The Grave Maurice

by Martha Grimes

  When she said the superintendent wasn’t to be disturbed, Melrose raised his voice a disturbed notch. “It’s his auntie Agatha; I’m ever so worried since I found out about that ’orrible business. Can’t I just speak to ’im fer a moment?”

  Melrose could hear Jury arguing with her in the background. Then finally his voice came over the line, “Aunt Agatha!”

  “Has she gone?” Melrose asked on his end.

  “No,” Jury answered.

  “Well, can’t you get her out of your room?”

  “You’re kidding. Aunt Agatha,” he quickly added.

  Jury enjoyed this sort of thing, Melrose was sure; it must have been similar to the intractability of witnesses and to intractable circumstance. “Listen. I need you to do something. I’m in Cambridge. I’ve driven Vernon Rice here because the police wanted him to have a look at the body, see if he knows-or knew-her. I imagine they also wanted to ask him more questions since he’s still there and it’s been forty-five minutes. I want to see the body myself. Do you want me to?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how can I? I’m not family or friend or anything that would get me a ticket in.”

  “Simple. I’ll just tell them you might have recognized her. Okay, Hannibal’s gone, so I can speak freely.”

  “Thank God. Only I didn’t see the woman. How could I recognize her?”

  “You said you were very near the stretcher as they brought it by, moving it toward the ambulance.”

  “Yes, I was, but-”

  “That’s good enough.”

  “How can it be?”

  A huge sigh from Jury. “I’m not helping you out in a criminal act, for God’s sake. All you want is to view a dead body. Where are you?”

  “Pub down the street.”

  “Go back to the station. I’ll call Cambridge right away. I’ve a good friend there. Greene’s his name in case someone asks. Detective chief inspector, he is.”

  Melrose drank off most of the pint waiting for him at the bar, bought a packet of vinegar crisps and ate them while walking back down the road. He had nearly finished them when he realized a dead body might best be seen on an empty stomach.

  Nothing of that nature occurred, however. As a young woman police constable led him on and off the elevator and down a corridor to the morgue, his stomach was perfectly fine. And it wasn’t as if he’d never seen a body before. Last year in Cornwall, for instance. But that was a case of the very recently dead, when they looked exactly the same as they always had. Except for the blood and the bullet holes. But the blood had been hidden by the thick dark rug, and the bullet wounds were invisible, at least from where he stood.

  In the long corridor, he hung back. This episode had turned suddenly serious on him. In his mind’s eye he saw the face of Nell Ryder and marveled at Vernon Rice’s conviction that she could not be dead. And he had this irrational fear that he would look down at this dead woman and he would see Nell Ryder. It was as if the others who had seen this woman-her grandfather, Maurice, even the trainer, Davison-had blinded themselves to the face they saw.

  Why was he doing this? Why? The photograph had looked alive, as if it had captured Nell, and the old superstition was true about the camera’s catching the soul of its subject.

  He had been walking slowly, and now stopped dead. With a conviction to rival Rice’s own, he was sure that she was dead. His throat felt constricted.

  “Coming, sir?” The pleasant WPC turned toward him and smiled.

  Melrose picked up his pace. “Sorry.”

  “That’s all right. Most people walk more slowly here. Is it a family member you’ve come to-sorry, you don’t know yet, do you?”

  “No.”

  They had stopped for a moment. They started walking again.

  “It’s right here, sir. See, there’s a panel they’ll slide back, and you just look through that pane of glass.”

  Melrose did not respond; he merely waited. The panel slid back and he was looking at the woman lying on the gurney. His eyes widened in astonishment.

  “Is it who you thought?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t recognize her, then?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Sitting in one of the interview rooms, he had told the detective inspector working the case as much as he could about the woman at the bar in the Grave Maurice.

  Unfortunately (Melrose told the detective), he hadn’t paid much attention to the other woman, so couldn’t help them there.

  “Did she appear to know Dr. Ryder personally?”

  “It’s hard to say. She certainly knew about him. She knew about his niece, Nell Ryder.”

