Snow fell, carelessly, languidly, large flakes drifting by the window of the drawing room at Ardry End where Melrose sat, musing. It was Christmas Eve, or rather Christmas Eve late morning. He was waiting for Jury to arrive.
He imagined some weary sojourner stopping to look in from outside, finding the scene so agreeable he might be transported back to his childhood in a cozy house, sitting before a fireplace with a dog like Sparky and a cat like Cyril. Melrose could almost see a pale face at the window, begging, Letmein letmein letmein.
Misguided soul.
“Did you finish your shopping, Melrose, or did you just waste your time in London?” Agatha set about dolloping jam on her scone.
How many scones was that? Eleven? “You mean after Marshall and I wasted our time all over Florence?”
“Now that would be the place to do one’s Christmas shopping!”
“It was and one did.” Melrose checked his wristwatch. Ten-thirty. Jack and Hammer not open yet.
Agatha was so surprised by this answer she nearly forgot to put double cream on top of the jam. “Really?” She simpered, spooning on the cream. “Well, I’ve always said you can be quite thoughtful when you want to be.”
“Isn’t it a shame how seldom I want to be?”
“It’s too bad you had Trueblood along. With his ridiculous picture.”
“It’s the reason we went to Italy in the first place, Agatha. If the ridiculous picture is really a Masaccio, it’s worth a fortune.” Which was not the point, certainly, but money was one of the few things Agatha could understand as a motive for doing anything.
“I seriously doubt it was.” She polished off the scone. “I saw one just like it in Swinton Barrow.” She looked at the cobalt blue plate. “Are there no more scones?”
Melrose stared at her. “What?”
“More scones.”
“No, I mean what painting?”
“A painting just like Trueblood’s in a Swinton Barrow shop. Well, not exactly like it, but the same sort of subject.”
“Where in Swinton Barrow?”
“One of those antique shops; you know Swinton Barrow has so many of them. Trueblood thinks he’s so lucky in that painting. Wait until he finds out!”
“The shop wasn’t Jasperson’s, was it?”
“I don’t recall the name. It faced the green… yes, and directly opposite a pub. The Owl, I think it’s called. I’m sure you could find the pub.” Simper, simper. “I told Theo about it. He was so amused. Both of us were.”
To think the painting’s fate-meaning Trueblood’s fate-lay in the hands of Agatha and that snake, Theo Wrenn Browne, was not to be borne. Melrose sat with his unlit cigarette, his fingers turning the lighter over and over, his mind in time with it-over and over: buy her silence, scare her witless, kill her where she sits. He rather favored the last of these (as it was the only surefire way of stopping her). The trouble was that Agatha never kept her word so he couldn’t really buy it; she would be holding the blackmail bag and could hit him for money whenever she felt like it. The only way he would have half a chance to shut her up was to convince her that this new painting she’d seen made no difference to anyone. “Oh, yes, I’ve just remembered. That painting. You needn’t bother telling Trueblood; he’s already seen it. He isn’t interested.”
She looked crestfallen, having been deprived of her bad news. “He isn’t?”
“He went over to Swinetown-”
“Swinton.”
“He went there yesterday afternoon. He doesn’t want it, anyway.”
Agatha was truly miffed. It was Marshall Trueblood who had made fools of both her and Theo Wrenn Browne at the trial, the one now known as the Chamberpot Caper. Melrose smiled just thinking about that. What a moment!
“Not only that,” continued Melrose, “a triptych did go missing from a chapel-where? I can’t recall-in 14-something, and for all we know that might have been it. Or one of them, I mean one of the panels, and wouldn’t that be a find!” Melrose then loaded on every scrap of information he had about “clumsy Tom” (which was what Masaccio was called by his friends), and was pleased with himself that he remembered so much. “St. Peter Healing the Sick with His Shadow is one of the marvelous frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel; you really should see it, Agatha, it’s quite magnificent.” Then he described, in lavish detail, the Tribute Money, “restored after that terrible fire in the 1770s and you can imagine what a job that must have been!” For even Agatha’s weasel imagination could operate on this level.
But wouldn’t, since her eyelids were fluttering and she was swaying on the sofa, eyes now shut against Masolino’s and Masaccio’s friendship and their painting together many of those frescoes. Melrose went on until he heard a hiccupy snore.
He went to the sofa and shouted “Agatha!” Scaring her awake was always so much fun.
Her eyes snapped open. “I have to be going. Good heavens, Melrose, how long have you kept me here with your nattering?” She gathered up purse and carry-all (which she had not had a chance to fill with his cook Martha’s confections), got up and tugged at her girdle.
“Going?” Thank the lord.
“I’m off!”
Bloody hell! he thought, as soon as she’d left. “Find my car keys, Ruthven!”
Swinton Barrow was twenty-five miles to the southwest of Long Piddleton and was a little like it, but on a larger scale. Swinton just had more of everything-larger village green, antique shops, bookstores.
At this moment Melrose was sizing up the antique shops on the other side of the green. He had slanted the car in between others outside of the sign of the Owl. He was looking across the green, which was a flat expanse of box hedges and benches, still with snow clinging to them, trapped in the hedges’ wiry surface. Frills of snow lined the backs of the benches. It was a pleasant, wintry scene. Jasperson’s was directly across from the pub, as Agatha had said (in one of her rare moments of accurate reportage).
A bell jangled as he opened the door on a large room that smelled of wood polish and money. Trueblood could spend a week here. C. Jasperson knew his stuff. In the middle of the room was a center table with a green marble top on a gilded pediment adorned with putti. To someone else, the piece would have been quite gorgeous, but Melrose couldn’t stand cherub adornments; he had a hard time to keep from kicking them. To his right was a Queen Anne mirrored bookcase he wouldn’t have minded having for Ardry End. Near it was an inlaid walnut writing table on which sat an ormolu tea caddy. Melrose loved to find things inside other things and was delighted to see three little tea caddies nesting inside the big one. He smiled and put the cover back on. Near these pieces was a work table, a porcelain plaque inlaid on its top, the interior mirrored. Vivian would like this. He appeared to be doing his Christmas shopping all over again. As he moved from piece to piece, his eyes traveled over the walls, looking for the painting-or plaque-Agatha had claimed to be like Trueblood’s. He didn’t see it until he’d stepped closer to a little alcove on his left, and there it was. For once Agatha was right. The painting was either of a saint or a monk and could have been a companion piece to Trueblood’s. That this painting too might be a section of Masaccio’s altarpiece was ludicrous.
“Hello.”
The soft voice made him jump. He turned and found himself face-to-face with the Platonic Idea of Grandmother. It was this pink-complexioned, sky blue-eyed, rousingly coral-lipsticked mouth that everyone wanted for a grandmother and nobody ever got. She smiled and looked, well, merry. “Could I help you?”
Melrose made a slight bow. “I’m interested in this. You know, a friend of mine told me he’d found one in Swinton very much like this. Are you Miss Eccleston?”
“Yes, I am. Amy Eccleston. Why, he was here very recently, about two weeks ago it must have been. He was quite taken by that panel. I believe both could be the side panels of a triptych or polyptych. Excuse me for a minute.” The telephone was ringing and she whisked herself away into another room. He spent the odd few minutes studying the so-called Masaccio (as she hadn’t yet called it) and trying to remember what Di Bada had told them about Vasari’s description of the Pisa polyptych in that church in Pisa. St. Jerome? St. Julian? St. Nicholas?
She was back. “I’m sorry. It’s been busy today.”
“Mr. Trueblood is under the impression his is an original Masaccio. Is that what you told him?”
“Oh, my goodness, no.” Her laugh was breathy. “But there’s a possibility it might be. Mr. Jasperson’s been trying to authenticate them. You’re familiar with Masaccio? A fifteenth-century painter of the Italian Renaissance-”
“And is Mr. Jasperson having some success in doing this? What’s the provenance?”
She shook her head. “We don’t know. I found them in a little old church in Tuscany. Of course, I didn’t guess at their value then, but when I brought them into the shop, well, Mr. Jasperson was more than a little astonished.”
“Because they were so valuable?”
“Because they were so divine.”
Turning to the panel, they breathed in a little divinity.
She said, “I’ll tell you what might be possible. Possibly, your friend mentioned that his might be a copy of a panel by Masaccio. On the other hand, they could be panels of the polyptych originally in a church in Pisa. The Santa Maria del Carmine. An altarpiece, most of which was recovered. Part, you see, is still missing.”
That little morsel wafted down as gently as the morning’s snow, as quietly and unobtrusively as a snowflake.
“Then this,” Melrose said innocently, “might be original?”
“I tremble to think.” Her blue eyes widened.
Melrose laughed. “I’m sure you do. Though if you believed it, the panel wouldn’t be selling for-” Melrose fingered the white tag-“two thousand pounds.” He dropped the tag and looked at her.
“No, of course it wouldn’t.”
“At auction how much might it fetch?”
“Oh, heavens, it would be priceless.”
In his mind’s eye, Melrose saw Trueblood clutching his picture, carrying it all over Tuscany. He smiled. “Priceless, I agree.”
In silence, they regarded the panel.
Melrose said, “Now, Miss Eccleston, here’s the thing: that friend of mine believes he possesses something utterly unique. He’s been to Florence to try to authenticate the work. It doesn’t surprise me your proprietor here has had no luck. No one could swear either way. The thing is, though, with this-” Melrose nodded toward the second St. Who “-that if other pieces keep turning up, Mr. Trueblood will be terrifically disappointed, for I’m sure you agree any more panels would seem to dilute the notion of originality, wouldn’t they? To find even one under the circumstances you’ve related appears nearly impossible. And more than that… well…” He shrugged.
