Jerusalem Inn (26 page)

“I still don't see the connection with the murders. Even supposing he
is
the son of —” Melrose looked down at Chrissie, always operating under the assumption that children heard everything and filed it away to blackmail you with at some later date, and said, circumspectly, “ — you know, those two. Assuming he is,” — Melrose's head inclined toward Robbie — “why would she have to die for it?”

“Maybe she was just bad,” said Chrissie.

He
knew
she had been sitting there absorbing every word. “When I want your opinion, I shall ask for it,” said Melrose, pretending not to notice the small tongue suddenly stuck out in his direction. Her limpid brown gaze turned to Jury. “I guess I'll have to put him back.”

Jury nodded. “You really ought. Mary and Joseph probably miss him.”

Mary and Joseph? Melrose refused to have anything to do with this runic conversation. Chrissie took up the doll and pushed past Jury and ran out of the room.

“I've got to go to Newcastle Station to collect Wiggins. Care to come along?”

“Sergeant Wiggins! Up here in the frozen North? Does he realize what he's headed for?”

“Afraid so, yes.”

Tommy came up to their table and handed Melrose a cue stick from the rack. “Why don't you have a go? You might stand a chance.”

“Thank you very much,” said Melrose, icily, taking the stick and going over to the table.

“He doesn't really remember much about his mother. She died when he was pretty young, he's not even sure how young. He has a picture —”

“I've seen it.”

“He's very vague about it all.” Tommy looked sad and sighted down his cue. “I suppose I should consider myself lucky.” His tone was doubtful, though.

“It's not a case of ‘should,' is it?”

“The trouble is I'm the last Marquess of Meares, unless I get married and have children. I think Aunt Betsy's already got her eyes on the daughter of a duke — one of them. It doesn't make any difference; they all look like trolls. But I shouldn't complain. No one tells me what to do except for Aunt Betsy and fourteen solicitors.” There was no irony in his tone. “So you might say I've plenty of freedom to do what I want.”

“Doesn't sound to me like you've got all that much.”

He defended his aunt: “You can't blame her. I'm already disgracing the family name at St. Jude's Grange by failing everything except Mesopotamia, which doesn't come up all that often, anyway. I cut tutorials to play snooker and I'm hoping if they think I'm stupid, they'll let me off. Otherwise, I'm sunk. It'll be Christ Church College — that's where people like me end up —”

Jury laughed. “You make it sound like the high-security lock-up outside Durham.”

Tom balanced the cue stick on the palm of his hand. Perfect
control. “Oxford is such a gritty old town. All they have is bookstores and haberdasheries where they sell scarves with the school colors and I'll probably be expected to try for a rowing Blue. I loathe rowing. There isn't a pool hall in the whole damned place. I've looked.”

“You're going to drop that stick if you're not careful.” Jury pocketed his cigarettes and checked the time.

“Me? I don't drop things. Do you know Aunt Betsy's told the butler to keep the billiard room stuff locked up? The way some people would lock up the liquor if they had a flaming drunk in the family.”

“That's going pretty far.”

“Well, I guess I see her point. If I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed.”

“It's not exactly as if you're possessed by demons.” Jury smiled.

Tommy let his stick fall into his other hand and sighted along it like a rifle. “You know how I get in the billiard room? It's during the tours. We have tours see, mostly of the gardens, which are quite fabulous. I put on an old coat and hat and glasses. The guides wouldn't know me from Adam anyway. And when the last tour's on, I just hang round the edge of it, slip in the closet and wait for them to leave. I can get in an hour or so's practice that way. No one else ever goes in the games room. Then I just slip out the french door and go round. No one's figured out why the french door isn't locked some mornings.”

“My God, what determination.” Jury laughed.

 • • • 

Somehow, Robbie had managed a safety shot that landed the cue ball up against the cushion. Melrose chalked his cue tip. If he didn't miscue — and he probably would — he could pot the black —

“Get your chin down,” said Tommy, standing behind him.

Melrose straightened and sighed. “I don't need an audience.”

