Richard Jury: The Stargazey Part 25

"Yes, sir. I'll bring a fresh cup for him."

Melrose watched Young Higgins with the usual anxiety of wondering whether he'd make it to the bar or not, then turned to his Telegraph. After reading yesterday's news, he decided Monday must have been a real bore for most people and set it aside.

He watched Simeon Pitt for a moment. The newspaper wasn't moving.

He bent his head so that he could see Pitt's downturned face. Melrose went cold. For Pitt's eyes were not peacefully closed in sleep, they were half open.

Without thinking, Melrose yanked the newspaper back and threw it to the floor. He stood there, utterly paralyzed, any sound he might make caught in his throat. He was not even aware that the old waiter had come up to him with his tray.

The cups and French press slid precariously as Higgins nearly dropped the lot. "Oh, my! Oh, my!" said Higgins, his rasping voice gone up a register or two. "A stroke, oh, my, the gentlemen's had-"

"Fetch the doctor. Call the police." Melrose didn't recognize his own voice.

As much as Young Higgins could rush, he rushed. Melrose looked after him and then down at the body of Simeon Pitt, where the blood around the wound in his chest would be nearly invisible to a man with Higgins's vision. It had almost pa.s.sed Melrose's inspection, given the dark brown plaid of Pitt's waistcoat. The bleeding must have been largely internal.

Melrose straightened up and saw his hands were shaking as badly as Young Higgins's.

For a moment, he heard Diane's voice: Watch out!

31.

The Members' Room moved into something resembling wakefulness, if not into outright excitability, over the death of Simeon Pitt. It had not yet been bruited about that Mr. Pitt had died not of cardiac arrest but of stab wounds-wound, rather-a single one artfully delivered to a spot just over the sternum.

"Somebody knew how to do it," said Phyllis Nancy, stripping off her gloves. "The bleeding is almost exclusively internal; the lungs are full of blood."

Wiggins asked, "Why in G.o.d's name would someone do this in full view of these people?"

Jury just shook his head. "One stab wound. That's rather incredible."

"As I said, someone knew what weapon to use. Stiletto, it could have been. Long, thin. I can't be more precise than that."

Melrose had called Jury, who together with Sergeant Wiggins had arrived just before Detective Inspector Milderd and Sergeant Webber from police division C. They in turn had been preceded by several uniforms who had been, handily enough, by a linen van at the curb, whose driver they appeared to be questioning. One of the Boring's staff had called to them frantically and they had come on the double.

Jury had brought not only Wiggins but his favorite medical examiner, Phyllis Nancy, aware he might be treading on the toes of C Division, and had explained to DI Milderd that since Dr. Nancy had been with him at the time he'd received the call, he had brought her along.

Dr. Nancy never missed a trick. Once, she had seen on a body what might be taken for a tiny pinp.r.i.c.k as an entryway for a poison (later discovered to be ricin), after another doctor had set down cardiac failure as cause of death. Heart failure it certainly had been, but caused by the poison, introduced on a heavy embroidery needle discovered in the embroidery basket of the victim's cousin. Jury had always admired Dr. Nancy's imaginative grasp of factors that lesser medical examiners couldn't put together. She was also captivatingly feminine and didn't mind being told so, in one way or another.

No, Phyllis Nancy missed nothing; only, in the case of poor Pitt's chest, there was nothing that could be missed. She said death had occurred within the last three, possibly four, hours, and could anyone here pin it down better?

Melrose could help only by way of saying he'd seen Simeon Pitt at breakfast. That had been around nine-fifteen or nine-thirty, when Melrose had come down. Pitt seemed much as usual. It was his habit to sit in the Members' Room after breakfast, sometimes for the whole of the morning, reading various papers.

DI Milderd asked Melrose, "Did he have visitors usually?"

"No," said Melrose. "I mean, I never saw him with anyone, although, yes, he did mention a niece. This is the club's Ladies' Day. I believe he said she was to lunch with him."

Milderd asked, "Did he say anything else about her?"

"No, that was all."

Sergeant Webber said, "You were friendly with Mr. Pitt?"

"Well, yes. I certainly liked him. He was art critic for the-" Melrose stopped. In the wake of the morning's happenings, he had all but forgotten Pitt's telephone call yesterday.

