WHEN Jury found Melrose Plant at two o’clock in the morning, he was sitting with an overflowing ashtray, a bottle of Remy, and a book of French poetry.
“There’s a message from Mainwaring. He wants to see you, no matter what time you get in.”
Jury sat down heavily. “Let me have some of that, will you?”
Melrose shoved the bottle toward him. Then he told him about Emily Louise.
“Oh, my God,” said Jury. He was silent for a moment. “And how’s Mary O’Brien?”
“Dr. Riddley gave her some sort of sedative and I suppose it worked for a while, since he managed to get her upstairs and into bed. I was about to go to bed myself when she came down in her nightdress with a terrible blank sort of look on her face. Do you know, she was carrying an oil lamp. She made a slow circuit of the place; she held it up to all the windows, looking out; she might have been looking for some late traveler. . . . It was eerie.” He lit a fresh cigar. “I think I know now what’s meant about someone’s being ‘a ghost of his old self.’ She was flesh and blood turned to vapor. Really, I thought I could put my hand through her.” He was silent for a moment, and then added: “There’s no such thing as being prepared for death. I’m glad I never saw her. . . . ” He looked at Jury, as if half-afraid Jury might tell him about Katie O’Brien. Jury said nothing, and Melrose went on. “When Riddley told me about Peter Gere—I was baffled.”
“How’d Dr. Riddley find out?”
“That music teacher of Katie’s—what’s his name?”
“Cyril Macenery.”
“He called Riddley. Apparently, this chap had to have somebody to talk to who knew Katie. Very broken up.”
Jury drew out the necklace, still wrapped in the handkerchief, and dropped it on the table. “The people who had to die for that little lot—” He shrugged unhappily. “Go ahead, you can touch it. It’s not needed in evidence anymore.”
Melrose gave a low whistle. “Beautiful, objectively speaking. Are you going to return it to Lady Kennington?” Jury nodded. Melrose turned the gem between his thumb and forefinger, ran his thumb over the carving. “So Peter Gere was Tree’s accomplice?”
“It occurred to me after I thought about that search of the people there, the house, the grounds. How simple can you get? The person spot-on was Peter Gere, wasn’t it? The village bobby gets called straightaway, and he calls Hertfield police. And he’s the one who searches Trevor Tree; he said so himself. He could have either just left the necklace in Tree’s dressing gown pocket, or palmed it himself and put it in his own and given it back to Tree later.”
“Would Tree have trusted Gere with it?”
“Why not? It was only a matter of waiting until everyone had disbursed, finally. Police back to Hertfield, the Kenningtons back to bed. Gere couldn’t have got very far with it, so a double-cross was very unlikely. All Tree wanted was to get the necklace out of the house and safely stashed somewhere else—we’ll never know precisely what he had in mind—so he rises early, walks down the drive so as not to wake anyone, gets a ride to Hertfield, and does the smart thing: melts into the early-morning commuters to London. What went through his mind then, I don’t know. But I’ll guess. On the train he gets a bit worried that someone might not assume he’s sleeping late, that someone might shop him, and there’ll be a greeting on the other end. Police at his digs, at least. So he walks up that corridor and sees the grate. Bend down, tie your shoe, something like that, and slip this through.” Jury held up the necklace. The stone winked in the light.
“Then there was Cora Binns. We talked about her ‘running into someone.’ But that’s a bit coincidental, isn’t it? She didn’t run into her murderer by accident, she did what anyone might do—asked directions of the local bobby. Not only did he give her directions, he followed her into the Horndean wood. Peter Gere recognized the rings she was wearing and wondered what ‘business’ she’d got at Stonington. Carstairs’s men found the rings in Gere’s box room, in the bottom of a carton full of junk marked for the Jumble sale at the fête, Obviously, he never delivered it. Can’t imagine why,” added Jury wryly. “I guess he thought no one would bother looking there.”
“What about Ramona Wey?”
Jury shook his head. “He stopped talking at that point. Ramona Wey must have known Cora Binns. Maybe she knew the death of Cora had some connection with the emerald. I may find out when I talk with Mainwaring.”
