you think they are?"

For Wiggins, who had shoved his soup plate aside and was in the process of medicating himself, this was a two-cough drop problem. Or, at least, the cough drops were stuck together and he popped both of them into his mouth. "Hard to say. She's good-looking enough."
 
 

 

"What was her reaction to the murder?"

"Same thing. Didn't know anything about it, didn't know why the woman would be out in the woods, et cetera, et cetera. Carstairs had been there before me."

"Has Carstairs called here?"

"No, why?"

"Augusta Craigie thinks the woman might have been on her way to Stonington, the Kennington estate just outside of Littlebourne." Jury looked ceilingward. "Do you know which one of the rooms is the daughter's?" He knew Wiggins would have inspected them all, briefly, to see if he could find a more comfortable mattress.

Wiggins nodded. "First on the right. Lots of flounce and stuffed animals."

"I'm going to have a look."



It was a pleasant room with a slanted ceiling and creaking, crooked floor, white furniture, and, as Wiggins had said, ruffled spread and pillows. It faced the Green; a row of tiny casement windows over a window seat were rolled out, disturbing the climbing roses wandering up the side of the building. Jury looked at the row of books above the window seat: untouched tomes, largely, of classics like Middlemarch; very well-fingered Heartwind Romances wedged between and behind them. A poor ruse if the mother were doing a cleaning. But perhaps the neatness here was Katie O'Brien's own. Jury looked in the closet and saw carefully hung dresses. He checked the labels, found two of them were Laura Ashleys, expensive. The mother would have had to sell a lot of pints to buy them.

There was an album lying on a little desk, which Jury leafed through. Snapshots recording the life of Katie O'Brien and her family. One of them he removed. It showed a pale girl with a heart-shaped, but unsmiling, face. A lot of dark hair had been rolled away from the face, probably collected in back in a bun or plait. It was an old-fashioned hairdo above an old-fashioned dress, a lace-collared gingham. Did the small, beautiful face look so mournfully out at Jury because the hair was too heavy, the collar too tight? Jury took the picture and closed the album.

III

"Cora Binns," said Inspector Carstairs. "It was shortly after you called that we got an identification. Not from Lady Kennington-we're checking that out-but from a Mrs. Beavers. That's the Binns woman's landlady, who got worried when Cora never came home on the Thursday night. Cora Binns told Mrs. Beavers she was off to see someone in Hertfield. Said she'd be back that night and probably get home round eleven. Cora has the upstairs flat in the Beaverses' house and the landlady apparently keeps an eye on her tenants. When Cora didn't show up again on Friday, she was really concerned. Nosy's more like it. She put in a missing-person and a call came through not long ago from ‘H' Division. Not much doubt it's the same person. Description, clothes, everything fits. I guessed you'd want to talk to her straightaway. Address-" The voice dimmed as Carstairs turned from the telephone, and then came back again. "Number twenty-two, Catchcoach Street."

"What section's that?" Jury asked as he made a note of the address.

"Somewhere around Forest Gate, isn't it? Wait a tic. . . . Yes, here it is. Well." There was a brief silence. "Wembley Knotts. Coincidence, that. That's where the O'Brien girl got coshed on the head. Odd."

When Jury dropped the receiver back into the cradle, Sergeant Wiggins was studying the photograph of Katie O'Brien.

"Pretty girl."

"Yes. Leave a note for Mary O'Brien, will you, that we'll be back later this evening. Tell her to tell Mr. Plant. I can't think why he's not here yet."

Wiggins looked surprised. "Where are we going, then?"

"London."





NINE


I

MELROSE Plant would have been at the Bold Blue Boy, had he not been delayed by Sylvia Bodenheim's gloved hand pointing her garden shears at his lapel. "This is not public property, young man. You are trespassing."

As he was forty-two, Melrose appreciated that "young man." For the rest, he said, "I don't know about that. But it is a public footpath." With his silver-headed stick, Melrose pointed back along the narrow path. "There's a sign yonder."

Impatiently, she shook her head. The large sun hat, a chartreuse straw unflattering to her sallow skin, cast wavelets of green-yellow across her face, giving her an underwater look. "Whatever the sign says, I should certainly think anyone would understand that the footpath runs right across a bit of our property."

