The Horse You Came in On Read online

  Dream on, thought Melrose.

  III

  “. . . a mere count,” Agatha was saying now in the Jack and Hammer, relegating Count Franco Giopinno to the title scrap heap. “Now the Fusts—”

  “Were merer barons,” said Melrose.

  Diane Demorney, still pushing her bit of arcana about like a stale canapé on the cocktail platter, cut across the Fust family’s baronetcy, saying, “If you’re going to Baltimore, Melrose, you’d better read up on baseball and football. The 1969 game between the Jets and the Colts, for instance.” She directed her seductive curl of a smile towards Melrose as she drew the vodka-pickled olive from her glass. It was her own thin-stemmed, broad-brimmed glass, and she had brought it to use in the pub. Melrose calculated the circumference of its bowl; frozen over, it would have accommodated the skaters at Rockefeller Center. That brought America back to mind, and he looked again at the picture of Ellen on the back of the dust jacket. He smiled. That affrighted look, as if the photographer had been holding a gun on her instead of a camera, made him want to laugh.

  “Victoria!” Agatha banged her fist on the table, jumping her glass of sherry. “That’s where I saw her!” Agatha’s eyes were riveted on the picture. “You saw her, too, Vivian.”

  “Saw who?”

  “This Taylor woman. Strange-looking person. When we were at Victoria Station seeing you off. You remember.”

  Vivian looked as if she’d prefer not to. “No.” Vivian did not want to travel backward in time to Victoria any more than she wanted to travel forward in time to Venice.

  Diane was clearly annoyed that the spotlight, something she was sure God had given into her own white hands for safekeeping, was capriciously moving around the table. She snatched it back with her next obscure reference:

  “Nickel City.”

  They all looked at her again.

  “Well, that’s what they used to call Baltimore. Nickel City.”

  “Why?”

  “They made nickels there.” She went on: “The Colts and the Jets . . . Joe Namath. One of the most famous games ever played—Supper Bowl III.”

  IV

  “ ‘Supper Bowl.’ Do you believe that?” said Melrose Plant to Marshall Trueblood after the others had finally cleared out of the Jack and Hammer and he was able to retrieve the notebook.

  “Anyone who’d call Kuwait ‘Kumquat’ can make me believe that, yes. Now, I’ll dictate, you write.”

  “I’ll dictate, you write. I wrote earlier.”

  Trueblood sounded exasperated. “I was right in the middle of a thought, old sweat, when everybody trooped in.”

  “Your thoughts have no middles. Beginnings, endings, no middles.” Melrose uncapped his pen and smoothed down the page.

  “Now: she’d been put in the crypt. The crypt . . . hmm.”

  “ ‘Dank vault,’ ” quoted Melrose.

  Trueblood pursed his lips, said, “ ‘The poor monk, Franciscus, standing at the opening of the dank vault with his stick and bowl—’ ”

  “Who’s Franciscus?”

  “The monk.”

  “There was never any monk.” Melrose was thumbing back through the pages to see if he’d missed the monk.

  “He’s new. Believe me, the monk is necessary for the poor girl’s spiritual comfort.”

  “What the hell for? She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “Just write, will you?”

  Melrose shrugged. “Okay.”

  Trueblood repeated: “ ‘Franciscus, standing there with his bowl and stick’—no, ‘his stick and bowl.’ That’s rather poetic—‘standing there with his stick and bowl’ ”

  Melrose mouthed the words slowly: “Standing—there—with—his—stick—and—sup-per—bowl—”

  “Not ‘supper bowl,’ damn it!”

  V

  When Richard Jury, directed to the Jack and Hammer by Ruthven, was passing the pub’s casement window, he saw Ruthven’s master, head bent over a book or a notebook, seated just inside the window tête-à-tête with Marshall Trueblood. They were sitting, backs to the window, at the table that looked out over the High Street. Trueblood’s voice wafted out to him:

  “ ‘O God! My sufferings are . . .’ ”

  The voice faded. The casement window was open the barest crack, and Jury reached out and opened it another half-inch. Trueblood’s voice again:

  “ ‘My sufferings are not complete! If she but knew it, my own death is nothing—’ no, say ‘is as nothing.’ ”

  “ ‘Is as’?” (said Melrose). “Sounds rather stilted, doesn’t it? Anyway, we don’t want crossings out.”

