Malice in Miniature (25 page)

“Alan?”

“'Ullo. Is this Mrs. Martin? Dorothy Martin?”

“Yes, I—”

“This 'ere's Ada Finch.”

“Ada! I haven't talked to you in a long time. How nice to hear from you.”

“I wouldn't bother you at 'ome, madam,” she said, oddly formal on the telephone, “only as 'ow that Bob, 'ee's took off, an' I thought you might've seen 'im. 'Ee ain't fit to be drivin', nor yet walkin', if it comes to that, an' 'oo knows where 'ee might fetch up! 'Ee ain't been round your 'ouse, 'as he?”

“No, Ada, I haven't seen him. He's drinking, then?”

“Like to drown hisself.” She sounded despondent. “If you see 'im, I'd be obliged if you'd send 'im 'ome. 'Ee has the devil's own luck when 'ee's right pissed, but 'is luck 'as to run out sometime.”

“Ada, I'm sure he'll be fine. The Lord takes care of fools and drunkards, you know.”

Ada muttered something that sounded like “one too many times.”

“I'll keep my eyes open, I promise, but try not to worry. I'll call—er—ring you up if I see him.”

Well, that made my mind up for me. Bob could very well be out at the Hall, but if he wasn't, he was busy getting into trouble somewhere else. If he was driving, it was only a matter of time before the police stopped him, and he'd lose his license for a long time—and with it his livelihood. And on the whole, that was the least serious thing that could happen.

Bob needed to be found, and this mess needed to be cleared up. I was going out to the Hall. I'd be careful, but I couldn't just sit around and do nothing, with critical issues at stake. I really will be careful, Alan, I promised him in earnest thought waves.

I donned the chrysanthemum hat for moral support, stuffed a wad of tissues in my purse to deal with my cold, and climbed in the car.

It was actually easier than I had feared. When I got to the parking lot at Brocklesby Hall, Richard was working in one of the gardens, digging and mulching and obviously preparing it for winter. Winter seemed rather far away; the day was gray, but warmish, and many of the plants were still growing with apparent vigor.

“That looks like warm work,” I commented, approaching him.

“It is that, but this is a good day for it. I like your hat.” He grinned at it and went on with his work.

“Richard, I don't want to bother you, but Bob Finch hasn't been around, has he?”

The gardener rested on his shovel. “Haven't seen him. I could use him, today, but he hasn't turned up.”

“That's bad. His mother called me, very upset, though she tried not to show it. He's on a real bender, and she thinks he might be driving. I'd hoped he might have ended up out here.”

“Not today. I'll watch for him. I could always bed him down at my cottage, give him a place to sleep it off. He's a good man, Finch, if he does have a weakness.” He picked up his shovel and levered a clump of irises out of the ground.

“I'm glad you think so. He needs a friend right now, and until these crimes are cleared up, he doesn't have many. So I'm doing my best, and there are some other things I need to know, but I can see you're busy. Can you talk and work at the same time?”

“Why not?”

“Well, most men I know can't. What I want to know”—I lowered my voice and looked around—“what I want to know is, what was the bicycle woman wearing?”

“A skirt, I told you. That's how I knew at first she was a woman.”

“And a scarf. I know. But what about details? Was the skirt light, dark, long, short? What kind of coat did she have? Et cetera.”

“The police asked me all those questions.”

“I'm sure they did. But I need to know, and I can't ask the police right now.” I fumbled for a tissue and blew my nose.

He looked at me appraisingly (and stopped work again as he did so).

“It was dark, you know. A moonlit night. And she was down by the front gate. I couldn't make out details. She was wearing something dark with a skirt. I could see her legs, quite distinctly, because they were pale. The skirt couldn't have been all that long or I wouldn't have seen her legs at all from this angle. It certainly wasn't a mini; I'd have noticed that.”

“I'll bet you would.”

His eyes glinted at me, but he didn't smile. “Her scarf was light, and I think patterned. Colors get washed out in the moonlight, you know. I'm sorry I can't tell you more.”

