Augie was their third American of the night, but he was of a much different cut from the Dunnings of New York. Slow of speech, relaxed in attitude, he sprawled in the armchair vacated by Karl Dunning, but unlike Dunning with his rather precise, buttoned-down, yet helpful manner, Augie filled the room with his large body and his booming drawl. He spoke at such a leisurely pace Sergeant Fear had no trouble keeping up with him in his notebook, although a few words gave him trouble. He'd have to look them up later, back at the station. What, for example, was a pawdnuh?
Now Augie Cramb was saying something about calling his gopher back home.
"I'll ask him to email y'all a few photos from that time. You'll see. Lexy could make a dead man walk, if she felt like it. Trouble was, she didn't much feel like it, mostly. Wouldn't put out for no one, excepting, I reckon, that husband of her'n."
"I see," said St. Just. "Now, w-"
"Cold as charity, our Lexy," Augie warmed to his theme. "Cold as a nun's-say, you boys ain't Catholic, are you?"
St. Just shook his head. "C of E."
Augie Cramb looked puzzled. Was this one of those wacky cults? Plenty of those where he came from, but what would these two policemen be doing as members?
"Go on, Sir. You're saying Lexy lacked… a passionate nature?"
"Oh, she was passionate in that arty-farty way she had. Everything was 'too, too' and 'simply mah-velous, don't you know.' But there was no beef in that taco, no siree. No huevos in that ranchero. For that, a man needed to look elsewhere. Damn waste, it was. A cry and shame, as my daddy would have said."
"Are you trying to say she was frigid, Sir?" asked St. Just.
"Ain't that what I been a-tellin' you?"
No, you sidewinder. Sergeant Fear, exasperated by trying to translate the man's accent and vocabulary, was beginning to show the strain. The page of his notebook reserved for Augie Cramb was smeared and blotted with crossings-out and corrections. Here and there he'd added a few stars by the man's statements-Sergeant Fear's own system for ranking the truthfulness of a witness. St. Just call it his Torquemada Michelin Guide. One star meant truthful; five meant the sergeant believed the witness was almost certainly lying.
"Are you speaking from personal experience, Sir, or are these your impressions? Perhaps you're repeating a rumor you heard elsewhere?"
"Well…" and there came over Cramb's features a worldly-wise, man-to-man smirk: James Bond letting his hair down. "Normally, I would defend a lady's honor to the death, but since this is her death we're talking about-yes, we took it for a test drive once, after a spectacularly drunken night in the college bar. It was not a success, and the experiment was never repeated."
St. Just, wondering if the failure might not have been more on his side than hers after a night's drinking, asked mildly, "And that was the end of it?"
"Tell you the truth, Inspector, she gave me a wide berth after that. Ashamed, I reckon, of her performance. Next thing I knew, she'd taken up with Sir Whatsis-James Bassett-and that took care of the problem nicely. Still, for all the coldness, all the men were half in love with her."
"And you?"
"Oh, I have to admit, if I'm honest: She was way out of my league."
St. Just and Sergeant Fear surreptitiously exchanged glances. The phrase was becoming a little too familiar.
"Hmm." St. Just reckoned Lexy might have a different story to tell about the drunken night, had she been there to tell it.
"She was our cox, did you know? Yep. Me, James, and Karl were all in the college eight boat. Happiest time of my life. You wouldn't think it would be such a turn-on to have a purty little gal like that screaming bloody murder in your ear first thing on a freezing cold morning, but let me tell you-"
He paused to lick his lips before continuing his reminiscences.
"Moving right along, Mr. Cramb, I wonder if-"
"A'course, that didn't work out in the long haul, the business with James. Man'd have to be blind not to see India was the one for him. Well, they say the course of true love is a rocky road and I reckon it's true. Anything else I can do for you gentlemen?"
"I'd like your general impression of the events of the weekend, anything you may have noticed, anything at all," said St. Just.
