rustler, sheriff and a lot of other things that fit the myth of the Old West that Momaday wasn’t. But it had him slapping that rifle into play, aiming and shooting and if he hit anything it was by sheer accident-that same Momaday had come up behind the two and barked an order: “Don’t you be feedin’ that horse apples!”
Both Melrose and Jury jumped as if they’d been found out by Aunt Polly and exchanged a look.
“Just one.”
“One, that’s right.”
They had taken turns and fed him four.
Melrose changed the subject. “I was just telling Superintendent Jury here that he should get up on Aggrieved and go for a ride.”
Momaday made a lengthy snuffling noise, his version of a laugh, and within and around this said to Jury, “Oh, you shoulda been here t’other day to see Mr. Plant, here (none of that ‘Lord Ardry’ and ‘m’ lord’ nonsense from Momaday, never fear!) up on Aggrieved and trying to dismount”-snuffle, snuffle-“and t’ fall clear off t’ other side!” Laughing fit to kill, Momaday walked off, gun broken over his arm.
Jury looked at Melrose. “Nothing to it, right?”
THIRTY-ONE
“You ate seven sausages. I counted. You ate more sausages than Aggrieved ate apples.”
They were strolling through the village. Jury stopped in front of Betty Ball’s bakery, where he expressed an interest in the pumpkin muffins on display in the bakery’s window.
“Seven sausages. You couldn’t possibly eat a muffin. They’re left over from Halloween, anyway.”
Jury reached in his coat pocket and drew out an amber vile containing some white pills. “Dimerin and sausages, the doctor’s orders.”
“Well, you don’t need a muffin.” He pulled on Jury’s coat.
They crossed the narrow bridge that spanned the equally small and narrow river and Jury stopped and regarded the small green and its pond. It was as if the scene were miniaturized, like the miniature Bourton-on-the-Water where a Lilliputian copy of the village itself was kept on display. He looked off to the left at the largest house in the village. Vivian Rivington’s. If he took his emotional temperature, his Vivian temperature right now, he wondered what it would read. But you can’t do that, can you? For the real indicator is that surprise appearance, that sudden turning and seeing a woman walk through a door, or seeing her sitting on that bench. It’s the only thing that makes the mercury spike, the only gauge. He could still see her as he’d done the first time when she’d appeared before him, recall her embarrassed look, her fingers fussing with the hem of a brown jumper. What in God’s name was he up to, always falling in love at first sight?
There was only a ruff of snow round the pond like a collar of icing on a cake. It would soon melt away. Back then the entire green had been carpeted in snow.
“What are you doing?” said Melrose. “By the time we get to the Jack and Hammer it’ll be closed again. We don’t keep London hours here. Well, maybe we could, but Dick Scroggs won’t keep them.”
They started walking again. “I was just thinking about the first time I came here.”
“Few things are more dangerous than that.”
They were walking along Long Piddleton’s main street now. “What do you mean, dangerous?” asked Jury.
“We make these minute revisions, look at it from a slightly different angle: that pond, that bench there or not, whatever it was that made it more desirable, its loss more bitter. Memory’s plague causes unnecessary suffering.”
Jury stopped short. “What in hell are you talking about? When did you start finding memory so finely nuanced?”
Melrose pursed his lips. “Since I saw it might get us from the green to the Jack and Hammer without your stopping and gawking every two minutes. And”-he spread his arms-“here we are!”
And here
“I quite liked that other case,” said Diane to Jury, “except, of course, for that shooting at the end of it. Anyway, I’m not one to talk. I hit Melrose’s vodka. His last bottle, I might add.”
Melrose asked Jury, “Can I tell them about the vanished girl?”
“Go ahead. It’s not a Scotland Yard matter. It isn’t really a case.”
“Okay.” He turned to an audience already turned to him as if he had brought a lifesaving draft. “This all happened when I was in the Grave Maurice-”
“Where’s that?” asked Trueblood.
“A pub across the street from the Royal London Hospital.”
“Ah, that’s where Superintendent Jury was,” said Diane. “I remember sending a wreath of roses.”
“Are you going to keep interrupting?”
No one spoke.
Melrose told them about the vanished girl.
At the end of this brief account, Vivian Rivington, with Agatha behind her, appeared in the sun-splashed doorway of the Jack and Hammer like a ray of hope, a thing Jury had given up on, lying on that dock in the dark. He could still see the stars in that implacable night sky. He smiled. It was hard to give up on Vivian. He wondered if her Italian count was gone for good.
“Richard!”
Her look was a mixture of wonder and relief. Perhaps she wouldn’t believe he was alive until she saw him. “Hello, Vivian.” He went to meet her and gave her a kiss on the cheek that she didn’t seem to know what to do with. Then, suddenly, she threw her arms around him. He returned this heartfelt hug.
Diana, seeing her glass was empty, handed it off to Dick for another.
Trueblood then raised his. “To your long and happy life, Superintendent.”
Diane said, “I could have warned you that night was fraught with danger.”
“Oh, it was fraught all right. So why didn’t you? Warn me, I mean?”
“You didn’t ask me, did you?”
Jury laughed. “I guess I didn’t.”
“The stars! The stars!” proclaimed Agatha, as if she were finished with their wastrel ways.
“How are you, Lady Ardry?” Jury reached his hand across the table to clasp hers.
Put out by Melrose’s adamant direction that she was not to turn up at Ardry End this morning, she waggled her finger at Jury. “You cheated me out of my morning coffee, Superintendent.”
“So here you are having your morning whiskey,” said Melrose.
She tried to numb him with a look and, as usual, failed.