  “You think, then, this woman knew the family, or at least one of them intimately.”

  “I rather doubt the intimacy since none of them even knows this woman.” Or say they don’t, Melrose didn’t add.

  “Or say they don’t,” the detective did add.

  “They wanted to know if I owned a weapon. A.22, to be more precise. I told them no, but they wanted permission to search my flat, anyway.” Vernon told Melrose this on the way back to London. “Who the hell is she?”

  Melrose was watching the rain-slick road, now dark. “When did Dan Ryder die?”

  “A little over two years ago.”

  “Before Nell disappeared.”

  Vernon turned in his seat to stare. “You think that comes into it?”

  “Merely a thought. It’s just that you’ve now had three terrible events occur in a short time. It’s possible all three are connected, don’t you think?”

  Vernon shook his head. “Possible, but unlikely.”

  Up ahead Melrose spotted the carnival red of a Little Chef, the black-and-white-checked trousers of its familiar logo. An icon of childhood. He would devil his parents to stop at every one. Even as a child he realized this was completely unreasonable, to expect them to keep stopping. But it was merely a step in a plan: for then he was almost certain they’d stop at every third one, and that made at least two stops per longish trip, often three. Melrose thought himself pretty cagy, even as a child, really good at working a room.

  “Great, I could use some food,” Vernon said.

  Without knowing it, Melrose had pulled off the road and into the Little Chef’s car park. He laughed. He must have gone on autopilot. “Did you like these places when you were a kid?”

  They were climbing out of the car and Vernon slammed his door with a flourish. “Hell, yes. Little Chefs and Happy Eaters, though they were clones of Little Chefs. Let’s go.”

  They walked toward what Melrose thought were impossibly lighted-up windows.

  The tables, counter, mirrors were so cleanly bright they might have been scrubbed between each load of customers. The waitresses and waiters were as clean as nurses and doctors who had just scrubbed in. It was like having the hygienic benefits of an OR without the mortal consequences.

  Melrose slid across the cool plastic bench in the long booth and grabbed the menu.

  “Beans on toast,” Vernon said, barely glancing at the offerings.

  Melrose ordered everything fried-eggs, sausages, bread, chips and a tomato.

  Vernon said, “You wouldn’t catch me eating beans on toast at home.” The waitress set down their coffee, smiled her clean smile and left.

  “Of course not. It’s what you eat at Little Chef. I know a detective sergeant who likes Little Chef but doesn’t appear to connect it to childhood. He’s not nostalgic so he loves it for its own sake.”

  “A Little Chef purist.”

  “Right.”

  “Arthur likes to tell me I never grew up. I say, How would you know, you didn’t even know me then? and he says I don’t have to; I know you now.” Vernon laughed.

  Melrose smiled. “You two get on very well together.”

  “Oh, sure. He pays absolutely no attention to me when it comes to investing, though. He could be tripling his income if he’d listen to me.”

  They were silent for a few mom
ents, fiddling with menus that hadn’t been plucked immediately from their hands. Melrose asked, “Was there some trouble between the family and Dan Ryder?”

  “Arthur was pretty much fed up. And I don’t think Dan and Roger ever really got along, despite being brothers. Totally different sorts. Roger is cautious; Danny was reckless, really reckless. He was always raising the bar. You know, to see how high he could jump-I mean, literally as well as figuratively. He took too many chances. His first wife, Marybeth, left him because of that, though she wasn’t much of a treat to begin with. Danny was an addicted gambler. He died owing a ton of money to the wrong people, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the reason he left England. These are the kind of people who don’t forgive debts for sentimental reasons like death. The kind who manage to get back at the family if that’s the only way they can collect.”

  “So did these people move on Arthur?”

  Vernon nodded. “I paid off a lot of it to keep Arthur from knowing how much it was.”

  “That was certainly decent of you.”

  “Not really. It was just sitting around.”

  Melrose smiled. “I doubt you’d leave money sitting around for very long.”

