The Old Wine Shades (24 page)

‘You know, I bet Tilda would rather have company she could pretend with.’

Shrugging again, Caroline said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘Tell me: Did you like the little boy? His name was Robbie.’

‘He was okay.’ Now she was bouncing a bit of balled-up paper on the palm of her hand. ‘The lady was mad at him though, I think. She called and called from the terrace.’

‘Why would she have been mad?’

‘Because he left the house and went to see what Tilda was doing. He just pretended he didn’t hear her.’

‘It sounds like the boy and the dog were in the same boat.’ Caroline turned her head to look at him. The smile was happy, and honest. It fairly glimmered.

Beneath the fake prettiness was the real thing.

28

 
‘So what you’re suggesting is that each of us put forward a solution to this little mystery,’ said Marshall Trueblood, as they sat in the Jack and Hammer running up a bar bill. None of them had come with money, or at least not folding, which was a laugh, considering the average income of each. Melrose Plant’s and Vivian Rivington’s were inherited. Diane Demorney’s three divorces had been spectacularly fruitful. Marshall Trueblood (affluent antiques dealer) and Joanna Lewes (incredibly affluent writer) actually worked for a living (‘or pretended to,’ was Joanna’s assessment). One could say that Mrs. Withersby and Theo Wrenn Browne also worked for a living, but hadn’t had any success with affluence. (Theo would not be happy at being grouped with Mrs. Withersby.)

Melrose had spent a good part of the afternoon in here reviewing what Jury had told him about the case. They were fascinated by it. They had insisted upon, and he had gone into, exquisite detail. Joanna Lewes (she being a writer) had importuned him not to leave anything out. Thus Melrose had slogged through quantum mechanics, string theory, the Stoddard Clinic and even what he knew about the mathematician Gödel. He was quite amazed at the way all of them (especially Marshall Trueblood) had drunk these details up, along with their beer, whiskey and martinis. But given that Long Piddleton was not exactly a destination village with a mellow-stoned, pricey country hotel; or a stormy coastline squawked over by scudding gulls; or a couple of restaurants that vied with Les Quatre Saisons (filled with some of Polly Praed’s gourmandise); or a crumbling abbey; or a safari park—well, the disappearance of the Gault woman and son would understandably hold them in thrall.

‘A contest!’ said Diane, who judged a day’s loss or gain only in terms of the amusement it had afforded her. She was occasionally entertained by earthquakes, fires, floods and twenty-car pile-ups on the Ml, but they soon turned too grim because they had so little to do with her pursuit of amusement.

‘It doesn’t have to-be a contest—’ began Joanna Lewes.

‘I’m,
in, bloody, ‘ell,’ yelled Mrs. Withersby, Scroggs’s char, as she tossed a ten-p coin onto the table as if it were a poker pot. No one paid any attention to her.

‘Why shouldn’t it be a contest?’ said Theo Wrenn Browne, who owned the bookshop across the street and who couldn’t get a seat at their table unless he brought something to it before he sat down. (He claimed not to have brought money either, which was a lie; he didn’t want to get stuck with the tab.)

Melrose couldn’t stand him. None of them could stand him. Theo had tried like the very devil to shut down the library so he could make more money renting out books; he had sided with the defendant, Melrose’s aunt, in the chamber pot affray; he caused little children no end of grief when they returned their rental books with so much as a thumbprint. No, he was not one of the group, not one of the team. He was the relief player on the bench who the skipper would send in only if all the other players were dead. The execrable corduroy jacket with the leather elbows he was wearing he claimed was Hugo Boss. Having donned this tobacco-brown jacket, he should never have sat next to Marshall Trueblood, who always looked like he
was
Hugo Boss or Armani.

Joanna Lewes, who had written two dozen genre novels in the fields of mystery, romance, horror or any combination of them, said, ‘You know, Leo—’

‘Theo!’

She smiled. ‘As I was saying, you will know who wins when the police solve this case.’

‘That’s not necessarily true. Police have been wrong. Even Superintendent Jury.’ Theo said this with such a sense of satisfaction, one couldn’t help but ask him.

‘When?’ asked Trueblood. ‘When has he been wrong?’

