Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent (13 page)

Ann Denholme was leading him down a hallway and stopped to look
back. "You?"

"Me. The son's the type who'd tear the wings off Clouded Yellows and
lovebirds." They had come to the landing. "When I came round the
house—" Melrose stopped. It wasn't because of some sense of honor that
he refused to tell of the peccadilloes of others; the reason (he told
himself) that he did not rat on people was because he was rich and
didn't need to. Amazing what a bit of money could do toward solving
life's little problems. "I reprimanded him."

As they walked the long hall past several doors with handsome walnut
frames, she asked, "For what?"

So the Beastly Boy hadn't told; he wouldn't have wanted Melrose's
version to come out. Besides, Melrose could stalk the halls with his
cosher at night. "He was annoying the chickens. Which room is mine?"

"The chickens?" She regarded him doubtfully as she opened the door
and stood against it, her hand on the knob so that he could precede her.

It was a Victorian room, overstuffed and crammed with its
four-poster bed, button-back velvet side chairs, double bureau, long
curtains with heavy tie-backs, washstand, faded sprigged wallpaper,
gold fan in the empty fireplace, pottery on the mantelpiece. Charming,
nonetheless, possibly because of its busyness, as if a little old lady
in flounces and cap had fussed about adding yet other pieces of
unnecessary ornaments.

As he unbuckled his case and threw the straps back, he said, "I saw
your daughter at the vet's today. True Friend, I think it's called."

"Abby's not my daughter."

Her tone, he thought, was chilly. "No? But she looks exactly like
you and since she lives here, I assumed . . ."

"She's my niece, my sister's girl. That would account for it, I
expect." Her eyes were fastened on Melrose's dressing gown of silk
paisley, a gift that Vivian had brought back from one of her Italian
jaunts. "That's beautiful. I love materials, though I can't afford
that kind." That she was sitting on his bed, admiring his dressing
gown, struck Melrose as a bit odd, however flattering it might be.
Things seemed to break out rather suddenly at Weavers Hall—fights,
sex—like a rash.

There was a brief knock on the door frame and a ruddy-skinned woman,
probably in her late sixties and with a pansy-shaped face, said, "Mug
of tea, sir?" She held a thick Delft mug toward him.

Said Ann Denholme, "Thank you, Mrs. Braithwaite." Her voice was
curt. But the woman seemed to take it in stride. She made a tiny curtsy
and took away the same smile she had brought with her. "I always serve
tea in the drawing room downstairs about this time, but I thought, in
the circumstances . . ." Her voice trailed away.

"You mean, that I might want to avoid Mrs. Braine and her son."
Melrose was mildly annoyed that he was being told to keep to his room
and stay out of further trouble. "On the contrary, I'd be delighted to
join the other guests for tea."

"You would? There are only two others. I doubt you'd find much in
common with an elderly major and a slightly . . . urn . . . decaying
Italian princess. Or so she says." Ann Denholme smiled to let him know
her assessment of her guests was good-humored. Then she said, "I must
tell you, the mother was extremely upset over Abby. And you."

"Miss Denholme, I must tell
you
that I am
not
upset over the Braines. The son should be a ward of the state."

Ann Denholme colored slightly, obviously realizing she hadn't gone
about this in the right way. "Of course. Mrs. Braithwaite's taken in
the tea now. I can just have her fetch another cup."

"Here's my mug—" He held the Delft blue mug aloft. "— that'll do."

"No, no. I'll just tell Mrs. Braithwaite . . ."

"Please don't bother. I'm meeting a friend in two hours for dinner
at—"

But she'd already left the room.

Melrose sighed and shook his head.

He should have ratted.

Discordant piano music, as if a cat were prowling the keyboard, came
from the drawing room.

The piano was somewhere behind the open door. He could not see it
but knew that the Beastly Boy was the one slamming away at it. The
mother allowed this racket to continue, sitting over there before the
fireplace with a lap desk full of playing cards. Another occupant of
the room, herself seated on a chaise longue, was a handsome, sixtyish
woman dressed rather formally in lavender silk.

Melrose couldn't imagine anyone more turquoise than the Braine
woman. She had sloughed off the balloon of a jacket, but was still
wearing the tight blue-green pants. However, she had added a few more
items to her costume: spike-heeled shoes with an ankle strap, also
turquoise; drop earrings of blue and green glass that looked like bits
from broken bottles; a heavy lathering of turquoise eyeshadow.
Mel-rose put on his gold-rimmed spectacles as he moved farther into the
room, nodding to the ladies, and coming to rest by a floor-to-ceiling
bookcase. He noticed that a book lay splayed open on the piecrust table
by the Beastly Boy's mother.
Surely not
(thought Melrose).
Yes
it was. The Turquoise Lament
by Mr. John D. MacDonald. The
ensemble was complete—no, it wasn't, for now Mrs. Braine was stuffing
a cigarette into a turquoise holder. She was the most turquoise woman
he had ever seen. This was relieved only by eyes, hair, and turban, all
black.

Master Malcolm had stopped for one blessed moment, but was poising
his crablike fingers over the ivories, when Melrose said, with a
twitching smile, "Play it again, Sam."

Malcolm, momentarily stunned, wheeled round on the piano stool.
"Wot?"

