The Big Over Easy

26. Meet the Grundys

The Grundy residence was an exquisitely restored Jacobean mansion set above the river Thames, with scrupulously maintained oak parkland that stretched to the water’s edge. South facing and away from any built-up areas, it ranked alongside Castle Spongg and Basildon House as one of the finest examples of period architecture in the Reading area. As Jack and Mary motored down the long graveled drive, they could see that Maison Grundy had been erected on the site of something much older. The church behind the house was considerably older than the mansion itself, and the barns, outbuildings and stables older still. When they arrived in the courtyard at the rear, stable lads were busily grooming some fine-looking Thoroughbreds whose dark coats shone, even in the gray overcast.

They parked the car and got out to see a woman on a large bay horse come thundering across the parkland towards them, throwing up divots of sod behind her. She slowed her mount to cross the roadway, and as she drew closer, they could see she was dressed in a long skirt that seemed faintly Victorian with a high-collared blouse buttoned up to her throat; on top of this she wore a blue velvet riding jacket.

“Hullo!” she said, dismounting expertly from the sidesaddle and handing the reins to a stable boy. “Are you here about the deathwatch beetle?”

She was barely in her mid-twenties and was extraordinarily pretty in an English rose sort of way, with large eyes, a perky smile and a porcelain complexion. She was slightly flushed and out of breath from her ride.

“No, Mrs. Grundy,” said Jack, holding up his ID card. “We’re police. I’m Inspector Jack Spratt, and this is Sergeant Mary Mary. We’d like to talk to you about Humpty Dumpty.”

She looked shocked for a moment but quickly recovered. She smiled delightfully at them both and said, “Well, you better come inside, then,” adding to a stable boy, “Callum, have Stranger made ready for this afternoon and check Duke, would you? I think he might have thrown a shoe.”

As they walked towards the house, she placed her whip under her arm and removed her gloves. “We have a deathwatch beetle problem in the church,” she explained. “I was hoping you were here to have a look at it. Terrible things, you know, can eat a building away from the inside like cancer, so Solly tells me.”

They walked in through the front door to where four dogs of varying sizes and a footman were waiting to greet them. She patted the golden retriever and handed her whip and gloves to the footman, who gave a curt bow. She told him to bring tea into the drawing room and then led them down a hall bedecked with portraits of the Grundy family through the ages, all of whom — male or female — had the same pugnacious, bullnecked Grundy look. The dogs all followed, wagging their tails happily.

“The family resemblance is uncanny,” remarked Mary.

“Not really,” replied Mrs. Grundy with surprising directness.

“Solomon sat for them all. The Grundy family tree in reality leads nowhere — Solly was found wrapped in a copy of the Reading Mercury outside Battle Hospital sixty-nine years ago. It makes his achievements all that more remarkable.”

She ushered them into the large and opulent drawing room, flopped onto a sofa and put her feet up on an expensive coffee table. A terrier made itself comfortable on her lap and the other dogs jumped onto the various sofas.

“Please,” she said, “take a seat. Don’t be afraid to push Max off; he’s a brute — Down, Spike! Anyway, what can I do for you?”

“Just routine stuff, Mrs. Grundy,” said Jack. “We need you to confirm the whereabouts of your husband on the night of the Spongg Charity Benefit.”

“Is he a suspect?” she asked as she blinked her large eyes.

“We need to eliminate your husband from our inquiries, Mrs. Grundy.”

“Please,” she said as she removed her riding hat and a hair clasp to allow acres of luxuriant auburn hair to tumble into her lap, and the sofa, and the coffee table, and the floor, “call me Rapunzel.”

Jack and Mary exchanged glances as her long red tresses lapped at their feet like the incoming tide. They had the same thought: the twenty-eight-foot human hair found at Grimm’s Road.

“Very well, Rapunzel. You were with your husband that night?”

“Of course. I escorted him to the Spongg Charity Benefit as I do all social events. I stayed at his side the whole evening — as Solomon likes me to do.”

“Then you were with him when Humpty made the offer to sell his stake in Spongg’s?”

