Help the Poor Struggler (11 page)

While she was sitting on the cricket stool, an image came back to Jessie. It was the Dreadful Dru on the couch, stuffing herself with chocs and trying to read the paper.

Jessie took down the receiver and dialed Emergency — 999. A crisp, no-nonsense voice asked her what she wanted. Ambulance? Hospital? Police?

Jessie lowered her voice a notch, rounded her vowels, and enunciated clearly, in just the way Mad Margaret had taught her. “I am Lady Jessica Allan-Ashcroft.” Dramatic pause. “I want Scotland Yard.” The telephone nearly slipped from her hand because her palm was so sweaty. Her heart pounded. “That ax-murderer that was released from Dartmoor prison has been to this house and he's killed —” she looked down — “the Honorable Henry Allan-Ashcroft.”

Nose on paws, Henry raised beleaguered eyes, unaware that his blood — according to Lady Jessica — was everywhere. Almost total dismemberment. Then he returned to his light doze, equally unaware that he had just been knighted.

 • • • 

All of the operator's questions she had answered cooly, almost indignantly, as if surprised that Lady Jessica Allan-Ashcroft should be questioned by such a menial. Directions were given. Times were given. Names were given. And she hung up, after being told to stay calm.

Calm? With blood running all over the kitchen floor? Was the woman
mad?

She had begun to believe in her own fantasy until she looked at Henry, lying healthily by the hearth, and wondered how she was going to explain to police how he was so unbloody. And unbowed.

“Come on, Henry. We've got to think.”

 • • • 

Henry showed as little inclination for thinking as for following. In the pantry, Jessie found a can of Chum, struggled with the can opener, and put some in a bowl. This she placed on the pantry floor and had no trouble getting Henry in there for his unexpected tea at dawn. She shut the door.

As she walked through the dining room into the drawing room, where morning light lay in splinters on oriental carpets and velvet couches, it occurred to Jessie that the Devonshire police didn't know Henry. And Henry certainly wouldn't talk.

But she, Jessie, would have to. How would she explain the lack of blood? Blood was not easy to come by, and she had no intention of sacrificing any of hers. She sat on the same sofa as had the Dreadful Dru, trying to be calm, trying to think. Jessie looked out the window and saw the cold, scabrous dawn slither up the grass like a snake and considered tomato sauce.

But where was the slaughtered body? Cold in only her nightdress, she still sat there, constructing and reconstructing her story. In the attic was a dressmaker's dummy. If she put it in a dark corner of the kitchen and tossed the tomato sauce all over, she could say she saw it and just went crazy. . . .

Yet, wouldn't that open up more questions?
Who
had put the dummy there and spilt the sauce all round?

At the same time she heard barking from the pantry, she heard the double-note of sirens coming up the gravel drive. The revolving lights, the noise, caused a lot of thumping from the rooms upstairs.

Footsteps coming down the stairs, footsteps coming up the
gravel. She felt sorry for Henry, shut up in the pantry, and sorrier for herself. She was going to have a lot to answer for.

The Dreadful Dru came in holding a candlestick, like a leftover from the Mad Margaret's repertoire of characters. But the Dreadful Dru looked more like a blow-fly than she did Lady Macbeth, heavy with sleep in her black peignoir.

Mrs. Mulchop was dressed in her mobcap and brown felt slippers. Victoria Gray in a velvet dressing gown.

Police were everywhere, some in uniform and some in plain clothes; there were also men in white coats, and a doctor with his black bag.

Jessica was surrounded.

There was a torrent of questions and a few shocked answers from Mrs. Mulchop and Victoria Gray. No, they knew nothing. The questions were orchestrated by the insistent barking of Henry. Mrs. Mulchop went to the pantry to investigate.

Jessica scratched at her ear and looked up through squinty eyes as if she couldn't imagine what had brought all this crowd together. The salvo of questions seemed to confuse her awfully, and the man in charge — an Inspector Browne — waited while she gazed all over the ivory and damask splendor of the Ashcroft drawing room. Finally, she asked, “Where am I?”

Drucilla Plunkett was wringing her hands as if to keep them away from Jessica's throat. “Where
are
you? Whatever are you going on about, you silly thing?”