She nodded and nodded.
“What I propose is that I purchase this, which would prevent his seeing it and, and, Miss Eccleston, should Mr. Jasperson-or you-come across any other such, you will be so good as to let me know right away. Agreed?”
Oh, she was happy! “Why, yes, of course. Yes.”
Melrose took out his checkbook, slapped it open on the writing table, pushed over the tea caddy and said, “I want this too.”
“Oh,” she said, as if he’d pinched her. “Certainly. That’s three hundred, that is.”
Melrose wrote out a check for twenty-three hundred pounds and ripped it out. “There you are. Now, I’d like you to keep the panel here until I can come and collect it. The thing is, I’m meeting Mr. Trueblood and wouldn’t want him to start asking what’s in the parcel.”
“Delighted, delighted to hold it for you. I’ll just put it in back.”
“I’ll take the tea caddy. You needn’t wrap it.”
She ferried the panel away.
On the way to the door, Melrose hauled off and kicked the putti.
Then he drove back to Long Piddleton; he had shut up Agatha and now he would have to shut up Theo Wrenn Browne.
The bell over the door of the Wrenn’s Nest Bookshop jangled unpleasantly, like a pinched nerve, as if anything coming under the purview of the store’s owner reflected the owner’s temperament.
Melrose waited, tapping his fingers on the counter, looking out of the shop’s bay window at the Jack and Hammer directly across the street. His friends were gathered there, apparently having a merry time. Trueblood, in particular. Theo Wrenn Browne would be waltzing right over there when he saw them in that window seat, eager to impart any unwanted information he had to share about Trueblood’s painting.
“Why, Mr. Plant. What a pleasant surprise!”
Liar.
“Whatever brings you here?”
“Books, oddly enough. Where are your art history books?”
“Art? History?” A finely wrought eyebrow was raised.
“Now, put those two words together, Mr. Browne, and you’ll be very close to what I came in for.” He should, he supposed, be milder, but Browne was such a goddamned fool.
Theo Wrenn Browne tilted his head in the direction of some shelves. “Over here.”
Melrose followed him. The pickings were slim, which didn’t bother Melrose at all, since he didn’t intend to pick anything. What he wanted was to know exactly what Browne knew about the other panel in Jasperson’s shop. Certainly, Browne would be delighted at any opportunity to burst Trueblood’s little balloon.
“Now, here’s a nice one.” Browne tried to foist Andy Warhol on him.
“No.” Melrose pulled down some lackluster study on Flemish art, then reshelved it. Only one book bore at all on the subject-that is, to get the subject going: Early Renaissance Art. He started thumbing through the thick slick pages. “Ah. Brunelleschi… Donatello… Masolino…” he read in a whisper.
“What are you looking for, Mr. Plant?”
“Italian Renaissance paintings.” And he continued in that reverent way: “Giotto… Masaccio…”
“Oh!” said Theo, happy to recognize a name, happier to have bad news to impart. “Mr. Trueblood’s so-called painting.”
“ ‘So-called’?” Melrose managed to look confused. “I don’t know why you say that. We’ve just got back from Florence.” He turned back to the book and muttered, “The Church of San Giovenale a Carcia-”
“And-?” Theo prompted him.
“And what?”
“You said you just got back from Florence.”
“That’s right.” Melrose continued his whispered communion with the book. “San Gimignano… Monteriggioni…” The pages fluttered. Melrose hadn’t the vaguest notion what he was doing. But he had some dim idea that it would come to him.
Frustrated, Theo insisted. “You said you just got back from Florence.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But you said it as if that explained something.”
“Florence-” Melrose paused. “Florence explains everything!” He clapped an arm about Browne’s shoulders, a gesture that completely stumped Theo. He tried to step back, but Melrose had him in a lock.
“The Brancacci Chapel!” Here Melrose threw out his other arm and drew, between thumb and forefinger, a banner in air and, as if reading the print thereon, exclaimed, “The Brancacci Chapel! You’ve seen it, of course?”
“I? Uh, no, no. Now if you’d just let me get back to-”
Melrose’s arm tightened and he began to walk both of them to the store’s big bay window. “Imagine!” he exclaimed. Across the street were his friends seated at their favorite table-Trueblood, Diane Demorney, Joanna the Mad, Vivian Rivington. “Imagine we are within this glorious chapel, face-to-face with the frescoes. Just close your eyes-”
Theo didn’t want to.
“And imagine seeing Adam and Eve and the expulsion from Paradise.” Trueblood had his head in his hands much like the figure of Adam, and Joanna, her head thrown back in a rictus of laughter that bore a stunning resemblance to Eve’s howl. Melrose was rather enjoying this reenactment. “Then we have Tribute Money-” Dick Scroggs had entered the perimeter of the window. “Next, we have St. Peter Healing the Sick with his Shadow.” Melrose made a wiping motion with his hand, as if scenes were appearing and disappearing, as if they were watching a dumb show. Mrs. Withersby hove into view, the veritable model for the poor wretch begging for St. Peter’s help. In the case of Withersby, it was bumming cigarettes and whatever else life had on offer.
“Uh, Mr. Plant, I think, yes, I think that’s my phone ringing!”
Melrose hugged him closer. “Let it ring, let it ring. Let me tell you about San Gimignano-” And Melrose did so, told him about San Gimignano and Siena, in mind-withering detail, all the while enclosing the bookseller in an iron grip. Finally, he released him and said, “I must be on my way. Coming to the pub, are you?”
“Uh, no. No, I think not. Not this evening.” He took several steps backward.
“Pity. Good evening, then.” Melrose whistled himself out the door.
“Good lord, Melrose! Where have you been? We’re all dining at Ardry End tonight. It’s Christmas Eve.” Diane Demorney made these announcements as if they had just then come to mind unbidden by outside exigency. “Are we exchanging presents tonight, then?”
Marshall Trueblood lit a cigarette. “You mean for what you actually want?”
“Very funny. But were we to get something for everyone? That would make-” she counted the people around the table by actually pointing her finger. “If Agatha’s coming, that’s, let’s see, six. If everyone is to give everyone else a gift, that’s-” Running out of fingers, she squeezed her eyes and put her hand to her forehead.
Joanna said, “Count me out, Diane. I’ve got to be on my way to Devon this afternoon. Promised I’d turn up for Christmas dinner tomorrow.”
“Where in Devon?” Diane asked, not happy with a further refinement on a problem she hadn’t yet solved.
“Exmoor.”
Diane’s martini actually stopped on its way to her mouth. “Exmoor? But people don’t live there, do they? It’s a moor.”
“You’ve never been righter, Diane.”
People waited patiently, for Diane’s present count. Finally, Vivian said, “Diane, if there are six people and all six are giving each of the others a gift, then-” Vivian made an encouraging noise.
“Easy for you to say, Vivian, you’ve already done yours.”
“That’s beside the point; the point is the number.”
Melrose wished he was back in the Brancacci Chapel. “Actually, there will be seven, not six.”
Diane looked as if he had thrown the final spanner in the works. “Who else?”
“I’ve invited Mr. Steptoe.”
They all looked blank.
“Our new greengrocer.”
They still looked blank. Finally, Vivian said, “That’s sweet of you Melrose. He can get to know people.”
“Yes, I thought so.”
From the bar, where he was reading the Sidbury paper, Dick Scroggs called over, “Don’t see your horoscope column today, Miss Demorney.”
“The stars are on holiday, Dick.”
“No presents,” said Melrose. “You have to do that on your own, go house to house, or whatever.”
Diane heaved a sigh of relief, tapped a red fingernail against her empty martini glass and gave Dick Scroggs a little wave. “Did you set a time, Melrose? I mean will we be having drinkies beforehand?”
“We’re having drinkies beforehand right now.” He smiled. “But, yes, more drinkies will be on offer this evening. Come at seven.”
Richard Jury reached over to the ice bucket Ruthven had left, at Jury’s request, plucked up a cube and dropped it in his whiskey. He had inclined lately toward as bitter a cold as he could get-cold walks, cold drinks, cold rooms, bitter and anesthetizing cold. He did not know why other than wanting to arm himself against the specter of Christmas past, present and probably future. He did not like Christmas; he felt depleted by it.
“That’s a thirty-year-old single malt you’re watering down,” said Melrose Plant. They were seated in comfortable chairs next to the fire.
“It’ll be gone before the ice melts. Now, back to St. Jerome.”
“I think it’s John, St. John.”
“You didn’t see whatever’s left of this polyptych in the church in Pisa?”
“It’s no longer there. That’s part of the point. Parts have found their way into various churches and museums in Europe. And some of the panels are still missing.”
Jury nodded and drank his whiskey. “What’s this dealer’s name?”
“Jasperson. The woman who’s selling them is named Amy Eccleston.”
Jury leaned over and set his empty glass on the table. “I’d like a word with Jasperson. Do you have his number?”
“Here.” Melrose handed over a card from his jacket pocket.
“Where’s the phone?” Jury rose.
Melrose waved him down. “No, sit down. Ruthven can bring it.” Melrose pressed the enamel button beneath the table beside his chair.
Ruthven appeared, was duly dispatched and returned with the phone. Jury thanked him.
“I could easily have gone to the phone rather than the phone coming to me.”
“Hell, no. I want to hear what you say.”
