Martha Grimes - The Grave Maurice

“You’ve a finely developed aesthetic sense, Diane.”

“Thanks. But actually, I just wanted to get one of these maps out of her, so I had to tell her I’d interview her. Who knows? It might be amusing.”

Diane’s highest priority. “Diane, you surprise me. You’re shifty. Devious.”

“I’ve always been devious.”

“ There they are! View hal-looooo! Isn’t that what they yell?” Trueblood pulled the car over and they got out.

Hounds, and behind them horses were pouring over a stone wall, almost as one. Melrose could understand how country people could come all over John Peel-ish at the sight. He had forgotten what a visceral thrill the sight of pink coats and sleek horses could give one.

Diane didn’t get the camcorder going until they were a field away, whereupon they all got back in the car and followed the hunt for another quarter mile. Melrose yelled, “We just passed a group of people by a low stone wall.”

“Back up, Marshall.”

Trueblood reversed and stopped.

“That’s Eugenie,” said Diane, climbing out of the car. Then she turned back and dropped the leather bag from her shoulder and handed it to Trueblood.

“I’ve never worked one of these things.”

“It’s simple.” She removed it from the bag and pointed to a couple of buttons. “You just press this, then this. It just keeps rolling until you stop it, here.”

Trueblood shrugged, then put the camcorder on his shoulder and walked a little away. He began to feel quite the investigative photographer.

Eugenie St. Cyr-Jones was a large, stout woman in her early seventies. She was wearing a gray worsted suit of good cut, partially hidden by the white placard hanging around her neck, shouting its ambiguous message: HUNT IN, GOVERNMENT OUT! The woman beside her was introduced as Clarice St. John-Sims, and she was Eugenie St. Cyr-Jones’s diminutive opposite. She seemed to be there to take up the slack. Of what, Melrose couldn’t say. It must have been the names that provided the attraction between them, for he could see nothing else to explain it. Diane might have been the only person around who could have introduced the two of them (“Eugenie St. Cyr-Jones and Clarice St. John-Sims”) without even blinking. Diane was good at things like that, bits of useless-but accurately reported-information.

Eugenie St. Cyr-Jones looked as if she spent most of her days in a state of high dudgeon, which probably made her a good candidate for protesting the protest. Diane had a tape recorder going and up to Eugenie’s stormy face, a face that told the tale of many past protests.

While Trueblood moved the camcorder around to take in the scene, Diane suggested that Miss St. Cyr-Jones say a few words about her purpose in being here.

Eugenie St. Cyr-Jones had many more than a few words to say. “ Should our government make the criminal error of trying to ban foxhunting they should be aware they’ll have a real battle on their hands. To pass such a bill would be to threaten the very livelihood of the country. People fail to see beyond the spectacle itself to the repercussions of such government interference. The antihunting contingent-” Here she waved her arm around a group that was steadily forming, hoping no doubt (as were hounds) that blood would be let before the morning was over.

The antihunting contingent stepped in, in the person of a boisterous middle-aged woman. “Spectacle! That’s all ’tis, just a bunch of country clowns huntin’ a poor animal to its bloody end.” Her hair looked fried in a pan, flat on top, frizzled on the sides.

Trueblood positioned his camera close up and then back to take in the entire group before his attention was caught by the promise of a melee out in the field. He moved in that direction.

The woman with the fried hair addressed Diane. “You ast’er this, ast’er ’ow she’d feel gettin’ tore up by a pack o’ them ’ounds! Ast’er!”

Diane smiled. “As you already have-” and looked at Eugenie St. Cyr-Jones.

Eugenie was clearly revolted by this person. “That’s so clearly a loaded argument. Listen to me: in Sidbury there’s a saddlery that employs a number of the local townspeople. It’s the way they earn their living. Now, how long would that business last-and that’s but one example-if the hunt was banned?”

Several of the onlookers exchanged words that Trueblood was hoping would turn into blows, but for the moment quieted down. He heard another commotion in the field, or the same one exacerbated. He turned to see that hounds were swarming. Had they homed in on the benighted Xavier? No, no, a horse must have caught its leg flying over the stone wall and gone down. Several black coats dismounted. Trueblood hoped the horse was all right; he didn’t care much about the rider. The horse rose and shook itself and wandered away, unattended by the rider for the rider and another hunt member seemed to be shouting. Trueblood pointed the camera in that direction. Now the pink-coated MFH unhorsed himself and moved quickly to this little nucleus of persons, ostensibly to quell the fight.

Horses, the most sensible of the lot, left to their own devices moved about in search of some tasty grazing place.

Trueblood loved it! There were the hounds roving off, snuffling the ground, mixing in and out between legs of horses and hunters, all of them having a rave-up, hounds and hunters alike. The horses quite sensibly ignored them.

How often had this sort of thing happened during a hunt? Never, he bet. It was a scoop! Behind him-and now he turned the camcorder back to the protesters-a well-dressed, sensible-looking man interrupted the woman with the fried hair.

“Naturally, one doesn’t enjoy the spectacle of a fox thrown to hounds, but what sticks in my throat is the sheer hypocrisy of some of your hunting-ban travelers. Some of them aren’t even charities, though they want you to believe they are.”

A theoretical argument. Who cares? Trueblood turned the camera off toward the right. Wonderful! Fists were flying! The master appeared now to be acting as referee. Oh, good! Someone in the group actually pushed him! Shouting! The rest of the hunt had dismounted now-their steeds making for the spot where their fellow horses were nibbling the frosty grass.

Hearing raised voices at his back, Trueblood turned around to get a look at the civilians, who appeared to be sheering off and scattering. Diane and Melrose were waving him toward the car.

“I got it all! Did you see it? The melee?”

“What melee in particular?” asked Melrose as he got in the car. “There seemed to be so many melees. But that bit was interesting, wasn’t it, about some of these groups’ advertising themselves as charities when they were really moneymaking concerns?”

“A documentary!” said Trueblood, starting the car. “I’m entering it for the BAFTA awards.”

Diane stabbed a cigarette into her black holder. “They’re so tiresome, aren’t they, these do-gooders, these protesters?” She sighed and turned so that Melrose could light the cigarette. Then she said, “It’s all a bit of a shambles, isn’t it?”

“Causes,” said Melrose. “There’s something really off-putting about causes.”

Trueblood nodded. “There’s something absolutely absurd about this marching and meeting and arguing and brawling.”

“If things start going wrong,” said Diane, “I agree with that writer-what’s his name? Raymond… Hammett? No, Dash something-”

“Dashiell Chandler?” offered Melrose. “Or it could be Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett? Anyway, you agree with what one of the three said. What was that?”

“Bring in a man with a gun.”