Bloodhounds

Chapter Twenty-two

For Julie's benefit, as he put it, Diamond had been over Wigfull's explanation of the locked boat mystery point by point, and they could find no flaw. The substituted padlock and key answered every problem.

Finally he said, "I'm thinking of handing the whole thing over to Wigfull."

Julie blinked and frowned. She had sacrificed her lunch hour attending the postmortem, an unsavory duty she shouldn't have been lumbered with, and now he hit her with this. "What do you mean? Let him take over the murder inquiry?"

"Locked rooms and cryptic rhymes. It isn't my scene, Julie. He's motoring through it. Firing on all cylinders while I'm… I'm stuck in the pits."

She stared across the office at the big man as he stood by the window watching the traffic in Manvers Street. "What does that make me-a worn tire?"

Diamond was not easy to work with, but his saving grace was a sense of humor. Such a remark would usually produce a smile, whatever the pressures he was under. This time he sighed. He had taken heavy punishment. Actually he wasn't indulging in self-pity; this was about confidence. At this minute he genuinely believed John Wigfull would make a better fist of the case than he could. The strongest comment Julie could find to add was, "If you do anything so dumb, I'll ask for a transfer."

He turned to look at her, eyes widening.

"We've put all that Dickson Carr stuff behind us," Julie insisted. "We're down to brute murder. Nothing unexpected came out of the postmortem. No unexplained injuries. He was bashed over the head a couple of times with some solid implement. That isn't exactly a master criminal at work."

This earned a glint of amusement.

She added, "And you said yourself that the locked room mystery isn't a mystery anymore."

"Thanks to Wigfull."

"All right, thanks to him. Is that important? What we're left with is a straightforward case of murder."

"About as straightforward as a plate of spaghetti."

Julie grinned and held out her hands in appeal. "Come on, you've got the tricky stuff out of the way. We know Sid Towers stole the Penny Black and wrote those rhymes. And incidentally, that was your persistence that gave us the proof, not John Wigfull's."

This tribute didn't register anything with Diamond.

Staunchly, Julie continued to put the case in its most promising perspective. "Sid thought up this brilliant plot and carried it out, and then he was killed. We've got to find the killer. Is it too much to believe that it was a casual murder?"

He said a flat "Yes."

"Then surely it must have been triggered by Sid's actions." She looked toward Diamond, inviting him to pick up the thread.

But he would not.

So she pressed on. "I'm suggesting that one of the Bloodhounds felt deeply angered or threatened by what happened at the meeting."

There was, at least, a response from Diamond, even if it was not helpful. "The stamp turning up in Milo's book?" he said in a hollow tone. "Where's the threat in that?"

Julie turned a shade more pink, not in reaction to Diamond's ill humor, but because a theory-a persuasive theory- was forming in her brain. "Let's not forget that the stamp is worth millions. Suppose Sid wasn't working alone. What if he had an accomplice?"

He gave her a look that was only a fraction less bleak.

She added, "And what if their plan was to demand a ransom for the stamp?"

"Then they fell out, you mean?"

"Exactly. It wasn't in the plan to return the stamp unless and until they got a thumping great payoff. But Sid wasn't the hard man he made himself out to be. He got nervous and decided to return the stamp. The accomplice would have been shocked and deeply angered when it turned up in the book as it did, without a penny changing hands. It's enough, isn't it, to provide a motive for murder?"

Diamond was less excited about the theory. "It would be, if you can believe Sid capable of teaming up with anyone. My judgment is that he was a loner. That flat of his, upstairs at the end of a cul-de-sac; the job, the night work, the shyness everyone mentions. I can't see a man like that confiding what he thinks of the bloody weather, so how does he get around to teaming up with a fellow criminal? Sorry, Julie. I don't buy it."

"Why was he killed, then? Can you think of a reason?"

If nothing else, her persistence finally nudged him out of that negative mood. His brown eyes held her for a moment, looked away, and then came back to her. "Could have been something he found out. I suppose if one of them-one of the Bloodhounds-had a dodgy past, a criminal record, say, a man in Sid's line of work might have got to hear about it. Have you checked their form?"

That evening, Bath's glitterati descended on the Walsingham Gallery in numbers. Jessica Shaw's private views were not usually so well patronized, but since the papers were full of the Narrowboat Murder and it was known that the victim had attended a Bloodhounds meeting the same evening and Jessica was a member, the chance of some inside information was too good to miss. With luck, some of her fellow members would also be invited. There was even the thrilling possibility of rubbing shoulders with a murderer-for it was stated in the papers that everyone at Monday night's meeting in the crypt of St. Michael's had been interviewed by the police. So the buck's fizz flowed and the eyes darted eagerly about, looking not so much at the art as the other guests. As some wit pointed out, it would have assisted everyone if instead of using those little red stickers to mark paintings that were sold, Jessica had attached them to her Bloodhound friends.

