Ellis Peters - George Felse 02 - Death and the Joyful Woman (13 page)

“And kept somebody else out of it,” said George.

She turned her head and looked at him, not so abruptly that he could claim he had got a real reaction out of her, but at least so positively that he knew she was paying attention for once.

“The person you telephoned to come and help you out of your mess,” said George. “We know you did, you left a bit of your scarf caught in the door of the telephone box at Wood’s End. Did you think we shouldn’t get wise to that call? You may as well tell us all about that interlude, you know, it’s only a matter of time.”

“I’m in no hurry,” said Kitty, smiling, even teasing him, though the sadness that was in everything she did or said was in this perversity too.

“Who was it, Kitty? Better give us the name than have us give it to you.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Look, I’ve thought of something,” she said. “If I’m convicted, I can’t inherit from my victim, can I? So what happens to the money? I never thought to ask poor old Ray, I was so busy stroking his hand and saying: There, there! Do
you
know?”

“I’m not sure. But I should think it would automatically go to the next-of-kin, unless there’s some express veto on that in the will itself.” He didn’t know how much of this he could take, and still remember that he was a police officer, here on business. He wished he could think that she was doing it to him on purpose, to repay her own injuries, or out of bravado, to put them out of her mind, but he knew she wasn’t. She was evading being questioned, but she asked her own questions because she wanted to know the answers.

“Good!” she said with a sigh of satisfaction. “Then at any rate Leslie and Jean won’t have to worry any more, they’ll be loaded. I suppose I ought to make a will, too.”

George opened his mouth to answer her, and couldn’t get out a word. She looked up, her isolation penetrated for a moment by the quality of his shocked silence, and searching for the reason in her own words, came up with the wrong answer.

“It’s all right,” she said quickly and kindly. “I didn’t mean it like that. I know! Even if the worst comes to the worst, it isn’t capital murder.”

THERE SHE is,” said Leslie, stepping back from the table. “The Joyful Woman in person. I took your advice and fetched her back from Cranmer’s yesterday. What do you think of her?”

If George had told the simple truth in answer to that it would have had to be: Not much! Propped against the wall to catch the light from the window, what there was of it on this dull Sunday morning, the wooden panel looked singularly unimpressive, its flesh-tints a sallow fawn-colour, its richer shades weathered and dirtied into mere variations on tobacco-brown. Not very big for an inn sign, about twenty by eighteen inches, and even within that measure the figure was not so bold as it could have been. Against a flat ground that might once have been deep green or blue but was now grained with resinous brown varnishes coat after coat, the woman was shown almost to the waist. At the base of the panel her hands were crossed under little maidenly breasts, swathed in a badly-painted muslin fichu. Her shoulders beneath the folds of muslin were braced back, her neck was long, and in its present incarnation shapeless, and inclined forward like a leaning flower-stem to balance the backward tilt of the head. In half-face, looking to the right, she raised her large bland forehead to the light and laughed; and in spite of the crudity of the flat masses of which she was built, and the want of moulding in the face, there was no doubt that this was the laughter of delight and not of amusement; she wasn’t sharing it with an audience, it belonged to herself alone. Joyful was the just word for her.

“I know nothing about painting,” said George truthfully, and taking care not to sound complacent about it. “Frankly, it’s pretty ugly, isn’t it? And a queer mixture. That frill round her neck, and those mounds of hair like wings, and the corkscrew curls at the sides, all look like touches of early Victorian realism. But her pose isn’t Victorian—or realistic. More sort of hieratic—if I’m making any sense?”

“You’re making quite remarkable sense. Which is it you find ugly, the mass or the detail?”

“The detail, I suppose. The mass balances—I mean the shape of her on the panel. The masses of paint are clumsy, but I suppose that’s from years of over-painting by amateurs every time it got shabby.”

“You know,” said Leslie appreciatively, “you’d better be careful, or you’re going to turn into an art critic.” He had quite forgotten, in his excitement over this unimposing work of art, that his relationship with George had hitherto been one of mutual suspicion and potential antagonism. “That’s exactly what’s happened to her, and been happening for probably a couple of centuries. Every time she needed brightening up, some ham-fisted member of the family took a brush and some primary colours and simply filled in the various bits of her solidly, line to line, like a mosaic. And every now and again one of the artists got carried away and started putting in twiddly bits like the corkscrew curls—which, as you so justly remarked, don’t belong. I’m betting they don’t go below a couple of coats at all. But the shape, the way she fills the panel and stands poised, and leaves these rather beautiful forms round her—that’s there from the beginning, and that’s
good
. And I want her out of that coffin. I want to see what she was like once, before she went into the licensed trade, because I’m pretty sure there was a before. She hasn’t always been an inn sign.”

