The Man with a Load of Mischief (35 page)

“Not a bad little baggage,” he said before turning to lean across the table and glare at Jury. His chesterfield coat, which had been swankily draped across his back, cascaded from one shoulder, and he rehitched it. “Jury, although I certainly cannot credit every move you've made in this case, still, we have managed to wrap it up, so there's no hard feelings on my part. I never did think you were a bad policeman, although a bit too popular with the other men for my tastes. That feeling the men under you have about you — all that bloody ‘nice chap' business. You've got to make the men
respect
you, Jury. Not
like
.
It's not only that. You disobey orders. You were told to call in every day. You didn't. You were told to keep me informed of every move. You didn't. You'll never make superintendent that way, Jury. You've got to know how to deal with the men above and the boys below.”

To Jury it sounded like the title of a bad American war film.

“Well, I'm off. You can wind things up here.” Racer tossed a handful of change on the table — he wasn't, to give him his due, cheap — and looked round the room. “Not a bad place for such a one-eyed village. Had quite a decent meal last night. There's something to be said for a man who brews his own beer . . .”

If only Jack the Ripper had brewed his own beer, thought Jury, buttering up a piece of cold toast.

“What is it, Wiggins?” snapped Racer.

Sergeant Wiggins had popped up like a cork at their table. “Sergeant Pluck's brought round the car, sir.”

“Very well.” As Wiggins turned to leave, Racer called him back: “Sergeant, I don't especially care for the tone you used with me this morning —”

Jury's patience had worn thin. “Sergeant Wiggins just about saved my life.” At Racer's raised eyebrow, Jury went on: “You've heard of the soldier saved because his old mum insisted he carry a Bible in his breast pocket —?” Jury tossed the box of cough drops on the table.

“And what the hell's
that
in aid of?” asked Racer, shoving the box with a tip of his finger, like a dead mouse.

“Together with a catapult, those cough drops saved me.” Jury drank off his coffee and decided to embroider. “Wiggins knew I hadn't a gun. As far as I'm concerned it was pretty quick thinking on his part.”

Absolutely delighted with this unexpected and (he suspected) undeserved praise, Wiggins beamed and looked perplexed in turns. He seemed unsure as to how to decipher this runic message Jury had just delivered to his superior.

Racer looked from the one to the other and merely grunted. Then he said, with honeyed venom: “If you don't mind, Inspector
Jury, we won't put the public onto the fact Scotland Yard's only got catapults to protect itself with, will we?”

 • • • 

Delaying as long as possible his goodbye to Vivian Rivington, Jury sat in the Long Piddleton police station, shuffling through papers and listening to a mild argument between Pluck and Wiggins. Pluck, upholding the virtues of country living, was scouring the
Times
for the latest rapes, muggings, and murders in London's alleyways, when the door seemed to wrest itself open as if torn by ghostly hands and Lady Ardry walked in. Melrose Plant, looking apologetic, followed her. At the sight of Agatha, Pluck and Wiggins exchanged glances and retreated with tea and newspaper to the outer room.

Lady Ardry shot out her hand like a switchblade and pumped Jury's. “Well, we did it, didn't we, Inspector Jury?” Her earlier rancor had quite vanished in the breeze she had flapped up with her victory flag.

“
We
, dear Aunt?” said Melrose, settling himself in a chair in the corner so that he was behind her and in the shadows. He lit up a cigar with an especially heavenly aroma.

Jury smiled. “Well, whoever did it, Lady Ardry, just let's be glad it's done.”

“I just stopped in to ask you to lunch, Inspector, and happened to meet my aunt coming down the street —”

“Lunch?” said Lady Ardry, who was arranging her cape about her chair like the Coronation robes. “That should be jolly. What time?”

“The invitation, dear Aunt, is for Inspector —”

But she merely flapped her hand over her shoulder. “We've more important matters to discuss than food.” She planted both hands firmly on her walking stick. Jury was happy to see the cutoff-fingered mittens back in favor. Clasped about the wrist of one brown mitten was Plant's emerald-and-ruby bracelet. Jury thought its regal splendor had already begun to tarnish.