“How about shoes?”

He considered. “Not high heels. She didn't walk that way. I can't remember anything else.”

He began to dig again, oblivious, manlike, to the fact that he had stopped.

It wasn't a lot to go on, but I supposed I couldn't have hoped for more. Even if I could find what I was looking for, though, it wouldn't provide definitive proof, not with a vague description like that. I had to go ahead with the other thing.

“Richard, there's one more thing I wish you'd do for me.”

“And what would that be?”

A noncommittal soul, this man Meg was so devoted to. Not given to rash promises. “I want to take a look at some of the tools in Sir Mordred's workshop. The ones he was cleaning so assiduously the other day.”

He rested on his shovel and studied me closely. “I'm sure he would be happy to show you his tools. He's proud of his workshop.”

“I don't want to ask him.”

“I see.”

I had the feeling he did, and in any case, I didn't intend to explain further. “What I hoped you could do was take them to your cottage. Just for a little while. You could say—you could say you had something that would clean them properly, get rid of the rust.”

He considered that for a long time, or what felt like a long time. “Very well,” he said finally. “I'll see if I can manage to take them away. It may be some time before he'll leave and let me get at them, you know.”

“He's working in his workshop now?”

“So far as I know. He usually is.”

“Richard, I don't want to say too much, but I think it might be important to examine those tools as soon as possible. When does he have his lunch?”

“Sometimes not at all, when he's working. He's fussy about his work, forgets to take his meals.”

“Well, then, could Meg think of some excuse to get him out of the way for a while? It could be important,” I repeated.

His face set. “I'll not involve Meg.” It was an ultimatum, but he continued to fix his eyes on mine.

“Is it a police matter?” he asked

“It may be. The trouble is, I can't seem to reach anyone who could do something about it. I'll keep trying, but time matters, Richard!”

My urgency got through, finally.

“Very well.” He scraped his hand along his jawline. “I can create a distraction. Sir Mordred hates fire, won't ever let me burn rubbish. If I started a fire of the brush I've been clearing out, it'd smoke pretty badly. He'd come out of his shop for that, I'll be bound. And I could nip in and make off with a few tools. Not many, mind. He'll come looking for me, to tear me off a strip.”

“
Thank
you! I particularly want that vise he was cleaning when he felt ill on Wednesday. You know, the biggest one? It does unclamp from the bench, doesn't it?”

“It's screwed on, I think, but yes, I can remove it. Anything else?”

I thought quickly. “Anything heavy and portable. A monkey wrench, if he has a big one.”

Richard looked blank.

“I mean a—a spanner, a—oh, what do you call them? A big heavy wrench—spanner, I mean, that has adjustable jaws—you use them for some kinds of plumbing, I think—”

I waved my hands frantically, trying to communicate in a foreign language. Richard smiled slightly and nodded understanding.

“An adjustable spanner. I doubt he has a heavy one, but I'll have a quick look. I'll be off now to build a bit of a fire.” He thrust his shovel into the ground, its handle quivering, and brushed off his hands. “Wait here.”

I had no intention of waiting there. I watched until he was out of sight, blew my nose again, and then, carefully avoiding the workshop, walked through the front door of Brocklesby Hall.

I
t's all right,” I told the girl at the ticket desk. “I'm just going to the library. I've been helping Meg and Susan with their work.”

That was almost true, but the important thing was the air of assurance with which I breezed through the entrance hall into the great hall and turned in the right direction for the library. The young woman accepted what I had said and turned back to her book, business being slow today, and I strode past the library to the magnificently ugly main staircase.

I thought what I was looking for might be in the attic. It wasn't in Mrs. Lathrop's rooms; I'd already searched them, and so had the police, much more thoroughly. I didn't think it would have been left in one of the dust-sheeted, disused rooms, because finding it there, by chance, would have given the police much cause for speculation. Too much cause. No, on the whole, the attic was the most reasonable place.

I climbed.

And climbed, and climbed. Brocklesby Hall ran to high ceilings, and there were three occupied, or once occupied, floors below the attic floor.

