neat person, without being oppressively tidy. A sweater slung over a chair; a few dishes unshelved . . .
Jury went back into the sitting room. Under the staircasewas a storage space with a little door. He opened it. In the dim light from the parlor lamp, he saw among the Wellingtons, gardening tools and old paint cans, a portrait. He took it out, sat down, and studied it.
It was of a much younger Helen Minton. In it, she was sitting on a trunk beneath the eaves of an attic, staring out of a tiny window through which the sunlight flooded, illuminating only the figure, keeping the rest of the room in shadows. It was a beautiful painting. Jury took it over to the fireplace, positioned it in front of the one of Washington Old Hall. The borders of Helenâs portrait exactly fit the empty square.
At first he thought there was no signature, but then he saw it in the corner, buried in the shadows along the attic floor, and faded as the name on any tombstone. The name had been dashed on like an afterthought, and was little more than a straight line. The first letter might have been a P.
He looked at the abstract painting on the other wall and found the same signature, also unreadable.
Jury took the slip of paper from his pocket on which heâd written down the information from the tube of pills that had sat on Cullenâs desk. The chemist was in Sloane Square. Presumably the doctor was somewhere near there, too. He wished theyâd put doctorsâ names on bottles; it would make things easier. But Cullen would have all of that information soon enough, either from the estate agent whoâd rented her the house or the chemist in Sloane Square.
Jury looked again at the portrait, at the P in the corner.
It made him think of Father Rourkeâs paradigmatic square.
3
The tiny village library was located between the two pubs, the Cross Keys on the corner, and the Washington Arms. The wind had finally died down and the snow had stopped.
Overcome suddenly by a sense of lethargy, Jury had sat down on a bench supplied for bus passengers and was looking across the Green. He lit a fresh cigarette from the coal of the old one. He would have to take a real vacation in the summer; he hadnât had one in years. Visit his friend Melrose Plant at Ardry End, maybe. He wondered if Plant fished. They could go up to Scotland, maybe do some fishing. He studied the coal of his cigarette. You donât know how to fish, you clot-heed, as Trimm would tell him. Jury got his exercise flatfooting it all over London, and his fun dropping by the occasional pub with the occasional woman. The pubs he visited with greater frequency, the women with less. Those casual affairs that everyone else had, where nobodyâs heart ever broke, seemed to have eluded him. He was always picking up pieces. So he had better not dwell on that subject, or heâd be stopping here all day.
He dropped his cigarette in the snow and tramped across the Green to the library.
 â¢Â â¢Â â¢Â
It was the sort of room that made you want to stand around in it and read for the rest of your life â stand, because the library was too small for strategically placed chairs and tables. All of the living space was taken up by the shelves of books, the books on trolleys, the books tilting in stacks on the floor. There were browsers aplenty, old people and schoolchildren, and none (one suspected) strangers. As Jury approached the half-circle of desk directly inside the front door, two very small children whose chins barely reached the counter were settling their books there. They crossed their arms over them as if someone might snatch them. The little girl was giving Jury an appraising look. He winked. She hid a smile by ducking her head below the edge of the counter.
When one of the librarians turned to him, he said, âI wondered if I could see Miss Pond.â He handed her his card,startling her into upsetting a little pile of book