Read Online Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent by Martha Grimes - Free Book Online

found this cardboard collection of
put-together monsters and ghouls at the Wrenn's Nest bookshop ("in a
fight to the death with some beastly child," for it was the last one).
"Do you think we should be doing this here, in public? I mean, she
might just come in." He leaned back and lit a jade-green Sobranie and
regarded Melrose through a scrim of smoke.
    "She won't come in; she's busy packing," said Melrose, who had
successfully attached both of the legs to the torso and was picking up
the face. "Or, I should say, staring at her trunks and then at the
wall. I'm thirsty." He called over his shoulder to Dick Scroggs for
another round.
    "I can't really believe she means to do it, can you?"
    "She's been engaged to him for four years; I imagine she's beginning
to feel rather self-conscious. Have you got the boat?"
    "Right here, old sweat." Trueblood leaned a small, canoe-shaped boat
against his pint glass. He had found it in a lot of goods acquired at
an antiques auction. It had been painted pale blue and bits fixed to
the ends so that it looked like a gondola. He had punched out a rat to
put in it, which he placed temporarily in the tin ashtray. "Dick!
Another round, if you please!"
    Dick Scroggs apparently didn't, for he kept his eyes on the
newspaper. Finally he gave in to the calls from the public bar on the
other side and went round the bar to lavish his attention on the dart
players.
    "Oh, hell," said Trueblood. "Must we wait on ourselves? That she's
been engaged to him, old trout," he continued as he poked out the
red-lined cape, "has nothing to do with her marrying him."
    Melrose picked up their glasses and went to the bar as Dick came
round the other side. "Two more, Dick." As Dick set the glasses beneath
the pulls, Melrose turned the paper round. Dick had been in the process
of cutting the article about the murder in West Yorkshire from it. He
possessed a small, hook-billed instrument for the purpose of sawing
odds and ends from papers and magazines. Melrose wondered if he was
tracking Jury's career for him, pasting up articles in a scrapbook.
    As he released the beer pulls and they stood watching the foam rise
on the pints of Old Peculier, Dick observed, "Seems a pity, dunnit? You
wonder what'd ever make a woman kill her husband that way." He drew a
knife across the cap of foam and placed the glasses on the counter. He
was, of course, dying to know if Melrose had been talking to Jury about
the case. "Well, I expect the poor woman'd never be quite right in the
head with her boy being kidnapped and all. You read about that, I
expect?" Perhaps this salacious morsel had escaped Melrose's attention.
    "I did indeed. Well, one certainly can't complain in this case that
the police are never around when you need them. Thank you, Dick." He
took their drinks and returned to the table, stopped dead as he saw a
figure pass by the window behind Marshall Trueblood. "Oh, hell! Here
she comes!" The figure disappeared momentarily and they heard the door
to the pub open. "Quick! Here!" Melrose shoved the cut-out book and
canoe toward Trueblood and slapped his
Times
over the
cardboard Dracula.
    Whispered his friend, "Don't give it to
me
, damn all. . .
." Trueblood hurriedly shoved the canoe-gondola behind him and the torn
pieces into the book and waved it wildly around before sitting on it.
    "Hullo, Vivian; thought you were home counting lira," said Melrose
pleasantly.
    Vivian Rivington looked more as if she'd been counting the days of
her life and finding them numbered. Coppery strands of hair had come
undone from the loosely braided knot and she blew them from her
forehead as she sat dewn, exhausted. "There's just too much to do, is
all. May I have a sherry?" She was looking at Trueblood.
    "Of course," said Melrose, giving her a blinding smile and returning
to his crossword.
    "Well?" she looked from one to the other and then toward the bar,
empty except for Mrs. Withersby, who had propped her mop in the pail,
and was administering to