The Horse You Came in On (41 page)

Soon he came out with another batch of letters and circulars and so forth, and while he was fixing the pouch to the bicycle, Melrose Plant dropped his own package in the snow at his feet. Trueblood was engaging Mr. Quick in conversation while Plant did this, and when Abner Quick was wheeling his pouch and himself away from the curb, he was stopped by both of them, Plant reaching down to pluck the package from the ground and Trueblood then handing it over with a clear direction (Jury presumed) and pointing at what must be the addressee.

Now, since Abner Quick could get about with any success at all only because he'd committed the village to mind like a book of braille, Jury pretty much knew that this little ruse of Plant's and Trueblood's was necessary to ensure that the package would arrive at its proper destination.

Richard Jury had not spent over twenty years at Scotland Yard only to find himself stumped by what this destination was.

He stood there eating a third muffin and drinking a third cup of tea
while he watched Abner Quick pedal his bicycle up an alley, be lost to view, return, stop here, stop there, and make his way all round the green while, at the same time, Plant and Trueblood were over by the pond throwing snowballs that simply feathered apart without landing anywhere as they doubtless waited for delivery to be made.

It was not long before he could make out the figure of Vivian, all the way on the other side of the humpbacked bridge, coming along with her string bag, no doubt filled with little paper parcels done up by the butcher, Jurvis. Vivian, in any event, could be seen for a country mile because the sun was out and when it shone on her red-brown hair it turned the color of Graham's sherry.

Plant and Trueblood saw her too and stopped popping the pond with weightless snowballs and made quite a fuss of waving and calling. Vivian waved back and opened her gate and went up her walk.

Jury saw he had eaten three muffins (and he disliked carrot muffins) and drunk three cups of tea. Now he thought he would like to be on hand at Vivian's house. He paid his bill and in addition had the thin little waitress pack him up a box of muffins. (“We've only got the carrot today”) and tie it with string. With this offering, he ran down the stairs to the green.

Mr. Quick had just plopped his bike down in front of Vivian's as Jury greeted Plant and Trueblood heartily enough, but saying he was in a hurry to take Vivian her muffins—for tea, Jury shouted, having passed them as they stood with snow on their gloves. Did they want to join Vivian and him?

No. Jury was quite certain they'd want anything but.

Mr. Quick's bicycle was now weaving along a little lane farther down, his mail pouch lighter by at least one parcel, if the one he drew from Vivian's box was any measure.

He held it up with her other two letters and waved the lot at Melrose Plant and Marshall Trueblood.

“
What
are they doing out there? Oh, thanks,” said Vivian, taking her letters and her parcel from Jury, and returning her gaze to her front window. It had started to snow—not much, just a flurry, but the flakes were drifting down.

“Thought you'd like some muffins.” Jury held up the white box.

“Betty Ball's?” She smiled.

“Carrot. I hate carrot muffins, and I've eaten three.”

“Oh, I like carrot.” She was obviously lying. “Want some tea?”

“No. I had three cups.”

“One per muffin. Interesting.” She had opened and discarded the envelopes of her letters or bills. “What's this, then?” She frowned a little,
looking at the front. “It's from Italy. Venice.” She brought the parcel up close to her eyes, frowning. “You know, these stamps look—odd. Not properly franked.”

“Oh?” Jury tried to sound indifferent.

She opened the envelope, took out a black book.
The
black book. She leafed through it, frowning all the while, then shook the brown envelope, peeked into it. Nothing. “What is this?” She looked at the black leather binding, flipped through the pages again, shook it. Nothing.

Jury watched her, rocking on his heels.

Vivian was perplexed. “It looks like a diary, with dates and all. Aren't you going to sit down, for heaven's sake?”

Jury murmured some acquiescent thing or other and moved over to the window.

Vivian held it up, above her head at arm's length, as if the fall of light from the chandelier might penetrate the murky depths of the black book. “Listen to this: ‘My own dearth is as nothing—' ”

“ ‘Death,' not ‘dearth.' ”

Vivian raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

Jury shrugged. “Well, ‘My own
dearth
is as nothing' doesn't make any sense. . . .” His voice trailed away as he looked everywhere but at her.