Theo reddened. ‘Well, I don’t—’

‘Right. You don’t.’ Trueblood went back to smoothing the raggedy edge of a fingernail with his little gold clipper.

Melrose said, ‘It’s not, strictly speaking, a police matter. Jury is doing this kind of on his own, pro bono, you could say, because it intrigues him.’

‘We’ve got to have rules!’ Theo Wrenn Browne smashed his femininelike fist on the table.

Diane stopped the martini on the way to her mouth (a sight seldom seen). ‘Put a sock in it, Theo.’

‘Can we just think out loud, then?’ asked Vivian Rivington, looking beautifully calm in blue cashmere, ‘or do we go home and ponder and come back?’

‘I’ll ponder here, thank you. If I go home I’ll have to mix my own.’ Diane raised her glass.

Mrs. Withersby announced, ‘Ya don’t find me thinkin’ out loud, not with you lot around. You’d steal the thoughts right outta me ‘ead.’

‘Withers, old trout, I doubt any of us wants to go into your head, not even for a copyright.’ Trueblood pocketed his nail clipper.

‘That’s all you know, ya bloody wanker.’

‘Right,’ said Melrose. ‘Who wants to put forth a solution?’

Dick Scroggs, publican, had come to collect their empty glasses. ‘If one o’ us has a good idea,’ said Dick, ‘will he use it? Mr. Jury?’

Melrose had heard idiotic questions put in here but this one had bells on. ‘Use it? Dick, this isn’t one of your TV quiz shows. Who wants to start?’

Joanna held her pen in the air. ‘My money’s on this Hugh Gault lying. He murdered his wife and son and is sucking in his friend Harry Johnson—I admit I don’t know why—and he’s in this clinic just to throw everyone off, saying he’s been driven crazy by his family’s disappearance. Perhaps she had the money and he wants it. I dislike the idea of a parent killing his own child, but—’ She shrugged and applied pen to paper. She had actually said once she could write entire books in here with everybody talking, including herself.

‘I’m sure,’ said Diane, ‘Mrs. Browne gave the idea a whirl.’

‘Oh, funny!’ said Theo Wrenn Browne.

Diane gave him a glassy smile.

Vivian said, ‘There’s got to be an explanation of Harry Johnson’s connection to the story.’

Joanna thought for a bit. ‘Couldn’t he just be acting out of pure friendship? Or perhaps Hugh is using him to test how much of this strange story a person could take.’

Melrose nodded. ‘That’s good, Joanna. Anything else to add?’

‘Not at the moment.’

Trueblood sucked in air and began, ‘I’m for the superstring theory, the parallel worlds. The Gault woman and the boy did step into another dimension.’ Happy with his solution, he lit a Sobranie cigarette the same color as his foam-green shirt.

They all stared at him, or glowered.

‘You can’t be serious,’ said Joanna.

Sniveling laughter from Theo Wrenn Browne.

‘Have a martini,’ said Diane, sliding her glass toward Trueblood.

‘Wanker.’ Mrs. Withersby plopped her wet mop from bucket to floor.

‘Come on, now,’ said Melrose. ‘Hugh Gault apparently believes that and he’s a respected physicist.’

‘But really, Melrose. People actually falling or disappearing into another world?’

‘Why not?’ said Marshall Trueblood. ‘Look around you.’ His glance trailed round the room. ‘Anyway, you’ve experienced deja vu, haven’t you?’

‘That’s different.’

‘Why is the whole past not part of the present?’

‘That’s still different,’ said Joanna. ‘So you think the wife and son are wandering around in some godforsaken world—’

‘Wait. Maybe
this
is the ‘godforsaken’ one and they’re in the real one—’

Theo Wrenn Brown weighed in: ‘Well, my theory is that Hugh is in this clinic, isn’t he? Far from his pretending to be nutty, he actually
is
crazy and this whole elaborate plan is the result of his fevered brain.’

‘But he’s convinced What’s-his-name?—’

‘Harry Johnson.’

‘—that it’s a true story,’ Joanna went on. ‘I get the impression that Harry isn’t easily persuaded, that he’s very intelligent and knows Hugh well. Surely, he’d know if Hugh was psychotic.’

