. . . who was at that moment glowering at the little line of hopeful kiddies who had lined up to be first for the ride. She would take, she said, only three at a time (though there was easily room for six), for the horse oughtn't to pull any more weight than was necessary. All down the line there were groans and blighted little faces. By now there were at least a dozen children lined up and Emily was collecting tickets as if they were tickets to a funeral. The three, allowed through the barrier were quickly admonished for bouncing the carriage as they scrambled up to their seats.
Melrose watched Emily mount up into the driver's seat, look glumly around at the children inside the carriage, and then click her tongue to move the horse out and away.
He bet it would be a short ride.
Melrose leaned against the nearest tree, looking out over the wood where sun slanted through coppery branches. He drew from his pocket the copy of Ernestine Craigie's map. It was crude, concentrating only on vantage points from which the Crackle might be expected to launch its next attack on the Royal Birdwatchers' Society. Here was Coomb Bog, here a specially large rock with an indecipherable name, here a stand of ash and clump of laurel. And, of course, the stream. That cavern Ernestine had marked up toward the top of her map. Possibly the Cave of the Black Bear? He wondered about the bear tracks. Why was the bear going across the moat, the stash of gold, and the grotto? Hell of a gauntlet for a bear to run.
Katie's map ran against reason. The moat seemed to be protecting nothing. No castle, no fortress, only a meeting of river and grotto and bear's track. And the Church of St. Pancras-Melrose turned to look at it, perched on its small hill-overlooking all.
As he stood there thinking about Cora Binns, he saw in the distance a flash of a dark suit disappearing into a clump of trees. One of Carstairs's men. They were going about the business now of searching the wood not only for clues to the murder, but clues provided (or not provided, he was more inclined to think) by the map. If a murder had been done in the Horndean wood and there was a cache of priceless emeralds in that wood, it would not be at all surprising to think the two of them were related. Cora Binns could have been murdered because she was after the same treasure as the murderer. But the circumstances of her coming to Littlebourne did not seem to support that theory. She had been summoned here-hadn't she?-by the prospect of a job. It was hardly likely that the woman had stumbled on this necklace in the bear's cave and got her fingers cut off for her trouble. . . .
There was another figure moving out there. Coming toward him was Peter Gere, wiping his face with a handkerchief. Melrose could see, as Gere got closer, that he was shaking his head as if to say No luck.
They shouldn't expect any, thought Melrose. . . . Why did Katie O'Brien's map seem familiar to him? God knows he hadn't been out in the Horndean wood in waders and field glasses.
As Peter got within hearing distance, no luck was indeed what he said. "Nothing. No luck at all. God, he" (meaning Jury) "doesn't really think we can turn up every inch of ground and look in every goddamned hole and cave, does he? Does he think that emerald necklace is hanging from a branch, or what?"
"He doesn't know. But if you were Superintendent Jury, wouldn't you have a go at it?"
Reluctantly, Peter agreed. "I'm just an old crock of a village bobby. The most I'm used to doing is hauling Augusta's cats out of trees and trying to find Miss Perky Perk for her mum. God." Peter spat a tiny stream of tobacco juice toward a clump of bracken. "Hell, I don't know. Maybe I'm just jealous Scotland Yard's mucking about in our patch. . . . "
They had to step aside, for the phaeton was returning, hell-for-leather. Emily drove through her homemade barricade to the general displeasure of the three within, whose small faces, one bright red with anger and tears, were popping out of the carriage door demanding more of the ride. Emily looked as if she might gladly grind Melrose and Peter into the dust beneath her wheels, her disgust with her charges being quite palpable.
"Twice," the red-faced one screamed. "You was to take us two times round the grounds and we only went round once." The other two sent up a similar roar of protest and nodded their heads in agreement.
Mums had strayed back from whatever they'd been doing, looking almost as unhappy as the children, but probably only because they'd got them back so soon. Now they'd have to collect the kiddies and be yanked about the churchgrounds in search of other treats.
