Down the Garden Path (26 page)

“Yes, now you mention it, I did see her.”

I tried to speak but I was impotent with rage.

“But only from a distance, and, as I told you earlier, she didn’t see me, someone—a tramp, hitch-hiker, I don’t know which—was hanging about inside the Ruins, so I stayed behind one of the trees in the lane. Believe me or not as you please, I have not spoken with Chantal since you came to Cloisters.”

“Why should I believe you? Besides, I know that you’ve spoken to someone from Cloisters. Right after Angus died, you asked me if he had any relatives other than his aunts in Dundee, and he
didn’t say
they lived in Dundee; they do, of course, but ...”

Harry’s calm was evaporating. His mouth slid into a hard angry line. On the defensive, was he? Good! But I didn’t feel good. My anger was seeping away, leaving me feeling empty as an abandoned building.

“What is this? Have you suddenly become possessed by the spirit of Miss Marple? Picking through my words like ...”

I interrupted him. “You know, despite everything, I’m not sorry I came here. The last few days I have listened harder and watched closer than ever before. I’m not quite as gullible or readily distracted as I used to be. The murderer had better watch out for Tessa Fields.” I looked into his eyes. “Harry—you still haven’t explained how you knew ...”

“And I don’t intend to explain or defend myself. But if your detection skills are polished to such a high sheen, I suggest you offer your services to the police.”

“Sorry, Harry, I don’t have your arrogance; I will work unobserved on the sidelines. Because you can bet I intend to know who killed Angus, even if”—I brushed the hair out of my eyes—“the truth isn’t one I like. And you know, don’t you, who I can thank for that toughening of the spirit. No more fantasy life for me.”

My eyes stung but I kept going. “Everything is smashed up ... I’m not sure I really want to know who my mother is anymore. I don’t welcome the idea of loving one other person. Too many risks. But I suppose I am stuck with being the kind of person who has to know.”

Harry was coming up those few steps to me. “That’s because you are your parents’ daughter. Tessa, can’t you understand why I had to let you go through with your amnesia plot?” He caught my hand and drew me down to sit beside him. I wanted to resist but I felt too tired to do so. “I wanted you to work through this search so that one way or another it would be over.”

“You tried to talk me out of it.”

“Sure I did—until I realized the women you had seen in the cafe were Hyacinth and Primrose and there would be no danger to you. Tess, I couldn’t have let you play out your masquerade on strangers. God only knows what kind of people you might have got in with.”

“How solicitous. Life at Cloisters has been a Sunday school picnic enlivened with gambling and murder.” I burrowed my chin into my hands.

“Don’t link the two. I didn’t see Hyacinth and Primrose until a few years ago—didn’t know they existed because old Mr. Tramwell severed contact when my father married a divorcee—but I have grown very fond of them. The gambling and murder can have nothing to do with each other.”

“Now who’s fantasizing? Of course they do, but that doesn’t mean I think the sisters did it, singly or together. There are all kinds of possibilities.”

“Including me?”

I stood up and walked down the stairs. “If they had been forced to stop playing cards because of Angus their only source of income, precarious as it was, would have dried up. They might have been forced to sell Cloisters, and the heir might have found himself highly disgruntled.”

“But the heir knew nothing about this. Ah-ha, now I understand your concern about the aunts in Dundee.” Harry caught hold of my arm and spun me round to face him in the hall. “Can your anger really cause you to suspect that I would murder
anyone,
and for money? And could I also lead you calmly into that avenue to watch your friend die?”

I didn’t believe it, but something bitter twisted inside my throat. “Money can buy a lot of horses, a lot of women.”

He stepped back from me as though the thought of ever touching me again made him cringe. “Sometimes I have fantasized, too,” he said; “told myself that I didn’t love you, that I could live my life blissfully without you, but I always thought I was deluding myself until now!”

The numbness I had experienced when Angus died was returning. I couldn’t hear how my voice sounded because of the static inside my head, “I’m glad you don’t care about me anymore. That way, if ever our paths should unfortunately converge ...”

“I’m pretty sure they will.” Harry smiled in sardonic amusement. “I received a letter from my mother yesterday. It appears there’s been a whirlwind romance in Devon. Your father and Aunt Ruth have fallen for each other. Tea together every afternoon, quiet strolls down leafy lovers’ lanes. Think of it, Tessa, if they should marry, you and I would be related and my aunt would be your stepmother.”

