The Lamorna Wink

to trace.”

“What was she wearing?” Trust Diane to sweep away extraneous matter and go directly to the heart of the matter.

“I don’t know. Macalvie didn’t tell me. But in the police photos it looked like a suit, amber or ecru, maybe-God help me! I’m getting as bad as you, Diane.”

“Who is he, anyway? Macalvie, I mean,” asked Trueblood. “I think he called here, to the pub once, looking for Jury.”

“He’s very high up in the Devon and Cornwall police. Jury’s known him for years. They worked cases together. Or as much together as one can ever get with Mr. Macalvie. He’s brilliant, though.”

“Speaking of Richard Jury-” said Trueblood.

“He’s in Northern Ireland.”

Diane looked absolutely scandalized, as if they were watching the Pope kiss a pig. “God, Melrose! What is he doing there?”

“I don’t know the particulars. New Scotland Yard hasn’t ever put me on a need-to-know footing.”

“Did Sergeant Wiggins go with him?”

“No. Macalvie’s trying to get in touch with him, though.”

“I knew it,” said Diane. “I warned him.”

Melrose frowned. “Wiggins?”

“No, no. Richard Jury.”

“His horoscope playing up again, is it?”

“His Venus is in a peculiar position in relation to Mars.” She tapped the ash from her cigarette into the metal tray.

“Whose side is he on?” asked Trueblood. “The IRA? The Provs? Catholics? Protestants? Irish? English?”

“The side of the dead, I imagine. He’s not helping the RUC, it’s just that something happened there that’s connected with something in London. At least, I think.”

Diane was still worrying over the fashion sense of the dead-and-gone in Cornwall. “You don’t know if it was a designer suit she wore, then?”

“What? You mean the unfortunate victim in Lamorna?”

“Yes. If it was, you know, a Lacroix, it would certainly narrow the field.”

“Narrow it to where? London? Paris? Rome?”

Diane’s patience was being tried. “Not only there. There are some quite fashionable shops in Edinburgh. And the Home Counties. One would have to broaden the base a bit.”

Melrose shook his head. “Whatever the base is, you’re way off it, love.”

“Actually, old sweat, she isn’t,” said Trueblood.

“Are we breaking now for an Armani commercial?”

“If the woman was wearing Ferre or perhaps Sonia Rykiel, the garment could almost certainly be traced. You know, through the place where she bought it; or, if someone else bought it, then through that person.”

Melrose hated it when Diane made a sensible suggestion.

“I wouldn’t mind knowing someone who’d buy me Ferre,” she said, and returned to the matter of Chris Wells. “Now, she sounds Cornwall through and through; what’s in her closet is probably cardigans and plaid things and Barbour knockoffs from Marks and Sparks. Anyway, the question of her outfit doesn’t really apply, does it? Are you sure she didn’t just go off on her own?”

“No,” said Melrose. “I’m fairly sure she didn’t. From what I’ve heard about her, she isn’t a capricious person.”

“Then you think she was abducted? Or lured away somehow?”

Melrose nodded.

Diane sipped her martini, tapped her cigarette into the ashtray, and said, “I expect one has to make some sort of arrangement.”

Surrey,” said Macalvie. He had called Ardry End to tell him that they’d ID’d the dead woman. She was Sada Colthorp, former wife of Rodney Colthorp, Lord Mead. He lived in Surrey. “For God’s sakes, that’s only a hop, skip, and jump from Northants.”

“I don’t know how you hopped, skipped, and jumped as a lad-if you ever were; you were probably just a little policeman-but my hopping and skipping did not cover a hundred miles. That’s how far Surrey is from here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s hardly fifty.”

Melrose knew he’d do whatever Macalvie asked him to, but it was more fun arguing about it first. Besides, he felt he deserved to let Macalvie know how much he was being put out. “Anyway, you said you’d already talked to Colthorp when he came to identify the body. So what good would it do for me to talk to him?” He knew the answer to that, too. For the same reason Jury was always asking him to step into the role of eighth earl.

“Because aristocrats have that in common-the aristocracy.”

“I stopped being one years ago. I’ve forgotten how.”

“Oh, come on. It’s like riding a bike. You never forget.”

Melrose sighed. “I would if people let me.”

“Colthorp collects cars. Vintage autos. That’s why you want to see him.”

“I do?”

“Sure. That old Bentley of yours. Isn’t that an antique by now?”

“It may not be, but I am. Let me get this straight: it’s because I too have an interest in vintage automobiles that I want to see this Lord Mead-what’s his name?”

“Rodney. Rodney Colthorp.”

“Right. It’s really his cars I’m interested in, and he’d be damned interested in my Bentley. Do you realize I know absolutely nothing about cars, including mine?” Knowing Macalvie couldn’t care less, Melrose sighed and got out his pen. “So, which part of Surrey?”

As Macalvie told him, Melrose had the happy thought that if Surrey was not close to Northants, it was certainly close to London and, therefore, to Bethnal Green. He smiled.

18

Lord Ardry.” Rodney Colthorp, Lord Mead, put out his hand and looked at Melrose with an enthusiasm that was flattering. He had answered the door himself, which testified to his being long on humility or short of cash. Staff did not include a full-time door opener, or, if it did, Rodney Colthorp had given the man a good deal of elbow room. Ruthven would be scandalized.

Lord Mead couldn’t resist looking past Melrose at the latter’s Bentley, one of the prewar models, or at least Melrose believed it was. It had been in the family for ages. He wondered if this man was astute enough to tell that Melrose-and his Bentley-were flying false colors. But all Rodney Colthorp said was, “What a beautiful automobile,” as he pulled at his gray mustache, a nervous, contemplative gesture. Then, as if he had forgotten Melrose was there, said, “Oh, sorry to keep you standing on my stoop. Come in, come in.”

Stoop was not the word Melrose would have chosen to describe the area at the top of the two dozen marble steps he had ascended to reach the door. The house was on a much grander scale than was Ardry End, which it resembled.

Perhaps more glorious than the house was the expansive garden and lawn at the back, dotted here and there with sculptures, a gazebo, and a folly or two. It stretched as far as the eye could see. It was both windswept and sheltered by internal hedges, with broad brick paths and gate piers. There were bold tall grasses backed by young pines, box hedges, and long vistas that drew the eye to the steeple of a church somewhere. One path between low walls made its convoluted way, vanishing somewhere in the distance.

“Is that path there for walkers?”

“No. It’s my butterfly corridor. I’m trying to keep species from disappearing completely and help them migrate.