The Case Has Altered (47 page)

“Why wasn't this in the information you gave Lincolnshire police—pardon me, the ‘rozzers'?”

“You do learn quick,” said Violet looking him up and down, coquettishly. “I can tell you one thing,” Vi went on. “It wasn't no one local, meaning Spalding. You'd best look where she worked.”

“You mean Fengate?”

“There and that pub. Case Has Altered. You know it?”

Jury nodded. “How can you be sure?”

“From the way she talked. ‘Got me a real man this time,' she'd say, which pretty much lets out the ones round here.” Vi giggled. “ ‘I bless the day I ever took that job.' She'd just let go with these hints, you know? Now that sure sounds as if it was Fengate or the Case or somewhere around there.”

“Your mother says Dorcas had been ‘snappish' for the last couple of weeks. Did she strike you in that way?”

“Aye. Far as I was concerned, that was just Dorcas being Dorcas. I
mean, she was in this really good mood for weeks before that, and then the mood changed.”

“Any idea as to why?”

Vi shrugged again, said, “Probably the guy dumped her.”

“If she honestly thought she was pregnant—”

Vi brushed that aside with a flutter of her hand. “Go on, she was lyin' about that like she did about what happened with all these men that was sweet on her.”

Jury smiled at that old-fashioned way of putting it. But he wasn't at all sure of the truth of what she said. He was more ready to believe Dorcas was honestly going through a false pregnancy. “Who's your doctor, Vi?” Jury pulled a small leather notebook from his inside pocket.

“Dr. McNee. Only don't get the idea in your head that Dorcas went to him. Well, she wouldn't've done, would she?”

Just then Trevor, having finished his tea and rolling a toothpick in his mouth, had brought a heavy book into the parlor, keeping his finger in it to mark the page, sat down, and opened it. He did not look as if he were a man next in line to supply answers to questions put by police. The women were clearly used to his lack of social grace; Colleen asked if his tea had been all right.

“Aye.”

Again, she introduced Jury as (as usual) “Inspector.”

Trevor gave Jury a look over the top of the book. “Aye.”

“He might be wanting to ask you a few questions. He's Scotland Yard, Dad.”

Trevor merely nodded and went back to reading. Jury didn't take this personally, for he spoke to family members in the same abbreviated manner.

Vi kept trying. “He thinks we might've recalled something since that other policeman was here. You might know something.”

“I know nowt.” Trevor shook his head, didn't even raise his eyes from the page.

What surprised Jury was that he really did appear to be reading, instead of using the book as a shield against police. His eye movements showed this to be the case. Although Jury couldn't imagine he could really comprehend
what he read, not with three people in the room trying to get him to talk. Jury had been going to offer some sympathetic comment, but decided not to, as Trevor Reese did not appear to need it. He was a small, spare man with dark hair and a toothbrush mustache and a Chaplinesque pallor. But without Chaplin's whimsical expression. Trevor seemed sober and somber and a man of few words. He was master of only three—
aye, no
, and
nowt
—and used even them sparingly, yet managed to convey, with his stunted vocabulary, that he wasn't about to let himself be intimidated by any rozzer. They could pistol-whip him and he'd still gi' 'em nowt.

Jury watched him wet his finger, turn a page, and keep on reading. The book was heavy, thick, looked hard to lift, much less hold and read. “You know that your daughter—Dorcas—wasn't pregnant after all.”

Trevor still held the book, but lowered it a little. “Aye.”

The “ayes” had various tonal shadings, this one suspicious, as if Jury were here to take it all back and tell him poor Dorcas's condition would be reported in the
Daily News
.

“Do you yourself go to the Case?”

That surprised him, as Jury meant it to. Trevor was enough taken aback to lower the volume to his lap. “Aye.”

“About the regulars there: did Dorcas seem sweet on anyone in particular?”

Trevor pursed his lips, seemed actually to be giving this some thought. He surprised Jury by answering. “Aye. That Price fellow.”

“Who lives at Fengate?”

“Aye.” Hadn't he just said? Trevor shook his head and the book came up again.

Trevor Reese's voice was strangely melodic; his phrases had the upward swing of an Irishman, but the sheared-off consonants and resonant vowels of an old fenman.

“How did you know she liked Jack Price?”

