The Man with a Load of Mischief (19 page)

“It has also occurred to me that the real victim might not have been murdered yet.”

Pratt blinked his red-rimmed eyes. “Oh, God, that's a lovely thought.” His pipe had gone out again. “You're thinking it's going to be someone in the village, is that it?”

“I don't know. It's certainly a possibility.”

“The murderer of Small did not come in that cellar door, that's clear. So you've narrowed it down, I think, to just those people at the Load of Mischief that evening.”

“Less one, I think it's safe to say: Melrose Plant. Of course, he hasn't an alibi for the times Small and Ainsley were murdered, but it's hard to believe more than one murderer is involved.”

Pratt scratched his chin again. “Then we're a lot nearer finding him, if that's the case. Next time that Superintendent Racer rings me up, I shall certainly tell him you've made considerable progress. Excuse me for asking — but has he something particular against you? Seems a trifle waspish where you're concerned.”

“Oh, it's just his way,” said Jury.

T
he next morning Jury was sitting at Pluck's battered wooden desk, Wiggins looking over his shoulder. They were studying Darrington's book,
Bent on Murder
and its sequel, the second book, lying side by side on the desk. Jury would run his finger along a line of one, then shift to the other. “There's a tremendous difference in the quality of these two. The style's almost totally different. Or, let's say one seems a clumsy imitation of the style of the other.”

Wiggins shook his head. “I don't see it, myself, sir. Of course, I'm not that much of a reader.”

Jury closed the books. “I don't think Darrington wrote
Bent on Murder
. I think he was trying to copy the style and botched it in this second book. I think whoever wrote the first book also wrote the third —” Jury pulled another from the stack of four. “
Bent Takes a Holiday
. Yes. Those two were written by the same hand. But not the other two. Darrington must have appropriated two manuscripts and then spaced them out.”

“But who do you suppose wrote the two good ones?”

“No idea. It presents the interesting possibility that someone
else might have known about this plagiarism. And decided to blackmail Darrington.”

“Like Small, you mean? How would Ainsley and Creed come into it, then?”

“They could have been in it together. . . . What I want you to do is ring up London and have them check out the publishing firm where Darrington worked. That's where he could easily have come by the manuscripts.” Jury rose and pocketed his cigarettes. “Myself, I'm simply going to put it to him, directly. See what happens.”

 • • • 

As Jury was getting into the blue Morris, Melrose Plant pulled up in his Bentley and rolled down the window.

“Where are you off to, Inspector Jury?”

“Oliver Darrington's place.”

“Tomorrow is Christmas, you know. And I should like very much to have you dine with me.”

“I accept with pleasure, circumstances permitting.”

“Fine. Right now I'm on my way to Sidbury to pick up Agatha's present.”

“What are you getting her?”

“I thought a pair of matched pistols might be nice. Mother-of-pearl handles, for dressy occasions.”

Jury laughed as Plant pulled away, and then turned the Morris toward the Sidbury Road.

 • • • 

It was Darrington this time who answered the door, and started talking the moment he saw Jury. “What in hell is this? About a copy of my book in the hands of this man who was found dead at the Swan?” His eyes blazed. Clearly, he was more concerned with the reading matter of the corpse than with the corpse itself.

“If I might just come in, Mr. Darrington?”

Darrington flung wide the door, and Jury noticed Sheila Hogg in the sitting room looking beautiful, worried, and nervous. He went in and took the seat he had occupied the day before. Oliver glowered over him, and Sheila fidgeted behind the couch opposite, picking at some invisible thread along its
back. She was fully dressed this afternoon — a flowered, silk pant dress — but managed still to look undressed. The outlines of her body simply leaped out at one, and that part of Jury's mind not occupied with startling Darrington into some sort of admission took appreciative notice of this. “There are just a few questions I wanted to ask, Mr. Darrington.” They still made no move to sit down, so Jury made them wait while he lit a cigarette. “You obviously have got the news already that another man has been murdered, and I was wondering if you could tell me where you were between ten and a little past noon yesterday?”