On the third floor, what the English would call the second, I got lost. The stairs came to an end, and I had to hunt for attic access. I wandered through the senseless maze of corridors, wishing I'd been smart enough to look at a floor plan of the house before setting out. At this rate I could be here all day, at greater risk of being discovered every extra moment I remained. Once, when I heard footsteps coming up a flight of steps I couldn't even see, I blundered into a closet in sheer panic, but the steps went away after several thousand years, and I persevered.

The attic stairs were behind a closed, but fortunately not locked, door. They were uncarpeted, noisy under my feet even though thickly furred with dust The dust appeared to be undisturbed, a fact that worried me a little, but not a great deal. Doubtless, in a house this size, there were other attic stairs.

In fact, there were probably many attics, as I realized when I attained the top of the stairs. It might even be that they were not all connected, though I hoped they were. All I could see from my vantage point at the head of the stairs was a vast collection of beams and chimneys, stretching into shadowy corners and even darker distances, and full of dust and stuff.

Lots of
stuff
. Boxes, trunks, old furniture, stacks of magazines and newspapers. The typical attic collection, grown monstrous with time, and with the oddity (and wealth) of the people who had collected it. It was, I thought, exactly the kind of attic where discoveries are made. The forgotten Gainsborough. The lost Jane Austen manuscript. The skeleton.

I sneezed, from the dust or my burgeoning cold, and then shuddered as my eyes met a real skeleton, a pathetic little heap of bones that had once been a bird. I hoped it had died of something peaceful like cold, and not in the jaws of a rat. Thinking about rats was definitely stupid. I attempted to banish them from my mind and looked about in despair. Where even to begin a search?

With the trunks; trunks suggest clothing. I moved to the nearest one, treading carefully lest I go right through the uneven flooring into the room below, blew off the dust, and opened it.

It was three trunks later (curtains, nasty old furs, and a remarkable collection of Victorian-era corsets) that I realized I was approaching my search in a thoroughly dim-witted fashion. Every trunk I had opened had been white with dust. If what I was looking for was up here, it would have been put here quite recently. Hence, the dust would at least be moved around. I needed to look for signs of activity within the last few days.

The light in the attic was none too good; there were plenty of windows, but they hadn't been washed in years, and the day was a dark one. It had been stupid not to bring a flashlight, but it was all of a piece with my other actions. My brain was not at its best; it felt stuffy and distinctly giddy. I was getting a fever.

And my stupidity was prolonging this business far too much. What I needed was to find another stairway, with footprints in the dust leading to and from it, find what I was looking for, and then get myself home, away from any possible hazards.

I looked out a dusty, cobwebbed window and saw, at the edge of one of the gardens, a small curl of smoke rising from a pile of brush and leaves, and then a tongue of flame. Richard was keeping his promise.

After what seemed like hours, but was probably five or ten minutes, I found the other attic stairs, and sure enough, disturbances in the dust. I couldn't exactly call them footprints, I decided, but definitely marks. I stepped to one side of them, teetering on the narrow boards of the subfloor so as not to disturb evidence.

The marks led me to a nest of luggage, generations newer than the trunks I had first explored. There were small canvas carry-on bags, larger suitcases, one very large upright black bag with wheels and an attached handle that I coveted.
How
nice that would be for long vacations! It was quite dusty, however, which made it an unlikely hiding place for what I was seeking. I checked everything else—empty— and then stopped and looked around, deflated. Plainly this was Sir Mordred's own collection of luggage, and the footprints could be explained by his recent trip to London. I hadn't found my cache, after all.

I glanced out the window. The fire was going nicely. Richard was standing nearby, watching from behind a shed, and he was alone. Sir Mordred hadn't yet—ah, yes, here he came, nearly running, looking like a particularly frenzied beetle from my foreshortening point of view, and apparently shouting as he ran. As I watched, Richard melted into the bushes and was gone. Well, looking for him would keep the master of the house occupied for a while, anyway.