The Lamorna Wink (22 page)

“But the someone wasn't who the someone said, or else something went wrong.”

Charlie was silent for a few moments, drinking and eating peanuts, before he finally asked, “You think she's dead?”

The strain in his voice made it clear that this was an alternative he didn't want to consider.

Melrose was saved from replying by Mr. Pfinn, who had come down the bar again to slap menus before them. “Quicker if you order now. Got to take out the dogs.”

“
We
do?” Melrose looked over his shoulder at the five in the doorway in mock alarm.

“ 'Course not. I mean me.”

“Very well.” Melrose looked briefly at the menu, which was all that was required, given there were only two choices: shepherd's pie and cod Angelique, whatever that was. “I'll have the cod, minus the Angelique.”

Charlie said, “I'll have the same and another whisky, if you don't mind.”

Pfinn minded. “I'll bring it to you in the dining room.” A clear bribe, and he took away the shot glass.

The woman in the brown suit drained her cocktail and rose. She was apparently the only other diner. Melrose and Charlie pocketed their cigarettes and followed.

They took a table near the woman but not right next to her. Melrose thought tables in the same area would save Johnny from running all over the room. They said good evening to the woman in brown and she nodded and returned the greeting. She was a good-looking, rather regal woman who had once been beautiful but was now at that age—fifty-five or sixty, perhaps—to be called handsome. She seemed completely composed, not the sort to try and start up a conversation on the basis of a simple greeting.

They shook napkins across their laps as Johnny came in from the kitchen, shouldering a tray holding salads, rolls, a water jug, and the shot glass now filled. He smiled a smile he seemed to have been working on as he passed—taking a moment to set down Charlie's whisky—and went to the woman by the window.

His smile a little more practiced, he then bestowed it on Melrose and Charlie. “Did you find everything you needed in the house?”

“I did indeed,” said Charlie.

“Thanks for coming. It's very kind of you,” said Johnny.

“No, no, not at all. I just want to help if I can.”

Johnny nodded and went toward the kitchen.

While they fiddled with their salads, Melrose said, “You told me his mother went off and left him. Why?”

“Because she's worthless. His father—my brother—wasn't much better. I don't know know how those two managed to find each other, but they did. How someone like Johnny could be born of that union, God knows. Really, the whole damned family makes you think you're living in a medieval court—Henry the Eighth or Elizabeth's, something like that. The intrigue, the backbiting, the deeds and misdeeds, the plots, the plans—there were no heroes. But then there was Chris. Like Johnny, she must've skipped that particular gene pool.”

“Do you know the Bletchleys?”

“People you're renting from? Not very well. I ran into the wife a couple of times in the Woodbine. Good-looking, I'll say that for her.” He picked a few sunflower seeds from his salad and added, “Chris couldn't stand her.”

Melrose looked up. “Really? Why?”

Charlie shrugged. “The soul-searching eyes. Not her own eyes, yours.”

“That's a new one.”

“Yeah.” Charlie smiled.

For the first time Melrose realized he had the same ingenuous manner as Johnny Wells. “What is it you do in Penzance, Charlie?”

“Magic.” He smiled at Melrose's questioning look. “I guess that's where Johnny gets it. I have a little shop, called Now You See It.” He pulled a fresh deck of cards from his pocket. “Here's a simple one: I shuffle the cards—” which he did. “You pick one—” which Melrose did. “Put it back in the deck.” Melrose did so. Charlie reshuffled. Then he fanned the cards out on the table, picked one, and held it up.

Melrose shook his head. He was sorry it hadn't worked. “Not that, no.”

Charlie smiled. “I know it isn't. It's under your glass. King of Clubs.”

That's where it was, too. “How in hell did you do that?”

“Sorry.” Charlie shook his head, gathered up the cards, and shoved them back in his pocket. His eyes crinkled at Melrose over the top of his glass.

“Bloody amazing,” said Melrose.

“Uh-huh. The magic shop's the main job. I also take out boats. You know, tourists who want to see Penzance from away. The climate's great here and we get a million tourists. I take them out. I'm better with boats than I am with people.”

