Martha Grimes: The Lamorna Wink

Book 16 in the Richard Jury series, 1999

Still wearing his cabby’s cap-he ought to put it in his act, this cap, because it looked so unlike what a magician would wear-Johnny was sitting at the gaming table palming cards. He brought the Queen of Hearts to the top of the deck again and again, as if it were marching right up there of its own volition.

It was dead simple; it always astounded him that people couldn’t suss it out. Magic was kind of like murder or like a murder mystery: distract, dissuade-that was the way. Put a clue here and at the same time call attention to something quite different over there. The way a magician uses his hands. Keep looking at one hand and so will your audience. This leaves the other hand free and offstage.

He shut his eyes and leaned his elbows on the gaming table. Except for the trunk that sat in the window alcove behind him, the gaming table was the most interesting piece of furniture in the cottage. His Aunt Chris had inherited it, along with a few other pieces, from her own aunt’s estate. It was fascinating; it gave the place that “Vegas look,” Chris was fond of pointing out. The table was large and round and covered in green baize. All around it were small drawers in which you could keep cards, chips, or whatever.

Johnny went to polishing the slick card, la carte glissée. He liked the sound of it. La carte glissée . He stuck it back in the deck, pressed the deck with his thumb, and felt the break. Then he fanned out the cards and looked for the break. There was the slick card. A handy card for different tricks.

Chris looked a lot like his mother. They looked alike, but they weren’t alike. His mother had taken off years ago to nowhere. His father was dead.

This is the way life is, thought Johnny, slipping the King of Clubs to the top. Life is violent reversals in a nanosecond.

Turn your head, and you’ve lost it.

Blink, and it’s past you.

Wink, it’s gone.

Just bring me a pot of poison,” said the elegant man, replacing the Woodbine Tearoom menu carefully between the salt cellar and the sugar bowl.

Johnny’s face was straight as he wrote it down. “For one?”

The elegant man nodded. “And a pot of China tea for me. Oh, yes, and be sure to bring a plate of scones.” Melrose checked his watch. “She probably got lost.”

Johnny wrote down China tea, scones. “One China tea, one poison, one scones.”

“Might as well make that two cream teas. Since we’re in Cornwall, we can’t pass that up, can we? And better make sure the pastry plate’s always within arm’s reach.”

Johnny wrote down the order, nodded. “I’ll hold up on the scones; wouldn’t want them to get cold. Until your friend gets here, I mean.”

“Uh-huh. The poison’s for her.”

“She must be a real treat.”

In the act of polishing up his specs, the elegant man gave him a long look. (A long green look, Johnny would say, if he ever had to describe it. Some eyes he had.)

“Oh, she is.”

The Real Treat came quick through the door of the Woodbine Tearoom with the wind and the rain at her back, pushing, pushing, as if the weather bore her a personal grudge.

The Real Treat removed her cape, shook it to displace the raindrops from her person to someone else, and succeeded, a goodly number of them landing on Melrose Plant’s face.

Then the Real Treat sat herself down and waited for Melrose to put the tea in motion.

Melrose was relieved of thinking up conversational gambits because the lad (the quipster) was back, as fast as if he’d arrived by skateboard. Melrose was grateful.

Although he did wonder, Who is this kid? Tallish, dark, quite handsome, mid-teens maybe? Probably had to peel the girls off; they’d stick like limpets. Confident air-that was certain. He wore the white apron without appearing to feel silly. God, most boys his age wouldn’t be caught dead waiting tables in a tearoom, much less in an apron.

“Madam?” He gave Agatha a quick survey: bird’s-nest gray hair, brown wool suit, ankles like small tree stumps. “The gentleman suggested separate pots, the full cream tea; that’s scones and cakes, double cream, and jam.”

Agatha brightened. “Why two pots, Melrose?”

Melrose shrugged, unwilling to solve the little problem.

The boy answered. “He thought you might want a different kind of tea. Instead of black tea, an oolong perhaps?”

This kid, thought Melrose, spends a lot of time in fantasyland. He wished he could accompany him now Agatha was here, but youth has wings and age is shackled. How she had found out he was going to Cornwall, who had spilled the beans, Melrose was still trying to work out. At least, she didn’t know his reason for coming here.

He had seen the property advertised for rental in Country Life and had, on the spot, rung the listing agent Aspry and Aspry and made an appointment with a Mrs. Laburnum to see the house in three days. He had booked his first class seat on the Great Western from Paddington/London and felt mightily pleased with himself that he’d acted on impulse for once. “Something I seldom do,” he had said (smugly) to Marshall Trueblood as they sat drinking in Long Piddleton’s favorite pub-that is, in Long Piddleton’s only pub-the Jack and Hammer.

“You?” Trueblood inhaled his drink and started coughing. When he stopped he said, “That’s always what you do. You hardly do anything that isn’t impulsive.”

Melrose sat back, surprised. “Impulsive? Me?”

“Well, for God’s sake, it wasn’t I who suggested going to Venice that time when Viv-Viv had set the wedding date for marrying Dracula.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, that’s totally different, totally. That’s just-you know, like joking around. I’m talking about doing something suddenly, such as packing up and going to Ethiopia. Something one does with hardly a moment’s thought.”

“How much thought did you give to telling Vivian that Richard Jury was getting married and she’d better hotfoot it back home? All of ten seconds, if memory serves me.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. That was your story; you invented it.”

“No, I didn’t. Well, maybe I did. All right, then. How about the time you-?”

Melrose leaned across the table and clamped his hand around Trueblood’s Armani tie and tugged. “Marshall, what’s the point of this? What?”

“Nothing. There is no point.”

Melrose flicked the tie back against Trueblood’s pale yellow shirt. He looked, as always, sartorially perfect, a rainbow of rosy tints and amber shades.

“Except of course to point out you’re totally impetuous. The only reason you think of yourself as one who carefully plans his moves and maps things out beforehand is because you hardly ever do anything anyway-what, what?-there are the times you’ve helped out Superintendent R.J. Talk about impetuous! Ha ha! Whenever Jury drops the dime you’re off like a kid on skates.” Trueblood shot his hand out and made whoosh -ing noises. Then he asked, “Where is Jury, anyhow?”