Dust

by Martha Grimes

  She stood there with her bright face beaming. “Chef thought it would complement your dish, better’n that other one, anyway.”

  Across the table, Henry stuck his thumb in his waistcoat pocket and laughed.

  “Perhaps it would complement it, but I prefer the insult of a Vosne Romanée.” Melrose opened the wine list, which she had not collected, drummed his fingers on it and hit on the next least-likely bottle. “How about the Musigny? The Grand Cru?”

  “I’ll see, sir.” She breezed off with her bottle of plonk and her self-assurance.

  Melrose grew quite merry. He was in for an evening of deceit, evasion, and manipulation.

  Henry had to comment, of course: I’d be happy to wager ten guineas that she wins round two. With this he drew out his worn leather billfold and slapped a note on the table.

  Melrose was astounded at this profligacy. You don’t seriously think this place is going to have the Musigny?

  Oh, but they don’t have to have it. That’s the point, isn’t it? Henry smoked his cigar.

  In a moment, he’s going to blow smoke rings, thought Melrose.

  He did.

  She was back tout de suite.

  “Oh, we are sorry, sir—”

  We. Now it was a conspiracy!

  “—but we didn’t get our delivery of the Musigny.”

  As if it were brought around on a milk float!

  “But our sommelier suggests this—”

  A Mosel! He opened his mouth to object to this lunatic substitution, when she said—whispered as if it were the best-kept secret in Rye—“It’s a very good year.”

  Melrose looked at the label. “It’s a 1975. The musk is still wet behind the ears. It’s a Riesling—white.”

  That hardly put her off. “It’s from grapes that was grown in the Mosel district.”

  “Seeing it’s a Mosel, that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “On the south slope. Above the river.”

  “What river?”

  “Why, the Moselle, of course.”

  Henry blew a smoke ring. His fingers crept toward the money.

  “Germany doesn’t have slopes.” Of course it did, but she didn’t know that.

  She laughed. “Oh, you are a caution, sir.”

  “Actually, I’d love a word with your sommelier.”

  This earned Melrose a disappointed look from Henry. Below the belt, dear fellow.

  “I’m sorry, sir. He’s just this minute gone.”

  Henry snickered, Melrose sighed. “Just pour.”

  Henry pulled back his money—with Melrose’s own two fivers on top of it.

  She popped out the cork with great élan, tilted a little into his glass, and waited.

  “Oh, no need to bother with tasting; I’m sure it’s as fine as can be.”

  She actually looked disappointed.

  So did Henry.

  Melrose said to him: Do you expect me to keep playing along with this?

  Of course. What do you think life is if not this?

  Grudgingly, Melrose swirled the wine around, sniffed it, tasted it. The waitress was actually looking on expectantly as if she were really concerned.

  “Excellent!” said Melrose, who had never liked Mosel.

  “Thank you, sir. We thought you’d approve. Anyhow, it’ll go much better with the poisson.” She sailed off.

  Henry blew smoke rings.

  Following this entertaining interlude, after the unremarkable wine and grilled fish, Melrose was prepared to return to Lamb House.

  He wondered, upon entering the house and seeing his suitcase still sitting resolutely by the stairs like an abandoned and still obedient dog, if he had left it packed because he would rather go than stay.

  He tossed his coat over the banister again and went into the library, where he ran a finger over the spines of the Henry James œuvre. He pulled out one of the short story collections, read through the contents, looking for one of James’s ghost stories. James was rather big on ghosts and Melrose wondered why, as he turned to the window and stood looking out on darkness.

  It seemed an anomaly, James and ghost stories. Hadn’t there been some incident about the elder James, his father, having had an experience with an apparition? And his brother William was more than a little bit interested in ghostly phenomena.

  Back to the book. He found “The Jolly Corner,” which he could read in bed. It was one of the best known; Melrose had read it years ago. This volume in hand he walked back to the entryway, picked up his suitcase, and walked upstairs.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  With his book still splayed beneath his hand, Melrose awoke to a morning that looked as fresh as a ’75 Beaujolais Nouveau. An inept metaphor, but he would probably never recover from the previous night’s wine list.