Jury dialed as Melrose refilled their glasses and plopped another ice cube in Jury’s. Jury leaned back and waited and said to Melrose, “I’d be surprised to get anybody on Christmas Eve-hello. Mr. Jasperson, please. This is-? Mr. Jasperson, I’m Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard… No, nothing’s wrong…” Jury asked him about the two paintings and whether he’d had them authenticated and where they’d come from. “The thing is, Mr. Jasperson, what I’ve been led to believe is that what you’ve got there might be a panel from an altarpiece by Masaccio-”
On his end, Jasperson’s response must have been forceful-cried or cursed or laughed-for Jury moved the receiver away from his ear, regarded Plant with a shrug, then put the receiver back as Jasperson said something else, making Jury laugh. “I suppose not. Would anyone else connected with your shop possibly know…? No… Miss Eccleston, I see. Well, I might just pop round there for five minutes and see what is… Yes. Oh, no, you needn’t go there. Bad enough to be bothered at all on Christmas… Yes. Thanks. Wait. Tell me, if one of these panels did turn out to be by Masaccio, how much would it fetch at auction?… You don’t say. Thank you.”
Jury hung up. “Never saw them.”
Melrose sat forward, eyes wide.
“I think we should have a little talk with Amy Eccleston, don’t you?”
Melrose was up like a shot. “Let’s go.”
With their coats on and going out the door, Melrose asked, “How much did he say a Masaccio would get?”
“Around twenty-five, thirty million pounds.”
“My God! But why would she be selling it for a measly two thousand, then?”
“Maybe she doesn’t know anyone with thirty million.”
There were two other customers when Jury walked into C. Jasperson’s, American from the sound of them, middle-aged women in jumpers and slacks browsing and apparently giving sod all about the holiday. He liked that attitude.
Amy Eccleston, who had been conferring with them, excused herself and threaded her way through tables and chairs and objets d’art to join Jury near the front of the room. Her smile diminished fractionally when she saw his identification. “Oh.” Then the telephone rang and she was off to answer it, no doubt grateful for the pause it gave her.
Jury studied the table in the middle of the room, frowning at the gilt and fat cherubs embracing the table legs. Why would anyone need such a piece, much less at this shocking price? He let the tag dangle.
The middle-aged Americans smiled at him on their way out and he returned the smile. So they smiled again, perhaps thinking they had short-changed this man in the smile department. The bell jittered as they left.
Melrose, who had spent a few minutes outside contemplating the green, passed them in the doorway. He and Jury had decided it would be better if they entered separately so as not to arouse Amy Eccleston’s suspicions, at least not immediately.
Returning from the telephone call, Miss Eccleston saw Melrose and made a delighted sound. She said she’d fetch his painting in just a moment. To Jury she said, “Now, what did you want, Inspector?”
“Superintendent, actually. I understand you’ve sold two paintings lately attributed to the Italian painter Masaccio?”
With a self-righteous air, she corrected him. “No, indeed not! I didn’t say they were by Masaccio. I merely said there’s the possibility.”
“You came across them yourself, did you?”
“Yes. In Italy. I found them in a little church in San Giovanni Valdarno. I thought they were unusual and very striking. Of course, that they might have been painted by Masaccio didn’t occur to me at the time.”
“Even though,” put in Melrose, coming up on the two, “San Giovanni Valdarno was his place of birth?”
She looked from the one to the other, clearly disturbed that they appeared now to be together. “I wasn’t thinking of that. Superintendent, what’s wrong here? You seem to be accusing me of something.”
Jury had been making notes in his small notebook. “What makes all of this suspect is that Mr. Jasperson knows absolutely nothing about these two paintings. Yet they’re hanging here-or were-in his shop.”
“Mr. Jasperson?” Her face looked chalky.
Jury just looked at her.
“I’ve been with Mr. Jasperson for three years now. He’s always-”
“Too bad you won’t be with him for three more, Miss Eccleston. The way I see it is this: you’ve been doing this for some time. You’re here by yourself every Friday and on the occasional holiday. On those Fridays you hang your latest acquisition. You might have a buyer, you might not. If not, you merely wait until the next Friday. Certainly this elegant and pricy shop is a wonderful venue for expensive paintings. You pocket one hundred percent of the sale. Not bad. This week’s takings are four thousand pounds, no VAT. That’s a good return on an investment. It’s also extremely daring. What if one of your buyers happened to bring back whatever you’d sold when Mr. Jasperson was here?”
“This is ridiculous. I don’t need to-” She started to turn away.
Jury turned her back. “Oh, yes, you do need to. What you’ll need to do is leave this place. Leave the village. You won’t say anything-not anything -about these two paintings. Under no circumstances try to contact Mr. Trueblood. You’ll write Mr. Plant here a letter relinquishing all interest in the paintings. Then you have forty-eight hours to get out of town.”
“But what about Mr. Jasperson? I can’t just leave.”
“What you tell Mr. Jasperson is your own business. I’m sure you can think of something plausible.” He paused. “You’re getting off very lightly, Miss Eccleston. Thank your lucky stars that for some people, art really means more than money.”
She looked absolutely white.
Jury smiled. “Gather up your painting, Mr. Plant.”
Melrose didn’t bother with the wrapping paper.
“Merry Christmas,” said Jury.
“Good lord,” said Melrose, as they backed the car out of the parking place.
“What could you do to her?”
“Nothing. But she doesn’t know that. Of course, Jasperson could have her up on any number of charges.”
Melrose was carrying his painting with him in the front seat. He leaned it back and looked at it. “The thing is, we still don’t know.”
“Whether it’s genuine?”
“I don’t see how it could be. How could something like this have been missed for all of these years by experts in the field. I mean, how could it have just sat there in some little church-and no Italian Renaissance nut twigged it?” Melrose paused. “But as Tomas Prada-one of the experts-pointed out, what could these panels have been copied from, given the original paintings are missing?”
“Hmm. That’s a point, certainly. Can’t you live with it this way? ”
“Not knowing?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what Prada asked Trueblood.”
“And what did Trueblood answer?”
Melrose smiled. “He said, ‘I could; I’d just rather not.’ ”
Jury laughed. “Sounds like him.”
“Your broccoli, now,” began Mr. Steptoe, who might have been Irish or might have been English. “Your broccoli, now, the best of your broccoli’s dark, so dark it’s purple. That has all the nutrients in it twice over the lighter green sort. And any that’s yellow, just you pass it up. Yellow means it’s finished, no nutrients at all.” He ate the stub of broccoli on which he had just passed judgment.
Mr. Steptoe, the new greengrocer in Long Piddleton, sat between Agatha and Diane. They were one woman short, so that meant two men would be cracking elbows. Melrose had seated Agatha between himself and Mr. Steptoe; this had immediately resulted in a whispered exchange, Agatha insisting that she preferred not to sit next to a grocer who would have no conversation at all. “But I’ll be on your left hand, dear aunt, and you know I’ll have all sorts of conversation.” This irritated her even more, as Melrose knew it would.
But as it turned out, Mr. Steptoe had endless conversation, though it was all about vegetables. Mr. Steptoe had done beetroot, asparagus, parsnips and potatoes, had gone right around the dishes brought in by Ruthven and the slightly emaciated young lad Ruthven had dug up to help serve. Mr. Steptoe had pronounced each of these vegetables of excellent quality, which prompted Melrose to remark that they should be, for weren’t they purchased at Steptoe’s? Mr. Steptoe had thought that marvelously funny, and had excused himself from bragging by saying he honestly hadn’t had that in mind at all.
“It’s just that the right kind of vegetable, properly cooked, does indeed make the difference between a poor meal and a good one.”
“Remember,” said Trueblood, turning to Melrose, “the excellent flageolet beans at the Villa San Michele?”
Mr. Steptoe made a little noise. “Ah, flageolet! The best are in France, of course.”
Melrose thought his guests might as well be at Le Manoir aux Quatre Saisons, listening to Raymond Blanc.
Mr. Steptoe continued: “Yes, I had a very tasty dish of flageolet cooked with apricots in Paris.”
“The staple food of the Hunzas,” said Diane.
All eyes turned to Diane upon hearing this runic remark.
“Apricots,” she said. “Their staple food.”
“Diane,” said Melrose, “who in hell are the Hunzas?”
Diane waved the question away with ruby-painted nails. “Some Indian or other. Have we finished our dinner? Am I sitting in the smoking section? I’m way down at the end here, absolutely ostracized.”
“You’ve got me, Diane,” said Jury, taking her lighter to light her cigarette.
“Oh, don’t I wish.”
“Funny,”said Melrose, “I certainly remember clearly the Villa San Michele-the magnificent vaulted ceilings, the faded frescoes on the walls of the lobby, the subdued service in the dining room and that knock-out view of Florence from the balcony. But I don’t seem to recall the flageolet.”
“Trust Melrose,” said Agatha, “to sap all of the sentiment from any experience.” She went back to prodding a flower of broccoli around her plate.
“Not any experience, Agatha. Not the Masaccio experience, certainly. It had got to where I felt I knew him. Right, Marshall? You, me and Masaccio: We three, we happy three, we band of brothers.”
Thoughtfully, Diane exhaled a plume of smoke. “That has a familiar ring. And I agree with Melrose.” Having not been on the trip, Diane could take any side she wanted. “You know, some writer said Florence was absolutely overflowing. It was Henry… Henry… Oh, you know that writer who was so enamored of Italy.”
“Henry James?” said Vivian.
“That’s the one, yes.” Diane exhaled another artistic-looking stream of smoke. “You know, Superintendent, you’d enjoy Florence. They’ve all sorts of crime, I mean interesting crimes, society murders, that sort of thing. Who was that count? The Conti di Rabilant, I think, was murdered there. And you’d look marvelous in the uniform of the carabinieri. Quite smart.” Diane smiled at him in her sultry way. “What are you working on at the moment?”