"I really couldn't say. I kept to myself, mostly. Had a few conversations with that young Sebastian feller. Nice kid. Needs someone payin' attention to him, is all. Don't we all need that? Or we'd all go to the bad… Anyway, as I say, I knew why I was invited here and apart from a private conversation with the Bursar I was pleased to keep myself to myself. We're a self-selecting group at this weekend hootenanny, you know. It is well understood that we'll be hit up for money at some point, and hit up hard. Or we would have been, before all this happened. Anyway, those who don't want to be held upside down until the last penny drops, so to speak, stay well away from these events. The weekend after this is for what I think you guys call the punters-the ones who think a five-hundred dollar donation is a big deal. A'course, they ain't invited, that type, to this weekend."
"So, I gather you've donated generously in the past, which is why your name turned up on… shall we call it the A-list?"
"Thas right. An old barn of a place like this takes serious cash to keep it going. I've been happy to oblige. More where that came from, anyhoo. Well, gentlemen"-and here he slapped his knees preparatory to rising-"if there's nothin' else, I'll be-"
"Actually, Sir, we were just getting to the interesting part."
"Inerestin'?" He hesitated, then slowly settled back in his chair. "Okay. Shoot."
Don't tempt me. Sergeant Fear, who generally liked Americans, couldn't quite pinpoint why this one kept getting up his nose. But he had a feeling something was being left out of the man's testimony, and deliberately. A shift of the eyes, nearly imperceptible, made Fear think Cramb was hiding something, or at least avoiding it. Whether it was something important or not, Fear couldn't say. His daughter Emma sometimes had that evasive look, and she was only four. Just to be on the safe side, he placed an extra star next to Augie Cramb's comments about Lexy.
St. Just said, "You say James and India were meant for each other. What went on back in the day when James left Lexy for India?"
"What didn't go on. Doors slamming, boo-hooing, weeping into the pond at midnight. And that was just the bedders-only kidding, but it upset everyone within range. When I said Lexy was passionate, I reckon I should have flat-out told you she was a drama queen. There was more of that on view this weekend, but much milder than what we were used to seeing. Damned awkward for a man when a gal cuts up like that. Spent half her time moping about on that bench by the fountain in First Court, sighing over a poetry book or whatever, or simply looking bereft. I used to think all that was needed to complete the picture was a reflecting pool."
"How did India take all this-what was going on this weekend?"
Cramb let out a little bark of pleasure. "India's what you'd call a man's woman-the kinda woman that men both trustand lust after. She's got balls on her, that one. She might not have liked what she saw, but I think she knew James well enough to know Lexy was no threat. Sexy gal, India, always was, though she looks like a prairie dog after a hailstorm half the time. James took one look-back in the day, as you say-and acted like sex had just been invented. As far as James was concerned, that was probably the case, especially after his time with Lexy. These boarding schools you fellers have over here-take all the stuffing out of a man. India runs that show, unless I miss my guess. If anything, the shoe might be on the other foot, if you know what I mean."
"Sir?"
"India and that Geraldo looked mighty friendly to me. Friendly, that's all I'm sayin'. But I don't reckon Lexy liked India running all over that property any more than she appreciated India poaching her husband some-odd years ago. That's all I'm sayin'," he repeated.
That was quite a lot, thought St. Just. Cramb was the first person to mention this. Karl Dunning may have been right: It might be a mistake to dismiss Augie Cramb as a complete buffoon. Maybe Lexy, "passionate" Lexy, had confronted her old rival India. Worth looking into.
"And your movements after dinner, Sir?"
"Skipped to the loo. Hah! That's what you'd call a trans-Atlantic joke. Heard it on the Queen Mary II coming over one year. Anyway, I popped in and out-stepped out front for some air. Had to make a phone call, too, on my cell. Porter saw me. I strolled the grounds a bit, then came to the SCR. Wasn't long after, Sebastian came in to fetch help. Poor kid looked like he'd seen a ghost. I stayed with him and sent James as advance scout to see what was up."
He pushed back the sleeve on his left arm to reveal a thick gold wristwatch. It had several small windows on its face to display things like the tides and the phases of the moon. If it also read out horoscopes in six foreign languages, St. Just thought, he would not have been surprised.
