“I thought we might drop in at the pub before dinner. Pots of fun, it’ll be. Tell me what happened in Wales with that woman.”
Omitting the end of it, Jury recounted his visit to Sara Hunt, ending with his doubts about her account of the Derby before Dan Ryder quit and went to France. “What I want to know is why she’d fabricate that.”
Melrose thought about this. He said, “The race wasn’t being offered as an alibi.”
“No, probably not.”
“I’d say definitely not. It was just part of the whole story of this obsession with Dan Ryder.”
“You sound skeptical.”
“I am, yes. The lie about the Derby wasn’t meant to go anywhere. It sounds like one of those lies told for the pleasure of lying. That it gives her a sense of power or control to lie to a Scotland Yard superintendent. I’d say the question isn’t why did she lie about the Derby, but why did she lie about everything else to boot?”
Jury leaned forward to pour more tea. “I don’t get it.”
“Oh, come on, Richard. Did she bewitch you-I see she did. Well. Have you told me everything, then?” Melrose smiled a little wickedly.
“Never mind. Why do you say the whole story’s a lie?”
“I suppose to conceal a real obsession with a counterfeit one.”
Jury looked at him.
“Ha! This woman must have you turned completely around. Look, it’s not as if I don’t believe in obsession-maybe it’s the only emotional experience worth having, I don’t know-but I don’t believe in the one she foisted on you. If Dan Ryder had had such a grip on her mind and heart, and she knew Arthur Ryder and Vernon Rice, why wouldn’t she have put herself in Ryder’s way by playing the family card? In other words, Sara Hunt is a relation; she didn’t need to keep her distance; she could have got herself invited to dinner, so to speak.”
“But does obsession work along such rational lines?”
“I have no idea. The only thing I’ve ever been obsessed with is getting rid of Agatha.”
“That sounds as if Sara Hunt thinks it’s a game.”
Melrose nodded. “Remember that suspect of yours who called herself Dana?”
Jury didn’t answer. He didn’t like this topic.
“Took you in completely.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” said Jury, glumly. “Are you saying this Derby story is the same thing?”
“Could be. It’s not easy to throw you off the scent. You must have been getting close.”
“Close to what, though? That she used to sleep with Dan Ryder? So did a lot of women. But why the ruse? You say it’s to cover up her real obsession. I still don’t get it.”
“Neither do I, even though I said it.” Melrose drained his cup. “Come on, let’s go to the pub.”
Vivian jumped up and kissed him; Diane set down her martini with barely a sip; Trueblood rose and pummeled Jury’s shoulder.
“I was here only two days ago,” said Jury. “Not that I don’t appreciate the boundless enthusiasm.”
“You’ve been running around when you should be relaxing,” said Vivian.
“When Uranus,” said Diane, expelling a stream of smoke, “is running neck and neck with Saturn.”
“But only half,” said Jury, putting his hand on hers.
“An odd racing analogy,” said Trueblood.
Melrose said to Vivian, “Jury wants to know the score on Giappino.”
Vivian said, in mock wonder, “You haven’t heard that Franco simply dumped me? Then you’re the only one who hasn’t.” She favored all of them with a mirthless smile. Melrose and Trueblood found some other place to look.
Jury looked round the table. “So how did you lot manage to chase him off?”
Fiddling with a cigarette, Trueblood said, “Well, we might have given Count Dracula the wrong impression.”
Vivian said, “You did indeed. I didn’t tell you, but I got a letter from him. He said that with his brothers all being alcoholics, he just wasn’t ready to take on this problem in a wife; that he was sorry he hadn’t the funds to help with the foreclosure on my house-or whatever they call it in Italy, probably beating someone with sticks-and he was so sorry about my mother’s dementia, but he couldn’t take the chance of my inheriting it and thus passing it along to ‘his’ children. I loved the ‘his.’ I marveled at you”-her glance swept the table-“managing to get in all of those things. He found it, clearly, a heady experience.”
Jury smiled, for he also knew what the others knew: it had been a huge relief to Vivian, who apparently was unable to call the wedding off herself; she needed all the help she could get. He said, “Vivian, if that sort of trivial stuff could set him off, be glad you found out in time.”
“Here, here,” cried Trueblood. “But next time, come clean, you know, tell the chap right up front about what he’d be taking on.”
Vivian hit him with a pillow from the window seat.
Jury said, “Why don’t you people stop messing about in other people’s lives?”
Diane made a little moue of distaste. “I really don’t think that showing up the real intentions of a prospective mate is ‘messing about.’ I’d certainly want to know. It’s rather
Theo Wrenn Browne, ever taken with the demands of fashion (yet never looking it), was wearing a green tweed suit that would have sent Hugo Boss back to sackcloth and ashes. Theo was also sporting a stubble of beard, deliberately unshaven. However, Theo, never quite able to meet the demands of masculinity, took two days to grow a day-old stubble. His suit jacket was buttoned only at the top button, his whole ensemble screaming
Diane, who would kill herself before putting a well-shod foot in last year’s doorway, always enjoyed Theo’s sartorial death throes, and said, as he stood by their table, “What a nice suit. It must be difficult to find just that shade of green. Aubergine, is it?”
Theo squinted and looked warily round at them much as the Cincinnati Kid might have scoured a table full of high rollers in some saloon. Unfortunately, he hadn’t the Kid’s savoir faire, and merely looked petulant, standing with his glass of beer, waiting for an invitation to sit down. Ordinarily, that got him nowhere, but today it did because they wanted to hear about Bramwell.
Trueblood pulled a chair round from another table and patted it. “Sit down, sit down and tell us about your new assistant.”
Theo sat, gingerly. “Well, he’s not that, is he? More a stock boy, I’d say. It takes training, doesn’t it?” Browne turned his inborn irritation upon Trueblood. “
