The Irish Manor House Murder by Dicey Deere

striped tie. Here’s Scott.” Scott was coming out through the terrace. He wore a long, black soft leather coat. A wide-banded watch glittered on one wrist. He was carrying something under his arm, hitching along; grass was difficult for him. He reached the rhododendrons. “Morning, Ma. And” — he raised his brows at Mark — “and Pa.”
    “What’s that? ” Caroline asked. It was a shagreen box, old looking, the edges worn.
    “Delivery. The Chinese chess set. I’m taking it to Padraic Collins. His booty, right?”
    Caroline said, “Scott, have you had breakfast? You look so, so peaked. You don’t eat enough.”
    Scott smiled at her. “Who, me? I’m omnivorous. Ma, I’m leaving it to you to gather up the trinkets, those little bequests that the good Dr. Ashenden left to his former medical colleagues. Cuff links, tiepin, and so on.” He gave his mother and Mark a half salute, emerald on a ring finger. “I’m off to Dublin.”
    “Scott? A minute.”
    He halted. “Yes, Ma?”
    But she couldn’t say it: My father, that bastard, how could he have? Leaving you nothing. Nothing. She said, “At least have a decent lunch in Dublin. Fish is full of something awfully good.”
    “Yes, Ma.”
    The watch, or it might be a bracelet, glittered as he went hitching off across the grass.

27
    Sergeant Bryson looked more closely at the inside of the pot. It was aluminum and supposed to be new. But the inside looked stained, as though tea or the like had been boiled in it more than a few times. Two pounds six, he’d paid. The gypsy had said it was new. Spangled earrings, flashing white teeth, neck needed washing.
    The police station door opened, then closed with its definite click. “Afternoon, Sergeant. What’s that?”
    At Inspector O’Hare’s tone, Byron knew the inspector was on the sharp. “Afternoon, Inspector. A pot. It’s a pot. For cooking. I bought it. Two pounds six. Aluminum. So I guess that’s cheap.”
    “It might be, if it has a purpose.”
    Inspector O’Hare leaned down and patted Nelson who was lying over near the Coke machine, nosing his old rag doll, relic of his puppyhood; Nelson looked up and wagged his tail.
    “I thought maybe if we’d want to boil an egg?”
    “Two pounds six? It’s got a dent.”
    “Oh … Oh, yes. I didn’t at first see.…” Sergeant Bryson fingered the dent.
    “That wooden handle’ll burn in no time, Bryson. Two pounds six of Gardai money out the window.”
    “I paid her for it personally, Inspector, not through the office. My own money.”
    “Paid whom personally? Got plucked by whom? A pot with a dent!”
    “The gypsy. Same one as last year, the Romanian. She’s got a caravan and a pony in the woods by those old oaks at Castle Moore. Not one of the tinkers, but same as them.”
    Inspector O’Hare was already at his desk, picking up his phone, his face concentrated. His color was high, and his eyes had that squinty look as though he were looking into the sun, Inspector O’Hare was definitely on the scent. “Inspector O’Hare,” he said into the phone when he reached his party. “Six days since the murder. About time! Right. Wickham and Slocum?” Inspector O’Hare was making notes on his yellow pad. “Who? Definitely. I’ll expect the fax.”
    Bryson looked enviously at O’Hare’s cherry-red cheeks and fox-gleaming eyes. Someday, he too, Sergeant Bryson, would be heading a murder investigation. Not like his usual day, this morning’s piddling troubles and grievances: the Blodgetts’ fence, the Walshes’ straying chickens, the Nolans’ kitchen garden despoiled by the Hickey twins, those little bastards.
    O’Hare said, “Dr. Ashenden’s will, Jimmy. Always a revelation, a murdered person’s will. Wills and insurance policies account for ninety percent of family murders.”
    “Ninety percent, Inspector!”
    “Or similar figures, Jimmy. And believe me, Dr. Ashen-den’s murder is strictly family.”

28
    At Collins Court, Padraic Collins