“A shooting.”
Diane was interested. “Tell us about it, this shooting. We might be able to help; we might come up with one or two good ideas. Why you’ve seen-” Diane spread her black velvet-garbed arm “-how we are!”
“Indeed he has,” said Melrose.
Trueblood made a sound between a hiccup and a laugh. “Dream on, Diane.”
“But you never know how the details will strike someone unfamiliar with a case. Don’t you agree, Superintendent? Looking at something too long makes it all so familiar you can think it’s always been that way.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Trueblood.
“I thought it rather well put,” said Jury. “Only, look, it’s Christmas. Can’t we take a holiday from crime?”
Ruthven and his young helper had cleared away the dinner plates, and Ruthven reappeared with the Christmas pudding, which he placed before Melrose. “Shall I do it, sir?”
“No. This is the most fun I have all year. Give me the lighter.”
Ruthven handed over the sort of lighter one uses for cigars. The butler then wrapped a napkin around a bottle of Champagne and circled the table, pouring.
Melrose flicked the lighter and held it to the base of the pudding. Flames shot up amidst murmurs of pleasure. Everyone clapped. Melrose stood up and waited for Ruthven to fill the glasses, then he raised his. “A toast! To ‘we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’ ” He looked around the table. “And sisters.”
As everyone touched glasses, Diane said, “There it is again. I know I’ve heard that somewhere.”
“King Henry the Fourth,” said Melrose.
“Of course. The one who beheaded all of those wives.”
“Whoever,” said Melrose.
In dreams that night, Melrose found himself in the Brancacci Chapel watching the progress of several painters, one of whom was Trueblood. Only here, Melrose didn’t seem to know him any better than the others. He had been watching an infernally long time-days, weeks, months? How was he to know? He was starving hungry. Looking around he saw that each worker had a lunch box, but he had nothing. Seeing one of the lunch boxes lying open and also seeing it contained an apple, he took it and started munching while one of the painters up there delicately lined Eve’s face.
“Come on, come on!” Melrose yelled to him. “I’ve booked a table at the Villa San Michele, remember?”
Lithely, the youngest of the painters jumped down from the scaffolding and did a double somersault.
“Show-off,” said Melrose.
The show-off plucked the rest of the apple from Melrose’s hand and took a bite. “Nice dish o’ flageolet and I’m a happy man,” said Masaccio.
They must be really angry.
Gemma had raised her hand to knock on the door of Keeper’s Cottage when she heard their raised voices and this made her drop her hand and take a step back. She had come to deliver a message from Mrs. MacLeish about Christmas dinner. But their voices made her back away.
It was Kitty Riordin and Maisie arguing. She could make out a few words: earring. The fight had to do with an earring. Gemma wondered if Kitty had discovered the gold one was missing. Did she think Maisie had taken it?
The voices were furious, frightening. Gemma gripped Richard as if she were afraid too much anger might knock him out of her hands. He was wearing the new clothes that Ambrose had given him for Christmas. The outfit was black: black jacket, trousers and a sweater. The suit was so soft, she liked to rub Richard on her cheek to feel it. “Black is cool,” Ambrose had said in his note. Gemma marveled at all of this. Richard looked wonderful in his new clothes. He looked smart and dangerous, virtues he had always had, but hidden under the old long dress.
Earring? No, that wasn’t it. It had something to do with an errand. Gemma thought she made out, “You’ve got to do this errand.”
The window was open just a little. The old mullioned panes prevented her seeing people clearly in there; they showed only as forms, wavering, distended, as if she were seeing them at the bottom of a pool.
The arguing stopped, suddenly. Silence. The door flew open before Gemma could get away. “Gemma! What are you doing here? How long have you been there?”
Gemma’s throat felt thick with sounds she couldn’t say. Maisie Tynedale turned and called to Kitty Riordin to come.
When she saw Gemma on the doorsill, Kitty sucked in her breath and asked the question again: “How long have you been there?”
Gemma swallowed and shook her head. Her feet seemed stuck. Then she managed to lift one but before she could move, Maisie Tynedale gripped her arm and pulled her into the cottage. Then she slammed the door shut.
Kitty was in her bathrobe and her hair was down from its smooth coiled bun. She looked much older with no makeup on. She was probably a hundred.
“Gemma,” she said, “come on in, dear.”
Fear sluiced through Gemma’s body as she clutched Richard closer. It was the “dear” that did it. Kitty never called her anything like that. She made a dash for the door, but Maisie was right there, her fingers like pincers on Gemma’s arm.
“For heaven’s sake, child, I thought you’d like some cocoa,” Kitty said. “Come back to the kitchen; I have it heating.”
Gemma’s eyes were riveted on her. Kitty Riordin, for all that Gemma avoided her, had never seemed so dangerous as right now, when she was trying to appear to be nice.
The kitchen was ordinary-cooker, fridge, a table against the biscuit-colored wall with three straight chairs, a clock on the wall decorated with a red rooster. The rooster was the only color there was.
Gemma unzipped her down coat and put Richard inside in case someone decided to grab at him. She zipped it up again.
They had sat her down on one of the hard chairs, and now Kitty placed a mug of cocoa in front of her, telling her it would warm her up. There were two other mugs sitting on the counter but she didn’t fill those. Instead, she watched to see that Gemma drank hers. Maisie had gone into the front room and come back with a bottle of whiskey, which she had poured into a couple of small glasses.
Gemma did not want to drink this cocoa, although it looked very good and rich. She didn’t want to, but she knew something worse might happen if she didn’t. With Kitty standing over her and Maisie watching, she drank it. No one spoke. They seemed to be waiting. Gemma rested her head against the wall and tried to think of something nice, for thinking about how to get away from this cottage was useless and she just gave up.
She thought about what a strange Christmas this was. How it lacked the usual excitement and suspense (though that had certainly changed in the last half hour!). She had not felt it to be Christmas Eve until she had wandered out after her evening meal and found-to her mystification and surprise-a package lying on her seat in the beech tree. It was wrapped with silver paper and white ribbon, and the note said, “Merry Christmas, Richard.” This had simply floored her: that someone would buy Richard a present! It had turned out to be Richard’s new black clothes. It was from Ambrose.
Earlier, Benny and Sparky had come with their Christmas presents for her. Sparky carried a bouquet of bluebells in his teeth which he set down at her feet and sneezed and stepped back, waiting for congratulations. Gemma thanked him and gave him the bone she had got for him. Her present for Benny (which she had wrapped with a lot of paper to disguise its book shape) was the David Copperfield Miss Penforwarden had told her Benny was always reading. She had asked Miss Penforwarden had she any ideas for a present, and this was it.
Benny had asked her not to open his present until Christmas morning and made her promise. She opened it, of course, the minute he was gone. It had made her jump with joy: a bottle of Bluebell perfume from Penhaligon’s. She straight away uncapped it and dabbed some on.
This had all gone on, this soft afternoon and evening, in a sort of dream.
Now, she supposed, here was the nightmare to finish things off. She felt herself slipping away as if she were turning liquid. The last thing her ears could pick out from their talking was something about “bread and water.” So she guessed she was going to prison and slept.
Bread and water. They were the first things she saw when she woke. Her head ached and she felt like going back to sleep, but she didn’t. Immediately, she felt her jacket to see if Richard was there and he was. She unzipped her coat and took him out.
With the bread and water there was also a wedge of cheese, all sitting atop a small counter on which there were plates, a couple of pans and a microwave oven. The room was cramped and shadowy, no light except for a wall sconce above one of the two narrow beds. It was small, but still it was rather nice. Cozy and warm. Above the beds were little windows; beside this one was a table with a drawer she yanked out. It was full of junk, but also rolls of coins and keys. She wondered what the keys were to.
To see out of the window, she would have to stand on the bed. Just as she did so, there came a frightening roar and then the room rocked and she was knocked back down. The contents of the drawer fell out, the coins rolling away under the bed. When things quieted down and straightened out, she got up on the bed again and looked out of the window.
“Richard! This is a boat! We’re on a boat on the river!”
Sparky could always find his way to and back even in dead dark, but there was plenty of light along this bank and across on the other bank thousands of bulbs of light. Massive black heaps-lighted too-spanned the two sides of the river and seemed to have no purpose other than for cars to flow over and back, and, of course, to give shelter to the boy and his friends. This was the most important function of the nearest black heap.
Sometimes Sparky looked up at the people he passed, who walked like robots, staring straight ahead, listening only to what was in their heads and their ears. He wanted to shout! Down look down, look down, come down and get your noses to the ground and Sniff! There’s a whole sniffing life down here you’re passing up. The closest anyone came, and those were few, was reaching down to pet him, but they never stopped long.
Sniffing along the narrow concrete walk, he would spend hours nosing through trash and rags. He was only glad he no longer had to look through this stuff for food. It had been bad when he was little until the boy had found him and fed him and gone on feeding him. Yes, he loved the boy as much as a good sniff around a place.
He could stay up all hours, travel around, sleep all day if he wanted (well, except, of course, for deliveries). And he’d been given a name-Barky? Sparky? Perky?-it made no difference. The name was for the boy’s sake. Bernie? Benny? Bunny? Well.
Sparky was patrolling the bank all along the river and through the confluence of narrow dark streets which had once held nothing but warehouses, but were now where people lived and fancy cars sizzled through the rain.
