police have checked out would be worthless. It would throw everything back into the melting pot.
I am going back to my list to see who ought to be suspect number one. I'll keep you informed of everything that happens.
YOU ARE VISITOR [1021] TO THIS SITE
25
You shan't evade
These rhymes I've made.
Just to recap, you were at home all night?'
'All night,' Bob said.
;But you were up early?'
'My job. I was on the Bristol run.'
'Which meant leaving home at. .?'
'Five thirty.'
'So you got out of bed at what time?'
'Quarter to five. 'Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead.''
Stella Gregson smiled. 'One of yours?'
'Wish it was.'
'You're sure about the time?'
'I leave it to the last possible second to pull back the duvet. Quick shower and shave, sling on some clothes, slice of toast and a cup of coffee, in that order if my head is working. Then off.'
'A quarter to five this morning? No earlier?'
'I told you. I like my bed.'
'And of course there's no way to prove you were there all night?'
'How could I? Ah — you mean like someone sharing my bed? You reckon?'
'Fair enough,' Stella said. She'd enjoyed interviewing him.
'You said that wasn't one of your verses just now?'
'James Thurber.'
'But you do write poetry. You read me a sample when we last met'
'Doggerel is a better word.'
'I thought it was all right.'
'It's meant to raise a laugh here and there. Things that happen to me, people I meet. Nothing deep.'
'Is any of it published?'
'God, no. I'm a beginner.'
'I noticed you write it down in a pocket book.'
'An old diary. When I first came to the circle one of them told me to keep everything. Most of it's crap.'
Stella leaned forward like a conspirator. 'Anything on the other members? I'd love to read some more.'
He hesitated. 'Well, some of it's a bit… you know, below the belt. I wouldn't want them to read it.'
'But I'm not in the circle,' Stella said. 'And there aren't many laughs in this job.'
'All right.' He put his hand into his hip pocket and took out the small black diary. 'Don't expect Tennyson, will you?'
'I wouldn't want him, thanks. He's dead, isn't he? May I keep it overnight? I'll take care of it.' She slipped it into a drawer, and for a moment Bob Naylor looked as if he'd been duped and didn't understand how.
'We're done.' Stella parted the slats of the blinds. 'She's waiting for you downstairs.'
'Who is?'
'Your friend from the circle. That's Dagmar's little car, isn't it?'
He looked out. 'Doesn't mean a thing.'
But when he emerged from the police station it was Thomasine who stood outside the car waving. Dagmar was at the wheel. 'We thought you might be hungry if you came here straight from work,' Thomasine said. 'I got you a bite to eat from the pasty shop. It's still warm, I think.'
'Kind of you.'
'Some of the circle are in the bar at the New Park. We would have had a meeting, but it doesn't seem right somehow. We thought we'd join them.'
'Okay with me.'
It was good to see Maurice there, restored as the father figure of the circle, his big hand clasped round a pint glass. Less good to see Tudor, flushed with the drama of another death and ready to badmouth anyone who couldn't be there. Of the ladies, only Thomasine and Dagmar had come.
'Why on earth should this happen to Jessie?' Dagmar said.
'Obvious,' Tudor said. 'She got up someone's nose.'
'You don't murder people just because they upset you.'
'Oh, but you do. Well, plenty of murderers do. Let's face it, she put herself on a pedestal. Holier than thou, forever reminding us she was once married to an archbishop.'
'Archdeacon.'
'What's the difference? You wouldn't think there was any, the way she went on. You'd never find her drinking in this bar, for instance.'
Thomasine said, 'She obviously got up
'You know yourself, there were times when she would have made a nun feel guilty. As for us, we were the children of darkness.'
Maurice said, 'Let's try and be more charitable, shall we? There was nothing in Jessie's attitude that remotely justified anyone killing her.'
Dagmar said, 'Thank you, Maurice. I can't abide people who speak ill of the dead.'
Tudor said, 'So you're carrying the torch now, are you?'
'What torch?'
'Our moral conscience. Someone has to do it, I suppose. Well, you want me to be more charitable. Here's a more charitable theory for you. She was killed because of that book she was writing.'
''Tips for the Twenty-First Century'?' Thomasine said in disbelief. 'What's the problem with that?'
A knowing smile spread across Tudor's face. 'No problem any more. It's all gone up in flames, hasn't it, like 'The Snows of Yesteryear', another apparently inoffensive book. Has anyone yet considered the theory that it wasn't the people the killer wanted to destroy, it was the books?'
'That's bullshit,' she said.
'So were the books. This is literary criticism taken to the ultimate. Kill off bad books before they get published.'
'Tudor.'
'Yes?'
'Does your mother know you're out?'
Bob saw this descending into a slanging match. 'Hold on, hold on. We're all on edge,' he said. 'Let's keep it friendly, huh?'
Maurice backed him. 'The circle has always been about support for each other. Together, we ought to be able to make some sense of what's happening. In some ways we're better placed than the police to get to the truth of it. We have a fair idea what we're all about.'
'We're creative people, or we wouldn't have joined the circle,' Dagmar said, extending the idea. 'How can any of us be a murderer? Killing is destruction, the very opposite of what we are.'
