As they rose to leave, Wiggins swept some of the spilled salt into his hand and tossed it over his shoulder. "You never know, sir."
When they were halfway down the long, cool corridor, Jury knew why the cross nurse was steaming toward them, skirts crackling, clipboard anchored against her bosom. It was the music.
If Jury had a tin ear-and in this case, even he was stopped dead-Wiggins didn't. Music was one of his passions; he certainly had few enough of them. "My God, that's beautiful."
Apparently, some of the patients felt the same way. They stood in open doorways, sat in wheelchairs, leaned on canes. Cyril Macenery was playing the violin-Katie's favorite song, "Roses of Picardy." It had seemed to Jury, up to then, a quaint old song; now it was unearthly.
And the nurse was not so much cross as worried: "Really, I don't know whatever Matron will do." She shook her head; her white cap bobbed. "I just don't know. I suppose he picked up her violin and started playing. . . . "
She had the authority to stop Macenery, of course; only, she hadn't. She was probably as much beguiled by the wonderful sound of that music in this white, dead corridor as anyone else. Jury's estimate of what lay behind her starched exterior seemed to have been pretty accurate, after all. He clicked his pen and wrote on a notebook page, tore it off, and handed it to her. "I realize it's your patch and not mine. But if you have the M.P.D. behind you, maybe that would help. Tell Matron-if she comes along-the C.I.D. thought it would be a good idea. And nobody's complained." Jury looked down the corridor. One or two of the women seemed to be mouthing the words or dancing in their heads. The nurse took Jury's note. Apologetically, she said, "I'll have to stop him soon."
"I know. Sergeant Wiggins will take care of it."
"But not," said the nurse, looking up at Jury with one of the starriest looks he'd ever seen, "until the song's finished." She smiled.
Thus, when the call came through from Scotland Yard to the hospital, Jury had left for the East End.
And now, Ash Cripps, dressed in a faded bathrobe and rolling a cigar in his mouth-plucked from the box Jury had had the foresight to bring with him-was strolling about the parlor, one hand holding the map Jury had handed him, the other with a bottle of White Shield. He was being none too careful about the sediment in the bottom as he took a pull from it. He set the bottle on a mantel over a fake fireplace which would glow, in colder weather, with fake coals. Bits of paper and a tin ashtray full of old butts cascaded from the mantel. He shoved them with his foot into the tiny fireplace.
The Crippses' children were half in the kitchen eating mash and half outside having a war with sticks and the tops of dustbins.
Ash continued his map-study and his stroll. He wore his old robe like the robes of state, the cord dragging the cabbage-rose carpet. They were waiting for White Ellie to get back from the launderette with his trousers.
"Aye, it does look like something Trevor could of thought up." He scratched his head. "Only it don't make no sense."
"Do they usually? I thought the whole idea of Wizards was to confuse and mislead."
"Yeah, only . . . look." Ash was rummaging through the drawers of an old bureau, stopping now and then to yell through the door to the kitchen at the little bleeders to stop screaming. Finally, he slammed the door, dampening the noise only slightly.
He handed Jury a map. "This is one Trevor did a couple years ago. Make-believe village where there was supposed to be treasure stashed. Turned up in the blacksmith's shop." The village was intricately drawn, with all of the shops, the church, an inn, farms and barns in the outlying areas. Trees looked like cotton fluff. There were a pond and a lake. It was like an aerial view, very neat and tidy. "He could make up adventures that'd 'ave us going for months."
Certainly, the two maps bore a marked similarity; the art work seemed identical.
"I seen others he did, like one of the Necklace itself. That was a town adventure. Trevor 'ad it all down, just like the pub looks-table and chairs and so forth. Then there was the castle ruins one 'e did. That was good. Good on giant rats and ruins was Trevor." He poked Jury's diagram. "That's what I say, this one's odd. It don't look like anyplace real. I mean, even real unreal."
Jury let that pass for the moment. "How about women, Ash? Was Trevor good with them?"
There was a burst of laughter from Ash, and his robe fell open. Elaborately, he closed it and retied the cord. "Trevor'd give it t' anybody walked on two legs. Bits a stray, old drippers, for all I know. Elephant says 'e give 'er one, but she was only braggin' is my guess. I mean, a man's gotta draw the line somewheres."
"I've seen pictures of him. He was handsome."