She smiled. “I expect you're right.” She turned over the envelope, looked again at the stamps, at the postmark, at Jury. “Aren't you wondering what this is? You don't seem curious.”

“Curious? Of course I'm curious. I just don't want to pry into your affairs.”

“You don't?” Vivian was looking through the window. “That would make a change,” she said sweetly. “What in heaven's name are they doing over there—playing at Statues?”

It was true, Jury saw when he came to stand by her: Plant and Trueblood were standing stiff as statues, their eyes on the house. He sighed.

“I've got the distinct impression over the years that none of you want me to marry Franco.”

“No! Where
would you ever have got that?”

She read a passage, giggled, and handed him the book. “Memoirs, I take it. He's had a busy old life. Look at them; they're throwing snowballs.”

Irritated with her acceptance of this nonsense, her sangfroid, he commanded: “Don't go. It's ridiculous to go.”

Her look at him was inscrutable. “Actually, I've taken a house there on a short let. It's on the Grand Canal. Quite beautiful.”

“
What?
” He actually grabbed at her shoulder, shook her.

But it didn't dent her composure. She clasped her hands behind her and sighed. “Oh, I expect I'm trying to believe I'm free.”

“Free?”

“Haven't you ever felt . . . stuck? In your life, in your work?”

Without really thinking about it, Jury lay his arm across her shoulders. “Yes—
oh,
yes.”

“The trouble is, one begins almost to enjoy it. The stuck-ness.” Here she cast a glance around the comfortable room. “The same chairs, the same faces. The daily routines, the same friendships and estrangements. It all becomes so familiar. And so safe—too safe; I feel hemmed in, like the little pond over there. I feel like the ducks drifting on the water. Oh, it's not unpleasant at all; perhaps that's the trouble. Are they”—she nodded her head towards the green, towards her two friends—“seducing those ducks with bread crumbs over to the edge so they can—?” She shook her head. “Idiots.”

But Jury wasn't paying much attention to the idiots, for he was thinking of what she'd said. “I like the way you put that, Vivian. The same faces and friendships and estrangements. Maybe that's the best of it.” He thought of his Islington digs, his office at New Scotland Yard. Then he laughed.

“What's funny?”

“Oh, it's just a song that used to be popular. ‘Is that all there is?' the singer keeps asking about life. Finally, when the house burns to the ground, she's still singing ‘Is that all there is?' Nothing's ever enough. I mean, once it was, but the more you get—like money, like success—the more you delude yourself into thinking you need. Because once it
was
enough.” He picked up the book. “So much trouble.”

She took it. “Yes, so much trouble.”

“And if you were a duck, you'd have just got a snowball in your face.”

She nodded. “Idiots.”

Dreamily, they stood there.

“Pour vous!”
Theo Wrenn Browne raided his stockpile of foreign words and phrases for an appropriate one to accompany his act of placing a long-stemmed rose on the table in front of Diane Demorney.
“Une rose parfaite.”
In case this candy-wrapper French was too much for them, he smiled round at the others and translated: “One perfect rose.”

Diane Demorney stuffed the stem into an empty bottle of Plant's Old Peculier. “Next time, make it one perfect Rolls, would you?”

“I told you,” went on Joanna the Mad, whose remarks on the asininity of writing had been interrupted by Theo Wrenn Browne and his rose, “any ass can write a book. Don't take that personally, Melrose. Just hack it out.” She danced her fingers along imaginary typewriter keys to simulate the art of hacking.

Melrose felt a twinge of anxiety. He had been having a delightful time with his mystery ever since the flight back to London; what concerned him now, though, was that he was beginning to take Smithson a little too seriously. He also found that he enjoyed writing round the village—in the library, or in Betty Ball's bakery over morning coffee, or even on that bench by the duck pond. And he liked walking with his notebook under his arm and his dog, Mindy, somewhere at his heels, tossing sticks that Mindy never fetched. He hoped he was not becoming ill; he certainly knew he was not becoming a writer.

