“I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t have left that out if I did. We were not all ranged around the body sipping tea.”
“All right. What was the reaction of these people?”
“Well, confusion, consternation-”
“Same for everyone?”
“No. The trainer, George Davison, seemed utterly indifferent. There was no fear on anyone’s part.”
“That’s odd.”
Melrose frowned. “Not if she was a stranger.”
“She wasn’t, was she?”
Melrose raised his eyebrows, waiting for more.
“Can you honestly believe that chummy shot a perfect stranger in the middle of the Ryder training track?”
“Then Arthur Ryder is lying? Or his grandson or George Davison?”
“Not necessarily. There are several explanations. One: this could be someone they might have known without knowing they knew her.”
“Oh, well, that’s clear enough.”
Jury ignored him. “Someone met for a short time at a race meeting, say, someone important for some reason, but forgotten. The identity is still unknown or at least was this morning when you were there. It could’ve been someone they knew
Melrose thought for a moment. “Daniel Ryder’s second wife. No one knows her because he never came back to England.”
Jury nodded. “There’s a possibility right there. I assume she wasn’t shot out of the saddle.”
“I doubt it; she wasn’t dressed for riding.”
“What caliber gun was it?”
“No one told me.”
“Never mind. Ballistics will turn up the range and angle and a dozen other things about the bullet.”
“Why would the shooter shoot her there?”
Jury said, “I expect she could have been dumped-well, there’s no use speculating when we don’t have any of the crime scene details. I’d like to know what happened to the person who made the call.”
Melrose sat back and studied the white ceiling. “Well, I’m stumped. Maybe Vernon Rice will illuminate the scene. I’m going to see him”-Melrose looked at his watch-“now.” Melrose got up.
“What about the girl, Nell? What did you find out?”
“Nothing new about her disappearance. I saw pictures of her. There’s something about her. It’s not often you run into a girl in her teens who makes you think you’ve been there before.”
Jury frowned. “Been where?”
“Wherever
TWENTY
Vernon. Rice had both the sort of charm that could Vernon Rice had both the sort of charm that could sell you time shares in Pompeii and, at the same time, some inbred faith that Pompeii was still a going concern. In other words, he could get you to buy, but it was an honest sell.
He spoke to Melrose as if he’d known him all his life, ushering him in with a wave of his arm and telling him that Arthur-whom Vernon called “Art”-had called to tell him Melrose was coming.
The room that Melrose stepped into was glass and angles, and sloping chairs with graceful legs that looked uncomfortable yet were anything but. The wide gray rug leveling off to white softened the contours of the furniture. The room was a throwback to some earlier period, despite its high-end German designer look. It didn’t surprise Melrose to hear Vernon Rice say he was “shaking up a bunch of Manhattans” in a silver-plated cocktail shaker. Melrose hadn’t seen one of those since his parents’ parties. The Ryders were no strangers to the midday drink, that was sure. He wondered if they were alcoholics. He wondered- more to the point-if he was.
Then he remembered that Vernon Rice was not a blood relation, although his looks suggested otherwise. He could have been Maurice’s father or Dan Ryder’s brother, for he looked as if he inherited the family’s striking good looks.
“Manhattan,” said Melrose. “That’s an old thirties favorite, isn’t it?” Melrose had seated himself in a burnt-orange chair with sloping arms and rounded back.
“Definitely is,” said Vernon. He had the shaker doing a little mamba in his hands, a little added flourish before pouring the drink into two stemmed glasses. The glasses held maraschino cherries speared by plastic swizzle sticks, each topped with a grass-skirted hula dancer. It was the best-tempered drink Melrose had ever had, he thought, a combination of shaker, whiskey, hula-hula girl and Vernon Rice.
“Don’t tell anyone,” said Vernon, “because it sounds macabre, but I’ve always wanted to live in the States in the thirties.”
“But that was the Depression. Did you also want to live in Spain during the Inquisition?”
Vernon laughed. “No. But imagine watching the market collapse like that.”
“Oh, fun. Somehow I don’t think the men poised on windowsills would share your enthusiasm.”
“I don’t mean to sound cold-blooded, and God only knows I’d’ve grabbed a few coattails before they’d flown out the window, but it just makes me wonder if I could have done something.”
“I doubt it, though I think you’d deserve a medal for trying. But the forces at work at that time, they were inexorable. God couldn’t have stopped it.”
Unconvinced, Vernon brought the shaker around. “Don’t be so sure. Is anything really ‘inexorable’?”
Vernon went on to detail causes and cures, cures he might have implemented, spoken of in an argot of finance that Melrose didn’t understand at all. He looked at his glass. Where had this second drink come from? Or third? While Vernon talked on, the detached part of Melrose’s mind marveled. Vernon was not a vain person; he probably didn’t have the time to admire himself and his dazzling notions. For Melrose realized they really were dazzling, even though he couldn’t understand most of what he was saying.
Vernon plunked down his glass. “Let’s have lunch. I know a terrific place.”
“Sniper’s? That’s a restaurant? Strange name.”
“I love the place. It’s all done up in camouflaging. Good time to go, too, because it’s always so bloody crowded during the lunch hour.”
Melrose had been astonished to find it was nearly three when they left the flat. The Depression stopped when Vernon realized he couldn’t make Melrose understand what he meant by
