A Colourful Death: A Cornish Mystery (26 page)

Lennox hesitated. “Yes, I suppose I am. Plenty of women seem to like it. He was always surrounded by hopeful hordes.”

“We’ve been told he was a womaniser.”

“Until he met Stella. Not that she seemed to care one way or the other, but I got the impression he was pretty much faithful to her, though you’ll hear plenty of talk to the contrary, I expect.”

“‘Pretty much.’ I gather it was quite recently that he attacked Jeanette Jones.”

“He was sozzled, and Stella had been giving him a hard time. He suspected she’d taken up with someone else. Knowing her, probably just a one-night fling. But she was definitely the one who held the whip hand. He was pissed as a newt, if you’ll excuse the expression, and after that disgusting display he got disgustingly weepy.”

“Drunkenness is no excuse in the law.” Megan decided Scumble would expect her to concentrate on the assault. “Why wasn’t the attack reported to the police?”

“No point. I got there in time to stop him hurting her. When I disarmed him, I … uh,
he
somehow wrenched his shoulder badly enough that he couldn’t paint for a fortnight. I made him pay to replace everything he’d dirtied, damaged, or destroyed. What would have been the point of dragging the whole thing into court, making Jeanie describe in public just what she went through? You know what some people say about women who are assaulted. No, reporting it just wasn’t on.”

Privately Megan agreed. She spared him the requisite lecture on taking the law into one’s own hands. Lennox apparently considered Clark had got what was coming to him for his drunken shenanigans, and as far as he was concerned, the incident was over and done with. He seemed a pretty straightforward character. Megan tended to believe him.

Which left open the question of whether Jeanette had been equally able to put the whole thing behind her. No, Megan thought, for Jeanette it was still a gaping wound.

“Drop me at the butcher’s, Joce, please,” said Eleanor as they started down the hill into Port Mabyn. “I haven’t got anything for supper.”

“Come and eat with us.”

“Oh no, dear, the vicar will want you to himself after you’ve been gone all day.”

Jocelyn examined this dubious proposition—Timothy Stearns was quite likely to have assumed he was supposed to know about her absence—but she decided not to dispute it. “All right. I’ll see you at the shop in the morning.” She drew up outside Dinmont’s Fine Meats. “I hope That Man is not going to be bothering us any more.”

“We can but hope.” Eleanor climbed out, a trifle wearily, and Teazle bounced after her. “Bother! I still don’t have her lead and I’ve lost the bit of string.”

Ever efficient, Jocelyn provided a ball of twine from the glove compartment—as well as scissors to cut off a length. She drove off up the opposite hill towards the vicarage.

Eleanor tied Teazle to a convenient pipe and went into the shop. She asked Mrs Dinmont for half a pound of chipolatas, then decided she’d better invite Nick in case he didn’t make it to the shops before they closed, as they would in a few minutes.

“Make that three quarters, please, Mrs Dinmont.” She felt in her pocket for her purse. “Oh dear, I forgot, I haven’t got any money on me.”

“That’s all right, dearie,” said Mrs Dinmont, wrapping the sausages in wax paper. “You can bring it in tomorrow, unless you’d like to start an account? Lots of ladies do.”

“No, no, I’ll pay you tomorrow.” Eleanor didn’t like to run monthly accounts. Somehow she always ended up short of money at the end of the month. “Thank you.”

Mrs Dinmont placed the packet on the counter but kept her hand on it. Leaning forward, her blood-smeared apron pressed against the edge of the counter, she asked, “Is it true Mr Gresham’s girlfriend wrecked his shop?”

“No, it’s not!” Who—? Oh, Donna, of course. And there would be worse rumours flying once the police came to ask the girl to confirm Nick’s presence in Port Mabyn at five o’clock yesterday. “Stella isn’t his girlfriend. She’s a colleague who took care of the shop while he was in London.”

“Not his girlfriend, that’s as may be. But take care of the shop, she didn’t, Mrs Trewynn, mark my words. Never opened after lunchtime closing yesterday, and if they’ve changed early closing to Thursday, it’s more than anyone’s told me or Mr Dinmont. Not that I’d put it past the gov’mint, mind.”

“There’s no accounting for the whims of the government,” Eleanor agreed with a bright smile, managing to ease her sausages from Mrs Dinmont’s slackened grasp. “Thank you, and I’ll be sure to come in and pay first thing tomorrow. Good-bye.”

