The Anodyne Necklace(25)

Jury smiled. "Sorry I'm so late. And I'm sorrier yet about the weekend in Northants. My DCS heard I was planning a short holiday and immediately erased all the other names from the frame."

"How is Chief Superintendent Racer? Awful, I hope."

"He may not be around much longer. There is growing dissatisfaction on the part of the higher-ups."

"Can't imagine why. Where is Molly with our wine?" Melrose craned his neck around at the approach of a heavyset girl with a thick braid and a tray.

Molly had returned with a bottle of wine, which she set, unceremoniously, on the table. "Let's not look at the label," said Melrose, pouring wine into their glasses. "Shall we return to the cut-off fingers? Agatha will be crushed not to have been here. I didn't tell her I was coming, of course. When she finds out, she'll cry all over her fairy cakes. Puts me in mind of the walrus weeping over the oysters just before he devoured them. Now to your question: ‘Why would I cut off one hand?' First of all, which hand was it?"

"The left."

"I was thinking, at first, of rigor mortis. That perhaps she was holding something and he couldn't prize the fingers loose. But, then, I gave that up because it would take rigor a while to set in, wouldn't it? And I imagine the murderer would simply have taken it from her. So that doesn't work-"

"On the contrary. There's a thing called cadaveric spasm. Instant rigor. It's not usual, but it has happened at the moment of death, if the death is violent and there's intense emotion. I remember hearing of cases in the war: men still with their rifles aimed. There was one they called the ‘tea party'-soldiers in a trench, all caught when the shell exploded, all frozen in the last act of their lives. One had a canteen raised to his lips. There'd be no way of knowing after the real rigor progressed."

"You mean you think she was holding something? Something incriminating?"

Jury shook his head. "No, I think she was wearing something incriminating. Something, at least, the murderer didn't want found."

Melrose's next question was interrupted by the approach of Molly bearing down on them, her work-hardened hands apparently impervious to the sizzling platters she carried.

"Steaks up." She deposited the plates and tossed her long braid over her shoulder. "Kitchen's closing, so whatcher want fer afters?"

Melrose snapped his napkin into his lap. "Soufflé Grand Marnier, please."

Molly's expression remained placid as she said, "We only got bread-and-butter pud."

"I'll pass, thank you."

Jury also declined the sweet.

"Suit yerself," she said with a shrug that suggested only the most dim-witted would turn down the pud.

When Molly had shuffled off, Jury said. "Let's back up a moment: for starters-as Molly would say-we've got these anonymous letters. For afters, the murder of Cora Binns. It's the main course I'm especially interested in: Katie O'Brien, together with a chap named Trevor Tree. I don't suppose you remember that story. It didn't make headlines, but it was an interesting little fiddle he worked on one Lord Kennington. As you've been here a whole half a day, you've probably heard of his estate, Stonington-"

"Indeed I have," said Melrose. "I'm buying it, it would seem." Melrose smiled brilliantly. "Well, I had to have some reason for hanging about Littlebourne."

"That's resourceful of you. Anyway, this Tree made off with a quarter-million in jewels. A necklace was the chief booty. But over the months he worked for Kennington, it seemed the lord of the manor was missing the odd piece here and there. Nothing of extreme value, some antique stuff. And apparently Tree was such an amiable, trustworthy chap, Kennington never suspected him. Indeed Kennington apparently thought he might have misplaced the stuff himself. I think perhaps Tree was at it to see how much his employer did trust him."

Melrose shook his head. "It's all I can do to hold on to my own valuables. My mother's jewelry keeps turning up on Aunt Agatha. She was wearing a moonstone on her finger this morning. God knows how she does it."

"That's what made me finally twig it."

"Agatha's finger?"

"No. Cora Binns's. Ernestine Craigie found the body and, in her words, the dead woman was ‘bedizened, beringed and bejeweled.' Cora Binns was wearing a necklace, bracelets, ornate earrings. But no rings. Not on the right hand, at least. The ring, or possibly rings that I think she might have been wearing also might have been part of Kennington's collection. Not the good stuff, but some of the antique jewelry not easily identifiable."

