Free Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes Page B

“I told you to watch out for fortune hunters. Especially foreign ones.”
    She had told her nothing of the kind, Melrose knew.Indeed, Agatha was only too happy to get her nephew out of harm’s way. “No one who knew Vivian would ever marry her merely for her money,” said Melrose, smiling wonderfully.
    â€œI’ve told you time and again to marry one of your own sort —” Agatha could have bitten off her tongue, that was clear, since Vivian’s “sort” was sitting right there doing a crossword. Melrose could see his aunt’s mind totaling up the fittings and furniture, the grounds and gardens at Ardry End like an adding machine. She was his only living relative and had no intention of having that number swelled by things like wives and children. Quickly, she amended her statement. “But it’s true, you are getting on, and the man does seem a perfectly respectable Italian —”
    As if, thought Melrose, she’d known a gondolaful of unrespectable ones.
    â€œ — who will probably have the sense to hold on to his title. Unlike Some Others We Know.”
    Melrose felt rather than saw the look as he filled in five words, one right after another, saw immediately what the others must be in the way of a chess player looking ahead several plays, put his pen away and said, “Tell him to hold on for dear life, Vivian. It will sound quite grand, your being the Countess Giovanni —”
    Vivian looked so distressed that Melrose stopped and changed the subject, frowning at Agatha. “Incidentally, how did you know about this trip? We’ve only just been sitting here planning it ourselves.”
    â€œI’ve come from the house —”
    Meaning his house, not hers. Hers was a thatched cottage in Plague Alley.
    â€œÂ . . . speaking to Martha about the Christmas goose.”
    Melrose’s cook had hinted once or twice something about giving notice if Lady Ardry didn’t stay out of her kitchen. Of course, Martha wouldn’t leave. Both she and Ruthven had been in service to the Earls of Caverness for what seemed likecenturies. “Martha does not like you in her kitchen.” He drank the dregs of his beer and said, “I don’t know why she’d be talking about goose, anyway. We weren’t having goose.”
    As if this had suddenly become the bone of contention, Agatha sat back, astonished. “Don’t be absurd; we always have goose.”
    â€œTimes are hard. It’s to be shin of beef, cold potatoes and Queer-times pudding.”
    â€œWhere are you having this Dickensian repast?” asked Trueblood. “The Old Curiosity Shop?”
    They had their Old Curiosity Shop right there, as far as Melrose was concerned. “That still doesn’t explain where you heard about this trip.”
    â€œIt was Ruthven. That man has never liked me. I just happened to overhear him talking to Martha as I was going into the kitchen.”
    Agatha would have listened at the door of a cage of baboons, if it came to it. “I’m taking Ruthven, too,” said Melrose.
    Would it be apoplexy? A seizure? Or merely that sputtering out of shooting sherry as she gagged. “Ruthven! Plant, what on earth —! You must leave him here.”
    Melrose’s butler might have been excess airplane luggage. “No, I can’t do. You see, it’s very complicated. Martha wants to spend the holidays with her relatives in Southend-on-sea. He really has never got on with her family” — here Melrose looked at Vivian, who was studying her hands — “but, being a gentleman, he, of course, wouldn’t absolutely refuse to go to Southend. So I shall just say I need him.”
    â€œYou don’t need him! What do you need him for?”
    â€œTo draw my bathwater.”
    â€œBathwater! You become, every day, a bit more of a snob, Plant.”
    â€œWhy don’t you have a little trip