"Why didn't Geraldo Valentiano go?" he asked. "After all, he was Lexy's escort, was he not?"
"You have got to be kidding me," Cramb replied. "That pantywaist? Last man you'd want in an emergency. No, James said he'd go see what was wrong and I for one was pleased to let him do it. Sound enough man, James, but Geraldo I wouldn't trust an inch. He uses pomade on that hair of his, you know. I wouldn't be surprised if his hair were dyed, too. And his hands are manicured." He glanced at his own rough hands that looked as if they were often employed in ripping trees from the ground. He shook his head. "Can't be trusted."
He sat back, arms folded, having delivered this string of conclusive evidence. "And that's that."
"How long were you on your mobile, Sir?"
"My cell? Dunno. Ten minutes? Five? You can check the records, fine by me. I got me one of them phones that works internationally. Had to make a call home."
"You're married, Sir?"
He shook his head.
"Never met the right lady. And the divorce rate being what it is, a man's gotta be cautious these days. Thar's golddiggers in them thar hills. That all?"
"Yes, for now. Thank you."
Cramb stood and hitched up his pants. Despite themselves the two policemen stared, fascinated, at the belt buckle he wore in place of a cummerbund. Highly polished and intricately carved, it depicted an enormous steer's head, its eyes represented by two large turquoise stones. It and the wide belt would have been suitable for securing the college gates, let alone holding up Cramb's trousers. His feet were shod in tooled-leather cowboy boots.
"Good luck catching whoever did this," he said. "Lynching's too good for him. She was a nice little lady, and purty as a daisy. Damned shame."
After he left, St. Just said, "We'll need to take him up on his suggestion of checking the phone records. It might help us pinpoint these times. Still, a ten-minute call on the records doesn't mean he was talking to anyone for ten minutes. He could have been put on hold the whole time, or have reached an answering machine. The mobile could have been in his pocket, engaged, as he strangled Lexy."
"I didn't much care for him, Sir."
"I noticed the chill. Any particular reason?"
"Dunno. What kind of man wears clothes like that?"
"It's his culture. It's how people dress where he comes from. Think of him as a Maori tribesman and it will come easier. Let's see…" and he consulted the list again. "Time for a word with Hermione Jax." -- With Hermione Jax, they were firmly back on British soil after their adventures in the Wild West. She proved to be a woman in her early fifties, with iron-gray spectacles and a steely spine to match, St. Just would warrant. Her thick gray hair was coiled atop her head like an intricately braided laundry basket.
Within a very few minutes, she impressed St. Just as being the rugged type of British intellectual of whom legends were repeated, by whom astonishing discoveries were made, and after whom girls' schools and colleges were named.
She sat across from the policemen, her feet in their sturdy brogues planted squarely on the carpet, tweed skirt draped between her knees, and hands clasped firmly on top of her walking stick. Despite her apparent physical robustness, her camel-like visage held the gaunt, zealous imprint of the fanatic. It was the kind of face one would expect to have found amongst the crowd that stormed the Bastille. St. Just noticed she had a small plastic bottle of hand sanitizer looped over her belt. Her eyes drawn as if instinctively to the senior officer, she began by demanding to know what the police had learned so far.
"Early days yet. Is it Miss or Mrs. Jax?" asked St. Just.
She folded her lips into a straight, disapproving crease. "It is Ms. Jax, Inspector, and I am astonished that I should have to enlighten you on that score. Women fought and died for the respect signified by that title. They were force-fed in your prisons, and trampled by your horses. I insist upon its use."
Whatever Lola wants. Sergeant Fear, flipping to a fresh page in his notebook, sat up a bit straighter in his chair. Ms. Jax had that effect. St. Just, meanwhile, wondered why the horses were suddenly his.
"I do apologize, Ms. Jax," he said. "Now, I just have a few questions. I need you to tell me what you know of this matter."
"Nothing whatsoever. I only wish I did. This sort of thing's bad for the image of the college. Silly woman-and she was silly, I have to say-to bring herself here of all places to be killed. It doesn't bear thinking about."
