The Wild Wood Enquiry (11 page)

Deirdre’s cleaner was busy in Tawny Wings, and so Ivy had requisitioned Springfield’s small conference room for the meeting, where they had in the past played pontoon regularly, until a tragedy involving one of the players had caused
them to lose heart. The room, as the three entered, smelled musty and unused. Deirdre crossed to the window and threw it wide open. “Phew! That’s better,” she said. “Have you ordered coffee from your little Polish friend, Ivy?”

“We must wait for Gus,” Roy said mildly. “It would be a shame to start without him.”

“Is he bringing Miriam? She’s obviously having a great time,” said Deirdre sourly. She was very fond of Gus, and although she had no intention of committing herself to him, she objected to anyone else claiming his attentions.

“Don’t know,” Ivy replied. “She can be quite difficult to shake off. I would rather she did
not
come this morning, but we shall see if Gus is persuaded to bring her along.”

In the event, it was more a case of Miriam dragging Gus out of his cottage and on the way to Springfields. “Of course I must come, too, Gus,” she said. “After all, I found the earring.”

He did not reply, and they walked in complete silence until they reached Springfields, when Gus emerged from dark thoughts and said, “You’re unusually quiet this morning, Miriam. Anything up?”

Miriam shook her head mutely, and they checked in with Miss Pinkney, the assistant manager on duty this morning. She, unlike her boss, was a fan of Enquire Within and particularly admired Ivy Beasley for the way she had reorganised aspects of Springfields to suit her requirements. She greeted them warmly and pointed them in the direction of the conference room.

“Ah, there you are, Gus. And Miriam, too?” Ivy’s tone was not welcoming.

“Naturally,” said Miriam firmly. “It’s my enquiry, isn’t it?”

“Of course, my dear,” said Roy the peacemaker. “But sometimes, you see, we need to discuss other cases on
hand, and I’m sure you appreciate that these are confidential, as would your own be, if other clients were present.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, let’s get on with it,” said Deirdre. “I’ve got a hairdresser’s appointment at midday in Oakbridge.”

“I’ll open the meeting, then,” Ivy said. “Though Gus usually does it, he looks half-asleep. Shall I start, Gus?”

He nodded miserably, and Ivy began to recount what had happened when she was doing a spot of research in the woods.

“You? Did you go into those woods on your own, Ivy?” Deirdre asked. Although Ivy was extremely smart and capable of most things, Deirdre still felt responsible for her, since it was she who had persuaded Ivy to come to Springfields.

“Yes, of course. And Roy was close at hand. I saw this man, and when he saw me he began to run. I followed as quickly as I could until I caught my foot in a bramble and fell. Then he came back and helped me up. He was very pleasant but not at all forthcoming, and as soon as he’d made sure I could walk again, he disappeared through the trees.”

“Very succinct, my love,” said Roy. “Exactly right. But there was something else, wasn’t there? The badgers’ sett?”

“The what?” said Miriam.

“Sett, earth, holt,” said Ivy impatiently. “You know, the mounds in the woods with holes in them where badgers live.”

“No need to be so patronising, Ivy,” said Miriam defensively.

“You’re a countrywoman, aren’t you?” replied Ivy. “Anyway, I was still not sure of the way back to Roy, and luckily he had alerted Miriam, and she quickly spotted me and helped me back to the road. Now, who
was
that man,
and what was he doing? He had a spade, and there was a badger’s whatsit, like I said. It looked to me to be very fresh soil. Probably to do with badger baiting. He wouldn’t give me his name nor answer any questions about himself.”

There was a knock at the door, and Gus rose to open it. Katya came in, carrying a tray of coffee and biscuits. “Mrs. Spurling gave instructions for no biscuits,” she said with a grin. “But she is out, and Miss Pinkney is a kinder person and found these Jammie Dodgers for you.”

Gus laughed, in spite of himself and said that Katya’s English got better every day. The others thanked her kindly, and once the coffee was poured, Miriam said they should get back to business.

“I suppose we should,” Gus said, and added that Miriam also had a very important piece of information to pass on. “She, too, found an interesting place to investigate,” he said, looking at their client, who seemed to have become suddenly dumb.

“The badgers’ sett?” said Ivy, surprised that Miriam had not mentioned it yesterday. She must have been going round in circles looking for her.

“No, it was where me and Rose first saw the hand,” Miriam finally muttered.

“And?” said Gus. He was beginning to wonder what she was up to.

“And I found an earring,” said Miriam. “It was under some leaves, and I picked it up. Showed it to Gus.” She paused dramatically and looked at him. “He said it was his ex-wife’s, but I knew it wasn’t. It was mine, and it dropped out of my pocket while I was moving the mound of leaves to one side. I’ve only got the one and was hoping to have it copied sometime.”

EVERYONE WAITED FOR someone else to break the silence. Miriam was now scarlet, and would not meet Gus’s shocked gaze. Ivy looked at Roy, and Roy raised his eyebrows. Deirdre looked at her watch.

“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,” she said. “Those dramatic revelations don’t seem all that important to me. Ivy met a strange man in the woods and has now, I hope, learnt her lesson. And Miriam lost and found an earring under some leaves. So where’s the relevance to our case? Come to think of it, my meeting with a strange, rather nervous man at the other end of a saxophone the other night could be just as important. He was, if you remember, asking about Katherine Halfhide, hoping not to meet her at the ball. If she had been there, I gathered, he would have done a bunk. Isn’t that worth some further investigations? If she really had intended to find him at the ball, why didn’t she show up?”