The numbness left me. “Dad would never do that. He’d never replace Mum. Never. Fergy would never let him.”

With that I flew past him and up the stairs. I’d go to my bedroom and stay there.

A piercing ringing of the doorbell. This had to be the police. Suddenly everything except Angus’s death retreated. My life until the investigations were completed would be here at Cloisters, whether I liked it or not. I started to run back down the stairs and Harry called, “Tessa, be careful.” And as I slowed, “Remember Lily. Seeing you lying at the base of the stairs might evoke the old suspicions surrounding her death.”

I stood on the last stair. “What suspicions?”

“That she might have been murdered by a member of her loving family.”

The police entered the premises. There were only two—a short, fat detective-inspector and a tall, fat constable—but immediately the hall seemed overrun. A buzz of introductions with the short Inspector Lewjack displaying the embarrassed air of a guest arriving two days early for a dinner party. He was an unattractive man with a splayed nose that twitched slightly above his pencilled black moustache. Did old murder, like old brandy, have its own special bouquet? A gentle apologetic smile hovered beneath the moustache, but Inspector Lewjack’s eyes weren’t smiling.

Strictly speaking that should have been “eye,” singular. His left orb was three-quarters concealed by a puckered and drooping lid, but the one open to the public looked like it was never off duty. He stepped off the doormat, casually scraping his shoes on the parquet floor. A black spider of a man. Greasy. Even his good eye was greasy. Far more like an ex-criminal than Butler. I fought the urge to bite my nails.

“A terrible sad business this.” Constable Watt removed his helmet. Holding it over the front of his tunic, he tapped out a few bars of “Rock of Ages” with one finger, mournfully shaking his bald head. “My Missus is going to be none too pleased, what with me not about to see home nor a hot dinner till we’ve nabbed our bloke.”

“Food!” breathed Inspector Lewjack, and his rich, fruity voice deserved to inhabit a far more attractive body. His nose twitched more blatantly. “I smell breakfast. An early morning corpse always makes me ravenous.”

Oh, Angus! But he would have enjoyed the inspector’s irreverence immensely. Constable Watt’s shocked expression indicated he was thumbing to page 696 of the police manual. Must not partake of victuals on premises associated with unnatural death. He turned to Harry.

“You’re some roundabout cousin of the Tramwells, right?” Bending over the inspector he stage-whispered, “This here young man’s related to the Tramwells.”

The inspector’s manners were more polished than his appearance. He refrained from responding that he wasn’t deaf. His good eye was on me.

“Tessa, you said? Tessa Fields. The nurse said you and this young man found the deceased.”

“He wasn’t dead when we found him,” said Harry. “This has been a dreadful shock for Tessa; he was a friend of hers. She worked for him at The Heritage Gallery in London.”

“Deepest regrets, Miss Fields. May I ask your connection with this house?”

“I’ve been a guest here for the past few days.” My voice was surprisingly steady. “Harry and I are friends and he wanted me to get to know his relatives.”

Constable Watt placed a beefy hand between his mouth and the inspector’s left ear. “He’s in line for all this here property, stands to reason the old girls would want to give her the once-over.”

The eye moved from me to Harry. “The nurse said she would go in round the back and wait with the ladies of the house, so if you would please direct us to where they are gathered ...”

“This way,” said Harry, but it was Constable Watt swinging his truncheon who took the lead. The inhabitants of the sitting room—the Tramwells, Mr. Deasley, Mrs. Grundy and Godfrey, Bertie and Maude (her cape still around her shoulders)—were all seated, balancing plates of bacon and eggs on their laps. Constable Watt introduced the inspector over the general flurry of everyone standing up, and Hyacinth announced that Butler and Chantal were fetching more coffee and toast.

Bertie’s eyes were big as currant buns, and the hand that wasn’t holding his plate had his jersey pulled up and was scratching away underneath it. The others had become a semicircle of mouths. The room was dominated by mouths, all of them wary. Nothing moved, save Bertie’s finger and the pendulum of the mantel clock. A shaft of sunlight beamed across the room. Flashbulb. Picture taken. Subjects blinking back to life.

Hyacinth and Primrose began talking over each other.

“So kind of you to come, Inspector, I know we all feel so much safer already.”