“Really?” Melrose gave him a long look.

A
meeting ordained by the gods was how Melrose pictured the meeting between Sergeant Wiggins and Bletchley Hall. Imbued with the aura of death, death still missed being an actual fact.

Wiggins was talking about these “homes for retired gentlefolk” as they drove toward Bletchley Hall in pale afternoon sunlight. “There's of course your typical nursing home; it's small and gloomy and cramped, furnished with iron beds and the yellow light cast by forty-watt bulbs and old magazines. So old you can't even hold out for the May issue, no, sir, May's been and gone and if May didn't revive you, well, June's gone too.”

The rental car was a cheap model and ground its way up the shallow incline as if it were making for Everest's peak. It rattled, but no more than did Sergeant Wiggins, who could obviously speak at great length when a topic inspired him. (He must often have been muffled by Jury when they were on a case together.)

“—metal tray with scrambled eggs from a dry mix and weak coffee, a thimble of juice, thin toast—”

“Sounds like the B-and-B circuit, Sergeant Wiggins.”

Wiggins carried on. “Would you even have your own room? Or have to share. Well, I'd hate that, I would. I'd think you could at least expect a little privacy when you're dying; it's a safe bet you won't get any
after.
”

Melrose wondered what sort of talkathon Wiggins thought he was bound for in the afterlife. If an imaginary nursing home could furnish him with this banquet of topics, what would imagining heaven do for him?

“Sergeant, you're a master of detail.”

Said Wiggins, “They say the devil's in them.”

He certainly was in these, thought Melrose.

In the next five minutes, blessedly silent, they rounded the curve that gave them the first glimpse of Bletchley Hall. It was indeed an imposing facade, and Wiggins's surprise said he appreciated it. It left him—thank God—speechless.

They paused at the stone pillars that flanked the entrance. Ground into stone as if it had grown there was a brass plaque: BLETCHLEY HALL. The long drive-way passed between low honey-colored stone walls over which dripped lush vegetation. Behind the walls were gardens of orchids and beds of bright marigolds. In this temperate climate, even the occasional palm tree seemed at home.

Wiggins pointed one out. Surprised, he said, “Palm trees, Mr. Plant?”

“Well, you know what they call this part of Cornwall: Little Miami.”

“Surely not.”

“Just watch your back and your wallet.”

They stopped on the gravel between the marble steps and the fountain, in which bronze fish, weathered into green, spewed up streams of water and cherubs frolicked, strangling the dolphins they rode. Even the gravel at their feet glittered like crushed diamonds. In the distance was the stream, the orchids, the tall grasses.

“My lord,” said Wiggins in a wondering way, as he shut his car door. “This must cause the
earth
to keep up.”

“I'm sure. Morris Bletchley
has
the earth. The unfortunate viscount and his lady didn't.”

The front door was open; during the day it might always have stood so to suggest either freedom of passage or a four-star hotel. Matron immediately came walking toward them. In her gray dress sprigged with tiny roses she looked like a tea cozy. Plant still didn't know her name, but as she seemed to enjoy being called “Matron,” that's how he introduced her.

Wiggins handed her one of his cards and the name seemed to freeze on her lips as she mouthed “New Scotland Yard.” Nervously she ushered them in. Fumbling with her belt, she asked, “What can I do for you?”

“I'd like to have a word with Mr. Bletchley, if you could just fetch him?”

Matron nodded and weaved off as if struggling through deep water, dolphins, perhaps, and cherubs impeding her progress.

Melrose had detected a whiff of something mixed with her toilet water. A bit of gin in the
l'heure bleu,
perhaps? He wouldn't be a bit surprised to find Moe Bletchley had designated a cocktail hour in between dominoes and dinner. And why not, for God's sake? If you're at death's door what difference does it make if you go through it half potted? Melrose watched her walk the length of gorgeous Kirman carpet that led down the long gallery, off which were the dining and other communal rooms.

