The Old Wine Shades Read Free

those terms because it was utterly impossible. People don’t disappear like–’
    ‘People disappear all the time,’ said Jury, ‘although not wife, child and dog all at once, I agree. Go on.’
    ‘The agent had been delaying a call to Hugh Gauh, but now she did call, thinking, as I said, there had been an emergency in London.
    When she called him he was dumbfounded. Hugh called Surrey police. Can you imagine telling police your family has disappeared? Just suddenly gone up in smoke? They quite naturally took the position that the missus had done a runner, not that anything had befallen her and her boy.’
    ‘And Mungo.’
    The dog came out from under Jury’s tall bar chair and raised his eyes to look from one to the other.
    Harry smiled. ‘Right. I keep forgetting Mungo.’
    Now the dog turned to Harry Johnson.
    ‘Never mind,’ said Harry, roughing up the top of his head.
    Jury hoped he hadn’t really drunk up this last drink. Well, he forgave himself for this apparent alcoholic thirst; after all he’d just put one hell of a case behind him that had left him really knackered, among other things. He frankly didn’t know if he’d find the energy to get home. Take a cab, he’d have to. ‘Go on,’ he said to Harry.
    ‘The Surrey police came up empty, not surprisingly. But considering there was a nine-year-old child missing, they did make an effort. Their forensics found evidence of tire tracks that matched the brand of tire on Glynnis’s car, but that did no good since the agent knew Glynn had been at the house, the first house, anyway.’
    ‘What did they find at the second house?’
    ‘Nothing. The ground was so hard where the car might have pulled up that they couldn’t get an impression of any tires at all, not just Glynn’s. Hugh was beside himself, of course, and convinced it could only have been a kidnapping. I thought so too, except there was no ransom demand.’
    Jury thought of the Flora Scott case, so recently resolved. ‘Is there some reason there might have been one? I mean, are the Gaults wealthy?’
    ‘Not wealthy, but very comfortable. She inherited a little when her mother died. Hugh’s a professor at London University. Physics.’
    ‘So your friend Hugh would not appear to have a motive?’
    ‘Of course not.’ Harry sounded irritated. ‘Anyway, he was in London; any number of people could testify to that.’
    ‘Yes, but that wouldn’t necessarily stop him paying someone to do it. And if so, you bet he’d have witnesses, a raft of witnesses.’
    ‘That’s exactly what the police said.’ Harry looked at Jury.
    Jury laughed. ‘I’m a big fan of the Bill and–what’s that other one?–anyway, I watch them all the time on the telly.’
    ‘But you don’t know Hugh.’
    ‘You’re quite right. What happened then?’
    ‘Then came the private investigator.’
    ‘Who found nothing?’
    Harry nodded. ‘And during this time, we drove to Lark Rise, to Forester and Flynn, where we picked up the keys to the empty house. They do that, these agents in the country, since the listings are some distance from each other. I’d say that’s just asking for trouble.’
    For Glynnis Gauh, it had been, Jury didn’t say. ‘Then Mrs. Gauh did go in the house?’
    ‘The agent didn’t know. If she didn’t like the exterior, she probably didn’t bother with the inside.’
    ‘Then your Glynnis is one woman in a million.’
    ‘Why do you say that?’
    ‘Would any woman with a key to a strange house in her hand not use it? I’m sorry if that sounds patronizing. Perhaps I should say ‘anyone.’ It’s just that I’ve found houses and what they contain to be far more interesting to women than to men.’
    ‘You think she went inside?’
    Jury nodded. ‘Go on.’
    ‘The rooms were large, with very high ceilings, and the drawing room or living room was furnished with what looked like quite valuable antiques. There was a Russian bureau inlaid with silver, a Turkish rug of huge proportions