The Old Contemptibles (12 page)

Direct. That was a laugh. It was teatime when he finally skirted the hamlet and dusk was coming on when he got to the Holdsworth property. In the distance he could hear water coursing. The countryside was full of becks and ghylls so that often, in spring, there were parts of Lake land that turned into ballets of water: tiny falls into larger streams; streams into great forces; water flowing into tarns and lakes.

Alex came to the corner of the long fieldstone wall that had once surrounded the house but now only managed to turn a rough corner before it began its disintegration, crumbling away to nothing. It served no purpose, anyway. He went off to the left and followed the wall a quarter of a mile until it ended. Alex got off the bike and pushed it the rest of the way into the trees.

What he was headed for was the tree house. He and Millie had hammered the boards together three years ago, chiefly for a sanctuary for Millie, somewhere for her to go to get away from the family.

He walked a bit to a large beech tree and saw it. It looked just as he’d remembered. Not only was it well hidden because it was so high up, but even the leafless branches covered it, and the beech was also surrounded by conifers.

Alex laid the bike on its side in a moss and blanketed it in lichen, twigs and dead leaves. Then he walked over to the beech, upended the ladder and started to climb. He was amazed it had all held together for this long. The ladder hadn’t rotted and the house itself, when he was up far enough to see inside, looked clean. He wondered if Millie still used it.

Food. Lord, but he was hungry. He dumped his rucksack in the corner, took the gun and ammunition out of his pockets and shoved them into the sack. He tore the wrapping from a cheese and cucumber roll and gulped the sandwich down in four bites. The milk was warm, but he drank the whole container.

He fell asleep still holding the milk carton.

Jury liked Brown’s, a hotel that could easily have been missed in the street in Mayfair because of its unpretentious façade. It had always been a favorite place for afternoon tea, with its firelit lounge and tiered cake plates, which was what Madeline Galloway was looking over now.

“You look like your sister,” he had said when he’d first seen her.

“We’ve been told that,” she answered, offering him tea.

“I could use a cup, thanks.”

He could not tell whether the next few moments of banal conversation implied relative indifference to death or was a way of avoiding it.

She poured another cup of tea for herself, held the pot aloft by way of question, but Jury shook his head. “Haven’t finished the first.”

“Haven’t
started
the first,” she said. And then, “Did you know Jane well?”

“Well enough,” he responded a little tightly. He did not care what she inferred from that.

“Oh.” She looked into her cup, not at him, kindly.

“You’ve been working for the family more-or-less as an assistant to Mr. Holdsworth? Inspector Kamir wasn’t quite clear as to your duties.”

She laughed, and then perhaps thinking laughter was out of place,
cut it off. “More-or-less is right. He’s been writing, for years, a study of the Lake poets, though I don’t think he’s seriously thinking of getting it published. Since he writes from inspiration, very little actual writing gets done.”

“The inspector said you’d been interviewing people for a librarian’s post.”

She sighed. “No joy there. Who’d want to come to a remote area in the Lakes for the small salary he’s offering? And for something as dull as indexing and cataloguing books? I should have been more specific in my advert, I expect. It’s an enormous library, floor to ceiling, and I can barely reach the top even on a ladder. He thought at first I might as well do it, but, thank you, no. I told him I couldn’t, especially the foreign-language volumes; and that it would take Lord knows how long at the rate I’m going.”

They were skirting, Jury knew, and thought she did, the issue.

“What would have caused the suicide? Any ideas at all?”

Madeline shook her head. “Only that the Holdsworths were continually harassing her about Alex. And she wasn’t at bottom a happy person.”

“I know, I think, what you mean. There were times when she could shut a person out.” Times he remembered Jane staring out of the window as if she were waiting for someone or something. She was miles away from him. For what? For what was she waiting?

Madeline merely shook her head. “I thought she loved her son too much to put him through something like this. I can imagine her not being able to go on if something happened to Alex—if he died, say, or went missing for years. I can imagine that. And now he
has
gone missing.”

“No, I wouldn’t say missing. ‘Escape’ is a better word. Apparently, through a bathroom window.”

Her laughter released some of the tension. “That sounds like Alex. But why would he?”

