The Deer Leap (21 page)

In a moment she reappeared. It was almost a smile of relief she gave him, while telling him that Lord Lister would see him now.

 • • • 

If it was merely a conferred, a life peerage, one would never have known it from the demeanor and bearing of Lord Lister. No matter he was a smallish man, thin and drawn and in his seventies, his confidence spread, like the fan of sunlight coming through the high windows behind him. And he was, as all powerful men would have you think, a simple man.

“How interesting, Superintendent. Haven't a dog's notion why you're here, but it makes a change. Tea?”

He did not wait upon Jury's acquiescence. Lord Lister pressed a button on one side of the marble mantelpiece.

“Thank you. I could use it.” He doubted Aubrey Lister was a man who wasted his time over small talk. “It's about this snapshot, sir.” Jury took the snap, creased by now, from his pocket and handed it over. “Nothing that's a police matter, maybe. Only, I'm interested.”

Lord Lister, who had reseated himself on a sofa covered in watered silk, took out a spectacle case and said, “Not a police matter.” He smiled over his spectacles. “Yet here you are, Superintendent.”

Jury smiled. “We lead other lives, Lord Lister.”

Jury had caught the old man before he'd barely glanced at the picture. His tone was kind, but he said, “Then we should not lead them on police time, should we?” The corners of his mouth twitched.

Jury was glad he was enjoying himself. He did not want to upset this man, living here alone as he did — if one discounted a plethora of servants belowstairs. But he especially
did not want to upset him on the errand on which he had come.

“I'm sorry. I do not recognize this picture. Should I?”

“Not necessarily. I was hoping you would.” Jury immediately put out his hand for the snap, pretty sure the snapshot would be withdrawn. And that his lordship would look at it more keenly.

“Turn it over,” said Jury.

Lord Lister adjusted his spectacles as if that might clear the cobwebs from his mind. “ ‘Amy Lister.' ” He looked up, his glance around the room leaving out Jury, falling on the mantelpiece and a small collection of gold-framed pictures. Then at Jury. “You've found
Carolyn
?”

“Sir?” All Jury could do now was play the innocent.

“My granddaughter, Carolyn. Amy was Carolyn's dog. This is Carolyn's Alsatian. And the woman —” He shrugged. “A servant of some kind. What do you know about Carolyn?”

“I'm not sure I know anything.”

Lord Lister tapped the snapshot. “Then how'd you come by this?”

The tea was delivered by the amiable, if starched, maid. The maid poured, asking Jury how much sugar he desired.

“A couple named Brindle found a little girl years ago in a wooded area on Hampstead Heath, dazed. They'd gone there for a picnic. She didn't seem to know how she'd got there, who she was. All she had was a small purse containing a few pence and this picture. And a very bad head wound.”

Lord Lister was clearly shocked. “We supposed she'd been abducted. You're suggesting someone tried to kill her?”

“I don't know.”

Lister looked again at the snapshot. “I wonder why the person responsible didn't take the picture?”

“It had got between the lining and the purse itself. The Brindles only found it recently.” Jury put down his cup. “When was the last time you saw Carolyn?”

His chin rested on the hands overlapped on his ivory-knobbed cane. “When her nursemaid had taken her to the zoo. In Regent's Park.” His sharp eyes looked across his cane at Jury. “The nursemaid returned empty-handed.”

A rather sardonic attitude to take toward the disappearance of a child.

“You didn't report it to Scotland Yard, and you kept it out of the papers. How —?” At Lord Lister's tight smile, Jury remembered. The “how” would have been quite easy for the old man. He was chairman of the board of one newspaper and influential with others.

“Penny dropped, Superintendent? How do you think I got my peerage? Apparently, the Queen thought I had done the country some service by keeping a series of especially grisly crimes, the plans of certain drug dealers, and so on, out of the newspapers. I have a certain — influence.” His smile was thin. “My son, Aubrey junior, was miffed that the title would last only for
my
lifetime. I told him if he wanted a title, he could damned well go out and get his own.”

“You thought that spreading Carolyn's disappearance across the paper would work against her being found — so no reward was offered.”

