“Beverly Brown knew him, you said,” said Wiggins.
“According to Hester, yes.”
“Listen to this,” said Ellen. She read:
Lovey stood in the heat-saturated air, hardly aware of the heady fragrance of the bougainvillea vines, looking down at the long colonnade with its Corinthian columns glowing in the moonlight, framing the door at the end, and smelled the salt air coming off the sea, pulsing with the ebb and flow of the waves. Victor! He was supposed to meet her, where was he? She looked towards the door.
“Victor—let me guess—has met a fate very similar to Maxim’s.”
Ellen clapped the book shut, stretched her arm out on the table, and dropped her head against it. Inconsolable.
Wiggins offered her a drink of his Bromo-Seltzer, but she refused.
Melrose said, “The curator called literary theft worse than murder.” He reached over and put his hand on her hair. She didn’t shake it off.
“What do you think, Ellen?” asked Jury.
“What do I think what?” said Ellen, her voice small with a sadness that seemed born of the ebb and flow of the sea she’d just read about.
“About Patrick Muldare. You know him better than we do.”
Ellen refused to raise her head and her voice rose muffled from the table. “All he cares about is football. He’s actually hoping his group’ll get the expansion team.”
“So he said.”
“He’ll have to beat out Barry Levinson,” said Melrose, watching the telly, where the chubbier of the two families was jumping up and down, applauding itself. “It’s going to be pretty hard to beat the guy who made Bugsy and knows Annette Bening.”
“Barry Levinson? Annette Bening? What are you talking about?” Ellen turned her head and propped her chin on her forearm.
“Did you bring along more of the Poe manuscript?” Wiggins asked her.
Slowly, she nodded the chin resting on the outstretched arm. She was refusing to absolutely raise her head, and her hand crept over the carryall, feeling about for its contents like the hand of a blind person.
“Go on, read it to us,” said Jury, coaxing her.
Still with her chin resting on her forearm, Ellen asked, plaintively, “You want me to?”
Jury nodded, smiled.
Her head came up, almost perkily, and she brought out the manuscript. Lovey might just as well have dropped dead as stood there pulsing with heat, or whatever she’d been doing. Melrose was annoyed. When they had first met up there on the Yorkshire moors, he had thought Ellen impervious to the Jury charm.
“We just left off where Monsieur P. was talking about having discovered the handkerchief in the courtyard. It’s got his initials embroidered in one corner.” Wiggins looked round at them, summing up, in case they’d forgotten the plot.
Ellen coughed a little, balling her fist before her mouth, true to the Poe-esque spirit of putrid afflictions. She read:
My dear madam—
That you appear to be insensible to the sufferings of M. Hilaire P—— only is further proof that the gentleman of whom I speak is not the “William Quartermain” of your own acquaintance. Had you but lingered for a moment in the chamber where I spent so many hours, you would understand. You are convinced that M. P—— was merely employing a ruse to keep me there for motives which you (or so you claim) understand but do not reveal to me; pray, allow me to continue my story—
My host held out the handkerchief, and bade me inspect it, which I did. The initial “P” I certainly saw, entwined with the “H” of his Christian name. He then rose and moved to a cupboard from which he took down an ebony box, inlaid with mother of pearl. He opened this and presented it for my inspection. The box held linen, several more of these handkerchiefs. They were of the finest linen, and the initials worked in a similar manner on each. My host spoke—
“Do you believe me now?”
I hastened to assure him that I had not doubted him except insofar as I thought he might have been dreaming, and he smiled and with a languid wave of his hand said,
“It is of no matter. I would ask you, I would implore you to do me a service: to pass the rest of this night in my bedchamber.”
My mind filled with the most unspeakable dread.
“There is no danger!” he cried. “None. I would otherwise not ask this of you. It is only a matter of verifying the truth of my experience, and of my sanity. Man! I must know.”
“My dear M. P——” I said as kindly as I could. “And if I should not be able to put your mind at rest? What of that? If there should be no repetition of this duel, no crying out of the name Violette?”
