"How could she leave this out before?"

"People are funny about what they see and hear. If you ask a witness to describe a man, he might say, 'He looked a lot like that gentleman over there, green eyes, dark blond hair, tall, cla.s.sic looks, yes, like Melrose Plant. Wore those little gold-rimmed gla.s.ses, just like 'im.' Given the possibility you, Plant, could actually have been there, then why not hit on the obvious? It wasn't a man who looked like you, it was you."

Melrose said nothing; he was trying to think up reasons why it couldn't possibly have been Dan Bletchley. He didn't somehow think Macalvie would go for the nice-guy defense. He pushed his plate aside and took out his Zippo and cigarettes and listened.

"They must've been careful. I had someone on Dan Bletchley's tail for two months." He nodded at Melrose's look of surprise. "All we got was dinner with his wife once a week at the Ivy, then concerts, the theater. It must have been someone living near enough that he could see her and get back in an evening."

"How about here in Bletchley? That's near enough." He lit a cigarette, rasping the flint. "Chris Wells."

Rarely had he ever surprised Macalvie, but her name in this context certainly did. "Chris Wells? What makes you think that?"

"I'm inferring it from the way he talked about her. She was no pa.s.sing acquaintance."

Macalvie had forgotten his cigar. The coal end was dimming. "And she's disappeared. Jesus." He took the cigar from his mouth. "Another woman. Chris Wells. I knew it'd be something simple."

"If you call that simple," said Melrose, ruefully.

43.

Johnny had stayed in all day and was staying in all night, too. Rarely did he call any of his various jobs to say he wasn't coming in, but after last night, and falling over that stupid tree root, and the awful way he felt, he'd decided to stay in.

He was dividing his time between housecleaning and practicing magic. Up to then, he hadn't done anything, hadn't touched anything, as if, by some alchemical process, leaving things exactly the same meant she would come back, she would magically appear.

It had by now been nearly two weeks. Twelve days. It seemed months, years, since he had last seen his aunt. He dried the last plate and stacked it, snapped the dish towel, and flung it over his shoulder.

Johnny picked up his book, named Sorcerer's Apprentice, in which the "Sorcerer" led the reader apprentice through the tricks. He disliked the comic-book ill.u.s.trations, but the actual text was all right. He leaned against the kitchen counter and continued reading what he'd interrupted to sweep the floor. He looked at the big table where Chris's baked goods still lay on cookie sheets, the meringues and the ginger cookies, and told himself to put the meringues in plastic bags. Most of the cookies he'd already eaten. He wasn't all that fond of meringues, although Chris's were better than Brenda's. Brenda liked things really sweet.

He looked back at the book and read the instructions for this particular trick.

You will need: (1) three ashtrays, gla.s.s or metal, 3-4 inches diameter; and (2) three small objects-safety pin, b.u.t.ton, penny.

They hadn't any ashtrays since neither of them smoked. At least, Chris was supposed to have stopped. Charlie might have brought one of his tin ones; he'd started carrying them around because ashtrays weren't such a familiar sight anymore. But Johnny didn't see any.

It had been nice having Charlie around, if only for twenty-four hours. He rarely visited.

He looked at the dessert plates he'd washed. Too big to stand in for ashtrays. He read on to see what the Apprentice (meaning himself) was supposed to do with them. Just put one of the small objects on top of each one. He looked around the kitchen and saw the lid from an empty jar, yes, that would work, except he had to have three of them. Then his eye fell on the meringues. He walked over to the table. Three, maybe four inches. Perfect. The center was depressed so he could put the "small objects" in them. He stacked up five-in case they broke easily-and took a big napkin from a drawer in the table, where he also saw a small picture hanger that would do as a "small object."

This loot he carried into the living room and put down on the card table. Its smooth green baize made it an excellent surface. Then, with one of the meringues to munch, he went to a small sideboard and opened a drawer where Chris kept odds and ends-the "junk drawer" she called it-into which she tossed things she couldn't think what to do with.

He found several safety pins and chose the smallest. An amber plastic tube of white pills rolled to the front of the drawer. The pills were just the size of small b.u.t.tons. But what were they? Medicine for what? He could make nothing of the name. He took a bite of the meringue and let it melt in his mouth, turned the tube to read the date. That wouldn't tell him anything. Chris wasn't a pill popper; he hoped she wasn't sick and he didn't know it. He took one of the pills to use in place of the b.u.t.ton.