  He heard sounds below that seemed to come from the kitchen. Cooking sounds, he hoped. He was aware that he was famished. Last night’s meal had not hung about him for long, probably because he had expended so much energy that any supplied by the food and drink had been used up before he’d even left the restaurant. Ah! But that had been an excellent bit of cabaret, hadn’t it? He relived it as he finished dressing.

  He was just on his way downstairs when the door knocker sounded. Was he supposed to answer? Or was Mrs. Jessup? What was the protocol—Oh, who cares? Just go to the door!

  The man on the step was tall, light-haired, and with bones chiseled into handsomeness. Very Germanic, Melrose said to himself, aware that he did so only because he knew this man’s origins.

  The man reached out his hand. “Kurt Brunner. Superintendent Jury suggested I might be of some help to you in Rye. You’re interested in the history of the area, he said.”

  Far from it, thought Melrose. The last thing he wanted to do was to go hacking back through 1066 and its attendant miseries, no matter how he’d sworn last night to do precisely this. He’d wait for the miniseries. “Ah, yes! Yes, he did mention you, Mr. Brunner. I’ll be happy for your help. Shall we sit down?” Melrose motioned toward one of the armchairs in the sitting room, and took the other himself.

  “I’m especially interested in the history of Lamb House. I’m writing a monograph on Henry James.” Now why in hell did he have to add that bit of information? It would undoubtedly get him in hot water later on.

  Brunner wasn’t interested in monographs, fortunately. “I know Lamb House well. I was, I guess you’d say, assistant to Billy Maples.” He paused. “I don’t know if you know about—”

  “His being shot to death? Yes. The superintendent told me about it; it was in all the papers. A terrible thing.”

  Mrs. Jessup appeared in the doorway at that point. “Lord Ardry hasn’t even had his morning tea, Mr. Brunner,” she said in a scolding voice, as if Melrose’s oversleeping were Brunner’s fault. She was all solicitation, that is, except for the look she shot Brunner’s way. What was in that sharp glance?

  “I’m sorry,” Brunner started up.

  Melrose waved him back down. “Thank you, Mrs. Jessup. Perhaps we could have it now. You’ll have tea, Mr. Brunner?”

  “Yes, I’d like a cup.”

  “I’ll just fetch it, then.” She went back to the kitchen.

  “Have police made any headway?”

  Brunner smiled slightly. “You might know more than I, considering.”

  Had that smile been shifty? “Oh, you mean from Mr. Jury.” Melrose laughed artificially. “He doesn’t take me into his confidence.”

  “As far as I know, no one’s been arrested.”

  “No.” Melrose paused to consider the best way to proceed. “You said you were Billy’s—Billy Maples’s—assistant? I’m not sure—exactly what did that involve?”

  Brunner nodded. “It wasn’t taking down letters, no. A bit of everything. Keeping track of his affairs.”

  “You mean engagements? Money things? Bills? All that?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think that was of as much importance as—” He looked strained, as if formulating an answ
er required concentration. “Say, adviser.”

  On the heels of that rather inscrutable statement, Mrs. Jessup came in with the tea tray, which she set on the table between them. Rather abruptly, Melrose thought. She left.

  Brunner took over. “I’m not her favorite person,” he said, raising the milk jug. “Milk? Sugar?” He was, apparently, used to playing host.

  “Both. One sugar. Why is that? I mean, her feelings about you.”

  Brunner shrugged. “I’m not sure. Jealousy, perhaps. She might consider Lamb House her own little fiefdom. I was in the way. And I’m German, of course, which doesn’t help matters.” He stirred his cup.

  Melrose pondered that. “You mean, she’s still a holdout over the war?”

  “Most definitely. Some people have never gotten over the war. Wars, I should say.”

  “Still, she strikes me as the motherly sort. And your employer was young and”—he tried it out—“unattached.”

  Here Kurt Brunner gave Melrose a look, probably wondering if he should divulge confidences, even though the confidant was dead. Or maybe even because he was dead.