“Usual way. Flirty.” His eyebrows did an amusing little dance by way of illustration. Then he went back to his book, licked a finger, turned the page.

In her annoyance, Vi punched a pillow she'd been holding in her lap. “Ah, come on, Da! You know more'n you let on. And you can just put
that book down, for god's sake.” She turned to Jury. “Da loves to read. In winter he reads to us, sometimes. Mum's baking something, apples or pudding, and when it's near finished, she lowers the door of the cooker and all of us sit round it, listening to Da. Dorcas did a lot of it, too. Had a good reading voice, did Dorcas. Easy on the ears.”

Surprising to Jury, this lovely description of a family scene. Reading aloud—how often did one come across that now? He said the same.

Vi merely repeated her words: “Da! Come on. You know things I bet you're not telling.”

“Here, girl, and don't you be tellin' me what ah know or don't know.”

Vi was standing now, shaking her head at such stubbornness. “Me, I'm having my tea, too.”

Since Trevor's last answer had been close to being two whole sentences, Jury decided to push his luck.

“Anyone else she treated in that particular way, Mr. Reese?”

Again he contemplated the answer, but settled for another No.

“Look, I know you want to find out who killed your daughter—”

The book came down. “Ya know nowt, man. Ya think us wants t'be all us reminded by talkin' to you lot?”

“No, I don't think that. But aren't you forced to think about it more and more because Dorcas's murder hasn't been solved?”

Trevor made no answer; he shrugged and raised his book again.

“Did Jack Price show any interest in your daughter?”

“Not 'im. 'E just sits quiet-like. Keeps hisself to hisself. It 'oud pay others t'be like 'im.” His baleful glance suggested one of those others was sitting on his sofa.

“Did you ever see them together?”

Trevor Reese sighed hugely. “Well, o' course. I jest tol' ya—”

“I don't mean while she was inside the pub. I meant, did they go back to Fengate together sometimes?”

He pursed his lips again, considering. “Hmm. Coulda done, ah guess. Well, they be goin' t'same place, why not?”

“Are you so sure there was no one else?”

This time he set the book aside. “Now ah don' want t'be speakin' ill o' me own daughter. But Dorcas, she just di'n't . . . chaps just di'n't take t'
'er, you know. Ah don't like saying it, but Dorcas was just a plain li'l thing. Just got left out in the looks department. It went 'ard wi' 'er, not bein' pretty like Violet.”

“But what about her good humor for several weeks before she died. Your wife remarked on the change in her.”

“Aye. She were lots different for a while.”

“And Violet said Dorcas told her she had a ‘real man' and that her life was going to change.”

Trevor said, “Ah thought Dorcas was just dreamin'. Done a lot o' that, she did, an' no wonder.”

“But if there was such a dramatic change in her manner, wouldn't that tell you that she did indeed have ‘someone.' Even if it was all wishful thinking, the thinking was on some real and particular person.”

Trevor did not answer. He was fanning the pages of his book.

“If Dorcas didn't come out with the identity of this man, it suggests that their relationship had to be kept secret; given her bad luck with men, I'd imagine she would have been dying to flaunt this. Certainly, if it were someone like Jack Price, she would be. He's pleasant, smart, and, if not handsome, has something far more valuable—he's an artist, a sculptor, who might become famous one of these days.”

“And 'cause o' all that, not bloody likely 'e'd be leadin' our poor Dorcas on.”

“No, but she might have been able to convince herself that he was interested. And if not Jack Price, well, who? Don't forget that Dorcas told people she was pregnant—”

“Ah ain't forgettin'
that
, God knows.”

“So there had to be somebody.”

Trevor turned on Jury a pair of canny eyes. “No, there di'n't. Ya forgettin' Dorcas coulda been makin' it all up.”

Jury sat back. “That's possible, yes. But given her behavior, I doubt it. Did she say anything that made you wonder during those last days after she'd fallen off the pink cloud? About ‘wishing she hadn't done it'? Or having listened to bad advice, or overheard someone talking?”

“No, nothing.”

Jury rose and thanked Trevor Reese for his time and his patience.

