"You take Maud, Wiggins; I'll take the table."
As he walked up to it, Jury caught a snatch of conversation.
" . . . played strip poker wi' 'er. Lost by a 'and." Burst of laughter from the others, all except the portly gentleman in pince-nez who seemed to be intent upon the play. He threw an odd, many-sided, crystal blue die.
From a sallow-faced young man in jeans there came a groan.
"Look at Keith, 'e's getting excited."
Keith looked about as excited as he would in the grave. The one Jury decided must be Ash Cripps had a wide, dented face, as if a car had backed into it. He rolled his cigar in his mouth and looked down at a piece of graph paper. They all had sheets of paper. The table was awash in paper. The fat man had a much larger sheet, creased with many foldings. The game appeared to be something of a spectator sport, if one were to judge from the way people wandered over, pint in hand, watched the proceedings for a moment, and then wandered off.
One of them said, "We're walking along the passageway, checking for a secret entrance in the north wall." This came from the young, bearded man identified as Cyril Macenery.
"You find a door," said the fat man.
"We listen outside the door," said Macenery.
The fat man threw the die again. "You hear a lot of snorting and stamping."
"Gorgon tries to pick the lock," said Ash Cripps with a fatuous smile.
"No good," said the fat one, rolling the die again.
"We bash it in," said Macenery.
"No. The door flies open and two huge stallions appear."
The others were silent, looking at Macenery, on whom they seemed to be depending to get them out of a spot. He said, "Manticore uses silver shield to gather in sun's rays and shield is turned into fire-breather against stallions-"
"Police," said Jury, tossing his card onto the papers like a player anteing up.
Their response was automatic: they all looked at Ash Cripps, who shrugged, tossed down his pencil, and started to take his coat from the back of his chair.
"Not you, Mr. Cripps." He nodded toward Macenery. "You."
Astonishment, stamped on all of their faces, was like a new day on the face of Cripps. "Not me?" He looked at Cyril. "What you been gettin' up to, then, Cy?"
"I'd like a word with you later, Mr. Cripps. In the meantime, you can go." That took the bloom off the day for Ash. "I've just been talking to your wife," said Jury.
"Elephant? Got a big mouth, she 'as. Bugger all." He drank off his pint and left.
II
"It's about Katie, isn't it?" asked Cyril Macenery when he and Jury were seated at a table out of earshot.
"Partly."
"I told that other cop everything I knew. How many times do I have to answer the same questions?"
"As many times as we ask, I guess. The other man was from ‘H' Division, Mr. Macenery. I'm with Scotland Yard. Something else has happened."
"What else?" He seemed extremely wary, and looked now very young and very nervous. Probably, he was older than he looked, but the jeans and turtleneck and extreme blue of his eyes would have put him in his late twenties if one hadn't noticed the small lines of age. His hair and beard were fawn-colored and neatly trimmed.
"You were Katie O'Brien's music teacher for how long?"
"Around eight, nine months. Twice a month. What's Scotland Yard on this for?"
Jury didn't answer. "I've heard you're a fine musician. Good enough, apparently, that her mother, who's pretty protective, let Katie come into London just to go to you. Was-is-she that good?"
"Yes. I wouldn't have bothered otherwise. I need the money but I'm not about to take on every sodding mum's kid to get it. After about ten, fifteen years' practice she'll be able to play all right." He smiled bleakly.
"I guess she can't practice much where she is now," said Jury, trying to break through what he felt to be the man's way of dealing with the violence done to Katie O'Brien. He could feel Macenery's unhappiness as he made little circles with his glass on the scarred table. "There was the matter of her clothes."
Macenery banged the glass down. "Look. All I know is, Katie showed up in jeans. Then this Inspector Hound says they found a dress in her shopping bag. Naturally, the implication being she did her quick change in my place. Well, she didn't. If Katie was wearing a dress when she left home, I don't know anything about it. Are you saying she'd come into Wembley Knotts and get herself all tarted up and then go out bashing-"
"I'd hardly call jeans and a bit of lipstick getting ‘all tarted up.' I'm thinking she just took advantage of being away from home to wear the clothes she wanted to wear. You didn't know she was raising the money by playing her violin in tube stations?"