The interval was over and Melrose watched the guitarist resume his seat on the stool. Well, he wasn’t too bad; at least he was playing acoustic and not electric guitar. Melrose wondered what Lou Reed would have done with the Violette story. (“Violette said/As she got up off the floor, / This is a bum trip / And I don’t love you anymore.”)
“Will you stop that humming!” Ellen said irritably.
Wiggins said reproachfully, “I’d like to know what’s happened to Violette.”
Melrose said, “She’s dead.” He was sick of this twaddle. “She’s under the floorboards, wait and see. Edgar Poe could play better guitar than Beverly Brown could write.”
“Oh, be quiet,” said Ellen, crackling the brittle paper as she picked up the next page.
Melrose turned to listen to the pleasantly weepy voice of the guitarist going against the grain of his song.
Jury said, “I think it’s rather intricately done.”
“So is the L.A. freeway,” said Melrose.
Ellen read:
“Then if you hear and see nothing, I must accept my own—”
I understood him and in the heavy silence that followed there was in me a great bewilderment and confusion of spirits. But, finally, I agreed, insisting, though, that before I was to occupy that bedchamber, we must descend to the courtyard where I could satisfy myself as to its security.
We descended, and with our lanterns as the only light to penetrate the inky dark, I observed the cobbled yard. It is difficult to describe that courtyard, which was not long in casting over my spirits, like a cloak of jetty black, its impenetrable gloom. Walls surrounded us on three sides, and on the fourth the iron gate, through which no one—if the rusted lock were to be believed—had passed these many years. The dry fountain, the sere trees, the spongy mosses that pressed upwards through the stones—all, all would testify that no one had been within these walls. I was yet not satisfied. For I believed (despite your protestations, madam) that M.——was as sane a man as I, and that being the case, these surrounding walls and gate must have afforded entry to the companions of his sleepless nights—the swordsmen. From one wall to the next, I moved, my hands against the moist stones, searching out some possible, secret entrance.
And at one point, fanciful though it must sound, I felt the cold stones weeping—
Melrose interrupted. “Not the floorboards, the walls.”
Ellen and Wiggins glared at him. Jury was studying the manuscript page Ellen had just read and set aside.
“How bloody tiresome,” said Melrose, yawning. “It’s just ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ all over again. He’s gone and walled her up.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him; he’s just being mean,” said Ellen, carefully returning the page to its plastic sleeve.
Wiggins stared. “But, miss—what happened? Was there a secret passageway, or something like that?”
Ellen shrugged and sighed. “Don’t know.”
Wiggins looked crestfallen. “You mean that’s the end?”
“It’s all that she gave me. If there’s more, I haven’t found it.”
Said Melrose, “You shouldn’t be carrying that around. You should turn the whole works over to the police. Or Owen Lamb. Or somebody.”
“Why? Since it’s a fake?” said Ellen, with an acerbic sweetness.
“A dangerous fake.”
Jury started to laugh.
They all looked at him.
He was laughing harder.
“Well? What?” asked Melrose.
He turned the manuscript page so that they could see it and pointed to the bit about the handkerchief. “It’s the bloody initials. ‘HP.’ Embroidered on the handkerchief.”
“Right. And . . . ?”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the Helmsley Palace?” Jury leaned back in his chair and laughed even harder.
29
“Nouveau Pauvre, Hughie,” said Melrose, putting the cab driver’s expert knowledge of the city to the test. He slammed the door of the cab, making the stick-on Bart Simpson doll dance.
Hughie thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel and repeated “Noo-vo Pov, hmm . . . oh, yeah! That place over on Howard that that fag runs—excuse-a moi—I mean gay, the one the gay dude runs.”
As they peeled away from the curb in front of the Admiral Fell Inn, Melrose wondered if “gay dude” might not be a contradiction in terms, but he let it go. It was hard enough keeping Hughie away from the fish; lord knows Melrose didn’t want to engage him in discussion of activists rights or politics. “Hold the wheel when you drive, will you?”