"Well, then, you oughtn't to have bought a house on a bit of land with public access, should you?" He smiled.

Sylvia Bodenheim fell back two paces as if he'd struck her. It was abundantly clear that his "house on a bit of land" was not a happy description. "Rookswood is not just a house."

Melrose Plant looked to his left toward the imposing if somewhat pretentious facade where stone birds of some sort topped two stunted pillars. "Oh? It's an institution of some sort, then?"

"Certainly not! It is Sir Miles Bodenheim's estate. The family seat. I am Lady Bodenheim. Who are you?"

"Melrose Plant." He bowed slightly. "I have just come through a place called Horndean and was wondering if this is the way to Littlebourne village? I parked my car back there-" He nodded to some point behind him. "And decided to find someone to ask directions of."

After squinting in the direction he pointed to see if the car were also parked on Rookswood property, she turned back to her work, shears snipping. "Just go along and you'll come out on Littlebourne Green, by the Celtic cross. And when you return, please do go round our property. Not through."

He certainly wouldn't. He had already determined to use the public footpath as much as possible. "Perhaps you could direct me to a pub called the Bold Blue Boy?"

She tilted her head in the direction in which he was going, but didn't look at him as she said, "That way."

Melrose picked a bit of rose petal from his jacket. "I hear you've had rather an awful crime hereabouts. Imagine it plays hell with estate values, doesn't it?"

She glared at him. "It's nothing to do with Littlebourne. Just some stranger-" Looking a bit flushed, she backed off.

Whether she was about to cut and run, he didn't know. Her exit was interrupted by the approach, across the wide, green lawn, of a glistening chestnut horse on which a young woman was mounted. At first, Melrose judged her to be extremely attractive-and indeed she was-if such assessments can be made on the basis of cheekbones, tilted eyes, and a well-shaped mouth.

But Melrose found her about as unappealing as any woman he had seen in forty years. All of the elegance of bone structure was dashed to bits by the petulant, hard-eyed expression. He could see, beneath the young skin, the hatchet-face of the older woman, who must be this one's mother. The young lady's boots glittered as if varnished; her hacking jacket was a violent, unpleasant plaid that no Scot would lay claim to.

"Who's this, Mummy?"

"No one," said her mother, turning to attack the roses with her shears.

"That is not precisely accurate," said Melrose, who introduced himself, again bowing. "I have the pleasure of addressing-?"

She must have responded favorably to this mild imperiousness, it being a shade less than her own, for she smiled frostily. "Have you just got to the village-or what?"
 
 

 

The Bodenheims were nothing if not curious. "Correct. I am a stranger to town. But not, I hope, for long." He gave what he imagined to be a roguish smile, leering up at her.

Miss Bodenheim dismounted, bringing herself literally, if not figuratively, down to his level. "What are you here for then?" Her fingers played with the reins of her horse. The horse cast a lugubrious eye on the party and Melrose decided it was probably the only one there with any sense.

"To view some property." He had decided on this as a reason that would allow him to poke about without anyone's knowing he was a friend of Superintendent Jury.

The elder Bodenheim woman was snipping her way back round to them and offered her judgment on the matter. "It's that rickety little cottage next the Bold Blue Boy, I suppose. You'll be disappointed, mark my words. I should think twice about buying it; it's been on the market for nearly a year, even though simply everyone's coming to Littlebourne and snapping up cottages. Roof leaks, there's dry rot, and the garden's a disgrace. The family who last lived there-" She shuddered. "You'll see how awful it is. You'll need to get the roof rethatched, though, frankly, I would suggest tiles. Thatch simply attracts the birds and sends up one's premiums. Look at the Craigie sisters' thatch if you don't believe me. I do not suggest thatch. But if you must rethatch, the only person to do it is Hemmings. I will give you his number. Personally, I believe him to be much too dear, but at least he does an honest day's work. You can't say the same for Lewisjohn. You're not thinking of Lewisjohn, are you? Put it right out of your mind; he's a thief. No, Hemmings is the only reliable person in the area. But you should do tiles. You'll regret the thatch." She sniffed and snipped her way down the hedgerow, leaving the roofing of Melrose's cottage to her daughter.