The Old Silent

of his shoes with his swagger stick, and frowning. Then he looked up. 'Aha! The sherry has found its way down the gullet of the Braine person-ye gods! Have you ever seen so much color? Turquoise, at that. Did she set fire to an Indian reserve?' He ripped away the brown paper from his package and brought out a bottle of Tio Pepe.

Vivian's favorite drink. Melrose flinched.

'Reserves, one must always have reserves.' He poured each of them a glassful. He had his smoke, his drink, and he sighed with relief. From what, Melrose wasn't sure. He hadn't been down the mines or at the mills all day. 'You know why this village is glutted with tourists, don't you, Mr. Plant?'

'No, I don't. Seems off-season.'

'My God, hasn't anyone told you about what happened at the inn down the way? About a mile. The Old Silent. Woman shot her husband and we know her.' He was pleased as punch.

The Princess sighed. 'I was about to tell him, Major. There's one more story you've beaten me to.'

He feigned distress. 'My dear Princess, I am sorry.' Meaning he was one-up. As she was about to speak, he went on. 'It's all very strange, and I cannot believe the woman is deranged, not to look at her face; and do you know she's been-'

'Been here,' snapped the Princess, turning upon Melrose a self-congratulatory smile, having stolen the story right out of the Major's mouth.

'You know this woman, do you?'

With a little gesture of his hand, Major Poges graciously allowed the Princess to answer.

She sat forward on the chaise and leaned toward Melrose. 'I can't say I know her well, but I do believe she's a friend of Ann Denholme. She didn't mention it? The entire village is aghast; the Citrine estate is only about two miles from here.'

'Two and one-half,' said the Major, uncorking the Tio Pepe again. 'I walk about Keighley Moor nearly every day.' He refilled his and Melrose's glasses; the Princess put her hand over hers and shook her head.

'Miss Denholme said nothing, no.'

Major Poges turned to the Princess. 'Well, I doubt she would, Rose. Don't you find her an altogether secretive woman?' To Melrose he said, 'When I asked her where the marmalade had got to this morning, she reacted as if there were some subterfuge at work, some double-meaning, as if one of us was running spies-'

The Princess laughed and shook her head. 'What hyperbole! He always talks like that. We cannot depend on anything you say, George.'

He smiled sheepishly and raised his glass. 'Can't help it. Life is so damned dull otherwise. But I expect you're right.' The sheepish look suggested that he had no intention of stopping, however. 'Only, you must admit Ann Denholme seems to see life as a locked box of secrets. Sexual, I hope.' His mustache twitched.

'Hope away,' said the Princess.

Given his brief talk with her earlier, Melrose would say that Major Poges's metaphor was right on the money. It accounted for the literal, rather steamy bodily presence of Ann Denholme, yet mental absence-the rather remote look, the look of a woman who was not really there.

The Princess leaned even farther forward, her eyes no longer milky-gray but glinting like steel shards. 'What I understand from Ruby-she's the maid and stumbling server of our delectable meals-was that Mrs. Healey would bring her boy here to play with Abigail. That's Ann's niece.'

But Abby couldn't have been more than three or four then, a strange playmate for a twelve-year-old boy. Still, given that it was the Fury, she was probably interesting even at two.

'A terrible tragedy, that. Mrs. Healey's son and a local boy from Haworth were kidnapped. I can't imagine you haven't read about it. It was in the Times, after all,' said the Major, thereby questioning Melrose's possible taste and wiping out every other newspaper on Fleet Street.

Before Melrose could extract any more local information, Ann Denholme stuck her head round the door and announced dinner. It was eight o'clock.

'Hell,' said the Major sotto voce, shredding his cigar in the big ashtray. The Princess sighed. Both of them were just revving up for a wonderful gossip. Raising his voice he said, 'Thank you, Miss Denholme. I was wondering, though, if we are all to be seated at the long table.' The tone suggested they damned well better not be. 'I cannot envision dining with Master Malcolm.' He gulped down his drink.

'But you've taken tea with Abby, Major Poges.'

He snorted, got sherry in his nose, and pulled out a huge handkerchief. 'My God, madam, that is apples and oranges. Your niece is human-in a strange little way, granted-but the Braine boy is a swarm of wasps. He better hadn't land on my plate.'

'It's a very long table, Major, as you know. They'll be sitting at the other-'

'Rubbish. I'm sure the boy keeps an air gun for just such occasions. Oh, very well, come along, Prin--' He stopped short and stared at the person coming through the door now, upon whom Ann Denholme bestowed a welcoming smile.

Since the person was in the process of removing a huge black helmet-cyclist? dare-devil stuntman? driver?-it was impossible to tell whether it was male or-

Female, definitely. An absolute mess of long hair the color of oats she shook out like a mane, dangling the helmet in her hand. She was dressed, or swathed, in black leather, collar to toe. She had apparently held up a hardware store, for she had so many metal chains round her neck and hammered metal earrings and bangles encircling her wrists she clattered through the room like Marley's ghost.

Ann Denholme introduced this young woman as Miss Ellen Taylor. The Major bowed, the Princess murmured, Melrose smiled. Miss Ellen Taylor was totally self-absorbed; she had a vague smile that she hung on various points in the air, never quite getting round to the three guests.

Major Poges bent over to put out his cigar and said, very low, to Melrose, 'The Eagle has landed.'

The Princess, her hand on the door, smiled at Miss Taylor and said, 'I heard Dior was bringing back the bomber's jacket: that is afascinating ensemble.'

Melrose declined the Major's request that he join them. He had to meet someone in Haworth.

And anyway, the curtain had just gone up on the next act.

15

Weavers Hall appeared to be a cabaret or theater in which the curtain rises in folds and cascades down. The sofa was a front-row seat; all he had to do was wait to be entertained as one act followed another. The trained seals should be along any moment now. He smiled.

Miss Taylor was too busy studying the bookshelves to see the smile. All of that black leather simulated, indeed, a seal-like hide. It was supple; it glimmered wetly; light caught in its pliable folds as she bent, rose, bent again to remove and replace various books.

In a dismissive tone, she said, 'God, but someone here sure goes in for mysteries.'

An American. But 'heah shoe-ah'? He did not, however, have some stereotypical image in his mind of Americans as always dressed in black leather and riding motorcycles and having loud voices and hard accents-as Miss Taylor certainly did.

He put hers down to nervousness, for some reason he couldn't explain, as she threw herself down on the opposite end of the sofa, with some loud talk about the weather, the brittle air, the ice-patched road, the ruts that had nearly thrown her. The helmet she stashed on the floor and was wrenching her long hair about as if she meant to strangle herself with it; from a secret little pocket (the leather jacket had many) she drew some hairpins which now bristled from her mouth like thorns as she plucked them out and stuck them here and there to bunch her hair up and back. Around them she said loud, indecipherable things ('Chris-bu'thr'snurumin'lage'), while Melrose made umms and ohs in his throat. In the streak of light from the anglepoise lamp, he imagined the oriental carpet rippling, the floorboards tremoring slightly from the voice that was still loud despite the strictures imposed by the hairpins.

Ellen Taylor was extremely attractive, although she hadn't done much to enhance the qualities that made her so. The bountiful hair could use a good wash, the hands that fooled with it were oil-streaked and nail-bitten, and