A hesitation. "No." Jury looked at him. It was a defensive no. "Look, I really didn't. I'd never have let her do it. The thing is, I wonder if I gave her the idea. I used to do it myself. Raised a quid or two that way. A long time ago."
"You walked her from your place on Drumm Street to the Underground, right?" Macenery nodded. "Is there a ladies near by? Somewhere she could have changed?"
"There's a public toilet in the little park across from the stop."
"She must have been changing, for one thing, to make some impression on you, Mr. Macenery. Thought maybe it made her look more grown-up?" The young man said nothing. "Is she in love with you?"
His eyes flared up at that. "In love? She's only sixteen, Superintendent."
Jury smiled. "I never knew that to stop anyone." Jury studied him for a moment before asking, "Do you know Cora Binns?"
That threw him off balance. "Cora Binns? Blonde who comes in here? Yeah, I know her, but only about as well as I know you. Not my type." Implying Jury wasn't, either.
"She's been murdered. You wouldn't have any ideas about that, would you?"
Macenery seemed totally nonplussed. "My God! Where? When?"
"In Littlebourne. Where Katie comes from. Apparently, you know them both."
"Lucky me."
"Did they know one another?"
"How the hell should I know?" The old anger returned.
"Well, did Katie come in here?"
He was going to deny it, Jury knew, and then thought better of the lie. "Okay, once or twice she did."
"Bit young for that, isn't she?"
A huge sigh from the violinist. "For Christ's sakes, we weren't standing her drinks. She just liked to watch the game."
"Did she play?"
"No. Look, she was only in for a bit, honestly."
"Did she talk to anyone else in here, other than you?"
"No. And I can't see how she'd have known Cora Binns; I can't remember her being in here at the same time."
Jury looked over to the table, from which the other players had apparently drifted off, their play rudely interrupted. Only the fat man, Chamberlen, sat there. "It's a strange game."
"Wizards? Passes the time. We've got a kind of club here. Play several times a week. You can really get involved." Macenery looked at his watch. "Look, I've a lesson on in five minutes. Are you finished with me?"
"Where were you on Thursday night?"
"Here." He'd scraped back his chair, but now looked doubtful. "Why?"
Jury nodded. "You can go. I'll want to talk with you later." As Macenery got up, Jury said, "Incidentally, have you been to see Katie?"
The violinist seemed to want to look everywhere but at Jury. "No. She's in a coma, I know that. What good would it do?" On his face was a look of abject misery. "I mean, she wouldn't hear me if I talked to her. What could I say?"
"You'd think of something." He watched Cyril Macenery walk towards the door, as he watched Wiggins coming in his direction, away from Maud and her two companions. Jury thought that if he didn't know what Katie O'Brien's feelings were, he was pretty certain about Macenery's.
III
Dr. Chamberlen sat like a stout idol, hands folded over vest, pince-nez dangling on a thin, black ribbon. "I call myself that," he said in answer to Jury's question, "out of habit. Merely for fun, you understand." To Wiggins, who had taken out his notebook, Chamberlen said, "I'm a blank page, Sergeant. My real name would be of no earthly interest to you."
"Try us," said Jury, smiling.
Chamberlen sighed. "Oh, very well. Aaron Chambers, number forty-nine, Catchcoach Street. A name very close to ‘Chamberlen,' certainly. Have you heard of the famous Dr. Chamberlen? Few have, beyond the portals of the Anodyne Necklace. Dr. Chamberlen swore that a simple necklace of bone-the one represented on the sign above the door out there-that such a necklace as he'd made would cure anything from a child's teething pains to gout to-" He shrugged. "Heaven knows how many he sold, each one in its little airtight packet. Airtight, so that the aura of energy couldn't escape. They were dispensed by an old woman over the confectioner's next door. The shop is still there; the woman long since died. They said it was a hoax. Do you think so, Superintendent?" The question was rhetorical. Chamberlen gestured with his hand, the ash from his cigar sifting over the wash of papers. "You've probably not heard of our game, either. Wizards and Warlords. There's a treasure, you see. We've been looking for it for months, this particular treasure. On paper only, of course. I have made the treasure the necklace itself-the anodyne necklace. Since I'm Wizard-Master, I have that authority. Thus I have decided the necklace can cast spells so remarkable, gentlemen, that it could make both of you disappear right before my eyes." His small mouth pursed in amusement as he snapped his fingers.