"But why go to all the trouble of murdering the woman if the police wouldn't attach any importance to it?"

"The police wouldn't. But Lady Kennington might have. Cora Binns was on her way to an interview. Whoever met up with her somewhere along the way recognized that ring. And certainly might have wondered how much Cora Binns knew."

"What was the woman doing in the woods, though?"

"She was given five quid by her boss at the secretarial agency to take a cab from Hertfield station to Stonington. But she pocketed the money and took a bus. She got off in Littlebourne, apparently thinking Stonington was in walking distance. It's two miles away, though. But if you cut through the woods, it minimizes the distance considerably."
 
 

 

"How would the Binns woman know that?"

"Whoever she asked directions of must have told her."

Melrose, wrestling with the tough steak, finally put by his knife and fork. "And that's the someone who followed her, having, I take it, seen this ring and knowing . . . But wouldn't that mean this person might have been in on the whole theft of the Kennington stuff from the outset?"

Jury nodded. "That necklace has never surfaced. Tree got rid of it somehow and my guess is he let someone know-an accomplice, perhaps-something about where he'd stashed it. That's what I can't figure out. It's been a year since Tree got run down by a car."

"But what's all this to do with the O'Brien girl?"

"Katie was attacked in the Wembley Knotts tube station. Trevor Tree was from that section of the East End and so was Cora Binns. They both frequented a pub called the Anodyne Necklace. Katie went in there a few times with her violin teacher. All of those people coming together under the same roof, even if at different times, could hardly be coincidence. Someone is looking for that emerald; someone wants it very badly-not surprising, considering its value."

Melrose pushed his plate away. "I hope to God you sort all this out before I'm forced to put on my waders and go looking for the beastly Speckled Crackle."

"You've met Miss Craigie, obviously."

"Yes. I really feel on intimate terms with this bird. I'm sure I could pick it out of a police line-up. Frankly, though, were I Ernestine, I don't think I'd feel very comfortable walking round the village with those high-powered binoculars of hers swinging from my neck. A garroting might be in order. And I'll tell you something else. If you think the O'Brien girl might have been attacked because she knew something, there's a little girl who was a good friend of hers who I think is keeping something back from police. . . . "

II

The little girl in question was coming through the doll-like doorway of the private bar, all oblivious of Jury and Plant, directly in her line of vision. Quickly she disappeared behind the bar. Thence ensued a great commotion of glasses rattling and papers rustling. In a moment she reappeared, a box of crayons and a coloring book firmly in hand. These items she pretended to be inspecting closely.

"Isn't it a bit late for you to be up canvassing the public houses? It's nearly ten. Oughtn't you to be home with your mother?"

Turning upon Melrose with an air of abstracted concentration, Emily Louise said, "Oh. It's you." She went back to counting her crayons.

"Surprise, surprise. I said, oughtn't you to be home? Your mum must be very worried."

She was mouthing the names of the colors silently: blue, yellow, purple. "Mum's at the pictures in Hertfield."

"That's no reason for you to be doing watchman's duty. But since you're here, why don't you sit down for a bit? Superintendent Jury would like a word with you."

The frown extended from the box of crayons upwards and came to rest on Jury's face. "Who?" She squinted myopically, as if trying to make out something on a far horizon.

"This gentleman seated directly across from me."

All unconscious of the formidable gentleman to whom she was being introduced, Emily Louise grudgingly climbed up on a chair beside him, opened her coloring book, and selected a crayon.

Melrose could not help inspecting the picture. It was another awful scene, this one a barnyard. She was aiming an orange crayon at a duck. He tried to control his annoyance.

"Pleased to meet you," said Jury, holding out his hand. Her small hand lay in his like a cold petal. "I understand you're a friend of Katie O'Brien."

She was going at the mother duck with a vengeance and merely nodded.

"Katie was a pretty good rider, I hear."

"Kind of." Having filled in the duck with orange, she began to color the webbed feet blue. Plant stared at it.

"Nice to have friends," said Jury. "Too bad when something happens to them."

Emily nodded and started coloring the line of ducklings blue, to match the mother's feet.