Emily was out of the driver's seat now and jerking open the carriage door. They were still rabbiting on and refusing to move, so she got hold of the skirt of the fat girl and pulled her stumbling down the single step. "You were rocking the carriage," she said. Melrose waited there with Peter Gere for the rest of the Sermon on the Mount as she helped each roughly from the carriage. The worst of their sins appeared to have been spitballs aimed at the rump of the horse.
The mothers were now getting into it, in a mild way, but they backed off as they observed the Jovian frown of the driver. Nobody argued with Emily Louise Perk, it seemed. The three children were led away in a landslide of tears.
Three others replaced them. Very quietly they marched, single file, to the carriage door.
"Twice around if you behave," was the driver's instruction.
The three chastened faces looked at her and nodded angelically before climbing sedately into the carriage. Once more it pulled away.
"Right little monster, isn't she?" said Peter Gere, accepting a cigarette from Melrose's gold case.
"She'd give the Black Bear a good mauling, I'm sure. Did you know this Trevor Tree, Mr. Gere?"
"Not much, except, you might say, in a professional way. Seemed a right villain to me. Smooth as silk. Well, he'd have to be, wouldn't he, to get Lord Kennington to take him on. Kennington, the little I knew of him, was no fool. Poor sod." Gere sighed. "I made a proper cock-up of that one, didn't I?"
"It wasn't your fault."
"Letting Tree make off with that lot. And now all this-" He nodded in the direction of the wood.
"You seem to be taking an inordinate amount of blame on yourself." Melrose felt some sympathy for the policeman. He regarded Gere as neither especially bright nor especially dense, but the man had more conscience, apparently, than was good for him. Or perhaps it was a sense of protecting, as Gere had said, his "patch."
"I was there, man, straightaway when it happened. How could Tree have got rid of that necklace? It's been bothering me ever since." Gere ground the stub of his cigarette with his boot. "I saw him in Littlebourne a couple of times, at the Blue Boy, with Derek Bodenheim, playing that damn-fool game. I often wondered . . . well, no matter." Melrose assumed his wonder was about Derek's connection with all of this. "Trevor Tree was a type, you know. He put me in mind of those card sharks in old American films that sit facing the door so's they won't get pumped in the back."
They stood there for ten minutes, talking and staring into the wood. Melrose wondered if the Horndean wood was just the right metaphor for the whole puzzle. Too dense to see into or through. There were only transitory glimpses of Carstairs's men, and outlines cast by the sun dropping bright coins through the leaves onto a carpet of needles. The colors were thick and dim, figures melting into it. "I don't think you're going to find-"
Melrose's remark was interrupted once again by the arrival of the horse and carriage, more quietly this time. Obviously the three passengers had outdone themselves in hewing to the line set up by the driver. They made their way, wordlessly and uncomplaining, back to their mothers.
Emily Louise jumped down from her seat, checked the inside of the carriage and yelled to the waiting line that it was rest time for the horse and that the rides would commence again in twenty minutes. A general air of mourning hung over the assembled group as she released the horse from the carriage, tethered it to a tree, and said to Melrose, "Time for tea." She jingled some coins in her pocket. Emily had struck a bargain with Mr. Finsbury, allowing her to keep one-quarter of what she earned. She had turned in the ticket stubs, and he had produced the coins. The Bodenheims had been shocked beyond belief.
"Well, back to work," said Peter Gere, moving off through the wood. Coming the other way toward Melrose was Miles Bodenheim, like Moses parting the Red Sea. No wonder Peter's departure had been precipitate.
"Rude and loutish bunch this year," said Miles, without preamble, as he came up to Melrose. "I see that awful Winterbourne brood is here." He looked off over the crowd. "Well, old chap! What do you think? A bang-up job we've done this year, and so long as they stay away from Rookswood, I think it should be a tolerable success. Old Finsbury stands about with his hat in his hands-if we had to depend on him there wouldn't be a new window. Same thing every year. We do the job; God gets the credit. Julia's over in the tea tent, in case you're interested." He winked broadly.
Melrose wasn't, until he saw Polly Praed carrying what looked like a great load of napkin-draped plates into the tent. She was swallowed up by darkness on the other end. "Considering what's happened in the Horndean wood, Sir Miles, I'm rather surprised people mightn't find its proximity to the church a bit off-putting."