The Man with a Load of Mischief by Martha Grimes Read Free Book Online

hung upside down by their spindly feet — led to the long corridor of small, gabled bedrooms on the upper floor. On the right was the dining room. It had a low-beamed ceiling, with several stone monoliths as the chief support. They also served to section off alcoves, wherein sat tables. The stone was rough hewn, and the slabs looked too delicately poised between ceiling and floor to offer comfort. His aunt thought the room quaint, something like the refectory of an old monastery, which it probably was. Melrose always felt he was eating at Stonehenge. But the overall chillyeffect was broken by Oriental rugs, fresh flowers, red-globed lamps on the tables, and polished brass plates lining the walls. Twig, the elderly waiter, was doing his best to look overworked by fussing red napkins into empty water goblets. The waitress, Daphne Murch, did the heavy stuff. She was inching along now with a laden tray, moving toward two prim old ladies seated in one of the alcoves. There was not much custom tonight; perhaps some were put off by the recent murder.
    Twig was mumbling reprimands to Daphne Murch. Poor Murch could never do anything right, and that extended to finding dead bodies in the cellar.
    â€œMelrose!” It was his aunt’s voice, from the saloon bar. “Will you be forever mooning about the dining-room door? Come along, come along!”
    Should he have answered Yes, Auntie and skipped along with his stick and ball?
    Agatha had seated herself at the little table in the bay window, on the one comfortable, cushioned chair, leaving the hard bench for Melrose. Matchett was lounging to her right. The diamond panes gave back the flickering lights of the monstrous stone fireplace across the room. Enormous logs spilled helter-skelter across its stone floor, unscreened. The flames surged and subsided and surged again as if entertaining ugly thoughts of their own. Unaware of its proximity to the gates of hell, a large dog of uncertain credentials was flopped on the hearth, dozing. When it saw Melrose come in, it opened one eye and watched his progress across the room. After he was seated the dog lumbered up, making its long-haired, clumsy progress to their table. Its liking for Melrose he could never understand, for he did not return the admiration and tried to ignore the dog. Since it stood waist high it was like trying to ignore a woolly mammoth. The dog shoved its nose under Melrose’s armpit.
    â€œMindy, down,” said Matchett without much conviction.
    In the meantime, Twig had shuffled in and taken their order for drinks. A pink gin for Agatha, a martini for Melrose. She leaned her ample bosom on folded arms and said, “Now, my dear Matchett, let’s have Murch in here. She may’ve remembered something else.” His aunt had acquired this silly habit ofaddressing men by their last names (My dear Plant, my dear Matchett), which Melrose found affected. No one talked like that anymore, except in the sanctum sanctorum of dusty men’s clubs, where rigor mortis seemed a cause rather than an effect of death.
    Melrose knew his aunt only wanted the opportunity of putting questions to Daphne Murch in her best New Scotland Yard manner. “Why don’t you leave that poor girl alone?” he asked, striking a match against a small holder on the table and lighting a cigar.
    â€œBecause I’ve an interest in this whole, grisly business, even if you don’t! And the girl might have remembered something odd.”
    â€œI should imagine that finding one of the paying guests with his head in a beer keg was distinctly odd. One can’t get much odder.”
    â€œLet’s let her be,” agreed Matchett. “It’s all made her horribly upset, Agatha.”
    Agatha was not happy. It was clear she wanted an entrée into the recounting of her own part in the finding of the body, which she managed to make a bit handsomer every time she told it. At least, thought Melrose, the Murch