The Case Has Altered (10 page)

Browne, clearly annoyed, stuck his pipe in his mouth with a mean little jab, took it out again. “What were you wanting, Mr. Plant? I don't think it's that pig book, now, is it?”

“Books on antiques, Mr. Browne. Sally, you might be interested to know that I have an acquaintance who painted himself blue and ran up and down the road and all around the houses in his neighborhood.”

Sally's mouth flew open. Forgetting the pickle she was in, she came closer and said, “No, he never did.”

“Oh, yes. His name is Ashley Cripps. Do you know him?”

Sally fingered a lock of her pale blond hair, pulling on it thoughtfully. “No. Why did he?”

Browne said, determinedly, “My books on antiques are right through that archway; I've a good selection.”

“Thank you. Ashley Cripps just wanted to shock everyone.”

“Which part did he paint?” asked Sally, close enough now to touch.

“All of him!”

Sally gasped.

“He didn't look nearly as handsome as Patrick here.” Melrose snapped the book shut. “Very well, Mr. Browne, how much?”

“What? What do you mean? You mean that pig book?”

“I do.” Melrose had taken out his wallet.

“But you don't want that . . . it's damaged.”

“How much?”

When Browne came up with a price, Melrose slid the notes from his wallet, paid up, took the book, and handed it over to Sally, who was utterly speechless. Her mouth was open in a small O, as she looked from her book to Melrose and back again at
Patrick.
Then she half-giggled, clapping her hand to her mouth to hold it in. But it would not be held. “I'm paintin' Bub blue!” Giggling merrily, she ran out the door.

Theo Wrenn Browne, cheated of his daily dose of misery-making, pointed with a bony finger to the next room, as if he were sending Melrose to the gallows. “Back there, Mr. Plant. As I said, through the archway”

 • • • 

T
here were three shelves of books dealing with various subjects—glass, silver, rugs, porcelain, periods of furniture. Melrose sighed and took one down at random, opened it, got discouraged at the encyclopedic knowledge demanded of him, pushed it back. The next one, on Oriental rugs, he set on the floor next to a small stool. He shoved the next book back because of its sheer bulk and chose one on silver that was considerably slimmer. He put this one on the floor, also. Another book was a largish paperback titled
Helluva Deal!
which he put on his stack purely on the basis of the name. In the next book there were a lot of pictures, so he set that on top of the stack.

He sat down on the little milking stool beside his small pile of books and picked up
Helluva Deal!,
which appeared to have the most entertainment potential. He turned it over and looked at the smiling couple on the back—the Nuttings, Bebe and Bob—who had coauthored it. Melrose opened it at random to see a rather grainy reproduction of a picture of Bebe Nutting standing beside a cow. This, thought Melrose, was a refreshing
change in an antiques guide, and he must remember to make Trueblood familiar with it. On the other side of the cow was its new owner, Mr. Hiram Stuck. Mr. Stuck had purchased this cow having been convinced by “someone” that the cow was a direct descendant “of that there Missus O'Leary. I got the papers on it.” Melrose presumed Hiram Stuck meant the cow was the descendant of the O'Leary cow (rather than Mrs. O'Leary herself). As it turned out, Mr. Stuck was one of the several people Bebe and Bob had interviewed, all of whom had been taken in by one con artist or another working one scam or another.

The cow was the only actual
living
thing with a provenance—an alleged provenance—purported to be valuable. He certainly hoped the Owens wouldn't take him round the barnyard to value any livestock. The other objects in the book were conventional enough. Silver, Limoges, settees, urns, and so forth.

Melrose sat on the milking stool reading and being entertained for some moments. He then selected two other books from his stack—one on rugs, one a price guide—put them together with
Helluva Deal!
and went to the front of the store.

Theo Wrenn Browne was taping up a binding and talking on the telephone at the same time, in low tones. Quite pointedly, Browne turned away, lowered his voice even more, then rang off.

“Will that be all, then, Mr. Plant?” He took the three books from Melrose's hands.

“Yes, thanks.”

Browne seemed to blow down his nose in a small fit of condescension. “Really, Mr. Plant, I don't think you'll get much help here.” He looked down at the happy Nuttings.