“Right here. Sheila was with me.”

Jury did not see anything in their expressions to belie this, but had never known anyone like the guilty to stare you straight in the eye when they lied. He smiled and said, “Also, I just wanted to return these to you.” Jury held out the books. “They're rather interesting, especially in their differences.” He observed the same nervous spasms of Sheila's face and hands take hold. “As a matter of fact, I was thinking you might have had a bit of help there.” Jury put it so mildly, that even he was surprised when Darrington wheeled on Sheila.

“Bitch!”

“I didn't tell him, Oliver! Honestly!”

His anger died down as quickly as it had arisen and he sighed. “Oh, hell, there's one charade over. You might as well tell him.”

As usual, thought Jury, leaving Sheila to carry the can back.

“It was my brother,” said Sheila. “He was killed in a motorcycle accident. It was only by accident — when I was going through his things after he died — that I found the letter Oliver had written him about his book. I didn't even know Michael — my brother — had
written
a book, much less that he was trying to get it published. I don't think anyone knew. He was very secretive. Anyway, I went along to Oliver's firm, I suppose with the intention of somehow seeing the book got published as — I guess — a nice memorial. Oliver was the editor on whose desk it had landed. He was very sympathetic and we had lunch and talked about Michael's book, how good it was. Then we
had dinner. Then lunch, then dinner, until . . .” Sheila sighed. “Well, I fell for him, which was” — she leveled a deadly glance at Darrington — “his intention, wasn't it, love?”

Darrington merely studied his drink.

“There was another manuscript,
Bent Takes a Holiday
, that I also found amongst the things in Michael's trunk. Oliver read it and said it was just as good as the first. The temptation was too much for him: he could publish the first under his own name and put the other away against a rainy day.” Sheila laughed artificially. “And when Oliver writes, it rains, all right.”

“Thanks,” said Darrington.

“Don't mention it, love,” she said, bitterly. Then, to Jury: “There it is. Rotten, nasty — what can I say?”

A nice memorial, thought Jury. Love, he thought sadly. It had involved her in this dishonor and wouldn't even throw in a marriage certificate. He felt sorry for her. “So you kept the second manuscript as a hedge against the possibility of the one you wrote yourself flopping at the book stalls?”

Oliver raised his face. At least he had the grace to be humiliated. “That's right. I'd tried a bit of writing. I thought I could do a fair job, only I couldn't. I'm a rotten writer. When the second book didn't sell and got such bad reviews, I pulled out Hogg's other manuscript and that put my star in the ascendancy again. I thought surely on the next try I could pull it off. And now . . .” He spread his hands in a futile gesture. Then he apparently remembered the discussion to hand was not the biggest problem. “Wait a minute, now, Inspector. What has all this to do with the man found this morning?”

“You didn't know him?”

Darrington looked angry. “Damn it! Of course I didn't know him!”

Jury enjoyed what he was about to say, in return for Oliver's cheap treatment of Sheila. “Funny. He was an admirer of yours. That book, you know.” Jury pretended a fresh thought had come to him, and snapped his fingers. “Or perhaps not an admirer, after all. There's always blackmail, you know, as a motive for murder.”

Darrington shot out of his chair. “My God!
I didn't kill him
. I never saw the man before —”

“How do you know that, Mr. Darrington?”

“What?”

“I assume you've not seen him
since
he's been murdered. How do you know you've never seen him, then?”

“Trying to trap me, aren't you? I suppose my book in his hands just ties it all up for you, doesn't it?”

Sheila, with more perception than Darrington had shown, said, “Oh, for God's sake, Oliver. I don't imagine Inspector Jury thinks three different people came here to blackmail you, do you, Inspector?”

Oliver looked from one to the other like a child who wonders if his parents are in collusion against him. What on earth, wondered Jury, did Sheila see in the man?

