The Old Silent

it.' He stirred this remedy up in the ceramic pot. 'The thing is that if you think Mr. Macalvie's whole idea about the date of the death, the proximity to the Citrine house, the disused graveyard makes sense, then if the skeleton isn't the Healey boy's, whose is it? It can't be Toby Holt's because he was killed five weeks later in London. So that would mean there'd have to be a third boy somewhere between, say, eleven and fifteen around there, and that's too much of a coincidence, surely.'

'And Macalvie's already checked that… did you?'

'Naturally.'

'Nil?'

'Nil.'

'You rang up Macalvie?'

'I did.'

'And what's his theory?'

'The same. He's always thought it was Billy Healey.' Wiggins's mouth pursed in his version of a smile. 'He seemed a bit pleased that I faced down Professor Dench.'

'Didn't it bother Commander Macalvie that all possibilities have been ruled out?'

'No.'

' 'First we get to the truth, then sort out what it means.' He said something like that,' Jury suggested.

' 'Shoot first, ask questions later,' I believe his words were.'

'Like any gunslinger.'

Jury had gone back to his desk and sat down heavily, largely oblivious to the stacks of files awaiting his inspection. 'Macalvie's wrong.'

Wiggins had been giving exploratory taps to his chest with his fist. Cough gone. But voice tense. 'You say that as if you're quite sure.'

Wiggins sat there, waiting, Jury knew, for some explanation of his superior's pigheaded behavior. 'We'll talk about it later. This Stanley Keeler-'

With the injured look that always lay just beneath the surface, Wiggins said, 'Stan Keeler. My eardrums will never forget him. I don't know how the landlady sticks it, except she's convinced he's some sort of Polish spy. She's big as a hoarding, nearly. I expect you'd have to be to stand up to all of those tremors.'

'I want to talk to him, too. About Roger Healey.'

'Suit yourself.' Wiggins shut the book on osteoanatomy as if he were shutting the door on the case. 'But you'll have to wear earplugs.'

'Thought you said he was lying quietly on the floor during your encounter.'

'He had his head on a tire.' Wiggins was beginning to prefer elliptical statements, inscrutable answers.

'He was lying on the floor with his head on a tire?'

'Thassrigh,' said Wiggins, duck-honking into his handkerchief. 'With a Labrador. Big.'

'Duckworth. I want to see him too.'

Wiggins asked gravely, 'Did you do your research into rock music?'

'Piles of it. What's this?' He'd just seen a pink telephone message in the Out box. 'Riving--' He shut his eyes.

'Yes, sir. Miss Rivington from Long Piddleton. Where Mr. Plant lives. About an hour ago. Is something wrong?'

'No.' He reached in his billfold, plucked out a ten-pound note, reached it out to Wiggins. 'Go get me some flowers.' He thought for a moment. 'Tiger lilies. Something green and brown. And toss in some white roses. There's a shop down the street.'

'That's a strange combination, sir. I don't know any brown flower. And, anyway, you'd have to wire them… sir!' Wiggins rose immediately, seeing his superior's expression.

Two days. The day after tomorrow. How could he have been so damned stupid as to forget. 'Of course I didn't forget, Vivian. How could I have forgotten?'

'Easily,' said Vivian. Her voice sounded forlorn. She quickly picked up its tempo. 'I mean, with everything that happened to you. Your picture was in the papers. I expect you have to testify.'

'No, probably not.'

'It won't keep you from seeing me off, then?'

'Never. Nothing would keep me from seeing you off. I simply wish you weren't going off.' He might have opened with a lie, but this was certainly the truth. He was standing with the receiver in his hand, looking up again at the patch of dirty winter sky. And sometimes I think of high windows/ The sun's- Yesterday's sun.

'What? What did you say?'

He must have spoken aloud without realizing it. 'I was just thinking of a message I wrote a long time ago.'

'What was it?'

'To a girl who loved to dance to an old Jerome Kern song called 'Yesterdays.'' Jury asked, 'Was it always better? Yesterday, I mean. There've been so many songs written about it.'

Vivian was silent for a moment. 'Perhaps it was. Or perhaps it will be,' she added sadly. 'I'm sorry about the girl.'

'I was only six.' He tried to bring some lightness to this little confession.

'Then that's sadder.' She paused. 'The train leaves at eleven in the morning. The morning after tomorrow.' Her tone was tentative, as if she didn't really believe he'd be there. 'Victoria. I think.'

Jury smiled. 'The Orient Express always leaves from Victoria.'

'Oh. Marshall and I are coming up to London… Where's Melrose? I can't find Melrose.'

Her voice was distant, as if she'd been talking away from the telephone, looking about the room, hoping to find Melrose. Hell, had Melrose Plant forgotten, too?

'Where is everybody?' She wept into the silence.

Quickly, Jury said, 'Vivian, he's in Haworth. He stopped off there on his way back from Harrogate.'

'For what?'

'He was tired, I expect. If you'd just driven Agatha over a hundred miles, wouldn't you be?' At least, she laughed at that. 'I think his idea was just to stay the week until he had to collect her, rather than drive all the way back again.' Before she could reflect on the location of the Old Silent, he went on lying. 'Look, I'll ring him up and tell him to call you immediately. I think he said they were having trouble with the telephone service-'

'That's very good.'

' 'Good?' He heard the smile in her voice.

'That tale. Just as long as you're both there, Richard. Tell him he's forgiven.'

'Forgiven-?' But she'd already hung up.

Eight years, and now she was going off to marry some smirking Italian, and it was the first time he'd heard her call him Richard.

***

'A friend gave them to me,' said Jury. 'Get-well gift.' He cradled the massive bunch of flowers Wiggins had brought back and looked deadpan across Chief Superintendent Racer's desk.

Sergeant Wiggins was perched on the edge of the leather sofa; Fiona (who'd been called in to search for Cyril) was busy pinning a white rose from the bouquet into her plunging neckline, thereby enhancing the cleavage even more. 'Still look pale to me, you do.'

Wiggins agreed: 'Bedrest, I told him, and proper medication-'

'Oh, stop it,' shouted Racer. 'He's about as sick as that pint-sized panther that's lurking in here.' He raised his head slightly, as if he were sniffing the air. Then his head popped below the surface of his desk, his voice coming back to them hollow and brandy-soaked. 'Where is he?' His head came up again. 'Stop