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

declined. “Oh, so nice of you, Mr. Plant, but I’ve got to get some books sorted before noon. Were these of any help?” She indicated the ones he’d left on the returns area of the front desk.
    â€œAbsolutely. I thought I might stop by the Wrenn’s Nest and see if Mr. Browne has anything I could use.” Melrose could have kicked himself when he saw the expression on Miss Twinny’s face. Theo Wrenn Browne had tried to shut down the library, which would have cost Miss Twinny her job. It was Marshall Trueblood who had saved both library and librarian by talking her into setting up an espresso bar.
    Melrose changed the subject by nodding toward that little café now. “Still going great guns, isn’t it?”
    She smiled. “It’s quite wonderful, Mr. Plant. Do you know there are people coming over from Sidbury? Why, there are never enough tables to go around. I just might have to expand!” Delighted, she laughed.
    Â 
    â€œHorses? You want something on horses?” Theo Wrenn Browne looked as if he’d been broadsided.
    Melrose was standing in the Wrenn’s Nest Bookshop, stupefying its owner. Why did everyone find Melrose’s interest in this animal so problematic?
    â€œYes” was all he answered.
    â€œMay I ask why?”
    â€œYou just have.”
    Silence while Theo Wrenn Browne tried to work this out.
    Melrose started off. “Don’t discommode yourself, Mr. Browne. I’ll just wander through the stacks.”
    Theo quickly came out from his station by the money drawer and followed on Melrose’s heels. “Mr. Plant, I’d be only too happy to help you.”
    The trouble with Theo Wrenn Browne was his capacity for being a sycophant on the one hand and, on the other, for sneering superiority. He was disliked by all of Melrose’s circle—except Agatha, who found in Theo Wrenn Browne a compatriot, a fellow-traveler in malice. They had collaborated on the Chamber Pot Caper a few years before, in an attempt to close poor Miss Ada Crisp’s secondhand furniture shop next door to the Wrenn’s Nest. Following this had been the attempt to drive the library out of business. Marshall Trueblood’s solution of opening the latte‘ and espresso bar had turned the library absolutely trendy. It had become a hot spot. That was Theo Wrenn Browne, a snake at worst, a weasel at best, as today he was weaseling after Melrose.
    To demonstrate his interest in the hunt, Melrose pulled down a volume, largely of photographs of self-congratulation, to judge from the rubicund faces of the hunt members. The dogs were quite handsome, as were the horses; it took only a few humans to ruin the overall effect. The one with hounds churning at his feet was the master of hounds. He and the whipper-in were all wearing pink coats; all the others were in black coats or tweeds. Melrose smiled because (again except for horses and hounds) they all looked remarkably silly. He handed this book to Browne and pulled out another titled Thoroughbred Racing: From Churchill Downs to Saratoga Springs. These places were in the United States, but wouldn’t a horse be a horse most any old where? And it would be good, too, letting the Ryder person know that he wasn’t a dunce when it came to American racing, either. The book fell open at a two-page spread of the wondrous Secretariat. Even Melrose had heard of Secretariat. No wonder people loved to watch it, but imagine what it must be like to do it! Looking at the photographs of Secretariat racing round the course, Melrose thought it must be, for the jockey, a Eureka! Like Manet putting the last touch of light to a field of flowers, or Keats upon seeing that Grecian urn or Lou Reed attacking his guitar.
    â€œWhat are you doing, Mr. Plant?” Browne broke into Melrose’s fantasy life.
    â€œWhat? Oh, just practicing the cello. I was thinking it’s easy to understand why everyone loves horse