"Horndean. It was the Horndean wood where she was found. Well, we call it that. It's mostly in Littlebourne. I'm not sure which of us gets her."
A sardonic way of looking at murder, Melrose thought.
"I'm surprised Emily Louise didn't tell you all about it."
"Emily Louise?"
"Little girl who dropped you by here. Emily Perk." Mainwaring seemed to be eyeing him rather more warily. Melrose hoped the man wasn't going to turn out to be awfully clever. After half an hour with Emily Perk, he did not feel up to cleverness.
"Oh, she did babble on about something. But I don't pay much attention to a child's prattle. Imagine she's a trial to her mum-ah, mother."
"All eyes and ears. Seems to pop up everywhere." A shadow passed over Mainwaring's face, as if Emily had popped up at the wrong time, in the wrong place.
Melrose was about to enlarge upon the subject of murder, when the door was quite literally flung open and two women entered. One was thin and mouse-colored; the other was large, square, gray-haired, and, obviously, spokeswoman.
"Ah! There you are, Freddie . . . oh, you're busy." Here followed a vague apology, unfelt. "I just wanted to give you this and make sure you were coming out Monday week." From the bunch in her arms, the woman extracted a paper and put it on Mainwaring's desk. Was she political? wondered Melrose. "And Betsy, too, if she's back. Now don't say you're not able to as I've paired you up with Miles and I want two on each route. That way we should canvass the whole wood." Not political, but some sort of canvasser. Melrose looked at the paper, some kind of diagram of colored lines. "We're to meet at Spoke Rock and then break up into groups. Wear your Wellingtons or, better yet, your waders, because you know how swampy the wood is this time of year and that rain we had might have raised the stream a bit. The Crackle is very cagey and elusive so I've fixed it up so's we cover the whole if we stick to our proper groups and go the correct route." There was a distinct warning in her tone, as if groups and routes had got mucked up before through carelessness. "You and Miles are to follow the Yellow Route. It goes from Spoke Rock up over Windy Hill and round the marsh. See, there." She planted a stubby finger on the paper. "We meet at five, and I want everybody there, spot on." Melrose was very much afraid she meant A.M., as no one would be chasing Crackles during the cocktail hour. The woman was tiresomely hearty, voice booming from inexhaustible lungs. The same charge could not be made of her companion who, sunk in timorousness, plied the end of her belt as if she might suddenly hang herself with it. The thin woman's gaze shifted here and there round the room, landed on Melrose, then darted off, guilt-surprised.
"What makes you think the police won't have the whole wood cordoned off, Ernestine?" asked Mainwaring.
"Oh, pooh. They'll all be out in a few days. They can't hang about forever."
"They can do what they damned well please," said Mainwaring, not sounding too happy about it.
"Don't be tiresome, Freddie. The Speckled Crackle won't wait round forever, murder or no murder. Spot on five, then. Should be a bang-up morning. If we all keep to our routes." She waved the papers in Melrose's face. "It's not often one has the opportunity of taking on a Great Speckled Crackle." It sounded as if she and the bird were matched in the welterweight championship of the world.
"It certainly isn't," said Melrose, removing his spectacles and polishing them with his pocket handkerchief. "I've seen it only once myself."
Stunned silence. Then she said, "But you couldn't have done. It's been sighted only three times in the last ten years. In the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and Torquay. Where do you think you saw it? Are you sure it was the Crackle?"
Melrose could not have been profligate with news of the bird had he wanted to. "Salcombe."
"Salcombe! That's impossible!" Torquay was one thing. Salcombe was sheer caprice.
"Well, they're not far apart, you must admit."
Mainwaring interceded with introductions. Mr. Plant was made known to the Misses Craigie, Ernestine and Augusta.
Sisters, were they? Odd. But he supposed there was some small resemblance, some shadow-stamp the parents had left on the face of each. He inclined his head politely as he rose to take the hand Ernestine had shot out, like a spanner. It pumped Melrose's own.
"Are you staying here? Visiting? You must join us. You could go the Green Route." She consulted her paper. "Here we are. You'd be with Sylvia and Augusta. Lucky for you, they're seasoned birdwatchers."
Sylvia Bodenheim at five A.M. Serve him right.