“Had to be him, didn't it? Matchett. Always thought so. One can tell from the eyes, Inspector. It's always the eyes. Paranoid, quite mad, Matchett's are. Hard and cold . . . Well!” She clapped her hand on the desk. “All I can say is, it's good you were here,
Johnny-on-the-spot, instead of that
awful
man, your superintendent. I'm sure you wouldn't care for me to repeat to you the contemptible way the man acted in my house —”

“We certainly wouldn't, Agatha,” said Melrose, who was slowly enveiling himself in a shroud of smoke like a kind of translucent armor.

Over her shoulder, she tossed back at him: “All well and good for you to sit up there in Ardry End, lolling about over port and walnuts —”

“Lady Ardry,” said Jury, aware he was jeopardizing his newly won popularity, “had it not been for Mr. Plant here, we'd never have got the evidence to put Matchett behind bars.”

“Decent of you to say so, my dear Jury, but then you always were a generous, pretty-spoken man —”

Behind her, Plant choked on his cigar.

“But,” she continued,
“we
know who did the work in this case.” She gave him a smarmy smile. “And it wasn't Plant, not much more was it that crazy superintendent, who's been too busy sniffing up to all the girls in the village.” She polished one or two of the emeralds in her bracelet with a mittened hand, then leaned across and whispered, “I hear he was in the Jack and Hammer last night, hanging round Nellie Lickens.”

Jury indulged his curiosity. “And who's Nellie Lickens when she's at home?”

“You know. Ida Lickins's girl. Who keeps the junkshop. Nellie does for Dick Scroggs now and then, and no better than she should be —”

“Idle gossip, Agatha.”

“Never you mind, Plant. Granted, my own humble abode isn't Ardry End” — and she turned to sneer in Plant's direction — “but Superintendent Whoever-he-is had no right to treat me in that offhand manner. Walked into my cottage, took one look, and turned on his heel and walked out. Even had dinner laid on. Some of my very nice eel stew — you needn't make that retching noise, Plant — and the man had the audacity to walk into my kitchen and look in the pot!”

“Terribly sorry, Lady Ardry, if New Scotland Yard has inconvenienced you in any way —”

“Well, let me tell you, I'm sure I manage to make my guests quite comfortable. As a matter of fact, I've just been thinking today of putting up a B and B sign. I seem to have a knack for that sort of thing —”

“Lovely,” said Melrose, through a screen of smoke; “then our next series could be called ‘The Northants. Tourists Murders.' ”

“As a matter of fact, Plant,” she threw over her shoulder, “I wonder you don't do the same. Do you some good to work for a living.”

“Are you suggesting I make Ardry End into a Bed and Breakfast establishment?”

“Certainly. You'd do a smashing business.” From the way her eyes glittered, Jury was sure she'd just come upon this quixotic notion. Now she would tilt at whatever windmills rose in her path. “Twenty-two sleeping rooms — my heavens! — why didn't we think of it before? With Martha to do the breakfasts and me to take charge — a gold mine!”

“I haven't the time,” said Melrose calmly.

“Time? You've nothing
but
time. That University business hardly takes up more than an hour a week. You need something to
do
, Melrose —”

“But I
have
something. I've decided to become a writer.” Through tendrils of smoke, Melrose smiled weirdly at Jury. “I'm writing a book.”

Nearly overturning her chair, she jumped up. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Just that, Agatha. I'm writing a book about this whole grisly affair.”

“But you can't! That'd be two of us doing it! You know I told you I was writing a kind of semidocumentary. Like that Capote person about those murders in America.”

“Not
Ka-put
, for God's sake.
Ca-po-te
. Three syllables, long
O
. Must you slaughter the names of your own countrymen?”

“Never mind. I've got the whole thing plotted out.”

“Well, then, you'd better be getting on with it. Or I'll finish before you do.”

“Finish! Well, it's not all that easy, you know. You've got to
find a publisher. We who scratch away at our desks all day know how difficult this writing game is —”

“I'll simply buy a publisher, then.” Melrose kept his eyes clamped on Jury.

“Oh, that's just like you, Plant.”

“Isn't it just. I've already got my first chapter done.” Melrose tapped the ash from his cigar neatly into the palm of his hand.