Jessie rubbed her eyes and turned her troubled face to Inspector Browne. “I must've been walking in my sleep again.”

Drucilla was yelling now: “You
never
walk in your sleep!”

Jessie considered for a moment. “Yes, I do. You just weren't around.”

The logic of this escaped Drucilla, who, having put down the candlestick, raised it now as if she meant to bring it down on her little charge's head. Inspector Browne came between them. The house and grounds were swarming with police.

Nothing,
was the report passed back along the line of the inspector's entourage.
Nil
. No body, no blood, no sign of forced entry or anything else. They all looked to Jessie.

“It was a nightmare,” said Jessie. “I was having this awful dream about my Uncle Robert. He's been missing —” (and here she looked out of the window to calculate another dawn into the whole of it) “— six days.”

Once again Drucilla raised the candlestick. Victoria Gray turned away, looking pained. And the playlet was interrupted by the return of Mrs. Mulchop, marching in with Henry. “And why was Henry closed up in my pantry, I'd like to know, Miss?”

One of Browne's men flipped through a small notebook. “Report was that a Henry Ashcroft had been the victim. The Honorable Henry Allan-Ashcroft.”

Before Dru or Victoria or Mrs. Mulchop could react fully to this announcement, Jessie had jumped up from the couch.
“Henry!
You're all
right!”
She flung her arms about the massed wrinkles that were Henry.

They all looked down in wonder. A child and her dog.

B
RIAN
Macalvie seemed at first to be merely irritated by the telephone's ringing at four
A.M
. in the Lyme Regis station. He cradled the receiver like a bawling baby against his ear. Macalvie might, indeed, have been a new father, thought Jury; he didn't seem to need sleep. They had been all day in Dorchester and Exeter.

As he listened to the voice on the other end, Macalvie stopped sucking the Fisherman's Friend. Wiggins had left the packet before going back to the White Lion for some sleep. In slow motion, Macalvie's feet left the desk that had been supporting them; the chair creaked with his weight as he sat up. He nodded and said, “Yeah, I've got it.” He hung up.

Then he put his head in his hands.

“What the hell is it?” asked Jury, surprised by Macalvie's look of remorse.

“Dartmoor. Bloody Dartmoor. It sounds like it's happening all over again.”

“Dartmoor.” Wiggins said it with a shudder as they drove off the A 35 toward Ashburton.

“You'll love it, Wiggins,” said Macalvie, “it's got a prison and ponies and it rains sideways.”

 • • • 

He was right about the rain. Wiggins was huddled down in his coat in the back seat. “You should slow down a bit, sir. This road's posted as not being appropriate for caravans.”

“So who's driving a caravan?” said Macalvie, taking what looked like a single-lane road between hedges stout as stone walls at a good fifty miles per hour. God help them or anyone coming from the opposite direction.

It was seven in the morning but it looked like dusk — the rain, the ground mist, the dark rock formations rising against the sky. When they got beyond the hedged-in road, Jury saw acres of heather the color of port, crippled trees, the occasional huddled house.

Ashcroft was visible from a turning a half-mile away, standing on its hill, a large and perfectly proportioned house. As they turned into its long, sweeping gravel drive, Jury saw the grounds were partly formal — well-groomed hedges, flower beds — and partly wild, as if the gardener had dropped spade and hoe in the middle of the job.

In front were two police cars.

“Nice little place,” said Macalvie, braking hard enough to spit up gravel.

 • • • 

“What the hell do you mean, a
ruse?
”

Detective Inspector Browne looked as if he'd like to be anywhere but where he was now. “Sorry, sir. The little girl, Jessica Ashcroft — or Lady Jessica, I should say, I expect —”

“I don't care what you call her, Browne. Just tell me what's going on.”

Eyes averted from Macalvie's, Browne explained. “And by the time we found out, you'd already left Lyme Regis. . . .”

 • • • 

Jessica looked up at the three new ones. She was still in her nightdress, as were the other members of the household. She sat on the couch, ankles crossed, patiently waiting for whatever scolding the new ones had to dish out. There should be enough brains among all of them to find her uncle, she thought. She did not particularly like the look of the copper-haired one who stood with his hands in his trouser pockets and had eyes like torches. The other, taller one had gray eyes and looked, somehow, comfortable. . . .