The minute she arrived, Shirley-Ann heard an unmistakable voice declaring in syllables brought to perfection by generations of privilege that most of the art on display was absolute balls.

On tiptoe to see over the mass of expensively coiffed heads, she glimpsed a black beret and moved determinedly in that direction. Gratifyingly, Rupert recognized her at once. It didn't matter that he greeted her as "Sally-Ann"; the warmth was genuine. He introduced the people beside him in his own florid fashion.

"My dear, in my endless quest for culture I once located this unlikely duo in a watering hole in Bradford on Avon, of all places. Tonight I met them in the Saracen's, sinking one or two before the party. Stephen and Pat Volk. Stephen's a screen-writer. and a crafty old fox, he won't mind me telling you. Remember that extraordinary hoax about psychic phenomena that went out on television one Halloween and petrified the nation? With Parkinson playing it straight as the presenter. What the devil was it called, Steve?"

"Ghostwatch." The playwright, reassuringly substantial, broad of shoulder, scant of hair, and dressed entirely in black, with owlish glasses, seemed subdued by Rupert's eloquence, but who was not?

Almost by definition, the most brilliant hoaxers were going to be self-effacing, Shirley-Ann mused.

'"Heads must roll at the BBC!' Loved it," Rupert was crowing. "And speaking of heads, this is Pat, who sculpts them. Marvelous, strong, archetypal heads in amazing colors. If you can force a way through this drunken mob, as you must, you'll see her work upstairs. I was on the point of telling her she's the only one of this lot I'd consider buying."

Pat Volk smiled wryly. Rupert might talk like a patron of the arts, but his scuffed leather jacket, patched jeans, and the black beret speckled with dandruff didn't inspire confidence. Shirley-Ann smiled back. It was about all anyone could do when Rupert was in full flow.

"Sally-Ann joined the Bloodhounds just as we all became suspects in a murder case," he continued, projecting loudly enough for all the room to hear. "She's incredibly well informed about detective stories. You could ask her anything at all and she'd know. Try her. Here's one at random. Name the poison Agatha Christie used most commonly in her books."

Shirley-Ann felt as if half the room had suspended conversation to hear the answer. "Cyanide?"

"I wouldn't know, my dear," said Rupert, displaying his gaps in a fiendish grin, "but I'm sure it's a splendidly efficient poison, quite impossible to trace in buck's fizz."

From somewhere to Shirley-Ann's left, a familiar voice spoke up. "Of course she's right. It occurs in fourteen, of the books, twice as many as morphine, which comes second." Milo, back in circulation and seeming no worse for his skirmish with the police.

"Ah, perpetual Motion," said Rupert. "The man's unstoppable. Why don't you join us, Milo? Hit Sally-Ann with some really searching questions."

Shirley-Ann saw an opportunity and seized it. "If it doesn't seem frightfully rude, I forgot to pick up a catalogue." She turned her back and was away. Talking to strangers was preferable to that sort of embarrassment. How could she have been so misguided as to think Rupert was a safe haven?

She had not traveled far across the room when further progress was barred by a plate of canapes. Predictably, Jessica stood out from her guests in a gorgeous outfit, a shimmering black sequin jacket over a peacock-blue dress. "I was on my way to rescue you," she said. "That Rupert! Cyanide in the buck's fizz! Believe me, I won't be wasting good poison on him. I'll strangle him."

"At least he doesn't have the dog with him."

"I wouldn't count on it. Have one of these, and come and meet my husband."

The husband.

This was one encounter Shirley-Ann hadn't anticipated. She followed eagerly as Jessica crossed the room, greeting almost everyone by name, and finally turning to remark, "I won't inflict him on you for long. Anyway, he's supposed to be handling the sales. I don't know how much trade he's doing."

Jessica's way of introducing Barnaby, as he was called, was to wave the plate of canapes and speak their two names. Then she moved away. Barnaby, seated behind a table with an account book in front of him, was a tired-looking man of about forty-five with tinted brown hair and one of those dark blue suits with a broad white pinstripe that are worn by MPs on the far right of the Tory party. At his side, in charge of the cashbox, was A.J., of all people, and the two appeared relaxed with each other. She'd taken it as likely that AJ. was Jessica's secret lover. Maybe he was; if so, he was putting on a fine show of innocence, or Barnaby was astonishingly tolerant.

"Shirley-Ann and I met last week," AJ. informed Barnaby. "She set me straight on my leisure reading. No more graphic novels. I'm under orders to read the American female private eye from now on."

"I didn't say anything of the sort," Shirley-Ann protested.

Barnaby's eyes slipped away to another part of the room, absenting him from the conversation.

