The Grave Maurice

own sake.”

“A Little Chef purist.”

“Right.”

“Arthur likes to tell me I never grew up. I say, How would you know, you didn’t even know me then? and he says I don’t have to; I know you now.” Vernon laughed.

Melrose smiled. “You two get on very well together.”

“Oh, sure. He pays absolutely no attention to me when it comes to investing, though. He could be tripling his income if he’d listen to me.”

They were silent for a few moments, fiddling with menus that hadn’t been plucked immediately from their hands. Melrose asked, “Was there some trouble between the family and Dan Ryder?”

“Arthur was pretty much fed up. And I don’t think Dan and Roger ever really got along, despite being brothers. Totally different sorts. Roger is cautious; Danny was reckless, really reckless. He was always raising the bar. You know, to see how high he could jump-I mean, literally as well as figuratively. He took too many chances. His first wife, Marybeth, left him because of that, though she wasn’t much of a treat to begin with. Danny was an addicted gambler. He died owing a ton of money to the wrong people, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the reason he left England. These are the kind of people who don’t forgive debts for sentimental reasons like death. The kind who manage to get back at the family if that’s the only way they can collect.”

“So did these people move on Arthur?”

Vernon nodded. “I paid off a lot of it to keep Arthur from knowing how much it was.”

“That was certainly decent of you.”

“Not really. It was just sitting around.”

Melrose smiled. “I doubt you’d leave money sitting around for very long.”

“Well, I had some stocks that weren’t earning their keep. I hated the picture of Arthur’s discovering his son was selling the farm, metaphorically speaking.”

“Did you know Dan?”

“Not very well. I met him once or twice when Ma and Arthur were, you know, getting together. I saw him at the races. He was brilliant, I’ll say that. This was before they got married. I was pretty old-thirty-two-”

Melrose liked that definition of “pretty old.”

“-and had my business in the City. So I didn’t get up to Cambridge very often. Not that I was giving it a pass, not at all. I liked it there. I liked Arthur and-the others.”

He didn’t want to single out Nell, apparently. “But you seem to get up there quite a bit lately.”

Vernon looked down at his beans on toast. “Well, I should, don’t you think? Arthur’s suffered some terrible losses. Danny, Ma, Nellie…” His voice trailed off.

“Your mother was not a younger woman, was she?” Melrose cut off a piece of fried bread.

Vernon laughed. “No. They were contemporaries. Arthur never had a midlife crisis. My mother was a great person-very outgoing and at the same time private. They were married for only two years when she died.” His eyes still on the plate he added, “I really miss her, Mum.” He fell quiet.

Nodding at the untouched plate, Melrose asked, “Aren’t you going to eat?”

Vernon sighed. “I didn’t really want to eat this; I just wanted to look at it. Do you ever do that?”

Melrose thought Vernon looked hopeful that he wasn’t crazy all by himself. “Oh, yes. Well, I eat at least a token bite when I feel that way. He held up the triangle of bread he’d been working on. He wondered how much of childhood Vernon still inhabited and also wondered how much emptiness could be appeased just by looking. As Vernon took a token bite of beans, Melrose said, “You said in the restaurant you didn’t know Nell Ryder very well. How old was she when you met her?”

“Fifteen. It was only a few months before she disappeared.”

“She’d be seventeen now.”

Vernon fooled with his fork and nodded.

“I saw pictures of Nell. She seemed-I don’t know-airy, ethereal, not quite of this world. Which is hard to do in one of those Barbour coats and muddy boots.” Melrose ate his sausage. “That’s not a good description of her, though. She looked like someone with a purpose. Someone dedicated, but to what I don’t know.”

“Horses, for one thing.” Vernon paused. “To tell the truth, I can’t think of another thing.” He cut off a wedge of toast. “What you might be seeing in her is poise, a person poised on the edge of something and who manages to keep her balance.” Vernon’s eyebrows inched upward as if asking Melrose to confirm this.

Melrose nodded.

Vernon went on. “When I met her I took her to be some years older. I told her this and she said it was from being around horses all her life; it gives you poise and confidence. If you don’t have it, they may allow you to ride them, or feed them, or brush them down, but eventually they turn their backs. She wants to be a trainer. Davison thinks she’s a natural.”

“Is the investigation ongoing?”

“No. But I’ve got a private investigator. He’s still looking.”

“After nearly two years?” Melrose raised an eyebrow.

“After ten, if it’s necessary.”

Melrose felt slightly abashed. He thought for a minute and then asked, “Was there a set time in the evening for seeing to the horses?”

“Yes, of course. Evening stables and then Davison goes around again before he leaves at night.”

“Which means that everyone knew when things were battened down for the night and no one around?”

“You’re suggesting that the person would have been either one of us or someone else who knew the schedule?”

Melrose paused. “Not exactly.” He paused again. “Just a thought.” Vernon Rice didn’t appear to question Melrose’s extended interest in the Ryders’ misfortunes, but, of course, the body lying in the Cambridge police station pretty much took care of Melrose’s motive.

“This private investigator you’ve been paying for all this time-”

“Leon Stone?”

“What is he continuing to do?”

“He hasn’t got a fresh lead, but at least he’s looking; the police aren’t. Not that I blame them. An abduction unsolved after nearly two years? The case isn’t closed, but it’s certainly resting. They think she’s dead.”

He said this so matter-of-factly, Melrose would have thought he was indifferent to the case. “Why are you so certain she’s not?”

“It’s something you know, that’s all.” Vernon shook his head.

Melrose said, “There’ve been no demands. There should be, if not money, for something. Surely.”

“Unless she went to save someone else.”

“But that would mean she herself was valuable to them.”

Again, Vernon shook his head. He shoved his plate away.

For a few moments they sat in silence as Melrose ate and Vernon looked