The Old Silent

Suddenly, she looked up. 'Oh, sorry. I was thinking about something.' Even the smile was tense. 'Are you Mr. Plant? That the tourist board rang up about?'

Melrose nodded. She was a random beauty, as if everything were there, but hadn't been got quite right, like the early stages of a portrait the painter had given up on: the eyes well spaced, but the irises a washed-out blue; the mouth full, but tilted down at the corners; the complexion clear except for a few barely discernible pockmarks, the legacy of a childhood disease.

She reached out her hand. 'I'm Ann Denholme.' She started to pick up his bag, but Melrose immediately took it himself.

'The family who must have arrived before me-may I ask their name?'

They walked through the big oak door into a hall filled with dark wood and faded turkey carpeting. 'The Braines, mother and son.' She looked with disgust toward the upper rooms. 'Only just got here and already there was some sort of fight out there between the son and Abby, and she threatened to pack up and leave.' She had removed the shawl and hung it on a peg inside the door. Now, she had her arms crossed and was rubbing her elbows, looking troubled. 'He's absolutely beastly, that boy-'

Melrose smiled and nodded.

'-but Abby doesn't seem to be able to understand that she can't treat guests as she pleases.'

'Abby didn't start it; I did.'

Ann Denholme was leading him down a hallway and stopped to look back. 'You?'

'Me. The son's the type who'd tear the wings off Clouded Yellows and lovebirds.' They had come to the landing. 'When I came round the house-' Melrose stopped. It wasn't because of some sense of honor that he refused to tell of the peccadilloes of others; the reason (he told himself) that he did not rat on people was because he was rich and didn't need to. Amazing what a bit of money could do toward solving life's little problems. 'I reprimanded him.'

As they walked the long hall past several doors with handsome walnut frames, she asked, 'For what?'

So the Beastly Boy hadn't told; he wouldn't have wanted Melrose's version to come out. Besides, Melrose could stalk the halls with his cosher at night. 'He was annoying the chickens. Which room is mine?'

'The chickens?' She regarded him doubtfully as she opened the door and stood against it, her hand on the knob so that he could precede her.

It was a Victorian room, overstuffed and crammed with its four-poster bed, button-back velvet side chairs, double bureau, long curtains with heavy tie-backs, washstand, faded sprigged wallpaper, gold fan in the empty fireplace, pottery on the mantelpiece. Charming, nonetheless, possibly because of its busyness, as if a little old lady in flounces and cap had fussed about adding yet other pieces of unnecessary ornaments.

As he unbuckled his case and threw the straps back, he said, 'I saw your daughter at the vet's today. True Friend, I think it's called.'

'Abby's not my daughter.'

Her tone, he thought, was chilly. 'No? But she looks exactly like you and since she lives here, I assumed…'

'She's my niece, my sister's girl. That would account for it, I expect.' Her eyes were fastened on Melrose's dressing gown of silk paisley, a gift that Vivian had brought back from one of her Italian jaunts. 'That's beautiful. I love materials, though I can't afford that kind.' That she was sitting on his bed, admiring his dressing gown, struck Melrose as a bit odd, however flattering it might be. Things seemed to break out rather suddenly at Weavers Hall- fights, sex-like a rash.

There was a brief knock on the door frame and a ruddy-skinned woman, probably in her late sixties and with a pansy-shaped face, said, 'Mug of tea, sir?' She held a thick Delft mug toward him.

Said Ann Denholme, 'Thank you, Mrs. Braithwaite.' Her voice was curt. But the woman seemed to take it in stride. She made a tiny curtsy and took away the same smile she had brought with her. 'I always serve tea in the drawing room downstairs about this time, but I thought, in the circumstances…' Her voice trailed away.

'You mean, that I might want to avoid Mrs. Braine and her son.' Melrose was mildly annoyed that he was being told to keep to his room and stay out of further trouble. 'On the contrary, I'd be delighted to join the other guests for tea.'

'You would? There are only two others. I doubt you'd find much in common with an elderly major and a slightly… urn… decaying Italian princess. Or so she says.' Ann Denholme smiled to let him know her assessment of her guests was good-humored. Then she said, 'I must tell you, the mother was extremely upset over Abby. And you.'

'Miss Denholme, I must tell you that I am notupset over the Braines. The son should be a ward of the state.'

Ann Denholme colored slightly, obviously realizing she hadn't gone about this in the right way. 'Of course. Mrs. Braithwaite's taken in the tea now. I can just have her fetch another cup.'

'Here's my mug-' He held the Delft blue mug aloft. '- that'll do.'

'No, no. I'll just tell Mrs. Braithwaite…'

'Please don't bother. I'm meeting a friend in two hours for dinner at-'

But she'd already left the room.

Melrose sighed and shook his head.

He should have ratted.

Discordant piano music, as if a cat were prowling the keyboard, came from the drawing room.

The piano was somewhere behind the open door. He could not see it but knew that the Beastly Boy was the one slamming away at it. The mother allowed this racket to continue, sitting over there before the fireplace with a lap desk full of playing cards. Another occupant of the room, herself seated on a chaise longue, was a handsome, sixtyish woman dressed rather formally in lavender silk.

Melrose couldn't imagine anyone more turquoise than the Braine woman. She had sloughed off the balloon of a jacket, but was still wearing the tight blue-green pants. However, she had added a few more items to her costume: spike-heeled shoes with an ankle strap, also turquoise; drop earrings of blue and green glass that looked like bits from broken bottles; a heavy lathering of turquoise eyeshadow. Melrose put on his gold-rimmed spectacles as he moved farther into the room, nodding to the ladies, and coming to rest by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. He noticed that a book lay splayed open on the piecrust table by the Beastly Boy's mother. Surely not (thought Melrose). Yes it was. The Turquoise Lament by Mr. John D. MacDonald. The ensemble was complete-no, it wasn't, for now Mrs. Braine was stuffing a cigarette into a turquoise holder. She was the most turquoise woman he had ever seen. This was relieved only by eyes, hair, and turban, all black.

Master Malcolm had stopped for one blessed moment, but was poising his crablike fingers over the ivories, when Melrose said, with a twitching smile, 'Play it again, Sam.'

Malcolm, momentarily stunned, wheeled round on the piano stool. 'Wot?'

There were traces of an accent surfacing that spoke not of Chelsea or Kensington but of Shoreditch. 'Merely joking. Well, thisis a charming scene!' he said heartily, moving to the fireplace and warming his hands.

The aristocratic lady in lavender glanced over the top of a slim volume (read, Melrose thought, precisely for the purpose of glancing over) and regarded him shrewdly.

Immediately after Melrose spoke to him, Master Malcolm slid from the stool and inched toward Mummy, who sat glaring at Melrose, and, with her arm round her son, muttered comforting words like 'Lovie,' and other endearments that made Malcolm look as if he'd rather be out kicking dogs.

'Are you playing solitaire, then? Ah, the Tarot. Well.'

Ramona Braine stared at him from coal-pit eyes and said, 'Taurus.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'You. Born under the sign of the Bull. Stubborn, given to rages. Though you can be loyal. I knew there would be trouble. I felt it. And more to come. Much more.'

They might have been sitting in a caravan, given that fairground-gypsyish tone she used. Since she put no time limit on the trouble, the prediction was safe enough. 'I'm an Aquarian, actually.' He smiled.

'Just barely,' she answered, gathering her cards together. And then she looked round the room as if some effluvium were forming, and mentioned the chill when she'd crossed the doorsill. 'Mark me,' she added, drawing