The Horse You Came in On by Martha Grimes Page A

Lady Cray. “I feel I owe her something, so I’m going to look into the death of Frances Hamilton’s nephew. It’ll make a change, what the hell? I’m taking Wiggins. Make a change for his allergies, too.”
    â€œShe was wonderful, Lady Cray!” Melrose thought of her fondly. “She was clever. If she thinks something’s wrong, something probably is.”
    â€œPerhaps.”
    Melrose went on. “But I can’t stay away long. How long is it going to be?”
    â€œNot more than a few days, certainly. I doubt I’ll find anything. Tell me more about this student of Ellen’s, Beverly—”
    â€œBeverly Brown. According to Ellen she was murdered in—a churchyard, I think. Happened just a day or two ago. January nineteenth, she said. It had something to do with Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday. Peculiar. Anyway, she was rather incoherent, and I wasn’t paying all that much attention, anyway. Too busy trying to work out how to make an intelligent comment on her book without having read it.”
    Jury was thoughtful. “How about Sunday? We could leave on Sunday.”
    Melrose hesitated, frowning. “Trueblood and I have a sort of project going.”
    â€œOh? Well, you did seem rather busy at the Jack and Hammer. Writing something, were you? I thought I saw you with a notebook.”
    â€œWriting? Oh, that’s just Trueblood’s account—no, his inventory book.” Melrose looked rather pleased with himself. “Yes, I’m helping him with his inventory.”
    â€œTrueblood? Taking inventory? I thought the only thing he ever inventoried was his wardrobe. His shop has been growing steadily more stuffed since I met him. It’ll take you years to inventory that lot.”
    â€œI expect so. But I promised.”
    There was a silence while they both got rather dozy, and then Melrose muttered something about Lady Cray again. “I get the unpleasant feeling wheels are coming full circle. Did you know there’s a rumor the Man with a Load of Mischief has been bought up? Or leased? By some London people.”
    Jury poured himself another whisky from the decanter. Thoughtfully, he said, “That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”
    Melrose sighed and nodded and ran his long fingers through his hair, which looked, in the firelight, like a gold froth. “Maybe I should get the hell out. I’m beginning to feel this is where I came in.”
VIII
    Happily full of both food and drink and friendship, Jury lay in bed, reading.
    He tented the black leather book over his chest and stared up at the ceiling. What the hell did they think they were writing . . . ? He yawned. Sunday. That was just the day after tomorrow. He supposed he could wait until he got back to see Pratt in Northampton. Tomorrow evening they could go up to London, then.
    Again, he opened the book. What were they up to?
    He fell asleep with the question unanswered.

Interlude

In the soft black hat and black overcoat, Wiggins looked as if he were palely loitering there beside the check-in counter at Heathrow. He was clutching his holdall to his chest like a breviary.
    â€œWhat’ve you got in your carry-on?” Jury knew the question was superfluous. He still wanted to hear the answer.
    Wiggins unzipped the small black bag. The original shaving kit was now doing duty as a portable medicine cabinet: the old shaving tackle had been removed and the plastic containers (such as the soap dish) pressed into service to hold throat lozenges, black biscuits, and some green liquid with which Jury wasn’t familiar. In addition, Wiggins had cleverly sewn in a strip of Velcro and pressed a companion piece into loops against it to hold half a dozen brown vials. A few of these were prescription medicine (the heavy artillery), but the others had been assembled from the Wiggins pharmacopoeia. Jury recognized the tobaccoey-looking herb as rue. At least