  “Well, I had some stocks that weren’t earning their keep. I hated the picture of Arthur’s discovering his son was selling the farm, metaphorically speaking.”

  “Did you know Dan?”

  “Not very well. I met him once or twice when Ma and Arthur were, you know, getting together. I saw him at the races. He was brilliant, I’ll say that. This was before they got married. I was pretty old-thirty-two-”

  Melrose liked that definition of “pretty old.”

  “-and had my business in the City. So I didn’t get up to Cambridge very often. Not that I was giving it a pass, not at all. I liked it there. I liked Arthur and-the others.”

  He didn’t want to single out Nell, apparently. “But you seem to get up there quite a bit lately.”

  Vernon looked down at his beans on toast. “Well, I should, don’t you think? Arthur’s suffered some terrible losses. Danny, Ma, Nellie…” His voice trailed off.

  “Your mother was not a younger woman, was she?” Melrose cut off a piece of fried bread.

  Vernon laughed. “No. They were contemporaries. Arthur never had a midlife crisis. My mother was a great person-very outgoing and at the same time private. They were married for only two years when she died.” His eyes still on the plate he added, “I really miss her, Mum.” He fell quiet.

  Nodding at the untouched plate, Melrose asked, “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  Vernon sighed. “I didn’t really want to eat this; I just wanted to look at it. Do you ever do that?”

  Melrose thought Vernon looked hopeful that he wasn’t crazy all by himself. “Oh, yes. Well, I eat at least a token bite when I feel that way. He held up the triangle of bread he’d been working on. He wondered how much of childhood Vernon still inhabited and also wondered how much emptiness could be appeased just by looking. As Vernon took a token bite of beans, Melrose said, “You said in the restaurant you didn’t know Nell Ryder very well. How old was she when you met her?”

  “Fifteen. It was only a few months before she disappeared.”

  “She’d be seventeen now.”

  Vernon fooled with his fork and nodded.

  “I saw pictures of Nell. She seemed-I don’t know-airy, ethereal, not quite of this world. Which is hard to do in one of those Barbour coats and muddy boots.” Melrose ate his sausage. “That’s not a good description of her, though. She looked like someone with a purpose. Someone dedicated, but to what I don’t know.”

  “Horses, for one thing.” Vernon paused. “To tell the truth, I can’t think of another thing.” He cut off a wedge of toast. “What you might be seeing in her is poise, a person poised on the edge of something and who manages to keep her balance.” Vernon’s eyebrows inched upward as if asking Melrose to confirm this.

  Melrose nodded.

  Vernon went on. “When I met her I took her to be some years older. I told her this and she said it was from being around horses all her life; it gives you poise and confidence. If you don’t have it, they may allow you to ride them, or feed them, or brush them down, but eventually they turn their backs. She wants to be a trainer. Davison thinks she’s a natural.”

  “Is the investigation ongoing?”

  “No. But I’ve got a private investigator. He’s still looking.”

  “After nearly two years?” Melrose raised an eyebrow.

  “After ten, if it’s necessary.”

  Melrose felt slightly abashed. He thought for a minute and then asked, “Was there a set time in the evening for seeing to the horses?”

  “Yes, of course. Evening stables and then Davison goes around again before he leaves at night.”

  “Which means that everyone knew when things were battened down for the night and no one around?”

  “You’re suggesting that the person would have been either one of us or someone else who knew the schedule?”

  Melrose paused. “Not exactly.” He paused again. “Just a thought.” Vernon Rice didn’t appear to question Melrose’s extended interest in the Ryders’ misfortunes, but, of course, the body lying in the Cambridge police station pretty much took care of Melrose’s motive.

  “This private investigator you’ve been paying for all this time-”

  “Leon Stone?”

  “What is he continuing to do?”

  “He hasn’t got a fresh lead, but at least he’s looking; the police aren’t. Not that I blame them. An abduction unsolved after nearly two years? The case isn’t closed, but it’s certainly resting. They think she’s dead.”

  He said this so matter-of-factly, Melrose would have thought he was indifferent to the case. “Why are you so certain she’s not?”