  Melrose wanted to pursue this line, but Brunner should have by now pondered why the talk was rather distant from Rye and Lamb House. Melrose merely said, “He sounds a decent sort.”

  “He was, very.”

  “Interesting that he settled here in Rye.”

  “I don’t think he meant to stay more than a year. He was a great fan of Henry James, I know that. I am, too.”

  “Ah! As for myself, I’m doing research. I’m writing a book on James. The middle years.” God, but how stupid of him. He didn’t know the middle years from the early years from the final years from the afterlife. All he knew was that James had written his three most involved novels later in life.

  “Oh? I thought it was a monograph.”

  Look at that. He’d already blundered just fifteen minutes into the conversation. “Oh, that’s an extract from the whole manuscript.”

  “The middle years.” Kurt Brunner seemed to be casting around for an observation. He asked, “What marks that period for you? It wouldn’t have been the three great novels. Those came later.”

  “You’re right.” Melrose steepled his fingers and cursed himself and tried to dredge up some memory of James’s work in that period.

  Then Brunner helped out by exclaiming, “Guy Domville! That’s it, isn’t it? That awful debacle?”

  Melrose thanked him silently for providing the work. Everyone knew about that play. “Yes. The play where James was laughed off the stage. Awful. The man took an awful beating for that.”

  Kurt began to laugh. “There’s a caricature or a cartoon of James in which he’s shown in Buñol, the site of the tomatina. We went there, Billy and I—”

  “Oh, you’re talking about that tomato-throwing thing? What in God’s name is the attraction?”

  “I have no idea. You get covered with tomato pulp. Billy said he’d never touch another tomato again in any way, shape, or form. In any event, this cartoon thing of James, clearly a victim of the tomatina. The caption read, ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL RUN OFGUY DOMVILLE.”

  Melrose laughed. “Poor man.”

  “But he took that blasting and came out the better for it, didn’t he?”

  Melrose was ready to stomp all over that cliché. “No, he didn’t.”

  “No?”

  “Well, one doesn’t, does one? One is lucky if one comes out alive, never mind better.” He wondered if he could crowd one more “one” into his observation. “One becomes a little embittered, a little aggrieved.” God! Did he have to bring in his horse? How stuffy he sounded! Yet it might be a good pose; no one as smug and self-satisfied as Melrose would appear in Rye to investigate a murder.

  “You’re probably right.” Brunner set down his cup and asked, “Would you like to go out and walk around Rye?”

  “Excellent idea!” Not really; the only walk Melrose wanted to take was a destination walk. From Ardry End to the Jack and Hammer, or across the street to the Wrenn’s Nest, to annoy Theo Wrenn Browne. Or to the library, which was generally on his way to the pub, anyway, so that was two destinations for the price of one. He had heard London was a marvelous city for walking, people were always exclaiming over green expanses such as Kew, but he wouldn’t know. Once he established himself in Boring’s, that was London enough for him. The Boring’s clientele was as frozen in place as the planets, as fixed as plumbing.

  But this morning, he shrugged on his coat and he and Kurt Brunner set off.

  It sounded absolutely Victorian.

  “How much do you know about Rye?”

  Nothing. “Oh, quite a bit, I mean I’m familiar with its history and all. You know, the Battle of Hastings—well, that’s not Rye, exactly; it’s one of the Cinque Ports. I’ve a friend who insists it’s not five, but seven.” Melrose laughed. “In spite of its being cinque, correct? She claims there are two towns thrown in. Extra.”

  “She’s right.”

  Melrose stopped dead. “Right?”

  Kurt smiled. “I believe it’s formally called Cinque Ports and Two Ancient Towns. The towns I think are Winchelsea and Rye. They were, in medieval times, a maritime corporation. Very important because the confederation was responsible for naval defense.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  They started walking again.

