Stately Homicide (12 page)

Jurnet who, alone in his flat, quite often had fantasies in which three-piece suites covered in dralon figured prominently, and Miriam naked on a bed with built-in telly and Teasmade and fifty-two weeks to pay, agreed cravenly: ‘Very!'

‘Besides, there's so much past enshrined in the rest of Bullen Hall, I decided to dedicate my own tiny corner of it to the present – or even the future. So long as life remains there are always possibilities, are there not?' The woman looked at the detective, but not as if she expected an answer. ‘That's really why I've been so anxious to get Laz's biography over and done with. Propitiate the ghosts once and for all. Then one can go on to the next thing.'

Jurnet said, with intent: ‘I can see how annoying it must be for you to have all your plans knocked out of kilter –'

The other smiled, understanding perfectly.

‘You think it unfeeling of me to give priority to my private concerns, instead of expressing distress at Mr Shelden's untimely – not to say, inconvenient – death.' Making condolence sound unutterably non-U: ‘Consider the formal words spoken, if it makes you feel any better: but, apart from his literary gifts, which are a great, and possibly irreparable, loss, you mustn't expect me to mourn unduly the passing of a really rather bumptious young man. It was simply that, in his person, as it seemed to me, two things came together very conveniently. Bullen Hall needed a new curator; and I couldn't stand the thought of any more of those
Boys' Own Paper
effusions about Appleyard of Hungary.'

‘It can't be easy to find somebody else who can undertake both jobs.'

‘One of them, at least, has been taken care of. Fortunately, Francis has agreed to come back
pro tem
. When I telephoned him and told him what had happened, he offered at once to fill the gap. Not to go back to the flat, but to come in from the village for as many hours a day as may prove necessary.

‘And that reminds me –' Miss Appleyard produced a hand-bag of soft white leather and took out a bunch of keys. Selecting one, she removed it from the ring, and held it out on the flat of her palm. ‘Will you please take charge of this? It seems to me a quite unnecessarily theatrical gesture, but Francis insists. He wants to be sure you have the key actually in your possession before he sets foot again in Bullen Hall.'

Jurnet got up from his chair and stood looking down at the thin, fine-boned hand.

‘I was under the impression Mr Coryton had already given Shelden all the keys. What are these you've got – duplicates?'

‘I do have a duplicate set, which I keep in the safe. These, however, are the ones Ferenc brought back with him, after he'd seen you.'

Jurnet exclaimed angrily: ‘I told him nothing was to be moved!'

‘So he said,' Miss Appleyard responded serenely. ‘But he told me he'd already put the keys in his pocket before you arrived, and it quite slipped his memory until after you'd gone. He asked me whether he should return them to the flat, but I said no. I felt sure you wouldn't want the Bullen keys left lying about any more than I would. Please take this one, Inspector, or I shall be left without a curator all over again.'

Jurnet took the key with some reluctance.

‘Opens the drawer with the famous letters, I take it?'

‘Exactly,' The woman smiled. ‘You are now the custodian of state secrets, Inspector. Guard them well.'

‘Evidence of unlawful carnal knowledge, is how I'd put it. By two people old enough to know better.'

‘Have it your own way, Inspector.' There was no denting that lacquered composure. ‘I feel myself under no obligation to justify either the sins or the virtues of my forebears. Francis, however, is at great pains to impress upon the police that he has no wish to take advantage of Mr Shelden's sudden demise to gain access to the letters – that's so you shouldn't think he killed poor Mr Shelden in order to get hold of them. He told me, in fact, that, in bed after the party, Jane had already persuaded him that he was not, after all, the right person to undertake the task of editing them.'

‘Remarkable woman, Mrs Coryton.'

‘A very good soul.' Miss Appleyard might have been speaking of an upper servant. After a brief silence, she inquired politely: ‘Have you arrested anyone yet?'

‘Give us time!' Jurnet exclaimed, startled. ‘We've barely been introduced to the corpse. We weren't even looking for anyone, at first. We thought it was an accident.'

‘Exactly what I thought myself –' Elena Appleyard inclined her head slightly – ‘when I found him lying there on the grass, and the stones from the balustrade lying all about.'

