Melrose grabbed his arm and dragged him back. “No! No, you can’t get rid of a hermit in the conventional ways. A hermit has to be schemed away. Otherwise-”
“Yes?”
“-it’s bad luck. But why are you acting so high and mighty about it? I seem to recall something about a notebook you absconded with. The memoirs of Franco Giappino? His adventures in Transylvania? His many brides?”
Jury waved this away as they walked up the front steps. “Oh, that.”
Ruthven was waiting inside. Ruthven waited as impeccably as he did everything.
“Superintendent, I’m happy to see you’ve returned.” He was helping Jury remove his coat.
“Tell me about Nell Ryder,” said Melrose. “What happened?”
“If you’ll just let me get this other sleeve off, ah, thank you, Ruthven.”
Ruthven bowed slightly and asked, or started to, “Would you care for tea, Superintendent?”
“I would, yes.” Jury claimed the sofa. “In case I want a bit of a lie-down.” He sank back against the soft cushions. “First, though, I talked to Barry-Chief Inspector?-Greene. Seems the dead woman was Ryder’s second wife.”
Melrose raised his eyebrows. “What do you make of that?”
“I don’t; I haven’t, yet.”
Melrose sat on the edge of his wing chair. “Well, go on, go on about Nell Ryder. You said she turned up at Rice’s office. Out of the blue.”
“Out of the blue indeed.”
Then Jury began and went on telling Melrose, over the lighting of Melrose’s cigarette, over the appearance of the tea, about Nell Ryder’s reappearance.
Melrose didn’t speak, but sat back and marveled at this story that should have begun, Melrose said, with “Once upon a time.”
“Maurice?” Melrose said, aghast. “But why would he have-he’s been, or seemed, so heartbroken by Nell’s disappearance-”
“Even more reason to be utterly miserable, if he had anything at all to do with her abduction.”
“But what?”
Jury shook his head.
Melrose grabbed a tiny sandwich from a plate that Agatha was not here to ravage. “For nearly two years he’d have kept it to himself?” Melrose shook his head and poured out more tea. “Uh-uh, I can’t buy that.”
“After a while, it would get even more difficult to tell anyone, more and more, because he’d have let everyone flounder for a week, month, then six months, then a year…” Jury shrugged, sipped his tea and took a bite of smoked salmon sandwich. He felt starved. “What’s for dinner?”
“I don’t know. A slab of cow or a dead duck?”
Jury smiled and they sat in silence for a moment. Then Jury asked, “Can you imagine the patience it took for Nell Ryder to do what she did? Not to mention courage.”
“ ‘Patience’ isn’t exactly the word, is it? ‘Determination,’ I’d say. No, ‘focus’ might be even nearer the mark. Those mares. They were the only thing that came within her line of vision. Everything else disappeared; everything else she just hacked down to clear the path. If her mind was trained on a distant light, she’d swim through a river of crocodiles to get to it. Someone like that”-Melrose shook his head-“is stepping to the beat of her own drummer, that’s certain.”
Dinner was, forensically speaking, a dead duck, but more specifically, a duck sautéed in a fig and marsala vinegar. Sour and sweet played off each other in a delicious and syrupy essence, not to mention the alcohol-laden one. With it were French green beans in a walnut vinaigrette and bourbon mashed sweet potatoes.
“Aren’t you interested in Wales?” asked Jury.
“Wales? No, should I be? Oh, yes, I forgot with so much else going on. What happened?”
Jury told him about Sara Hunt.
“You think she’s obsessed with Dan Ryder? Or was?”
“Still is. No, that flame has not gone out.”
They ate and drank in silence for a few minutes. Then Melrose looked at Jury. “What are you sniggering about?”
“Wondering how an alcoholic would deal with these soused dishes. Vernon Rice has one of those dotcom things called SayWhen.”
“What does it do?”
Jury speared a bite of marsala-soaked duck. “Nothing, really. It mostly commiserates.”
“What does he sell, then?” asked Melrose.
“ ‘With-a-Twist.’ ”
“Pardon?”
“It’s the newsletter that’s sold,” said Jury. “That’s what it’s called-‘With-a-Twist.’ It does some sort of riff on personal experiences. I’m not sure what. But the site is meant to give people incentive to stay off the booze.”
“Wouldn’t you think a grown man, a grown broker, a grown venture capitalist and day trader-wouldn’t you think he’d have better things to do with his time?”
“Don’t be so holier than thou.” Jury sniggered again. “I just wish he’d start up one on smoking. I could use some commiseration there.”
“But you stopped smoking two years ago!”
Jury gave him a look and shook his head. “Is today your ‘I’m a Simpleton’ day? For God’s sake, smoking is a complex matter. How many packs a day do you go through?”
“Only one. I limit myself to just the one so I won’t get addicted.”
Ruthven entered.
“Let’s have some more incredibly soused potatoes and another bottle of whatever.”
“The Hermitage?”
“That’s the ticket.”
Ruthven retreated.
Melrose asked, “Where was the place she was taken to?” “About two miles from Ryder’s, to the north. She was that close.”
“Weren’t they afraid she might be recognized?”
“Apparently not.” Jury thought about the walls. “If you were a good horseman, it’s more direct to jump those walls. And this person was apparently a very good horseman. Nell thinks he could easily have been a jockey.”
Ruthven returned with the wine and the potatoes. “These damn things are making me drunk,” said Melrose while Ruthven spooned up the potatoes for him.
“It wouldn’t be the whole bottle of wine, right?”
Ruthven tittered as he served Jury.
“No, it wouldn’t. That’s what I usually have and I’m sober as a judge.”
Ruthven said, “Will you be ready for dessert in fifteen minutes? The soufflé will be out of the oven then.”
“Yes, thanks.”
Ruthven made his exit with tray and server.
“Soufflé. What kind?”
“Chocolate. With fairy cakes.”
“Do those things really exist?”
“Of course. Fairies exist, after all. It’s a child’s confection, a cupcake with wings.”
They had cleaned their plates and Jury sat back with a sigh. “God, this is so nice. Waited on hand and foot, whiskey, wine, duck.”
“Is it?”
“You don’t think so?”
“I’m used to it. Mind if I smoke?”
“It’s bad manners to smoke between courses.” Melrose plucked a cigarette from a porcelain box, lit it with his Zippo. “And nor do I know why the second Mrs. Ryder was done in on a training course.”
Jury sat back. Then he said, “Possibly a joke.”
“Oh, how droll. ‘I saw the funniest thing the other day, a dead body on a racecourse.’ ”
“Not that kind of a joke. Or joke’s the wrong word.”
“Well, whoever did it is no doubt pleased to see all the trouble they’ve caused.”
“Yes. That’s the other part-”
Ruthven had returned with the soufflé, served with a raspberry confit in a delicate tracery of red.