Flurried, she almost left Teazle behind. An anxious yip reminded her. She fumbled with the knotted string and for a moment was afraid she’d have to go back into the shop to borrow scissors, but at last it came loose. They went on down the hill to the old stone bridge over the stream. To Eleanor’s relief, the parapets were unadorned by the customary selection of retired fishermen. Only a couple of herring gulls perched there, eyeing her small parcel hungrily as she passed. One took off with a raucous cry and flapped up to join its fellows circling above.

Down in the harbour, the stream carved a shallow channel through the sandy mud, where three small boats lay tilted on their sides. The tide was out again. Eleanor remembered Leila, at breakfast, in a hurry to get to the sea while the tide was low, to collect her shells. Or had that been no more than an excuse to get away from the farm?

From what Eleanor remembered of the conversation at breakfast, Leila had certainly disliked Geoff, even hated him. Wasn’t it she who had called him an arrogant pig? And surely Jeanette had hinted at something between the two.

Suppose Leila had killed Geoff. Why would she have waited until this morning to decamp? The only reason Eleanor could think of was that she wouldn’t be missed for twelve hours or so. No one would realise till suppertime that she wasn’t coming home, giving her plenty of time to disappear to … To where? Perhaps she had spent the intervening hours wondering where to go, where she might find refuge.

But would anyone have noticed if she hadn’t returned to the farm last night? Margery had said it was difficult for her to cater to her lodgers because people were pretty casual about turning up for meals.

Trying to remember just what Leila had said at breakfast-time, Eleanor had walked on up the hill, oblivious of passers-by. She found herself outside Nick’s shop. The closedsign was up and her knock brought no response. A push on the door proved it locked.

He was probably in the studio working on
Land of Hope and Glory
. The best way to get his attention was to go through the passage beside the shop and round by the back path to knock on his window. Besides inviting him to supper, she was now eager to find out if he knew what the trouble was between Leila and Geoff. An affair followed by rejection, like Margery Rosevear, or had Geoff pressed his unwanted attentions on Leila as he had on poor Jeanette? Or had he simply made unbearably derogatory remarks about the artistic merit of her shell-work?

Eleanor found it nearly impossible to comprehend that anyone could consider an insult an adequate reason for murder, but she had a feeling history proved the point, if only she could remember her history. Though she had forgotten why Cain slew Abel, surely Romulus had killed Remus because the latter had laughed at the wall built by the former and jumped over it … Or was it the other way round? No, Romulus had survived because Rome must have been named after him. What should have been a mere tiff, and a brotherly tiff at that, had escalated to murder. Admittedly the two were brought up by a wolf, yet she rather thought she read somewhere—probably in
National Geographic—
that wolves led lives of domestic felicity.

These reflections had taken her round to Nick’s window, open a few inches at the top to let in air but not the brisk breeze off the sea. There he was, scowling ferociously at the painting on his easel.

Not wanting to startle him, she tapped softly on the pane.

He swung round, snarling, “What the hell do you—Oh, it’s you, Eleanor. Sorry. I opened the shop and had swarms of people dropping in to find out if Stella had really wrecked the place. That wretched child, I suppose! I thought someone had decided to attack from the rear. Come in.” He threw a cloth over the easel and wiped his hands on a turps-soaked rag.

“I don’t want to interrupt, dear. I just wanted to ask if you’d like to come over for supper, about seven? Sausages, baked potatoes in their jackets, French beans, and there are some strawberries if they’ve survived my absence.”

“What’s this, bribery and corruption?”

“Well, I do want to talk about … well, everything. But I promise not to ask if Stella wrecked the shop! Can you spare the time? Is that
Land of Hope and Glory
? How is it going?”

“I haven’t got much further than the background, thanks to all the busybodies. It’s all planned, though. There’s not much to be said for spending a night in a cell, but it does give one time to think. Yes, please, I’d love sausages. What time?” As he spoke, he absently pulled the cloth off the canvas and started painting furiously.

“Seven o’clock,” Eleanor told him again. If he wasn’t listening and didn’t turn up on time, she could always pop down and fetch him.

She called Teazle from her investigation of a rabbit hole under the blackthorn bushes, loaded now with small green sloes. Teazle scampered up the stairs to the flat, obviously as happy as Eleanor to be home at last. Eleanor toiled after her, feeling her age.

