The Deer Leap (5 page)

“What — ?”

The gun moved again; the question went unasked. It would certainly have gone unanswered.

Billy wrapped the sweaters around the cat and stuffed it — screeching and clawing — back into the box.

“Here.”

They did as commanded, setting the box about six feet
from her. Rustlings and bumpings came from the box that looked as if it were moving by itself, a trick box.

“Now you just run like hell across the heath and I'll just stand here till I can't see you any longer.”

They didn't look back.

She didn't wait. She broke the gun, took out the other shell and dumped it with the box of them in her pocket. Then she picked up the cat, hid the gun in some bracken, and ran through the trees until she reached the road that led out of Ashdown Dean. Where she ran even faster.

P
olly Praed was still staring malevolently at Melrose Plant three-quarters of an hour later when he had moved them from the dining room of Gun Lodge to the more pungent airs of the Deer Leap. Since Melrose had taken a room here, the publican, John MacBride, was only too happy to open the bar at ten.

“It's a point, certainly. No one would have gone out in that storm without an umbrella.” He looked around at the chintz-covered cushions of the chairs and window seats, the windows once again lashed with rain; at the inglenook fireplace; the pewter and brass mugs hanging above the bar; the copy of Landseer's painting of a stag hanging above the fireplace. “But I'm not sure what it means.”

Neither was Polly, so she switched the subject. “That Grimsdale person nearly shut the door in my face for even suggesting the Lodge wasn't the Ritz.”

“Um. Well, don't worry too much about your predicament. I expect the superintendent can clear you when he gets here.”

“That's so funny I can hardly contain myself. I'd like another
Guinness.” She shoved her half-pint toward him, former earl, present lackey.

Melrose pretended not to hear her and looked at his watch. “He should be here any time now.”

Forgetting her Guinness, Polly started collecting her umbrella. She was still wearing that yellow mac and hat. “Give him my regards.”

“If you think you're leaving after all of the trouble you've caused, you're quite wrong. Anyway, my dear Polly, it's too late.”

Melrose watched her die a thousand deaths and knew exactly what was in her mind — she sat there in that ridiculous oversized hat and mac, gum boots to match, looking as if all she needed was a small boat and a large net and she might come back with a crocodile.

Actually, he rather enjoyed her dilemma, even if he couldn't say he enjoyed the reason for it. Polly was absolutely gaga over Jury, but Melrose was intelligent enough to know that gagaism didn't add up to love.

He leaned across the table and whispered, “Don't you remember that love means never having to say you're sorry?”

 • • • 

“Having some trouble, are you, Polly?” asked Jury, after he'd greeted Melrose Plant. He and Detective Sergeant Alfred Wiggins pulled out chairs and sat down. Wiggins smiled and blew his nose by way of hellos all round.

Melrose looked at the stag in the painting, both of them mere innocent bystanders.

Turning her glass round and round, she managed to get out a strangled “Yes.”

Melrose watched as she tried to outmaneuver conversational possibilities. To him, she had detailed the odyssey of her journey round the Kentish coast and up through Chawton like Ulysses. Now, of course, she was tongue-tied.

Jury waited. Nothing doing. Ectoplasm in a yellow slicker.
He cued her: “You found this body in a public call box, or at least that's all I could get out of Mr. Plant.”

Melrose sighed and looked up at the stag. The innocent always suffered. He turned to Wiggins. “How are you, Sergeant?”

Wiggins merely shook his head. “Caught a chill. It's pneumonia weather. Runs hot and cold. And the rain doesn't help.”

“Quite right,” said Melrose. “It's hell.”

“Wet hell, sir.” Wiggins said he was going to the bar for a buttered rum. Would the superintendent care for anything?

“Pint of bitter, thanks. Miss Praed — Polly?” She might have been out like a light. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“What happened? Well — didn't
he
tell you?”

Jury smiled, and Plant thought he should have known better. The smile only made her shrink further into her slicker.

“Okay. I'll tell you what I know and you supply the missing details —”

“Barney.” She looked down into her empty glass. “Is a missing detail.”

