Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent (26 page)

Melrose followed his gaze. "Malcolm. Taking in everything, no
doubt."

The boy's face was mashed against the casement window, the grin
distorted into a gargoyle grimace above a lanky gray cat lying on the
sill.

"I don't see why we must go through this dreadful business over and
over again," said Ramona Braine, more to her carefully arranged cards
than to the company in general, who had, given Jury's introduction into
their midst, started in again on the murder of their landlady.

"I do," said the Princess, returning her silvery gaze to Jury. Her
voice was eager; in order to make room for this new person to sit, her
hands scooped back the gored skirt of her handsome rose wool dress
where it had been fanned out on the chaise. "You're a friend of Mr.
Plant? How lovely."

Jury smiled noncommittally and took a seat beside Malcolm, supine
on the facing sofa, to Malcolm's great surprise. The maneuver, though,
clearly pleased him. He dragged an Ertyl plane from his pocket, this
one a miniature Spitfire, and pretended not to be impressed. Scooping
the plane through the air, he sent it upward, accompanied by blubbery
lip-vibrations to simulate the sound of its engine.

Jury accepted a cup of lukewarm tea from the pot, sat back, and let
them tell him about the dreadful business of the morning. The Princess
and Major Poges cut across and contradicted each other's reports at
every opportunity. For a good quarter of an hour this continued, with
Ramona Braine, who Melrose had told Jury had been hell-bent to get to
Northumberland, now apparently content to stop over and make hindsight
prognostications. "I knew the moment she said she was a Sagittarius . .
."

"Place overrun with police, you'd think we were all suspects," said
George Poges.

"I certainly hope so," said the Princess, extending her cup to Poges
for a refill of tea.

Jury looked down at Malcolm and his drifting Spitfire and asked in a
joking tone: "And where were you when the lady disappeared?" It was
Jury's experience that children were ordinarily overlooked in police
investigations.

Malcolm stopped the plane's midair plunge and looked up at the new
person, open-mouthed. "Me?"

"Umm."

Spirit world in abeyance, Ramona Braine thrust herself forward in
her chair, nearly overturning the wooden board she was using to hold
her Tarot cards. "In
bed
, of course!"

Jury ignored her, as did Malcolm. Malcolm, clearly thrilled by a
total stranger's interest, was having nothing to do with this bland
asleep-in-bed alibi. His eyes narrowed and a tight little smile pinched
up his lips as he slid closer to Jury. "
When
this morning?" It
rang out on a note of triumph.

Of course he would have ingested his share of
Cagney and Lacey
episodes, like every other kid in Britain.

Jury gave him a comradely tap on the shoulder, "Good question." He
looked at them all.

"Oh, five-ish, wasn't it?"

With feigned contempt Malcolm said, "
Five-ish
? You wouldn't
catch them on
The Bill
saying '
FIVE-ish.'"

Poges shouted, "This isn't one of your telly bloodbaths. This is
real
life!"

Given his mother, Jury imagined Malcolm's confrontations with real
life were somewhat limited.

The Princess said, "Oh really, George. Stop sputtering at him. The
poor child doesn't know anything."

"That so?" Malcolm
vroooomed
his metal plane downward. "I
know enough to know you're lying." Silence. "Not you," he said,
directing his gaze at the startled face of the Princess. "Him. The
Major." Then he started making figure eights with the airplane.

Not even his mother could make a sound at this an-nouncement, work
her mouth as she would. They all sat about looking waxen, except for
Plant, who was smiling and lighting one of his small cigars.

"What in God's name is going on here?" George Poges started to rise
from his chair. "We're not going to believe the rantings of a malicious
boy—"

Malice took precedence over murder in Ramona Braine's cards,
clearly. "Don't you go calling Malcolm names, you nasty old bug———"

"
Please
!" said the Princess, touching her temples.

Vrooooming his plane up and down and having a fine old time sending
everyone into a state of nerves, Malcolm was holding on to whatever
attention he could get and seemed delighted by whatever names might be
called.

Jury reached over and caught his wrist and eased the plane from his
fist, ignoring Malcolm's banshee protests. "I'm just parking this for a
minute." Jury took a brass box with a tiny drawer from the side table
and slid the Spitfire inside. "In the hangar."