Here was a bundle of rags. The smells shocked his senses so much that he came near to retreating even before the voice shouted “Piss off, ya fuckin’ mutt!”
Sparky trotted on, feeling stupid, as it wasn’t the first time this had happened, and by now he should have learned when a bundle of rags wasn’t a bundle of rags. The man was looking for something to throw when Sparky ran. He should be more careful about these wretches. Once, as he was sniffing one over, the wretch grabbed him, tossed a rope over his neck and took him up to the Strand for the day’s begging. It always helped to have a dog with you, Sparky knew that. He also knew he could get away. These people couldn’t keep their minds on things. When two pound coins were dropped in his old hat, the wretch got so excited and eager to pocket the coins that he let go of the rope and Sparky took off at a gallop, tore from the Strand to the Embankment and in a hop-skip-jump was back with the boy. The boy was overjoyed to see him. Poor Barney (Bernie?) was clearly worried to death, and Sparky wished he could convey to him how spectacular his talent for homing was, how infallible his nose. At times he thought he should have been a wine taster instead of a delivery dog. Or a florist, like the ones in the place of blue flowers.
There have been stories, he recalled, about the incredible homing feats of dogs like himself, such as the one who’d traveled all the way from Bognor Regis to Bath, searching for his owner who’d moved. Oh, sure, thought Sparky, don’t we wish?
Now, where was he? Stink Street. He called it that for it was home to more smells than any other single place he knew, except for marketplaces. Stink Street came close to knocking him out; it was in amongst all these old warehouses that were home to a lot of youngish snobs with good jobs and money. What he smelled was the rich odor of furs; the scent of the animals they had been ripped from still clung. New tires, cars, leather, sweetish smell of weed. Perfume. The mingling of perfumed scents strong enough to lift you off your legs.
Stink Street was a heady experience. He had to be careful of places like that; they could come to be necessary; they would not let you go. Sparky moved on out toward the river.
The door at the top of the ladderlike steps, which reminded her of an attic door, was not locked and this surprised her. Gemma pushed up one side and suddenly saw the night sky of stars and the white moon riding behind a gauzy cloud. With Richard again tucked inside her coat, she climbed out on the deck of the boat and looked around. She unzipped her coat and took Richard out so that he could see, too. The boat was fairly big; she’d never seen it before and could not imagine why she’d been put here.
“So you couldn’t get away,” she heard Richard say.
“Well, what am I supposed to do, then?”
“Get away, of course.”
There were times he just irritated her to death with his solutions to her problems. Ever since he’d got his new black clothes, he was impossibly bossy.
“It’s not impos-”
Gemma shoved him back inside her coat to shut him up. Then she got her bearings: the boat was closer to the one bank than the other. It was much closer to the Big Ben side than it was to the Southwark Cathedral side. There was one bridge fairly close; she did not know its name. Benny had shown her pictures of the next one down, and she knew it was Waterloo Bridge. Around the curve of the river was Big Ben. So she knew where she was, pretty much.
Glad the boat was still, or the river was, she walked all around the deck, which didn’t take long. There were benches with plastic cushions built in on both sides; the place where you drove the boat was toward the front. That’s where the wheel was, with glass all around like a windshield that the captain could look through to see where he was going. She would never be able to figure out how to drive it. Anyway, the boat was anchored. Over there she saw what looked like a dock. And beyond the dock, a big squarish house. So the boat probably belonged to that house and the dock was for the boat. Maybe it was too big to pull up there, so it anchored here.
Richard was getting ready to tell her to swim for it, she bet, so before he could, she said, “I can’t swim!”
“Don’t mope or you’ll never-” came the muffled words from inside.
“I don’t mope!” Gemma closed her eyes, hoping if she didn’t give her mind any new sights to see it would be better able to concentrate on her problem. Wait a minute! Her eyes snapped open. There had to be a way to get from the bank-the dock-to the boat. It was somebody’s boat and if that person could get to it, then there had to be a way.
“Good good good good!” Richard cried.
But if that was the only boat…? Gemma walked around the deck again slowly, peering over the side. A smaller boat, a rowboat it looked like, was tied to the side of the big boat. She wondered if it was okay, if it had any leaks in it, but if it had, it would already have sunk, wouldn’t it?
She shrank back. But I can’t get down there-
“You can too; it’s hardly any distance at all. Find a rope; there are always ropes on boats. Don’t just stand there.”
“I’m only nine. How can I-?”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Get me out of here and I’ll find a rope!” Gemma took Richard out from under her coat and held him in front of her. While she walked, she turned him different ways so that he could inspect the deck. Slowly around the deck they walked.
“Right there!”
Not only was there a coil of rope, but it appeared to be tied, sturdily tied, to a short pole. She stuffed Richard back inside her coat (while he was still barking orders), picked up the rope and dragged it back to the part of the deck just above the rowboat. It was plenty long. She let the end down, played the rope out to the rowboat. Then she put all her weight into it and yanked hard to see if back there the rope held to the pole. Yes! Only, how was she to move the oars. She could never handle two, one on each side.
“Sure, you can.”
“Shut up, Richard! You don’t know everything!”
“Pretty much. Find something you can use for oars.”
At that moment, something in Gemma switched off and something else switched on. It was no longer a question of would she drown in the Thames, but whether she was smarter than the two women who had stuck her out here. She ran to the flat door and stumbled down the staircase. She yanked out drawers in the little kitchen and tossed stuff out-useless silverware, scissors, plastic things-things in the drawers were all anyhow-knives, bottle caps, string. She finally came to a large spatula and it made her think of the way Mrs. MacLeish made omelettes. She would draw the cooked egg back with the spatula and the uncooked would run around it. Like water around an oar. Well, it was better than nothing. Among the rest of the utensils she found a big ladle. That would have to do.
She stopped, sat down on one of the beds and chewed the inside of her cheek, thinking. Then she remembered the rolls of coins that had rolled under the bed and got down and tried to fish them out, but couldn’t reach. With her other hand she groped on top of the bed and found the ladle. With it, she got the two rolls out. Then she looked at the utensils that had landed on the floor and picked up a paring knife.
She sat up and took Richard out. “I hate to do this…”
“What? What? No knives!”
“It won’t hurt. Much. Be quiet.” She removed his clothes, turned him over and with the knife, carefully pried the stitches out along the back seam. Oh! There were protests! Then she removed half of the stuffing and replaced it with the two rolls of coins. She didn’t have anything to sew him up again, so she bound him tightly together with the string. She went over the seam again and made sure the string would hold. She shoved his clothes into one coat pocket and the stuffing into the other. Then she collected the spatula and ladle and hurried up the steps.
Sparky sneezed. It was explosive and set him down on his rump. He sneezed again and shook his head as if to render it sneeze free. He trotted over to the place in the courtyard where, in the spring, tulips grew. Whatever had been there was stone cold dead. Then he inspected a planter usually filled with primroses. It wasn’t now. He looked around but saw nothing else.
Sparky enjoyed coming to this house; he liked the forecourt. It was pleasant to sniff around in. In the distance, Big Ben sounded whatever hour it was. Sparky could count up to four. Why he could do this was a mystery to him, but for some reason the boy had taught him this trick, which had to do with the street and filling the hat with coins. You’d think he could remember the name of the boy who’d saved him from a dust bin life, but what did names matter? If you could tell you were being summoned by look and gesture, why was the name important? He wasn’t even sure what his own name was. Big Benny. Sparky loved that.
He could remember the woman, even by name. This was rare for him to do, but then she had been rare. Where had she gone? He drooped; it made him sad.
Then he sneezed.
The rope had held and Gemma was in the boat, rocking. The boat felt less substantial than it had appeared when she’d been looking down on it. She patted her coat just to make sure Richard was still there, although she knew he was from the extra weight. Slowly and carefully, Gemma turned around in the boat. She faced the land she was heading for and put the spatula in the water. Then she tried to put the ladle in and realized she couldn’t do both because her arms weren’t long enough. It didn’t work, anyway, for they were too small to push back enough water for the boat to move. “How stupid I am!” she said aloud.
“I wouldn’t disag-”
“Be quiet!”
She wrenched the oar from its lock, shoved the end against the boat and pushed the rowboat away. One oar could be managed if she used both hands; she’d never have been able to row with two of them. She tried this and found the boat wouldn’t go straight with just one, so she moved it from side to side. The boat moved forward, and though she couldn’t go fast, she could see the house over there and the dock inch closer.
If her hands had been free, Gemma would have clapped. As it was, she settled for telling Richard, “You’re not the only one that’s smart.”
His answer was muffled, but not complimentary.
Bluebells.
That was what he smelled; that was what made him sneeze. It got stronger as he sniffed his way around the side of the house. He was baffled; that smell shouldn’t be here, but back there where the girl lived with the bluebells he’d brought her. (Jimmy? Janie? Jemima?) Was she here? Had she been here?
He sniffed along the dock. He hated being this close to water. His head came up for he sensed something. Right at the end of the dock, he looked out over the river and saw a little rowboat moving his way. He paced back and forth, back and forth.
Then he saw her and barked.
Gemma could hardly believe it when she heard a dog. Why would a dog be running back and forth on the dock, pulsing with barks-?
“Sparky!”
The boat bumped against the dock and turned around. Sparky looked over the edge. The dock was too high for the girl (Jimmy? Jeanna?) to reach. In a minute, a rope tied to something landed on the dock. Was it that damned doll? It was tied to the end of the rope. He got his teeth around the doll; there was a lot of slack, but he clamped down and pulled the rope up on the dock.