  They had set their walk toward the High Street and had turned off onto a cliff road. There was a sort of terrace with a telescope, a pleasant stop for tourists, who with the aid of the telescope could see—Kurt told him—to Dungeness and the cliffs of Dover. They looked out over the Town Salts toward the river. The area appeared to be a multiuse place where children could play, cars could park. Within it were pools of water, one or two the size of small lakes. It must have been bird heaven. There were fishing boats in the distance; beyond was the Rother.

  “The Salts: it’s hard to believe all that was covered by the sea a hundred years ago. There’s a footpath down there. Billy walked there often. There are several bird hides, if you’re a bird-watcher.”

  Melrose shook his head. “If they fly into the Lamb House garden, I’ll be happy to watch them. But I’ve never understood the pleasure of standing around at dawn in wet grass or in a drafty box waiting for a glimpse of the copper-throated plover.”

  “I don’t know that bird. Farther away over there is the nature preserve. That stretch of water is called Castle Water. It’s beside Camber Castle.” The sun made the water blaze.

  “All of this was created by the sea’s pulling back?” said Melrose. “It seems strange, doesn’t it? The sea is usually what moves in and claims a place.” Thinking of the best way to proceed about Billy Maples, Melrose drew out his cigarette case. He didn’t want to appear too curious. “Your little description of Billy is surprising. I got the impression from Mrs. Jessup there never was much on Billy’s mind. Rather, he was a bit of a playboy. If that arcane expression fits. She thinks him—thought him—rather spoiled.”

  “By what, I wonder? By whom? His parents? I seriously doubt it. Billy’s problem was that he was scattered. His focus didn’t last long. But when it was there, it was there. He was quite intense.”

  “Do you think he focused on the wrong thing and it got him killed?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, I’ve no idea. I know as much about Billy Maples as about the copper-throated plover.”

  Kurt laughed again.

  “Billy was fascinated, perhaps morbidly so, by the war. I mean World War Two. He liked to go over to Lambeth to the Imperial War Museum. And since I had been a child in Berlin during the war, he asked me endless questions about it. I was a little kid, I was three or four and told him I just didn’t recall much. He wanted to know—ah, we were Jews, you see; my parents both died in Auschwitz. Billy thought I must have come out of the war terribly angry and bitter and wanting revenge.”

  Melrose was taken aback by Kurt Brunner’s carelessly offering a
motive for murder. “Revenge? You mean for your real or imagined mistreatment?”

  “It wouldn’t have to be that personal, would it?”

  He turned from the shingle and the blazing water and stood looking at the street and the little buildings snugly fitted against one another. The street was filled with shadows.

  “It would probably be part of the reason Mrs. Jessup is not very fond of me. Her family had a hard time of it during the war.”

  “She wasn’t alone in that regard.”

  “No, but two of her sisters died in some evacuation attempt.”

  Melrose wanted to steer the conversation away from the cook and back to Billy.

  They were walking again along East Cliff Street.

  “Why would such a young man want to sequester himself in the world of Henry James?”

  “Oh, I don’t think it was that world. Though he did have a strong liking for James’s books. I think it was a bit of a lark, for one thing. Billy usually had a hundred reasons for things he did. It just so happened that the National Trust was looking for a stopgap, someone to take on Lamb House for a year. Until they could get things sorted. Well, Billy heard about it and thought it would be interesting. That, and a dare.” Kurt smiled.

  “A dare?”

  “His fiancée told him he wouldn’t last twenty-four hours in Rye. I think Billy was offended to be thought so city bound, to be thought, well, shallow in that he couldn’t manage this solitude because he had no inner resources.”

  Melrose flung out his arm as they passed the well-lit and well-attended Mermaid Tavern. “This is scarcely solitude!”

  “No, not if you’re inside it. I’ve walked this street time and again. Every time I’ve felt the quiet seep into my bones. The silence seems palpable. In winter when the fog rolls in or the mist covers the ground and you can’t see your feet—it’s all very isolating. Rye is like one of those places we wander into in dreams.”

  “I wonder how much of his work he composed walking these streets. Henry James, I mean.”

  “Very little is my guess. I see James as an indoor man when it came to writing.”