from reality. As a matter of
fact"—her tone suggested a final judgment—"you both live in a fantasy
world!" This pronouncement seemed to please her.
"Oh?" Seeing the direction of Vivian's gaze, he shot the hand that
had just lifted the glass of stout over the newspaper.
With her fingertips pressed against the edge of the table as if she
meant to push herself away from their fatuous company, Vivian lectured
them in a schoolmistressy voice. "You sit around in here before lunch
and dinner doing nothing but making up stories—"
"Well, I wouldn't say that, Viv—" There was a slipping, rustling
sound as Trueblood tried to recross his legs.
"—about France's family. His mother is
not
fat with a
black mustache. She does
not
, to quote you—" Her tone to
Melrose was scathing. "—'despite her ascendancy to this high station,
still cook spaghetti carbonara and squid fry-ups for her five brothers
twice a week.' Franco's mother is small, a bit rawboned, wears
sleeveless dresses and speaks four languages. . . ."
As she continued to set him straight about the Countess Giopinno,
Melrose studied her fingertips: the nails looked bitten; a little
morsel of skin jutted up from the cuticle round the thumbnail. This all
struck Melrose as oddly poignant and he wanted to put his own hand
over-hers.
"—
not
have 'seven cousins who work the bellows and make
little glass horses for tourists to Murano';
or
'six uncles
with an unflagging devotion to the Communist party'—"
"Your memory is prodigious, dear Vivian," said Melrose, noting that
the slight upward tilt to the corners of her mouth lent her, no matter
how angry she was, a helplessly pleasant air.
She ignored this. "As for
you
—" The movement of her head
toward Trueblood was so sudden she might have given herself a good case
of whiplash, and the timbre of her voice, during her recital, had grown
reedy, giving the impression now of a child chastising her dolls
gathered round the nursery tea table. "—he does
not
have a
younger sister who 'climbed over a convent wall and set about
disgracing the family name by running off with a traveling circus';
nor
an older sister who 'auditioned for the mad dwarf in that du Maurier
film.' And as for the maternal grandmother's midnight sprees—" Vivian
gritted her teeth and set them straight on this branch of the family
tree.
Melrose fought a yawn and saw that Trueblood was wearing the vacant
expression of the stupid, the insane, or the man whose thoughts are
miles away. He wasn't really listening either.
"My goodness, Vivian, did we say all that?"
"Ev-er-y sin-gle word."
Trueblood pursed his lips. "It was Richard Jury who mentioned the
dwarf—"
Down
came her fist on the table, jumping the rat from the
ashtray. "Richard
Jury
has better things to do than sit
around fantasizing all day!" she shouted.
Dick Scroggs rolled his toothpick and said, "You read about this
latest case up in the West Riding, miss . . . ?"
Melrose was indeed reading about it; he was reading about the crime
that very evening while Agatha was at Ar-dry End, seated on his Queen
Anne sofa, stuffing herself with potted tongue and gobbet cakes, and
talking about Harrogate.
"I don't see why you won't book a room at the Old Swan where Teddy
and I are staying. Teddy would love to have you come, I know; she's
said several times how much she'd like to see you."
Melrose's thirst to see Teddy again in Harrogate had been
considerably slaked by his having seen her in York. He had agreed,
finally, to play chauffeur and drive Agatha there; it would be worth it
just to give the Georgian tea service a brief rest. He continued
reading the item in the
Times
.
"Melrose, would you
kindly
put down that paper and have
Ruthven bring some more maids-of-honor. And why are there no fairy
cakes? Didn't Martha know I was coming?"
Melrose refolded the paper. He considered ringing his friend Jury,
but thought he probably had enough on his platter. His aunt certainly
had enough on hers. A jam
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