Gemma thought, how would he know what to do with the rope? He was only a dog, for heaven’s sake. Yes, but a very smart one. She wanted him to wrap the rope around something, anything that would take it. One of the pilings would do it. She only needed a little purchase so she could climb up. The distance wasn’t much. As she looked at the pilings, she saw a second rowboat drifting in and out from under the dock, only this one had a motor attached to it. It wasn’t very securely tied. Gemma imagined Maisie Tynedale must have been in a big hurry to leave.
When all of the slack was taken up, Sparky still held the doll (which was pretty heavy) in his mouth and looked around. He dragged the doll and the rope over to a piling and had just enough room to maneuver the rope around and around again. After she tugged at it and it held, she started climbing.
Sparky bounced about, completely giddy when Jimmy managed to heave herself up, hand over hand, onto the dock.
“Sparky!” Gemma grabbed him and squeezed him to her chest until he could only just breathe. He could do without this part of it.
She untied Richard. Remarkably, he was still the same; he hadn’t even gotten wet. She was checking to see if the string still held, when she heard the car.
Both of them heard the car.
The car pulled into the forecourt, slammed its door, left its engine running and its headlights on. Gemma knew it was them, or one of them, either Kitty or Maisie. One of them had brought her here. She had expected it, but she was still afraid. Even if she could have jumped down into the boat, there was no time to do it.
The woman came toward them bathed in the glare of the headlights. But when she got to the dock, she stopped, stunned. It was Maisie. Her eyes, looking at Gemma, were immense. “My God! How on earth-?”
Gemma got down to Sparky’s level. “Go, Sparky!”
Sparky jumped. He had never really gone before, and now he saw his chance. He plummeted toward Maisie, grabbed her ankle and let himself be shaken and shaken, yelled at to get off, get off. Cursed. Good.
Clutching Richard, Gemma watched. “Get her down, Sparky, get her head down!” Gemma moved nearer to them.
Sparky let go of the ankle and sprang up to Maisie’s forearm. To dislodge the dog, she had to bend down, get her head down-
Gemma rushed at her just as Sparky had, pulled her own arm back and with every single ounce of strength left to her, brought Richard down on Maisie’s head. Giving a small exhalation of breath, Maisie slumped on the boards with a dull thud.
“Let me hit her again! Hit her again!”
That was Richard. Gemma thought he’d earned the right, so she hauled off and brought the doll down on Maisie’s head again. Then for good measure, hit her once more. Gemma would have liked to kill her, to roll her off the dock and let her drown.
But she didn’t; they left her lying there.
Sparky led; Gemma followed. All she knew was this was along the Thames, but she had no idea where Swan Lane was, a name they’d just passed. He seemed to know exactly where he was going and stopped every so often to make sure she was right there behind him.
At one point a car stopped, just pulled up to the curb and the driver leaned across as far as he could and said, “Want a lift, love. I’m just on my way to-”
Gemma never found out where because Sparky hurled himself against the car door, mere inches from the nose of this person making his offer.
“Bloody hell!” the man yelled, jerking away from the window, then stalling the engine out when he tried to accelerate, and Sparky, all the while like a pole vaulter, snarling and launching himself at the car. It made Gemma laugh. The man finally got out like the devils in hell were at his heels.
Gemma skipped along as if this were a walk in Kensington Gardens. She hadn’t felt like skipping in a long time, but now she did. She wished she could throw herself, as Sparky had done, up against things and scare them and make them run away. But then she’d have to have Sparky’s bark and Sparky’s bite to do that.
By now they were coming up on the Victoria Embankment, and Waterloo Bridge, vast and black, was a short distance before them. She loved the lights across the Thames, oceans of them as if the whole of London were layered in little lights. Sparky was descending some steps, his nails clicking on the cold concrete. Gemma wondered where they were going, but didn’t mind all of this walking as she was still in a little daze over having escaped from whatever horrible plan the two women had made for her. She wondered if she had killed Maisie and allowed herself the consolation of thinking she could blame it on Richard, anyway.
“Hey, hey!”
“Oh, be quiet, Richard.” She shook him a little. He was dressed again in his black outfit. Sparky had waited patiently while she had sat on the step of a building back there and got the clothes on him and the stuffing back inside. She would sew him back up later when she had a needle and thread.
They had crossed the wide street, garnering a few curious glances from people in cars-why all this traffic?-but not curious enough to stop. They were right by Waterloo Bridge and, after descending a few more steps, right under it. Gemma was astonished to see all of these sleeping forms. People under the bridge. She thought she must be in the middle of a fairy tale. Then she wondered if these were the “homeless” she’d heard spoken of. About them she had always had a kind of shifting image of men and women wandering around dazed, looking for their houses, the places they had nearly forgotten, or been forgotten by.
The thing was, Gemma had scarcely been out in the wide world after she had first walked into Tynedale Lodge. The only person who’d have taken her out to parks and stores and films was too sick now to do it. The others most of the time didn’t seem to know she was around. But the staff did; Mr. Barkins didn’t like her, but Rachael the maid took her out to do Christmas shopping, which Gemma loved. That was how she’d found David Copperfield to give to Benny. Miss Penforwarden was just as nice as Benny said she was. She sat Gemma and Rachael down and gave them tea and some little cakes. She talked to Rachael while Gemma walked around the store, dazzled by all of the books. Mr. Tynedale had a library, it was true, but not all of these shelves with books front and back.
Christmas! It must be after midnight by now, so that meant today was Christmas Day! Sparky was rooting around one of the sleepers and when this person finally sat up Gemma was astonished to see Benny. She nearly dropped Richard. Was there no end to the astonishments of this night? Was it to be one thing right after another, horrible and wonderful in their turn?
“Benny!”
His voice was sleepy. “Gemma?” He shook his head, then looked from Sparky to Gemma and back again.
Now, faced at last with an actual person who could help her, Gemma felt a floodgate open and a squall of tears took hold of her. “Someone tried to kill me!”
Forgetting the very strange occurrence of Gemma’s appearing in the middle of the night under Waterloo Bridge, all Benny could say was, “Not again!” before he fell right back on his pallet.
The knock on the door wrenched Jury from a sleep as deep and as soft as the down comforter that covered him and the Italian sheets he lay between. The knock was followed by Ruthven’s entrance, in robe and slippers, to tell the superintendent he had a phone call and to place a telephone by his bed.
Last night, Ruthven had brought him a nightcap on a silver tray and asked him if he required anything else. Looking around, Jury had said, “Only to stay in this room in my declining years.”
Ruthven had tittered and remarked that the superintendent offered no visible signs of any decline.
The room, Jury thought, as he’d looked around it, was an antidote to a life of lumpy mattresses, threadbare carpets, sprung sofas. One wall was filled with shelves of books and, at intervals along those shelves, small brass lamps were bolted, to cast light on whatever section one might want to explore. In front of the bookshelves sat a leather arm chair of a red so deep it was black in the shadows, and a table to hold one’s tea cup or one’s whiskey glass. It was an arrangement that all but begged the room’s occupant to pluck out a book and sit down. The wall opposite this was full of windows and velvet curtains. Jury had looked down at a white and crumbling statue in the rear garden by a small pool overhung with willows. All in all, this was the most romantic room Jury had ever seen, the most complete, the most becalmed. He thought, climbing into the sensuous bed the night before, that he could sleep for a year.
Instead, this telephone appeared at 3:30 A.M. with a call from the City police. It was Mickey, who told Jury what had happened-or as much as he knew-and to whom. “But she won’t tell anybody the details, except you or Ambrose. Who’s Ambrose?” asked Mickey.
“A friend. How can she be so cool about it? My God, she’s only nine.”
“Don’t forget the dog; he can’t be more than two or three.”
Jury was already standing by this time. He said, “I’ll be right there.”
“At Croft’s house. The kids are here. You apparently know these kids; they certainly know you. I’d like to get more than monosyllables out of the girl.”
“Ask the dog.”
“Very funny.”
“Miss Tynedale, a.k.a. Riordin, has been taken to hospital. Couple of bumps on the head, but nothing serious. She’s awake but not talking. The one I want to go after is her mother. What about the kids?”
“Right now I think they should go home, have some Horlick’s, go to bed. That poor little girl must be in a state.”
Mickey turned away from the phone; Jury could hear Gemma’s voice quite clearly, and clearly objecting. “She hates Horlick’s, wants a cup of black coffee. And they want to stay here until you come.”
“Okay, but tell them they’ve got to lie down somewhere in the house and get some sleep.”
Mickey laughed. “It’s obvious you don’t have kids, Richard.”
Jury felt oddly stung by that comment. But he didn’t answer, Yet it’s me they want to talk to, Mickey. All he said was good-bye.
Melrose Plant was not only awake, but dressed and with a pot of coffee when Jury got downstairs. “Ruthven told me it was the police.”
“Haggerty. Thanks.” Jury drank down the coffee in one go. “Gemma Trimm was abducted-”
Melrose started up from his chair.
“-but she’s perfectly okay now. She wants to see you and me.”
Melrose collected his car keys and his coat. “Let’s go, then.” He stuck his arms into the sleeves of his black cashmere overcoat.
Jury said, “You’ve got your black clothes on again.”
“Ah! But these are different black clothes.”
“Cool. Let’s go, dude.”
They headed out into the frosty predawn morning.
The house flooded the river with light and a strong police presence in the form of a dozen or more men and women, uniformed and plain clothes, stood near the house and down on the dock.
“Where’s DCI Haggerty?”asked Jury.
“Gone to Tynedale Lodge to collect the Riordin woman,” said a detective sergeant whose name was Knobbs and who didn’t like Jury. Or, at least, didn’t like New Scotland Yard’s presence.