‘Tell us again,’ said Diane, ‘about this clinic visit.’

Melrose related Jury’s story of that visit in detail.

Then, with renewed interest, she asked, ‘Does the place serve drinks?’

Melrose squinted at her. ‘Diane, this is a clinic we’re talking about, not a lounge. Half the patients are probably alcoholics. It would be like ordering a rum collins from a church usher.’

Said Diane, ‘I’ve often thought it would add to a hospital’s ambience if it stocked a bar, not for the patients, of course; I’m not that crazy. But for visitors; you know, maybe right next to the gift shop. I mean, how many people have you ever heard say liked to visit hospitals?’

Melrose said, ‘Is this your theory?’

‘No, it’s my recommendation.’

‘I’ll see it reaches the right ear in Commons.’

‘My
theory
is that Hugh’s sending Harry on a wild goose chase because Harry is in love with the wife, maybe had an affair with her.’ Diane shrugged and reangled her cigarette holder. She was smoking one of Trueblood’s, a shocking pink Sobranie. ‘Imagine how awful it would be if your lover simply vanished.’

‘But if she didn’t, where is she?’

‘Gone to some place like New York or Finland.’ Trueblood’s brow creased. ‘I’ve never really seen the point of Finland.’

Melrose said. ‘All right, let me recapitulate these solutions. One: Hugh is lying; he’s murdered his wife and son and is feigning madness to throw people off the scent.’ Here he nodded toward Joanna, who gave an answering nod.

‘Two: a parallel world into which they’ve vanished. The string theory.’

‘Superstring,’ Trueblood corrected. He had the quickest mind of the lot; he could vacuum up details like crazy.

‘Three: Hugh is indeed insane and the story is a fantasy. Correct, Theo?’

Theo nodded.

‘Four: Hugh’s doing this to Harry as revenge for the affair with Hugh’s wife.’

Diane blew out a jetty of smoke and nodded.

‘What I’d like to hear about is the fracas in the other drawing room,’ said Joanna.

Trueblood said, in the middle of blowing smoke rings, ‘Red herring.’ He blew a little smoke ring through a large one.

They all stared at him. ‘What the devil are you talking about?’ asked Melrose. ‘What red herring?’

‘It was done to draw the attention away from the people in the first drawing room. Where Superintendent Jury and Hugh Gault and Harry What’s-his-name were talking.’

Melrose passed his hand up and down before Trueblood’s face as if he were a hypnotist making certain his patient was deep enough into a trance.

Trueblood went on blowing smoke rings.

Diane adjusted another cigarette in her sleek black holder. She waited while Melrose reached across the table and lit it. Then she turned to Trueblood, who sat there like a cat with a bowl of cream. ‘What we’ve been talking about isn’t
... a .. .
story.’ She spaced the three words out in case his sanity or his hearing aid (he didn’t wear one) were performing on a very low frequency.

He said, ‘Of course it is.’

‘No. It
happened
,’ Joanna broke in. ‘It actually happened!’

‘Then,’ said Trueblood, ‘the red herring was ‘actually’ drawn across the drawing-room door.’

‘My
God,’
said Melrose. ‘This is worse than the play within the play theory. The people were performing in a story no one had written.’

‘No,’ said Vivian. ‘It’s
worse:
in the play within the play, the characters in the play proper are
still
actors. They’re fictional. In this instance there’s no fiction.’

‘We’re not in it,’ said Trueblood, picking a mite of lint from his Armani silk-suited-sleeve. ‘It’s fiction.’

Melrose gaped. ‘But the fact that we’re not in it doesn’t mean
nobody’s
in it. This story is
about
them. It isn’t
them in the flesh!’
Trueblood raised his perfect brows. ‘That’s precisely what I’ve been saying.’

Melrose winced. He brought his fist down on the table. ‘The people in the other drawing room are simply
the people in the other drawing room.’

Trueblood shrugged neatly. ‘Of course. That’s the red herring part of it. See, we’re supposed to be suspicious of them when there’s nothing really to suspect. Richard Jury, Hugh Gault and Harry Johnson. Look.’ He took a gold pen from his waistcoat pocket and asked Joanna for a leaf from her notebook.