The Five Bells and Bladebone (8 page)

The word
dismantle
seemed to throw Trueblood into further paroxysms of distress, but at least the noise from upstairs had stopped — the sound of furniture shoved about, of legs scraping hardwood — and the two uniformed police had come down, together with the fingerprint man. Dusting for fingerprints amongst the crystal and cloisonné had finally been given up in the circumstances, since it was highly unlikely that although Simon Lean might have been delivered here, he was killed here . . . .

 . . . Although Pratt’s inspector seemed to want to make a great deal of that likelihood.

“He had nothing to do with it,” said Melrose Plant, who was sitting on the edge of the fauteuil, his chin resting on his hands, and his hands clasping the end of his walking stick.

MacAllister had his notebook out, and his smile was not friendly. He was one of those policemen who took an abundance of delight in his authority, unlike Charles Pratt, who did not necessarily believe the rest of the world was guilty until he himself proved it innocent. “And how do you know that?”

“Superintendent Jury and I were here when that
secrétaire
was opened.”

“But not when it was
delivered,
” said MacAllister. “No reason the body couldn’t have been secreted somewhere in the shop and put in that chest there afterwards.” MacAllister was eyeing an old sea trunk.

“Not ‘chest,’ ” said Trueblood, “
secrétaire à abattant
.” In his book, murder — even one on his own doorstop — appeared to take second place to educating purblind civil servants.

Charles Pratt did not hide his impatience. “I’d give it up, Mac. It would hardly seem worth the trouble to secrete a body in one piece of furniture and then move it to another.”

The writing surface had been carefully unhinged and the cabinet doors at the bottom removed after the position of the torso had been chalked in. The body of Simon Lean was lowered to the floor. To Simpson, Pratt said, “Very little blood.”

Simpson grunted. “Internal hemorrhaging, it must have been. I can’t tell precisely until I get him to the mortuary, but the thrust of the weapon — and it doesn’t look like the entry wound of a knife — appears to be upward. Longer than a knife, would be my guess.” He thought for a moment. “Sort of wound that could possibly be made with a sword or a dagger, possibly.”

Melrose Plant, who had been leaning on his walking stick, looked a little ashen. “This isn’t a sword stick, doctor. It’s a cosher. I don’t care much for sword sticks.”

Pratt smiled slightly and, seeing that Trueblood had put his head in his hands, said, “Something wrong?”

Through his splayed fingers, Trueblood answered caustically: “What could possibly be wrong?”

“It must have taken a hell of a lot of strength to shove the body in and up,” said MacAllister.

“Not necessarily,” said Pratt. “People under stress usually find what strength they need. Any ideas as to time of death?” asked Pratt.

The doctor shrugged. “Rigor’s already passed off in the face, the jaw, the hands. But not in the lower extremities.” He shrugged. “There’s the movement of air to be considered in that thing” — he nodded toward the secretary — “that might speed it up. And then there’s the stabbing itself — the violence of the death might speed up the rigor and make it pass off more quickly. Say, as a guess, thirteen, fourteen hours.” He stripped off the rubber gloves, put his instruments back, and asked dryly, “Could you deliver the corpse minus the coffin? Thanks.” He walked out.

Two attendants came in carrying a stretcher and a polyethylene sheet. Trueblood closed his eyes as they made their way down the narrow aisle, one leg of the stretcher scraping against a rosewood breakfront.

 • • • 

Constable Pluck, having given over his desk to Superintendent Pratt and his one-room station to the Northants constabulary in general — not to mention Scotland Yard — had positioned himself like someone shouldering his way to the center of a photograph and seemed to be enjoying the situation immensely. Thus when Pratt asked him if he knew Simon Lean’s wife, the constable said he’d known the people up at Watermeadows as well as anyone. The statement was the perfect truth; however, since no one really
knew them, apparently, Pluck was caught in the uncomfortable position of middleman.

