Manna from Hades (7 page)

“I can’t see the hurry,” Eleanor argued. “It was empty, and not particularly valuable in itself.”

“You have to tell him about the jewelry anyway,” Nick pointed out.

“I’d much rather not. He’s going to be angry with me for not mentioning it before, and angry with himself for not finding the safe.”

“Tell Megan,” Jocelyn suggested.

“That would be much easier. I wonder where she is?”

“As I walked up,” said Nick, “I saw her going into the Trelawney Arms. Since it wasn’t open yet, I kidded her about special hours for the police, and she told me—rather snarkily, I thought—that she had to interview young Donna. Shall I be terribly noble and go and find her?”

“Would you, Nick? The sooner I confess, the less reason the inspector will have to be upset with me.”

“Right, then, I’m on my way. I don’t know which scares me more, Donna or Detective Sergeant Pencarrow.”

Eleanor laughed. “What nonsense you talk, Nick.”

Grinning, Nick was getting to his feet when the vicar breezed in.

“A tea party! Splendid. What, you’re not going already, my dear fellow? Sit down, sit down. Have another cup.”

“Nicholas has an errand to run, Timothy,” said his wife, fetching a cup for him. “He’ll be back shortly.”

“I certainly hope so. Keep your fingers crossed.” Nick departed with a wave.

EIGHT

The vicar was full of his own concerns, the people he had visited, the pleasure of riding through the countryside once the mist had dissipated, the crack in the wall of St Endellion Church—a good quarter-inch wider than last week.

“And I heard most disturbing news, my dear,” he said to Jocelyn. “Rumour has it that a builder wants to have the church deconsecrated in order to buy it and turn it into a house!”

“In that case, dear, the crack seems providential. He’ll hardly want to bother if it’s crumbling away.”

Eleanor listened with one ear, the other cocked to hear Nick’s return. The vicar finished off the gingerbread and drank a third cup of tea, and still there was no sign of Nick. She hoped he hadn’t got himself involved in a quarrel with Megan. To her sorrow, those two did not hit it off.

The vicar went off to his den to write a letter to the Church Commissioners about the crack in St Endellion’s wall. Eleanor helped Jocelyn clear and wash up the tea things. As the last cup was put away in its proper place, Nick returned.

“Never say I wouldn’t risk my life for you, Eleanor!” he exclaimed. “Megan wasn’t at the Arms, but Donna cornered me. If we hadn’t just had one murder in the village, I swear I’d have done the girl in.”

“Don’t joke about it,” Jocelyn admonished him. “Would you like to stay to dinner? Just shepherd’s pie, I’m afraid, but there’ll be plenty, and the first asparagus from the garden to go with it. As long as you promise not to talk about murder. I suspect Timothy’s forgotten about it, and I’d prefer not have him reminded sooner than need be.”

“For asparagus, Mrs Stearns, I’d promise my first-born child if I had one. But I’ll come back, if you don’t mind, rather than stay. I’ve got some work to do.”

He left again. Jocelyn sent Eleanor out into the spring dusk to cut asparagus while she peeled potatoes.

Endless meals! There were definitely advantages to living alone, Eleanor thought. She tried to concentrate on her task, on Teazle snuffling among the raspberry canes, and on the seagulls wheeling so high in the sky the sunset glow still stained them pink . . . Once she had been very good at putting things out of her mind when she chose. You couldn’t get on with your work if you dwelt on the horrors you had seen. But she was out of practice. She kept seeing those pathetic, sockless ankles.

She was glad to go back into the house, to the bright lights and kitchen smells, and Jocelyn’s determined chatter about other subjects—any subject but murder.

There were advantages to not living alone, too.

Once more Nick reappeared. The shepherd’s pie and asparagus were consumed, followed by rhubarb—also from the garden—and custard. As Jocelyn served Nick with a second helping of pudding, the telephone rang.

“I’ll get it, my dear,” said the vicar, folding his napkin and unfolding himself. He returned shortly, looking puzzled. “It’s for you and Mrs Trewynn, Jocelyn. Very odd. Someone called Stumble. He didn’t give me his Christian name, only his initials, D.I. And he said he’ll be here in five minutes.”

DI Scumble arrived, trailed by Megan. Eleanor was concerned to see her niece looking tired, but she managed to refrain from embracing her. She even managed to let Jocelyn do the honours.

“Coffee, Inspector?”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, madam.”

“We were just about to have some ourselves. I don’t believe you’ve met my husband? Timothy, this is Detective Inspector Scumble. And you know—ah—Detective Sergeant Pencarrow.”

“How do you do, Mr—er—Detective Inspector,” the vicar said courteously, then turned with obvious relief to his companion and held out both hands. “Megan, my dear, how delightful to see you. I hope you too can stay for coffee?”

