Death of a Cozy Writer: A St. Just Mystery (22 page)
So it was that the call that reached him at seven fifty-eight this Sunday night came as little real surprise. In some subconscious way he had been expecting it, all the while helpless to prevent it. Something more had been due to erupt at that household, in spite of the police presence stationed inside and outside the gates, and here it was. It was as if someone had lit a fuse in that house with the killing of Ruthven Beauclerk-Fisk.
He swung by Fear’s house on the way, interrupting a family meal, which earned him awe-inspiring glowers from both Emma and Mrs. Fear. He and Fear took the dark narrow streets of Cambridge, its outer burbs, and the surrounding countryside at reckless speed. At the entry to the manor house, St. Just slowed just enough to signal Constable Porter, stationed outside the gate, to follow them in.
They arrived in a screech of tires and sirens that brought Paulo angling more rapidly than usual to the door.
And there he was, the famous man in the study that had been the scene—at least in his imagination—of countless poisonings, shootings, head coshings, and other acts of malicious mayhem.
“You’ve touched nothing?” barked St. Just to Paulo, who slouched in the doorway in a manner that managed to combine impertinence with idle curiosity. The rest of the family had hiked off at some point to various places of safety in the house, after the nearly senseless Sarah had been dragged to a sofa in the drawing room by Paulo and Albert and deposited like a sack of undelivered mail.
“I know better than that,” said Paulo.
“Good. Your prior knowledge of police procedure no doubt served you well. He was just found?”
Paulo raised an eyebrow, somewhat anxiously. Were they going to stir up that old dust again?
“Just now, by my mother. She’s in a right state.”
St. Just stepped delicately around the desk, taking in the scene: the scattered papers; the soil from the tipped-over pot; the ghastly, medieval weapon, reminder of a time that was more violent—perhaps— than his own. At least we’ve done away with the pots of boiling oil poured over the ramparts, he thought. Highly inefficient compared with nukes.
“Forensics on the way?” he asked Fear.
“So they said. On a Sunday Malenfant may have more trouble than usual rounding up his team.”
St. Just didn’t appear to be listening; he was bent over sideways trying to peer at the papers Sir Adrian had been working on. No hope from this distance; at any rate, the pages were largely covered by his round head. St. Just did a token check for pulse and saw that a poinsettia leaf was crushed in Sir Adrian’s hand, the milk from the broken leaf sticky in his grasp.
He turned and surveyed the rest of the room, once again taking in the linenfold paneling and packed bookshelves. The dying embers of a fire glowed faintly in the handsome old fireplace, but there was nothing else to show him how long Sir Adrian may have lain there.
Easy enough to see where the killer had gained entrance: One of the French doors behind the desk where the body lay stood slightly ajar. He walked over; it hadn’t been forced. Outside in a melting mush of snow and ice were the barest outlines of what seemed to be largish boot prints. He doubted forensics would be able to make much of that. Still, someone had been out here, that was clear. Someone who had been able to sneak up on the man as he sat engrossed in his work. Someone who walked softy and carried a big knife.
He turned back to Fear.
“Go see what’s missing from that goddamn display in the hallway. Hang it all, I guess we should have seized all of that crap in the first place.”
“There’s a kitchen full of knives. It wouldn’t have mattered—”
“Then go and find out where the bloody family’s got to.”
It took Malenfant nearly another twenty minutes to arrive, just ahead of the forensics team, peevish in an entirely Gallic way because his own leisurely Sunday meal had been interrupted. He spent a few minutes on a cursory exam, then turned to St. Just and said, “Yes, he’s dead. He’s been stabbed. A few hours but don’t press me for a time yet. Anything else you want to know?”
“The last one was bludgeoned to death. What do you think we have on our hands here? A multi-talented killer? Or two different killers?”
Malenfant shrugged.
“You’re the detective. How should I know? Although two killers seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”
“You haven’t met the family yet, have you? Nothing in this crowd would surprise me.”
“No forced entry?”
“No need. Either Sir Adrian let the killer in himself—which seems unlikely; he to all appearances was absorbed in his work— or he helpfully left the French door off the latch.”