“Oh, I don't know. You've read it, then?”

“Yes. Silly book, but some like that sort of thing.” He sniffed.

“Uh-huh.” Melrose dropped several notes on the counter, watching Browne tap a message of near—book length into his computer, then listened to the computer whir and whit. “I hope you don't mind my saying—”

Melrose knew he would.

“—but you're not doing that Sally Finch a favor by rewarding her for her bad behavior.”

“But Sally didn't do it. It was Bub. Weren't you paying attention?”

Theo Wrenn Browne rewarded Melrose with a withering look as he bagged up the books.

L
incolnshire,” said Melrose, refusing to lift his eyes from his book.

“Lincolnshire? Why on earth? You don't know anybody in Lincolnshire.” Agatha reached for another scone.

Melrose smiled. Not at her. Her, he ignored. He was smiling over an account of an antiques free-for-all in Twinjump, Idaho, reported in
Helluva Deal!
On the floor beside his chair were two heavy volumes that Trueblood had forced on him in addition to the price guide which he'd been studying all of last night and the whole morning, hoping to stuff himself like an onion in preparation for his trip to Lincolnshire tomorrow. He thought he deserved something on the lighter side, and
Helluva Deal!
certainly met that requirement.

Dribble's
(the price guide) he was finding extremely helpful. He'd been testing himself by pricing his own things. That Staffordshire shepherd and shepherdess there on his mantel
Dribble's
claimed were worth quite a lot. This surprised Melrose; they were such a boring couple to look at. His eye traveled now to a Chinese urn: according to
Dribble's
, a similar one went for £3,000. He felt far richer than he usually did, sitting here. With Agatha. Immediately, he felt poorer.

As she dug deeper in the marmalade jar for a spoonful to put on her scone, Agatha repeated, “I
said
, you don't know anybody in Lincolnshire.”

Melrose sighed. She was always doing that—repeating things in the exact words as if not one word dare be ignored. She was so infinitely ignorable. “I want to see the fens, the tulips.” He turned a page and found a picture of a massive chandelier that could have graced Versailles.

“In
Lincolnshire?
Tulips?”

“Lincolnshire, at least South Lincolnshire, is famous for its tulips and other flowers. Acres and acres of them, miles of them.”

“There won't be tulips in February.”

“No, but the fens will be marvelous this time of year. Bleak and dark. . . . ”

“It sounds off-putting to me. You do have queer tastes.” The spoon clattered round in the jar. Ruthven had taken the precaution of bringing the entire jar of Chivers on the tea tray because she was always complaining she hadn't enough. “Well, it's a place I've absolutely no desire to see.”

Thank you, God. Melrose looked heavenward. He had been uncharacteristically precipitate in even telling her where he was going. Ordinarily, he wouldn't. But he'd simply wanted to change the subject from Ada Crisp and the Jack Russell terrier. He looked at his aunt's foot—ankle, rather—strapped up with tape. It rested on a needlepoint footstool.

She continued. “I can't leave now, anyway. Too busy with my solicitors.”

A battery of them? wondered Melrose. How many were prepared to mount a case against a terrier? “For what barrister do your solicitors act as brief, then?” He closed
Helluva Deal!
and crossed his legs. He might be able to squeeze a moiety of amusement out of this solicitor-thing, after all.

“Really, Melrose. I hardly think it will come to trial. Theo agrees with me.”

Melrose winced. If she invoked the name of Theo Wrenn Browne once more he'd have to call for the gin. “You've always loathed Browne. Why now is he suddenly crushed to your bosom?”

She waved this objection away. “We had our differences, yes—”

“Yes. That he was a ‘dedicated jackarse' and you were ‘a prying old windbag.' Those were your differences.”

“You're making it up, as usual.” She brushed scone-dust from her lap. “At any rate, Theo has advised an out-of-court settlement.”

For the first time, Melrose was actually a little anxious for the fate of Ada Crisp. If that asp, Theo Wrenn Browne, was in on it, God knows where it would all lead. “And just what would that settlement consist of? Ada Crisp has no money. She would have to declare bankruptcy.”

