Read Online The Grave Maurice by Martha Grimes - Free Book Online

that thingamajig”—here she discounted the little notebook’s usefulness with a gesture, waving it to its thingamajiggish grave—“ever since I came. It’s quite rude of you, also, Melrose, but then you never were one to observe the social niceties.”
    â€œI didn’t know that’s what we were doing.” He smiled down at Red Rum, making another note. He was really drawing Red Rum’s tail, since his doing anything in the notebook irritated her so much. The recording of things to which she was not privy bothered her. Melrose had an actual insight there. He blinked. Perhaps Agatha deserved some sympathy if she was one of those people who were afraid that life would come crashing down if they didn’t know everything that was going on around them. It was as if all sorts of rascally things might be taking place. (Just look at those muffins!)
    â€œYou’re not, I hope, thinking of buying one?”
    â€œYes, as a matter of fact. Indeed, I think I’ll have that old stable brushed up and put in a riding ring and perhaps a racing course—”
    â€œGood God!” The muffin half fell from her hand. “Surely you can’t be seriously thinking of ruining these beautiful grounds!”
    â€œThey’re not all that beautiful, as it happens. Momaday does nothing.” Mr. Momaday had been taken on as a gardener, and he called himself a “groundskeeper.” He did precious little of either, spending most of his time tramping around Ardry End’s hundred acres, looking for something to shoot. Acres and acres of grass, weeds, wildflowers, deciduous trees, a few crumbling marble statues and a gone-to-ruin hermit’s hut. Melrose could not imagine his father countenancing that. What he said was, “I’m also thinking of hiring a hermit for that hermitage out there—yonder.” He loved this word.
    â€œAre you talking about that old broken-down stone thing? Hire a hermit, indeed!”
    â€œThat’s what people did in the nineteenth century. It was fashionable to have a hermit on one’s grounds. I believe the Romantics went in for it.”
    â€œYou’re making it up, as usual.” She poked a piece of muffin into her mouth.
    â€œI swear it’s true!” It was, too. He clamped a hand over his heart. “Hermits got to be collectors’ items.”
    â€œI can tell you this: if a hermit comes, I go.”
    Melrose studied the ceiling.
    She went on. “As to this horse business, I can just see you trotting around the village as if you were Master of Foxhounds.”
    Melrose tuned her out. Having squeezed whatever mileage he could out of horse and hermit, he went back to his book. It was one of several he had taken from the library. Ah! This was interesting. A Thoroughbred named Shergar had been kidnapped by the IRA and held for ransom. The ransom wasn’t paid; the horse was never seen again, at least not in the UK. This was a strange little story, showing how much England valued its horses, or how little, depending on the way you looked at it.
    Delighted to have found this entrée into horses and lost girls, Melrose snapped the book shut, gulped down his cold tea and stood. “I’m off, Agatha. Stay as long as you like.”
    â€œOff to where?”
    â€œA number of places, including the library.”
    â€œJust an excuse to go to the Jack and Hammer.”
    Melrose raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. “Since when did I need an excuse to go to the Jack and Hammer?”
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    His first stop really was the library, where he dropped off his books and went back to the shelves to look for fresh material. The horse books seemed geared largely to prepubescent girls, involving matters such as jumping and dressage. Nothing here on Thoroughbreds or racecourses.
    On his way out, he stopped and said hello to Miss Twinny and asked her if she’d like to have a coffee with him, but she