"Aye, Trevor was that, all right. Wi' them looks and them brains, Trevor could of gone somewheres. Too bad."
"Was one of his girls Cora Binns?"
"Well, Cora hung around, yeah. They all hung around Trevor. But Cora, she wasn't 'is type. I mean, Cora's one that'd go for the life sentence. Stupid." As if on cue from Ash to make sure Jury understood just how marriage could soothe the soul, there came the sound of crockery breaking in the kitchen and a window flying up behind Jury.
The face of White Ellie appeared, shouting above the din of dustbin covers, "Whyn't you watch the bloody kids? Sammy and Sookey's out 'ere stark and Friendly's 'avin' a piss on Mrs. Lilybanks's roses again." Then she saw Jury, and turned an even more thunderous brow on her husband. "You been at it again?"
The panes rattled as the window was flung down. Ash rolled his eyes heavenward as White Ellie, true to her name, stampeded into the parlor, shoving the pram before her. Atop the baby lay a huge mountain of clothes. Jury once again had the impulse to check and see if the baby was breathing.
"No, I ain't been at it and me and 'im's got business down at the Necklace, so if you'd kindly gimme me trousers-"
White Ellie was layered in clothes: a gingham wash dress was topped by a blue jumper, which, in turn, covered Ash's trousers.
As she started to take them off, he said, "Wait a tic. I'm puttin' on me new strides."
"You ain't! Them's for church!"
As he walked into the dark of the back room, he said it again: "Puttin' on me new strides."
Fred Astaire couldn't have said it better, thought Jury five minutes later, as they promenaded down the street toward the Anodyne Necklace.
II
They seemed to be sitting just where Jury had left them the day before, caught up in the vaporous yellow lights of the gaslights like flies in amber. The kerchiefed women sat on the benches; their menfolk sat round the tables or leaned against the bar.
"Well, an' if it ain't Ash," said the one called Nollie. "All got up like a dog's dinner. What's the occasion?"
"No occasion. Just 'elpin' out police. You know me."
Jury spread the map on the table. "This look familiar to any of you?"
Keith frowned, shook his head and passed it on to Chamberlen. He took some time studying it, polishing up his pince-nez like a jeweler's lupe. Finally, he said, "A very good job, very nice."
"What's this 'ere bleedin' bear's track?" asked Nollie, the next to get it. "Where's this 'Orndean forest?" He looked up at Jury.
"Thought maybe you could tell me."
Nollie turned on Ash with a look of suspicion: "This a fit-up, Flasher?" He started pulling on his coat.
"No, it ain't. What do I know I'd not be ashamed for me old Mum to 'ear?"
Keith hooted. "Considering yer auld Mum, 'twouldn't make no difference. Right old dripper, weren't she?"
To insult Ash's old mum was, apparently, going too far. He began to remove his coat. Jury clapped him on the shoulder and pushed him back down in his chair. Dr. Chamberlen merely sighed and shook his head. He tucked a large white napkin into his collar as Harry Biggins set down a plate of jellied eel before him.
Jury said to Chamberlen, "Does this look like Trevor Tree's work?"
Squeezing lemon juice on his plate, Chamberlen pulled the map toward him with a fat forefinger and looked again. Jury liked the way he studied a situation before committing himself. "Could be, yes. Trevor always did go in for the cunning detail. Very imaginative, was Trevor."
"Meaning?" Jury watched the glutinous eel being stuffed into Dr. Chamberlen's mouth. No wonder Wiggins didn't like the stuff.
"The various details done to throw one off. But what is all this about, Superintendent? Are you looking for the anodyne necklace?" Chamberlen looked owlish. The lenses of his spectacles flashed.
"No. Something more concrete: the emerald Trevor Tree took from the Kennington place about a year ago. Quite a treasure, it was. I understand Trevor used to hang around in here."
Chamberlen nodded. "Tree was a Wizard-Master. As I am." He held up the large sheet of grid paper. "Oh, yes, I heard all about that emerald necklace. Never found it, did they?" Chamberlen wiped his fingers. "Trevor was a very shrewd lad."
"Trevor was a right villain." Jury thought of Jenny Kennington, standing alone in that empty room. "The lady in question is having to sell up her house because of that loss."
Chamberlen drew a finger across his cheek, chasing an imaginary tear. "Oh, my, oh, my. That's ‘Lady' with a capital L, I believe. Out into the snow with her poor, tattered children clinging to her skirts."