“I don’t know; perhaps you can tell me. You just said it sounded like Alex.”

“I mean only that he, well, gets up to all sorts of things.”

“Such as?”

With a shrug of impatience, she asked, “Does it matter?” She looked inside the teapot, looked as if she had not found what she wanted, and put the top back.

“It might explain . . . something about him. How many children could you imagine finding a parent dead without their breaking down, going into shock—those are the usual reactions.”

“How many times have you had cases where children discover parents dead?”

Had her tone been less hostile, he wouldn’t have said it: “My own. I found my mother dead after a bomb gutted our house.”

She looked off into the fire, said only, “I’m sorry.”

“The point is that police at the scene said the boy was like ice; he didn’t cry; he was as hostile as you just now; he wouldn’t answer questions, or when he did he lied. He told the inspector he had no other family.”

Her head came up and she said, “That’s not a lie.” The words came out flat, uninflected.

“What about you? You’re his aunt, you’re fond of him, and you don’t appear to share the opinion of the grandparents.”

She had taken one of the several scattered pillows on the sofa and was holding it against her like soft armor. “There is another family member Alex likes. Adam, his great-grandfather.” She smiled. “To tell the truth, that’s who Alex reminds me of. Adam’s a curmudgeonly old man who prefers to live in a swank retirement home and make
visits
to his
own
home. It’s all his, you know.”

“ ‘All his’? The house, you mean?”

“All
of it. Tarn House—the estate—and the money. The lot.”

“You say ‘the lot’ as if there were a great deal of it.”

“Well, good heavens, there is.” She looked at him squarely, not dropping her eyes, not attempting to distract him with the pot or the plate from the inference he might be drawing. “It’s hard to know what goes on in Adam Holdsworth’s mind; he undoubtedly likes it that way, you know, to keep people on edge. He certainly does not appear to hold his son and daughter-in-law in high regard.” She smiled slightly. “ ‘That Person’ is how he refers to Genevieve.” She reached for a small meringue, inspected it, put it on her plate, untasted. “Whenever Alex and Jane came down from London, Adam always made it a point to be on hand.”

She let that hang. Jury said, “In other words, Adam Holdsworth liked them.”

“Especially Alex. I’ve seen the two of them, Alex pushing the wheelchair, escape to some part of the grounds and have everyone
looking for them. They plotted, I think. There’s nothing that man likes so much as a trick.”

“Then Alex, and perhaps his mother, would have expectations.”

She lit a cigarette with a porcelain lighter and sat there, her knees together, leaning forward, looking thoughtfully into the fire. “To be sure.”

“And now it’s just—Alex? That is, for most of this ‘lot.’ ” He thought perhaps the smile would draw her out. It didn’t.

“I don’t understand what anyone’s expectations have to do with my sister’s death,” she said frostily, as she flicked ash into a floral tray.

“I’m sorry.” He had seen her, sized her up somewhat, which was all he could do at the moment. “Could I take you to your train?”

She had put out her cigarette and risen, looking down at him speculatively. “I’ve ordered a cab. I’ve still got over an hour.”

Which she didn’t want to spend with him, clearly.

Jury pulled out one of his cards and handed it to her. “I’d better be going. Please ring me if you remember anything.”

“What is there to remember?”

A great deal, thought Jury. “Incidentally, I think I know someone who might just fit that librarian’s position. He’s good with languages. I wouldn’t worry about the salary end; he’s just scraping by as it is.”

“I’d be eternally grateful.”

“I’ll ring him. He’s quite brilliant, really. Eccentric. Likes to do odd things.” Jury studied the cake plate. “Anything to get away from the family.”

“If Yngie J. Malsteem can’t drive her out, no one can,” said Melrose, as much to the stuffed cheetah Scroggs had dragged in to the Jack and Hammer as to Scroggs himself.

Dick Scroggs turned another page of the
Bald Eagle,
whose paper wings he always managed to spread all over the bar. “Would that be one of your guitarist friends, my lord?”

Melrose sighed. “Get me another half of Old Peculier.” He shoved his glass forward.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, stop calling me that and stop talking down your nose. Ever since you painted ‘saloon’ over ‘bar’ on the door you’ve been doing it.”
Saloon
had been scrolled in white paint on the frosted glass; it was part of Dick’s campaign for a stylish new decor. “It’s all because of the Blue Parrot. We told you Sly’s place was too far outside the village to be giving you competition. Though God knows his camel looks better than your cheetah. It’s molting.”

