Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent by Martha Grimes Page B

his hand and looked at Jury with some suspicion.
"Why are you here, Superintendent?"
    "I thought I could help."
    "I can't see how." This was said flatly, without hostility. "None of
this makes any sense. Not Roger's death, not Nell's—oh, hell. You might
as well sit down. . . . Would you care for coffee?" Citrine sat back in
the dark wood chair that had the look of some mythological beast or
bird, the feet taloned, the slanted panels ribbed like wings.
    Jury thanked him but shook his head. He would have expected more
reserve from Charles Citrine, if not outright hostility toward himself,
the person who had actually witnessed his daughter's crime. Nor did he
seem to care anymore that Jury had, after all, no business being here.
Given that Nell Citrine had made no move to get away, her own resolute
silence regarding the circumstances, and her apparent acceptance of
what she had done would have made an actual eyewitness to the crime
hardly necessary. Her own refusal to deny anything would even have
rendered circumstantial evidence unnecessary.
    Thus Jury's own role was far less vital than it might have been.
Perhaps Citrine realized this and that explained his attitude.
    Citrine would have been, in any woman's book, a "catch." In his
sixties he projected a vitality, a lustiness, even, missing in men
half his age. The earthiness born of the land and the casual air he
affected born of his work there (though Jury imagined it was more a
gentlemanly meddling into the duties of his laborers) were only
enhanced by a veneer of sophistication that had come from handling many
types of people. In spite of the tensions of the last few days, he had
the manner of one almost untouched by the larger world beyond his
doorstep. This blend of sophistication, ease, and innocence could be a
potent mixture for any woman. Jury wondered if Mavis Crewes had imbibed
it. He couldn't imagine the two of them together; Citrine was far more
refined and a great deal cleverer.
    This room did not encourage ease of manner. Yet Citrine seemed at
ease in it—how could a man look comfortable in that Jacobean
monstrosity of a chair?—and yet at odds with it, too. The room, the
feudal, armorial look of the house, seemed less Citrine's proper milieu
than would some South Sea island. His face was weather-burned from
whatever farming life he led, and the sunburnt look lent a further
crispness to the gray hair shot through with gold and a further depth
to the eyes, which had the clear tint of unruffled water in some
island cove. Roll up his trouser legs and shuck his shoes, and he could
be a beachcomber, a Crusoe happily marooned.
    His whole placid presence rubbed Jury's nerves raw.
    "Isn't this somewhat irregular, Superintendent? I mean, given you
must be the Crown's witness?" The question was more curious than
critical, as he regarded Jury with those calm, aquamarine eyes.
    "I wouldn't serve as witness, since there's no question of the right
person's being arrested."
    He looked surprised. "I find that odd. You were the one who saw
Nell—who saw it happen." Citrine looked down at the burnt logs, little
more than embers.
    "Everything I know I told to the West Yorkshire police.
Superintendent Sanderson." Not everything. There was really no way to
tell it. She went to the parsonage, a tearoom, a child's museum. But
how to explain the nuances: the abstracted air, the hand against the
glass case of the toy train. And what, precisely, could he say Roger
Healey had said or done to provoke such a tragic outcome? Jury had his
impressions, that was all. Attitude, aura, evanescence. Sanderson
would tell him, with his dry look, that perhaps the Old Silent's black
cat was a familiar? To put away his crystal ball.
    "There was the appearance," Jury went on, "of an argument. Of a
rather serious disagreement."
    Citrine had removed a pipe from his jacket pocket, knocked out the
old tobacco into an ashtray, and tamped down fresh. He lit up. A
fruity-scenting smoke blossomed, uncurled,