“Good evening, Vicar.” Megan managed to avoid taking his hands. She glanced at the inspector, who nodded resignedly. “Yes, I’d like coffee, thanks.”

“You have a letter to finish, have you not, Timothy?” Jocelyn said with an commanding look.

“What’s that, my dear? Oh! Oh yes, the church. Yes, indeed, I’d hoped to catch the first post tomorrow. It’s proving rather difficult . . . Not, I’m afraid, a particularly attractive building. You’ll excuse me, Mr . . . er . . . Stumble. And Megan.” Looking slightly puzzled, he loped obediently away to his den, followed by Teazle.

“And you are . . . ?” Scumble asked Nick suspiciously.

“Mr Gresham,” Megan introduced him. “The artist with the gallery next door to the scene.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I thought we’d better get together and coordinate our stories,” Nick told him blandly. “The police are very hot on discrepancies, are they not?”

“Stuff and nonsense, Nicholas!” Jocelyn admonished him. “He came very properly, Inspector, to enquire after Mrs Trewynn’s well-being. I invited him to dinner. Do come into the sitting room, all of you.”

The Stearnses’ sitting room was big enough for Scumble not to dominate it as he had Eleanor’s. He sat in the chair to which Jocelyn waved him, and the rest found seats.

With her customary efficiency, she had already taken in coffee and sufficient cups and saucers for everyone. She lifted the pot to pour, but Scumble stopped her.

“Just a minute, Mrs Stearns. I have something to show you. We’ll have coffee while you all think about it.” He took several sheets of paper from his inside pocket and unfolded them. “It’s quite convenient you being here, Mr Gresham. We shan’t have to go looking for you.”

“Always a pleasure to assist the police.”

Megan glared at him, but Scumble didn’t rise to the bait. Stolidly he passed out a sheet of paper each to Jocelyn, Eleanor, and Nick.

Eleanor studied hers, perplexed. It was a Roneoed copy—reeking of alcohol—of a drawing of a peculiarly curved object, vaguely reminiscent of something but she couldn’t think what. Jocelyn glanced at hers, then put it down on the table and poured coffee. The picture was the same.

Nick stared at his with a frown. “What is it?” he asked.

“I’m hoping you can tell me. Thank you, Mrs Stearns, a little milk this time, please. No sugar.”

Eleanor laid the picture on her knee and gazed at it while she sipped her milky coffee. On closer inspection, a straight line ran out more or less at a right angle—if a curved line could be said to form a right angle—near the end of the object.

“All right, you don’t know what it is,” Nick persisted. “But you need to know, so it’s something to do with the case. The weapon?”

“The pathologist’s best guess at the shape of the weapon,” Scumble admitted grudgingly. “There’s nothing in the stockroom that remotely matches, and we can’t find anything in the bushes. Whatever it is, it was probably taken away and disposed of elsewhere, but if any of you has any ideas . . .”

“Could he have been killed elsewhere and his body brought to the stockroom?”

“Conceivable. But why bother, when there are cliffs several hundred feet high within easy reach?”

“Not so easy.” Nick was obviously feeling argumentative. “Suppose he was killed somewhere in the village. Lugging him out onto the cliffs would be hard work compared to simply dumping him nearby.”

“Which would be less work, but with a much higher risk of being seen by someone out for a stroll, or looking out of a window.”

“No one saw anything,” Megan put in, “which suggests the victim as well as the murderer was doing his best to keep out of sight.”

“Well,” said Jocelyn, pushing the paper away from her, “I can’t imagine what it might be.”

“I’ll tell you what it reminds me of,” Eleanor said hesitantly, “though it’s not very like. My father had a walking stick with a carved duck’s head in place of the usual knob or crook.”

“We’ve never had anything like that in the shop,” Jocelyn asserted.

“In any case, the curve isn’t quite right and this straight line here is in quite the wrong—”

“Not a duck!” Nick interrupted, and started to pull up one leg of his trousers.

The vicar’s wife was scandalised. “Nicholas, really!”

“Look! It’s the bruise I got walking into that damn table—sorry, Mrs Stearns, that blasted table. Isn’t it much the same shape?”

There on his hairy shin was a purpling mark, its shape very similar to the drawing.

“Oh!” Jocelyn’s hand went to her own leg, decently clad in 30-denier stockings.

“The
what?
” roared Scumble. “What table?”

“The dolphin table,” Eleanor explained. “Both Nick and Joce walked into it.”

“Where?”

“In the stockroom. It’s a sheet of heavy glass supported by brass dolphins. Four of them, I think.”

“There is no glass table in the stockroom.”

“We moved it, Inspector,” Jocelyn said apologetically. “It was a terrible hazard where it was, obviously, since both Nicholas and I tripped over it.”

“Where did you move it to?” Scumble spoke with a terrible patience.

“Into the shop.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

“This morning. After the murder.”

