The Man with a Load of Mischief (14 page)

“And you don't?”

Melrose looked as if he'd expected more than this of Scotland Yard but was too polite to say so. “Everyone refers to the Small person as a ‘perfect stranger' just happening into Long Piddleton, which is in itself unlikely.”

“How so, Mr. Plant?”

“Because he came by train and bus. How could he have been
just ‘passing through'?” At the butler's entrance, Plant said, “Ah, breakfast.”

“I've laid it for you in the dining room, sir.”

Melrose rubbed his hands. “Thank you, Ruthven. Come along, Inspector Jury.”

 • • • 

Beneath the fan-vaulted ceiling of the dining room hung enormous, rich portraits of the Ardry-Plant line. One, the smallest of them, against the end wall, was of Melrose Plant himself, seated at a table, a book open before him.

“Conceited, isn't it? To have a portrait of oneself hanging about? But my mother, before she died, insisted. That's she. The one in black.”

The portrait was of a lovely woman in black velvet, posed in a simple, dignified way. Hanging beside that was one of a squat, friendly faced man, surrounded by hunting dogs. Plant looked like his mother.

As Plant filled his plate he said, “I see Martha assumed my aunt would be staying, since she prepared enough for twelve. Please have some, Inspector Jury.” He lifted the silver domes from the dishes: deviled kidneys, buttered eggs like satin, Dover sole, hot scones.

Jury could hardly fault these villagers on their offers of food and drink, but he turned down this elegant second breakfast. “No thanks, Mr. Plant. Just coffee would be fine.”

“Mr. Plant, you were saying that you didn't agree with the idea that Small's murderer forced his way in through the cellar door.”

“Inspector — I'm quite sure you don't think so either, but I'll give you my reasons if you like. Had the murderer been someone from
outside
, is it within the realm of reason that he would have chosen that public place for a meeting with his victim? But let's suppose, even, that he had made this curious arrangement. Having fixed to meet Small in the cellar, he then has to break the door to get
into
it? Wouldn't Small have just let him in? One can hardly take the view that the killer just happened by chance to walk round to the rear of the inn, spied Small through the dusty cellar window, said to himself, ‘Good lord!
If it isn't Small, my arch enemy!' then battered down the door.” Melrose Plant shook his head and poured the coffee.

Jury smiled, since Plant had just outlined his own thoughts regarding the murder. He pulled out his packet of Players and offered one to Plant, who accepted. They lit up.

“What
do
you think, Mr. Plant?”

Plant studied the pictures on the wall for a moment, and then said: “Given the meeting place, I'd say it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Someone there was surprised by the appearance of Small, and during the course of the evening arranged to meet him in the wine cellar. The improvisational method of murder would testify to that, wouldn't it? The murderer choking him with a piece of wire from a wine bottle and then shoving his head into that keg of beer. You know how I see it?”

“How?”

“Our murderer is having some sort of conversation with Small, and all the while untwisting the wire and then —” Plant raised his hands and pulled an imaginary length of wire around his own neck. “Pulls on the larynx long enough to knock him out and then holds his head in the butt. That makes it look rather spontaneous. Or . . .”

“What?”

“Well, there is the possibility it was premeditated and made to look as if it weren't. And the grotesque detail of shoving Small's head in a keg of beer, and stuffing Ainsley up there on the beam—” Plant's green eyes glittered. “Why? The weird touches are, well,
too
weird.”

“You mean because they direct our attention to the method, and away from something else — such as the motive? Window-dressing, that sort of thing?”

“Or could one murder have been done to draw your attention from the other?” suggested Melrose. “Ainsley might have been killed to divert attention from Small, or vice versa.”

“Something done so the police end up not being able to see the forest for the trees?” Jury accepted another cup of coffee from the silver pot, thinking that Plant was an exceptionally clever man. He only hoped he wasn't the murderer.

“Funny,” said Melrose. “Small and Ainsley appeared to be
total strangers. No one knew them, and they didn't know one another — or so it would seem. Dear me. Well, Inspector, you're faced with everyone there having an opportunity, but no one seeming to have a motive. It would be so much easier if the victim had been one of us.”

