"What's the matter with the cat?"
"I don't know. I think it was hit by a car, but I don't know. I saw it running up the drive an hour ago and didn't think anything was wrong." She looked out of her window, rather than at Jury, as she said this.
He turned to peer at the cat, which looked back, glassy-eyed, and made a sort of weak sound, as if it and Jury shared some secret knowledge of what happens to cats in this condition. The speculations of the woman beside him were probably just as sad.
"It's another mile or so," she said, her attention still riveted on the misty-morning fields and hedges that flew by. He could not see the face now, only that square of Liberty lawn, but what he had seen he thought to be a fine face. Pale, green-eyed, intelligent. The last word he would have used to describe her was Sylvia Bodenheim's word-"drab."
"This cat feels cold." Her hand had slid inside the blanket. "I bet it's dying." She sounded utterly forlorn.
"That's only because of shock. The temperature drops a little." Jury had no idea how cats reacted to shock, only people. He looked at the cat's eyes, now closed. "It's just sleeping." Actually, it looked dead.
She did not reply. Even the air that moved between them seemed abject. He felt he was letting her down, her and her cat. It was irrational. She was just one of those people who could make you feel guilty without even trying to.
"Is that your favorite cat?" What a stupid question. He cursed himself as he negotiated a sharp curve that seemed to have flown toward the car from nowhere.
"No. It's just an old cat that wandered onto the grounds one day."
Jury looked again out of the corner of his eye, furtively, almost as if the look might kill the cat. The head hung limp as a shot gamebird. He resisted the strong impulse to poke the cat to see if it was alive.
In her voice was a note of defiance as she added, "I don't even like this cat."
"Of course."
Quickly she looked at him and just as quickly looked back through her window. "Oh, just shut up and drive."
He had offered to go in with her. He felt she needed, if nothing else, the moral support; but she had asked him only if he would mind waiting. She had still not bothered to introduce herself or ask him who he was.
Finally, he had got out of the car and walked aimlessly about in the damp of the barnyard. The veterinarian's surgery was in a tiny cream-washed building on what appeared to be part of a large farm. Jury leaned against the fence and looked at the distant line of ash and oak, which marked this side of the Horndean wood, disliking the idea of asking her all of those questions.
It wasn't more than fifteen or twenty minutes before she emerged, looking even sadder, but it seemed an age. "It's got a broken jaw, a compound fracture, and its pelvis is dislocated, or something. Can you ever understand them? It's going to be awfully expensive. A hundred or more pounds it could run to, he said, and then he kept saying it was my decision." Standing beside him at the fence, she gazed off into the distance at the sheep and the cows this side of the line of trees. She frowned, as if they might be called on to explain this matter to her, as if the entire animal world had let her down.
"Well, you could have it-put down. Wasn't that what the vet was implying?"
"He made me think he wanted to save the cat."
"But it's your cat. What's its name?"
"Tom or something. And it's not ‘mine' in that sense." She still did not look at him; it was as though she were disappointed or angry with him, as she might have been at a relative who'd gone off and left her and only just turned up on her doorstep with no excuse and no explanation for his erratic behavior. "It's not mine in the sense I should decide it can die. Especially since I don't like it. That makes it worse. You see-" And now she did turn to look him squarely in the eye, as if it were important he should understand this theoretical point. "You see, you can't go killing things off just because you don't like them." Her tone was instructive, as if Jury were the type who might go carelessly disposing of whatever he didn't like.
They were back in the car now, splashing through standing pools collected in the ruts of the dirt road. He turned to look at her again, and again saw only the scarf with the light hair curling beneath its edges as she faced determinedly away from him. She seemed only to want to commune with the hedgerows and fields, and her voice was as misty as the fields as she said, "I don't even like that cat."
Jury made no comment.
