Help the Poor Struggler (22 page)

With mounting horror, Molly knew she'd forgotten too.

“
Executive Cars,
wasn't it?” said the Earl of Caverness.

Their eyes met. He smiled. It was almost conspiratorial. What on earth did this perfect stranger know?

“Yes, that's right.” She leaned back, crossed her legs, tried her best to imitate herself — the old, fairly confident Molly Singer, photographer. And very good one, too. “It's a bimonthly. You've probably seen it.”

“As a matter of fact, I haven't. I didn't think it would have much to do with the old ones. More modern-day stuff.”

“No. It's got a misleading title. I keep telling them to change either the title or the image.” She tried on a little laugh. It worked. Especially since the peer had given her a bit more cognac. “Let's try again, shall we. I shall try to remain upright this time.”

“If you're sure —?” Ashcroft stubbed out his cigarette. “You want me in the picture?”

He asked the question shyly.

She smiled. “Of course.
And
you, young lady.”

Jessica returned the smile. The scared look had vanished.
Apparently, she was willing to let Miss Singer hang around as long as she wanted, now.

Indeed, Jess went all out: “
She
has a Lamborghini.”

Robert Ashcroft laughed as they trailed out of the library. “Believe me, I noticed.”

Maybe, thought Molly, just maybe she'd get through it.

T
HE
din from the jukebox would have paralyzed any but the worst of addicts, Jury thought, when he walked into the Poor Struggler that evening. Macalvie, Wiggins, and Melrose Plant were sitting at a table in the corner.

“You've been long enough,” Macalvie said to Jury.

“For what?”

“For anything,” said Macalvie. “The three of us have been sitting here putting two and two together and coming up with five. Well, four-and-a-half, maybe. I bet we did better than you, Jury.”

“I didn't know we were running a marathon.”

“Wiggins, get the guy a drink; he looks like he could use one.” Macalvie held out his hand for the holy dispensation of another Fisherman's Friend. Wiggins slid one from the packet.

Plant shook his head. “Why do you suck on those things if you think they're so vile?”

Macalvie smiled. “I tell myself every time I take one that cigarettes taste even worse.” He was waving away the fragrant
smoke of Plant's hand-rolled Cuban cigar. “Plant took the new governess up at Ashcroft for a ride yesterday. They went to Wynchcoombe.” He turned to Melrose. “Go on. Tell him.” It didn't surprise Jury that Plant had dispensed with his earldom after a few hours with Macalvie. At any rate, London had very quickly sent the fan belt (Melrose told him), and he was on the road again.

“I already have. Some of it.”

Jury took out Plant's letter, and read, “ ‘The Earl of Curlew was also Viscount Linley, James Whyte Ashcroft. The vicar of Wynchcoombe is named Linley White. And “Clerihew” might have been “Curlew.” Any connection?' It sounds like it. What did you find out?”

“He said, yes, he was some distant relation of the Ashcroft family. James Ashcroft had left the church a generous bequest. The Reverend White was surprised.”

Macalvie broke in. “Someone has it in for the Ashcrofts, then? But why kill the kids? The worst possible revenge? Let me see that will.”

Jury handed it over to Macalvie. “I had a talk with Simon Riley's stepmother. Maiden name — Wiggins reminded me — Elizabeth Allan. Born in County Waterford, but not much Irish blood flows through her veins or her voice.”

Macalvie was silent for a moment, combing through James Ashcroft's will. Then he turned to shout over the jukebox din that if Freddie liked “Jailhouse Rock” that much, he could arrange for her to hear it from the inside. “I told you these cases were related. And I told you about Mary Mulvanney, except you still don't believe it.” He grinned. “Scotland Yard, two; Macalvie, two.” He looked Plant up and down. “You, one.”

“Thanks,” said Melrose Plant, offering Macalvie a cigar, which (to Wiggins's fright) Macalvie took.

“Robert Ashcroft, Molly Singer —”

“Mary Mulvanney,” Macalvie corrected Jury automatically,
eyes closed so that he could enjoy the inhalation of smoke to the maximum.

“God, Macalvie,” said Jury. “You're so damned
right
all the time.”

Macalvie opened his eyes. “I know.”