Jury smiled. “If you're going in for championship play, you've got to get used to it. Hurry up; I've got to get to Durham.”

“Then let me concentrate.”

All he needed now — and there they were — was a pair of brown eyes just at cushion level staring at him.

“Go away,” said Melrose.

Chrissie did not move, nor did her eyes.

There was nothing for it, except to try. He lapped his bridge fingers on the edge of the table —

“Straighten them out. You can't make that bridge for a cushion shot.”

Oh,
damn
them all! He felt as if his arm were frozen in place, and he was rather ashamed of himself for wanting to show off to Whittaker, who, once again, told him to get his chin down to cue level.

“And stop looking at the pocket. Look at the ball.”

How did
he
know Melrose had let his eye stray to the pocket? He looked from the cue ball to the black, a perfect shot if he didn't miscue. Just as he drew the que back and thrust it forward, the small voice said,

“It'd be easier just to hit the black one.”

He cursed. The tip of the cue slipped right off the top of the white ball, and she, apparently having accomplished her purpose of making him miscue, went off, carrying Alice.

Jury smiled. Tommy sympathized. Melrose stared at the white cue ball and the black object ball. He straighted up and looked at the empty door Chrissie had just gone through. “I'll be damned,” he said. “It really
was
Beatrice Sleight.”

Maybe he couldn't play snooker, but he could get a thrill by wiping that smile off Jury's face.

T
HEY
were standing outside beside Jury's police-issue Granada, Melrose hunched down against the cold in his fisherman's sweater. “It was done so no one would think
Beatrice Sleight
was the intended victim. A mantle of confusion thrown over the whole thing — quite literally: Grace Seaingham's white cape. The murderer potted the black with the white. It's quite simple. Except of course, getting old Bea to cooperate. That must have taken some pretty fancy play.”

Jury was leaning against the car door, looking toward the windows of the inn. “You don't need fancy plays with a shotgun in your hands.”

“You mean someone got Beatrice down to the solarium and told her to put on the cape.”

“I imagine it was done a bit more smoothly than that, but, essentially, yes.”

“So you think I'm right?”

“Dead right. It makes a good deal more sense than explaining the otherwise strange behavior of Beatrice Sleight, surely the last person to go to chapel — and in Grace Seaingham's cape. So someone is going to great lengths to keep police from looking for connections between these people and Beatrice Sleight.”

Melrose pulled his sleeves down to cover his hands. The sky had turned a miraculous and dazzling blue; sun was melting snow; the wind had calmed. “Nobody liked her. And if the lady of the house wasn't the intended
victim
 . . . well, Grace Seaingham had a hell of a good reason for murder.”

Jury shook his head.

“Oh, come on. You believe she's so good, you're overlooking the obvious.”

“It's not that,” said Jury. “Even if she wanted Beatrice
Sleight dead, what reason would she have for killing Helen Minton?”

Melrose stopped the little jig he was doing to keep warm. “Who says it had to be the same person?”

Jury tossed his cigarette butt onto the hard ground. “I do.” He looked up at the marble-hard blue of a cloudless sky. “A lot of poisons are very unreliable — they might just make you sick. Which is how aconite can act on the system, if one doesn't get a fatal dose. The murderer apparently felt that with Helen there was time to take a chance, at least, on when she'd
get
that fatal dose, so the poison could have been put in her medicine by someone visiting Old Hall and death might have looked like a result of her heart problem; then Helen Minton found out something about Robin Lyte. But it doesn't get us very far, does it?”

“If he's Parmenger's son —?”

“Um. Parmenger's the other reason I think the same person killed both of them. Parmenger knew them both — Helen and Beatrice. He's the connection.”

“Could Helen Minton have threatened his reputation by telling the world?”

“It doesn't seem in character for either of them. For her to tell, or for him to mind. Parmenger's above it all. Who else have we got? Lady St. Leger? A little hard to believe you'd shoot a commoner because she hated the peerage —”

“There's always Lady Ardry,” said Melrose, hopefully.