  “Oh, all right. ‘Myowndeathisnothing,’ then.” Trueblood was impatient.

  Outside, and in spite of himself, Jury was fascinated by this mawkish prose. What were they doing? Collaborating on a novel? A play? He doubted it. That would have been too much of a strain for Marshall Trueblood’s five-minute-max attention span. Jury kept his back against the outside wall of the pub, his face tickled by dry ivy that had claimed most of the Jack and Hammer’s facade. Its tendrils dug in, clung, obscured the rims of the windows, which was one reason he couldn’t be seen.

  “ ‘. . . that dank vault, that icy trickle of water, that mould—’ ”

  “Sounds like your basement.”

  “ ‘—that high peal of bells—’ ”

  “Wait, wait a minute. How’d he get her from his—” Melrose’s voice diminished, then grew fuller—“to the crypt and then still have time to—” dimmed—“the sleeping draught in her wine—” rose, fell—“and the bells—”

  “It doesn’t have to be coherent, for lord’s sake. He’s crazy!”

  “Well, but—”

  Jury’s attention was drawn by a little white dog that barked at him from the far curb. This was Miss Ada Crisp’s Jack Russell, and out came Miss Ada to remonstrate with the dog and wave at Jury.

  He felt ridiculous, hanging there around the ivy.

  Nor did the dog give a tinker’s damn about the remonstrance. It danced about like a trained circus dog and then hurled itself across the street towards Jury. It went down on its front legs and raised its rump in the air and snarled and growled. Jury toed its belly to try and get it away, but the little dog merely thought he was playing dog games, and grabbed his trouser leg and shook and shook.

  Hearing a raised voice inside, and seeing the casement window suddenly open, Jury shrank back against the wall. The bit of golden hair he could see (Melrose Plant’s head) was thrust out, quickly withdrawn, and he heard Melrose say, “Just Ada’s Jack Russell.”

  Bored, the dog finally relented, released the cuff of Jury’s trousers and trotted on up the street to find more willing playmates. The window, however, was wider open now, and Jury could hear more clearly.

  There was still some disagreement about the prose not making sense. “He might be crazy, but that doesn’t mean—” Melrose’s voice trailed off, and strain as he would toward the sound, Jury could not make out the name—“is, does it? She’s got too much sense.”

  “No, she hasn’t. Come on, come on. Let’s get on with it. Now: ‘From the cellar came those screams that tear my heart and lacerate my soul.’ ”

  “Hang about, you’re going too fast. I got ‘tear my heart and—’?”

  “ ‘And lac-er-ate my soul.’ ”

  Silence. “Got it. Go on.”

  From the shadowed ivy, Jury glanced over to the other side of the street again and saw someone else. This was Jurvis, the butcher, standing there staring at him, his hands warming under his big white apron. He removed one of them when Jury looked over and waved.

  Jury waved back.

  Jurvis still stood, rocking on his heels. He liked Jury; the policeman had done his best to help the butcher in his altercation with Lady Ardry. The plaster pig was still doing its dogsbody work, holding up the little sign advertising that week’s specials. The pig and Jurvis were of the same height and girth, just about. They made a pretty pair there on the sidewalk.
r />   “ ‘. . . made me sick with fright. O my soul!’ ”

  Jury had taken out his cigarettes and was lighting one, hoping to give the appearance that he’d sheltered there among the ivy in order to keep the match flame from the wind. He pursed his lips, checked his watch—waved again at Jurvis—held it against his ear and looked this way and that along the street.

  In another moment or two, Jurvis turned back to his shop, arms round the pig as if they’d jig off down the road together, and then they went in. Early closing, Jury imagined. He checked his watch. After two.

  The coast was clear again.

  “. . . battering—no, ‘creaking’—‘The creaking of the coffin lid assaulted my senses and I quickly rose from bed, only to . . . only to . . .’ Oh, hell—‘only to’ what? You’re not contributing much.”

  “Me? I’m writing. I can’t write and think at the same time.”