“Sam Waterhouse. Just assume for the moment he was guilty of Rose Mulvanney's murder —”

Macalvie shook his head.

“Where is he?”

Macalvie shrugged.

Jury almost laughed. “You're the only person I know who can lie with a shrug. You're worse than Freddie. No wonder you hang around here. Why the hell don't you stop trying to protect Sam Waterhouse?”

Macalvie studied the coal-end of his cigar. “Okay. He was in here.”

Jury looked at Melrose Plant. “You met him?”

Plant nodded. “It does sound as if police were looking for a scapegoat. The evidence against him was pretty circumstantial. You think so, too, don't you?”

“I don't know. But I certainly think the evidence against Molly Singer is circumstantial.”

“Mary Mulvanney.” Macalvie's kneejerk response.

“How'd she do at Ashcroft?” Jury asked Melrose.

“Miss Singer? Incredibly well —”

“She's no more phobic than I am,” said Macalvie generously.

Melrose Plant smiled. “I'd be careful with comparisons if I were you, Mr. Macalvie.”

“So we've got the pictures, so what have we got? Yeah, there
was
an advert. Robert Ashcroft went to see a Roller in Hampstead Heath.” Macalvie stuffed a couple of Plant's cigars in his pocket before he got up. “The hell with it. It's time we had a little talk with Robert Ashcroft.”

On his way out, Macalvie kicked the jukebox and “Don't Be Cruel.”

“Mr. Ashcroft,” said Macalvie, “you usually interview potential tutors or governesses or whatever you call them at home, don't you?”

There was a decanter of whiskey at his elbow, and Macalvie had no hesitation in helping himself. It went down well with Plant's cigars.

“That's right.” Robert Ashcroft looked from Macalvie to Jury to Wiggins taking notes. He frowned. “I'm sorry. I don't —”

Macalvie made a sign with his hand that Ashcroft didn't have to understand a damned thing. Yet. “But this time you went to London to interview the applicants.”

Ashcroft smiled. It was an easy smile. “I decided it might be better. I believe I'd misjudged my niece's ability to make the final choice.”

“The lady Jessica not being such a hot judge of character?”

Ashcroft's smile was even more disarming. “On the contrary, a wonderful judge. She always chose the one least suitable.”

Macalvie frowned. “As a governess?”

“No. As a wife. Jess is afraid I'm going to be snagged by Jane Eyre.”

“With you as Rochester,” said Macalvie. “So you're not in danger of marriage, then?”

“I never thought of marriage as ‘dangerous.' Are you suggesting some sexual leaning? That every couple of months I go up to London to indulge my perverse tastes?”

Macalvie turned the cigar round and round in his mouth. “We weren't thinking particularly of you down in your lab drinking something that would turn you into Hyde, no.”

“Superintendent —”

“Chief.” Macalvie smiled.

“I beg your pardon. Are you still upset about that crazy ruse of Jess's that brought you all out here?”

“Hell, no. Kids will be kids, won't they?” His smile flickered less like the flame than the moth. “You stayed at the Ritz, right? On the tenth to the fifteenth?”

“Yes. What's that —?”

“You interviewed several applicants for this post.”

Robert Ashcroft nodded, frowning.

“What else did you do?”

“Nothing much. Went to see a Rolls-Royce in Hampstead But it wasn't what I wanted.”

“And —?”

Ashcroft had risen from the sofa and gone to toss his cigarette into the fireplace. The picture of his brother hung over him. Jury wondered how heavily. “I went to the theater and the Tate. Walked round Regent's Park and Piccadilly. What's this all about?”

“What'd you see?”

Ashcroft's bewilderment turned to anger. “Pigeons.”

“Funny. The play, I mean.”

“
The Aspern Papers
. Vanessa Redgrave.”

“Good?”

“No. I walked out.”

Macalvie put on his surprised and innocent look. “You walked out on Vanessa Redgrave?”

“I didn't exactly throw her over for another woman.”

“I don't imagine many people walked out.”

“I wasn't checking. Except my coat,” Ashcroft said, acidly.

“So since probably
no one
would walk out on Vanessa, I bet the cloakroom attendant would remember you.”