“Why is that?”

“Because there are so many motives. Had it been Willie Bicester-Strachan, for example, there's Lorraine to pin it on. Had it been me killed, good heavens, the possibilities are endless — beginning with my aunt. Had it been Sheila Hogg as victim, there's Oliver Darrington —”

“Darrington wanting to murder Miss Hogg? Why?”

“Because then he'd be free to marry Vivian Rivington. The money, you see. And Sheila no doubt has her blackmail all ready in case Oliver strays too far from her side. Had it been Aunt Agatha murdered, the entire village would be under suspicion.”

“And had it been Vivian Rivington?”

Melrose gave him a long look. “What about Vivian?”

“Isn't it rather significant that Miss Rivington will inherit a good deal of money in six months' time? Who will lose and gain thereby?”

“Look, I'm playing games. What has Viv's fortune to do with Ainsley and Small?”

“Nothing I know of. Only it wouldn't be the first time several people were killed in order to mask the real motive.”

“I don't understand, Inspector.”

Jury dropped it. “Mrs. Bicester-Strachan tells me she shared your table for part of the evening. The night Small was murdered.”

“Not ‘shared' exactly. I managed to hold on to my half through strategy that would have been the envy of Rommel.” Melrose, helped himself to a piece of toast from the silver rack, bit into it, and said, “Why do the English have a reputation for enjoying cold toast?” He put the remainder on his plate.

“Mrs. Bicester-Strachan seemed to have ambivalent feelings toward you.”

“What a very polite way of putting it.” Then Melrose sighed,
and added, “No, Inspector. There has never been anything on between Lorraine and me.”

“Nor Miss Rivington and you?”

“You're beginning to sound like my aunt. I don't see what connection there is between my private life and the business at hand.”

“Oh, come on, now, Mr. Plant. If we ignored private lives we'd never be catching criminals, would we?”

Plant held up his hand. “All right, all right. Look, Inspector, contrary to my aunt's belief that half the women in the county want to marry me and thereby deprive her of her ‘rightful inheritance,' let me assure you that very few women have ever had designs on me. I have had my perfectly ordinary attachments with ordinarily beautiful women. I have been engaged, broken off by the lady in question because she thought me a snob and lazy, both of which I probably am. My aunt is terrified that some woman is going to ‘land' me (to use her quaint Americanism). No one, however, is really interested.”

Jury seriously doubted that, but changed the subject again. “According to Mr. Scroggs, several of you came to the Jack and Hammer the next evening, Friday, when Ainsley was murdered.”

“Yes. I was there about eight or eight-thirty. Most of the rest of them were there, too. Vivian was sitting with me; Matchett came in for a bar meal. Even he couldn't stomach his own place, I suppose. Anyway, there's Scroggs's back door. Anyone in Long Piddleton could have come and gone that way —”

“You know about that, then?”

“Of course; everyone does. So it doesn't pin things down much for you to know who was
inside.”

“What about this rumor of an engagement between Mr. Matchett and Vivian Rivington?”

“I can't say. But I hope it's not true.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't like Matchett. She's too good for him. You said something about masking the ‘real' motive. You don't think there'll be more murders?”

“I wouldn't want to make such a prediction. You yourself
suggested there were several motives for murder in Long Piddleton.”

“Ah, but I wasn't really serious.” Melrose swung around toward the dining room door, on the other side of which was a great clattering and raising of voices.

Ruthven entered. “I'm sorry, sir. It's Lady Ardry. Insists —”

“My
aunt
? Twice in one day — ?”

But before he could finish, or Ruthven get out of her way, Agatha pushed through the door, shoving Ruthven with it, and sailed in, cape flying. “Well! I see you two are sitting here calmly eating kidney and bacon with the whole village in an uproar!”

“The village has been in an uproar for days, Agatha. Whatever brings you back?”

Lady Ardry planted her cane squarely in front of her and could not have kept the triumph from her voice had she wanted to. “What brings me back? To see if I can drag Chief Inspector Jury from his lunch. There's been another!”

