The Old Silent

'Look who's here,' said Superintendent Sanderson mildly without turning his face from the snow-covered moor before him.

'I'm on holiday, remember?'

'Ah. Well, January is a popular month for holidaymakers here in Yorkshire. Almost as popular as the Lake District.' Sanderson was making a bellows of his cheeks, trying to suck some life into a cold cigar.

There must have been two dozen of Sanderson's men in the distance, which meant there were more of them farther away whom Jury couldn't see.

And this was five hours later.

Jury stood there, looking off in the same direction. 'Isn't the Citrine house somewhere over there?'

'About a mile from here, as the crow flies, and as you know.'

'I don't expect another murder on her doorstep-if I can put it that way-is going to help her.'

Sanderson took the cigar from his mouth and said, 'You can put it any way you want, Superintendent.' He looked at Jury and smiled grimly.

Jury persisted. 'Mrs. Healey barely escaped jail after her husband's murder. The Citrines knew Ann Denholme and so did Roger Healey, I imagine.' He drew his eyes from the moor and turned them on Sanderson. 'You'll have her in custody within twenty-four hours.' He made no attempt to keep the rancor out of his tone as he turned to leave. He was surprised to hear Sanderson say, 'Very probably.' At least, thought Jury, watching the man drop his dead cigar into the dirty snow, Sanderson wasn't smiling.

Melrose Plant frowned at the wire fence and wished the ducks would stop waddling up every time he came out into the forecourt. He was standing by Jury's car, looking over at the police constable who'd been left behind by Keighley police.

'Try and remember as much as you can,' said Jury. 'Sanderson certainly isn't talking to me.' He was looking down at the ordnance map Plant had brought out from his jacket pocket. 'By that wall there,' said Melrose. 'About twenty feet from the cripple hole.'

'How much could you tell about the condition of the body?' asked Jury.

Melrose was standing shivering in only a cashmere sweater, hugging his arms about his chest. 'My knowledge of the state of rigor mortis is pretty much limited to when Agatha stops talking. It begins around the jaw, doesn't it?'

Jury nodded. 'Top to bottom. It couldn't have passed off; that would take upwards of thirty hours. More, in the cold, probably.'

'The wrist was limp. So she musn't have been out there all that long. The last person who saw her was Ruby, on her way to bed last night, about eleven. Ruby thought it odd she wasn't about at breakfast this morning.'

'Telephone calls?'

'For her?'

'Or made by her, last night, this morning.' When Melrose shook his head, Jury said, 'Then I'd calculate she was shot sometime this morning, fairly early. It would take the rigor somewhere around twelve or fifteen hours in this cold. It's unlikely she'd go out in the middle of the night along the moor.' Jury looked up at one of the windows. 'Who's that?'

Melrose followed his gaze. 'Malcolm. Taking in everything, no doubt.'

The boy's face was mashed against the casement window, the grin distorted into a gargoyle grimace above a lanky gray cat lying on the sill.

'I don't see why we must go through this dreadful business over and over again,' said Ramona Braine, more to her carefully arranged cards than to the company in general, who had, given Jury's introduction into their midst, started in again on the murder of their landlady.

'I do,' said the Princess, returning her silvery gaze to Jury. Her voice was eager; in order to make room for this new person to sit, her hands scooped back the gored skirt of her handsome rose wool dress where it had been fanned out on the chaise. 'You're a friend of Mr. Plant? How lovely.'

Jury smiled noncommittally and took a seat beside Malcolm, supine on the facing sofa, to Malcolm's great surprise. The maneuver, though, clearly pleased him. He dragged an Ertyl plane from his pocket, this one a miniature Spitfire, and pretended not to be impressed. Scooping the plane through the air, he sent it upward, accompanied by blubbery lip-vibrations to simulate the sound of its engine.

Jury accepted a cup of lukewarm tea from the pot, sat back, and let them tell him about the dreadful business of the morning. The Princess and Major Poges cut across and contradicted each other's reports at every opportunity. For a good quarter of an hour this continued, with Ramona Braine, who Melrose had told Jury had been hell-bent to get to Northumberland, now apparently content to stop over and make hindsight prognostications. 'I knew the moment she said she was a Sagittarius…'

'Place overrun with police, you'd think we were all suspects,' said George Poges.

'I certainly hope so,' said the Princess, extending her cup to Poges for a refill of tea.

Jury looked down at Malcolm and his drifting Spitfire and asked in a joking tone: 'And where were you when the lady disappeared?' It was Jury's experience that children were ordinarily overlooked in police investigations.

Malcolm stopped the plane's midair plunge and looked up at the new person, open-mouthed. 'Me?'

'Umm.'

Spirit world in abeyance, Ramona Braine thrust herself forward in her chair, nearly overturning the wooden board she was using to hold her Tarot cards. 'In bed, of course!'

Jury ignored her, as did Malcolm. Malcolm, clearly thrilled by a total stranger's interest, was having nothing to do with this bland asleep-in-bed alibi. His eyes narrowed and a tight little smile pinched up his lips as he slid closer to Jury. 'When this morning?' It rang out on a note of triumph.

Of course he would have ingested his share of Cagney and Laceyepisodes, like every other kid in Britain.

Jury gave him a comradely tap on the shoulder, 'Good question.' He looked at them all.

'Oh, five-ish, wasn't it?'

With feigned contempt Malcolm said, 'Five-ish? You wouldn't catch them on The Bill saying 'FIVE-ish.''

Poges shouted, 'This isn't one of your telly bloodbaths. This is reallife!'

Given his mother, Jury imagined Malcolm's confrontations with real life were somewhat limited.

The Princess said, 'Oh really, George. Stop sputtering at him. The poor child doesn't know anything.'

'That so?' Malcolm vroooomed his metal plane downward. 'I know enough to know you're lying.' Silence. 'Not you,' he said, directing his gaze at the startled face of the Princess. 'Him. The Major.' Then he started making figure eights with the airplane.

Not even his mother could make a sound at this an-nouncement, work her mouth as she would. They all sat about looking waxen, except for Plant, who was smiling and lighting one of his small cigars.

'What in God's name is going on here?' George Poges started to rise from his chair. 'We're not going to believe the rantings of a malicious boy-'

Malice took precedence over murder in Ramona Braine's cards, clearly. 'Don't you go calling Malcolm names, you nasty old bug--'

'Please!' said the Princess, touching her temples.

Vrooooming his plane up and down and having a fine old time sending everyone into a state of nerves, Malcolm was holding on to whatever attention he could get and seemed delighted by whatever names might be called.

Jury reached over and caught his wrist and eased the plane from his fist, ignoring Malcolm's banshee protests. 'I'm just parking this for a minute.' Jury took a brass box with a tiny drawer from the side table and slid the Spitfire inside. 'In the hangar.'

Although Malcolm scowled mightily, he took the box-hangar and fiddled with it, but was clearly enjoying this new man's being in on his game. Jury thought that in Malcolm's young life, probably, he'd never actually realized his potential for power over adults other than the crass kiddies' methods of making noise, kicking furniture, and sending cats up trees. Malcolm pointed at the Major as if the boy were a witness in a courtroom drama.