Jury wondered-but not aloud-if picking up Kitty Riordin was premature.
“The kids are in the library. Here, I’ll show you-”
“No need, Detective. I’ve been here before. Thanks.”
Knobbs was giving Melrose Plant a careful scrutiny. Jury didn’t bother with introductions. “He’s mine.”
“Your what?” asked Melrose, as they moved off toward the library.
When they walked in, Gemma and Benny bounced up. Gemma was flinging black looks at Jury, sweet ones at Melrose.
Benny started in: “I never heard nothing like it, Mr. Jury. How Gemma here got off that boat-”
Jury knelt down and put his hands on her arms. “What happened, love?”
Looking mad as a hornet, Gemma said, “They were going to kill me is all. They made me their prisoner and gave me bread and water.”
“And cheese, you said,” said Benny.
“Benny, I’m telling it. It was only a little cheese. I was on that boat out there-” she pointed “-and I’d probably have died except for Richard.”
Jury smiled. “I’m glad I was some kind of help, though I can’t see-”
“You? You didn’t do nothing! You’d have just let me be killed. I mean Richard here. She stuck the doll in Jury’s face, and then, thinking better of it she started slugging Jury, giving him some whacks in the chest, then yelling, “You knew something bad could happen to me and you just left, you just left!” She was flailing, kicking Jury’s legs, pummeling his chest. Crying, tears flying everywhere. “You’re not any good. Ambrose helped me more than you did. Even Sparky helped save me!”
Hearing his name (what he recalled of it) Sparky rushed over and barked at Jury.
Jury pulled Gemma to him, arms around her, patting her back, saying she was right to be mad and he was sorry. He was terribly, terribly sorry he hadn’t been here, and yes, he should have been looking out for her. Finally, she quieted down, and he gave her his fresh handkerchief.
Melrose said, “I wasn’t here either, Gemma. How did I help?”
She shoved the doll Richard out again as testament to either success or folly. “You got him new clothes.”
“Black,” said Jury.
“And that helped?”
“Well, of course. Before he only had that awful old gown to wear. But his new black clothes make him think.”
“Cool,” said Jury, smiling.
“Way cool,” said Melrose.
And then they all sat down (including Sparky) and Jury and Melrose heard a whale of a good yarn.
Mickey had taken her to the Snow Hill station. When Jury got there, the two of them were seated in a room furnished with a table and two chairs of tubular steel. The room was painted white, walls and ceiling. The effect was slightly disorienting: a bright, white, scarcely furnished world, absent of warmth, color, kith, kin. A vacancy.
Jury stood against the wall, arms crossed. Kitty Riordin looked up at him with an unreadable expression.
Mickey shoved his pack of Silk Cut toward her, at the same time telling the tape recorder that Jury had just entered. Then he asked, “When did you tell her? How long ago?”
“I didn’t; she found out, she suspected something-call it intuition shored up by old photos and maybe more important, the suspicion that Oliver Tynedale didn’t much like her. For him not to like his own grandchild would be simply impossible. No matter what he or she did. He was like that.”
She spoke not with the lilting grace of an Irish girl, but with the assurance of one long bred to wealth and privilege. It had rubbed off on her, the authority granted by money and power. Ironic that Oliver Tynedale didn’t see money and power in that light at all.
“He didn’t like Erin?”
“He didn’t like her much. Not the way he dotes on that child Gemma, who just walked in off the street.”
“That’s why you took a shot at her? You were afraid she would supplant Maisie-Erin, that is-as a major inheritor of your employer’s money?”
Jury smiled. Nice shot, Mickey. But he didn’t think it was the inheritance altogether; Kitty’s wanting to get rid of Gemma was prompted as much by Gemma’s supplanting Maisie in Oliver’s heart as it was by the Tynedale fortune. Imagine all of that effort-the initial danger of this impersonation, the ongoing anxiety that she might be discovered, the grooming of her daughter Erin, turning her into Maisie Tynedale and breaking into the Tynedale dynasty. The effort of proving that Kitty Riordin wasn’t “pig-track Irish.” Where do we get these notions of who we are? Jury wondered.
“Yes,” Kitty said in answer to Mickey’s question. “All Oliver Tynedale wanted was a granddaughter.”
“So Gemma Trimm comes from nowhere-”
Wryly, Kitty smiled. “What difference does that make? Gemma, you should be able to see, is more of a Tynedale than my Erin would ever have been. Gemma’s tough. I mean really tough. It would take a force of nature, a tidal wave, a tornado, to bring that child down.”
“That’s why you tried again tonight to get her out of the way?”
“She heard me talking to Erin. She heard the name. I had to see Gemma didn’t tell anyone, didn’t I? Erin’s too soft. She really hated leaving the child on that boat. She should have made sure the rowboat was unhitched and let it drift away. That’s what she should have done; instead, she rationalizes it, says there was no way that Gemma could have used it.”
Mickey was silent, looking at her. The silence lengthened; Mickey could be unnerving that way.
“And Simon Croft,” he finally asked.
“What about him?”
Jury’s antennae went up. He shoved away from the wall.
Mickey said, “He found out, right?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then why-?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you shoot him?”
“I didn’t.”
Mickey was half out of his chair, galvanized.
Kitty seemed actually to be amused. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. Simon might have found out something, but that wasn’t it.” Coolly, she dusted a bit of ash from her sleeve. “You’ll just have to start all over again sorting it, so.”
Mickey and Jury looked at one another.
“You said Simon Croft might have found something-?”
“Possibly. Something about Alexandra’s husband.”
“Ralph Herrick. You knew him.”
“Slightly. He was hardly ever at home.”
She stopped and Jury said, “Would you elaborate?” He was surprised that Kitty hadn’t asked for a solicitor during all of this.
“I can’t. I overheard Simon talking to Oliver one day, something to do with Ralph and this book Simon was writing.”
“So it could’ve been anything?” Mickey said this and got up to rove the room.
“Did Alexandra ever mention her other child to you?” asked Jury.
Mickey stopped pacing. He looked at Jury, surprised.
Kitty seemed surprised, too. “Yes. The baby was adopted.”
“What else did she say?”
“She said the experience was a calamity. The worst thing that had ever happened to her.”
“Did she say why?”
Mickey put in, “Maybe because an illegitimate baby would’ve been a hell of a lot less acceptable than it is now.”
“Yes,” said Jury. “But ‘worst thing’? ‘Calamity’? That’s pretty strong for someone in Alexandra’s position. Her father could have fixed anything. And unless I’m wrong about him, Tynedale would have wanted a grandchild.”
“All I know is she said she left for several months, told Oliver she wanted to go around France with a friend. The baby was born on Guy Fawkes night; she liked to pretend all the fireworks were for her. I got the feeling it was very hard on her, giving the baby up.”
They were silent for a while until Mickey said, “You never told Tynedale about this baby. Why not?”
“Why would I have? It would hardly be in my interests, or Erin’s.”
Jury supposed that was how she took the measure of everything.
“Now, haven’t I helped you enough?” She looked from Mickey to Jury. “Especially considering why I’m here.”
Mickey walked over to the door, looked out.
Jury said, “Just one more question. Did anyone else know about this? Did Francis Croft, for instance?” Emily Croft knew, but he didn’t mention that.
“I don’t know. I doubt it.”
Jury was still asking questions when a police constable, a woman, came into the room to take Kitty away. “How was this adoption handled?”
She didn’t answer that; she was led away by the WPC.
It had grown light as they’d been talking to Kitty Riordin. Jury said, “No one has mentioned the father of that illegitimate child. Has it ever occurred to you it just might be Francis Croft?”
Surprise pulled Mickey away from the door Kitty Riordin had walked through. “What? Oh, come on, Rich!”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? What would be the reason for keeping that pregnancy a secret? The only one I can think of is that the father would come as such a shock, be so totally unacceptable to Oliver Tynedale, that Alexandra couldn’t tell him.”
Mickey washed his hands down over his face. He looked exhausted. “It makes some kind of sense, I guess.” Mickey smiled wanly. “Look, it’s Christmas and we’ve both been up most of the night.” He sighed. “Looks like we’re back to bloody square one with Simon Croft. Unless we don’t believe her.”
“No, I do believe her. We’re not back to square one. And you haven’t talked to Erin Riordin yet.” Jury looked at Mickey, concerned. “You’ve found out what you wanted to know. You were right.”
“I found out more than I bloody wanted to know.” Mickey chuckled.
“As you said, it’s Christmas. Look, go home to Liza and the kids. Go. I can work on this.”
“I think I will. What are you going to do?”
“Track down wherever that wee babe was taken. Somehow I don’t think it would have been a regular orphanage. Alexandra had money; she would have sought out something better.”
“Money, yes. But the presence of mind to sort through that kind of information? I mean, with no one helping her-?”
“Oh, I think she had help. She had Francis Croft.”
The City police wouldn’t hold the children any longer than absolutely necessary, so Gemma would no doubt be back at Tynedale Lodge. Where Benny would be, he couldn’t be sure. Jury knew he could have commandeered a car and driver, but he wanted to think. The element of thought right now was not a car. So he took the tube to Charing Cross station. His fellow passengers looked even more disenfranchised than he himself: an unshaven man who could have been old, who could have been young, impossible to say, talking to himself; a woman wearing a hat with a bird perched and bobbing on its brim; a teenager slipped so far down in his seat, his spine was nearly on the floor. Jury thought about Erin Riordin. Since she was not the daughter of Ralph Herrick, would she (or Kitty) be scandalized by the appearance of Simon Croft’s book? Maisie would be, certainly; she’d be the daughter of a traitor to her country. Yes, it was still a strong motive for murder because Erin intended to go on being Maisie Tynedale.