There were traces of an accent surfacing that spoke not of Chelsea
or Kensington but of Shoreditch. "Merely joking. Well,
this
is a charming scene!" he said heartily, moving to the fireplace and
wanning his hands

The aristocratic lady in lavender glanced over the top of a slim
volume (read, Melrose thought, precisely for the purpose of glancing
over) and regarded him shrewdly.

Immediately after Melrose spoke to him, Master Malcolm slid from the
stool and inched toward Mummy, who sat glaring at Melrose, and, with
her arm round her son, muttered comforting words like "Lovie," and
other endearments that made Malcolm look as if he'd rather be out
kicking dogs.

"Are you playing solitaire, then? Ah, the Tarot. Well."

Ramona Braine stared at him from coal-pit eyes and said, "Taurus."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You. Born under the sign of the Bull. Stubborn, given to rages.
Though you can be loyal. I knew there would be trouble. I felt it. And
more to come. Much more."

They might have been sitting in a caravan, given that
fairground-gypsyish tone she used. Since she put no time limit on the
trouble, the prediction was safe enough. "I'm an Aquarian, actually."
He smiled.

"Just barely," she answered, gathering her cards together. And then
she looked round the room as if some effluvium were forming, and
mentioned the chill when she'd crossed the doorsill. "Mark me," she
added, drawing Malcolm to her.

"Ah, leave off, Mum." The boy broke from her entwining arms and
lurched over to a chair where he sat with his hands stuffed in his
pants pockets and his chin on his chest.

The Turquoise Lament rose, adjusted her several wire-thin blue
bracelets, and commanded Malcolm dear to come along.

They trooped out of the room, Malcolm not forgetting to give the
keyboard one last thunderous pounding, before he turned and glared at
Melrose.
So there
.

Although the first landing on the piano keys had made her start in
her chair, the self-contained woman by the fireplace had not changed
expression, had merely turned another page of her own book.

But with the exodus of the Braines, her relief was evident. She laid
the book flat on her lap, and expelled a sigh. "Well," she said. She
managed to invest the word with a world of commentary on the horrors of
family life.

Melrose was still standing by the bookcase, running his finger over
the MacDonald oeuvre. The titles were fascinating, each with its
separate color. The woman on the chaise was wearing an extremely
rich-looking dress of lavender silk with a ruched silk velvet bodice.
From the bodice the dress fell in a pillarlike line. It was hardly the
sort of thing Melrose expected to see here in a fancified
bed-and-breakfast establishment. Wings of silvery hair, blued so that
in the firelight they picked up the shade of the dress. Ah, yes, he
thought, his arm on the bookshelf, definitely
The Long Lavender
Look
. The lady's own book was as elegant as she was: small,
narrow, the leather tooled, the leaves gilt-edged. She drew the ribbon
across the spine to mark her place, closed the book, and sighed again.

"Do you think there might be another tot of sherry in the decanter?"
Her voice was arch. Looking from Melrose to the ravaged
tea-sherry-chocolate assortment on the rosewood table, she smiled
slightly.

He lifted the decanter, saw little more than a golden film across
the bottom, but reckoned it would be enough for a glassful. "I'm sure
Miss Denholme will be happy to give us more." He managed to shake half
a glassful from it and hand it to her.

"Oh, yes, she's most obliging, but I dislike being a pest."

Melrose doubted it, although he liked this woman's sparky manner.
"That doesn't sound very pest-y to me, especially when her other
guests left the whole tray veritably in tatters."

"They're only staying two nights, thank God. One cannot pick and
choose one's clientele in this business, I expect. Since I've been
here, the selection has been egalitarian, at the best of times. At the
least, well, I shan't comment."

"And how long have you been here?"

"Off and on, over . . . um . . . twelve years. Mostly off." She
sipped the sherry and made a small tray of her hand on which to place
the stem.

Melrose had not thought Weavers Hall might be a stopping place for
such a woman. "You must like it, then."

"Not especially. Might I have a light?" She had drawn a small
cigarillo from a chased silver case.

Melrose smiled and obliged, saying as he lit her small cigar, "That
gown you're wearing is quite beautiful."

She looked down, apparently admiring it herself. "Thank you. It's a
Worth. Frankly, I think half of the world's problems could be solved
if one dressed well. Dior, Givenchy,

Worth." She sighed. "If they'd all been sewing and cutting during
the time of Henry the Eighth, his wives wouldn't have had so much
trouble. Especially Anne Boleyn. My dear! Did you
see
that
dress? You obviously understand how important the right cut is," she
added, looking at Melrose's jacket. "
That"
— she nodded at the
blazer—"is the sort of garment that can be a
disaster
if
taken off a rack." She shuddered. "Major Poges—have you met George
Poges? No? I'll say this for him: he dresses well. He also makes this
place more bearable. Unfortunately, my husband is dead."

Wondering why she spent so much of her time at this unbearable
place, Melrose said, "I'm very sorry." He plucked a cigarette from his
own gold case.

"My late husband was of an old Italian family, the Viacinni di
Belamante. By luck, I am the Princess Rosetta Viacinni. But call me
Rose. I was born in Bayswater." Her smile was wan, a little
self-deprecating. "And you are—?" She cocked her head.