II
Stonington's square, gray facade reminded Jury of a prison. Its stark front was broken only by monotonous oblongs of leaded glass, which managed to give the impression of windows narrowly barred. It struck him as rigorously medieval. The wide steps were flanked by an urn on either side, empty. An untidy row of trees lined the drive. From what he could see, there were no ornamental gardens, no sculptured lawns, nothing to break the monotony. And no sign of life, animal or otherwise. Directly across the road was the Horndean wood, dark, thick, and impenetrable.
They had, on the ride back, introduced themselves. She did not seem unduly concerned about his position; once inside the house she hung his coat on a brass coatrack with some care, shaking beads of water from it. The light drizzle had stopped, finally. It was very cold in the enormous entry-room of the house, which struck Jury as almost cloisterlike, with its stuccoed walls and small embrasures for statuary.
"I should have lit a fire," she said, looking at the cold hearth. "But it's not so bad once you're out of the hall." Her tone was apologetic, as if the cold of the day were her personal responsibility, something from which she should protect visitors. She led Jury into a much smaller room, but only a few degrees warmer, where the fireplace looked as unused as in the entry room. This room was all cold leather and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. There wasn't a piece of furniture here that looked comfortable. Weak sunlight spread through the panes, sickly, like a promise of winter. Beyond the window was a sort of cloistered courtyard or piazza, surrounded by the outer walls of the house. It surprised Jury, somehow: the look of the prison gave way to the look of the abbey, even to the colonnaded walks on either side of the courtyard. He almost expected to see abbés or nuns prayerfully walking there. The center of this court was dominated by a large, dry pool and a statue of a cloaked woman, head bent. It was not a very good piece of statuary, but in its surroundings, it was affecting.
"Do you mind if we talk somewhere else?" asked Lady Kennington. "I've always hated this room."
The "somewhere else" was an even smaller room with a French window at one end through which he caught another glimpse of the statue from a different angle. Here, a fire had been lit. The room was bare except for some packing cases in one corner and a chintz-covered chair draped with a shawl. Beside the chair, sitting on the floor, was a teacup.
"I was sitting in here when I saw the cat." She gestured toward the window on the other side.
Jury was looking at the blank places on the walls where pictures had clearly hung.
"I just had Sotheby's in to take the furniture. Except for the chair, which they didn't want. You've come about that woman they found in the wood, haven't you?" Jury nodded, and she looked at him mutely before she turned away as if trying to divine the answer to a difficult puzzle set for her. She dragged the square of paisley from her head and ran her hand, like a comb, through her hair. "I think she was coming here to see me."
"Didn't you wonder when she didn't turn up?"
"Yes, of course. But I supposed that you just can't depend on people . . . well, you know. I rang up the agency Friday, finally. The woman in charge there was surprised, but, again . . . she just put it down to irresponsibility on the girl's part. Apologized profusely and offered to send someone else. I told her not to bother, what I wanted done wasn't all that pressing. I'd call her later. . . . " Her voice trailed off as she shook her head in wonder.
"When did you hear about the murder?"
"Not until early this morning, really. I was out last night. I went to the pictures in Hertfield and when I finally got back I found a message from Annie-she's my cook-to call Hertfield police straightaway. I guess I was expecting some sort of police car; I guess you think it's pretty odd getting into that state about a cat, after there's been a murder." She'd moved over to the French window and what little sunlight there was bathed her loose, gray sweater so that it glinted like metal. "I really didn't connect you with the police. Sorry."
"No need to apologize. And, no, I don't think it was odd-about the cat, I mean." Jury felt it had all happened, that ride to the veterinarian's, a year ago, rather than only fifteen minutes. "Mr. Mainwaring says he arranged for this girl to come here."
"Yes. Freddie was doing me a favor. He said he'd used the agency and they seemed good. Listen, won't you sit down?" Vaguely, she indicated the single chair.
"That's okay. Sit down yourself." She shook her head and shoved up her sweater sleeve. "Wouldn't it have been easier just to get someone local to do the secretarial work?"
"Yes, certainly. I couldn't find anyone. And Freddie said this place was quite reasonable."