 • • • 

Macalvie looked over the lot of them. Victoria Gray was sitting patiently enough on the couch facing the girl. The older one was the cook and she wrung her hands. Then there was the rich pastry of a piece named Plunkett. Their backdrop, the drawing room itself, was heavy velvet and brocade, portraits and gilt. No one was hurting for money.

“This,” said DI Browne, “is Lady Jessica Mary Allan-Ashcroft.”

 • • • 

On facing sofas, Chief Superintendent Macalvie and Jessica Allan-Ashcroft squared off. Jury sat in a heavy brocade chair and Wiggins in a straight one by the fire.

“You can call me Jessica,” she said, with extreme largesse.

“Thanks.” Macalvie glared at her, took out a pack of gum, and stuffed a stick in his mouth.

“Can I have some?”

Jury was glad to see Macalvie managed to keep from throwing it at her.

They both sat there, taking each other's measure, chewing away.

“Start talking,” said Macalvie.

“My uncle's missing.”

That statement seemed to bring housekeeper, cook, and governess to the edge of hysteria. Victoria Gray, the most controlled, stepped back from it and said to Macalvie, “Robert Ashcroft. Her uncle. He left several days ago, probably for London, but she's convinced he's missing. It's ridiculous; Mr. Ashcroft goes to London now and again.”

Macalvie's eyes snapped from Victoria back to Jessica. He chewed and stared. “You know, there's kind of a difference between an uncle going missing and a friendly call from an ax-murderer. That occur to you?”

Jury broke in. “What makes you think he's missing, Jessica?”

“Because he didn't leave a note and he didn't leave a Valentine present.”

“For a box of candy,” said Macalvie, “you got half the Devon-Cornwall constabulary running across this godforsaken, bloody moor with some cock-and-bull story about a murderer. You know that, don't you?”

To that deadly voice, Jessie sighed and said, “I'm sorry.”

“You're sorry.”

She smoothed the skirt of her nightdress, folded her hands, and said gravely, “Yes. I'm sorry you're so disappointed that there wasn't a lot of blood and torn-up bodies and we weren't all murdered, including Henry.” She took out her gum, inspected the pink wad, and put it back in her mouth.

Macalvie's eyes were like lasers. He opened his mouth but was interrupted.

“Don't forget about that man that got out of Dartmoor.” As if police weren't keeping abreast of the news, she handed Macalvie a neatly folded paper. It contained the clipping that Drucilla had read earlier.

Macalvie tossed the paper aside, angrily. “That
man
was
released
on good behavior. Your behavior I'm not so sure I could say the same about. Not only the Devon-Cornwall police, but the person sitting over there” — and he nodded in
Jury's direction — “just happens to be a Scotland Yard CID superintendent.”

“Then why isn't he asking the questions?” Jessica directed her attention to Jury. “My uncle disappeared five days ago, six, counting today.” She was pleased the thin one was making notes of what she said. At least
someone
was taking her seriously. “He never forgets any holiday and he always lets me know if he has to go somewhere. Besides that, all of his cars are out there.” She pointed in the direction of the stable-yard.

“What do you mean, ‘all,' Miss?” asked Wiggins.

“All nine. The Zimmer, the Porsche, the Lotus Elite, the Mini Cooper — that's really mine — the Ferrari, the Jaguar XJ-S that goes from zero to sixty in under seven seconds, the 1967 Maserati, and the Aston Martin.” She sat back.

Wiggins cleared his throat. “That's only eight, Miss.” He counted with his lips again.

Jury thought Macalvie was going to belt one of them; he wasn't sure which.

Jessica looked for a thoughtful moment at the ceiling. “Did I say the Benz? I don't like it that much.”

Wiggins wrote it down. “Your uncle's a collector, is that it?” He wet the tip of his pencil.

“Yes. He's five-feet-eleven with gold hair and light brown eyes.” She looked back at Jury. “He's handsome. He took me in when my father died four years ago.”

There was a slight laugh from Victoria Gray: “Wasn't it more like your taking
him
in?”