"No tattered children. She may be titled, but I think she's as much right to her possessions as we have."
Dr. Chamberlen picked up his empty dish. "Nollie, get me another jellied eel, will you, there's a good chap? The superintendent's untempered moralizing is increasing my need for sustenance." Obediently, Nollie took the dish.
"You can't tell me anything about Trevor Tree that would help, then? He's dead now. You'd hardly be grassing on a mate. And it's pretty obvious Tree did have a mate."
"Not I, if that's what you're thinking." Daintily, he wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin.
"I suppose you were in the pub here last Thursday night?"
Chamberlen nodded. "Witnesses, Superintendent, witnesses."
Jury looked round at the lot of them. They all nodded solemnly.
"And I suppose all of you were here and can supply each other with alibis."
They all nodded solemnly.
"And none of you has any idea why Cora Binns should have been murdered?"
Solemnly, they all shook their heads.
TWENTY-ONE
I
BY the time Melrose Plant had got into the environs of Wembley Knott, he had picked up two traffic tickets, one on the A10 and another for running a red light while he was getting lost in Chigwell, an area with which he was grossly unfamiliar. An old woman he had nearly grazed at a zebra crossing delivered herself of some well-aimed epithets as Melrose tipped his hat and drove on.
The sight of a Silver Shadow sliding down Catchcoach Street elicited varying responses from the few onlookers who happened to be on hand. The women assumed it must be Princess Di come to succor the East End poor; the men-at least the two emerging from the Three Tuns at the top of the street-assumed the vision had something to do with the ten bottles of Abbot's they had downed between them on a bet. To correct what they thought must be an hallucination, they turned back into the Three Tuns for some hair of the dog.
Twice Melrose stopped to ask which of the terraced hovels down the street was the Anodyne Necklace and twice received only gaping mouths in return. He was wondering where to park when he thought he sighted Jury's police-issue Ford. He managed to fit the Rolls between it and a rusted-out Mini lacking a windscreen.
He saw, when he emerged from his car, that Jury's car was parked in front of a house like a mirror-image of the houses to right and left except for its being in a state of even graver disrepair. Peeling blue paint was the only reminder of a door and trim which might have looked quite gay at one time. Behind the curtainless window, a dark shape moved like something inside a fish tank. The most wretched group of children he had ever seen, five of them-no, six, for a small one was popping out of the center of the crowd-had been manhandling an old perambulator, but stopped to watch the intricate maneuvering of the Silver Shadow into the spot beside the curb. Melrose made sure he locked the door.
"Could you tell me where the Anodyne Necklace is, please?" A walleyed child started to answer, but he was immediately given a sharp jab in the stomach by the largest of the group.
This large one said, "Ah could do. What's it t' ya?" He looked up at Melrose, with as much challenge as his moon-face could muster, his eyelashes so pale that the eyes looked lidless.
Melrose flicked a fifty-p piece to the lad, who caught it with the sure instinct of a frog snapping at flies. The boy pointed toward the end of the street. "Down there it be."
Melrose saw at the narrower end of the street what looked like a couple of shops flanking a thinnish building with an unremarkable facade from which he could now observe some sort of sign hanging. He looked then at the house behind him. "Is that where you live?"
"Mebbe," said the moon-faced boy.
"And have you seen the gentleman who drives this car?" Melrose pointed to the Ford with his walking stick.
Another sly whip of a smile was his reward. "Mebbe."
"Mam's home!" piped up the only girl in the crowd who had been noisily sucking her finger and who now got a shoe in her shin for supplying Melrose with this morsel. In the meantime, the other four, having inspected Melrose's car first from a respectful distance, were now crawling all over it like slugs.
He managed to lift the smallest one off with his stick and deposit it on the sidewalk. He then lined up the six of them and passed out coins to each. "There could be more where that came from. And if that doesn't keep you away from my car," he added with a winning smile, "I shall have to break all of your little arms and legs."
This threat seemed to amuse them far more than it frightened them. The moon-faced one, who answered to the name of "Sookey," opened his mouth to answer this vile outrage, but Melrose had already pushed the line with his stick, collapsing them like dominoes, as they giggled all the while. They then danced off down the street toward the shops, Sookey trying to snatch the coins from the smaller ones and getting kicks in the groin for his trouble.