Nonetheless, there were fringe benefits to the writing life. Not only was it keeping Vivian in England, it was also keeping Agatha out of Ardry End and Richard Jury out of London. Jury was, at the moment, over by the fireplace, joining the Withersby person in a pint

 • • • 

“
Gin Lane,
chapter seven. ‘Smithson stood, deeply perturbed—' ”

“Hold it, old sweat! I don't remember seeing chapters two through six,” said Marshall Trueblood.

“I thought the title was
The Opal,
” said Diane Demorney.

Said Melrose, “I haven't typed up those chapters yet.” Hadn't written
them yet, either. He wanted to get to Smithson's ruminations. “ ‘Smithson stood, deeply perturbed—' ”

Vivian asked, “Yes, but what about
The Opal?
”

Trueblood was worrying the end of his tangerine scarf. “Isn't ‘Gin Lane' a set of Cruikshank engravings?”

“Trust Melrose to steal whatever he can,” said Agatha.

Was the Algonquin Round Table like this? Melrose read:

—
deeply perturbed, and suddenly remembered the time that had shown beneath the shattered glass of Lord Haycock's pocket watch
.

Theo Wrenn Browne gave a stagy sigh. “Good God! What a cliché!”

“Shakespeare was never afraid of a cliché,” said Melrose, trying to think of one of Shakespeare's.

Smithson realized that one thing or the other had happened: either someone had changed the hands of the clock against the wall, or changed the hands of the pocket watch. The butler had commented that both of them kept impeccable time
.

Melrose adjusted his glasses and continued.

Smithson hadn't noticed Nora slipping in through the French windows
—

Joanna the Mad asked, “Don't you think it might be better to name his wife something else? There's that Nora and Nick, you know. Awfully famous. Especially as she's always drinking champagne and loves hats.”

“Yes. That's just a typo, there. It's supposed to be Norma.” Melrose made a little stroke with his pen.

Norma was wearing a simple black suit, snug at the waist, and a clever little red hat, ringed with black feathers
.

“
Do you have a light, darling?” She moved towards Smithson, a cigarette plugged into a red lacquer holder
.

Smithson lit her cigarette and asked her why she was here
.

“
I was simply wondering about the clock. Do you think Church would bring me a champagne cocktail?
”

“
And what made you think of the clock?” Smithson summoned the butler by pulling the tapestry bellpull beside the fireplace
.

Norma sat down. “It's fairly obvious, isn't it?
”

“Always is in stories.” Richard Jury had drifted over, leaving Mrs. Withersby to talk to herself and probably think she was still talking to the superintendent. He drank his pint, leaned against the wall at Melrose's elbow.

Melrose wished he'd go away—not back to London, just back to the fireplace. He wasn't sure he wanted a policeman listening to what Smithson was doing.

But before Norma could finish, Church appeared with an iced bottle of Dom Pérignon and some biscuits. She thanked him
.

“
Where's Chloe?” she asked, pouring champagne over a bitters-soaked sugar cube
.

“
In the car. What's ‘obvious'? Tell me
.”

Norma sipped, smoked and thought. She had a subtle mind; it was difficult to get her to give a straightforward answer. Nora's
—I mean Norma's—
attitude towards language was intensely deconstructive; words were lies. Not deliberate lies, of course, but the mere choice of one word, in its denial of other words, cancelled out meaning. Smithson thought solving cases was a science; Norma thought it was an art. She said, “Have another word with that guard at the gatehouse. I feel something's wrong there
.”

“Lord!” said Theo Wrenn Browne. “A gatehouse? How original!”

Joanna said, “You'd kill for a gatehouse, Theo—you'd draw and quarter your old gran for a gatehouse. Go on, Melrose.”

Smithson crunched along the gravel of the serpentine drive towards the stone pillars of the entry
.

With his knuckles he tapped on the glass partition behind which the guard was deep into what appeared to be an old edition, a very large black book with a cracked binding whose title Smithson couldn't see. It was thick with dust; when he snapped the book shut at the sound of Smithson's voice, dust motes swam in a slanting ray of sunlight.