The Lamorna Wink

Dan stood looking around the nearly empty room as if long absence might have altered things irrevocably. “How I missed this room. I could stand where you are now for what seemed like the entire day watching the water, getting the rhythm of it, thinking music. God, what a cliche.” He set his glass on the corner of the piano and sat down on the bench.

Melrose recalled how Daniel’s gaze had traveled the length of the rosewood banister the moment he’d set foot in the house. He was speaking the truth when Dan had said he’d come to console his father, but Melrose wondered if this house and this room hadn’t been part of what pulled him back. As there must be for Daniel Bletchley many rooms and countless pianos, Melrose wondered about his attachment to this one. Or, rather, if the attachment were so strong, could anything have driven him away?

The music happened so suddenly and with such force that Melrose had to take a step backward. Waterfalls of music, cascading notes, a whole rich canvas of that song Melrose had tried to pick out with a finger. He stood looking out the window as if the music might be rushing against the rocks, shaking the waves in some violent rapprochement with the elements.

And the thing about it was, the original composition, though vastly appealing, was not great music, not complex, not textured, but a sentimental song with rather predictable crescendos and diminuendos. Yet this was such felt music. The sheer volume made it seem as if all of the air had been drained from the room and gone to swell the music. Were he truthful, he thought, there were only two responses to such a sound: to faint or to weep. He was not truthful and did neither.

“ ‘Stella by Starlight,’ ” said Daniel. “Do you know what I did? I was eleven or twelve when I heard it. I wrote to the composer and told him how much I liked it. He sent me his original score. I never got over that.” He shook his head as he fingered the opening bars again.

“But that’s wonderful. You must have been very persuasive as a lad. Not to say very talented. Play something of yours.”

“Of mine? I just did.”

“I thought you said-”

Daniel smiled. “Sorry. I’m being enigmatic.” He sighed, thought for a moment, and began to play an etude.

Melrose thought it was technically very fine, yet it didn’t have the weight of the Stella he’d just played. Although “Stella by Starlight” was, no matter how beguiling the melody, sentimental stuff, whatever it lacked in complexity was more than made up for by the complex emotions of the man who played it.

Lost in these reflections and the water below, Melrose jumped when he heard the door knocker.

Dan stopped playing. “Your aunt?”

Melrose looked at his watch and answered, ruefully, “My aunt.”

Talk about the Uninvited.

41

Before she was even over the doorsill, Agatha was running on about the shooting at the Hall. “It’s not hard to see it, I’ve done a little-how d’you do?” she said, acknowledging Daniel Bletchley’s presence, before herding herself into the living room on the right, talking a mile a minute as she went through, unaware that Melrose wasn’t with her. Talk talk talk.

“Listen, thanks for the drinks,” said Daniel.

“Thanks, dear heavens, for the music!”

“My pleasure.” Daniel went out the door and turned. “You’ll come to the funeral?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Ah. Good. You’re really a part of all this. You knew him. Anyway, please come.” With that, he trudged across the gravel to his car.

Agatha was at the window, watching Daniel Bletchley drive away. “Who is that man?”

“Daniel Bletchley. You just met him, remember?”

“That’s the name of the person who runs that depressing home.”

“He’s Morris Bletchley’s son.”

Agatha hugged herself and made a shuddery sound. “It’s freezing in here. You could at least have laid a fire. You knew I was coming for tea.”

“True. We’re not having it in here. Come along.”

Complaining all the way across the foyer and down the short hall-about the temperature, the size of the place, the velvet hangings in the dining room she passed, the drafts, the prospect she glimpsed through a round window facing the bay, the bay itself, the coast of England, all of England, and the world-she finally came to rest on the small sofa by the fire. The air through which she’d passed hummed and vibrated with the tinny sound of a plucked banjo string.

Melrose said, “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize Bletchley. He’s a pianist. He played that white piano in Betty’s or Binkey’s or whatever that tearoom was called.”

“What are you talking about?”

It was as good a story as any. “Harrogate, dear aunt. Don’t you recall staying at the Old Swan with your friend Theodore?”

“You mean Teddy.”

“Well, she looked like a Theodore.” Sighing with genuine pleasure, Melrose recalled that wonderful twenty minutes of conversation when he had set himself the challenge of not speaking a word, yet all the while giving the impression of a man with brilliant conversation. Wasn’t it amazing how blind people could be to the world outside of their own egos?

“You mean that man was the afternoon-tea-hour pianist at Betty’s?”

Betty’s was a Harrogate landmark. Agatha was impressed; she always was by the wrong things.

“Yes. I was trying to talk him into playing in the Woodbine. Well, excuse me while I put the kettle on.” Melrose turned to go.

“You mean the tea’s not ready?” Her sigh was pained. “Oh, honestly, men!”

She seemed to have forgotten that oh-honestly-men had been producing her tea daily at Ardry End without fail or error. He put the kettle on the hob and was back in the library quick as one of young Johnny’s card tricks.

“I was telling you about my own little investigation. We cannot leave it to doltish police such as that Constable Evans!”

“There are some distinctly un-doltish police on the job. Mr. Macalvie, mainly.”

She straightened the ruffle of her fussy flowered blouse. “Of course, they’re all barking up the wrong tree.”

“Which tree is that?”

Ignoring the tree, she leaned forward and whispered-who ever she thought might be overhearing, Melrose didn’t know-“What we need to search for is your local homophobic, and I think I’ve got him!”

The kettle screamed.

No wonder.

Melrose was out and back barely in time for the tea to steep. This announcement of his aunt’s might prove to be entertaining. He told her that her homophobia was misplaced, since the killer hadn’t even intended to kill Tom Letts. “It was Morris Bletchley he or she was after.”

“That’s patently absurd. That’s the trouble with you so-called intellectuals, you can’t see what’s right under your noses. What I heard was”-again she leaned toward him and said in a whispery hiss-“he has AIDS-full blown AIDS! Can’t have that in a village. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that Pfinn person shot him. If ever there was a homophobic, it’s that man!”

Melrose had a hard time of it not to pour scalding tea down her neck. He was never a proselytizer of gay rights or anything else; he didn’t care much one way or the other. But for Tom, yes, he would proselytize. “Your bigoted nature-”

“What?” Sheer amazement sat on her features at the realization that Melrose was overtly criticizing her.