The Lamorna Wink

“I beg your pardon?”

“His aunt. Could she have gone off like that deliberately?”

“Well…” Charlie considered. “I know police wondered about an emergency, something that forced her to drop everything and leave.”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean ‘deliberately,’ as in ‘after deliberation.’ Just suppose she packed up and left without a word to anyone. But I’m talking in circles. That’s what I’m asking you. Could she have done that?”

Charlie shook his head at the same time he made a sign to Mr. Pfinn. He said, “Completely out of the question. She’s the most responsible person I’ve ever known. Dependable, reliable to a fault. So, my answer’s no, she couldn’t have. The only way I can picture her running off like that is if someone called and asked for help. Urgently. Me, for instance.” When Melrose gave him a considering look, Charlie smiled. “No, I didn’t call. I am the first one Johnny thought of, though, I mean as a walking emergency.”

Pfinn came along, reluctant as usual to dispense drink, and gave both of them a steely look as he said, “You havin’ dinner here, you two?”

“We two.” Eyebrows raised, Melrose looked to Charlie. “Mr. Esterhazey?” Charlie nodded, and Melrose said to Pfinn, “Yes, we two are having dinner here.”

With no sign that he welcomed the news, Pfinn made a sound in his throat and walked away to speak to the woman in brown. It would appear that she, too, was to have dinner in the Drowned Man’s dining room.

“Mr. Esterhazey-”

“Please, just Charlie. Why be formal when we’re sitting here getting drunk together?” He looked at the level of beer in Melrose’s glass and said, “Rather, I’m sitting here getting drunk together.” He helped himself to some peanuts in a dish, then tossed back the whisky and followed it with a cool drink of beer. “These things are called boilermakers in the States.”

Melrose smiled. Charlie, alcoholic or not, was extremely beguiling. Perhaps because he was forthright. “Chris Wells has come to your rescue, has she?”

“Oh, yes, more than once. Which makes me think that that night she came to someone else’s.”

“But the someone wasn’t who the someone said, or else something went wrong.”

Charlie was silent for a few moments, drinking and eating peanuts, before he finally asked, “You think she’s dead?”

The strain in his voice made it clear that this was an alternative he didn’t want to consider.

Melrose was saved from replying by Mr. Pfinn, who had come down the bar again to slap menus before them. “Quicker if you order now. Got to take out the dogs.”

“We do?” Melrose looked over his shoulder at the five in the doorway in mock alarm.

“ ’Course not. I mean me.”

“Very well.” Melrose looked briefly at the menu, which was all that was required, given there were only two choices: shepherd’s pie and cod Angelique, whatever that was. “I’ll have the cod, minus the Angelique.”

Charlie said, “I’ll have the same and another whisky, if you don’t mind.”

Pfinn minded. “I’ll bring it to you in the dining room.” A clear bribe, and he took away the shot glass.

The woman in the brown suit drained her cocktail and rose. She was apparently the only other diner. Melrose and Charlie pocketed their cigarettes and followed.

They took a table near the woman but not right next to her. Melrose thought tables in the same area would save Johnny from running all over the room. They said good evening to the woman in brown and she nodded and returned the greeting. She was a good-looking, rather regal woman who had once been beautiful but was now at that age-fifty-five or sixty, perhaps-to be called handsome. She seemed completely composed, not the sort to try and start up a conversation on the basis of a simple greeting.

They shook napkins across their laps as Johnny came in from the kitchen, shouldering a tray holding salads, rolls, a water jug, and the shot glass now filled. He smiled a smile he seemed to have been working on as he passed-taking a moment to set down Charlie’s whisky-and went to the woman by the window.

His smile a little more practiced, he then bestowed it on Melrose and Charlie. “Did you find everything you needed in the house?”

“I did indeed,” said Charlie.

“Thanks for coming. It’s very kind of you,” said Johnny.

“No, no, not at all. I just want to help if I can.”

Johnny nodded and went toward the kitchen.

While they fiddled with their salads, Melrose said, “You told me his mother went off and left him. Why?”

“Because she’s worthless. His father-my brother-wasn’t much better. I don’t know know how those two managed to find each other, but they did. How someone like Johnny could be born of that union, God knows. Really, the whole damned family makes you think you’re living in a medieval court-Henry the Eighth or Elizabeth’s, something like that. The intrigue, the backbiting, the deeds and misdeeds, the plots, the plans-there were no heroes. But then there was Chris. Like Johnny, she must’ve skipped that particular gene pool.”

“Do you know the Bletchleys?”

“People you’re renting from? Not very well. I ran into the wife a couple of times in the Woodbine. Good-looking, I’ll say that for her.” He picked a few sunflower seeds from his salad and added, “Chris couldn’t stand her.”

Melrose looked up. “Really? Why?”

Charlie shrugged. “The soul-searching eyes. Not her own eyes, yours.”

“That’s a new one.”

“Yeah.” Charlie smiled.

For the first time Melrose realized he had the same ingenuous manner as Johnny Wells. “What is it you do in Penzance, Charlie?”

“Magic.” He smiled at Melrose’s questioning look. “I guess that’s where Johnny gets it. I have a little shop, called Now You See It.” He pulled a fresh deck of cards from his pocket. “Here’s a simple one: I shuffle the cards-” which he did. “You pick one-” which Melrose did. “Put it back in the deck.” Melrose did so. Charlie reshuffled. Then he fanned the cards out on the table, picked one, and held it up.

Melrose shook his head. He was sorry it hadn’t worked. “Not that, no.”

Charlie smiled. “I know it isn’t. It’s under your glass. King of Clubs.”

That’s where it was, too. “How in hell did you do that?”

“Sorry.” Charlie shook his head, gathered up the cards, and shoved them back in his pocket. His eyes crinkled at Melrose over the top of his glass.

“Bloody amazing,” said Melrose.

“Uh-huh. The magic shop’s the main job. I also take out boats. You know, tourists who want to see Penzance from away. The climate’s great here and we get a million tourists. I take them out. I’m better with boats than I am with people.”

“Really?” Melrose gave him a long look.

32

A meeting ordained by the gods was how Melrose pictured the meeting between Sergeant Wiggins and Bletchley Hall. Imbued with the aura of death, death still missed being an actual fact.

Wiggins was talking about these “homes for retired gentlefolk” as they drove toward Bletchley Hall in pale afternoon sunlight. “There’s of course your typical nursing home; it’s small and gloomy and cramped, furnished with iron beds and the yellow light cast by forty-watt bulbs and old magazines. So old you can’t even hold out for the May issue, no, sir, May’s been and gone and if May didn’t revive you, well, June’s gone too.”

The rental car was a cheap model and ground its way up the shallow incline as if it were making for Everest’s peak. It rattled, but no more than did Sergeant Wiggins, who could obviously speak at great length when a topic inspired him. (He must often have been muffled by Jury when they were on a case together.)

“-metal tray with scrambled eggs from a dry mix and weak coffee, a thimble of juice, thin toast-”

“Sounds like the B-and-B circuit, Sergeant Wiggins.”