  “I’ve got it—‘only to feel the icy fingers upon my cheek.’ ”

  “Well, ain’t this”—Jury jumped at the voice and the clutch of the wiry fingers upon his arm—“somethin’. Ain’t it Mr. Scotland Yard hisself, then, come to Long Pidd t’ eavesdrop.” The cackling of Dick Scrogg’s char brought on a rheumy cough.

  “Hullo, Mrs. Withersby,” said Jury, his face burning. “I was just about to go in and have a pint.”

  She was chomping down on the remains of a cigarette butt and hauling along her pail, which she had brought out of the pub’s side door. She now dumped the dirty water in the gutter. “Drain’s broke back there. ’Bout t’ave a pint?” She wiped her hand across her mouth. “Ah, well, there’s some a us got to wark fer a livin’.”

  • • •

  When Jury at last entered the Jack and Hammer, he was heartily welcomed by Dick Scroggs but had to wait a few moments for the hearty welcomes of Melrose Plant and Marshall Trueblood, as they were busily engaged in secreting some object from his view.

  When he got to their table, the envelope he had seen was being whisked away, but not before he noticed the stamps on it were foreign. Not British, certainly. He had a trained eye. As for the black book, it was nowhere in sight. Probably, he thought, Trueblood was sitting on it, since Trueblood had not risen to extend his hand. He had simply held it out from a sitting position.

  Mrs. Withersby was clanging about the table with bucket and broom, and making a desultory swipe at one of the grimier of the casement windowpanes, and rattling on nineteen-to-the-dozen about “them as hadn’t to wark fer a livin’,” a monologue in which Jury had heard her indulge before when Melrose Plant was around and when she wanted a drink. Now, she was pulling Mansion polish from the pail of cleaning things and spraying the table, not being too nice about avoiding Trueblood’s fingers.

  “Withers, for God’s sake, the place is nearly empty,” said Marshall Trueblood. “Spray elsewhere.”

  Jury wondered if the book could be under the cushion.

  “I got me schedule, ain’t I? Just like junk dealers!” She lifted his pint and swiped the damp circle beneath. “Ah, but this here’s thirsty wark. Thirsty and thankless both.”

  “They don’t appreciate us, do they, Mrs. Withersby?” Jury offered her his packet of cigarettes at the same time as he scanned the floor beneath the table. Trueblood must be sitting on it; it was too big to be slipped in a jacket pocket without showing.

  “Ya got that right.” She took four cigarettes, jamming three in her apron pocket, and leaning across the table for Plant to light the fourth, upsetting his pint in the process. “Ah, looka there, Lord Ardry. Pity.” She tsk-tsked and ran her oily cloth over the spill.

  “Oh, get El Withersby a gin, Melrose,” said Trueblood, not about to rise himself.

  “I’d prefer one of Dick’s brews,” said Jury.

  “If you’re drinking that stuff, you must be back on the job,” said Melrose, smiling.

  “Halfway, partway,” said Jury, and then, as Melrose went off the bar, he said to Trueblood, “Oughtn’t you be seeing to your customers?”

  In the act of lighting up a jade-green Sobranie, Trueblood raised his painted brows. “Customers? What customers?”

  “There was a lot of commotion in the shop as I walked by.”

  “What? Couldn’t be . . .”

  “Stuff might be going out the back door, then.”

  Mrs. Withersby cackled and leaned on her broom. “Mebbe ’twas the van I seen down the back alley.”

  Trueblood was up and off in a flash. Jury looked at the seat. No, nothing there. As Mrs. Withersby rambled on about the new Long Pidd constable being blind as a bat and how the Withersby clan was not one to depend on police for protection, Jury casually ran his hand under the cushion of the bench beneath the window. Where was the damned thing, anyway?

  “. . . an’ drug in little Eddie fer nickin’ the . . . I took umbrage, I did. . . .” She kicked at the pail, dislodging the Mansion polish rag.

  Jury looked down at the pail. There it was. “Mr. Plant’s signalling you, Mrs. Withersby.”

  She turned toward the bar, and Jury quickly extracted the black leather book, shoved it down in his raincoat’s big pocket, and was smiling as Melrose Plant returned with one gin and one strong brew in which the sediment was still settling.

  “Cheers!” said Jury, raising his glass.

  Mrs. Withersby rejoined them and drank off her tot of gin, collected her broom and bucket, and set off towards the nether regions.

