Read Online The Dirty Duck by Martha Grimes - Free Book Online Page A

there were four others, leave out them and Honeycutt: a Lady Dew and her niece, Cyclamen—talk about names!—George Cholmondeley, he deals in precious stones; and Harvey L. Schoenberg—”
    â€œSchoenberg?”
    â€œYou know him?”
    â€œNo. But the chap I was having dinner with does.”
    â€œThat so?” Lasko put his notebook away, and attempted to steer Jury down the path and—presumably—toward the Diamond Hill Guest House. “What I was thinking was, maybe after we get finished with this Diamond Hill—”
    â€œWe?” But Jury knew he’d go along.
    So did Sam Lasko. He didn’t even bother answering. “—I thought maybe you could go along and have a look into the Arden—that’s Honeycutt’s hotel—and have a word with him or find out where the hell he is—”
    Jury turned in the dark walk. “Sammy, I told you before—”
    Sam Lasko shook and shook his head, holding out his arms almost heavenward. “Richard. Look at that mess back there. You think I don’t have enough to do—?”
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    They were walking up the alley that made a shortcut from the theatre through old Stratford to the streets skirting the town, lined with B-and-B’s like avenues of beeches.
    â€œCasablanca. Now there was a film. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
    Jury stopped, lit a cigarette, and said, “Don’t get the idea this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship, Louie.”

9
    M rs. Mayberry, who ran the Diamond Hill Guest House, did nothing to correct Jury’s impression of women who ran Bed-and-Breakfast establishments.
    â€œI don’t know, do I? She was on one of those tours. Had the room right at the top—small, but cozy. Hot-and-cold and bath down the hall. Seven pound a night it cost her, and full English breakfast, VAT inclusive.” The police might have been there for no other purpose than to rent Mrs. Mayberry’s rooms.
    Jury knew what the full English breakfast would be: tinned orange juice, cornflakes, one egg, bit of bacon if you were lucky, watery “grilled” tomato. Only Oliver Twist would have the nerve to ask for seconds.
    â€œThe last time you saw her, Mrs. Mayberry?” asked Lasko in his sleepy voice.
    â€œSix-ish, I guess it was. Come back to the house for a wash before dinner. They usually do.” They were climbing the stairs now, preceded by the landlady with her ring of keys. The police photographer and fingerprint man brought up the rear. “Here we are, then.” Mrs. Mayberry stood aside and pushed open the door. “Shocking, it is.” Jury assumed she was commenting on the murder and not the state of the room, which was small and rather barren. “Terrible thing to happen.” But the comment seemed to be aimed less at Gwendolyn Bracegirdle’s death than it was at the nerve of a Diamond Hill Guest House lodger giving the place a bad name.
    The room was on the top floor and the tiny dormer window seemed designed to keep out the summer breezes rather than to let them in. A bed—really more of a cot—with a chenille spread flanked one wall. A washbasin sprouted from the other. Besides this there were only a chintz-coveredslipper chair and an old oak bureau. On the top of the bureau, Miss Bracegirdle’s things were neatly arranged: a couple of jars of cream, a comb and brush, a small picture in a silver frame. Jury was standing in the doorway so as to keep out of the way of Lasko’s team, and thus couldn’t see the face in the picture. But it struck him as sad, this attempt to carry some small part of home around with her. The rooms of a murder victim always struck Jury in this way: perhaps because he had been trained to observe objects so closely, they became sentient to him: the bed ready to receive the weight of a body, the looking glass to see the face, the comb to touch the