The Lamorna Wink

Seabourne for three months.”

At this Johnny looked relieved. “Good. I’ll look for you, then.”

“I’ll be coming here on a fairly regular basis for dinner. I’m not much of a cook.” Melrose felt abashed at the truth of this and looked down at his napkin. Was he much of anything when it came to looking out for himself? He removed a card from his silver card case and wrote his telephone number on the back and held it out to Johnny. “If you hear anything about your aunt, give me a ring, will you? I’d truly like to know.”

“I will.” Johnny studied the card.

“This detective, Divisional Commander Macalvie, is head of homicide and is very, very smart. If anyone can get a lead on your aunt, he can.”

“But isn’t his time going to be taken up by this murder in Lamorna Cove?”

Before Melrose could respond, Pfinn stuck his head round the swinging door to the kitchen and motioned to Johnny.

“He doesn’t like me being friendly with guests. Do you know what you want?”

“Certainly. Same as last night. The cod and a salad.”

“Wine?”

Melrose opened the list, ran a practiced eye down the page (doubting that the Drowned Man could really be host to all of these wines), said, “the Puligny-Montrachet.”

“Right. Is your friend going with you?”

Friend? What friend? Oh, God-Agatha. Having been Agatha-free for the last twenty-four hours, he had managed to forget her. “You mean my aunt? Yes, I expect so, unless she’s joined the staff of Aspry and Aspry.”

Johnny laughed-not loud, not long-but a laugh nonetheless, before he left to get Melrose’s wine.

Melrose sighed. He did not fancy another BritRail experience with her. But then he brightened at the thought that he would be free of Agatha for three months!

16

Except he wouldn’t be.

Melrose could not absorb what she was saying. It was such freakish bad luck that he went blank. This was in the Woodbine the following day where morning coffee was the excuse for collective gossip. The talk was, of course, about Chris Wells’s sudden leave-taking. They avoided words such as “disappear” and “vanish,” feeling them too weighted with dread. “Up and gone” or “left without a word”-these were the phrases used, and they were bad enough.

The news had spread quickly; Chris Wells’s leaving was the most dramatic thing that had ever happened in Bletchley. Combine that with the murder in Lamorna Cove, and they had enough to talk about for months. The village was aghast-pleasurably so, as Melrose inferred from the buzz going on around him, talk as rich and spicy as the gingerbread and tea cakes.

Not, however, at the table where Melrose sat with Agatha, since death and disappearance took a back seat to anything befalling his aunt. She was saying, “The flat is quite a nice one and being let on a month-to-month lease, so it should suit me quite well.”

Melrose made no comment. His mouth felt as if it had just gotten a shot of morphine. But his lack of commentary didn’t bother Agatha.

“Anyway, it’s only a month, as I’m not sure how I’d take to the sea air, and besides I have much too much business to take care of in Long Pidd to permit me to stay away longer. I’m not like you; you’ve nothing whatever to keep you from stopping here. And I think it would be good for me to learn a trade. Esther is an excellent agent and will teach me the ropes.”

That what he had said jokingly to Johnny last night about Agatha and estate agents was coming even partly true made him want to laugh himself sick. Agatha, who couldn’t sell cod to a cat-Agatha, selling property?

“Since Mr. Jenks closed his Long Piddleton branch of the agency in Sidbury, there’s been a real gap in the Long Pidd offerings.” Jenks was the estate agent who had once had an office in Long Piddleton. “That building has been up for letting for ages.”

“That building, if you remember, is next door to Marshall Trueblood.”

As much as she loathed Marshall Trueblood, this announcement didn’t appear to dent her enthusiasm. “I needn’t see him; I’ll be working. And he spends half his day in the Jack and Hammer, so I shan’t be troubled with him.”

Melrose swallowed the taste of hemlock and tried to reason. “Agatha, nothing ever comes on the market in Long Piddleton. Why in God’s name do you imagine Mr. Jenks left?”

“Obviously, the man wasn’t very good at his job. There’s the Man with a Load of Mischief, for one example.”

“That’s been up for sale for donkey’s years. You’ll never sell that pub.”

Agatha ignored this. “There’s one of the almshouses. You know how popular listed properties are with Londoners. Long Pidd could do with some gentrification.”

“I also know Londoners would be living next to the Withersby lot. There’s gentrification for you!” Mrs. Withersby was the Jack and Hammer char and chief moocher.

“There’s Vivian’s place. She’s getting married, or have you forgotten?”

Melrose heaved a sigh deep enough to bring him out of a coma. “No, I haven’t forgotten. But you have, apparently. Vivian’s been about to get married for years. She’s not going to marry the count; surely that’s obvious. She had the cottage listed once several years ago when she must have been a little closer to marriage than she is now. Maybe she just likes an excuse to keep going to Venice.”

“This is just like you, Melrose. The glass is always half empty to you!”

For once, she was right. If he wanted to look at Agatha’s being in Bletchley for a month, he should remember it was only a month. And in Long Piddleton, instead of her turning up at Ardry End, she would be turning up at her workplace. That would certainly be a boon. Even if she tried to get him to buy the Man with a Load of Mischief, and she probably would.

So the glass-praise be-was half full!

“All I need to do now is return to Long Pidd and gather together a few things. Then we can motor back to Cornwall together.” She jammed up a tea cake and added a dollop of clotted cream.

The glass was half empty once more.

17

Property? An estate agent? Ouch!” Marshall Trueblood was so enthralled by Melrose’s Cornwall story he hadn’t noticed his pink Sobranie burning down to his fingers. He dropped the stub in an ashtray. He pulled the dark green handkerchief from its pocket and rubbed at his finger. Trueblood’s colors changed with the seasons. Today, he looked molten: dusky gold French-cuffed shirt, russet-hued silk wool jacket, pine-green tie speckled with fiery little leaves. He looked like autumn in flames.

“She probably just caught a London train,” said Diane Demorney. Then, as if this comment were too much exertion, she yawned. If a yawn could be called “elegant,” Diane’s was.

Melrose’s look was puzzled. “Who, Agatha?” Agatha-as-agent had been the last thing under discussion.

“No, this boy’s beloved auntie. Haven’t you been following your own story?”

“To London? What makes you think that?”

Diane looked at Melrose wide-eyed. “To shop, of course. To buy clothes. You can’t buy clothes in Cornwall, for heaven’s sakes.” This reminded Diane of her own, apparently, for she looked down at her white suit. Her clothes were the antithesis of Trueblood’s.

She always dressed in some combination of white and black. This further set off the contrast between her