Ashcroft was furious. “What in the hell is this about, Chief Superintendent Macalvie?”

“What was at the Tate?”

“Pictures.”

It wasn't as easy to unnerve Ashcroft as Jury thought.

“Mr. Ashcroft, would you try not playing this for laughs? What was at the Tate?”

“The Pre-Raphaelities.”

Macalvie was silent, turning the cigar.

“Ever heard of them?”

“Rossetti and that bunch. I've heard. Why didn't you drive to London with all those cars sitting around out there?”

“For the obvious reason. I thought I'd be buying a car — the Rolls.”

Jury sat there, smoking, saying nothing.

Robert Ashcroft had an answer for everything. And Macalvie knew it.

“T
HAT'S
it for tonight, then.” Sara slapped the book shut.

Jessie, whose bed they were lying on, since she refused her nightly story in the Laura Ashley room, had been getting so drowsy her head had nearly drifted onto Sara's arm. Quickly, she snapped out of it. To have Sara think she was actually cozying up to her would be dreadful. “You've left off at the best part. Where Heathcliff is carrying Cathy's dead body around.”

“You do put things in the most morbid way.”

“
I
didn't write it, did I?” said Jess, reasonably. She felt as if Sara had reprimanded her, no matter how mildly. Jess gave Henry (who was lying at the bottom of the bed) a little kick. If
she
was being scolded, then Henry would have to come in for his share of it. What was really bothering her was that, against her will — and
that
would require a strong force indeed — she was afraid she might begin to
like
Sara. The Selfless Sara. Jessie sighed. But she didn't think she liked her as much as that lady photographer. Maybe it was because the one named Molly had fears, just as Jess had, only they wouldn't admit it.

It was an awful dilemma, liking someone you wanted to hate, the worst dilemma since the ax-murderer call to police. All of that blood in her mind had become so vivid it might have been really running down the walls. She shuddered.

“What's the matter?” asked Sara.

“Nothing.” Jessie picked up the glossy magazine Molly Singer had given her.
Executive Cars.

Sara was saying something about Heathcliff. “I thought you thought he was so romantic.”

Romance? How disgusting. Better to imagine murderers stalking her (and Henry) across the moor. Green, green bogs with liverworts and moss, like Cranmere Pool, and peat, and rush ground where you could be sucked down, your head just dangling, as if guillotined, your little hand (and Henry's paw), the last thing to disappear from the sight of all those gathered round, throwing ropes, calling to you. . . .

“Romance is stupid.”

Sara hit her lightly over the head with the book. “You're the one asked me to read it.” Sara sat up suddenly, her back rigid. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Jessie was looking at a picture of a Lamborghini, newer than Molly's. Twenty thousand pounds. Maybe Mr. Mack —

“It sounded like a car. Down the drive.”

Jessie yawned, her eyes getting heavy. “Maybe it's Uncle Rob and Victoria coming back.” She thought her uncle had been awfully moody at dinner. Victoria got him to go out for a drive and a drink at a new pub several miles away. Maybe Victoria would worm out of him what was wrong. Her eyes snapped open.

Victoria, Jessie realized suddenly, was rather good at getting her uncle in a better frame of mind. She frowned and thought about that.

“It's too early for them to be back,” said Sara.

Now Sara looked moody and worried. What was the
matter
with everyone? “I want hot chocolate and toast. Come on, Henry.”

Moody himself, Henry clambered down off the bed.

Jess sat at the kitchen table, turning the pages of
Executive Cars,
while the kettle for tea and the pan of milk for chocolate heated on the hob. Sara got out the granary loaf to cut and toast. “I wish the Mulchops were here,” she said.

The Mulchops had gone to Okehampton to visit some relative or other. “Them? Whatever for?”

Sara shrugged. “I just feel — edgy.”

Jess slapped over another page, annoyed. “Well,
they
wouldn't be any help. I mean if some ghost was walking around or something.”

“Stop talking like that.”

Jess shrugged. Sara was spoiling one of Jess's favorite times. The kitchen chill around the edges, but nice and warm right here by the fire, without Mrs. Mulchop bustling and kneading dough and Mulchop slopping down soup and giving Jessie evil looks. He didn't like her, she knew, because she got under the cars.