Jean, pausing for a moment on her way out to the landing kitchenette, stared intently at the laughing woman, and bit thoughtfully at the handle of the fork she was holding in her hand. “You know, she kind of reminds me of something, only I can never think what. Do you think she always laughed?”

“Yes, I think so, it’s in the tilt of the head. But with luck we shall see, some day. I’m taking her to the chap who runs the university gallery this afternoon,” explained Leslie contentedly. “I telephoned him yesterday—Brandon Lucas, I find I used to know his son at Oxford, so that broke the ice nicely—and he said yes, she sounded very interesting, and he’d like to have a look at her.”

“Did you have any trouble getting it back from Cranmer?” asked George.

“No, no trouble. He wasn’t very keen on parting, but I suppose he’d hardly be likely to commit himself to
too
urgent an interest, after your inquiries.”

“Did he make you an offer?”

“Yes,” said Leslie.

“How high did he go?”

Too late George felt the slight chill of constraint that had suddenly lowered the temperature in the room, and the tension that charged the air between husband and wife. He shouldn’t have asked; money was something that had shadowed the whole of their short married life, the want of it, the injustice of its withdrawal, the indignity of stooping to ask for it.

“Six hundred pounds,” said Jean, distinctly and bitterly, and made for the door.

Leslie’s fingers pinched out his cigarette, suddenly trembling. “You didn’t want to touch it when Dad offered five hundred,” he said indignantly. “You said I did right to turn that down. What’s so different about this offer?”

“It’s a hundred more,” she said flatly and coldly, “and it doesn’t come from your father. It’s straight money from a dealer, and it wouldn’t burn me, and the things I could buy with it wouldn’t be poisoned.”

So that was it. When the offer was pushed up to so tempting a figure she had wanted him to take it. Perfectly logical and understandable. She was a breeding tigress, she wanted to line a nest for her young; not at any price, but at any price that didn’t maim her pride. If her confidence in Leslie had been still unshaken she would have accepted his estimate of their best course, and gone along with him loyally, but that one disastrous move of his had ended the honeymoon once for all. Now he had to prove himself, he would never be taken on trust again, and his every act was to be scrutinised and judged mercilessly, not because she was greedy for herself, but because she was insatiable for her child. Looking round the shabby, congested room that was their home, George couldn’t blame her for preferring to clutch at certain benefits to-day rather than speculate on riches to-morrow.

“And if I’d taken it, and then the thing had turned out to be worth ten times as much, you’d never have let me forget that, either,” said Leslie, smarting. He flushed at the petulant tone of his own voice, and to break off the unseemly argument went forward and plucked the panel from its place, his pleasure in it spoiled. He was ashamed of having displayed their differences before George, and probably so was she, for she said from the doorway, without turning her head: “Well, it’s no use worrying now, in any case, it’s done. We may be lucky yet.”

“Believe me, Mrs. Armiger,” said George firmly, “if Cranmer offered six hundred for it he was absolutely certain of clearing a good deal more than that. He isn’t in business for fun. You hang on to it until you get a really disinterested opinion.”

He moved to Leslie’s shoulder to take another look at it. There was a queer ornament pinned between the childish breasts, something that looked like an enormous oval brooch with some embossed pattern on it. It rested upright above the crossed hands, long, curved, inarticulate hands pallid under the crazed vanish. “You’ve got some definite idea of your own about this, haven’t you?” he asked curiously.

“Well, I have, but I don’t dare believe it. It’s too staggering, I’d rather not talk about it until somebody else has pronounced on it, somebody who knows a lot more about these things than I do.” He wrapped the panel in an old dust-sheet and stacked it carefully in a corner. “I’m sorry, I’ve been so full of her I can’t think of much else, but I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk about
her
. Is it something about Kitty?” His face was grave enough at the thought of her, the vexation and the pleasure of his own affairs both overshadowed.

“It is about her, as a matter of fact,” said George. “You paid her a visit yesterday morning, didn’t you?”

“Yes, as soon as I could get away from the shop. I didn’t even know she’d been arrested until I went to work. Why? It was all right, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, quite. I was simply wondering if she’d been any more forthcoming with you than she was with us. There’s an hour of her time, that night, from just after eleven until just after twelve, for which she refuses to account, and there’s a possibility that her reasons for keeping quiet are concerned with some other person. My impression is that the best thing that could happen for her is that everything to do with her movements that night should come out.”

“Guilty or innocent?”

“Guilty or innocent.”

“From you,” said Leslie after some thought, “I might accept that. But if you mean did she tell me anything yesterday morning that she wouldn’t tell you in the afternoon, no, she didn’t. Not a word about my father or that night. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t talk a lot about anything. She just said she didn’t do it, and I said I never thought she did. Which I suppose is a perfectly good reason for co-operating with you, now that I come to think of it.”