“Your cat.”

Quickly, obliquely, she ventured a glance from under her brim. “You remembered.”

“Your cat? Who'd forget him? I think I'd be afraid more for anyone who crosses his path. Go on.”

“No, you.”

Good heavens, thought Melrose, sighing hugely, they might have been playing Patience. That was certainly Jury's game. Why didn't he simply reach across the table and shake her till her teeth rattled — dragging him all the way from London. But no, he would never lay a hand on a woman; he would just sit there with that damned smile . . . no wonder they melted at his feet.

As now. “Okay. You opened the door of the call box and an elderly woman fell at your feet. That sum it up?”

She beamed. “Perfectly. But she didn't have an umbrella.”

Jury looked puzzled. “That significant?”

Polly raised her eyes to heaven. “It was raining.”

“Good heavens, Polly,” said Melrose. “I wouldn't take that tone with the superintendent, here.”

The eyes dropped as Wiggins returned with Jury's drink and went back for his own, which he had to wait for, since he wanted it medicinally hot.

“That
is
odd. Good for you, Polly . . . .”

Jury's voice purred on. He might have been petting that damned moth-eaten cat of hers. It really wasn't fair, thought Melrose;
he
had gone to all of the trouble —

“Oh, sorry, sir,” said Sergeant Wiggins, breaking the spell of those violet eyes riveted on Jury's gray ones.

“Hmm?”

“Your glass, Mr. Plant. Let me get you another.” His racking cough was somewhat more convincing than Polly's little throat-clearings. But then Wiggins had had years of practice. He looked at Plant's empty bottle of Old Peculier and shook his head, frowning slightly. “I'd suggest a nice hot buttered rum, sir. Never seen such weather. Ran straight into the eye of a storm coming here —”

He would turn it into a monsoon. “Just some more Old Peculier, thanks.”

As Wiggins slouched off (still in coat and muffler), Polly was becoming slightly more voluble, probably hypnotized by the gray eyes. Anyway, it was either talk or burn.

Plant just sat there turning his small cigar round in his mouth. She hadn't arrived at the doctor's report yet. Thus far, the only criminal activity was the catnapped Barney.

Under other circumstances, Jury might have appreciated Polly's epic, himself being a lover of Virgil, but even the superintendent's
patience had its limits. He was already into his second pint when he finally asked the Fatal Question: “How was she murdered, then?” When Polly simply studied her hands, Jury asked, “What did the medical examiner say?”

An indrawn breath. “Well, this woman wasn't
exactly
murdered.”

Jury looked at her. Wiggins looked at her. Plant studied the picture. Neither the stag nor Polly had a chance.

It was Wiggins who finally said, “Not ‘exactly.' Could you explain that, miss?”

Polly blew out her cheeks. “Yes. Well, it more or less looks like she died of some kind of heart-thing.”

Melrose offered helpfully: “There wasn't a knife or a bullet in the heart, Superintendent. Not that sort of heart-thing.”

That got him a gum boot in his shin.

“Coronary?” asked Jury, his expression bland.

Polly nodded and nodded, bobbing her dark curls. She had, during her tiresome exposition, at least removed her ridiculous hat.

There was rather a lengthy silence as Polly slowly scraped at a dried bit of food on the tabletop.

Melrose, eyes narrowed, watched Jury watching Polly. There it was, that damned slow smile. Instead of beating her about the shoulders with a table leg as she deserved, she having hauled him — or, worse, gotten Melrose Plant to do her dirty work — all the way from New Scotland Yard where there would be hell to pay when he got back . . .

“Not to worry,” said Superintendent Jury. “You never know. It sounds pretty strange; police might be jumping to conclusions . . . .”

Vigorously, she nodded. “That's just what I said.”

She'd said nothing of the kind.

“And Barney missing.” Now she slumped back, tearful.

“We'll find him.” And then, hemming in that smile, quite
deliberately, Plant knew, Jury said to
him,
“But really you should have got more of the facts before you called . . . .”

Polly's smile at Jury was dazzling.