“Another?”

“Murder. At the Swan.”

“T
he moment I heard I came straight away!” said Lady Ardry from the back seat of Plant's Bentley. It had taken Melrose five minutes to warm up the cold engine, and the three of them were now speeding along the main road, which connected Sidbury on the one end with Dorking Dean on the other.

Jury was trying to keep his temper under control. “Why didn't Wiggins simply call me? It would have saved the half hour it must have taken you on your bike.”

She was humming and staring out as the fields of melting snow flew by. “I expect he didn't know where you were.”

Jury turned in his seat and, with iron self-control, said, “
You
did, Lady Ardry.”

She smoothed her ample skirts. “I'd no idea you were still at Plant's, lingering over your coffee.”

 • • • 

The Swan was a country inn less than a mile from Ardry End and several miles from Dorking Dean. When they got there, three police cars were drawn up in the small parking lot that fronted the inn. A number of thrill seekers were also parked
higgledy-piggledy along the road. As soon as Plant's Bentley pulled up, spitting slush, Wiggins ran over.

“I'm most dreadfully sorry, sir. I called all round, I did—”

Jury assured him it was not his fault. “I was at Ardry End —”

“Having breakfast,” put in Agatha, heaving herself from the car.

Pratt came up. “The crew's been over the place, so you can move about freely. I've got to get to Northampton. The Chief Constable is . . . well, you can imagine. Wiggins here can fill you in.” Pratt sketched a salute as he got into the car which had pulled up.

Melrose Plant had melted into the small crowd, dragging an irate Lady Ardry with him. The investigation, she seemed to think, had been hampered by her absence, and could now proceed.

“Pluck,” Jury called, “get those people back. The police surgeon will have to get his car in here.” There were quite a few children there, too, waiting for blood and gore. He recognized the Doubles among them and waved. They waved back, hectically.

“Where's the body, Wiggins? And who found it?”

“In the garden, sir. It was Mrs. Willypoole, the owner, found him.”

Several reporters pushed their way in. “Is it a psychopath, Inspector?”

“I don't know. That is apparently what
you
think, from what I read in the papers.”

“But it's a
pattern
. Another murder done at an inn, Inspector.”

“Yes, well, let me know what the pattern means when you find out.” Jury shoved past them.

Before he went in the door, Jury paused to look up at the inn sign, creaking slightly on its ironwork rod. The sign was faded, but it was still clearly a painting of a double-necked swan, each head gaggling off in a different direction. The swan was floating serenely down what was once a green river, and seemed altogether unaware of its strange deformity. Across the top of the sign in graceful cursive lettering was the legend
Swan with Two Necks.

“How on earth do they ever think of them?” Jury said to Wiggins.

“Ah wha, sah?” asked Wiggins, his voice lost in the folds of his handkerchief.

“The names, Wiggins, the names.”

 • • • 

Jury shoved open the inner frosted-glass door to the saloon bar. A woman (whom he presumed to be Mrs. Willypoole) was downing a shot glass of gin at the bar. When she saw Jury, she smiled tightly and brandished the gin bottle like a victory sign.

“This is Mrs. Willypoole,” said Wiggins. “She's the one who found him.”

“Inspector Jury, madam, New Scotland Yard.” He showed her his ID, on which she had trouble focusing. A ginger cat, curled up on the bar, opened one untroubled eye. Apparently satisfied with Jury's credentials, it yawned and went back to sleep.

“A drink, then, love?” Jury shook his head. “Well, you'll have to excuse me, love. It's not often I get a shock like this. Let me tell you, when I went out there —” and her head fell in her hands.

“Of course. I understand, Mrs. Willypoole. I'd like a look first at the garden, and then to ask you a few questions.” She didn't seem to hear him, and he decided that unless he wanted an unconscious witness, he'd better not come on quite so pompously with her. He leaned on the bar and tried to match her tone. “Can't say I blame you. But listen, love, go easy on that,” and he flicked his nail against the bottle. “I'm going to need your help.” He winked.