“The ever-popular ‘Murder by Person or Persons Unknown’ will of course be my recommendation.”
Malenfant made it sound as if Sir Adrian were being put forward for membership in some exclusive London club. But the also-popular ‘Death by Misadventure’ was certainly out of the question— legal jargon St. Just had always thought made it sound as if the victim had hopped on a plane for Paris and somehow ended up in a Turkish prison.
Malenfant added, “There were no prints the first time, and I doubt there will be any this time. Is there a criminal alive today who doesn’t know from viewing
Crime Watch
to wipe up after himself? Still, there was a fireplace handy for destroying whatever evidence—gloves, say—the murderer wanted destroyed.”
Fear’s head appeared in the doorway.
“There’s something missing from the display, Sir. There’s a gap in the wall where there’s a collection of knives and daggers, and two bare brackets that once held something. There’s a sheath still hanging near the empty space. It would seem the killer just helped himself to what was handy.”
Malenfant was peering at the object protruding from the back of Sir Adrian’s body.
“It’s a dirk. Scottish. The kind of thing you see in museums. Appears to be the real thing. Nasty piece of work. The blade will be about a foot long unless I miss my guess, triangular in shape. See the ballocks?
“The what?”
“The ballocks. The bulges between the handle and blade. Supposed to represent testicles. Ay, ’tis a manly weapon, forsooth.”
“You don’t think a woman …?”
“Oh, a sturdy child could kill someone with a sharp blade like this. No problem. Just like cutting through butter.”
“Ugh. Well, thank you for widening the field: just what we needed. When will you be able to give us a time?”
“I’m never able to give you an exact time and you know it. Especially if that door was banging open and shut, which it probably was, and the fire dying down to nothing. I’ll be able to give you an estimate sometime tomorrow. But what you need to know, you know already. He’s been dead awhile, and somebody killed him.”
“Thanks,” said St. Just. “We’ll just sit around and wait for someone to confess, then.”
_______________________
REPEATED SIGHTINGS OF THE
majestic gothic spires of King’s College Chapel cannot dull their impact. As the visitor to Cambridge ambles south from St. John’s Street into Trinity, Trinity into King’s Parade, the Chapel never fails to catch the eye unawares, often bringing the stroller to a standstill, reminding him of his ant-like status in the grand design. The enormous structure stretches forever overhead, in summer piercing blue sky, in winter blending into the gray, its carved stone spiraling into an ever more elaborate frenzy of fifteenth-century devotion.
St. Just could never pass the Chapel without thinking of the slow, painstaking decades it had taken a series of medieval stonemasons to fashion it, their names now lost to history. He doubted such a prayer to heaven and mankind could be reproduced in this pre-fabricated, jerry-built century. Whoever had built the horror that was Ruthven’s office wouldn’t have had a clue.
At this time of year, the tag end of full Michaelmas term, Cambridge had been largely depleted of students, and the few pedestrians joining him as he neared Trumpington Street, judging by their clothing, were non-natives of England. He imagined they were mostly graduate students, far from home, shivering, trapped here by penury and distance to work on dissertations on obscure topics that few outside their tutors—and often, including their tutors—would ever read. A man of African descent who appeared to be in his thirties passed St. Just, muttering something under his breath about nuclei.
St. Just turned to cut through Market Square, filled this morning with vendors offering Christmas ornaments, sprigs of holly and mistletoe and pots of poinsettias, and handmade toys and sweaters. He paused by a tray of small, gaily painted wooden trains, wondering if they would make a suitable gift for Sergeant Fear’s baby, due in mere weeks. He felt somehow that Fear’s wife would question the safety of the red and yellow paint, or worry that the baby would swallow the caboose whole. It was difficult on the whole to know what to buy a child in these days of highly educated mothers. A safe room, perhaps.
The offices of Quentin Coffield, Esq., were located down a cobblestone alleyway that snaked out near the right wall of the Cavendish Laboratory. They occupied the first and second floors of a squat, beamed Tudor building, whitewashed and bow-fronted, with dormer windows that seemed to date from a later period; on the ground floor was a shop catering to the tourist trade, selling sweatshirts, T-shirts, and coffee mugs bearing the heraldic emblems of the University and of its various colleges. A sign over narrow wooden stairs to the left of the shop announced he was entering the premises of Coffield, Grant, Crisp, and Barley. St. Just wondered how they all four could fit into the cramped space which revealed itself as he gained the first floor and stooped to enter the dark-beamed doorway.
