The Dirty Duck (26 page)

“Yes. Maybe it was because I didn't much care for my own reactions: I mean, I stood there knowing what Schoenberg had done, and yet—” Jury looked out over the darkening water. “He loved her that much.”

J
ury walked down Ryland Street to Number 10 and knocked on the door. A woman, small and kind-eyed, answered.

“I'm a friend of Lady Kennington. Is she in?”

The little woman looked so puzzled that for a moment Jury thought he must have come to the wrong house. But then her face cleared. “Oh, you mean Jenny, is that it?” When Jury nodded, she said, “But I'm so sorry. You see, she's gone.”

There was in the word such a note of finality, Jury didn't have to question its meaning. His own face, however, must have registered such disappointment that she felt herself the author of it, a messenger come for the express purpose of bearing terrible news. “Really, I
am
sorry. It was yesterday. She moved just yesterday.”

Yesterday. It had to have been yesterday.

When Jury did not reply, the messenger seemed to feel she had to make it all as clear as possible. “She got a call from a relative, I think. I believe she left sooner than she expected to.” The woman apparently wanted in some small way to defend this action on the part of Lady Kennington, which might have been regarded as somewhat capricious by this stranger on her doorstep, who was not replying and still not moving. “I've only just moved in today, you see.” There was a tiny, artificial laugh. “Haven't got myself sorted out yet, really.”

“I'm sorry I've disturbed you—”

Her hand moved in a fluttering gesture as she said quickly, “Oh, not at all, no.” There was a tentative move then, away from the door, and an invitation for Jury to enter, as if she felt she were adding insult to injury by being inhospitable as well as uninformative.

He thanked her, but shook his head. “She didn't happen to leave a message for anyone, did she?”

Sadness seemed actually to smite her, to make her feel ashamed, as she shook her head. “Not with me, she didn't. Of course, you might try the estate agent.”

He thanked her again and realized, only after she had closed the door, he hadn't got the name of the estate agent from her. He raised his hand to knock again and then let it fall. Tomorrow—

Walking back up the street he wondered if he would return tomorrow or if fate had decided the matter for him.

Jury crossed the street between the Dirty Duck and the theatre, walking toward the river, aimlessly. Under the branches of the line of oaks, each tree decorated with strings of lights, as if it were Christmas, came the last of the theatregoers, their umbrellas black against the reflected light, runners in the rain, late for the performance.

He sat on the same bench near the river where he had sat with Penny what seemed an age ago, his hands bunched in his coat pockets, unmindful of the rain. When it was full dark, he got up and walked back toward the theatre, the parking lot attendant leaning bored against his kiosk, as behind the glass doors of the theatre the black-uniformed ushers looked out, apparently equally bored. Jury took the path that ran in total darkness behind the theatre and near the river, and that passed the brass-rubbing center.

It was from that direction he heard the drowsy laughter that sharpened at his approach into giggles, although he knew they couldn't see him in this pitch-darkness. Schoolchildren—he knew it from the giggles and the lighted coals of cigarettes. When he was closer he could make out the boys sitting on the wall of the Doric-columned building. It wasn't until he was nearly on top of them that they saw him. The laughter stopped quickly, and the voices.

They were out here larking when they probably were supposed to be inside, watching Shakespeare and getting educated.

Some giggles again, and whispers when they realized someone was out here on the walk. As matches spurted and cigarettes were being lit up in acts of bravado, one of them asked: “Who's there?”

Jury peered into the darkness of the colonnaded building, unable to see anyone or anything except the butt ends of the cigarettes. He could make out the school uniforms of the ones who had been sitting (but who had hopped up when they saw him). They were all dressed alike, the ones he could see. As a few more came out of the darkness—curiosity having
finally outweighed the fear of getting caught—he made out six or seven, a few others still stopping back there in the safer dark, and still giggling nervously.

In a tone that one of the boys probably regarded as a display of fearlessness in the face of authority, the question was repeated: “Well, who's
there?”

“Nobody,” said Jury. Tiny flames spurted and they began to light up cigarettes again.

“You're not a
teacher
or anything, are you?” came a voice out of the darkness, suspicious.

“Good lord, no.”

There was a mutual, silent turning-over of this answer. “What are you
doing
out here?”

“Taking a walk.” He smiled into the darkness. “What are
you
doing out here in the brass-rubbing center?”

More giggles and a small-girl voice from the darkness replied, “There's more'n brass gets rubbed out here.” From the fresh giggles, Jury imagined there was a good deal of clumsy groping going on.

“Tell us who you are, then,” said a girl who Jury estimated was a year or two younger than Penny. She had stepped forth as if separating herself from her mates, who were a bit silly, when she meant business.

“Nobody. I told you.”

For some reason, she now felt it necessary to jump from the edge of the structure down to the ground and walk heavily about, trampling down the black loam where, probably, a gardener had been hard at work planting. “That's what Odysseus said.”

“It is?”

“Well, you've
heard
of Odysseus, I expect.” Her tone was condescending and also announced that if she was neglecting Shakespeare tonight, she was not neglecting the Greeks. “You know. When he was in the Cyclops' cave. It's how he got away, saying he was Nobody.”

“Maybe that's what he meant. Or Homer did.”

Jury's reward for this unwanted insight was a giant sigh, as the girl tramped heavily about in this newly-budded garden and then hitched herself back up and onto the edge of the building. He could make out little of her face, except to see it was ghostly-white and heart-shaped and fringed by long hair.

He continued on his way, along the unlit path, uncertain of where it led. They would be glad to be rid of him, another adult intruding on their few stolen moments of privacy.

But when he'd got perhaps a hundred feet away he heard the voice of the girl call good-bye in a tone which rather surprised him, the tone of one who shared a secret.

Jury turned and made them a salute and called good-bye. All he saw then in the total dark was the coal-end of one cigarette as its owner inhaled before flicking it away. It made a small arc of light, and then dimmed and went out, its brightness falling from air.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 1984 by Martha Grimes

Previously published in 1984 by Little, Brown & Company.

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ISBN 978-1-4767-3286-2 (ebook)