  It had been a safe enough repository. Mrs. Withersby couldn’t read and rarely worked. She was probably only plying that pail and rag today to see what it would get her by way of strong drink.

  “Where’s Vivian?” asked Jury.

  “Probably packing.” Melrose cast an agonized glance toward the retreating bucket.

  VI

  “I’m very fond of him,” said Vivian Rivington, her tone a bit defensive, as she clamped the lid back on the tin of cheese puffs.

  “Really? I seem to remember you saying exactly that about another man, years ago, right here in this room.” Jury sipped his coffee. “Remember?”

  Vivian looked at him speculatively. “I remember.”

  “Then why don’t you stop all this nonsense and break it off?”

  She sat back, fell back, in her chair, holding the cheese puff aloft and seeming to address it, not Jury. “How high-handed. As if you had some superior knowledge.”

  He smiled. “I do. You as much as told me.”

  “Nothing. I told you nothing.”

  He drank his coffee, Vivian crunched at her cheese puff, and they were silent.

  “Anyway, he’s too busy playing games with Marshall.”

  “ ‘He’?” asked Jury innocently.

  “Oh, stop being ridiculous.”

  “I don’t know why you can’t see the truth.”

  “I do not see what is not there.”

  “Knowing how much Plant hates to leave Ardry End—I don’t think he’d leave even if someone shouted ‘Fire!’—how about that trip to Italy they took? You think he doesn’t care what happens to you?”

  “Hates to travel? Well, he’s certainly putting on a damned good imitation of a man who’s about to embark for the States.” Vivian’s glowing complexion glowed more ardently. “Some American girl, that I’m supposed to have met or seen, called him up. Did he tell you?”

  Jury was surprised. “No. Who?”

  “I don’t know, do I? Agatha said I saw her at Victoria. All I saw at Victoria was Marshall Trueblood pasting a cutout of Dracula to my trunk.” She started to laugh, bit it off. Serious again. “So all I can say, Richard dear, is some American floozy rings him up and he’s off so fast you could play cards on his coattail.”

  “Ellen? Ellen Taylor?” Seeing Vivian’s expression, he was sorry he’d named her, thereby showing he too knew her. “Just some kid with a Bronx accent. For God’s sake, he’s probably bored, what with you going off again to Venice. Vivian, come on! Toss the guy overboard, into the canal, or something. Hell, marry me.”<
br />
  She stopped munching the biscuit, even stopped being irritated with him. “Is that a proposal?”

  Jury studied his coffee cup. He smiled. “Of course.”

  “ ‘Of course.’ ” She laughed. “You know, I honestly think you would. Marry me, that is. Just to keep me out of the clutches of the blood-drinking count.”

  “I’m very fond of you.”

  “Well, I think we’ve finally got something sorted out here.”

  “Thing is, you don’t love me.”

  “Oh, stop being stupid.” Her smile at him was nonetheless loving.

  “And I still say, you don’t place enough importance on that trip they made to Venice.”

  Vivian leaned forward, saying very deliberately, “ ‘They.’ The operative word is they. It’s all a game. Playing silly buggers.” She tapped her foot impatiently against the beautiful cabriole leg of her coffee table. Vivian’s house was filled with antiques that made Trueblood salivate. “Thank goodness you at least are serious.”

  There was a silence. Jury glanced at the chair in the hall where his raincoat was lying.

  “And what is that silly smile for?”

  Quickly, Jury wiped the silly smile from his face.

  “At times I think you’re as bad as they are.”

  Jury smiled again.

  VII

  “So we can go together,” said Jury, fairly collapsed in the comfortable armchair by the fireplace. The dinner that Plant’s cook had just served up rivalled Jenny Kennington’s. Jury was thinking about the previous evening.

  Melrose was thinking about flying. They were sitting, whiskies in hand, before a blazing fireplace, in front of which slept his dog of uncertain breed. “It requires so much effort.”

  “You liked her, as I remember.”

  “Liked her? Of course I liked her. I like Mindy here, too.” The dog, hearing its name, let out a slumbery woof.

  “And Vivian?”

  Melrose frowned over at him. “Vivian? Well, naturally. One of my favorite people.”

  “Yet, she’s going off to Venice yet again. Why the hell don’t you stop her?”