"I'll say only this: Don't be surprised if Trueblood and the Demorney person turn up on your doorstep."

This did interest him, for it made him think of last night's dream. He crushed the paper in his lap. "Why would they do that, for heaven's sake?"

"Now you're interested! Well, it will do you no good at all. I'm finished." She did not mean with her tea, for she turned to where Johnny was serving another table and held up her hand, gently turning it back and forth like a cheery h.e.l.lo from the Queen.

Melrose returned to his paper. "Are you settled in at Lemming Cottage?"

Her look was sharp. "Lemon Cottage, as I'm sure you know."

"True. I just had a blinding flash of all its guests heading full throttle toward a cliff."

"Very funny."

"Just a little foyer into humor."

"I should think you might take all of what's happening more seriously."

Melrose looked around the small room, where every table was occupied. "Take what seriously? Are you taking anything seriously, except that Sweet Lady you're washing down the scone with?"

What Agatha was shoving into her mouth was a Woodbine special, a wonderful confection of a long thin meringue holding a layer of dense chocolate, itself topped by a layer of chocolate mousse. The crispness of the sh.e.l.l was a counterpoint to the rich layers of chocolate. Melrose looked at the sheet from the Sidbury paper and wondered if he could start a food column.

Agatha pinched up the last morsel of meringue, saying it was quite tasty indeed. "I should like the recipe for this."

The wish being father to the thought, she set about getting it, hailing the overworked Megs to her side. She told her to see about the recipe for the Sweet Lady, to ask the cook for it.

Megs looked struck dumb as she shifted the small tray she was carrying. "Well, Mum, I can't say. I can't say how it'd take her-Brenda, I mean."

"I know," said Agatha marshaling a tone one might use when speaking to the mentally challenged. "That's why I say, ask the cook."

But the girl was not yet ready to ask, not without giving a bit of the history of recipe requests. "Just last Easter I think it was someone wanted her recipe for Bunnykens-"

A recipe, Melrose reflected, he could easily do without.

"-and when Miss B wouldn't give it, this person got quite shirty. Not much later, another lady wanted to know how to make the meringues-Miss C's, that is, as they're different from Miss B's-"

Would they wander through the entire alphabet?

"-but she wouldn't give that out, neither, nor would Miss C." Megs shifted the tray again. "Then someone wanted-"

Agatha interrupted. "Good grief, girl! Get back to the kitchen! You can never tell when she might change her mind. She's clearly quixotic."

The p.r.o.nunciation of which word Melrose filed away to use later.

"Oh, I can tell."

At this point, Melrose was about to pull up a chair and have Megs join them.

"I've been working here five years and Miss B's never given out a single recipe. There was even a duke in here once had the beef olives and you wouldn't believe the fuss he made when she said, and very nicely she said it, she was sorry but she never gave out her recipes. Especially not the meringues. Nor does Miss C." Megs flushed, realizing that Miss C might never again have a chance to. But she soldiered on. "They make them different, see; they put in secret ingredients. They don't even know each other's, so, you see, it'd hardly be like either Miss C or Miss B to give them out. There was one lady-"

Agatha flipped her hand at the girl, off with you, off with you, and Megs scooted away. Agatha returned her attention to the cake plate just as Johnny Wells pushed through the swinging door and met with the waitress going in from the dining room side. He was tying his ap.r.o.n, stopping at a table recently vacated, where he collected the plates and cups and stacked them on a tray. Paler than usual, thus more Byronic and handsomer. Women would kill for that skin, that hair.

Johnny looked over at Melrose and, seeing Agatha returned, actually smiled broadly. He walked over to their table, taking one or two requests from the patrons as he went.

"h.e.l.lo, John," said Melrose. "My aunt's put poor Megs up to trying to get a recipe from the prop-I mean, from Miss B." Proprietress sounded too much as if there were but one, so Melrose had cut that word short.

Johnny laughed. "Not a prayer, I'm afraid," he said to Agatha.

To him she said, "Never hurts to try. Dear boy, I'm sorry to hear about your aunt. What are police doing? If anything, that is."

Melrose's voice fell on her like a brick wall. "On the contrary, they're doing quite a lot." He cast a baleful look around the room that sent the curious back to their tea and Sweet Ladies. "I know for a fact they're doing everything they can. You met Commander Macalvie; I don't think he's ever failed to solve a case."