Jury went on: “William MacQuade? Sort of a dark horse, that one. He's certainly a survivor, but I see no motive.”

“He couldn't stand Beatrice Sleight. She loved making snappy little comments about ‘literary' writers. What about the Assingtons? They seem to be standing out on the edge of this whole thing. No motive at all. He's just the Great Physician and she seemed all impressed by the trash Beatrice Sleight wrote. Proper featherbrain. Just the sort of murderer
Elizabeth Onions would have running about in
The Third Pigeon.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I don't think it's fair to have mental incompetents as murderers do you? They're not responsible.”

Jury climbed into the car. “I'm going to Durham. I'll take Grace, you take Susan.” He smiled and started the engine.

“Thanks. I'd sooner take cyanide.” The car idled as Jury looked past him for a long moment. “What are you staring at?” Plant turned to look at the tiny windows. Chrissie had her face plump up against the glass.

“A pair of brown eyes,” said Jury, waving to her, before he drove away.

Melrose saw the eyes quickly disappear below the sill where the melting snow dripped and ran like rain.

O
N A
day like this, seen from a distance and through the fog, Durham Cathedral appeared to float magically above the peninsula where the River Wear made its sharp, hairpin turn.

The chapel in which Grace Seaingham knelt was off to the right. How long could a woman stay on her knees? Jury wondered. It wasn't a long time standing, but on your knees, it was like forever.

Jury studied the geometrical quarry-markings on the columns, and watched her. Finally, she rose, made her way across the empty pew, and came out upon the aisle. Her glance downcast, she didn't see Jury until she was a few feet away from him. When she did, she caught the collar of her white wool coat about her neck as if Jury were a stiff, unwelcome wind. She did not smile.

“Sorry, Mrs. Seaingham. I'm not shadowing you.” His smile felt artificial, as it usually did in her presence. “You said you'd be here, and I wanted to tell you something. . . . Look, I'm sure you'd rather talk somewhere else.”

Her own smile made him feel cheated; of what, he didn't
know. “I don't mind. Do you? If we're talking about death —” She gave him a slight shrug. “ — why not here?” With one of her elegant, Edwardian gestures, she indicated they might walk about. They might have been going on a tour of Spinney Abbey.

Jury felt, here in the cathedral, at a disadvantage. Though why he should want an advantage over Grace Seaingham he wasn't sure. He turned to look at her and saw that serene profile, the pale hair. She had stopped before the fresco of St. Cuthbert. “Freddie Parmenger should see this. Only he doesn't much like churches. Did you know the monks carried St. Cuthbert's bones about for hundreds of years? First from Lindisfarne, and then Chester-le-Street. It's not far from here. This was the final resting place.” Her face still turned toward the fresco, she asked him, “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

“It wasn't you, Mrs. Seaingham. I made a mistake there. The intended victim really
was
Beatrice Sleight.”

He felt her indrawn breath almost as if she were robbing him of oxygen. The whole massive Norman structure made him feel like a mountain-climber, a clumsy back-packer, out of his element, as he looked up at the rib vaulting, the transverse arches. He felt a sort of lack, a need to be reassured, like some fractious kid. He felt ridiculous.

And it was obviously in his own mind; it was nothing she was doing or saying, for her sudden turn on him was merely surprise and relief. “But why in heaven's name would Bea have on my cape?”

“Whoever killed her wanted everyone to think it was you they meant . . . ” He didn't finish. “Just how the killer got her to wear the cape and go outside, I'm not sure. Perhaps some plausible story of having a little ‘talk' where they couldn't be seen — in the chapel, maybe —”

Her eyes were luminous, whether with relief or the beginning of tears, Jury couldn't tell. “Then it wasn't —” Abruptly
she stopped, turned her head toward the painting of St. Cuthbert.

“Wasn't what? Or who?”

She didn't answer.

“Your husband, you mean. I doubt very much that it was your husband in any event.”

“You don't think he killed her?”

Jury didn't answer this. He only said, “If she was his —”