"Inconsiderate, one could say."
She pierced St. Just with a lancet glare.
"Don't coddle me, Inspector. Of course I realize the poor girl can't be blamed. But it's nothing to do with the college, of that you can be certain. It is unfortunate it happened here and now, is all that I am saying. It could ruin the fund-raising drive. People don't like it when other people are murdered. Puts them off."
"Quite. Now, Ms. Jax, how well did you know the participants of this weekend?"
"Remember 'em all, of course," she said gruffly. "Of course, I was older than most of them by about ten years, and I didn't waste my time, like most of them did, on foolishness, but I remember them well enough. What do you want to know?"
As often with St. Just, what he wanted to know probably had nothing to do with the case, but he was curious to learn more about Ms. Hermione Jax.
"Why don't you start by telling me how you came to be here at St. Mike's? What made you choose this college? Choose Cambridge, for that matter?"
"You mean, what took me so long to get here?"
That hadn't actually been the question, but he let her answer it anyway.
"Simply put: my father," she went on. "I cared for him all his life, and throughout his final illness, which lasted all through my young adulthood. He was of the old school that didn't believe in education for women-there was never any question of my going to any college, anywhere. He made his decision and I abided by it. At least, I pretended to. When he died, he left me his fortune-he'd never have done that if he knew how I'd spend it, you can be certain. Anyway, I had the freedom at last to do what I'd always most wanted, and I applied straightaway as a mature student. As to why St. Mike's: In the day, they had a tutor here who was one of the world's leading experts in botany, my chosen field." As if to clarify an impenetrably dense point, she added, "That is the study of plants."
St. Just nodded, not greatly offended. The Great British Public seemed to view policemen, despite having been entrusted with its own personal safety, as barbaric numbskulls. He was, to some extent, used to it.
"As a mature student," he said, "perhaps you had a different vantage point that could be helpful. You say you remember them all, the people here this weekend. Tell me what you remember."
"Strange to tell, what struck me right away was that nothing had changed. Lexy was always at the eye of some storm or other. Spoiled silly, of course. Wasted her time and opportunities here. When I think of the deserving girls who could have had her place! But Lexy-with her it was men, men, men. Man mad, she was. It always comes to a bad end, that kind of thing. You can't hitch your wagon to some man's star. A woman has to be independent."
She stomped her cane on the carpet for emphasis and then sat, smoldering, awaiting the next question.
"Quite," said St. Just again. It seemed the wiser, not to say, the safer course, to simply agree with her. She looked more than capable of wielding that stick to good effect if aroused. "And the others? What about them?"
"Well, of course, having snared James as quickly as possible-I blame the family; they have been allowed to breed too closely for generations; even Lexy and Sir James are cousins, you know, although quite distant ones-as I say, having made a career of snagging James and then succeeding in her neurotic fashion, well, we were all subjected to the absolutely shameful goings on when India next got her claws into him. It was a veritable soap opera, and of course it went on for months. Positive months. Now that I am being forced to relive it all, it puts me in mind of the Cambridge don who married his bedder some years ago. She managed it in the usual way. There's nothing new under the sun, my good man."
Sergeant Fear, curiosity piqued, asked, "And what way is that, ma'am?"
Hermione turned her head and, aiming more or less in Fear's direction, replied, "She ignored him. Treated him like dirt under her feet." Thump. "Men can never resist that."
"I see. Right you are," Sergeant Fear said, thinking: If she thumps that cane of hers again I may have to go over there and snap it in two for her.
"Fortunately, Lexy moved out of college completely once the divorce was underway, and James and India set up housekeeping elsewhere, so we were spared much of what went on when Sebastian was discovered."
He might have been found under a tree. "So James wasn't aware of his existence, this stepson?"
"Course he was. And any man worth his salt would have dropped India on the spot once she turned up pregnant, but not James. Poor chump. He had it bad."
"Please. Let's back up a bit. You're saying James and India were together when Sebastian was born but that James was not the father?"