He left Charing Cross station and walked down Villiers Street to the Embankment. When he was near Waterloo Bridge, he stopped and thought: how arrogant of him to think this boy who had been making his way for years with his friends under the bridge would need him, Jury, to take his interest to heart. Jury had come here probably more for his own sake than for Benny’s. He crossed the rain-slick road, walked along the pavement, then down the few stairs to the area beneath the bridge. There were only two people there now, an older woman swathed in a blanket and a hat not unlike the one he had just seen on the underground and a man in a greatcoat. They were talking but stopped when he walked up to them.
“I’m looking for a lad named Benny Keegan. Would you know him?”
“An’ who be you?”
Jury wasn’t going to get anything out of these two; they knew he was a cop. “Just a friend.”
The man in the greatcoat sputtered his disbelief. “Ah, sure, and I’m on the short list for the bloody Booker Prize.” He drew a slim book from his pocket and waved it at Jury. “We don’t know no Benny. Never ’eard o’ ’im. Right, Mags?”
“Right,” said Mags.
“Right,” said Jury and walked away.
He should have realized Benny wouldn’t be there this night; he wouldn’t have led police to their spot beneath the bridge. Probably, he went to the Lodge with Gemma; if not there was always the Moonraker. Miss Penforwarden would always be glad to see Benny.
He climbed the steps to Waterloo Bridge and walked a little way, and stopped. He looked off toward the South Bank and thought again about that last scene in the movie, Robert Taylor-Roy-and his artful little smile. Jury sighed. He thought about Alexandra Tynedale and Erin Riordin, about Gemma Trimm who looked like Alexandra: black hair, heart-shaped face-
Oh, for God’s sake, man, so will the next dark-haired woman you pass. You’re obsessing. Stop this bloody romanticizing everything.
It had been so early when he had started this Christmas Day that he could hardly believe it wasn’t yet noon. The sun floated dully in the sky, throwing off a scarf of light and mist about the Houses of Parliament. London. London did not have the allure of Paris or the burning energy of New York, but it was still a knock-out city, London.
“If a Tynedale wants the birth of a child kept secret-?” Wiggins’s shrug was his silent assessment of Jury’s and his mission. Useless. And he was to go to Manchester in an hour to have Christmas dinner with his sister and her “brood,” as he called them.
“We’ve got it pinned down to a few hours, Wiggins. Can’t be that many babies born on Guy Fawkes night in 1939.” Jury had found an almanac to tell him at what time on that day in November it had turned dark.
Wiggins looked at the last document he had put in his pile and removed it. He removed the one underneath, too. Too early. Night had fallen around five P.M.
They were looking at documents in the registry office at Somerset House. There were tons of them it looked like, judging from box after box on shelf after shelf. The clerk they’d found and dragged down here to open the place hadn’t been happy. “It’s Christmas, after all.”
“Yes, sir,” said Wiggins. “But I could use some hot-” He raised his paper cup of cooling tea.
Jury nodded. “Go ahead.” Wiggins left Somerset House for the kiosk out on the pavement, its owner keeping the canteen full even on Christmas morning. “Some people,” he had said when Wiggins expressed surprise at this diligence, “still gotta push the envelope, well, look at you lot.”
“Push the envelope? Been too many American CEOs hanging about his tea canteen,” said Jury, as he added another certificate to the stack before him. There must have been three dozen here. He winnowed out several as having been born too early in the day for the fireworks. It was amazing how many children seemed to be born all of the time. He was looking only at babies born after five P.M. Staggering, really.
“Here’s something, sir. Baby girl, Olivia-” Wiggins paused in surprise.
“What?”
“The baby’s name here is given as Olivia Croft.”
Jury snatched the paper out of Wiggins’s hands. “That’s a turn-up, that is. Croft.” He continued reading. “Born eight P.M., November 5, 1939. At a place called Chewley Hill. It’s near Princes Risborough in the Chilterns. Call the place, will you? Tell them I’m on my way. Tell them who it’s about. And when they say, ‘But it’s Christmas!’ just pretend you didn’t know.”
“But, it is Christmas, sir!”
Jury was shoving his arms into his coat. “Could’ve fooled me. Do that, Wiggins, then get the hell out of town and on your way to Manchester.” Out the door, Jury came back. “And thanks, Wiggins. Happy Christmas.”
“And to you, sir.”
Chewley Hill, both house and hill, sat at the edge of the Chilterns in a winter light that lent the surroundings a dreamy quality. The ambient light informed the surrounding fields and the bell tower of the church in the town below as if nothing too bright, too harsh should disturb the house’s serenity-hard won, Jury would say.
He stood in a galleried hall, looking up the gracefully arcing staircase on both sides and thought that any young woman with the means to come here should feel lucky-though, of course, she wouldn’t. Two very pregnant young ladies (girls, really) standing near the stairwell with their heads together and giggling looked his way. He smiled. Surely, they’d had enough of flirting for the time being, hadn’t they?
That the woman who had headed up this tastefully appointed house in 1939 was still heading it up struck Jury as little more than miraculous. Miss Judy Heron did too, and she enjoyed the miracle. “Fifty-five years, Superintendent. I was twenty-four back then and I’m seventy-nine now.
I’m very fortunate and so, I think, is Chewley, having that kind of continuity. No, you could say there’s little turnover in help here.” She smiled.
So did Jury. “I can see why, Miss Heron.” He felt the name suited her, for she struck Jury as some tall, thin, graceful wading bird, slow moving and delicate. The unhurried movement was not a sign of her advanced years, but more one of temperament. He could see her even at twenty-four moving in this same, underwater way. She was a calm and calming presence. And so was this room, with its mingling of easy chairs and antique settee, its wall of books, its pale gray walls and warming fire. Even time passed effortlessly, softly ticked away by the longcase clock near the window.
“Sometimes I regret that these girls do not come back to visit. But it’s not an experience one cares to be reminded of, I expect. An unwanted pregnancy is a very sad thing. It was then, and it is now. In spite of all the new freedom that women enjoy, there are some heartbreaks that never change, never.”
“That’s what you find it to be?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know, Miss Heron. The two women I saw out there looked pretty much to be taking pregnancy in their stride.”
“I’m glad. It won’t last long. That will end when their babies are born and they have to give them up. It’s emotionally devastating. Frankly, I favor abortion.”
Jury tried to mask his shock, but didn’t manage it. “You? But-”
She smiled. “You’d think just the opposite, because I run this house? That’s rather sanctimonious of you, Superintendent. Abortion as an issue is beyond the means of common morality to penetrate, I think. Oh, common morality is necessary of course. But it’s an abstraction. If you saw, time after time, the effect giving up her child has on a young woman, you might agree with me.” She looked sadly around her office, more a drawing room with a desk. She sat behind it, surrounded by neat stacks of paper and a folder positioned on the blotter beneath her hands. “I’m sorry for going on. How can I help you? You said-or, rather, your sergeant did-that you were on a case that had to do with the Tynedale family. Alexandra’s family.”
“That’s right. It’s a homicide. A man named Simon Croft.” He waited for her to react to the name.
“Croft.” She looked at him. “I thought she’d just chosen the name out of the clear blue. I see not. Olivia was the baby’s first name. The couple who adopted the baby probably changed her first name as well as her last. They often do that; I expect it makes them feel a bit more like her real parents.”
Jury waited.
She was silent; then she said, “Superintendent, you can understand that I wouldn’t want to break faith with these young women-”
“Something broke faith long ago, Miss Heron. The war did. Alexandra was killed in the London blitz.”
“I know, yes, I know.”
Jury supposed she had a battery of lawyers beamed in her direction, but they probably wouldn’t get far when the confidentiality angle was obstructing the investigation of a homicide. He thought she probably was considering this.
He sat regarding her for a moment and then nodded toward the folder her arms were crossed over. “Is that Alexandra’s file?”
“Yes.”
They looked at each other while the clock ticked softly. It occurred to Jury that her eyes were as intelligent as any he had ever seen and he thought then of Emily Croft. They were much alike. Jury cocked his head. “You’ve spoken to the parents already, haven’t you?”
“Olivia’s adoptive parents are dead. But there is an aunt. I felt I should alert her to the possibility of your going there. I do hope that’s not stealing New Scotland Yard’s thunder?”
Jury laughed. “Thunder is in short supply, believe me.”
She smiled and handed him the folder. “The parents’ name, and also the aunt’s, is Woburn, Elizabeth Woburn. She lives in Chipping Camden. The Woburns, Alice and Samuel, lived there also. There is really little else I can tell you.” She handed him the file. “But I expect Elizabeth Woburn can tell you a great deal more. She’s expecting your call.”
“Thank you.” Jury opened the file and looked at the one page.
Judy Heron nodded. “You may keep that, Superintendent. After your sergeant called, I made you a copy.”
He grinned. “God, you certainly do anticipate, Miss Heron.”
“I know. It’s a faculty I’ve developed over the years. I deal largely with overwrought people. You can infer that these young women are hardly jubilant when they come here. It’s such a pity to be a mother and not be able to feel good about it.” She looked at Jury. “Couldn’t you get by without knowing the ending, Superintendent?”
It recalled to him the question put to Trueblood by the Italian art experts. Can’t you live without the answer, Mr. Jury?
“No. I can’t.”
He thanked Judy Heron, and rose and left.