Melrose shut his eyes. Why didn't they just stuff him and mount him like a deer?

P
aul Fleming's surgery was a half-mile outside Ashdown Dean, along the road which Carrie had just run, the cat sliding back and forth like a boulder in the cardboard box.

 • • • 

She watched Dr. Fleming, who was, unfortunately for him (Carrie thought), the village “catch.” He took the cat out of the box. Wrestled it out, rather. The cat in the red bandanna wasn't looking with any more kindness on this second helpful member of the crew than he had on her. As the veterinarian more or less tossed and held it on the examining table, she wondered if animals, like humans, remembered their torturers and could go after them later, for she surely would like to set this cat on the trail of Batty and Billy Crowley.

Paul Fleming was sniffing the air. “Where'd you find this one? Smells like it's been dumped in a petrol pump.”

Carrie scratched at her elbows. She never believed in giving out any more information than absolutely necessary. Constable Pasco would be bad enough, and she intended to get to
him before the Crowley boys' aunt did; that way she might get off with the usual lecture, instead of jail.

“It has been. Someone put petrol on it. I got off what I could but I didn't know —” She shrugged.

She held the cat steady while he got soap and water. “How long's it been? I mean since you found it?”

“Fifteen minutes maybe. Just soap?” She nodded toward the pan of water.

“Castile. Beef fat. The petrol defats the skin. You wrapped the sweaters round him?”

Holding the cat still, she merely nodded.

Fleming looked from cat to Carrie. “To keep him from licking at the petrol? That was smart. Apparently, it didn't get any in its system; I'd hardly call this cat lethargic.” The cat took a swipe at the towel. “Hold on, you big thug. Two sweaters. You must've been cold.” He glanced up at her.

No reply.

“Where'd you find him?”

“On the heath.”

“Well, what the hell was he doing running round out
there
?”

“I
don't know, do I?”

Her refusal to give out the details had nothing to do with wanting to protect the Crowley boys. She wished they'd burn in hell. In petrol, in hell. Carrie simply didn't believe in telling any more than she had to. Not even to Dr. Fleming, whom she supposed she could stand being around for ten minutes at a time, which was saying a lot for someone who walked on two feet. But she didn't approve of his work at the Rumford Lab. She never lost a chance to remind him of that.

“Off work, today, are you?”

He looked at her. “You don't call this ‘work'?”

Carrie looked at him. “I mean from the lab.”

Fleming looked as if he was just barely controlling himself. “Let's not have another go at that, if you don't mind.”

“The RCVS doesn't seem to be doing much to improve things.” She rolled her eyes ceilingward to avoid looking into his. “I mean, they change the language around and so forth. ‘Termination condition.' That's pretty good. Why don't you say what you mean?”

Paul Fleming glared at her. “Listen, if there wasn't any animal experimentation, what about this cat here? That ever occur to you?”

She looked at the big tom. “I guess it's a point.”

“Thanks!”

“Kill fifty cats to save one.” Slowly she nodded. “It's a point.”

“You do
not
know what you're talking about! God! Why aren't you up there with the rest of the demonstrators, torching away?”

“It's against my principles.”

He looked at her and shook his head.

Carrie knew it upset him, just having her walk in. Too bad. He was pretty nice. And Gillian Kendall was probably in love with him.

Poor Gillian. Carrie watched him as he worked and had to admit he was handsome, also good with animals, also unmarried. He'd be better off to stay that way, and so would Gillian. Carrie was a reader, and was constantly amazed at how few books could get by without the Big Love Scene. These scenes neither embarrassed nor repulsed her; she merely found herself grandiosely indifferent to the intermingling of lips and bodies. It was their unlucky lot to be caught up in a fate worse than death.

“Instead of standing there mooning, help me,” he said, handing her a towel.

“I never moon.” She wiped the cat.

“Bring in a jaguar next time, will you?”

Carrie liked the way the cat's pupils spurted in the light like red-hot coals, probably a reflection up from his red bandanna.

“God, is that a
smile
I see?” he asked, wiping the cat's fur down.