Agatha put in some welcome news. "That doesn't mean the person's still alive once he's solved it." She poked her nose in the teapot.

"Thank you, Agatha, for that cheerful note."

"Oh, she'll turn up, never you mind," said Agatha.

Johnny ignored this ba.n.a.l remark and said to Melrose, "Trouble is, police have enough on their plate to concentrate on a missing person who might not even be missing. There's the Lamorna Cove business."

All the patrons were listening now, not even bothering with their tea. Wasn't this the biggest thing to hit Bletchley since Moe turned their stately home into a hospice?

"But that's a good reason why they'd pay more attention to your aunt's disappearance."

"Well . . . yes, I see what you mean." He turned, when another patron called to him, and left.

Melrose thought any bit of knowledge that might uncover the reasons for Chris Wells's disappearance would be welcome to Johnny, stuck as he must feel in this limbo. That brought to mind the little girl, Ca.s.sie, and her mother, Maggie, and how not knowing was virtual h.e.l.l. But it was Macalvie who had had to endure the real h.e.l.l. He was the one left with the bad news.

Policemen were always cast as the messengers who bring the bad news. Melrose couldn't imagine himself being able to fill this role. He wondered how Richard Jury stood it.

He supposed the answer was: Jury didn't.

31.

That evening, while the sheepdog in the doorway replaced one of the huskies, Melrose found himself sharing the Drowned Man's saloon bar with two other guests, a woman in a brown suit who sat by the fire, reading as she drank her c.o.c.ktail, and a man who looked to be in his mid-forties but could well be younger, age altered perhaps by serious drink, such as the one in front of him on the bar: a shot gla.s.s of whisky and a pint of beer. The whisky was downed in one blink, a long gulp of the beer in another.

"Evening," said Melrose, feeling very much a Bletchleyite compared to this inn guest who was pa.s.sing through, although it wasn't much of an "onmy-way-to" sort of village. It wasn't anywhere near a major artery. Since Melrose was ensconced in his own house now, he felt he was not flying under false colors to act as a resident. He added to his greeting-"Are you getting on with the dogs?"-nodding toward the doorway into which all five were now crowded.

The man laughed and said, "Looks like a lineup to me. Are we supposed to identify the guilty one?"

Melrose laughed too. "My name's Melrose Plant."

He moved a couple of seats down the bar to hold out his hand.

"Charlie Esterhazey. Glad to meet you."

"Do you live in Bletchley? I don't think I've seen you about."

"No. Just visiting a relation. Johnny Wells. I think he works here."

This, thought Melrose, was the uncle Johnny had mentioned but never referred to again. Alcoholic, maybe, but a very engaging one. "Then you're related to Chris Wells."

Charlie turned to his pint of beer, drank what was left of it, and said in a melancholy tone, "No, but I am to Johnny. It's terrible, what happened. Chris is such a great person." He drank again. "People are always leaving Johnny stranded. First his father died; then his mother took off; now this. I don't mean, of course, that Chris did it deliberately."

Why not?

The question sprang to mind. Always before, it had been asked and answered, as if no one could possibly imagine Chris Wells leaving deliberately. It would have been an awfully hurried departure, a drop-of-the-hat departure. . . . But, why not? Everyone had called it an emergency, not really a "deliberate" leaving; it could only be leaving in answer to some serious occurrence. This notion hadn't taken root because she hadn't informed Johnny-and it looked less and less as if she'd left willingly, since she still hadn't notified Johnny.

He felt he'd been sluggish in coming up with this alternative. And Brian Macalvie? A "sluggish" Commander Macalvie was a contradiction in terms. Yet since Chris Wells's disappearance had brought back to mind that old horror of Ca.s.sie's death and then the Bletchley children's, even Macalvie's usually clear and ordered mind could be clouded by what was on it.

". . . a magician, good with cards, scarves, and pulling coins from behind your ear."

Melrose had only half heard Charlie's talk. "I'm sorry, what were you saying?"

"Johnny. I was talking about his love of magic. He's pretty good, actually. He's put on a few shows at Bletchley Hall. The tricks are standard, but he performs with such panache he makes them new."

Melrose was deep in own thoughts. "Could she have?"

"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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s.

The woman in the brown suit drained her c.o.c.ktail 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 gla.s.s now filled. He smiled a smile he seemed to have been working on as he pa.s.sed-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, G.o.d knows. Really, the whole d.a.m.ned 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?"