While the oven was preheating, she scrubbed a couple of large King Edwards, then added a couple more. Nick had a big appetite; he probably hadn’t been fed well in the lock-up and she didn’t know if he’d had any lunch. Any leftovers could be turned into rösti tomorrow. As long as she was careful not to let it burn, she was quite good at rösti, the greatest invention to come out of Switzerland since cuckoo clocks. She dried the potatoes with a tea-towel, the only way, according to Jocelyn, to ensure the crispness of the jackets, though Eleanor couldn’t help thinking that the hot oven alone must dry them pretty quickly.

The rest wouldn’t take long. She fed Teazle, topped and tailed the beans, and went to sit down for a few minutes in her chair by the window. The sun was peeking in …

The next thing she knew was Teazle’s
wuff-wuff
, the smell of baking potatoes, and Nick coming through the door.

“Oh, Nick! I fell asleep.” Blinking, she started to get up.

“Stay there.” He glanced at the table. “You’ve got everything ready to go. Believe it or not, I can fry sausages and cook beans.”

“Thank you, dear. I don’t usually take a nap. I don’t know why I’m so tired. I haven’t done much all day except sit and talk.”

“That’s exhausting enough, when it’s DI Scumble you’re talking to. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to drop the subject now?”

“No!” Eleanor was wide awake now. “I want to hear all about your side of the story, how you convinced Scumble that Stella was talking through her hat, everything.” She moved over to sit at the table.

“That was the easy part. He knew Geoff died hours before we got there. He didn’t seem convinced that I hadn’t managed somehow to sneak back from London to do it earlier.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t really believe you did, Nick. How could you, between talking to Jocelyn from Paddington at midday and arriving at Launceston by train at four?”

“I could have faked the phone call, with a tape-recorder.”

“Could you? How clever! Only wouldn’t that mean you’d have had to plan long in advance? And you didn’t know Mr Alarian was going to accept your paintings or that Geoff would react so violently. I know the inspector doesn’t count me as a reliable witness, but he has only to talk to Mr Alarian, and Lobcot at Launceston station, and Donna—”

“Donna! Don’t talk to me about Donna! Little witch! I swear I’m never going near the Trelawny Arms again. Having got hold of the wrong end of the stick, she seems to have nattered to everyone in Port Mabyn.”

“It only takes one. I expect she told one of her friends, in confidence.” Eleanor sniffed. “Are those sausages burning?”

“Oops!” he swung round and turned down the heat. “I hope you like them well-browned.”

“Luckily, yes. I prefer my beans green, though. You’d better concentrate.”

For a few minutes the only sounds were the sizzle of the sausages, the bubbling of boiling water, and an occasional hopeful whine as Teazle stared up at the frying pan.

Even if the sausages were burnt, Eleanor was very glad to be at home, rather than at Upper Trewithen Farm surrounded by possible murderers. Which of them had done it? Or could it have been someone not connected with the artists’ colony, someone nobody had yet considered?

Nick dished up. “They’re a bit crispy but only one’s actually got a black streak. Teazle probably wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to dispose of it. Leave it to cool for her. These look perfectly all right to me. Nick, I just thought, what if it wasn’t one of the artists who killed Geoff? Who else could it have been?”

His mouth full, Nick shrugged, swallowed, and said, “I don’t know all the people he associated with. There’s the brewery, of course. He’s been working for them for several years. As far as I know, a purely business relationship, and he’s been good for their business. The smith who made his sword and the deadly dagger. Perhaps Geoff took it without paying, the smith went to the gallery to demand payment, and they quarrelled.”

“Was Geoff bad about paying bills?”

“Not that I’ve heard. I don’t know the smith, either, so it’s fruitless wondering. I expect Scumble will get after the also-rans, if it turns out not to be anyone at the farm.”

“But you think it
was
someone at the farm?”

“They knew him best and had most reason to dislike him. Reasons, plural.”

“Yes, it’s very sad. Do you know Leila’s reason?”

“What makes you think Leila had a particular reason?” Nick asked cautiously.

“When I had breakfast with them all, hints were flying thick and fast.” Should she mention that Leila had accused Jeanette of being in love with Nick? Better not. He might be unaware of that complication. Jeanette’s solicitude for him, her certainty that he was not guilty, suggested there was something in it—unless Jeanette had been pretending in order to divert suspicion from herself? Another possibility that Eleanor would have to consider.