"Ernestine, Mr. Plant has simply come to Littlebourne to inspect some property. He'll probably be gone before we meet."
"It's kind of you to invite me. What sort of binoculars do you use?" They were swinging on a strap across her bosom. He thought he recognized them as particularly good ones. There had been a dark patch in his life when he'd entertained himself for a season at Newmarket races. He'd gone the whole binocular spectrum.
"These? Oh, they're Zeiss. Instant focus." Handing Melrose a copy of her map, she said, "Have one in case you're here. We'd soon put you in the picture. Good-bye Freddie!" They departed in a swirl of papers.
"Birdwatching seems quite a serious affair around here if it can supplant murder as a point of interest."
Mainwaring smiled. "Ernestine's got enough enthusiasm for all of us. I doubt there's a quarter-inch of wood she doesn't know. It's no wonder she found the body. She's always out there."
"Did she?" Melrose turned to look at the door through which she had just left. "It didn't take her long to get over the shock."
Through the window, he saw a dark-haired woman pass by, wave in at Mainwaring, pause as if deciding whether to enter, and then turn away. She appeared to be studying the tree outside the door.
"I must be going," said Melrose.
"You'll be in touch?"
"Oh, certainly. Stonington sounds just the ticket."
But as he walked out the door, he was not thinking of Stonington. He was thinking of the Craigie woman. Given her wood-haunting predilections, he wondered that it didn't make her nervous to be walking about with those binoculars for all the world to see.
IV
The dark-haired woman was still inspecting the fruit tree.
"I dislike pollarded trees, don't you?" asked Melrose.
"Umm? Oh-" Her surprise that such a person as he existed was clearly feigned. "Yes. I was thinking it's got some sort of disease."
"Looks healthy enough to me. Do you live here?" Hard to believe a stranger would put herself out to examine the village tree-bark.
"Yes, over there." She pointed across the Green. Then she opened up a notebook and seemed to be making notes about the tree. Littlebourne was full of naturalists.
"Are you Blue, Red, Green, or Yellow?" he asked, thinking this rather a clever introduction to a conversation.
He was totally unprepared for her deep blush and indrawn breath. Then she composed herself and said, "You mean Augusta's telling perfect strangers? She is round the twist."
Melrose felt confused. "Augusta? No, the other Miss Craigie."
"Ernestine? She didn't get one."
"One what?"
"Letters! Isn't that what you're talking about?"
Then Melrose remembered. The Perk child had said anonymous letters had been written in colors. "Good heavens, no. I was talking about the birdwatchers' map." Melrose shoved it toward her face like a proof of identity.
"Oh. Oh!" As she almost smiled before she blushed again, he took the opportunity to invite her to tea. He hoped the Bodenheims were not dismantling his Rolls.
Once settled in the Magic Muffin at a wobbly table with a view of the High, they introduced themselves. Then Polly Praed said, "Why were you talking to Freddie Mainwaring? Are you thinking of property or something?"
"I'm, ah, interested in Stonington."
"Not really! That's the Kennington place. He died, you know."
Death had apparently not cut a very wide swathe in Littlebourne, given everyone's surprise that one of their number had succumbed to it. Melrose watched a tall, thin woman approach their table. Polly Praed asked for tea and what sorts of muffins she had today.
"Aubergine."
"Aubergine?" Polly looked doubtful. "I've never heard of aubergine muffins." As the woman walked away, Polly lifted her eyeglasses to the top of her head, and said to Melrose, "Do you suppose they're some awful shade of yellow?"
"Probably." He noticed, though, that her eyes certainly were not. They were cornflower blue or violet, depending upon the light when she turned her head.
"Are you trying to tell me Ernestine Craigie and that potty bunch of bird enthusiasts are going out in the Horndean wood after what happened-I'm sure you've heard about our murder."
"Miss Craigie is determined to view the Speckled Crackle. I believe she would step over whole rows of dead bodies to do so."
Muffins and tea were set before them. They seemed quite ordinary muffins, brown and wholesome-looking.
Polly said, buttering a muffin half, "We've even got Scotland Yard here about it." She became silent, pensive, her hand upraised with the muffin unbitten, crumbs cascading down her jumper sleeve. Melrose thought she'd gone into some sort of fugue. Finally, she came back to life and ate the muffin.