The Grave Maurice

tea.”

Bramwell immediately dropped his orphan-in-the-storm persona and flexed his fingers, preparatory to picking up whatever was on the tray which Ruthven set down on the smooth stump that Bramwell used for his breakfast, lunch and dinner table, as well as for morning coffee and afternoon tea.

Melrose noted there was considerably more than beef tea on the tray. There was a substantial pile of sandwiches: cheese, chicken and prosciutto. This last really annoyed Melrose as he liked prosciutto with melon and there probably wasn’t any left. “I see your dicey health isn’t affecting your appetite, Mr. Bramwell.”

“Got to keep me strength up. Thank you, Mr. Ruthven,” he said as Ruthven shook out a big napkin, which the hermit spread carefully over his wide front. Selecting a sandwich of prosciutto, he said, “I’ll say this fer yea, yea don’t stint.”

He could have been saying this to Melrose, Jury, Ruthven or God.

No, thought Jury. God stints.

They were feeding carrots to Aggrieved, both of them looking and listening for Momaday.

“I am completely cowed by staff,” said Melrose. “Cowed.”

“By these two you seem to be.”

“It’s why I don’t have more.” It wasn’t, really; he was just enjoying feeling sorry for himself.

Aggrieved, seeing another carrot come out of Jury’s pocket, nudged his shoulder with some force. Jury shoved him back. Melrose, unaware of this small fracas, kept talking about the staff he didn’t have: “A chauffeur, a vegetable cook to help Martha-”

“Who wouldn’t be able to stand it-” Jury bumped Aggrieved’s elegant neck, payback for another muzzle in the face.

“-more stable staff, a valet de chambre, a maid. No, two maids, one a ’tweenie.” Melrose liked that word. “A ’tweenie.”

“Was there ever such a staff at Ardry End?”

“No. But it sounds good.”

“I swear,” said Jury, back inside the house, “I’m having a nap.”

“And I swear I’m having a drink.”

Each having had what he’d sworn he’d have, they were presently out driving along narrow country roads. Jury had said he wasn’t ready yet for the “vocal confusion” of the Jack and Hammer.

“I’ve heard it called a lot of things, but never vocally confused,” said Melrose.

Early evening was shading off into night. It had been one of those winter days when trees and houses had razor-sharp outlines and the air was clear as a bell. Jury looked off to his left and up a gentle-climbing hill. “Look up there.”

“The pub, you mean? It’s rather grand, isn’t it, the way it sits up there and looms over the village?” Melrose had already turned the car into the even narrower road sloping up the hillside. “Let’s go inside.”

Deserted. This was a word that conjured images of empty rooms, skewed curtains, of squares of deeper hue on walls where pictures have been taken down. The Man with a Load of Mischief did not seem so much deserted as sad. Had it not been for dust and leaves blown into corners, and wall sconces unresponsive to the push of a switch, it would not have surprised Jury to see the manager still behind the bar, or that arthritic old waiter passing by with a tray or customers spotted at tables and barstools around the room.

It was not dark but shortly would be, and filaments of what was left of mingy winter light managed to steal past the grime of the casement windows and suffuse the dead air with a bit of life. In the entrance hall, Melrose looked at those same framed prints of the hunt making its silly progress along the papered wall. Even the wallpaper had escaped the years’ abuse, where one would expect it to be hanging in long flaps, it still clung fast. He followed the sound of Jury’s voice into the saloon bar.

Jury said, “It’s all here: the equipment”-he rested his hand on the china beer pulls-“the drink, the glassware.” Bottles of whiskey, gin, vodka and dark syrupy liqueurs ranged across shelves, doubled by the mirror behind the bar. “I’m astonished the place hasn’t been vandalized. My Lord, it’s been-what? thirteen, fourteen years?”

Melrose brushed his hand over the barstool and sat down. “Do we have vandals around here? I mean, except for Agatha? And this place was vacated, if you remember, in rather a hurried way. I found Mindy up here, you know. Anyone who would leave his dog behind to fend for itself, well… I used to walk her up here in case she was homesick and so she could chase invisible stuff. She quite enjoyed that; I’ll have to bring her here again.” Melrose squinted at the row of bottles. “If those bottles of Johnny Walker and Bells are still here, what about the wine cellar?”

Down in the cellar they stood in more dead leaves and dust, but, of course, one expects, no, wants wine bottles to be dusty, for it proves something or other. Shelf after shelf, marching along the cold room, held the wines of Bordeaux, Tuscany, Spain; wines from the Medoc; Cabernet Franc and Merlot; grand cru from Puligny-Montrachet; Chardonnays from California; sherry from Spain; Sauternes-someone had known a lot about wine.

Jury said, “I never paid any attention to this.”

Melrose was running his finger over the bottles. “Of course not. You were too busy with the body.” He stopped, pulled out a bottle of white wine. “Grab a red.”

Jury grabbed and they hastened up the cellar steps.

Again behind the bar, where he’d set out glasses for Melrose to wipe, Jury sank the corkscrew into a bottle and pulled, gently.

“Be careful with that. It’s from Campania.”

Jury started to tug. “That near Northampton?”

“No, Naples. You’ve heard of Pompeii?” He nodded toward the bottle. “That’s a Falerno. Hard to find.”

“Time has been careful. I expect I can be.” The action of pulling made a pleasant little op and he poured the wine into the glasses.

They tasted. Jury held his up to the light. “Like the wine-dark sea.”

“Um, um umm, ummm!” said Melrose, nodding and shaking his head simultaneously. “Wow, wow! When did I last taste wine this good?”

“It is good.”

Melrose rapped the bar. “You know what we should do? We should buy this place. God knows why some family with a couple of Labs and disgusting children hasn’t snapped it up for a country home.”

“Because of its sinister past. People might like to come here for a drink, hoping the mystique rubs off, but I don’t think they’d want to live here. What do you mean, buy it?”

“We should.”

“Maybe you should; all I’ve got is the clothes I stand up in. Don’t be daft; do you know even half the difficulties of running a restaurant?”

“Can’t be all that hard.” Melrose slid his glass toward the bottle for more.