“And we do hope you will not think us heartless to be eating breakfast, before closing all the curtains and wrapping the door knocker in black crepe.” Hyacinth stared down at the plate she was holding, removed her sister’s eggy platter, and over the inspector’s black curly head addressed Constable Watt. “Ah, George, if you would be so kind, set those down on that table beside you. And do please close the door you left open. None of us will benefit from a draught.”

Flushing up to his bald dome, Constable Watt shrivelled before our eyes. In a pathetic attempt to re-elevate himself he put his helmet on, took out an official-looking notebook and red pencil, went to make a notation, realized the pencil had no lead and, under cover of Primrose’s twitching and stammering, sidled it into his front pocket. Primrose was in the throes of her favourite character part again: tedious elderly female on the loose. But I could not feel she was enjoying herself this time. She might well deem the pose deadly necessary. No one that inane could plot murder. Could she?

“One feels one must keep going. It is what is expected of those in our position, as I was saying to dear Ethelreda, Inspector ... forgive me, I did not quite catch your name. What was that?” Primrose daintily cupped a hand behind her right ear. “Coatrack? What a very odd name, to be sure, but memorable.”

“Lewjack, you ninny,” squealed Godfrey. The inspector urged everyone to be seated and immediately the company relaxed, except Mrs. Grundy, who had sat down on her plate. I went to assist her as Harry stood resting his elbows on the top of Hyacinth’s high-backed chair.

Godfrey shuffled his feet on a footstool, murmuring to no one in particular, “I do hope the body can be whipped off to London soon so the sanguinity of Flaxby Meade can reign once more.”

The door opened, bumping Constable Watt in the rear. Chantal entered with a plate of toast, followed by Butler with the teapot. My eyes couldn’t avoid his shoes. He was treading gingerly as if they pinched. The inspector watched him briefly as Hyacinth offered assurance that she and her sister would be gratified to offer their home as a headquarters for questioning.

“Indeed yes,” quivered Primrose. “And I am quite certain, sir, that you will not inconvenience us long.”

“Not a moment more than necessary.” He fought his way out of his raincoat, his eye pursuing Chantal as she laid it on an unoccupied chair. Was he admiring her beauty or wondering what Holloway might do to that complexion? Constable Watt was fumbling furtively inside his pockets, a look of desperation heightening his already ruddy complexion. Hopes of promotion dashed! He couldn’t find another pencil.

“Your cooperation is much appreciated.” The inspector’s moustache crept into a purely routine smile. “We so often find a homey atmosphere sets people more at their ease than if we have to haul them down to the police station.”

Silence most profound. Again the door nudged open and in came Minerva, head lolling, tail drooping.

“Your most vital witness, Inspector.” Mr. Deasley’s tone indicated that he was bent on lightening the mood. Standing with one elbow on the mantelshelf, he fingered a small ivory elephant. “Minnie, the noble beast you see before you, was the one who set up the alarm—bringing Mr. Harkness and the young lady, Tessa”—he bowed gallantly in my direction—“onto the appalling scene of murder.”

Butler stood in the middle of the room clasping the teapot in its bright bumble-bee cosy. “H’excuse me, sir, but mustn’t say ‘murder,’ must we? Murder is a very libellous word. Not to be used until all the h’evidence is h’in.” The spout had taken a downward tilt and brown liquid dripped on to his shoes. Brought to a realization of his intrusiveness, Butler cleared his throat and sailed off on his rounds with the pot.

Constable Watt gave the inspector a poke in the back, followed by one of his raucous whispers. “Knows a deal about the law, does that one—if you get my meaning.” Fishing the red pencil out of his pocket, he portentously licked the tip and remembered it was unloaded.

“H’inspector, may I h’offer you tea?” The mask of impeccable servant had ravelled upwards and I caught a glimpse of crafty terror as Butler removed Mrs. Grundy’s cup, even then raised to her lips, arched the teapot over it, and handed it to the inspector. The mask came down as if pulled by an inner string. “If that will be h’all for the present, Chantal and I will retire to the kitchen.”

Inspector Lewjack took a sip of tea and nodded. The door closed and he moved into the centre of the room. Under the pretext of feeding Minnie a piece of toast, I handed Constable Watt a pencil from the bureau. Wouldn’t hurt to keep in his good books—but the ingrate merely checked the point for sharpness.