“It is, if that’s what you honestly believe. You were with her—how long? Half an hour or so? If you weren’t talking, what were you doing all that time?”

“Most of that time,” said Leslie, angry colour suddenly mantling over his shapely cheek-bones, “Kitty was crying, and I was trying to comfort her.” He glared for a moment, but the flash of partisan indignation passed as quickly as it had flared up. “Oh, nothing shattering, just she needed to, and with me she could. She didn’t tell me anything about your missing hour. And I suppose you know you’re not the only one who’s been asking me about it? Your boy came to see me yesterday.”

“I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised.” Dominic had volunteered no information resulting from his inquiries in this direction, it seemed likely that he had acquired none. “We have a working arrangement,” said George with a hollow smile. “Did he ask you this one? If Kitty was in a desperate hole and needed someone quickly, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to come out to her late at night and get her out of trouble, to whom would she turn?”

“No, he didn’t ask that exactly, but maybe we covered much the same ground another way. There was a time when I’d have said she’d come to me. We’ve been good friends, she was like my little sister most of the time we were growing up, but that ghastly scheme of my father’s broke it all down. What could you expect? Kitty’s odd, sweet and funny and candid, but very much alone, too. I’m very fond of her, and I think she was of me until Dad spoiled everything. I did say to her yesterday, why on earth didn’t she call on me if she was in a spot, but all she said was something daffy about my not being on the telephone any more, as though that was any reason for locking me out of her life. Did you say something?”

George shook his head. “No, go on. If she wouldn’t turn to you, then who would it be?”

“Well, of course she has fellows round her as thick as bees wherever she goes, and all that, but I can’t imagine her going to any of them. I think it would be someone older, if she really needed something. It would have been her aunt, the one who brought her up, of course, only she died a year or so ago. There’s her manager—he’s a nice old boy, and she’s known him all her life—or Ray Shelley, he’s her unofficial uncle, she always got on well with him, especially after he tried to stick up for me when the row burst. Someone like that. I’m not being much help?”

“You might be,” said George.

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s Kitty I want to help, not you. No offence, you’re only doing your job, I know. But I’m not a policeman, I’m just a friend of Kitty’s.”

“All right,” said George, resigned to his exclusion from humankind, “that’s understood. I suppose, by the way, that Dom made it quite clear where he stands?” He saw by the fleeting gleam of a smile in Leslie’s eyes that indeed Dominic had, and that he had been welcomed accordingly.

He got as far as the door, and then turned back to say: “One more thing, you might like to know, we did find somebody who confirmed your timing that night. One of the colliers on late shift at the Warren happens to live at the bottom end of this road. He was coming off the miners’ bus at the corner just as you turned in on your way home. That fixes the time pretty accurately at around a quarter to eleven, give or take a couple of minutes. So that’s that. For what it’s worth now.”

“I see,” said Leslie slowly. “Well, thanks for telling me, anyhow. It would have been worth a lot a couple of days ago. As you say, it doesn’t seem to matter much now.”

“It was only last night we got round to the idea of checking the miners’ bus. If I’d known before I’d have told you. Well, good luck with your Joyful Woman this afternoon. How are you doing the trip? That’s an awkward thing to tote around by bus. I could offer you transport, if you’re in difficulties?”

“That’s awfully kind of you, but we’ve got the use of Barney Wilson’s van when he isn’t using it himself. He lets me keep his spare key, so that I can fetch it if I want it. He stables it at the Department’s depot just out on the main road, not having a garage at home, so it’s nice and handy.”

“Trusting chap,” said George from the top of the stairs. “Most people would rather loan you their wives.”

Well, he thought as he drove slowly and thoughtfully homeward, he hadn’t come out of that encounter quite empty-handed, even if there were some annoying loose ends that didn’t tie in anywhere. Chief among them was The Joyful Woman, that unpromising work of art, of such commonplace provenance and ungainly appearance, for which nonetheless a shrewd dealer was willing to pay six hundred pounds. Had she anything to do with Armiger’s death, or had she not? She didn’t fit in with the theory which had been devouring him ever since his visit to Kitty yesterday, but if she was going to turn out to be extremely valuable the possibility became worth considering.

Yet if money was the motive for this murder there was surely a greater prize to be considered than the few thousands which might be involved even in an important art find. Not the money Armiger had been playing for at the end of his life, but all the money he already had, the quarter of a million or so that young Leslie had always lightheartedly assumed would come to him. Had he really resigned himself to doing without it? And even if he had been on the point of coming to terms with his new poverty, for want of the means to change it, what would be his reaction if fate had suddenly presented him with a wonderful, a unique opportunity of regaining his fortune?