Melrose said nothing; he would certainly not tell Moe Bletchley that he found Karen Bletchley charming. But had he, completely? There was that one instance when he felt the silence no longer companionable but hadn’t known why the atmosphere had changed.
“You liked her, I’m sure.”
Melrose nodded.
“People do.”
Melrose considered. Speaking more to himself than his companion, he said, “Why is she here?”
“Good question.” Moe shrugged, turned evasive. “Oh, well, only Chick’nKing gets my unqualified endorsement.”
Melrose smiled. “I’ll have to try it.”
“None around here, I mean close by. Wanted to put one in Mousehole, but the city fathers said no. It’s a cute little place; I can see why they wouldn’t want a fast-food emporium in it. Thing is, people forget the huge revenues the chain generates and also the people it employs. They only think how it’s an eyesore. I think it’s pretty sporty myself. Chicken’s sure friendly-looking enough. Anyway. There’s one just outside of Truro, that’s the closest. I have them make a delivery once a week. People here really look forward to it.”
“I can imagine.” Melrose thought for a moment. “If you know the villagers, you know Chris Wells.”
He nodded. “I do. Johnny-that’s her nephew-has to make the pastry deliveries because Chris has disappeared. So what’s happened? Why all these shenanigans? Why all this misery suddenly?” As he inhaled on his cigarette, he gave Melrose a suspicious look, as if this new arrival might be responsible.
Melrose got up to leave. But then he sat back down. “Mr. Bletchley-”
“Call me Moe, sonny.”
Melrose smiled. He loved that “sonny.” “You’ll think me rude, and you don’t have to answer the question, but-who gets this vast fortune of yours?”
Moe’s expression changed, back to that particular look of misery he’d worn earlier. “That’s okay, I don’t mind answering. Who gets it now is Danny, my son. And of course a lot of bequests to charities and so forth.”
“You said now.”
“That’s right. I had to rewrite my will, of course. Who got it before was the kids.”
“The kids?”
“The kids.”
29
It was Marshall Trueblood hello!-ing him awake before it was Diane. Having reached blindly for the telephone, Melrose quickly convinced himself that this whole episode was part of his dream and the receiver was being pressed against his ear by invisible hands. He continued to lie in bed, eyes closed, feeling no responsibility at all for his end of this telephone conversation.
“-me that! You’re doing it all wrong, Diane! Give-”
The dream figures appeared to be Diane Demorney and Marshall Trueblood, having some argument over-what? He rolled over and the receiver rolled with him, still held by faerie hands.
“-my hat! Come back with-”
Diane was clear as could be in his dream, wearing those black Raybans and that hat with its floppy brim so big you could see nothing but her mouth and chin.
“When you give me the phone! Then you-”
Screech!
Melrose turned back again. Good lord, that nearly woke him up.
“Melrose! Melrose!” yelled Diane. “We know you’re there, you said hello.”
“Hello,” he said. He heard himself snore, little ladders of breath sucked in, breathed out, snuffles like a pig rooting.
“Listen old sweat, you’ve really got to get back here! Vivian’s-what? Stop it! Stop!”
Here was the smooth-as-glass voice of Diane, as if she hadn’t just let out a screech a moment ago. “Melrose. He’s here! He’s-give that back!” Tussle, rustle.
“Me, again, old bean. Look we don’t want to-”
“Lord Ardry!”
Melrose jolted in his bed. What voice from the past was this? What damned fool dream person? Scroggs, that was who!
“No, she don’t look too good, sir, that’s my-”
Who don’t? Again the pig snuffle-snuffle breath catching at the back of his mouth.
“Good? Would you look good if someone were drinking your blood?”
Trueblood’s voice. Melrose’s dream self frowned mightily. He didn’t like the sound of that, no. His dream self walked away.
A clatter, raised voices in the distance, the telephone receiver audibly wrenched from someone’s grasp, Trueblood’s voice gaining eminence. “It’s Giopinno, old sweat. Count Dracula. He’s here. He’s finally come. We’re all wearing our wooden crosses and garlic!”
Snuffle snuffle, root root.
30
Melrose turned another page of the Telegraph, looking for the next installment of the neighborly feud over a parrot. It had really escalated while he was away.
Having arrived in Bletchley as safely and soundly as the Great Western Railway could manage; having deposited her luggage (steamer trunks, train cases, hatboxes, and the detritus from the Titanic), and having hooked up with her new friend, Esther Laburnum, Agatha now sat in the Woodbine over tea, asking Melrose if he was, finally, tired of this “absurd foyer” he had made into Cornwall and that arctic-cold, barnlike Seabourne place.
She helped herself to a heart-shaped meringue.
“What about your own ‘foyer’ into Cornwall? This county is surpassed only by Armagh in its lack of reverence for Queen and Country. Armagh, incidentally, is where Jury has made his ‘foyer,’ and I wish he’d come back.”
“What are you doing?” Agatha’s eyes were slits.
“Doing? Helping myself to one of these delicious meringues, that’s what. It’s not the last on the cake plate, not to worry.”
“You know what I mean. You’re mocking me, God knows why!” She was marmalading a scone with Chivers Rough Cut.
“God knows why is correct. I certainly don’t.”
Her eyes were slits. “Anyway, as I said, all Long Piddleton thinks you’re dotty, coming to Cornwall to live in a big empty house, and you should go back.”
“It’s really nice to hear I’m missed.” He knew she’d stomp all over that.
“Missed? I didn’t say they missed you, only that you’re being extremely irresponsible and foolish. Diane thinks”-and here she pulled a page of newspaper from a carryall dotted with mangy-looking cats-“you’re putting yourself in danger. Here.” She thrust it toward him.
“Quoting Diane, are we? Is this the same Diane you called moon head?” Melrose looked at the horoscope column, broadly outlined for him (in case he’d gone blind in Cornwall), and his own birth sign, Capricorn, also outlined and bearing only half a star before it. Diane wrote (if you could call it writing) the horoscope column for the Sidbury paper and of late had been apportioning certain numbers of stars, one through five, to each sign for that particular day. Five stars meant you could walk on water; four, a super day; and so on down the list. To get only half a star signified doom, the absolute worst day imaginable (except of course for the person who didn’t get even a half, but there were none of those, not even Melrose. Yet.).
BE CAREFUL!!! THE JOURNEY YOU HAVE EMBARKED UPON IS
FRAUGHT WITH DANGER. HAVING ALREADY CARRIED OUT
ONE ABSURD PLAN, YOU ARE IN DANGER OF UNDERTAKING
ANOTHER WHICH MIGHT SPELL THE END!
“So you see,” said Agatha.
“See what? You’ve always made fun of Diane’s horoscopes, so why point to this as though it vied with the Book of Revelation?”
“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?”