Pratt pushed the phone toward him. “Then call — what is it? Watermeadows — and inform them the police would like to talk with Mrs. Lean and her grandmother.”

Then he turned to Jury. “You’ve said precious little, Superintendent.”

“Precious little call to. This isn’t my patch. And,” he added, smiling, “I’m on holiday.”

MacAllister gave him a look that said he’d wished he’d stay on it.

“More or less a busman’s holiday, I’d say.” Charles Pratt leaned his chin in his hands and gave Jury a piercing blue glance. “You’ll make one of the best witnesses it’s ever been my luck to round up.” He sat back, still smiling, and rocked a little in the swivel chair. “We’ve just been called away from a messy domestic killing in Northampton. Time-consuming, half of the constabulary is on that job.” He paused. “I’m taking my men there, and I’ll break the news to her. It would be nice if you could just stop by later on . . . .”

“ ‘Just stop by.’ ” Jury sighed. “Either that or I am to make myself available for questioning — as we say in the Job — at any old hour of the night or day. Charles, aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Anyway, it’ll have to go through headquarters —”

It was as if Pratt were simply completing Jury’s sentence for him: “— and Chief Superintendent Racer, after one or two acerbic comments about a murder having occurred the moment you turned up, said that the least you could do would be to assist. As he put it, you’re at the disposal of the Northamptonshire constabulary, and he expressed regrets —”

“— that my holiday would be interrupted. A policeman’s life is full of grief, Superintendent Pratt.”

Pratt was unzipping a ten-packet of Benson and Hedges. “His very words. Cigarette?”

“W
AS THE KILLER
,” asked Melrose, studying the ragged hindquarters of a pewter-colored dog curled on Marshall Trueblood’s hearth, “trying to conceal or reveal? Good Lord, it must have been obvious Marshall here would discover it as soon as he opened that writing desk.”

“Truer words have never been spoken, old sweat.” The words were muffled, coming as they did from a face pressed against the back of an ivory brocade sofa. He was lying there, arms hugging his waist. “And to top it all, I haven’t got my
Ulysses
.”

“Oh, stop it,” said Melrose. “Sit up like a man.” Melrose punctuated this statement by rapping his walking stick several times on the coffee table.

“First time I’ve ever been asked to do
that
.”

Jury smiled as Trueblood sighed hugely, unwound himself from his fetal position, and sat up. His hair was ruffled, his silk shirt wrinkled, his scarf hanging limply.

“And
this,
” said Melrose, “is the first time I’ve seen you looking anything other than sartorially perfect. Why are you letting all of this mess get to you?
We
know you’d nothing to do with it.” He looked innocently at Jury. “Don’t we?”

Trueblood nearly strangled himself with an adjustment
to his scarf, mimicking Melrose. “ ‘Don’t we, don’t we?’ ” He looked accusingly at Jury. “Nor did I hear you answer him. Well?”

Jury pulled at his earlobe as if considering. He was sitting on the arm of the couch from which Trueblood had now risen, since all the chairs in the room with their gilt legs, fretwork, or little claw feet looked entirely too delicate to bear his weight. It was a room as sleek and silky as its owner, and nothing in it was less than a hundred years old, he bet, except for the rough-looking gray dog coiled on a flimsy bit of rug before the fireplace screen, and he even wondered about it. Occasionally, it yawned, creaked up on all fours, turned and turned and collapsed again.

“Thanks. Couple of mates you two are.” Trueblood gave them as black a look as the Black Russian he was taking from a cloisonné box. “Why am I letting it
get
to me?” he asked, standing with head bowed, the very picture of tragedy. “The Northants police have practically turned my cottage into one of their incidents rooms, have questioned me round the clock —”

“The clock hasn’t gone round; only a couple of hours —” said Melrose helpfully.

“—
And,
” said Trueblood, “they are on the verge of reading me my rights. I can’t
imagine
why that makes me nervous.”

