Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent (23 page)

"Second sight so often turns out to be hindsight, I've found," said
Melrose. "I imagine she predicts further trouble."

Major Poges looked mildly surprised. "She did. How'd you know?"

"I didn't. But isn't it always safe to predict further trouble?
Won't there always be?"

"No wonder Malcolm's the little beast he is. They're off, she says,
to meet Hadrian's spirit. Tomorrow. Noonish." She nicked some ash onto
a plate. "And people think killers are crazy."

"Is that what they're saying about this woman who killed her
husband? I'd imagine there'd be a great deal of speculation there."

"Speculation, yes. The family's very old, very county," said the
Major. "I've met them. Well, him. Charles Citrine. Done a bit of
shooting with him."

"The Gun, here," said the Princess, nodding toward Poges, "has never
brought back anything for our meager table."

"Stop calling me that. Just because a fellow likes an early ramble
on the moors and a bit of shooting—"

"His kill-to-cartridge ratio is about one to one thousand."

Melrose smiled. "This Charles Citrine—"

He was interrupted by Ruby's coming in with the tray, setting
Melrose's porridge and tea before him and the hot water before the
Major. She then set about collecting the dirty dishes as if she were
nicking them. For some time she held a goblet before her with an
abstracted air, frowning at its blood-red glass, then quickly set it on
the tray and picked up a plate with several mutton-chop bones on it and
nearly ran from the room.

"Is she always like that?" asked Melrose, plugging a large square of
butter into the center of his porridge and watching the melting
rivulets trickle off.

"She's a goose. Pay no attention to her," said the Major, digging in
the jar of marmalade.

"I hadn't thought of the porridge," said the Princess, leaning to
get a better look at Melrose's bowl.

Major Poges looked up sharply. "Don't give it to her. She's right
onto it, Mr. Plant, but don't give it to her." To the Princess he said,
"If you want porridge,
ask
for porridge." He slammed down
the marmalade pot.

A delicate ribbon of smoke trailed upward as she said, "One can't
keep the kitchen open all day, Major."

"Ha! Then have a boiled egg." He shoved the silver dish toward her.

The Princess reared back slightly, her mouth in a moue.

"If you want to waste your time tapping and cracking and peeling, go
ahead. And then one nearly has to
carve
round the white to
get it out as if one were a sculptor. No, thank you. You don't seem to
be having such a fine time with yours." She leaned closer to his plate.
"Look at all of the tiny bits of shell—"

"You're the
laziest
damned woman I know." He put down his
spoon and snapped his paper open, back half-turned to her. But he
wasn't finished with his recital. To Melrose, he said, "Nearly
everything is too much trouble for her to eat." Secretively, he leaned
toward Melrose as if the Princess weren't there. "Doyou know what she
dined on last night? A plate of creamed potatoes, mashed swede, and one
forkful of peas.
One
!" He held up his index finger.

The Princess stuck out her tongue at his back, then rested her chin
across the back of her hands in an artfully contrived pose. "One can
hardly eat peas after they've left the heap, can one? I'm not about to
chase them."

Major Poges nearly buried his face in his crushed paper. "When we
were in London once I made the mistake of suggesting we dine at
Wheeler's. Is there
anyone
who thinks Dover sole is hard to
eat?"

"Yes. They never fillet anything properly. There's always the odd
bone large enough to drive through the heart of Dracula." She sipped
her coffee and inhaled deeply.

Melrose wondered if he were to be forever reminded of Vivian's
upcoming marriage.

The Princess sighed. "The only implements one needs are a blender
and a Cuisinart. That's all I have in my kitchen."

"Kitchen?" Major Poges looked up from his newspaper to stare at her.
"What kitchen?"

"Major, you know I have a house in London."

He shrugged and went back to his search of the paper. "Oh,
that
.
Surely, the kitchen was boarded up long ago. Ah, here's an item. You
wouldn't think they'd be burying this killing at the inn toward the
back of the paper, would you? I

expect it's because there's nothing new. They've merely taken the
old stuff and given it a good shaking."