Dick knifed off the collar of foam and said (still looking over half-glasses he’d also taken to wearing), “I find it lends the place a bit of style, even if some don’t.”

The big stuffed animal, poised to strike, was crouching by the huge fireplace. Its fur was rubbed, even bald in places, and its front teeth were missing. It bore an eerie resemblance to Mrs. Withersby, who
had come to char, stayed to drink and was now snoring beside the cheetah, an objet d’art that had been part of some hunting buff’s estate that Trueblood had bought up. There were a few other objets d’art, also, deployed about the Jack and Hammer, such as the monkey hanging from a vine of rope.

Melrose pointed out that Dick’s new menu had several oddities on it that it could do without.

“Well, I’m sure my wife’s every bit as good a cook as Trevor Sly,” said Dick, huffily shaking out the
Bald Eagle.

“Any
body’s as good a cook as Trevor Sly. That’s not the point. I don’t see why you have to try to change the old pub. I don’t like change.”

“You mustn’t be so upset Miss Rivington’s gone, sir.”

“I’m upset that Mr. Jury might go the same way,” muttered Melrose.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Melrose stabbed his cigarette into the ashtray, felt the chill air as the “Saloon” door opened. “Hell’s bells, it’s six
P.M.,
where
is
everyone?”

“Right here, old sweat,” said Marshall Trueblood, Long Piddleton’s Everyone.

It did at least give Melrose a certain satisfaction to be able to wipe the smile off Trueblood’s face. “I have news for you.”

“Interesting?” Trueblood nodded to Dick. “My usual, Mr. Scroggs.” As Dick drifted over to the optics, Trueblood called, “And if it’s watered down like last time, I’m going to the Blue Parrot.”

“Ha! As if Sly’s
ain’t.”

“Well, his water comes from a well. What news?”

“Jury’s getting married.”

“Of course he is. We haven’t settled definitely on a date, though. Vivian—”

“I don’t mean
our
version, I mean
his.”
Melrose raised his glass, disgusted.

“He doesn’t have a version, don’t be silly.” Trueblood refused to be ruffled. “Who in hell would he marry, anyway?”

“Look, there
are
women in London.” The distant
brr
of Scroggs’s telephone sounded as Trueblood waved the suggestion aside. “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

“For you, m’lord,” called Scroggs. “It’s Mr. Ruthven.”

“Why must people be bothering me here?” He marched heavily round to the public bar.

 • • • 

. . . And returned like a sleepwalker. Melrose sat down and stared at Trueblood. “She’s dead.”

“You mean Agatha
finally—?”
He was absolutely gleeful. Then his face darkened. “Still, it won’t be the same here without the old finagler.”

“Not her. Jury’s lady-friend. And he’s been suspended.”

Trueblood was tapping a pink Sobranie on his polished thumbnail and raised an equally well-manicured eyebrow when he looked from Melrose to Dick Scroggs. “He’s really gone round the bend this time, Dick. Give him a drink.”

“Just did,” said Scroggs, sharing Trueblood’s opinion of the report on Jury.

A new voice chimed in, although the sound was far from bell-like; it was more a rusty clapper hitting dull metal. Mrs. Withersby, whose glass was as empty as the plate she passed at Sunday service (ther’s some ain’t any more Chris’en than . . . she’d tell the vicar), came down the bar to utter her dark prognosis, which would become darker the longer she had to wait for a refill. “Fam’bly alius ’as been a bit, you-know—” Here she made small circles round her temple with her finger and circles with her glass on the bar. She had a cigarette behind her ear but she meant to hang on to it, asking Marshall Trueblood for one of his “fag ends,” and laughing uproariously at her own joke. “Look at ’im, come all over white, ’e ’as. Stout’s not good fer that . . . ah, thankye, thankye,” she concluded as Melrose shoved the untouched glass toward her. Happy now with her fag and her half-pint, she shuffled away.

Melrose’s eyes were still glazed over. He shook his head, quickly, trying to clear it.