“There's her shop—”

“Aha!
So that's it! One way or another, Mr. Browne is going to get her out of that shop!”

She split another scone. “Don't be ridiculous Melrose. Theo is merely a disinterested observer—”

“The only place where Theo Wrenn Browne would have been a ‘disinterested observer' is at Tiny Tim's Christmas party. Or the sinking of the
Lusitania.
What
he
wants, has always wanted, is to get her out so he can expand his bookshop. Don't tell
me
he hasn't got anything riding on it.” Melrose snapped open his book again and again closed it. He thought for a moment, then said, “Of course, you know, it just might go to trial”—if the magistrates were total nitwits—“it being, perhaps, a precedent-setting case.” He smiled. “And if you lose, well, you'd have to pay costs. I hope you're prepared. Sounds expensive to me.” He turned a page.

“Lose?
Lose?”
Agatha sat back, so shocked she ignored the scone she'd marmaladed up. “I assumed you were on
my
side in this.”

“I'm on the side of Truth,” he said, pompously. “And Justice.” More pompously.

“Well, of course, that's what my side is!” She munched her scone.

“Agatha, hasn't your solicitor asked you
how
your foot happened to get in that pot in the first place?” Melrose had to exercise a good deal of self-control to keep from laughing himself sick.

“Naturally.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

“What do you mean? You
saw
what happened. You were directly across the street, going in the Jack and Hammer, where, I might add, you spend entirely too much time—”

“What I saw was you landing a helluva kick”—he was picking up the Nuttings' bouncy language—“in the dog's side.
That's
what I saw.”

“You saw me fall down—” She held out her arm, pointed a stubby finger at him. “So you want to blame the entire episode on me!”

Melrose held up his hands, palms outward. “Oh, far be it from me to do that. But I wouldn't be surprised if Ada Crisp might not take that view of things. Ada might take umbrage at your smashing up her property.”

“I couldn't get my foot out. What was I to do? Walk around the rest of my life with my foot in a chamber pot?”

Melrose toyed with this image for a moment. Then he retrieved his book from the Sheraton table beside his chair and said, “Don't say I didn't warn you.”

“For lord's sake,” she said scraping the last of the marmalade from the jar, “it was nothing but an old chamber pot!”

“You
hope.”
The book had fallen open to the middle section of illustrations. Here was the Meissen bowl the Spiker sisters of Twinjump had been setting on the floor for their mongrel dog to eat from and even after learning its value continued to put to that service.
(“Ain't nothin' too good for our Alfie
.”) Melrose felt like applauding the Spiker sisters. “You know, Trueblood had a look at that pot. Or the pieces, I should say. Said it reminded him of the Meissen bowl in his shop.”

She sputtered. “Trueblood . . . he's a degenerate coxcomb!”

“Perhaps. But he's a degenerate coxcomb of an antiques expert, and that's something to think about when the prosecution gets going. Trueblood would make an excellent witness.” His smile across the four feet of Kirman carpet (
Dribble's:
£2,000) was slight and unsympathetic. He was warming to the subject of
Ardry vs. Crisp
now. He reflected on the time that Richard Jury had scared the hell out of Theo Wrenn Browne when Browne had threatened Ada Crisp with a lawsuit years ago. Claimed the stuff she set on the walk outside her door was a hazard to life and limb. An obstruction of traffic. Ye gods, for years passersby had stepped gingerly round needlepoint footstools, ancient hobby horses—and, of course, the odd bins of china cups and plates—and never minded. It was just Ada's lot. Jury had scared Browne by telling him stories of the sad ends of landlords who had tried to evict sitting tenants. He had done it with a copy of
Bleak House
under his arm.

“Well?” said Agatha, holding a rock cake aloft.

Melrose raised his eyebrows. “ ‘Well' what?”

“What did he say? Trueblood?”

Despite her disdain of the man, to ignore his opinion in this case would prove costly. Melrose stared at a handsome hunt table he'd always liked.
(Dribble's:
perhaps £500?) and said, “Can't remember. Sorry.”