"Yes, sir?"

"It's probably nothing, but Mr. Pitt made a phone call yesterday." Melrose told them about it.

"This Jay person, he never said a last name?"

Melrose was tired of these two sticking to his tweed jacket like burrs. "No. Look," said Melrose, "I met Simeon Pitt only last week. That's as well as I knew him."

"Yes, Lord Ardry, but-"

Aha! There's the problem, right here. The way he'd said it. Cops hated the aristocracy.

"-but three other gentlemen, who rarely did more than exchange a good-evening with Mr. Pitt, said you often sat with him and had lively conversation and drinks," Milderd said.

Webber added, as he slowly (and smugly) batted his eyelashes at Melrose, "And were out and about with him, some days."

"Three times! That's how often we had drinks and talk. As far as out and about goes, we went once to an art gallery not far from here." As Milderd was going on, Melrose stopped listening. He was instead thinking about Pitt's telephone call and the Fabricant Gallery. He came out of this daze to hear Milderd addressing him.

"Lord Ardry?"

"What?"

"As I said-"

(The aristocracy never pays attention.) "-the waiter confirmed that you often joined Mr. Pitt for a drink. Mr. Higgins, that would be."

Melrose looked over to where Young Higgins seemed to have grown visibly more sprightly since the murder. Look at him! Over there in a huddle with Neame and Champs, demonstrating what he'd heard when he'd hovered near the medical examiner. Hands clasped, shoving an imaginary knife into his chest. G.o.d! Another murder would bring him tap-dancing out of the kitchen like Fred Astaire. Well, thank the Lord, here at last came Jury.

Seeing he was an acquaintance of Jury, Milderd and Webber both looked at Melrose afresh-and with far less interest. Webber pocketed his pen and flipped his notebook shut. Waste of time, talking to this yob.

Melrose said to Jury, watching their retreating backs, "Why in h.e.l.l aren't they spending their time more resourcefully, instead of jamming me up between them?"

"You must admit," said Jury, "you're the best bet in the room at the moment." He swept his arm over the room to take in the stout woman with the two canes and two other older women who had come for the Ladies' Day luncheon. All three women had drawn themselves up and stayed that way throughout the police presence. Then there were the four elderly gentlemen (including Neame and Champs) gathered round Higgins, who now had clasped his spidery fingers about his throat to demonstrate the full range of his knowledge of murder methods.

"G.o.d, I knew Simeon Pitt for just a few days." Here Melrose's irritation-misplaced emotion-evaporated and gave way to real sadness. "We had coffee and drinks together. He was one of the most enjoyable souls I've ever met." Had that, indeed, been the scope of their friendship?

"I'm sorry," Jury said kindly.

"Your DI Milderd appeared to think I was about to be written out of his will." He added, "I told them he was expecting his niece-Barbara something. d.a.m.n, I don't believe he gave me the last name. Anyway, she's from around Oxford, or near it. . . . There's the porter!"

Mr. Budding, who had gone out for forty-five minutes to run some errands, looked white as a ghost. He seemed to take it personally that a murder had been committed in his absence. Yes, he'd said there was a young lady (at Boring's that could be any woman between fifteen and fifty) visited Mr. Pitt noonish-no, 'twas earlier; elevenish, it was-as Mr. Pitt ordered morning coffee for her. Budding was now behind the desk opening the register.

Jury frowned. "But neither Mr. Higgins nor your young porter remembered a visitor."

"They wouldn't, see, as I served them coffee. Here we are!" He twirled the guest book on its carrousel so that Jury could read it: Mrs. Amons for Mr. Pitt. "I remember saying to her he was expecting his niece and was she Mrs. Amons? She said yes and signed the guest book." He tapped it with a shaky finger.

"Describe her, would you?" said Wiggins, his notebook out.

"Let's see. Attractive, she was, and well dressed. Tallish, light hair. I do recall she was only here for twenty minutes, if that."

"You watched her leave?"

"Certainly. She said her uncle had fallen asleep and she didn't want to disturb him. If you'll excuse me, sir, I believe I'm wanted." Mr. Budding scurried off to answer the young porter's signal.

Melrose said, "Fell asleep? That's ridiculous. The man would never have fallen asleep in the middle of a visit from a relation. He was too aware of things."

