The Grave Maurice

“Course you can change the name if you want-”

Not in a million years, thought Melrose.

“-only he’s got a good track record and the name means something, you know.”

“No, I won’t change it.”

The horse was the color of polished mahogany. He shone with good health and good breeding.

“Aggrieved was a great two-year-old. Won twelve of fourteen starts. Yeah, one of the most promising I’ve ever come across and lived up to the promise all around. The next year he won fourteen out of eighteen starts. But I don’t expect you mean to race him. He’s eleven now. Go on and look him over.” Davison unlatched the stable door and the horse stepped back, shook out his mane.

“Oh, I don’t need to do that. I’m sure any horse from this farm is as he’s represented.” The fear of discovery made him pompous.

Davison looked at Melrose as if he must be completely mad. But all he said, and said it mildly, was, “Best you look.”

Hell, thought Melrose, trying to dredge up what he could from his reading about what to look for as Davison went into the stall and led the horse out.

Melrose walked around Aggrieved, sizing him up with a few hms and humphs and favorable nods trying to recall one thing-ah! The legs! He knelt down and ran a hand up and down the foreleg. But were the legs supposed to be hot or cold? He did this with the other foreleg, but steered clear of the hind legs. “Good bones,” he said.

“Best check the teeth.”

Oh, God. And the prayer paid off, for Davison did the honors of getting the mouth open with both hands.

Melrose looked, squinting. “They look fine,” he said. “He appears to be absolutely fine to me.”

That Melrose himself appeared that way to Aggrieved was a whole other thing. The horse had simply closed his eyes against whatever this person was doing. They knew,

Melrose was convinced, they knew, all right. They could ferret out lies.

“I’ll just tack ’im up for you. Then you can put ’im through his paces.”

Oh, great; oh, wonderful. You couldn’t get me on that horse with a crane.

Davison started off for the tack room, turned and came back. “Damn it all! We can’t use our course. That tape’s up, that police tape.”

Melrose tried not to laugh. How low had he sunk that he’d be grateful for a murder if it saved him from massive embarrassment. He blushed. “Oh, I’m sure the horse is all right. I’m not in my riding clothes, either.” He did laugh then, in a silly way.

Davison scratched his head. “You think he’ll suit, then?”

“Absolutely. I can leave him here, can’t I, until I get a-something to move him in?” Horse box? Trailer?

“Trailer? Of course.” Davison ran his hand down the horse’s flank. “And that way”-he said to Melrose-“you’ll be able to see how he performs when you come back!”

“Right.” Between now and never, he could read fifteen books by Dick Francis and work out how you do it.

“You’re a good ol’ boy,” said the trainer to the horse.

The good ol’ boy opened his eyes, looked from Davison to Melrose and drew his top lip back over his fine teeth. He looked almost exactly like Humphrey Bogart in one of the actor’s more considering moments, moments with a gun in his hand.

“That your car there, the Bentley?”

It was the only one parked in the turnaround, so who else’s could it be? “Yes, it is.”

“Mr. Plant!” called Arthur Ryder, coming toward them. “I’m really sorry, but so much has been going on…

George has taken care of things, though. Best trainer in the country. Do you like Aggrieved?” Arthur also ran his hand down the horse’s flank. “I love this horse, always have.” The horse seemed to lean into him, as if calmed by Arthur’s company. “So he’s all right, is he?”

“More than all right.”

Arthur nodded. “Good. Would you want to leave him here until you get transport?” There was the distant ringing of a phone. “Sorry, again. I’ll be back straightaway. I’ve been on the phone with the Cambridge police. That’s them ringing back probably. Maurice can help you if you need something.” This was called back over Ryder’s shoulder.

Maurice was walking toward them. He had an intensity that bordered on the savage. He was handsome, with looks that apparently came from the jockey in the photographs who Melrose had virtually committed to memory, so that he’d recognize any pictures here of Dan Ryder. Again, though, Melrose understood the nature of resemblance, how it could be counterfeited in an expression of face and voice, gesture and movement. Attributes the camera could not always catch.

Melrose bet the boy’s looks would be devastating to girls-the nearly black hair, the pale skin, a romantic figure one might meet up with in an Arthurian tale, knights or chevaliers. A poet, a Rupert Brooke profile. Heroes. What was that line Jury had quoted more than once from Virgil? Agnosco… flammae? That would be Maurice’s effect on women. There was something in his looks that would remind them of something lost. Someone, somewhere, some time. The face one couldn’t quite place, but that shouldn’t have been let go.

Nell. Maurice. They were only a year apart. Together they could probably cut a path through the romantic world worthy of Dido and Aeneas. She looked as if she could easily match the boy’s intensity. He wondered what the difference was between them. He did not know why he wondered this.

Melrose thought all of this in the short time he watched Maurice coming. He imagined Maurice thinking that here was the stud farm in financial difficulty and here was this rich, no doubt self-satisfied aristocrat come with all of his money and knowing sod-all about horses to take away one that Maurice had known all of Aggrieved’s life, a horse now to be used by the toff’s family only to have all his fleetness bred out of him.

Ah, if only the boy knew! Aggrieved would be living the life of Reilly! Momaday finally had something useful to do (from Melrose’s point of view if not Momaday’s), cleaning out the old stable on the property. Melrose’s father had been quite adept at the art of dressage, an interest Melrose had not inherited. For which he was grateful.

The boy looked if not exactly sad, then serious. It was the look of a mourner at a wake, where life was going on with laughter and song and which he couldn’t understand.

“Mr. Plant? Granddad said you came to have a look at Aggrieved.” He glanced from Melrose over to the stable. “You’re buying him, then?”

“Yes. He’s a beautiful horse.”

Maurice looked at him as if that might be the expected and banal answer from one who knew nothing about Thoroughbred horses, or any other horses, probably.

Melrose cast about for a way to get on the subject of Nell Ryder. He didn’t have to.

“Everybody loves this horse. Especially Nell. She’s my cousin; you probably heard about her.”

“Yes, your grandfather told me about her.”