The young assistant sitting in the antechamber behind a small oak desk was, he imagined, a moonlighting law student. She wore the severe black suit and starched white shirt that was becoming the uniform of young professional women everywhere, her hair tied back in a sleek knot by a stretchy black fabric that looked like a man’s sock. All that was missing to complete the dress-for-success effect were the official black robes and a powdered periwig.
She peered at him suspiciously over thick, horn-rimmed glasses, an accessory making a comeback among the young, he’d noticed, the difference being that she wore them without a trace of the irony he found so touching among most of the students with whom he came in contact. This one would be head of chambers one day, he thought. That, or a hanging judge.
“You would be Detective Chief Inspector St. Just, would you not?” She might have been interrogating a witness in the box.
Perversely, he considered denying it. Instead, he settled for briefly flashing his warrant card and a smile.
“Mr. Coffield is, of course, expecting you,” she said. “Shocking business, this.”
“You knew Sir Adrian, did you?”
“Only in a manner of speaking. I just fill in here during the vacs, you know.” As I fast-forward my way to the Inns of Court, finished St. Just for her silently. “But Sir Adrian was a frequent visitor. Mr. Coffield used to jest that he saw Sir Adrian more frequently than he saw his own wife.” She broke into a wide grin, then, recovering herself, pressed her lips into a stern line. He supposed laughing at the boss’s jokes was Chapter Four in whatever manual she was reading to help propel herself to the top. He just had time to note she had a lovely smile that he felt might take her even further than the starchy black suit might. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, he judged.
“When did you see Sir Adrian last?”
“It couldn’t have been even a week.” She flipped open a calendar diary, running a polished nail over the appointments list. “Here it is. Wednesday.”
Just after his wedding then.
“I gather Sir Adrian made rather a habit of rewriting his will,” he said.
He immediately saw he had overstepped her bounds. Smiling approvingly at Mr. Coffield’s little quips was one thing; betraying client confidentiality was another. Or perhaps her legal training was already teaching her that to say nothing whatsoever to the police was always the best policy.
“Now, that I wouldn’t know.” Slapping shut the calendar, she said, “Let me just see if Mr. Coffield is available.”
The offices of Coffield, Etc., apparently not running to the modern convenience of an intercom, she squeezed her slight frame out from behind the crowded confines of the desk and walked the few steps over to a door at right. Knocking, she peeked her head in and announced his arrival. The answer apparently being in the affirmative, she turned and waved him in. As he thanked her, he was again rewarded by a smile as brief as summer.
The man who rose to greet him was somewhat a surprise, much younger than St. Just could have imagined to have his name listed first in the roster of his lawyerly colleagues. Perhaps thirty-five, no more than forty, with a full mane of dark blonde hair sweeping across a high forehead in accepted Hugh Grant, matinee-idol fashion. In spite of his comparative youth there was a hard glint to Coffield’s eyes as he rapidly took the measure of his visitor. He waved him wordlessly into a leather chair before his massive polished desk. St. Just thought a person could have hidden several large torsos in its side drawers alone, if he were of a mind.
He wasn’t sure he was going to like Mr. Coffield, who had pushed aside his coffee and now sat anticipating St. Just’s first question in a studiedly dispassionate way. Far too polished by half, he thought. He also noticed Coffield didn’t bother with the formality of offering refreshments, one upholder of the law to another. Nor did he offer any of the requisite expressions of regret at Sir Adrian’s “passing.” A small thing, but it bothered St. Just nonetheless. Coffield’s manner seemed to say that the sooner the police could be gotten rid of the sooner he, Coffield, could return to more urgent business. And just what could be more important than murder?
Mentally steeling himself, St. Just sat down, causing the old leather chair to creak in protest.
“You were Sir Adrian’s solicitor, I take it?”
Coffield nodded regally, straightening a pen against a sheaf of papers on his desk.