Melrose walked up to number twenty-four.
The woman who filled the doorway, having opened it to his tap, was the fattest Melrose had ever seen. Her voluminous frock floated above trousered legs. An interesting ensemble, he thought. But she had apparently gone to some trouble to dress up, for her hair was tied back by a shiny green ribbon and lip rouge bled into the lines round her mouth.
She looked him up and down. "If you come about Friendly, there ain't nothin' we can do. I didn't know the social services worked on Sunday. The lad takes after 'is divvy Da." She pushed past Melrose, moving toward the pram. It was filled with what might-have been either clean or dirty linen, Melrose noted. And there seemed to be a sleeping baby underneath. As she chugged back with it and rolled through the doorway she said, "But Ashley's Da was even worse, I can tell you. What was I supposed to do, then, and 'im lyin' on the landin' makin' them 'orrible noises? Well, wouldn't you a got out?" She glared at Melrose. "Was I suppose to know 'e was dead, then?"
"I don't see how you could." Melrose cast an eye about what must have been a parlor, hoping this was not the last place to see Jury alive.
His reply seemed to satisfy her immensely, as she pulled a pile of laundry-no, it was the baby-from the pram, shook it a bit, and put it back. "Down all them steps 'e fell. Well, I wasn't goin' to bloody stay in the 'ouse, was I?" Her glance was as challenging as Sookey's. Melrose could see where the boy got his looks. "Well, then, come on back."
Fascinated, Melrose followed. A mean-looking, thin-faced dog with bandy legs looked up at him as he surveyed the kitchen. A spoon was sticking up in a bowl of something that seemed to have life of its own: bubbles sprouted, erupted, burst along its surface. She applied herself to this restless mixture, and, then, seeming suddenly to realize she was in her kitchen with a perfect stranger, she said, "Who are you, then? Come walkin' in 'ere nice as ninepence."
Melrose bowed slightly. "Melrose Plant, madam. I'm a friend of Superintendent Jury, and, as I saw his car outside the house, I thought he might be here."
"You ain't from the social services, then?" She seemed quite surprised. "Well, then. Me name's Cripps. Friend of the Super's is ya?" Jury might have been one of the family, thought Melrose. "Gone over to the pub with Ashley. Just missed 'im. I'm on the way there meself, soon's I fix the kids' tea. Just set awhile."
In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Melrose, as he swept the crumbs from a chair. "It's very important I see him, Mrs. Cripps."
"White Ellie. Just you wait a tic and we'll go along to the pub together." No one, her tone said, could refuse such a tempting offer.
Melrose wondered what could be in the bowl which would do for a meal. She pulled a skillet across the cooker, gave it a wipe with a towel, lit the burner and poured more grease from a jar. Out of the corner of his eye Melrose thought he saw something scuttle from behind the sink and make for safer digs in the shadows behind him. He kept his eye off the floor and opened his cigarette case. "Care for one?"
"Ta very much," said White Ellie, taking a cigarette and lighting it from the gas ring. The cakes sputtered in the pan as dollops dropped from her spoon. " 'Ave one?" Melrose declined politely. "Wonder where them kids got to."
Before he could tell her they'd made for the shop on the corner to spend his money, whoops and hollers and feet announced the return of the Crippses as they swarmed into the kitchen with sticky faces and paper screws of candy, which they deposited along with themselves on the assorted chairs and stools around the table. One of them was missing, Melrose noticed. So did White Ellie as she handed round the plates. "Where's Friendly?"
Sookey, who seemed absolutely set upon ruining the visitor's day, sweets or no sweets, said, "Friendly says 'e be 'aving a piss all over them 'ubcaps."
The rest of them giggled, traitors all.
Melrose smiled and rose, at the same time pressing a button on his walking stick and drawing a thin-bladed sword from the shaft. "If I were you, I would scamper off and tell Friendly that the gentleman inside strongly suggests he find another outlet for his interests."
They dropped forks, spoons and catsup bottle. Sookey turned even whiter than his naturally pallid complexion warranted. "Cor!" he whispered, sliding from his chair and shooting like an arrow out the door.