“Ah, 'tis all right. It's just we're all o' us pretty bad over what 'appened t'our Dorcas.” He also got up, tossing the book on the little table that shuddered with its added burden. Pointing to it, he said, “Now ‘e's got out o' 'and, 'im. Don't see what t'bloody fuss is over this 'ere book. Damned Roosians, all they do is stand around jawin', ah could write this 'ere kind o' clobber meself.”

“What is it? What book?”

“War-and
-bloody-
Peace!”

M
arshall Trueblood, by far the most elegant thing in the room, rose smooth as syrup to his feet. He fingered the watch pocket of his waistcoat as if he meant to bring out something—a calling card or a set of ciphers that would crack the case wide open. Actually, he had a watch in this pocket designed for it and he began to wind it with excruciating slowness. Everyone's eyes were clamped on him, waiting for him to do something, to save the day, for sentiment was altogether with Ada Crisp and her little dog. They had been fixtures in the village life long before Lady Ardry had set foot in it. An American, to boot, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who had the good luck to attach herself to Melrose's uncle Robert. Uncle Robert had been a happy ne'er-do-well who, probably after one of his nights on the tiles, had thought an American wife might be rather a jolly accompaniment to his gaming ways. He'd been dead wrong, poor man.

“The defense calls Theo Wrenn Browne.”

Talk about your hostile witness! thought Melrose, who'd taken a seat at the back of the room.

Smiling, Marshall Trueblood pulled down his silky gray waistcoat and advanced on Browne. “Mr. Browne, you're the proprietor of a bookshop named the Wrenn's Nest. Is that true?”

“You know it is.” This was said with a sneer.

“And this shop is next door to Miss Crisp's furniture shop.”

Browne nodded, said sullenly, “It is.”

“On the day of this alleged ‘accident,' you have said that you left your bookshop and were standing just outside of it when Lady Ardry approached Miss Crisp's shop next door. You then saw the dog attack the
plaintiff and saw her stumble and catch her foot in the chamber pot. Is all of this correct?”

Now, Browne tried for boredom, but didn't manage that either. “Yes.”

“Why did you leave your shop?”

“To speak to Lady Ardry, as I've said.”

“Right. And how did you know Lady Ardry was on the pavement in front of the shop next door?”

Browne sighed hugely. “Because I saw her pass by my own shop. Saw her through the
window
. As I've
said.”

Trueblood nodded. “Now, it's been established that Lady Ardry had been doing some errands round the village and had with her a string bag holding items she'd purchased that morning: these were a ball of twine, postage stamps, a half-dozen hot cross buns. Is that your understanding?”

Browne tilted his head and seemed to be studying the cobwebs on the ceiling. “Yes, yes.”

“Which she was carrying when she passed your window?”

Lowering his eyes from the ceiling, he said, impatiently, “Well, I assume so.”

“The window of your shop faces the High Street?”

“Naturally.”

“And how many times did she pass by?”

Browne lifted his chin from the fist that had been cradling it in his assumed stupor at the banality of these questions. “What do you mean?”

“Did she pass once? Twice? How many times did you see her pass the window?”

“Uh . . .
once
 . . . I mean, she wasn't parading her new hat back and forth in front of me!” Sharing this witty reply with the rest of the court, Browne looked about him, smiling richly.

Melrose looked around. Only his aunt wore a simpering smile. Theo Wrenn Browne was never a popular fellow in the best of circumstances.

“Then she must have been walking toward Miss Crisp's shop, as she obviously wouldn't be passing your window from the
other
direction, that is to say,
after
Miss Crisp's, after she'd had this accident.”

Browne, to show his disregard of Trueblood's questions, slid down in his seat. “Obviously. She'd probably been coming from her cottage.”

Trueblood smiled. “Oh, I don't think so, Mr. Browne. The two little parcels she'd dropped contained stamps, a ball of twine, hot cross buns, as I've said. She hadn't purchased those between her cottage and your shop. The ball of twine probably was picked up at the post office; the stamps certainly were. The hot cross buns were bought at Betty Ball's bakery, that bakery being the only place in the village where you can buy them. Both the bakery and the post office are
north
, not south of your shop. So she'd have to have been coming from the other direction; that is to say, she would have reached Ada Crisp's
before
she ‘passed by' your window. Thus, as we've said, she couldn't have ‘passed by' then, as she was in the throes of this grave accident.” Trueblood waited.