He went back to the card table, where he polished off the meringue and wished he had some strawberries and some of that wonderful custard, sabayon. Chris made it for dessert sometimes, piling strawberries on a meringue and pouring the custard over it. You could get drunk off that custard, there was so much Madeira wine in it.

Telling himself to stop thinking about Chris, to concentrate on the book and the trick, he aligned the ashtray meringues as instructed and laid out the napkin. He read: Stack ashtrays, cover with the handkerchief.

Johnny stacked the three meringues and dropped the napkin over them. This was going to be one of the Sorcerer's no-brainers, he thought. He picked up the last meringue-since he wouldn't need it for reinforcements-and bit into it while he read: It is important that the viewer(s) believe that the b.u.t.ton, coin, or pin will reappear if they have faith that this is the case.

Johnny's head snapped up. He stared at the wall opposite. Wait, he thought, and shook his head. Just wait, now. It was as if to proceed, as if to take one small step, would have him rushing like an avalanche toward an answer he couldn't believe.

Fragments of remembered conversations jostled for his attention. She would never go off without telling me. . . . This time she did.

Johnny knew he was right even while more and more adrenaline was pumping through his body.

This time she did.

No, she didn't!

He was out the door in a flash and, virus excuse forgotten, went running toward the Woodbine. He stopped abruptly where the roots overlapped the pavement and thought, No. Not the way to do it.

He looked across at the Drowned Man and darted across the street and in through the door, again un-caring of the virus that was accounting for his day off from serving dinner.

Mr. Pfinn, however, hadn't forgotten. He came into the bar from the dining room carrying dirty linen. "Well, Johnny? Ya better now t'meal's done and I had t'get Ursula in?"

Johnny didn't waste time making excuses or acknowledging the sanctimonious tone. "Is Mr. Plant here by any chance for dinner?"

"He were. Gone, now, him and that other'n, too."

"Which other-you mean the detective? Mr. Macalvie?"

Mr. Pfinn, happy to add to Johnny's anxiety, merely said, "Mebbe. Whoever."

Johnny looked wildly around the room as if something might yet remain of the two men, some fragment he could address. But the only things here to commune with were Pfinn and the dogs in the doorway.

"Where'd they go? Do you know where they went?"

Mr. Pfinn's white eyelashes blinked several times. "No cain tell that. Listen, boy, I'd ought t'fire ya, I ought."

"Stuff it, Mr. Pfinn, and you can stuff your job too."

He was fast on the point of tears; then he was at the doorway, jumping over the dogs, and out the front door, where he ran straight into Megs, who served along with him at the Woodbine.

Not that it mattered, but now Brenda would know his reason for not coming in was bogus. He decided to make it three out of three and walked as quickly as he could to the Cornwall Cabs office.

"Feeling better, love?" asked Shirley, who, not waiting for an answer, continued with, "Look kinda peaked to me. You sure you should be out of bed?"

For the first time that evening, Johnny smiled. "I'm better. But I want to ask a big favor. Can I have a car for a couple of hours?"

"You certainly could, love, except one's in the shop and the other two're both out on calls. Is something wrong?"

"No, no. I just have a little business that I need a ride for."

"Sorry. One of them's gone to Mousehole and one to St. Buryan. Bit of a distance. But you can wait if you like."

Johnny was biting a thumbnail. He shook his head. "Listen, could I just make a phone call?"

"Sure, love." Shirley shoved the black telephone toward him.

He punched in the number and listened to the bleak brr-brrs sounding in Seabourne. He let it ring a dozen times before he turned off the transmit and handed the phone back to Shirley.

"No joy there either?"

"No joy, right."

"Shouldn't be long before one of them gets back-speak of the devil, here comes Trev. You can take that one."

Johnny tossed her a "thanks" over his shoulder as he ran out the door.

44.

Melrose was sitting in his favorite chair, looking at the fire and entertaining himself with thoughts of a seance. Surely, there had been a seance in The Unin vited; in films like that there was always a seance. He wondered if real seances (or was that an oxymoron?) were like those portrayed in films: the medium's voice turning deep and guttural, uttering the oracular words of one centuries dead; the candle flame flickering and dying; that clammy hand holding yours later discovered to be wearing a glove. . . .

Melrose shuddered slightly. He was wracking his brain, or, rather un-wracking it, downloading his thoughts about the murder of Tom Letts and Daniel Bletchley's visit into his gla.s.s of whisky.