Wiggins was admiring the drawing room in which they waited, with its blue brocades and velvets, dark blue curtains and carpeting, and overhead a chandelier that, touched by the sun, showered confetti light across the rug.

They shared the room with two old women sitting in wing chairs who looked as if they'd just been caught in a spell and commanded neither to speak nor to move. They seemed—well,
stuck
there.

“Begging your pardon, gentlemen.”

The voice crept up behind them, and they turned to see a tidy-looking, dark-suited man of indeterminate years, who made one think of a funeral director.

“I'm Dr. Jaynes. What is it you wanted?”

“To see Morris Bletchley.”

Wiggins handed Dr. Jaynes another of his cards.

“You're from Scotland Yard?”

“He is.” Melrose nodded toward Wiggins. “I'm from Northants.”

Dr. Jaynes seemed puzzled by this strange coupling of places. He said to Wiggins, “You're here in an official capacity?”

My God, thought Melrose, if it was this hard to convince them of what a calling card clearly stated, how would you ever convince them you weren't dead yet?

“No, sir,” said Wiggins, “I'd merely like to talk to Mr. Bletchley, as we told your matron.”

He still didn't seem convinced. Life at Bletchley Hall must really ride the rails of ritual if two strangers turning up created such a stir.

Dr. Jaynes seemed at a loss. “Of course, Mr. Bletchley hasn't the time to see people unless they've an appointment.”

Melrose sighed. How was it he had missed the pleasure of Jaynes's company when he was here before? He told Jaynes he'd already talked to Morris Bletchley.

“I see, I see.” Jaynes was as tentative as one can get and still remain on the scene. “Then I'll just have a word with Mr.—”

But he could have saved his breath to cool his porridge, for here came Morris Bletchley at full tilt across the doorsill of the blue drawing room. He pulled up and braked. Melrose thought he saw sparks.

“Dr. Jaynes, I'll see to these gentlemen. Hadn't you better get back to your patients?”

Dr. Jaynes smiled grimly at Moe Bletchley and departed.

“What's going on?” Moe Bletchley fiddled with a lever on his wheelchair. “I don't mean with
you
two, what's going on with my brakes? I nearly ran down Mrs. Fry back there.” He chuckled. “Could someone be trying to bump me off?”

Wiggins said, stepping into I'm-on-the-job mode, “I don't think it would be efficient to use a wheelchair for that, sir.”

Morris Bletchley apparently got a real kick out of this pointing out of the obvious. “And you're”—he looked at the card Matron must have turned over to him—“Mr. Wiggins, Scotland Yard, that right?”

“Yes, sir.
Detective Sergeant
Wiggins.”

Melrose knew this slight condescension would end smartly when Wiggins got a deeper whiff of this hospice-nursing-home outfit.

“Well, Sergeant, I reckon I don't know any more about the Wells woman than I did when I talked to your cohort here.” He leaned his head in Plant's direction. “Chris Wells helps us out, and she's damned good at it, too. Drove one or two of the guests to see their families, took 'em to hospital, that sort of thing. So I did have contact with her, but I didn't know anything about her family or friends. Come on, let's go in the drawing room—they won't mind,” he added, with a look at the old ladies.

Who hadn't, Melrose decided, moved an inch in any direction. Light wavered, shadows shifted in these blue environs, creating an underwater effect much lovelier than that of the Drowned Man. Melrose found it as good as a sedative and wasn't surprised that the old ladies had fallen asleep. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open himself.

“Let's go out to the sunroom; I need a smoke and you can't do it in here. It would be hard on our emphysema patients.”

“And yourself,” Wiggins said sententiously.

Moe rose from his wheelchair and shoved it out into the hall. “I need to stretch my legs. Come on.”

They sat around the same table. The two old chess players were absent, but an old woman at the other end of the sunroom was feeding coins into a slot machine with her face so close to the display she could have licked it.

“Are your patients here all wealthy?” asked Wiggins.

“No. Why? Are you supposed to be if you're dying?”

“Oh, no, it's just that this is clearly an expensive operation.”