Had there been, Flossie and Joe would certainly have turned up with Carrie in tow.

“Of course, that's what I thought. And I did not want to contact police for the same reason. Kidnappers are rather . . . touchy on that point. That was quite clear when the ransom note appeared two days later. The kidnappers weren't especially greedy. They only asked for twenty-five thousand. Which I delivered personally to the Left Luggage place in Waterloo Station tucked into a suitcase full of clothing. And the stub I left in a paperback mystery in a W. H. Smith's. At the end of the stack. I assumed I was being watched all the time.”

“But Carolyn wasn't returned.”

“No.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Nor was the money ever collected. I immediately hired two very good private detectives. They turned up nothing. Apparently, the kidnappers did not want to take the chance of showing up. Perhaps Carolyn was already dead. Perhaps —” Lord Lister shrugged. “— anything.”

“And the maid, or nurse? What was her story?”

“She'd gone to get them both a cold drink. It had taken only a few minutes, but when she returned, Carolyn wasn't there. She grew more and more afraid as she searched. Carolyn never wandered off, and the servant felt sure she'd been abducted. Straightaway, she came back to the house.”

Jury had taken out his notebook, and Lord Lister said, “Oh, don't bother. The nurse is dead. She can't help. She was fired on the spot, of course.”

“Did Carolyn's parents go along with your plans?”

“Parent. Carolyn was illegitimate. The father is dead. My daughter Ada is dead, too. Died when Carolyn was three or four. I thought she should have a name.”

“It does help one's sense of identity.”

Lister looked at Jury sharply. He had not touched his tea. Still with his hands on the cane, he turned his eyes toward the high window, and spoke like a man from whom most emotion had been wrung. “They're all gone, the children. Didn't find the house too — salubrious. Ruth and Aubrey. My sister Miriam finally left, too.”

“Gone where, Lord Lister?”

“They do not keep in touch. The last I heard from Ruth, she was —” His glance traveled around the room, came to rest on the pattern in the Oriental carpet. “India, I think. Miriam. I should like to see Miriam again.” He looked up, thoughtfully. “We were close, though she was some fifteen years younger.”

“Have you pictures of them?” Jury nodded toward the mantelpiece.

He shrugged. “Help yourself. Those are very old.”

Old and faded and rather fuzzy. There was one who certainly looked like Carrie. “Her mother?”

“Ada. Yes.” Lord Lister seemed disinclined to deal in the past. He looked at Jury. “You think I was a tyrant, that I drove them away?” He sighed. “My dear Mr. Jury, they are merely waiting for me to die.” The thin lips pursed. “Money, Superintendent, money.”

“People like that usually keep very much in touch. So you'll know where to send it.”

Lord Lister actually laughed. “Oh, I like that. No. They know they're going to get it. What's eating at them is that Carolyn is getting the lion's share.”

That surprised Jury. “You were fond of her.”

The statement seemed to have to pass, like a memo to the board, and come back with stamps of approval. Lord Lister took a long time considering. “Yes. I was fond of her. You see, I felt a bit like Lear. Not that I would hold a mirror to her lips to see if she lived still.” His eyes, when they looked at Jury, were like polished silver. They were glazed with tears. “But Carolyn, unlike the others, never
wanted
anything from me. Aubrey and Ruth are selfish and shallow and opportunistic. Actually, Carolyn took after me. And Miriam, perhaps. Resolute. Undemonstrative. Stoic, really. Her mother was like that.” He leaned toward Jury, as if he felt it were important the superintendent understand:
“That
is simply something I was never used to. Greed was the major component in the makeup of the other children.”

“May I ask how much money is involved?”

“You may. For Carolyn, a million.”

Jury stared.

“For the others, a hundred thousand apiece. If Carolyn
is
dead. . .” He looked away. “Then her part of the inheritance would go to them. Evenly divided. But there must be proof of
actual death. If she is declared simply legally dead, her inheritance will go to several charities.”

So the others would be waiting not only for the death of the old man, but the death of Carolyn Lister. “I don't imagine that made Carolyn overly popular with your son and daughter. And your sister.”

A glimmer of a smile. “Not precisely.”