The Princess stubbed out her cigarette and laced her hands beneath
her chin again. "I find it very interesting that the accounts go on and
on about the husband's marvelous reputation. And his 'courageous'
refusal to pay the ransom all those years ago. It's as if
she
were straight out of it. The few times I've spoken with her, Mrs.
Healey struck me as rather reserved, but certainly not a stick, and
certainly not without a bit of steel in her spine."

Melrose finished his tea. "It sounds as if you're a little
suspicious of the husband."

"Good heavens, I question anyone who is reputed to be flawless.
Anyway, it sounds chauvinistic, the courageous husband and the wife who
was apparently struck by the vapors. It was as if she had nothing to
say in the whole matter. Well, she finally said it, didn't she?"

"A person'd think you
approved
of what she did." The Major
folded his paper, fanwise.

"Oh, I do. So dramatic. No sneaking about trying to pick him off in
a dark alleyway. Her solicitors would have to be idiots not to get her
off."

"Get her
off
? The woman killed him in plain sight of a
detective."

She answered the Major but looked at Melrose. "That makes no
difference. It's the motive. The man refused to pay that ransom." She
waved another cigarette in Melrose's direction.

Melrose lit it for her and said, "That wouldn't stick, would it? Had
she done it right after, or six months later, or even a year, I imagine
they could plead extreme depression."

The Princess rose, gathering up her cigarette case. "I wasn't aware
there was a statute of limitations on despair, Mr. Plant. It's snowing
again. There goes my afternoon in Leeds. Will you be dining with us? I
surely hope so. It does make a change." The flowery scent trailed
behind her as she left the room.

Grumpily, Major Poges watched her go. "Damned woman. Gets the last
word in, you can be sure of that. Well,
I'm
for a walk. Snow
or no snow. Care to join me? Mr. Plant?"

Melrose looked up. "Oh, sorry. No, I don't think so. I was just
wondering, have you seen Miss Taylor this morning?"

"Not this morning, not since I heard her shoot 4hfough the night on
that motorcycle probably mashing everything in her path."

"That's just it: wouldn't we have heard it when she came in?"

Major Poges checked his watch, shook it, held it up to his ear. "Who
said she did? She's from New York, after all."

He turned and left the room, murmuring something about bullying Rose
into joining him on Stanbury Moor.

New York or not, thought Melrose, there was hardly anything in
Haworth to be getting up to. He sat there, feeling decidedly
uncomfortable, staring out at the slow fall of snow. It might have been
five minutes or fifty, as he brooded over collisions on icy roads, when
he was more or less brought round by the voice behind him.

"Are you coming, then?"

He turned from the window and saw Abby Cable in what looked like
proper gear for an Eskimo. He could barely see her face; he could feel
the glare, though, like ice struck by light. "What? Coming where? Have
you built an igloo?"

There was a silence. Her face was muffled in scarves, shawls, and
something feathered on the edges that moved with her breath. But he
felt the penetrating stare. "To find the sheep. You said you wanted to."

He had? When he didn't jump from his seat, she said, "Good-bye,
then."

Adults lie. That was in the tone, pure and simple, something she
was used to.

"I don't know what to wear for this adventure."

Silence. The Eskimo turned. "A coat would help." She left the
doorway to which Melrose rushed. "Can't you
wait
for three
minutes?"

She opened the door to the great snow-swamped outside. The dog
Stranger sat there with snow on his coat. "Okay," she said, flatly.

As he strived with his Wellingtons he could hear the clock ticking.

He felt ridiculous tramping along with a crook in his hand.

"You need it," she had said. "That stick-thing won't do you any
good."

It wasn't, he had said, a "stick-thing." It was a
nineteenth-century cosher. Finding out it was a weapon had stirred
Abby's interest. She'd hefted it, inspected it, asked if police had
used it to kill people, and seemed disappointed that that hadn't been
the cosher's primary use. But her attention ripened again when he
added that it was, of course, possible to strike a mortal blow. Why? he
asked her.

The question went unanswered as they'd set off in some northerly
direction to the rear of Weavers Hall.

