Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes Page A

about a year, maybe two. Then Mr. Edward took her out.”
    â€œWhy?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know. I was only kitchen help then. And though Mrs. Petit talked about things, I never did hear. . . . Well, I never thought it was odd, nor anything.”
    Yes, you did, thought Jury. “You didn’t sense some sort of — scandal, maybe?”
    â€œNo, sir, I did not!”
    Jury had to smile. She was so much younger than the old family retainer — the Mrs. Petit sort, or Melrose Plant’s butler, Ruthven. Maureen, he thought, should be walking out, as they used to say, with some young man. She even had him thinking in Victorian terms. From the way Wiggins was looking at her, Jury was inclined to think she might make him forget his cornucopia of medicants.
    â€œI’m sure if anything — to put it bluntly, Maureen, if your mistress was murdered, you’d surely want the person brought to justice.” He was using Victorian terms himself.
    Her back grew ramrod straight. “It’s certain I would. But I can’t —”
    Jury waited, but Maureen was silent. “It sounds as if Edward Parmenger took Helen in without wanting to. Did he feel some obligation?”
    â€œWell, I should hope that if my mum were to die —” The girl crossed herself. “ — someone would take me in. I don’t, now, have many relations left. An old auntie in County Clare.” She blushed. The Maureens of this world stuck tobusiness and didn’t get off onto their own problems. She cleared her throat and went on in a softer voice. “I only mean that, yes, it was a sort of obligation.” She turned sad eyes on Jury. “Helen’s da, he killed himself, they said. And her mum died later, I guess of a broken heart.”
    And the Maureens would also be inclined to romanticize. “So Edward Parmenger took her in, yet didn’t seem to like doing it?” Jury leaned over the table, putting his hand on her arm. “Look, Maureen, I know you must feel loyal to the family. But what I’m thinking is that Edward Parmenger farmed out Helen Minton — sent her to that expensive school — because he didn’t want her around his own son. They were very close and they were cousins. And she was a lovely girl. Then Helen’s father was not a person of very strong character . . . ” He waited, not precisely clamping his hand on her arm, but not easing up on it either. Wiggins was dividing his time between his note-taking and giving Jury uncharacteristic dark looks.
    She sighed, started to poke the fire up, couldn’t reach the log with the poker, not with Jury holding her arm, and gave up. “He was Mr. Edward’s younger brother and drank too much and gambled. And he worked for Mr. Edward and — how do you say it — ‘cooked the books.’ ”
    Wiggins asked, “So what you’re saying’s that Miss Minton’s Uncle Edward was kind of taking it out on her?”
    â€œIt looked that way. And, too, he really liked his sister-in-law. Well, who wouldn’t? Helen — I mean, Miss Helen, was like her. Looked like her, too. She was a quiet sort. And it just killed Helen’s mother when it all came out about her husband, and there was Mr. Edward threatening to go to law and —” Maureen spread her hands, hopelessly.
    Jury said, “So when it ended so tragically, maybe he was salving his conscience by taking in Helen. But he didn’t want her about. So he sent her away to school.” It wasn’t enough, Jury thought.
    Seeing her face turn away, Jury felt sorry for her. It was as if some invisible hands had loosened the collar at her throat, the pins in her hair — it had probably been happening all the way through this interview and Jury had only just noticed — for the years dropped away together with the formality. A strand of dark hair now drooped