‘When you
what
?'

Jurnet, who had sat down again, sprang from his seat. His hostess, her unruffled calm in pointed contrast to the other's vehemence, regarded him with mildly disapproving eyes.

‘When I found him lying on the grass,' she repeated. ‘I'm a poor sleeper at the best of times, and after all the stimulation of the party I knew going to bed would be hopeless. The night was so warm and so bright. So after I'd read for a while I went for a little walk in the grounds, as I often do, when I have difficulty sleeping. It must have been about 3 o'clock, or a little after.'

‘But why, in heaven's name, if you found the man lying hurt, didn't you get help? It might have saved his life.'

Miss Appleyard shook her head.

‘Quite impossible. As you may or may not be aware, I was a nurse during the war. I know whereof I speak. It was obviously hopeless. Mr Shelden was deeply unconscious, haemorrhaging from nose and mouth. There was barely a pulse. I could see no point in getting police and ambulance men out of bed in the dead of night, knowing he was bound to be dead long before they could arrive.'

‘Just the same,' Jurnet insisted obstinately, ‘it seems – not to put too fine a point on it – pretty callous to leave a badly injured man lying, knowing he was still alive.'

Miss Appleyard's self-possession was a little jarred by that.

‘Nothing of the kind! I stayed until he stopped breathing.'

The detective shook his head.

‘The post-mortem showed that Shelden was still alive when he went into the moat. Either you were mistaken about his condition – in which case, nurse or no nurse, you could have been equally mistaken when you decided there was no point in seeking help, or –' the detective broke off.

‘Or,' Miss Appleyard finished for him, ‘it was I who pushed him in. In which case, Inspector, why should I ever have mentioned my nocturnal stroll? I'm quite sure I left no tell-tale clues.'

‘You have a point there,' the other admitted, readily enough.

‘Of course, in the morning, as soon as I telephoned Steve – actually, it was Jessica who answered and told me what had happened – I knew it must be murder: that, irrespective of whether Mr Shelden had fallen off the roof or been pushed, somebody must have come along later and put him in the moat. I can only think that I must have chanced along while the murderer was on his way down from the roof himself – unless he was there all the time, hiding in the shadows.' The woman sounded quite untroubled. ‘I suppose, if we'd come face to face, he'd have had to kill me too!'

The detective observed soberly: ‘You may have had a lucky escape.' More soberly still: ‘What I still don't get, though, is why, once you realised Mr Shelden had been murdered, you still didn't get in touch with us.'

‘It was very wrong of me,' she agreed submissively. ‘I see that now. At the time, having spoken to Jessica, I merely thought, good, the police are here, they'll take care of everything. If and when they come to see me, I'll tell them what I know. I'm afraid I'm rather a passive person. I tend to let things happen to me, rather than make them happen. On the other hand –' smiling – ‘you must admit, Inspector, if we at Bullen Hall have been remiss in one respect, we've been most cooperative in another.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘The party, to which you came as a guest. There can't be many cases, surely, where the police are introduced to the prospective victim and the suspects, and provided with a full set of motives, before the murder is even committed.'

‘It helps. It also confuses.'

‘Oh dear! And I thought we'd made it so easy for you – especially as Mr Shelden was only at Bullen Hall for a few hours all told.'

‘Time enough for somebody to fancy him – dead.'

Jack Ellers was waiting for him by the car, his chubby features rubicund in the sun, his mouth rimmed with brown from an elaborate confection of ice cream, nuts and chocolate flake, topped by a couple of improbable cherries.

Jurnet, whose taste ran to savouries, eyed the rapidly disintegrating structure with distaste.

‘What's that on top, for Christ's sake?'

‘Crown jewels, I shouldn't wonder, considering what they stung me for it.' The Sergeant dug in his plastic spoon with gusto. ‘Whatever you do, don't tell Rosie. She'll kill me, all these calories – and in this heat I couldn't stand another murder, not even my own.'

‘You still don't have to stuff yourself with that muck.'

‘Peckish, are we?' The little Welshman eyed his superior officer shrewdly. ‘Her ladyship didn't bring out the caviare and champers, then?'