Although Malcolm scowled mightily, he took the box-hangar and
fiddled with it, but was clearly enjoying this new man's being in on
his game. Jury thought that in Malcolm's young life, probably, he'd
never actually realized his potential for power over adults other than
the crass kiddies' methods of making noise, kicking furniture, and
sending cats up trees. Malcolm pointed at the Major as if the boy were
a witness in a courtroom drama. "
You
never told police the
truth. I was standing outside that window—" and here he pointed to the
sill whereupon the gray cat snoozed.

"Spying!" said Major Poges, rising from his chair with steely eyes.

"I seen you early this morning go out the back with that floppy hat
on and your galoshes and your . . . gun." Malcolm slid down, looking a
bit frightened.

That slight pause before he mentioned the gun made Jury wonder if
this was a chancy embellishment.

"Where were you, Malcolm, when you saw this?"

"Malcolm! I
forbid
you to say
one more word
!"

"Why? I didn't do nothin'," said her son, reasonably. "I was
up in my room. I got a perfect view of that moor back there." He made
it sound like the kitchen garden. Gravely, he pulled down his T-shirt
and sat back, adding, for good measure, "Prob'ly on the way to the gun
butts."

Major Poges opened and then closed his mouth.

"Absurd," said the Princess. "Absolutely absurd! Major Poges
would
not
-"

But he interrupted her with a weak smile. "It's all right,
Rose." He said to them all, "The boy's telling the truth. Nothing
sinister in it, though. I couldn't sleep and thought I'd just have a
tramp across the moor to see if I could bag a grouse."

"You were headed for the shooting butts, then?" asked Plant,
looking at Jury.

"No, no. Need a driver to put the birds over you for that.
No. I was for Keighley reservoir. It was dead dark-this was about
four-thirty, five, and I planned walking into the light. I reckon I was
there an hour or so. A snipe or two settled, but no pheasant or grouse.
I'm not that much of a shooter, anyway; I probably would have missed
the damned birds, or tried to." He smiled wanly. "It was just exercise
with a sense of purpose behind it. After an hour I turned back." He
took a swallow of his sherry. "It was a little after seven, as Master
Malcolm can no doubt verify." Now, there was more humor than bitterness
in his tone.

And Master Malcolm seemed to have lost interest in the
Major's predicament, as the boy was more concerned with moving his
Spitfire in and out of its new airplane hangar.

"You should have told that to Superintendent Sanderson,"
said Melrose.

Poges looked a bit ashen. "First thing that flashed through
my mind was that I might have been in the vicinity where Ann Denholme
was killed and here was I, carrying a shotgun. All right, I must admit
I fibbed."

Said the Princess, waving her cigarette holder: "Naturally-

Who wouldn't?" She held the holder in the direction of
Melrose, who moved to light it.

Ramona Braine's eyes came up as her hands stopped sweeping above the
cards. "How did you know she was
shot
? When that policeman
questioned me, he didn't mention that." She smiled meanly.

The Princess's smile was even meaner. "The man told
me
,
darling. And I passed it on to Poges, here." She sighed and swabbed her
silky, silvery hair up with her hand. "I managed to worm it out of
him, somehow." Then she offered Jury a smile as dewy as her pearlescent
holder, which was arched toward the ceiling as she put her elbow on her
knee and swung a slim and slippered foot.

"Rose is only trying to protect me. I'm touched." His tone was quite
sincere.

Ramona, earrings wobbling, had suddenly lifted her eyes heavenward
and intoned: "Danger is all about us—"

The Princess looked at her, bored. "Must you flush out the spirit
world to pick up that little nugget?" Ramona Braine gave her a furious
look, put aside her lap desk, and pulled Malcolm from the sofa. Malcolm
was less than eager to follow his mother from the room.

She turned her lowered lids on Jury. "George is always taking walks.
He has indulged more than once in beastly early-morning ones. I know
because once I went with him." She shuddered slightly. "Six A.M. We saw
some sheep. I wasn't aware that living creatures were up at that hour—"

"Rose." George Poges gave her a look and went on: "I expect that
because I knew she'd been murdered out there and because my mind was on
guns ..." He shrugged and added wryly, "Though I do hope Superintendent
Sanderson won't take that association too far."

