The Old Silent

The narrow house in the street in Mayfair was flanked by a jeweler and an art dealer, both of them so pricey that each shop window displayed only a single piece: a sapphire necklace that seemed to float above its crystal display pole; and, in the art dealer's, a single painting in a heavy gilt frame suspended by nearly invisible wires. Mayfair itself seemed suspended in some dimension that escaped the pull of gravity.

Inside the offices of Smart Publishing, Jury found another dimension of light and muted sound-sylvan music piping from hidden speakers that went well with walls painted watery yellow; the rooms, the hallway were relieved only by an off-white that shaded into the pale color. It had the look of meringue, possibly conceived by the editor of the cookery column.

From what Jury could tell in the reception room where he sat thumbing through Segue, there were two other magazines-a glossy one called Travelure, and an artier number called New Renascence. He loved that title. It was devoted to, or divided between, haunts and habitats of the moneyed. Interiors filled with marble, mauve curtains, Kirman carpets, and gloved servants; al fresco scenes by sun-beaded pools; acres of landscaped gardens and deep-shadowed paths through cypress and lacy willows, made for trysts and meditations. A world, in other words, that existed nowhere except between the covers of New Renascence.

Segue was by far the most serious of the three, in addition to being the most expensive, the richest and glossiest. No tales of the buskers' lot here, Jury was sure. On the cover was a serious- looking, serious-minded cellist against a backdrop of blue velvet. Jury was trying to place the name, but giving up because he knew he'd never really heard of the cellist, when the receptionist walked in with a cup of coffee. Bone china, not plastic.

She stopped short and asked him his business. He told her he had an appointment to see Mr. Martin Smart. When that failed to budge her, he added (after shoving his warrant card forward), or anyone else who just happened to know Roger Healey-did she, for instance? That sent her quickly to her desk, where the china cup and saucer rattled as she picked up the interoffice phone.

Having got the okay, she said, in a high, strident voice that detracted from a soft, mellow body, that she would take him to Mr. Smart. Three flights up, and they hadn't a lift.

He followed her from staircase to staircase. Her hips swayed nicely beneath the gray silk dress whose shadows shimmered and dissolved as she moved. Otherwise, everything about her seemed to come to points: the tips of her breasts and the tips of her shoes; her chin, her tilted eyes, the wing shape made stronger by artful application of kohl liner; her glimmering hairdo of shellacked, highlighted spikes. She reminded Jury of a small, rocky promontory. As he followed down the hall of the top floor, he felt a pang; it was poignant in a way; for she now reminded him of a thirteen-year-old getting herself up in an older sister's garb, who would have been excessively pretty had she not tried to be glamorous.

She stood at the doorway of Mr. Smart's office, which was empty of Mr. Smart, and said, 'He'll be here in just a minute.'

Jury nodded. 'Thanks.' When Jury smiled at her, she smiled herself, but uncertainly, and kept her hand on the porcelain doorknob, swinging the door slightly back and forth, biting her lip, perhaps thinking she might linger there herself for the moment of Mr. Smart's absence. She had very small white teeth. Definitely thirteen, he decided, even though she was thirty.

Jury seated himself in a pricey-looking leather chair that seemed, in its softness, to fold around him. The dark green walls stenciled in old gold beneath an old gold molding, the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, the library steps, the mahogany escritoire that housed a wet-bar, the massive desk, the Italian leather furniture all struck Jury as expecting the imminent return of the CEO. The desk itself was piled with papers and magazines, all artfully arranged in stand-and-deliver stacks. Jury craned his neck to look at the wet-bar. No cat in there; Mr. Smart had settled instead for Courvoisier and hand-cut crystal. The whole office looked hand-cut. Indeed it was the most bespoken-appearing room Jury had ever seen-everything measured, trimmed, and cut to precise tastes.

Jury turned and half rose when one of the personnel (the only one not dressed to the nines that Jury had seen in these offices) stalked in, leaving in his wake a trail of papers, plunked the rest on the desk, and turned to leave, nodding to Jury.

At least Jury thought he had turned to leave. Instead he folded his arms under sweaty armpits and asked Jury what he wanted, in an abstracted and rather unfriendly tone. But before Jury could answer, he'd navigated the lake of the desk, sat down, and reduced everything on it to a shambles within five seconds.

Martin Smart made annoyed clicking sounds with his tongue, murmured he wished to hell she'd leave his stuff alone, how was he supposed to find a goddamn thing? The ordered desk files became a swimming mass. Apparently satisfied, he stuffed a cold-looking, rather shredded stump of cigar in his mouth, folded his arms, and sent papers aflutter as his arms clamped down on them. He said to Jury, 'Something I can do for you? Oh, don't bother with that.'

Jury had bent in his chair to pick up a few of the orphaned papers that Smart had left in his wake.

'I can find them easier if they're down there. What can I do for you?' he repeated, round his cold cigar. He seemed to be running his hands underneath the papers searching for matches, gave it up, opened a drawer, peered in, gave that up, and asked Jury if he'd like a drink.

'No, thanks. Like a light?'

Smart yanked the cigar from his mouth, looked at its unpleasant condition, shrugged and said, 'Why bother?' He put it down on the papers. 'You're a superintendent, right?'

'Right.'

Mr. Smart pursed his lips and shook his head in wonder. 'How'd you get that high? Wha'd'ya have to do to get way up there?'

He sounded genuinely interested, as if he were either doing a bio on Jury or thinking of applying for a job with the C.I.D.

'It's not the rarefied air you might imagine. Chief superintendent, assistants to commissioner, and the commissioner himself. They're all above me. No one's above you.'

Martin Smart seemed to like this analogy. He smiled broadly. 'Wrong. You're forgetting the readers.' He squinted, leaned over his mess of papers, and said, 'Superintendent Jury. Jury, Jury, Jury.' He tapped a staccato beat with his index fingers. 'Where've I heard that name? Oh, hell. You were the one at that place up in West Yorkshire when-'

'Roger Healey was shot.' Jury couldn't somehow bring himself to say murdered.

Smart clapped his hand to his forehead. He made a quick turn in his leather swivel chair, rolled it over to the green-curtained window bay, sat like a patient in a wheelchair staring out from his hospital prison, then turned and inched the chair back. 'Roger.' He found a cigarette and a silver-brushed lighter that had managed to go missing under a cover of old Segue copies. 'Hell.'

'You were close to him, were you?'

'Not exactly. He wasn't a staffer; he was a contributor. But absolutely one of the best. First rate. A few times he'd bring in a piece and we'd talk. A nice man. A really nice man. Old Alice out there,'-he poked his cigarette toward the hall-'had a real thing for him. All the women did. Well, he was nice to them, wasn't he? Bring round flowers and candy.' He knocked some ash from his cigarette with the tip of his little finger. 'A damned bloody shame, that was. No one can figure it out.'

'Did you ever meet Mrs. Healey?'

'Never did, no.'

'Any of your staff know Roger Healey? Aside from the flowers and candy?' Jury smiled to take the bite from his tone.

'Might ask Mavis. Mavis Crewes.' He leaned back and stared up at the rococo ceiling molding with a frown that suggested he had no idea who'd done the fancy plastering job or why. 'Mavis, Mavis, Mavis.'

Martin Smart seemed to have a ritualistic fascination with names. 'Who's she, and where?' Jury had his notebook out.

'Managing editor of Travelure. Isn't that a hell of a name? I wanted to call it Travel, period. Our marketing people-and Mavis, of course-argued there must be a dozen