Mr. Budding was back, looking paler than when he left. "I've just been informed of something very odd. Our Mr. Neal, there"-and he nodded toward the young porter with the spiky hair-"has just told me that whilst I was gone a Mrs. Amons called and left a message for Mr. Pitt. Said she was having a bit of car trouble and waiting for the RAC." Mr. Budding removed a large handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped it across his forehead. "I don't see how this is possible, sir, as the woman who was here at eleven o'clock said she was Mrs. Amons, and I must say I'm very much upset by this."

Jury nodded. "I can understand, Mr. Budding. But you'd never seen Mrs. Amons, I take it, so how were you to know?"

Mr. Budding, somewhat rea.s.sured, left them.

"Am I surprised? I don't think so. I'll tell Milderd."

Jury walked over to confer with Milderd, leaving Melrose to his own thoughts. They weren't pleasant. Melrose sat down heavily and tried to bring back the whole of Pitt's conversation. Who was the "expert" he was going to call? What was he "expert" in? Something to do with fraud in the art world? He had referred to "Jay."

Having reminded himself he must call Diane and tell her not to meet the train, Melrose was distracted momentarily by the sight of Pitt's body, enclosed in a black body bag, being loaded onto a gurney. He walked over to where Jury was standing.

"Listen." He drew Jury aside. "There's something that may or may not be important." He told him about Pitt's telephone call and his intention to "go round and have a word with Fabricant."

Jury thought for a moment. "So did Fabricant send someone round to have a word with Pitt?"

32.

Jury stood outside the gate and watched Olivia Inge tr.i.m.m.i.n.g back the rosebush with shears that cut like b.u.t.ter through the tough stems. He stood there for a few moments, wondering about her, wondering why such a woman would see herself as the needy poor relation. Olivia mystified him. Her brief and early marriage had availed her little, apparently, in terms of either financial or moral support. But she was Clive Fabricant's daughter, with as much right to whatever Clive had left as Nicholas, and surely more than Sebastian, Jury would have thought. Yet she seemed to have relegated herself to the role of hanger-on. Stepdaughter to Ilona Kuraukov. Not an enviable relationship.

"Mrs. Inge."

She had been focusing so completely on her task that the sound of her own name appeared to frighten her. She looked behind her.

"Olivia," said Jury. The first name had slipped out unbidden. He was not quite as easy with first names as Sergeant Wiggins.

"Oh!" She pressed her gloved hand across her breast. "You startled me."

He smiled. "Sorry."

"The rest of them aren't here. Did you want-?"

"You, actually. Could we talk?"

"Of course. Let's go inside. It's too cold out here and it's getting dark. And as far as my name's concerned, I much prefer the first. It doesn't sound so suspect-like."

"Suspect? Did I say you were?"

"You don't have to."

She stripped off her gloves, and Jury was reminded of Phyllis Nancy. The thought of an autopsy made him feel somber. His expression must have reflected this, for Olivia asked, "Is something wrong?"

He held the gate for her. "Something's always wrong. It comes with the job."

The warmth was welcome inside. And it appeared that tea had been laid (probably by Hedda). "This is wonderful! Hedda's timing is always perfect. That, or she's a mind reader." She took his coat, asked if he'd like tea.

"Yes, I would."

Jury sat down in the sofa Ilona Kuraukov had stood behind. He could almost feel her presence at his back. As he settled into it, Olivia handed him his tea in a delicate cup, china that looked thin as a veil.

She sat opposite him, in the armchair, and raised her own cup. "Cheers."

"Cheers." He took a drink of tea, felt better. "Why would I suspect you?"

She shrugged. "I've no idea, since I haven't done anything."

"Where were you late morning, early afternoon?"

"Here it comes." Her voice grew theatrical. "And where were you at the time old Chalmers was shot?"

Jury smiled. "Not Chalmers; not shot."

She regarded him quizzically.

"His name wasn't Chalmers."

"Are you saying someone else was murdered?"

He nodded.

Looking round the room as if for something to come to her aid, she said. "I've been here all day. By myself, doing some gardening."

"Do you get the Times?" When she nodded, seeming even more confused, he said, "Read the arts section?"

"Of course. It's usually the first thing I read."

"Ever hear of Simeon Pitt?"