"Aside from Malcolm, no one saw you?" asked Melrose.

The Princess was about to speak, but quickly shut her mouth.

"Not that I know of."

Jury leaned forward to replace his teacup.

"Perhaps someone saw you. That might help you."

Poges shook his head. "Out there on the moor 'at that hour' if Mr.
Sanderson is to be believed." George Poges smiled grimly. "My
route—that ordnance map of yours, Mr. Plant. Let me see it for a
moment." Melrose took it from his pocket and handed it over. The Major
sketched in a few lines. "Here's the way I walked." As if he were
looking to Melrose to champion his cause, he handed it back. Jury
glanced at the dog-legged penciled line.

"Stand of pine, shooting butts. There's the wall and up farther the
reservoir. It's my usual route. Ask Abby."

The Princess's hand flew to her mouth. Then she said, "Abby. The
poor child. Has anyone given her so much as a thought?"

"I have," said Melrose Plant, sadly.

Mrs. Braithwaite had come in teary-eyed to clear the tea things away
and was surprised to see a new guest in their midst. Or in the wake of
the Princess's exit and announcement that she must have her nap. She
was followed by Major Poges.

"You should have told me, sir, there's a friend of yours come to
tea. Well, I must make some fresh." Ever the good servant, though she
wiped at her eyes with her sleeve.

"Never mind, Mrs. Braithwaite," said Jury, quickly commandeering
the tea tray. "I'll just carry this for you."

"You didn't," called Melrose, as Jury left the room, "happen to run
into a motorbiker?"

Jury fared better in the kitchen with his hand clamped round a very
hot mug of coffee and a small coal fire burning in the chimneyplace. On
either side were two chairs losing their stuffing, covered with faded
India cotton throws. The aromatic coffee mixed with freshly baked bread
rolls diffused through the room like the steam coming from the kettles
and clouding the windows. It was five o'clock and nearly dark.

"And what I said to her was, 'I got enough to do without the evening
meal . . .' "

His attention had slipped away from Mrs. Braithwaite momentarily.
She had given him his coffee and started in complaining about the cook,
Mrs. Hull, who, upon arrival of the Yorkshire police and news of the
mistress's death, had fallen down in a lump.

". . . gone all keggly-like and jubberin'." Mrs. Braithwaite
snorted her disgust at such persons who couldn't rise to an occasion. "
'That lot's still got't'be fed, don't they?' I says to 'er. Got me own
grief, I do, but not to make things worse, I go on, I says."

"It must be a trial to you, Mrs. Braithwaite," said Jury. "Some
people simply fold up in a crisis." The housekeeper was a round sort of
person with short thick arms. Steady and stout as a fireplug and always
ready to do her job. The arms hadn't stopped reaching and waving and
opening cabinets and cupboards in the ten minutes Jury had been
letting her bash about the kitchen. She had already had her private cry
over the owner's death; the tissues ballooning the pocket of her apron
and the reddened eyes testified to that.

"Yes, indeed 'tis. All of them police about, and up in the
mistress's room, crawlin' all over." She lifted the lid of a heavy
kettle and the escaping steam clouded over the acorn windows.

"I appreciate the coffee, Mrs. Braithwaite. Sorry to put you to more
trouble."

She wiped her hands on her apron, protesting it was no trouble, not
for a friend of Mr. Plant who was a "fine, dacent gentleman" and wasn't
it dreadful Mr. Jury'd come for a visit and found all of this?

Jury thanked her, smiling inwardly that she didn't seem to find it
odd Mr. Plant's friend had stationed himself here before the fire in
one of the heavily cushioned chairs, inviting her, as if he were host,
to join him.

"Why don't you have a coffee, yourself? Let the lot of them send out
for fish and chips." He rose. "Come on; sit down." And he took her arm
and led her to the chair opposite. She sank into it with a look of
relief, fanning her flat, round face with her hand. "I'll get the
coffee." He took a companion mug from the sink, poured the coffee, and
asked, "Got anything to put in this?"

"Bottom shelf, cupboard near the door," she answered, her eyes on
the burning coals.

Jury brought over her brandy-laced coffee and sat down. "How long
have you been working here, then?"