“Come on, now,” said Jury, who’d slid onto the sofa vacated by Trueblood. “You wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Neither would Norman Bates.”

Melrose went on: “The body could much more easily have been disposed of in the lake or in the grounds or downriver. Even fetched over to
my
property . . . now there’s an interesting possibility . . . .”

“Let’s not explore it, if you don’t mind,” said Jury. “Instead, the body was stuffed into a chest that was to be collected almost immediately. Hmm. You don’t really think it was Browne, do you?” he asked Trueblood.

“Why not? The man can’t abide the idea that he’s a mere dilettante and I’m an expert. I don’t write, of course, but then neither does he. Joanna the Mad told me about that manuscript of his. Now there’s a thought: why didn’t he kill
her
instead of Simon Lean?”

“What manuscript?” asked Jury.

“About an hallucinating terrorist at Wimbledon. Or was it Doncaster? He thought Joanna might use a little clout. Send it to her editor, I expect. She said her editor would hire a terrorist to kill her for forcing Theo’s manuscript on him. Well, T.W.B. hasn’t spoken to her since, of course. Won’t carry her books in that bird’s nest of his . . . Stop prodding my dog, damnit.”

Melrose drew back his walking stick. “Sorry. Didn’t Simon Lean have something to do with a publishing house? Did he work at one?”

“Work? Him? . . . Or do I recollect that he said something about a publishing house that the Summerstons counted amongst their investments?” Trueblood raised his foot, shod in Italian leather, to inspect the shine.

“So you did know him, more or less?” asked Jury.

“Less, much less. He came into the shop once . . . well, Pratt’s going to find out anyway.”

“Find out what?”

“That I sold him a dagger-cane. He collected stuff like that.” Trueblood nodded toward Melrose’s cosher. “Tried to buy that, too, but I was saving it for Melrose. It was some time ago, two months, three.” He sighed and slid down on the sofa. “How grim.”

Jury helped himself to a Black Russian, which he looked at with some suspicion before lighting up. “Don’t worry; that won’t count for much except to MacAllister.”

“He’s a sweetheart, isn’t he? Thick as two boards and probably can’t
stand
one of my sexual persuasion.” Trueblood rose and started pacing.

Melrose said, “I didn’t know you had one.”

“It would be interesting if Mr. Browne had approached Lean about his book.”

Trueblood stopped to study himself in a cheval glass — adjusting his cravat, smoothing back his hair, his flirtation with the gallows apparently over for the time being. “I’m
sure
T.W.B. approached him, but I doubt it was just for a manuscript.”

“You’re not suggesting Lean was gay, are you?”

“Lord, no. That was the trouble, as far as T.W.B.’s concerned. And then to have his sister-in-arms, that Demorney person, meeting him on the sly . . . The more I think of it, the better Theo Wrenn Browne looks as a candidate. Kill two birds with one stone. Simon and yours truly. What a coup. It would fire the imagination of an hallucinating terrorist turf accountant, or whoever the idiot is in his book.”

Jury checked his watch and rose. “I’m on my way to Watermeadows; ring there if MacAllister turns the thumbscrews.”

I
TS SILENCE
, its absence of life in the midst of what had been splendor were the things that struck Jury first about Watermeadows.

The gardens covered acres and encompassed pools, reflecting ponds, statues now crumbling and patchy with moss all surrounding a baroque house. In the front was a formal pond from whose centerpiece of marble children and dolphins Jury imagined water must have gushed up and outward, falling round an elaborately carved basin in a curtain translucent and shimmering in the May light of another year. No water gushed from it now. And on the sloping hill behind the large house were terraced gardens. Thus in the midst of what was otherwise a splendid English arrangement of yew and box hedges, beds of grape hyacinths, long borders of aubrietas and wallflowers, there had been at one time an attempt to bring to the English formality something of the Italian, water springing up from hidden reservoirs and cascading down the hillside.