Chapter Seven #2
“Not at all. He can’t have been looking for one. After all, that’s why we put it in your flat, because no one would dream you had such a thing. Oh bother, there’s the dratted doorbell again. I wish I knew how to disconnect it.”
“People would only knock,” Eleanor pointed out.
“True. Why don’t you put on the kettle while I go and get rid of whoever it is.”
The day seemed to have gone on forever, but at last it was tea time. Eleanor took the kettle from the stove and was removing the lid when she heard from the hall: “Who . . . ? Oh, it’s you, Nicholas. Have you come to offer your services as a volunteer?”
“No.” He sounded surprised. “I already do as much as I have time for. Why? I didn’t know you were shorthanded. Have people been cancelling because of the murder?”
“Come in.” She peered behind him in a hunted way. “Quickly!”
“Hello, Nick.” Eleanor had come to the kitchen door, kettle in hand. “You’re just in time for tea.”
“Good timing. How are you holding up?”
Since Jocelyn had opened the door to him, she assumed she was allowed to say, “Quite well, considering. Have the police been pestering you with questions about last night?”
“How do you expect me to answer that when it was your niece who pestered me?”
“I’m sure Megan was polite,” said Jocelyn, taking the kettle from Eleanor on her way into the kitchen. “Unlike That Man.”
“I haven’t yet had the pleasure of That Man’s acquaintance,” said Nick with a grin, “but you have me shaking in my shoes, Mrs Stearns.”
“Then you’d better sit down. I suppose you’re posing as a starving artist?”
“Yes, of course. I were brought up proper, I were. I know it’s your Christian duty to feed the hungry, so I’m sure it must be my duty to present the opportunity.”
Jocelyn gave him a withering look as she turned on the gas under the kettle, but she reached down a cake tin.
Nick remained unwithered. “That looks promising,” he said. “Ah, gingerbread. Excellent! I’m glad you didn’t waste it on the rude inspector.”
“Mr Scumble wasn’t really rude,” Eleanor protested. “It’s his manner that’s at fault, rather than his manners. For the most part. Did Megan ask you about what times we did what last night, Nick? I’m afraid I wasn’t much help at all.”
“Nor was I,” he said cheerfully, “but they can easily check our movements. Don’t worry about it. When will you be able to reopen the shop? Give me notice, won’t you. I want first shot at those detective stories.”
“We don’t know yet. We were just talking about it.
” Eleanor frowned. “And I remembered . . . Nick, you can’t imagine Major Cartwright slipping a collection of jewelry into my car when he loaded the boxes of books, can you?
After all, he’s a widower. He might think that as his wife can no longer wear them—”
“Eleanor!” Jocelyn snapped, setting the teapot on the table with a bit of a thump. “You really mustn’t tell anyone about that.”
“Not anyone, dear, just Nick. I won’t tell another soul, I promise.”
Nick looked as if he would like to protest being classed with “anyone,” but could hardly do so with his mouth full of Jocelyn’s gingerbread.
He swallowed. “Not Major Cartwright,” he said.
“He’s pretty hard up, I think. The books are his one extravagance.
If he had jewelry, he’d have been selling it to live on.
Someone put real, honest-to-god jewelry in your car? ”
“Only paste, of course. It may not be worth much. It’s just that I can’t think who, of those I collected from yesterday . . . Joce, we must ring them all up and ask . . . But they aren’t all on the telephone.”
“If it was a mistake,” said Jocelyn, “then they will get in touch with us. If it was an intentionally anonymous donation, then finding out who gave it can wait until all this dreadful murder business is cleared up.”
Nick looked alarmed. “For heaven’s sake, you can’t just ring people up and ask if they happened to discard a pile of jewelry by mistake! You’ll get half-a-dozen claims.”
“Our donors aren’t that sort,” Eleanor asserted.
“No, he’s right. It wouldn’t be fair to put the temptation in people’s way. If no one calls us, we’ll have to work out a way to do it.”
“Assuming the stuff wasn’t just floating around on the floor of the Incorruptible, couldn’t you ask about the container rather than the thing contained? What was it in, Eleanor?”
“A briefcase, rather a nice leather one.”
“You couldn’t have fitted a briefcase into the safe,” said Jocelyn. “What did you do with it? Leave it upstairs?”
“No, I took it down after I emptied it.”
“It was not on the inspector’s list,” Jocelyn stated with absolute certainty. “You’d better tell him right away.”
“I can’t see the hurry,” Eleanor argued. “It was empty, and not particularly valuable in itself.”
“You have to tell him about the jewelry anyway,” Nick pointed out.
“I’d much rather not. He’s going to be angry with me for not mentioning it before, and angry with himself for not finding the safe.”
“Tell Megan,” Jocelyn suggested.
“That would be much easier. I wonder where she is?”
“As I walked up,” said Nick, “I saw her going into the Trelawney Arms. Since it wasn’t open yet, I kidded her about special hours for the police, and she told me—rather snarkily, I thought—that she had to interview young Donna. Shall I be terribly noble and go and find her?”
“Would you, Nick? The sooner I confess, the less reason the inspector will have to be upset with me.”
“Right, then, I’m on my way. I don’t know which scares me more, Donna or Detective Sergeant Pencarrow.”
Eleanor laughed. “What nonsense you talk, Nick.”
Grinning, Nick was getting to his feet when the vicar breezed in.
“A tea party! Splendid. What, you’re not going already, my dear fellow? Sit down, sit down. Have another cup.”
“Nicholas has an errand to run, Timothy,” said his wife, fetching a cup for him. “He’ll be back shortly.”
“I certainly hope so. Keep your fingers crossed.” Nick departed with a wave.