  “It’s something you know, that’s all.” Vernon shook his head.

  Melrose said, “There’ve been no demands. There should be, if not money, for something. Surely.”

  “Unless she went to save someone else.”

  “But that would mean she herself was valuable to them.”

  Again, Vernon shook his head. He shoved his plate away.

  For a few moments they sat in silence as Melrose ate and Vernon looked bereft. Melrose was thinking. “Tell me: are there any high-stakes races coming up?”

  “Yes. There always are. Here, elsewhere. It’s not the purse of these races-although they can pay a lot-it’s the boost they do to the reputation of the stud farm. Any horse that wins the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe or the American ones such as the Derby or, God willing, the Triple Crown-those races are pure gold when it comes to breeding. But such races are run every year.”

  “Would Aqueduct have qualified?”

  “Yes, but as I said before, he couldn’t be entered as Aqueduct himself.”

  “But he could win registered as Bozo the Clown.” Melrose paused. “Have you considered that someone wanted Nell dead? That she had enemies?”

  “Leon Stone considered it.”

  “An idea you jettisoned?”

  Vernon nodded. “In that case stealing the horse was simply a smoke screen? Something like that?”

  “Something like that, yes. What runs counter to that idea is that they’ve never found her body. The thoroughness of police when it comes to searches like that is legendary. The woods behind the house would literally have not a leaf unturned. Still, it’s a theory in the running. Did someone gain from her death?”

  “But no death has been reported. So what would be gained?”

  “Something in the future? Anyway, if Ryder is having financial troubles, I expect he wouldn’t be leaving a fortune to anyone.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. In terms of liquid assets, he hasn’t a great deal. In terms of assets, period, he’s got a lot. He’s just not using the potential. He could, of course, sell the farm and realize a big profit. Anderson’s been wanting to buy him out for years. But it w
ould be far more valuable to keep Ryder Stud and simply syndicate the horses. And increase the breeding shares. Samarkand has sired a number of foals who’ve gone on to win in the six figures. In other words, Arthur could be making enough to pay Danny’s gambling debts several times over. What he’s resisting most is syndication. With a horse, for instance, like Criminal Type, say he sold off twenty shares-keeping another dozen for himself-at, say, fifty thousand a share, which would be low for that horse. There’s a cool million just for the shares sold on one horse. He’s got several that good or better. And that’s not counting the shares in breeding rights. I’ve been trying to talk him into this for years, but here’s where profit loses out to sentiment.” Vernon smiled.

  “Somehow in his mind, he sees Criminal Type cut up into twenty pieces? Literally?”

  Vernon was now eating his beans and toast, which must be stone-cold by now, with enthusiasm. “Exactly. Arthur can bring himself to selling breeding rights only by selling very few. Less than any other owner around. Can you imagine the profit from a horse like Criminal Type, whose progeny thus far have already won stakes races to the tune of eight or nine million? Ten colts, averaging, say, half a million apiece? And that’s only up to now.”

  “A horse such as Aqueduct would be worth a fortune, then, theoretically?”

  The waitress was hovering, pouring a small waterfall of hot coffee into their cups. Melrose noticed a paler circle of skin where a wedding band had once been and wondered why she’d taken it off.

  Vernon shook his head. “As I said, no one else could run him or breed him under the Aqueduct name.” Vernon drew a crumpled pack of cigarettes from an inner pocket, together with a lighter. It could easily have been traded for a share in Aqueduct. It was platinum. As Melrose took a cigarette and leaned over so Vernon could light it, he wondered just how much money the man had.

  “Do Little Chefs have a no-smoking section?”

  “It’s not this one, wherever it is,” Vernon said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Back to square one,” said Melrose early the next morning as he sat in Jury’s hospital room. “Abducted. Horse hijacked. Square one.” “Considering you actually witnessed this woman whom nobody knows talking to someone in the Grave Maurice, I’d hardly say we’re back to square one. You might be the only person who has a line on her. You said she was talking about Nell Ryder?”