She drew him back in. "How's it going? Have you sold any?"

He nodded. "Three so far."

"Nothing of mine," said A.J., so egocentric that he was unaware whether anyone else really cared. "The only things that sell these days are insipid pen and ink drawings of the Royal Crescent."

"Three. Is that good?" Shirley-Ann asked Barnaby.

He gave a shrug.

AJ. answered for him. "The commission from three won't cover the cost of the party, but Barnaby doesn't mind. He isn't in this for the profit."

Barnaby became slightly more animated. "I'm not in it at all. It's Jessica's show, not mine."

"Your money, pal," said A.J.

The husband flapped his hand dismissively.

AJ. was determined to make his point. "I'm an old friend of these two, so I can say this. Without Barnaby there would have been no party tonight. The wretched artists of Bath would be deprived of all this. The whole point is that he isn't all that interested in art. He does it because he likes Jess to be happy. Isn't that terrific?"

Shirley-Ann said that it was. She hadn't detected a trace of sarcasm or irony in A.J.'s tribute. She was confused now. They truly were like old friends, and she was going to have to revise her theory about them. Her admiration for Jessica soared. It isn't unusual for a brilliant and beautiful woman to win the devotion of two men, but it takes exceptional talent to keep them on friendly terms with each other.

Someone from the press butted in, wanting to be introduced to one of the artists, allowing Shirley-Ann the opportunity to smile politely and move away. She took a glass of buck's fizz from a waitress and headed for the side of the room that wasn't being dominated by Rupert. Possibly she would find someone else she knew, though she doubted if it would be another of the Bloodhounds. Who was missing? Only Polly and Miss Chilmark. The frost between Jessica and Polly, though unexplained, was apparent. And Miss C, poor old duck, with her potential for apoplexy at the sight of Rupert, would be more of a liability than an asset.

She got into an amusing conversation with two sparky women who had gatecrashed. Neither knew anything about art. They were looking for two hunky men to invite them to a pub, or, better still, a restaurant, when the party was over. They weren't sure about Rupert. He was probably good for the invitation, they estimated, but not good for much else except brilliant conversation. And he didn't seem to have a friend. The girl talk might have continued for some time longer if Jessica hadn't appeared suddenly at Shirley-Ann's side. Her vivacious expression of minutes before was supplanted by a look of stark anger.

"Did you see it when you arrived?" she demanded of Shirley-Ann.

"Did I see what?"

"Outside, on the window. Come and look."

Jessica practically scythed a way through her guests to the door, with Shirley-Ann following apprehensively. Outside, in Northumberland Place, Barnaby and AJ. stood together examining the Walsingham Gallery window.

"What do you think?" demanded Jessica. "What scumbag could have done this to me?"

Shirley-Ann looked.

Someone had been busy with a spray can, writing a message in large, crude, white letters across the main window:

SHE DID FOR SID

There was a moment while Shirley-Ann absorbed the meaning of what was written. Then she said, "That's horrible." She was truly appalled and outraged on Jessica's behalf. "What kind of person does a thing like this?"

"A rat, not a person," said Jessica. "A stinking rat. To think that all my guests must have seen it when they arrived. And I, in all innocence, was greeting them inside. Barnaby, I'm nauseated."

"We'll clean it off," said AJ.

"I didn't notice it as I came in," said Shirley-Ann. "And nobody was talking about it. I think this must have been done after the party started."

"With the lighting as it is, you don't notice it from inside," said Barnaby, quick to chime in with the reassurance. "I couldn't tell you when it was done."

AJ. rubbed at one of the letters with his fingertip.

"Don't do that," said Jessica.

He said, "I'm just seeing if it's still wet."

"We don't want your fingerprints on it if we call the police."

"Is that what you want to do-call the police?" asked Barnaby. "Is that wise?"

"What do you mean-is it wise?"

"Jess, my dear, it's a rotten thing somebody has done, but it's hardly a serious matter in the eyes of the law."

"It's vile," said Jessica.

"Yes, it is, but you're not going to get much redress. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they took more interest in what's written here than in catching the bastard. It will bring you more grief than satisfaction. My advice is to rub the window clean and forget about this."

"Look," said A.J., "why don't you go back to your guests and leave this to me? I can clean it up before anyone else sees it."

She said through gritted teeth, "I want to know who did this. Someone must have seen."

"Not necessarily," said Barnaby. "It wouldn't take more than a few seconds with one of those cans. The writing is rough. It's obviously been done in haste."

Jessica turned to Shirley-Ann. "What's your opinion?"

A difficult one. "If it were me," she said after a moment's consideration, "I think I'd rather it was cleaned off now. It's going to ruin the party if you call the police. And it's bound to get in the papers."

Jessica sighed. "I can't win. All right. Rub it off."