‘Only information.' And aggravation, Jurnet might have added. It hurt his professional pride not to call the shots. ‘What d' you think of her? – says she actually found Shelden on the grass in the early hours, and, thinking him dead, did sweet Fanny Adams. Left him lying there, can you credit it, like he was an old crisp bag, for the serfs to sweep up in the morning, and put out for the dustman along with the rest of the rubbish. Charmingly apologetic, of course. But the question is: suppose Colton hadn't put us on to it, would she have stayed mum and let them bury Chad Shelden as the victim of a tragic accident? In other words, is she covering up for someone?'

‘Such as who, for instance?'

‘You tell me. Could be herself. She's the only one could get into the curator's flat without even going outside.
And
she's got a duplicate set of keys.'

‘Fragile ageing lady pushes vigorous young stud off the top of the house?' Ellers looked doubtful. ‘She's not going to get her brother's life written up that way. Maybe all she wanted was a quiet life. The bloke was dead. Let dead curators lie.'

‘You may be right.' Jurnet looked thoroughly discontented with himself.

Jack Ellers, recognising the signs, busied himself with his ice cream. The Detective-Inspector, as he well knew, always reacted to violent death with anger: – anger at the act itself, anger at his own thick-headedness in not being able instantly to put his finger on the perpetrator of the deed. Anger which could even include the corpse, lying there knowing all the answers and maddeningly saying nowt.

The Sergeant waited until he had successfully negotiated the last of his sweet goo, wiped his hands and face on his handkerchief, and disposed of the plastic spoon and container in a nearby litter basket. Then he began briskly, without prior introduction: ‘While you were gone I had a good look round the Coachyard, like you said. Everything pretty much as usual, far as I could tell. One place in the corner had a card on it: “Back in 20 minutes”.'

‘That'll be Anna, giving Tommy his lunch.'

‘Oh ah. Foreign-looking chap came in, hobbling on two sticks. Something to do with leather.'

‘Bookbinder. He was at the party. Got something the matter with his legs.'

‘Turn 'm in for a new pair 'd be my advice. Don't know if you've already met the geezer does the basketwork. Even if you have, doesn't mean you'll necessarily recognise him when you see him next.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Come and see for yourself.'

The Coachyard was crowded, bright with people in summer clothes actually buying things, so anxious were they to take home a souvenir of the murder. On the stone basin in the centre of the cobbled space the peacock, enraptured by the presence of an audience, pivoted slowly on its axis, displaying its magnificent plumage at one moment, its ridiculous rump the next.

Oblivious of the sightseers at his elbows, Danny March, the detective noted, was having intimate relations with a piece of oak, moving his plane over the surface with a caress that was at once a wooing and a consummation. Geraldine, the lady weaver, stood at the entrance to her workshop waving a number of five-pound notes in a bemused way, as if paper money were something outside her experience. After a moment, she fumbled among the hessian at her neck, and stuck the notes into what, for lack of any better word, Jurnet charitably took to be her bosom.

On the east side of the yard, Jeno Matyas, his dark head with its bald spot making him look like a medieval monk, bent in silent concentration over a morocco binding. Opposite, in full sunlight, Mike Botley sat on a low stool outside his shop, making a basket.

‘Christ!'

The young man's face was bruised and swollen. One eye was completely shut, the other an inflamed slit through which a watery pupil gazed out at the world without charity. His upper lip was split and encrusted with scab. A blood-flecked bandage covered his head and ears.

‘What happened to you, mate? Walked into a door?'

The young man looked up at the detective, tall on the cobblestones; found the effort too painful and went back to soaking a length of cane in a bucket of water at his side.

‘Care to tell me how you caught that packet?'

‘Up yours.'

‘Face like that, you could lay a complaint, if you wanted to.'

‘Go and screw yourself.'

‘Look,' Jurnet said reasonably. ‘I'm sure you know a bloke's been bumped off here at Bullen Hall. I'm not suggesting you or your face had anything to do with it; but in the circumstances I'm sure you understand we have to take notice of anything out of the ordinary run of things. And that definitely includes your kisser.'