The Grave Maurice

“Why did she walk out on him-the boy, not the husband? Dan Ryder was a gambler, a womanizer, no kind of father and irresponsible-except when it came to racing and horses. Where’s your horse, incidentally?”

“At Ryder’s. I have to do another Cambridgeshire run. That’ll be the third one in twenty-four hours.”

“Good. This time take this boy Maurice aside and see what he has to say about all of this. See if you can get him talking about his father and mother. And does he know anything about his father’s second wife?”

“That I doubt. No one seems to have a clue about her.” Melrose was looking from bed to door. “Where’s Hannibal? I’ve been here for nearly a half hour and haven’t seen her.”

“Ah! I’ve a new nurse, or at least part of one. Her name’s Chrissie. Then there’s another one who relieves her occasionally.”

“A new nurse! Is she prettier than Hannibal?”

“Even you’re prettier than Hannibal. But Chrissie, oh, yes, very pretty. It’s rather nice, this. Having your food brought and your bed changed and all you have to do is sit and look, and give this a punch”-he held up the buzzer positioned beside him-“if you want anything. I could get quite used to it, living like you.”

“Like me? And where do you get that idea?”

Jury laughed. “Food prepared, linens changed. And don’t deny you have those bellpulls all over the house. Pull it and Ruthven comes on the double.” He held up the buzzer by way of analogy.

“It’s not the same at all.”

Jury settled back against his pillows again. “It is, too. Except for the horse.”

TWENTY-THREE

Maurice Ryder liked to talk about one thing- Thoroughbred horses-which made Melrose wonder what blew back in the wind of his riding. Melrose had declined the offer to race Aggrieved-now peacefully chomping some vegetation unearthed beneath a springy layer of frost and ice (grass? acorns? truffles?)-after Maurice had ridden him around the track to give Melrose an idea of what the horse could do. Aggrieved could do considerably more than Melrose could do, that was certain. He had never seen Aggrieved on the racecourse, but he wouldn’t want to see himself up on an animal that could even come close to Samarkand. How must he have raced as a two- or three-year-old, then? Racing past the stands he would have been a copper blur.

Maurice had taken Samarkand twice around the track and was going by again at full tilt, lifting the collar of Melrose’s coat where he leaned against the post and rail fence. This horse was fast. Melrose was in charge of the stopwatch, which he thought was a lot of fun and promised himself he’d buy one as soon as he could. Samarkand had gone a mile at 1:44:36. (“Pretty good,” said Maurice.) Melrose didn’t know; he just like pressing the stopwatch button. It was more fun even than Jury’s buzzer. Maurice had told him that he wouldn’t take Aggrieved to the top of his form because he hadn’t been really put through his paces for a while.

Melrose raised his binoculars once again looking to the far side and thought how wedded, how welded, really, horse and rider appeared. The boy was meant for this, thought Melrose. The racing gene must have come down from his father; what a misfortune the height gene hadn’t followed suit. At sixteen Maurice was but a shade under six feet and was possibly looking at even another growth spurt. It was Dan Ryder who had this rogue gene for the rest of the Ryders were tall.

“It’s not the height so much as the weight,” Maurice had told him. “Jockeys eat what would be a starvation diet for me; I wouldn’t even be able to get up on a horse, much less ride one. You’d be surprised the energy it takes.”

“If not a jockey, what? Do you want to be a trainer?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ll inherit this place, won’t you? You can do whatever you like. You and your cousin, Nell-”

Couldn’t he have been a little more skillful? It was clear that this topic wasn’t merely sore; it was bleeding. He wished Jury was here. He handled such questions with a deftness Melrose couldn’t duplicate.

For a minute Maurice hadn’t answered, just flaked the thin ice from the root of the tree where they stood. “If she ever comes back.”

The boy hadn’t commented further. But it would certainly not be intrusive or suspicious to bring up the woman who’d been shot. Melrose had, after all, been a virtual witness to murder. Naturally, he’d be curious.

After Maurice dismounted and tossed a blanket over Samarkand, who strolled over to where Aggrieved was still bent on his hapless quest for food, Maurice leaned against the fence beside Melrose.

“That was a bizarre business the other night. No one knows yet who she is.” Since Vernon Rice would undoubtedly tell Arthur Ryder about the trip to Cambridge police headquarters, Melrose filled Maurice in on what had happened there.

“You knew her?”

“No, I didn’t know her. I’d merely seen her once in the pub near the hospital. A friend of mine is-well, never mind.” He’d better not bring that friendship up for the moment. “I just happened to be sitting near her when she was talking to someone.”

Maurice looked away, frowning. Melrose wondered if he’d been a total chump bringing this up. He’d better have left it to come out in another way. “Didn’t your father send you a photo? A snapshot of his new wife?”

“No, nothing.” His look at Melrose now, although not outright antagonistic, was still not outright friendly. “Are you saying that’s who she was?”

“I have no idea who the woman was. It struck me that it’s a possibility. If you think about it, you’d wonder how anyone without any connection to the Ryder farm would end up shot dead on your track.”

Maurice was silent, gathering twigs as if he meant to break the place up inch by inch. “Say it was her-Dad’s wife-why would she come back here now?”

“Money. That’s generally a safe bet.”

Maurice frowned. “From Ryder Stud? From Granddad? Why would she expect any?”

“I don’t know. There might be some unfinished legal business. His will, perhaps; something like that.”

“But Dad died over two years ago. Why wouldn’t she have come then?”

“That’s a good question. Perhaps it’s something she only recently found out about.” Melrose paused. “Your mother. Where is she now?”

A pall seemed to settle over them, Maurice lifting his face toward the blank white sky. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t keep in touch?”

“No.”

Maurice executed in the single syllable an intensely complicated move, something such as his father must have done in threading his horse through the thicket of competing horses, taking it to the finish line. “Your father got custody?”