“That’s what we want to find out. Mind you, I could be dead wrong.”
“I know. She was scared, she said, which was understandable. But wasn’t that a robbery attempt?”
Jury did not answer directly. “Has she been in trouble before?”
Mary Gessup hesitated. “Yes, but not seriously.”
“What was ‘not serious,’ then?”
“Well… she was working for an old woman in the village and was discovered going through her things. I don’t know what it is in Jenny that causes her to do that. She didn’t take anything. The woman didn’t press charges.”
“Is it compulsive?”
Mary looked a question.
“Compulsive behavior?”
Mary was standing by the fireplace. “It could be, yes.”
“Because that could be serious; that could be deadly. Even if she didn’t take anything. I get the impression she isn’t steady.”
“ ‘Steady’?”
“You know-dependable.”
Mary nodded. “She’s scattered; she can’t keep her mind on a thing for very long. More so than most girls.”
“She could have stumbled onto something at the Lodge and not known it.”
Mary Gessup looked beleaguered. She shook her head, not in denial, but as if to clear it. “Of course, that’s possible, Superintendent-”
“I’m only saying that
Jenny was back with the tea tray and seeming in better temper. Restoring, the prospect of tea was, thought Jury. No one knew that better than Wiggins, for whom this would make the fourth or fifth cup. Jury himself declined.
Jury said to Jenny, “You didn’t much care for Miss Tynedale; what about her grandfather, Oliver?”
Immediately, her face brightened. She was holding the teapot in air as she said, “Oh, yes. Do you know what he said when I first met him?”
They did not.
“It was a poem. ‘Jenny kissed me when we met,/Jumping from the chair she sat in…’ I don’t remember the rest. But wasn’t that lovely?”
Wiggins put down his cup, and said,
They all gazed at Wiggins, astonished, none more than Jury. He had never known his sergeant to quote poetry. “That’s beautiful.” Then to Jenny, he said, “No wonder you liked him.”
“He was Gemma’s and my favorite.”
And it occurred to Jury, and saddened him, that Jenny seemed to be putting herself in a category with Gemma Trimm. They were friends, Jenny had said, as if they were of an age together. Maybe that’s what characterized Jenny Gessup: she seemed like a little girl.
When the others had drunk their tea, largely in silence, Jury thanked them and rose. “You’ve been very helpful. I hope we can clear things up.”
“Where to, sir?” Wiggins had started the car.
“The village. I’d like a few words with the trustworthy grocer and the florists.” After a few moments of driving, Jury said, “Rather remarkable you knowing that poem. Written by-” Jury snapped his fingers “-one of those poets with three names.”
“Sir? Walter Savage Landor.”
“Ah. Anyway, it’s not the best known poem. How do you come to know it?”
“Jenny was my sister’s name.”
Again, he surprised Jury. “But I didn’t know you had two sisters. I’ve heard you speak of only one, the one in Manchester.”
“I don’t have the other anymore. She died.”
Never had an announcement of death been uttered with such restraint. “I’m sorry, Wiggins, really.” He felt the inadequacy of such a statement. “Awhile back, was this?”
“Twenty-two years. This Christmas.”
Jury felt doubly inadequate. “She died on Christmas Day?”
“Yes, sir. We were all in the parlor, around the tree, opening our presents, when Jenny said she felt sick and went upstairs to lie down. Mum went up with her and then Mum came down, saying she had a high temperature. You can imagine how eager a doctor would be to come out on Christmas Day. One did, though. It was meningitis and she died at midnight.”
“My God, Wiggins. How awful. Was she younger than you?”
Wiggins nodded. He said nothing else.
Forty
“That’s the shop, right up there.”
When they pulled up, Mr. Smith was weighing potatoes for a customer, a tall woman with shrapnel eyes which she kept trained on the scales. Jury wondered if any shopkeeper had ever got away with giving her bad weight. The grocer spun the brown sack around to close it and exchanged the potatoes for coin. The woman took herself off, casting suspicious glances at Jury and Wiggins.
“Mr. Smith?” Jury took out his identification.
“Oh, my! Scotland Yard. My, my.” He wasn’t displeased. “This must be about Mr. Croft. I had City police with me just yesterday. My. Well, just who owns this case, anyway, you might ask.”
“Technically, the City police. That’s where the victim lived-and died. But there was a lot of spillover-” Jury left the explanation hanging. “Could we have a word with you, Mr. Smith?”
“Of course, of course. I’ll just have my girl down to keep an eye on the place. Come along.”
The three of them went inside where the grocer opened a door at the bottom of some steps and yelled upward for “Pru” to come on down. “Make it snappy now, girl!”
Pru, a stout, sullen girl in carpet slippers, could no more make it snappy than fly to the moon.
“ ’Lo” was all she said, tongue wetting her lips, but it was clear she wanted to speak volumes of clever repartee. Her eyes slid off Wiggins like water over stone and wended their way back to Jury.
Her father told her, “You take care of customers here while I talk to these detectives.”
Pru’s skin pinked up beneath a plump face full of freckles. “Wha’s it about, then? You done somethin’ you oughtn’t, Dad?” Even her smile was pudgy.
“Never you mind.”
Like a manservant escorting his visitors to an audience with royalty, Mr. Smith extended his arm and briefly bowed. “This way, gentlemen, back to my office.”
The office consisted of a desk and four chairs, old black leatherette with aluminum arms and legs. There was a strong smell of cabbage and damp wood.
Mr. Smith pulled two chairs around. Not until he himself was seated behind his desk did he ask, “Now, gentlemen, what can I do for you?”