“I was. I think Mr. Dumpty was very drunk; in any event, the ten million he offered was quite correctly refused by Solly. It isn’t good form to talk business while drunk at a charity do.”

“And you were with Solomon until the morning?”

“Yes, here at the house.”

Jack thought for a moment. He wasn’t going to beat around the bush, and he knew it wasn’t likely he’d be able to talk to her again.

“When did you visit Humpty’s offices at Grimm’s Road?”

She looked stunned for a moment and then glanced around to see whether any of the servants were within earshot. They weren’t, but she lowered her voice anyway.

“Solomon can never know!”

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” said Jack. “I just want to find who murdered Humpty.”

“So do I!” she cried, tears welling up in her eyes. “If I even suspected that Solly had him killed, I would be out of that door like a shot. No one knows Solomon as I do. He’s not as bad as everyone makes out. He might buy venerable old companies and strip their assets, causing numerous layoffs and the odd corporate suicide or two, but that’s business. Inside, he’s a big teddy bear.”

“If he does know about you and Humpty,” said Jack, “it gives him a very strong motive.”

“Rapunzel!” bellowed a voice from the hall. “Rapunzel, my dove!”

Jack and Mary froze. There was no mistaking the gruff voice of Solomon Grundy, even tempered by domesticity, and they both felt as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t.

“In here, my love,” called Rapunzel, staring unhappily at Jack and Mary. “I’ve just let my hair down in the drawing room.”

Solomon was smiling as he walked in, but the smile soon dropped from his face when he saw Jack and Mary.

“What the blazes are they doing here?”

“Eliminating you from their inquiries, honey-bunny.”

Jack and Mary stood up as Grundy marched across to them. He discarded his briefcase on the floor and stopped only inches from Jack’s face.

“I could have you both killed, buried, and they’d never find the bodies,” he growled menacingly, “but I won’t, because that’s not what I do.” He took a step back and rested a hand on Rapunzel’s shoulder; she held it tightly.

“How dare you come into my house? You’re an interfering meddling pain in the arse, Inspector.”

“It’s what I do, sir.”

“And very well, by the look of it.”

Grundy paused and thought for a moment. Then looked at Rapunzel.

“I know of my wife’s infidelities, Inspector.”

Rapunzel gave a small cry and put a hand to her mouth. He sat down next to her. His anger had left him, and the big man spoke now in gentler tones — almost compassionately.

“I am an old man with a young wife,” he said slowly, “and I know that younger women have needs. I knew all about her visits to Grimm’s Road, but I chose to do nothing. It’s better that way. I am sixty-nine and am not healthy — I have perhaps five years of life left in me. I want to spend it with a beautiful wife whom I would give anything to keep — even if it means turning a blind eye and being a cuckolded husband.”

“Oh, Solly!” said Rapunzel, pressing her cheek to his large hand and sobbing bitterly. “I’m so sorry!” Despite everything, she had a genuine affection for the man.

“If you want to know whether I had Humpty killed, the answer is a categorical no. I am a businessman. I cannot afford the luxury of violent revenge. I would have been happy to ruin him financially, but murder? I wouldn’t get my capital back, and I would inevitably end up in prison. I’m a logical man; I never invest money or time that I can’t afford to lose, and I certainly can’t afford to lose any years off my life. I found out long ago that you can make a fortune in this world far more efficiently by using the law to your advantage than by breaking it.”

He looked away from them and rested his cheek on his wife’s forehead. It was a tender moment between a bullying tyrant and an attractive woman young enough to be his granddaughter. Jack suddenly felt as though he were intruding.

“Are there any more questions, Inspector?” asked Solomon without looking up.

“No,” said Jack, rising to his feet. “Thank you for your time, Mr. and Mrs. Grundy. We’ll see ourselves out.”

They left the couple holding each other on the drawing room sofa, accompanied by four dogs and twenty-eight feet of the most beautiful hair either of them had ever seen.

“That was unexpected,” said Mary as they walked back to the Allegro.

“Shows that looks can be deceptive. I’m sure his business competitors would be surprised to know that old Grundy had a soft side to his nature. Extraordinary hair, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” replied Mary thoughtfully, then adding as a practical afterthought, “but think of all that brushing!”