The doorbell rang.

Again? Who the devil-?

He sighed, got up from his chair, and carried his drink with him. He got to the door, glad that at least it wouldn't be Agatha, since it already had been, and, yanking it open, hoping it would be Stella making a magical appearance.

It was Richard Jury. Just standing there.

Melrose gaped. His mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. He'd like to appear to be just standing there too, with a drink in his hand and Jury's cool. Instead, he knew he must look like a fish. Mouth open, closed, open, closed.

He found his voice, finally. "Is Ireland over?"

"It's still there. It didn't much want me around. I don't take it personally. But I do take it personally that I'm standing out here on your stoop when I'd much rather be inside, sitting down, with one of whatever you're drinking." Jury smiled.

It was one of those smiles that didn't end with the mouth. It seemed to radiate everywhere, as if his whole person were pitching in to help that smile along.

"Oh! Sorry." Melrose threw the door wide.

Jury shrugged out of his coat and looked for an available coat rack or surface. Melrose took it and tossed it over the staircase banister. "Come on into the library. There's a fire."

Jury settled into the chair Daniel Bletchley had occupied earlier. With a strong sense of dej vu, Melrose handed him a drink. It was true; Dan Bletchley did have something in him that reminded Melrose of Richard Jury. No wonder he and Daniel had hit it off.

"This fellow who was murdered last night, Tom Letts, over at the nursing home in Bletchley."

Melrose felt Jury hadn't dropped a beat since the last time they'd seen each other. It was as if they'd been discussing this case all along. "But how do you know about him?"

"Because I've been three hours in Exeter talking to Brian Macalvie. Why was I in Exeter? Because the ferry from Cork goes into Wales. Why was I in Cork instead of Belfast? Because I had to go to Dublin at the last moment. Why was I in-"

"Look, I'll leave, if you think the conversation would go better without me."

Jury laughed. "Sorry. I was just saving you the trouble of asking a lot of inane questions."

"Inane? Thanks. So Brian Macalvie filled you in."

"At length. He seems to have taken this case pretty much to heart. But I don't know why that should surprise me. He usually does take cases to heart."

"Remember Dartmoor? That pub named Help the Poor Struggler? He put his foot through the jukebox when someone played a song-what was that song?"

"Molly something." And Jury started to sing: "Oh, mahn dear, did'ja niver hear, o' pretty Molly da da da."

"Brannigan! That's it, that's it!" Then Melrose sang: "She's gone away and-and-what?"

"And left, me, and-"

Then they sang together or, rather, apart: "And left me, and I'll niver be a mahn again!"

They laughed, but then Jury said, "Christ, why does love have to be so sad?" He rolled the cool gla.s.s across his forehead. "I'm lightheaded; I haven't had any sleep in a couple of days."

"You can sleep here, of course."

"Thanks. That pub in the village didn't much tempt me."

"The Drowned Man. Sergeant Wiggins is staying there."

Jury smiled. "When this case is closed, or even if it's not, may I have him back?"

"Don't blame me. It's foot-through-the-jukebox Macalvie who insisted on getting him down from London."

"He's always liked having Wiggins about. Funny." Jury looked around the softly lighted room. "Nice room, this. Nice house."

"I've got it for three months. Look, since you're here, give some thought to this business, will you? The only thing I have in common with Hamlet is that I've been thinking 'too much on the event.' "

"I don't believe it's thinking too much; that's just a symptom. What's causing it? I know what's causing it for Macalvie: the murder of those two kids. For four years, he's been a little obsessed. Really, it reminds me of the whole Molly Brannigan thing. Molly Singer, I mean."

But Melrose remembered that it hadn't been Macalvie alone who'd been interested in Molly.

Jury had been looking over the silver-framed snapshots and now picked one up. "These are the children? What a tragedy. And what a puzzle. If Macalvie hasn't solved it, who could? He can cut away everything extraneous to a situation. He's like a laser." Jury drank the last of his whisky. "I can't do that. I get too muddied up by stuff. Anyway, he's sent you a message."

Melrose did not tell him that Macalvie could get muddied up and overinvolved himself.

Jury reached into the pocket of his shirt, under a heavy Aran sweater, and pulled out a folded paper. He spread this on the coffee table between them and smoothed it out. "It's about Morris Bletchley and Tom Letts." It was a diagram of the red drawing room. "Does this look accurate to you?"

Melrose put on his gla.s.ses. "Yes, absolutely."