Melrose thought for a moment. “I wonder what she said to Peter Gere at the gate when he was taking tickets. I was so interested in all the backs she seemed to be getting up—mainly the Bodenheims’—that I didn’t give a thought to Peter Gere.”
Jury drank some cognac neat. “Who would? He seemed such a pleasant, mild sort of chap. Over the edge, he was, and hid it wonderfully. He tried to direct out attention to everyone else. Those letters were just a blind, something to get people thinking about more intriguing things than Katie O’Brien. He must finally have figured out what that represented, and with all of that money at stake, he wasn’t going to let mere human life stand in his way.”
“But what would make him think of the grate as a hiding place?”
“Peter Gere once worked for London Transport. He mentioned it in relationship to the letter he’d got—written to himself, that is—‘skulduggery’ when he worked for LT, he said. So he might think of it quicker than you or me.” Jury poured himself another drink. “Where’s Emily now?”
“With her mother. Oh, yes, she really does have one. Mrs. Perk came by and got her. Horrified at what had happened, but by that time Emily had had a kip and had washed her face, so she didn’t look quite so fierce. Mrs. Perk said she’d told her to go home and to bed right after she’d finished at the stables. Mrs. Perk says Emily doesn’t like sitters. Makes their life hell, so she finally gave up. Half the time when Emily is out, I believe her mummy think’s she’s in.”
Jury rubbed his eyes. “Speaking of kips, I think I’ll have one myself, as soon as I talk to Mainwaring. I’m going to Stonington tomorrow and then back to London. Finish up the paperwork. Wiggins’ll do most of it, I hope.”
Plant picked up the emerald again, held it up to the light, and adjusted his spectacles. “If I didn’t know it was Peter Gere, I’d certainly have sworn it was Ernestine Craigie who was the guilty party.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
The emerald necklace swung between them. “Surely, that bird carved there is a Great Speckled Crackle.”
They sat there for another ten minutes, passing the bottle back and forth and talking about everything they could think of except Katie O’Brien.
“What did she tell you, Mr. Mainwaring?”
Freddie Mainwaring sat in robe and slippers, looking vulnerable, as men will who are routed out of bed in the middle of the night. “That she knew this Binns woman. I wasn’t aware of it before, but Ramona worked for that agency. Funny, I can’t think of her doing that. She always seemed too . . . worldly to be a typist.”
“And?”
Mainwaring seemed to be speaking more to the silver-framed photograph of his wife than to Jury. Perhaps he was trying to explain his fall from grace. “Ramona told me she remembered this girl talking a lot about some ‘Trev’—her boyfriend in London, though Ramona doubted Cora Binns would appeal much to any man for very long. Anyway, Ramona didn’t make any connection between that and Kennington’s secretary. I think she knew him better than she admitted, to tell the truth.” Blood rushed into his face. He brushed his hair away from his forehead. “Until she saw the picture of the dead woman.”
“Why didn’t she tell us all of this?” Jury thought he knew why.
Mainwaring pulled a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his robe pocket. He seemed to have wilted in the last twenty-four hours, grown grayer, sadder. “Ramona seemed to think the Binns woman had blackmail on her mind.”
“That’s a strange conclusion to draw. After all, it was you who got her to come here.”
”I know. But Ramona . . . To tell the truth, Ramona wasn’t all that nice of a person. It’s terrible to say, but—”
“You’re relieved. That doesn’t mean you’d run to murder to get that relief.”
Mainwaring’s look was grateful. Perhaps this late confidence, too late to do Ramona Wey any good, was intended to set the record straight. “I couldn’t seem to shake that idea loose from her mind.”
“Did she have any idea who it might be who was Tree’s confederate—if that’s what she did think? Obviously, she thought someone in Littlebourne was guilty.”
“I don’t think she knew at all. She laughed and said she’d take a shot in the dark. Or several shots.”
“You mean random accusations? That’s a very dangerous game to play.”
They both looked at each other, knowing just how dangerous the game had been.