Hughie had one arm draped across the back of the front seat and was turning a corner with a finger hooked into the steering wheel.
“And don’t slow down,” said Melrose, with steel in his voice, “when you’re passing the Aquarium.” He pulled out his Strangers’ Guide and his glasses.
“Biggest sting rays in the continental U.S.” Hughie was trying to engage Melrose’s eye in the rearview mirror.
Melrose refused to be engaged. As they drove along, he was looking up landmarks that Hughie had identified and saw that yes, the one far up ahead was indeed the Battle Monument. “Where’s Federal Hill?”
“That’s over there a couple miles from Fort McHenry. You want to go there?”
“What? No, no, I was just wondering.”
“Union troops occupied it in the Civil War. See, Maryland was kind of pro-South, but no one was ever sure.”
That sounded rather sloppy, thought Melrose. He returned the guide to his pocket and tried to think around the voice-over of Hughie and his version of Maryland’s history. He closed his eyes and called up the image of Cider Alley, of Estes and Twyla and the peeling doorway where the body of John-Joy had been found. Perhaps Milos could fill him in about John-Joy’s secret, if secret it was.
“. . . McHenry, that’s where Francis Scott Key was when he wrote ‘Star-Spangled Banner.’ Did he write both words and music, do you know?”
“Oh, probably not. He probably had a collaborator.”
“Like the Gershwins, maybe.”
“Um-hmm.” Melrose let Hughie rattle on as they drove along a street on each side of which were ranged antique and secondhand-furniture shops. Nouveau Pauvre, Melrose saw, as Hughie slowed the cab, enjoyed a prospect at the top of a sort of stair-step lineup of stoops and roofs. It was a romantic-looking little place, white clapboard and lacings of filigree ironwork trimming steps and porch.
When Hughie showed signs of searching for a parking place so that he could, no doubt, accompany Melrose in his venture, Melrose told him to drive around for an hour or so, or collect another fare, and then return for him. The cab stopped and Melrose climbed out.
The wrought iron trim work, the sort of thing that Melrose had seen in adverts for “bijou” cottages and in pictures of New Orleans, led upwards to a landing that was high enough off the ground for a man easily to stand beneath it.
A man did, and with his dog.
If Melrose hadn’t known his name was Milos, he could certainly have told from the sign behind him warning visitors to stay away from his grate. The burly man, his mismatched suit topped off with what looked like an army greatcoat, looked to be permanently planted in the shelter of the shop above him. Melrose thought he had developed some rapport with the homeless by now, as he smilingly peeled a bill from his money clip. The dog appeared to be friendlier than the man; it was a hound of questionable pedigree, and it barked lightly—wap wap—and wagged his stub of a tail.
“I beg your pardon. I wondered if I could have a word with you.” Melrose crinkled the bills, hoping that the blind man would be aware he was quite willing to pay for information. This particular blind man had the unnerving eye contact that made him appear to be staring straight at you, which had made Melrose forget for the moment that Milos was also deaf.
Melrose noticed a small collection of cigarette butts in a tin ashtray, and pulled out his cigar case. The dog barked appreciatively, a fellow smoker, perhaps. Then he thought of what Jury had said about writing on Milos’s hand and reached for it. He slapped the cigar into his palm.
The reaction he’d expected was a fumbling, clutching, grunting acceptance of the object in his hand. Instead, Milos lifted the cigar, ran it under his nose, and made to put it in the breast pocket of his suit coat, underneath the heavy topcoat. He made several aborted stabs at the pocket but couldn’t get it in. He tried the other pocket and succeeded. He made no comment, apparently accepting both the money and cigar as his due.
Well, this would not be a conversation in which one could observe the introductory pleasantries, so Melrose simply raised the man’s hand again and sketched on the palm:
“John-Joy?”
“Who, me? I ain’t John-Joy. Can’t you read?” and Milos stabbed his thumb behind him.
“No, no,” said Melrose, the verbal protest automatic. He sighed and raised Milos’s hand again, carefully wrote:
“What are the do-ings?”
