The Blue Last

was indeed Erin’s real mother. Or could it be that the story of that night of the Blue Last’s destruction had taken on mythic proportions of salvation, self-sacrifice and heroism? Maisie caught up in that period of her life, the baby who had lost mother and father and could have lost her own life without Kitty Riordin’s intervention. Jury wondered if Oliver Tynedale was caught up in the same myth.

“Where were you between midnight and eight A.M.?”

“Across the river shooting Simon, perhaps?”

He smiled. “We have to ask everyone that question.”

“We’re all suspects? I’m a suspect? What on earth would be my reason? I don’t stand to gain by his death. I’ve got enough right now for a dozen people.”

Jury closed up his notebook and pocketed it. “I doubt the motive had to do with money. I expect everyone here has enough for a dozen people.”

“Then why? Why did someone shoot Simon?”

Jury just looked at her and repeated it: “Where were you early this morning?”

Twelve

He wanted, after all of this sitting-still talk, to move about and told the butler, Barkins, that he was going to have a walk in the garden and that that was where he was to be found in case Detective Chief Inspector Haggerty called.

It was early afternoon. He left the dining room through a set of French doors to a terrace and a walk that stretched along the side of the house, the house being much deeper than it looked from the front. The walk was flanked on its outer side by a series of columns. It was, actually, a covered colonnade, along the length of which these white pillars caught the mellow light of the sun. Jury had never been of the peripatetic school; he was very poor at thinking while he walked; what he was good at was smoking and he was dying for a cigarette. A year and nine months and two weeks-Good lord, and you’re still dying for a smoke.

Across the grass at a distance of some twenty feet stood a line of cypresses along a garden path inside the high stone wall. This tree-lined path ran parallel to the white columns, and between them was the statue of a child reaching her hand down to a duck. He heard voices and saw, between the pillars and the trees, somebody walking there, as he was doing. No, just the one voice was what he heard. He could not make out the words. The cypress trees, themselves like gray columns, were set in counterpoint to these white pillars, so that they appeared, as he walked, in the space between the pillars. Thus between cypresses and pillars, he caught the barest glimpse of the person he had determined was a little girl.

Perhaps it was talk of Waterloo Bridge that caused Jury to keep walking and looking over at the child between the line of trees, enjoying the cinematic effect of all this. It was as if he were watching a shuttle weaving a tapestry, a picture of a garden. All of its discrete elements-the white columns, the cypresses, the girl, the statue, himself-coming together, locking into one another to form this picture. Jury liked this; it was something like the feeling he got when a solution to what had seemed an impenetrable mystery finally locked into place.

He had come to the end of the covered walk marked by two wide, shallow steps, going down to a pool or pond, in the center of which a maiden was pouring water from a jug. When he saw the little girl (why had no one mentioned her? A grandchild? A great-grandchild?) emerge from the line of trees, Jury crouched down and pretended to be tying his shoelace. He did not want her intimidated by six feet two of police. His head was down, examining this shoe as if it were as fascinating as the tapestry he had just woven in his mind.

She stopped and was watching.

Raising his head and, in a taken-by-surprise tone, he called to her, “Oh, hullo. I’m just trying to get this lace-do yours ever break?”

In response, she took a few steps closer and raised her shoe, which was a buckled sandal, and shook her head. Her sandals were not winterproof, but she did wear white socks with them. The rest of her was covered in a sprigged muslin dress (too long) and a heavy green coat-sweater the color of her eyes.

Pretending finally to have fixed the lace, he said, “You’re smart to wear shoes without laces.” He saw now that what she had been talking to all along in her walk was a doll, oddly clothed in a lace-fringed bonnet and a dress also too long, which flowed over the doll’s feet. When she stepped even closer (though not within handshaking distance) he took in her burnished black hair, pearlescent skin, dark green eyes. He did not know if Vivien Leigh had green eyes. If she didn’t, poor Vivien.

“This garden is lovely, even in winter. I imagine you spend a lot of time here.”

She nodded. Solemn and beautiful. Who did she belong to? With her black hair and translucent skin, of course she resembled Alexandra Tynedale. “My name’s Richard Jury, incidentally.” There was no name response from her. He said, “Your doll is all covered up. Is she cold?”

The little girl shook her head. “She always wears this; it’s her baptismal clothes. I saw one once.” Her look at Jury was slightly challenging as if he might contest the kind of clothes worn to a baptism.

He assumed she meant she’d seen a baptism. “I never have.”

This was a comfort as now he couldn’t dispute the details she offered. “They pour water on your head. It’s like they do in beauty shops except in baptisms they don’t have soap and you don’t wash your hair. It just gets rinsed.”

This was a place of metaphor, certainly. Jury smiled. “So is your doll baptized, then?”

“Not until I find a name. I’ve been looking for a long time. I’m all the way to the Rs right now. I just can’t decide. I’m thinking about Rebecca.” She glanced at him to see if he was thinking about that, too.

Jury said, “Could we sit down over there?” He motioned to a white bench enclosed on two sides by vine- covered lattice.

“Okay.”

They settled on the bench-the three of them, the doll sitting between-and Jury said, “Are you sure your doll is a girl?”

Gemma looked at him wide-eyed. “What?” It had been wearing this dress when she found it. No matter what she told others, she believed the dress meant it was a girl.

Jury shrugged. “I was just wondering why you’re having a hard time finding a girl’s name. Maybe it’s really a boy and doesn’t want to walk around with a girl’s name. I wouldn’t either.”

She had often wondered on this subject, but never knew whom to ask. Turning away a little, she lifted the doll’s christening dress and looked. Then she turned it so Jury could see. But said nothing.

Jury said, “Oh, you’re in luck. It could be either a boy or girl, you have your choice. Not many people do. You’ve got the evidence right there in case anyone disputes it.”

Gemma thought this wondrous.

“Speaking of names, you haven’t told me yours.”

“Gemma Trimm.”

“You live here, Gemma?”

“I’m Mr. Tynedale’s ward. A ward is different from being adopted. I’m not related to anybody; I’m kind of left over. Mr. Tynedale’s sick, and he likes me to read to him. I do that every day, nearly. I read The Old Curiosity Shop and I’m a lot like Little Nell, he says. But I don’t think so. She’s kind of sappy.”

“You’re young to be reading complicated books like that. Even adults sometimes find it hard to read Charles Dickens.”

“I’m nine.” She seemed pleased with herself, being able to read what adults couldn’t. “I skip the hard parts, but it doesn’t hurt because he wrote so many pages about everything.”

“He did, that’s true.” After a few moments’ contemplation of Gemma and Dickens, Jury said, “I’m here because of Simon Croft. Did you hear what happened to him?”

“Yes. He’s dead. He got shot.” She pulled the bonnet down over the doll’s head, hiding the eyes. “What did he do? It must’ve been bad to make somebody shoot him.”