“Please do. And you can see how Aggrieved is doing.”

She smiled. “Thanks. Yes, I can do that. Just tell me the place and time and how to get there. I can drive.”

“Around eight o’clock?” He took out his little notebook and jotted down directions. “It’s been a pleasure.” He tore out the page and handed it to her.

It took her five minutes to get Aggrieved into the trailer, longer than it had taken to get him out. He didn’t seem to want to go.

9

“I had no trouble getting Sydney Cooke to talk to me,” said Melrose, when they were seated in the library with drinks in their hands.

“You carted Aggrieved along in a trailer?”

“That’s what you told me to do. I don’t see why you couldn’t have talked to her. She’s quite accessible.”

“You’ve noticed I don’t have a horse,” said Jury.

“Well, it’s true you’re always showing up in one of Scotland Yard’s old bangers.”

“New Scotland Yard doesn’t have stables.”

“And did you read up?” said Melrose.

“On what?”

“Horses, of course.”

“No. I read up on the case. The death of her mother, as I told you.”

“Well, she won’t talk to you about it.”

“I think maybe she will.”

“Why?”

“I know her grandfather. Who else is coming to dinner?”

“Only Diane and Marshall.”

“You didn’t invite Miss Flood?”

“No. I didn’t know how.”

“My Lord. You talk like a poor inexperienced teenager.”

“That’s pretty much what I am, to hear Agatha.”

“What’s she like?”

“Agatha?”

“Ha ha. Miss Cooke.”

“Quite charming. Pretty. Smart. I told her you worked at the Yard. I let her think you were the janitor.”

“That’s what Racer thinks I am.”

Melrose chortled. “Diane is bound to come up with horse arcana; she’ll fill her thimble of knowledge to the brim.”

The door knocker fell with a thud and would have thudded again had Ruthven not been padding by with his tray and pulled the door open.

“Well, Melrose,” began his aunt, who quickly disposed of him when she saw Richard Jury. “Superintendent! I didn’t know you’d be here!”

“Nor did he know you’d be, so that makes three of us.”

“But you told me about this little dinner, Melrose.”

“Yes, but I didn’t invite you, so what—?”

“Oh, that’s all right. You’re just forgetful. Lambert will be in directly. He’s tying up his horse. He won’t be staying for dinner. Just for a drink.”

“That’s just as well, we haven’t enough of the hagfish to feed yet another uninvited guest.”

“Hagfish?”

“Otherwise known as slime eels. They’re a delicacy in South Korea, I understand. They’re also known as the most disgusting marine animals. They emit slime—”

“How revolting! You can’t be serious! I know you’re lying, Melrose.”