The Old Wine Shades by Martha Grimes Page A

it gets further and further from the first story. It’s like those little Russian nesting dolls. Matryoshkas?’
    ‘If it is, what’s your point?’
    ‘Well, that would certainly make me wonder if he’s telling the truth.’
    Jury smiled. ‘You know that would somehow be the most outrageous thing of all. Is he? I asked him that during the first dinner and he asked why would he lie. To what end? Sergeant Wiggins thinks he followed me into the pub, that he knew who I was and told me the story.’
    ‘You’re still left with ‘why?’ You believe him?’
    ‘Not altogether. It becomes harder and harder the more he tells and yet easier and easier with his telling it.’
    ‘You mean we’ve not come to the end?’
    ‘No, apparently not. He said that first night that there was no end. By that I expect he means no solution.’
    ‘Does he think perhaps you might be able to solve it?’ Jury shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘Say he does know who you are. Sergeant Wiggins may well be right.’
    ‘I doubt it.’
    ‘Just say he does know you. What if this is not something that happened, but something that’s going to happen.’
    Jury looked disbelieving at first and then amused. ‘How could it be–’
    ‘Richard. You can listen to all this codswallop night after night, yet you can’t entertain this theory? Admittedly odd, but then so’s the whole story.’ Melrose rolled his cigar around in his mouth. ‘An event in the future.’
    ‘When did you take up cigars?’
    ‘This afternoon. I knew it would annoy you to death.’
    ‘Thanks. Well, this theory of yours, can you take it out for a walk? Explain it?’
    ‘No. Let me think .... If this is to happen in the future, it must be that Mr. Johnson is protecting himself or someone else. But how would it do that?’ Melrose rubbed the back of his neck. ‘What if this Hugh–’
    ‘Gauh.’
    ‘–if Hugh Gault was trying to acquire this property for some reason–no, no, no. That’s not what I mean ....
    A hypothetical: you investigate, you solve this mystery–’
    ‘Not officially. I’m on leave, remember? CS Racer thinks I need a rest. What he really thinks is I need another job.’
    Melrose made a face and was silent.
    Jury broke the silence. ‘You’re theorizing that Wiggins is right, that Harry knew who I was, that he deliberately sought me out?’
    ‘I expect that’s what I’m saying, yes. I don’t think it would suit his purpose to tell this story to just anybody. Hasn’t your picture been in the paper, showing you as an example of police brutality?’ Melrose grinned.
    ‘Don’t exaggerate.’ Jury sat back. ‘That is a point I hadn’t considered- He might have recognized me, true.’ Jury frowned.
    ‘And there’s this shadow over your police record. You’ve ‘shaken the very foundations of police work.’ That’s a quote from one of the rags.’
    ‘So I would be particularly vulnerable.’
    ‘Like that, yes.’
    ‘I have to admit I hadn’t thought of that.’
    ‘It’s still murky, of course. Say he wants to engage you, wants you as a witness. What I can’t get my mind around is that Harry Johnson walked into–what’s the pub?’
    ‘The Old Wine Shades.’
    ‘Walked in with this dog Bingo–’
    ‘Mungo.’
    Melrose nodded. ‘Walked in with Mungo and without knowing you, started in on this elaborate tale. What brought it up? What were you talking about?’
    ‘Dreams. The belief of many researchers in the field that dreams have no real meaning. I said how do these dream experts get around the idea that there’s always a narrative. A dream is a story. The scientific take on this is that the dreamer supplies the narrative. Well, I was talking I guess about narratives, about stories, and how all of us seem to want a story.’
    ‘Which is what you meant before.’
    ‘Yes. In any event, Harry said if I wanted a story he could tell me a story. And that was it. The Gault woman and her son vanished, along with the dog. The