Milos moved his head quickly, left to right, a gesture that would have suggested, in a man blessed with sight, that he was searching for something up or down the street. He yelled, “How the hell would I know what they’re doing? I’m blind, asshole, or ain’t you noticed!?”
Melrose grabbed his hand again and wrote, in as large letters as the palm would accommodate:
“No”
which he followed with:
“The doings.”
“Yeah? Well, there ain’t nothin’ doin’ with you, either, dickhead, so fuck off!”
If Baltimore police got information out of Milos (which they apparently had, some sort of information), they must have more patience than any police force Melrose had ever been acquainted with.
He sighed and gave up and mounted the stairs.
• • •
“Hello there. Looking for a gift? Friend gone bankrupt? Broker bolted? Tax audit coming up? All of the above?”
This series of questions came from an agate-eyed, rangy man who shot them off as he walked towards Melrose. And “shot” was a fairly appropriate word, given the way he was dressed: in an embroidered vest, tooled-leather western boots, and a down-to-the-ground, lightweight coat that would have looked good on Clint Eastwood in one of those spaghetti westerns. It was hard to tell whether he was dressing for business or if the business had been chosen to serve as backdrop—another theatrical arrangement.
“Gay dude” was probably just one of those Hughie assumptions. This one would have a lot of appeal to women. Melrose returned the infectious smile. The patter was certainly more interesting than the usual “Are you being served?” Melrose answered, “None of the above, actually. I’m a visitor and I’m looking for something to take back with me. Something terribly American.”
The man smiled. “There’s nothing in there that’s not terribly American.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his stone-washed jeans and looked happily around, as if he never ceased to be delighted by his own ingenuity.
“Are you the owner?”
“I certainly am.”
“My name is Melrose Plant.” Melrose extracted one of his ancient cards from his calling-card case and handed it over. Titles usually get results.
Alan Loser studied the engraved card. “ ‘Caverness.’ It is Lord Caverness?”
“Lord Ardry, actually. Fam
ily name. Earl of Caverness. Et cetera.”
“I’m impressed enough by the ‘earl’ part. Can’t imagine what the ‘et cetera’ might be.”
Melrose merely smiled. He was examining a shelf of books, none of which he’d ever heard of, and he wondered if they’d been chosen for their obscurity. And then his eye lit on a familiar-looking shiny red cover. Aha! So this is where she’d bought it!
“I see you’re looking at the books. Does your friend like to read?”
Could Agatha read? He picked up the copy of Strangers’ Guide. “Menus, perhaps.”
Alan Loser chuckled. “Likes to eat, does she? Then how about this?”
The book he handed to Melrose was titled Okra Outings. On the cover was a car out of which several spindly-looking okras, all dressed in sunglasses and little hats, were climbing with picnic baskets.
“Gives you ninety-nine ways to cook okra—for picnics, covered-dish suppers, bag lunches, you name it. I don’t think you’ll find an okra cookbook in England. Not, of course, that you’d want one in England.”
“I don’t think I could find an okra in England. Isn’t it that dark green, slimy vegetable that goes in—what’s it called?”
“Gumbo. There aren’t any gumbo recipes in this, though.” He leafed through the book. “She doesn’t want to do the obvious.”
“It never occurred to me there was anything obvious to do with okra at all.”
“I know. She tells you how to cook it to get rid of the slimy coating.”
“But if it’s slimy in the first place, why cook it at all?”
“As you can imagine, the book wasn’t a huge commercial success.”
“I don’t imagine any of these books were.” Melrose looked around. “Mightn’t all of this failure actually put off customers?”
“Good God, are you joking? Or do you have a higher opinion of human nature than I do? You seem to be ignoring man’s baser inclinations. That’s what I thought of naming the shop at first, the Baser Side. But then I liked the variation of ‘nouveau riche’ much better.”
“Here, I think I’ll have this.” Melrose handed him the copy of Strangers’ Guide.
The Horse You Came in On Page 24