Gus found his tongue and said that Deirdre’s contribution certainly was interesting, and he, for one, was most anxious to find out what had happened to his ex-wife, if only to, um… er…

Here he hesitated, looking at Miriam, and Ivy rescued him. “Two strange men?” she said. “Seems likely that it was one and the same man. We don’t get all that many tallish saxophone-playing men here in Barrington.”

“He wasn’t playing the saxophone in the street,” Miriam said humbly.

Roy had an idea. “If I may suggest a course of action?” he said. “All three of you ladies have heard and seen this man, or these men. Was there any really distinctive thing you remember that would point to him being a sole invader in our village?”

Silence once more, and then Miriam said hesitantly, “When I saw him walk by, the moonlight was bright for a minute, and though I couldn’t see much, he definitely had a slight limp with his left leg. Definitely,” she said again, gaining confidence.

“I watched him walk over to talk to Theo, and he limped with the right leg,” said Deirdre.

“Both legs,” said Ivy, fed up with what seemed to her to be unreliable recall and a waste of precious time. She unwittingly released the uncomfortable tension in the room, and the others smiled.

“No, but seriously, Ivy,” Deirdre said, “did your man really limp?”

“Yes, he did. It was quite marked, especially when he ran off through the trees.”

“There we are then,” said Deirdre triumphantly. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

BY THE END of the meeting, they had decided on three courses of action. Deirdre would concentrate on finding out more about the saxophonist. Having listened to various conversations about the brilliant saxophone player at the ball, she was sure Theo had known him before he had turned up with Sid and His Swingers. She would get on to Theo straightaway.

Ivy was to liaise with Deirdre to establish whether the man in the woods was, in fact, the same person, though Ivy expressed strong doubts about the likelihood of a visiting saxophonist, possibly a member of the local toffs’ circle, digging holes in the nearby woods and probably involved in a badger-baiting ring. “If you ask me,” she said, “no kind of musician is going to risk damaging his hands digging like a navvy, is he?”

“Good point, Ivy,” Roy said. “And I shall help you with your investigations.”

“What about me?” said Gus.

There was a short silence, and then Ivy said baldly that if he wasn’t already answering questions from the police about the earring, he could approach his onetime gambling friends to see if they could recollect a saxophone-playing gamester. “Birds of a feather hang together,” she commented enigmatically.

“But Ivy,” said Miriam hotly. “I have explained the earring already. It’s mine, and I slipped it in my pocket when I was cleaning round the bedroom the other day. There’ll be no need to contact the police.”

“Have you got it with you?” Ivy said. “I think at least we should take a look at it. Your memory might be playing you tricks.” She had privately thought that she had never seen
anyone so clearly telling fibs as when Miriam first spoke up about owning the earring. And Gus had looked like a frit rabbit when she began to speak. So perhaps the truth was that he
had
recognised it as his ex-wife’s, and foolish Miriam was protecting him.

“Sorry, no, I haven’t. I’ve put it in a safe place until I can match it with another the same. You can forget about the earring, Ivy. Afraid it was a red herring, and my fault.”

“Describe it for us,” said Roy. “Then we can all look out for one to match it. You never know, we might easily spot one in a junk shop.”

“Not junk!” said Gus involuntarily.

“Miriam?” Ivy persisted.

“Well, it’s got a pearl, sort of dangling and, um, oh yes, a sparkly bit somewhere. Might be a diamond, Gus thought.”

“Have you had it long, my dear?” said Roy, perfectly aware of what Ivy was up to.

“Um, several months, yes. It was a present.” Miriam couldn’t resist an embellishment but immediately regretted it.

Ivy pounced. “Who gave it to you, Miriam?” she said.

Miriam coloured deeply and stuttered that she couldn’t quite remember.

“Rubbish, girl!” said Ivy. “It isn’t your earring at all, is it? For some silly reason you think you are protecting Gus. Well, I am sure it is quite unnecessary, and in fact you are holding up our investigation. This earring is probably a very important piece of the jigsaw. For heaven’s sake, woman, tell us the truth.”

At this point, Ivy’s cat Tiddles jumped on to Miriam’s lap. She buried her face in the cat’s fur and burst into tears, at which Tiddles yowled and ran off.

Gus stood up. “I’ll go and find Katya and get us some
more coffee. Don’t be upset, Miriam—it was a very kind thought.”

When Gus had disappeared, Deirdre also stood up and put her hands on Miriam’s shaking shoulders. “Come on, girl,” she said. “We value your help, and we know this was just an unfortunate blip in our investigations. Let’s forget about it.” She glared across at Ivy, and added, “We all make mistakes.”

They waited for coffee and then slowly relaxed. It was agreed that Miriam should take the earring to the police and explain exactly where and how she found it.

“You also have to tell them it was Kath’s,” Gus said. He was tired of revolving possible scenarios around in his head, featuring Kath being roughed up by local layabouts and Kath knifed in the dark night and carried lifeless into the woods, there to be buried by a saxophone-playing homicidal maniac.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I must be getting home. Whippy has her lunch about now, and I like to keep to a sensible routine for her. She’s getting on, you know. I don’t know what I’ll do when she’s gone.”

His fading words were so bleak that Deirdre impulsively sprang to her feet and put her arms around him. “Don’t worry, Gus dear,” she said, “we’ll all stand by you.”

Not to be outdone, Miriam nodded and said childishly, “And anyway, Ivy Beasley, it could have been my earring.” She had no intention of taking it to the police.