Free The Blue Last by Martha Grimes Page B

was an intelligent, good-looking man in his late fifties or early sixties. At least Jury assumed that age, given he was a young child when his sister Alexandra was killed. He sat forward on the dining-room chair, elbows on knees. His eyes were red rimmed.
    â€œIt wasn’t suicide, if that’s what the gun being there implies,” Ian said. Pulling himself together, he sat back and took out a cigar case and dragged a pewter ashtray closer.
    â€œYou’re sure of that?” said Jury.
    â€œNever been surer. Not Simon.” He thought for a moment. “Was it robbery? Were any of the paintings missing?”
    â€œI don’t think so, but of course we couldn’t be sure. You’re familiar with his paintings?”
    â€œYes, I got a few of them for him at auction. Art’s my life. Italian Renaissance art, to be specific. I’m pretty passionate about that. There was one painting worth a quarter of a million on the wall behind the desk.”
    â€œI think I recall seeing that.” Jury paused. “Mr. Croft was actually no relation, was he?”
    â€œNo. The two families have always been exceptionally close. Simon’s father, Francis, and mine knew each other from a very early age. They were boyhood friends, then they were business partners. They were quite remarkable, really. They were every bit as close as blood brothers. Maybe you could say the same for Simon and me. It’s a very close family. Living out of each other’s pockets, you could say.”
    â€œFrancis Croft owned a pub in the forties called the Blue Last?”
    That surprised Ian. “Yes. How’d you know that?”
    Jury smiled. “I’m a policeman.”
    â€œFunny old thing to bring up, though. That pub’s been gone for more than half a century. Bombed during the war. Maisie—that’s Alexandra’s daughter—was a baby then. They were at the Blue Last when it happened. Rather, Alex was; Maisie, fortunately for her, was out with the au pair, Katherine Riordin. Kitty, we call her. She survived because Kitty had taken her out in a stroller. Not the best time for a stroll, you might say, but there were long, long lulls between the bombings and it was pretty safe for the most part. The bombings, of course, were mostly at night. You can’t keep yourself cooped up all of the time, can you? It was a pity, and perhaps ironic that Kitty’s own baby was killed in the blast that took out the Blue Last.”
    â€œI understand she lives here with the family.”
    Ian motioned with his head. “That’s right. In the gatehouse. Keeper’s Cottage we call it. You passed it in the drive. ‘Gatehouse’ seems a bit pretentious.”
    â€œAnd she’s lived here ever since that time?” If Ian was curious about this interest in Kitty Riordin, he didn’t show it.
    Ian nodded. “You can imagine how grateful my father was that the baby was all right. Her own baby—Kitty’s—was in the pub at the time. The wrong time. So was Alex.” Turning his cigar around and around as if it aided thought, he said, “That was a terrible loss, you know.”
    â€œYour sister, you mean?”
    He nodded. “Alex was . . . there was something about her . . .” He paused, as if searching for the right word and sighed, as if he couldn’t find it. “She was young when she married a chap in the RAF named Ralph Herrick. She was only twenty or twenty-one, I think, when Maisie was born.”
    Jury changed the subject. “Was Simon Croft wealthy? He was a banker, wasn’t he?”
    â€œBroker. There’s a difference. He was very well off. He inherited a great deal of money when his father died.”
    â€œHe himself had done well?”
    â€œAbsolutely. He was a brilliant broker. Thing is, though, the whole climate of banking and brokering changed in the eighties. Until fifteen years ago, the City was run on—you