"Police," said Diamond. "CID. This may be inconvenient, but are you Mrs. Shaw?"
"It is inconvenient, yes."
"And you are Mrs. Shaw?"
"I am. That's it, A.J.! Perfect!"
In a tone of formality amounting almost to a warning, he gave his rank and name and Julie's, too. "Could we talk to you inside, ma'am?"
"But I have talked," she said, still staring at her window arrangement. "I had a sergeant here yesterday and he wrote down everything I said."
"This is the follow-up."
She sighed and turned her face to him for the first time. "And I'm trying to get this ready for a private view this evening. I've got over a hundred people coming. What do you think of it so far?"
"The window? I like it. Not so keen on the picture. Meant to be Avebury, is it?"
"God help us," said Jessica Shaw. "What a brutal expression that is. Meant to be. We just have to be grateful the artist isn't here."
They went inside. AJ. was sent to fetch more pictures and unwrap them. "I hope this won't take long," Jessica said to Diamond. "It's interfering with my livelihood, all this third degree." She found them chairs at the rear of the shop. "You want coffee?"
"That's going to delay the questions even more," Diamond pointed out.
"Not if AJ. makes it. White with how many sugars? Two?"
She'd guessed correctly. "Thanks. You should be doing my job," Diamond remarked.
Eyeing his bulk, she commented, "It's not much of a deduction. And no sugar for you, right?" she said to Julie. She gave the order to AJ. as he shuffled past with a large wrapped painting, then she confided to Diamond, "AJ. is a brick. It's all voluntary. I don't pay him a cent. I only wish I could sell more of his work."
"His work?"
"He's an artist."
"Is that his stuff in the window?"
"Lord, no. I keep him upstairs."
"Lucky fellow," said Diamond, then wished he had guarded his tongue. The look he got was all he deserved. She didn't blush, or betray any embarrassment. She simply gave him a cold stare. "First question," he said quickly. "When did you join the Bloodhounds?"
"Last winter. I was one of the last to join, except for the new woman, Shirley-Ann. She's only been a couple of times."
"So was Sid Towers already a member when you joined?"
"Sid? Yes."
"Had you met him before?"
"No."
"Did you know any of them previously?"
"Only Polly Wycherley. I joined at her invitation. She came into the gallery a couple of times toward the end of last year and noticed what I was reading. We discovered we shared an interest in crime fiction, so she told me about the meetings in the crypt. I went along reluctantly. She's a great persuader, is Polly. Have you met her?"
"Not yet."
"She's cooled toward me for some reason. Probably something I said. People like you and me ought to think before we speak. But I don't go to please Polly anymore. I go to be entertained. The members are well informed, but I can tell you there are some pretty eccentric ones among them."
"Lost their Marples, you mean?"
She raised her eyebrows. "Did I hear right? Was that meant to be a pun?"
" 'Meant to be.' What a brutal expression."
Now she laughed, and it was clear from the look she gave him that she was beginning to alter her assessment of this paunchy policeman. "Anyway, 'eccentric' was the word I used. The Bloodhounds aren't so dim. They're well read. I like scoring points off them when I can."
"The meetings can be lively, then?"
"Lively? Deadly, as it turns out."
Now Diamond smiled.
"Yes," Jessica went on. "There are personality clashes. Rupert gets people excited."
"Mr. Darby, you mean?"
"Do I? I only think of him as Rupert. He's harmless, in my opinion, though others will tell you different. A classic case of arrested development. He's locked into the nineteen fifties, when it was chic to hang around Soho smoking Gauloises and going to jazz clubs. You'll get on famously with him, by the look of you."
Diamond's hand curled protectively over the trilby on his knees. "There were incidents with Miss Chilmark, I'm told."
"Silly old duck, yes. She's a frightful snob. The Chilmarks once owned half the city, if she can be believed. She can't understand why we don't prostrate ourselves each time she appears. What really gets to her is that Rupert is manifestly several points above her in the social scale and doesn't give a toss about decorum."
"How is it manifest?"
"His accent. To borrow a phrase from Dylan Thomas, he talks as if he has the Elgin Marbles in his mouth."
"There was an incident on Monday, I heard."
"There's an incident on most Mondays. He insists on bringing his dog, and she gets herself into a state about it. She started to panic, and we calmed her down."
This account was all too perfunctory. Julie intervened to say, "You're understating it, aren't you?"
"In what way?"
"Wasn't she hyperventilating? And didn't you act quickly to stop it?"
"Just the old remedy of holding a paper bag to her mouth," said Jessica dismissively. "She soon responded."
Diamond wasn't going to let this crucial matter get by. "What happened to the bag?"
"What do you mean-what happened to it?"
"Afterward."
"I don't remember, unless…"
"Unless what?"
"… I kept it."
"Did you?"
"I may have done. In fact, I believe I did, just in case she started up again; She insisted on staying for the rest of the meeting. Rupert removed the dog, but I didn't want to take any chances, so I kept the bag by me. Now what happened to it at the end?" She hesitated. "Is this important?"
"Possibly not, but I'd like to know."
"Sid produced it in the first place."
"I know," said Diamond.
"I don't have any memory of returning it to him."
"Would you have thrown it away?"
"Doubtful. Not after it came in so useful. I'm wondering now if I kept the thing. I didn't want it in view, right in front of Miss Chilmark. I may have stuffed it in my handbag."
"You would have found it later, then."
"Not me. I carry things for years before I turf them out. It's probably still in there. Want me to fetch my bag?"
"Presently," said Diamond. The questioning had settled to a tempo that he didn't want interrupted. Give her half a chance and she would go back to her window dressing. "Tell me about Sid."
"That won't take long," she said. "He was a member before I joined. Polly told me once that he came on the advice of his doctor. He was painfully shy, poor bloke. The doctor's idea was that he was a crime fiction buff, so he would be encouraged to chip in. He hardly ever did." She smiled. "It was so rare if he did that we all turned our heads and scared him rigid."
"Did anyone try making friends with him?"
"Polly fussed over him sometimes like the old hen she is. If anyone else had spoken more than a couple of words, I'm sure he would have run a mile."
"And I understand you spent some time with him in the Moon and Sixpence on more than one occasion."
She colored slightly. "Are you trying to trip me up, or something? You make it sound like infidelity. I felt sorry for the guy, that's all. I thought someone should try and draw him out a bit, for his own sake. The others simply ignored him."
"No one was hostile?"
She shook her head. "There was nothing you could dislike about Sid."
"Someone must have objected to him."
"I know," said Jessica.
The coffee arrived in bone china cups, AJ. bearing it in on a lacquered tray. Potential buyers of the art had to be cosseted. From the efficient way he handed the cups around, AJ. had performed the duty more than once. "If it doesn't seem frightfully rude," he said, "I'll take mine to the front of the shop and carry on with what I was doing."