Melrose couldn’t answer. It was as if something were stuck in his throat.
There was a silence. Into it, Daniel said suddenly, “Chris Wells has disappeared.”
Melrose was surprised by the seeming irrelevance of the remark. “You knew her.”
“Yes. I knew her well.” He took a long drink of his whisky.
“There was a woman murdered in Lamorna Cove. Your father told you about this?” When Daniel nodded, Melrose went on. “She once worked at the Woodbine.”
“I think I remember her slightly.” He leaned forward, rolling the glass between his hands. “But I didn’t know this woman and Chris had had a falling out.”
“I think it was over Johnny.”
“Johnny? But, dear God, if it was four years ago, the boy couldn’t have been more than-what?-thirteen?”
“He’s probably always seemed older than he is. And he’s a very handsome lad, very appealing to women, I’d think.”
Daniel shook his head. “And now because this woman was murdered and Chris has disappeared, it’s post hoc, ergo propter hoc, is that it? Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.” He shook his head again, unable to come up with a word that would convey his disdain for such an idea. “Chris could never, never do that.”
Dan Bletchley had known her well, clearly. “Not even to protect Johnny?”
Dan looked at him with a surprised quickness. “Protect Johnny? From what?”
“Sorry. I’m just playing devil’s advocate. I had no reason for saying that. I don’t know her, of course; I’ve never met her. But I’ve certainly got the impression she loves him a lot, and for his part-well, his feelings for her seem to stop just one step short of worship.”
“Yes. She certainly does love him. Still.” He ran his hand through his straight light-brown hair, which had a way of standing up in ridges when he did this. And this gesture too made him look young, like the boy he must have been. That was one more thing about him, a boyishness that would have appealed to women. His sexuality would simply bowl women over. He had a force and a heat about him a woman would feel like the siroccos that blow across the dunes.
“Let’s have another,” said Melrose, heading for the drinks table again. When he was back in his seat, he turned the talk to something less volatile, telling Daniel how the house had affected him the first time he’d seen it.
Dan laughed. “The Uninvited. I thought I was the only one who remembered that film. It must have been a rerun on the telly. I have to confess one thing: I loved that background music.”
Melrose waved his glass and hummed the tune. Was he drunk?
Dan drained his glass, stood up, and said, “Come on. And bring the decanter.”
“Where?”
Dan was already out of the room. “Upstairs,” he called back over his shoulder. “The piano’s still there, isn’t it?”
Following him up the stairs, Melrose said, “I was trying to play it.”
Dan stood looking around the nearly empty room as if long absence might have altered things irrevocably. “How I missed this room. I could stand where you are now for what seemed like the entire day watching the water, getting the rhythm of it, thinking music. God, what a cliché.” He set his glass on the corner of the piano and sat down on the bench.
Melrose recalled how Daniel’s gaze had traveled the length of the rosewood banister the moment he’d set foot in the house. He was speaking the truth when Dan had said he’d come to console his father, but Melrose wondered if this house and this room hadn’t been part of what pulled him back. As there must be for Daniel Bletchley many rooms and countless pianos, Melrose wondered about his attachment to this one. Or, rather, if the attachment were so strong, could anything have driven him away?
The music happened so suddenly and with such force that Melrose had to take a step backward. Waterfalls of music, cascading notes, a whole rich canvas of that song Melrose had tried to pick out with a finger. He stood looking out the window as if the music might be rushing against the rocks, shaking the waves in some violent rapprochement with the elements.
And the thing about it was, the original composition, though vastly appealing, was not great music, not complex, not textured, but a sentimental song with rather predictable crescendos and diminuendos. Yet this was such felt music. The sheer volume made it seem as if all of the air had been drained from the room and gone to swell the music. Were he truthful, he thought, there were only two responses to such a sound: to faint or to weep. He was not truthful and did neither.
“ ‘Stella by Starlight,’ ” said Daniel. “Do you know what I did? I was eleven or twelve when I heard it. I wrote to the composer and told him how much I liked it. He sent me his original score. I never got over that.” He shook his head as he fingered the opening bars again.
“But that’s wonderful. You must have been very persuasive as a lad. Not to say very talented. Play something of yours.”
“Of mine? I just did.”
“I thought you said-”
Daniel smiled. “Sorry. I’m being enigmatic.” He sighed, thought for a moment, and began to play an étude.
Melrose thought it was technically very fine, yet it didn’t have the weight of the Stella he’d just played. Although “Stella by Starlight” was, no matter how beguiling the melody, sentimental stuff, whatever it lacked in complexity was more than made up for by the complex emotions of the man who played it.
Lost in these reflections and the water below, Melrose jumped when he heard the door knocker.
Dan stopped playing. “Your aunt?”
Melrose looked at his watch and answered, ruefully, “My aunt.”
Talk about the Uninvited.
41
Before she was even over the doorsill, Agatha was running on about the shooting at the Hall. “It’s not hard to see it, I’ve done a little-how d’you do?” she said, acknowledging Daniel Bletchley’s presence, before herding herself into the living room on the right, talking a mile a minute as she went through, unaware that Melrose wasn’t with her. Talk talk talk.
“Listen, thanks for the drinks,” said Daniel.
“Thanks, dear heavens, for the music!”
“My pleasure.” Daniel went out the door and turned. “You’ll come to the funeral?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Ah. Good. You’re really a part of all this. You knew him. Anyway, please come.” With that, he trudged across the gravel to his car.
Agatha was at the window, watching Daniel Bletchley drive away. “Who is that man?”
“Daniel Bletchley. You just met him, remember?”
“That’s the name of the person who runs that depressing home.”
“He’s Morris Bletchley’s son.”
Agatha hugged herself and made a shuddery sound. “It’s freezing in here. You could at least have laid a fire. You knew I was coming for tea.”
“True. We’re not having it in here. Come along.”
Complaining all the way across the foyer and down the short hall-about the temperature, the size of the place, the velvet hangings in the dining room she passed, the drafts, the prospect she glimpsed through a round window facing the bay, the bay itself, the coast of England, all of England, and the world-she finally came to rest on the small sofa by the fire. The air through which she’d passed hummed and vibrated with the tinny sound of a plucked banjo string.
Melrose said, “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize Bletchley. He’s a pianist. He played that white piano in Betty’s or Binkey’s or whatever that tearoom was called.”
“What are you talking about?”
It was as good a story as any. “Harrogate, dear aunt. Don’t you recall staying at the Old Swan with your friend Theodore?”
“You mean Teddy.”
“Well, she looked like a Theodore.” Sighing with genuine pleasure, Melrose recalled that wonderful twenty minutes of conversation when he had set himself the challenge of not speaking a word, yet all the while giving the impression of a man with brilliant conversation. Wasn’t it amazing how blind people could be to the world outside of their own egos?