“Before we found the body,” Eleanor mentioned hopefully.

“No one could possibly have used it as a weapon,” said Nick. “It’s frightfully heavy. One person couldn’t lift it, let alone swing it at someone’s head.”

“Frightfully heavy, is it? How do
you
know?”

“I helped move it. Twice. Last night I walked into it when I was helping to unload the Incorr—Mrs Trewynn’s car. Donna and I—that’s the lass from the Trelawney Arms—we shoved it out of the way.”

“Which is why I fell over it,” said Jocelyn. “It wasn’t where I expected it to be. We asked Nick to help us carry it into the shop.”

“So, Mr Gresham, you were in the stockroom and shop this morning?”

“Yes. I didn’t spot the body, though.”

“That was before I found it, and Nick didn’t go anywhere near it,” Eleanor assured the inspector.

The look he gave her suggested he had no faith in her memory whatsoever. “But his fingerprints—all of your fingerprints—will be on the table.”

“Oh no, Inspector,” said Jocelyn, affronted. “I polished it thoroughly.”

“You polished it. The brass as well as the glass, I suppose.”

“Certainly. Eleanor’s dog was sniffing around it, so it had nose prints as well as fingerprints and dust all over the place.”

“The dog was interested in it, was he?”

“She,” said Eleanor.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” Scumble said with heavy sarcasm, “she. How is it that none of you,
not one
of you, thought to mention either the dog’s interest in the table or this exercise in furniture removal to me or my officers?”

Eleanor, Jocelyn, and Nick looked at one another. Nick shrugged.

“It never crossed our minds,” said Eleanor. “I forgot about it entirely. When your mind is on murder, you don’t think about tables.”

“The police do.” The inspector let his statement stand for a moment. Then he went on, “I’ll have to ask you all to come down to the shop now and show me where the table was before it was ‘shoved’ aside, and where it was shoved to. We’ll be taking it away.”

“Thank heaven for small mercies,” said Jocelyn, then looked appalled at her own words. “I’ll tell Timothy we’re going out,” she added hurriedly, and made for the den.

Resigned patience emanated from Scumble as he stood waiting for Jocelyn’s reappearance and for her and Eleanor to get their jackets.

Nick said to him, “I don’t see what the table has to do with anything. Only a circus strong-man could have used it as a weapon.”

“You let us worry about that, sir,” the inspector advised, almost benignly.

He was suddenly so mellow that Eleanor suspected finding out about the table’s peregrination had suggested an answer to a worrisome problem. Pehaps the dolphins’ tails had left odd marks on the floor that the police had been unable to account for. As they all started down the hill, she mentioned the possibility to Jocelyn.

“No discussion, please!” Scumble snapped. “I want your unbiased recollections.”

“I was just—”

“If you’ll kindly refrain from chattering, Mrs Trewynn, then I won’t have to trouble myself as to whether you’re discussing the table or the weather.”

So much for the mellowing she thought she had detected. His words were not particularly harsh—though “chattering” was a trifle unkind—but his tone of voice was decidedly acerbic.

After years of dealing constantly with people to whom English was a second language, or third or fourth, Eleanor was very conscious of the power of tone of voice to turn a successful negotiation into a disaster. She wondered whether the police were taught about such things or had to muddle along in hit-or-miss fashion. She was going to ask Megan, who came back to join her and Jocelyn, but stopped herself just in time not to call down Scumble’s wrath upon her head again. They walked on in silence.

A uniformed constable still stood guard on the pavement in front of the shop.

The inspector took Nick into the stockroom first, leaving the women in the hall. He shut the door, so they heard only a mutter of voices and the thud of footsteps.

“I can’t see that the table has anything to do with anything,” Jocelyn said crossly, though in a low voice. “What
is
he on about, Megan?”

“He hasn’t told me,” Megan responded.

“You mustn’t ask her, Joce. If she knew, she shouldn’t tell you.” All the same, Eleanor was pretty sure her niece had a good idea of what was in Scumble’s mind. She was much too tired to try to work it out for herself. She sat down on the stairs.

“Are you all right, Aunt Nell?”

“Just a bit weary, dear. It’s not very late, I know, but it feels as if it’s been a very long day. I’m more than ready for bed.”

“You shall have a hot water bottle,” Jocelyn promised, “and cocoa if you fancy it. Timothy will take Teazle out for her last walkie.”

“Mrs Stearns.” Nick came out of the stockroom. “The dentist—the inspector, that is—will see you now,” he announced.

Jocelyn went in, with much the bearing of one bracing herself to enter the dentist’s lair. The door closed behind her.

“Am I permitted to leave now, Detective Sergeant Pencarrow?” Nick asked.

“You’re free to go anytime,” Megan said uncertainly, “but I expect Mr Scumble would prefer you to stay in case he has any more questions for you.”