"Didn't I just say that? And, it nearly sent Lexy over the edge. She always was unstable, but for James to leave her for a woman who was pregnant by another man-well, you can imagine. Can't say I blame her entirely. Rumor was she couldn't have children of her own. A rum situation all 'round. Well, at least, as I say, we were spared much of that. The situation got so complicated, not to say noisy, that the Master and Bursar stepped in, had a word, and everyone was found other accommodation."
St. Just had to admit it had to have been a delicate situation for all.
"Do you have some theory of your own as to why Lexy was killed, Ms. Jax?" he asked.
"I should have thought that was your job, Chief Inspector."
Clearly, the kind of flattery that worked a treat on Mrs. Dunning was going to cut no ice here.
"What was the state of her relationship with Sir James and Lady Bassett?"
"I don't know. I paid no attention."
"Lexy's relationship with Geraldo-was it serious, would you say?"
"I would say a relationship with that bullfighter or whatever he is would be as enriching as a relationship with a peacock. As to serious, I couldn't say. He's not quite one of us, is he? NOC, most definitely. Not Our Class-no indeed. I felt altogether that he was here for show. Lexy was up to her usual tricks-trying to ignite the jealousy of Sir James."
"Did she succeed?"
An eloquent shrug.
"No idea."
"And your own movements during and after dinner, Ms. Jax? Did you notice, for example, when Lexy left the table?"
"Same time as we all did. Quarter past the hour. She may have been first out-she was near one end of the table and didn't have to crawl out from the bench as the rest of us did."
"And that's the last you saw of her?"
"Yes."
"You didn't notice her in the Fellows' Garden?"
"I've just said, haven't I? I was busy having a word with the Reverend Otis. Well, I may have just noticed her in conversation with Sir James. She seemed to be trembling, upset, so I looked away. It doesn't do, that kind of thing. Then I went up to my rooms to throw some water on my face-it's been devilishly hot, as you know. Then I went down to the SCR."
"At what time?"
"I've no idea. There was nothing special about my going there. I do so most evenings when I'm in college."
"Who was there?"
"I didn't notice," she said, her voice tinged with exasperation. "It was getting crowded. I headed straight for the drinks tray. Then I engaged the Bursar in conversation."
Ignoring the guests, it sounded like. She would be like that, St. Just thought. Insular, regarding the college as "hers," fiercely protective, a self-appointed guardian of St. Michael's past and future. A guardian of morals as well, no doubt. He felt he'd met the type before. The extreme of her type could be quite, quite potty. And dangerous, given the right circumstances. He dared a direct look into her eyes. She glared back, pop-eyed-outraged, perhaps, by his insolence. He was strongly reminded of Winston Churchill in the later years, when he had grown to resemble a cigar-chomping bulldog.
"Will that be all, Chief Inspector?" she said at last, rising to her feet as she said it. The cane seemed to be only for appearance's sake, as she rose with great alacrity, not putting any weight on the prop. She probably kept it to hand as a weapon, ready to incapacitate any thief foolhardy enough to think of having a grab at her purse or her bicycle. She would remain independent and eccentric to her dying day, frugal (her clothes showed no signs of the wealth she had inherited, but looked like Oxfam finds), fiercely dedicated to her chosen field of study, and a slave to the college where she had first tasted freedom. Both physically and psychologically suited to the crime, then.
But that description fit most of the others, of course.
"Good night, Chief Inspector," she said, and sturdily marched out of the room as if to engage the hidden enemy. Sergeant Fear might not even have been there.
"She's a right old trout," he told St. Just. "And batting for the other side, I'd wager."
"If you mean gay, Sergeant: No, I think you're mistaken there. But I would wager that wherever she loved, she'd love with a fierce devotion, regardless of whether the devotion were returned or even deserved."
"Do you think she could have done it?"
"Oh, certainly. Without turning a hair. The way she waited out her father so she could get her way in the end speaks of rather a cunning if not a devious nature, does it not? And she doesn't really account for her time well. But as to motive… if she had some noble cause driving her, I guarantee it will be something that would strike any modern juror as preposterous. I thought her kind had long since died out, and she's not really that old. Who's next?"