She whirled on Jury as if she meant for him to stop this madman in his tracks. Jury only shrugged. “Well, you two can sit here lollygagging all afternoon. I've got to get back to my writing.” She raked her walking stick across door and doorjamb in her sudden exit.

“At least,” said Melrose, “we're rid of her for the afternoon, Inspector. Time to have a quiet luncheon. That is, if you'll come?” Plant rose, depositing his cigar ash in a tray on the desk.

“I'd be delighted.”

Plant extended his hand and Jury rose. “An inappropriate thing to say, in the circumstances,” said Melrose, “but I'm sorry it's all over. I seldom meet anyone whose mind does not unravel like an old piece of tatting when life becomes problematical.” He drew on his kidskin gloves and patted his cap into place. As he turned to the door, Jury asked:

“Mr. Plant. One question: Why
did
you give up your title?”

“Why?” Plant was thoughtful. “I'll tell you, if I can depend on your not letting it get around.” Jury smiled and nodded. Plant lowered his voice to a whisper. “When I put on that cape-like gown and that wig, Inspector, I looked exactly like Aunt Agatha.” He was out the door. Before he closed it, though, he stuck his head round the corner. “There was a reason. I'll tell you some day. Good-bye, Inspector.” He touched his fingers to the brim of his cap in a salute.

 • • • 

As he walked out the door shortly after Plant had left, Jury heard Pluck and Wiggins arguing.

“Now just look here what happened yesterday in Hampstead Heath,” said Pluck, slapping his fingers against a page of the
Telegraph
: “Fifteen-year-old girl goes and gets herself assaulted.”
He tossed the paper aside. “An you say London's a right old place. Ha! You won't catch me living there.” As Jury shut the door, Pluck slurped his tea and added: “Man could get himself killed.”

 • • • 

He had agreed to meet Vivian around noon, and it was close to that now, and he was putting off the meeting. When he saw Marshall Trueblood behind his Regency window, pecking with his finger like a bird against the pane, Jury was glad of the reprieve.

“My dear!” said Trueblood, as Jury walked in the shop. “They told me you were leaving! Listen, you could have pasted my ears to the top of my head when I heard it was Simon! Simon, of all people! I mean, he was so
attractive!
Was he trying to implicate me by taking my letter opener, the rotter?”

“Probably. I doubt he could have taken the vicar by surprise as he did the others and strangled him, anyway.”

“My God, I just thought: poor Vivian. What if she had
married
the man?” Trueblood shuddered as he lit up a bright pink cigarette. “So it was Matchett who murdered his wife?”

“It was. He finally admitted to that.” Jury looked at his watch and rose. “If you're ever in London, Mr. Trueblood, be sure to look me up.”

“I wouldn't
miss
the chance, darling!”

 • • • 

There was a bench on the green, and the square was once again a clear, glistering white, for it had snowed during the night. Jury sat there, staring at the ducks. Then he stared across the square at the dark stone of the Rivington house. He should go over as he had promised. But he just sat there. Finally, he saw the door of the house open, and a figure come out, coated and scarved. She left behind her a very neat set of tracks on the smooth, crisp whiteness, a single line of them as she walked toward him.

As she came round the edge of the pond, he got up. “I thought,” she said, smiling, “you were going to come round at eleven. I was watching out the window for you, and then I saw someone sitting over here, and wondered if it could be you.”
Jury said nothing, and she went on. “Well, I just wanted to thank you for everything.”

His mouth felt stiff with the cold. But he finally brought out, “I hope you weren't too . . . downcast by the news, Miss Rivington.”

Her eyes went over his face. “Downcast. What a felicitous choice of word. No, not really. I was just horribly shocked. I seem to have surrounded myself with people I couldn't trust.” She wrapped her arms about her, warding off cold, and the tip of her overshoe pushed back the snow. “Isabel told me the truth. About what happened to my father.” She looked up at him, but Jury did not comment. “She said it was her conscience, that it was weighing very heavily on her. I wonder. After all these years, would one's conscience suddenly begin acting up? You were her conscience, weren't you?” Vivian smiled. Jury stared down at the snow as if daisies might suddenly spring through it, the way things do in timed-release photos. When he didn't say anything, she went on. “There's one thing, though, I must know.”