“But Carolyn disappeared over seven years ago. Wouldn't that suggest she's dead?”

“Yes. Except that now you've turned up with that picture, haven't you? The young girl who had it
could
be Carolyn. The tale you relate of this family finding her would fit the facts.”

“You have other pictures — of the family?”

Lord Lister shook his head. “Of my wife, quite a few. And the children when they were very young.” He looked toward the ceiling. “An album, perhaps, somewhere in the attic. I do not go into attics, Superintendent. Like the mind, they tend to be dark and filled with cobwebs. I am not a sentimental man.” He paused. “Is the girl you refer to happy?”

Jury thought for a moment. “It's hard to say. But I doubt one could be very happy who has no memory of her childhood.”

“Ah. Is she well provided for?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, there is no proof . . . .” He looked at Jury, then around at the luxury of velvet draperies, Georgian furniture, less resplendent now in sunlight grown sluggish. He smiled that thin smile — not so much insincere as one learned from years of dealing in confrontation. “That's up to you, Superintendent.”

“She wears a ring, a small amethyst. That mean anything to you?”

Lord Lister leaned his chin on his hands and thought. “Amethyst.
I am not positive, but I believe her mother might have given Carolyn one. A birthstone. Yes, that would serve as proof, I'd say.”

Proof? “That she's alive?”

“Or dead.”

Jury felt a sudden chill. “And if this girl is Carolyn. And if, by some chance, something should happen to her —”

Lord Lister raised his eyebrows. “Unlikely. She'd be quite young now.”

“She was quite young when she was left for dead on the Heath,” said Jury bitterly.

The old man said nothing.

Jury went on. “Why wouldn't part of that fortune go to the person who's been taking care of her — not the Brindles. I mean the one she now lives with?”

“I suppose it could.” Lord Lister seemed puzzled.

Jury waited for the questions.
Who is taking care of her? Where
?. . . But there were no questions. Jury put away his notebook and thanked Lord Lister for his time.

With the help of his cane, the old man rose. “Of time, I have aplenty, Mr. Jury.

Jury smiled. “Then if she were to come here, perhaps your memory would bestir itself. Perhaps hers would. I imagine, living alone as you do, you'd be happy to have her back.”

“You don't understand, Superintendent. I do not like attics. I do not want the past back. I do not want Carolyn.”

 • • • 

After the pleasant maid saw him out, Jury stood for a few seconds on the stone step. All for nothing. He had done nothing to help Carrie Fleet, who, in a sense, had no past. Million quid or no, she had been truly swindled. He himself could have gone to the attic, taken whatever mementoes he could find, perhaps helped her piece it all together.

But how do you do that when the end of it is that no one wants you back?

He went down the steps and saw, as he turned, a velvet drape drop back in place.

Shutting it all out.

M
elrose — now “on” as Earl of Caverness — stared up at the picture of Grimsdale, in the forefront with a few of the favored staghounds. In the background was a stag at bay about to be taken. And beneath this, and above the mantelpiece, was a hunting horn.

Melrose had a great deal of difficulty in looking at it, much less with admiration. But a job, he supposed, was a job.

“Absolutely nothing like it,” said Sebastian Grimsdale, standing beside Melrose Plant in the Lodge's trophy room. Grimsdale sighed with pleasure. “Prince of Wales killed a stag by sweeping the knife upward. Instead of merely slitting the throat.”

“That is certainly a lesson in the art of venery, Mr. Grimsdale. It must have been a wonderful sight.”

Grimsdale started, slapped his hand on his thigh, and laughed. “Well, I'm not quite
that
old, sir.” He grew more serious, as if almost reluctant to say, “Even if I'd been there, I wouldn't have got near the stag. Too dangerous, you see.”

“Oh. Sounds a bit like a bullfight to me.”

“Good God, Lord Ardry. That's not
sport.
”

Melrose lit a cigar, offered one to Grimsdale, who was so lost in the picture that he merely shook his head absently. “Never done any stag-hunting, then?” Melrose shook his head. “Nothing like it,” he said again. “I remember one sprang up from the heather under the very nose of my horse. Ah, well. . .”