"I don't see why we can't keep to a well-worn path," Melrose noted
irritably as they'd been stolidly walking for twenty minutes. What he
suspected was the last of civilization had been left back on the
Oakworth Road where a red telephone kiosk stood quietly alone. He saw
two paths crisscrossing like long dents in the fresh snow. The snow
wasn't deep; it was merely forbidding, given this landscape.

Her sigh at the hopelessness of taking along this person untutored
in the ways of sheep was rather exaggerated and punctuated with a swipe
of the cosher, which she had appropriated, and with which she dealt
mortal blows
(swish!)
. "Sheep don't use paths. I expect you
don't know nothing about sheep."

Must she begin every comment regarding the possimnty of some small
fund of knowledge on his part into a total lack of faith that he had
any?
I-expect-you-don't
this and
I-ex-pect-you-don't
that?

"I certainly do. I know that under the outside coat is an inner one
that keeps them warm." Melrose wished
he
had an inside layer,
as he worked the hand holding the crook to keep the circulation going.
His fingers felt like ice-packed twigs.

But she trampled on his small bit of sheep-knowledge, saying,
"People think they're stupid. They're not. Come up against some stroppy
old ewe and you'll see." It was almost a challenge as she pointed the
cosher in the direction of a large, black-faced sheep some distance
away.

"Is that so?"

Abby did not answer rhetorical questions; clearly she felt there was
no reason to replay her statements. He got it; he didn't get it; it
made no odds to her. Melrose imagined that whatever information he did
manage to get from her would come out dry as cold toast, unlaced with
jam. She was certainly not one to embroider like Ethel.

"You never know where Mr. Nelligan's sheep are. They wander off."

"Who's this Mr. Nelligan, anyway?"

In answer, Abby turned and pointed with the cosher in the direction
of a hillside that could have been a mile off but was probably closer.
In this landscape, judging distances was an art in itself. "That
caravan over there."

Melrose shaded his eyes, looking toward the distant hillside where
he thought he saw a small structure, smoke curling from its roof. "A
caravan with a smokestack?"

"He cut a hole in the roof."

He didn't bother questioning this. "Then why isn't Nelligan out
here saving his
own
sheep?"

"He drinks poteen. Once he had over a hundred sheep got down in a
gully. Stranger rounded them up." She shook her head, clearly implying
that if it weren't for her dog they'd all be down in a gully.

They plowed on, heading for a broken wall "yonder." It occurred to
him that he didn't even know what this egregious errand was for. He
stopped. "Where are we going?"

"Wherever Stranger goes," she said, looking up at him. Beneath the
circle of the hood her eyes shone out, a dark and fathomless blue.

"We're following the
dog
?" No reply. "My own dog follows
me
."
This was not technically true: Mindy's residence by the fireplace was
seldom interrupted by anything so banal as a "walk." Well, Mindy was
old. And so, he felt, was he. Another ten minutes of it and he would
grow a beard of hoarfrost. He wrinkled his nose; his nostrils seemed to
be glued together from the cold dry air.

The landscape was like the negative of the landscape he had seen
last night, standing with Ellen (and where
was
Ellen?)
outside of the Hall. A dead white moon against a black sky, the silvery
reservoir beneath. This sky was sickly pale, the clouds low and leaden
and the blackened moor beneath the covering of snow, bracken, and
heather so dark and withered the ground looked singed, as if they had
come upon a moon crater. Melrose was fond of the natural setting of his
own house, its woods and lanes; the grand view, the scenic vista.
Sometimes, sitting in his comfortable chair before the fire watching
Mindy vegetate, he had felt he should jump up, get his binoculars, and
rush out and watch birds. A country gentleman of good breeding and
lavish means should certainly be more involved with his natural
surroundings. Melrose compromised and kept his binoculars on the
floor, occasionally picking them up when something flew by the
drawing-room window.

"Where are we?" he asked again, his eye searching this waste of snow
for some marker, some directional sign. A while back they had crossed a
beck (precariously, he thought) whose waters, replenished by
yesterday's melting snow, curled over choked roots and around stones.