“The book is one thing that suggests you
didn't
kill him.” Jury got up and pocketed his cigarettes. “For you yourself to leave a clue in the hands of the murdered man, one which points back to you, would be strange, now, wouldn't it? Only a very daring person and one with iron composure, not to mention a rather macabre flair, would dare such a thing. And in you, Mr. Darrington, I haven't seen any of those qualities.”

Sheila burst out laughing.

M
elrose Plant tooled along the Sidbury Road, smiling at the notion that Agatha would be smarting when she realized that
she
was still a suspect, but
he
wasn't. Hardly sporting of Melrose to wriggle out of the viselike grip of New Scotland Yard that way, while she (after all of her dedicated assistance) was left to struggle alone. That's how Agatha would see it. She would conclude it was all Melrose's fault. Probably a conspiracy between Melrose and Jury.

As long sweeps of sun-starred meadow rolled by him, Melrose slid down in the seat of the Bentley and wondered if he had an unconscious hankering to be a detective, some dark side of his nature that had gone heretofore unsuspected. He entertained himself by reviewing the possible answers to this rash of killings. Had only one of the victims actually been the real object, the other two done in to disguise that? The old red herring gambit. A possibility, of course, but one somewhat undermined by the fact that all three were strangers. Why on earth bring strangers to town to kill them? Why not just kill off instead a couple of superfluous locals?

Melrose looked about him a little guiltily; it really was a rather cold-blooded way of thinking of the village folk. The only things looking back at him were a lamb and a ewe, out there in the fields, slowly chewing. What could they have found to eat in this cold?

It was possible that all of these present murders were only leading up to another, the rather shuddery prospect put forth by Jury. The reason it made his blood run cold was because the first person he thought of as the real mark was Vivian Rivington. All of that money, and so many people wanting it. The darkness that swept over his mind seemed projected in the sign ahead of him, a small one with a black spot, across from the Cock and Bottle, coming up on his left.

Plant lifted his foot from the peddle and slowed to a crawl so that he wouldn't rip out his muffler going over the narrow rise of mounded earth meant to slow down cars for the oncoming turn. It was, appropriately enough, called a “dead man.” Something flashed in the strong sunlight as he approached the rise. Bumping over the “dead man” he peered out of his window and saw that the reflection had come from something lying there in the dirt, a bit of glass, probably. Then, suddenly, a picture of what he'd actually seen froze in his mind and he braked so hard he nearly threw himself through the windscreen. He sat there for a few seconds telling himself that the dirt-covered object couldn't have been what he thought it was.

A ring. But had it really been attached to a
hand?

 • • • 

While Sheila still laughed, Jury was pulling on his coat and leather gloves. “There'll be more questions, Mr. Darrington. For both of you. At the moment, however, I haven't time for them. What I'd like to do is use your telephone if I may, to call my sergeant?”

“It's just through there,” said Darrington, indicating the door to the hall. A little of his old, sneering confidence returned when he said, “Then I take it, Inspector Jury, the fact that
Bent on Murder
turned up in the man's hands is more or less proof that I had nothing to do with it?”

A bastard to the end, thought Jury. No concern for Sheila,
who had given over probably all of her self-respect so that Darrington might rise in the world. The bloody fool needed a bit of a shakeup. “What I said was that it was one indication you didn't do it. But it by no means lets you off. There's one motive that only applies to you, Mr. Darrington: publicity. It would have done wonders for your failing reputation wouldn't it? To have
Bent on Murder
on the front page of the newspapers? Send the sales of all of your books skyrocketing. So you rid yourself of the blackmailer, and give yourself a bit of publicity, to boot.”

Once again, Darrington went white.

“The phone, Mr. Darrington?”

As if cued for its entrance, the telephone rang. Sheila, with more self-possession than Darrington, went to answer it. From the hall she called back, “It's for you, Inspector.”

He thanked her, and as he took the receiver and watched her go back to the drawing room, he hoped she'd find a better man than Darrington. Though he certainly hadn't written off Sheila as a suspect. She'd more guts than her boy friend, that was sure.