Harry blew another smoke ring and said, “Get over it, will you? It’s going on your tombstone, ‘The dog came back.’”

On the floor, Mungo seemed literally to have his paw over his eyes.

With an energetic shake of his head, Jury said, “No, it’s going on your tombstone, Harry. I’ll carve it out myself.”

Harry sighed. “You just won’t let that go, will you? Did it ever occur to you that your memory might be equally faulty? Like that child’s memory? That incredible story might never have happened.”

Jury looked at Harry Johnson, holding his glass of wine in the path of light cast by the pendant above their heads. “You’ve got so many versions of stories, it’s hard to tell which one you’re referring to, which story, and which of its dozen lives. If you’re talking about the Tilda version, surely you’re not resorting to that old cliché: the witness’s memory is faulty.”

Harry turned the glass as if it were prismatic, a diamond. “Why not? Proust did.”

“Oh, please. First Poe, now Proust?” Jury took a long drink of his wine.

Harry set down his glass and turned to him with a faint, ironic smile. “You’ve read him, have you?”

“Of course, the same as most people have. Swann’s Way. I stopped around page thirty, where he’s dipping the cake in the tea.”

“It was a bit of a madeleine in a spoon that was dipped in tea. And from that taste, an entire world blossomed in his mind. That’s all you read, is it? Too bad. At least you ought to read Time Regained. You can hardly grasp his purpose on the basis of thirty pages. And all along the way, there are episodes similar to the madeleine bit. In one of these, he’s in a salon at a piano recital and he hears a phrase-only that, two notes-and he has a similar experience. The ‘little phrase,’ he calls it. Then in Time Regained he’s about to enter the home of the Guermantes when his toe hits one of the stones in the walk, and that calls up a memory. When he’s seated inside, waiting, a starched napkin is the next trigger. It’s fascinating.”

“But that’s the exact opposite of what you’re saying-that memory can be faulty. Proust is talking about lost memory, not fabricated memory.”

“My word, Richard, you got a hell of a lot out of your thirty pages! But that’s only part of it, you see. There must be some action that precipitates memory-the madeleine, the little phrase of music, the napkin-the buried memory-”

Jury interrupted. “This isn’t buried memory, damn it, you’re talking about faulty memory. And on the basis of this you’re deconstructing the girl Tilda’s entire account of that afternoon!” He was going to hit him in a moment. Sourly, Jury contemplated his glass.

“Then look at this other little girl’s story-what’s her name? So I can keep them straight?”

“Dora. Keep them straight? That’s all it is to you, a story, two stories.”

Harry ignored that. “Look at Tilda’s story from another point of view.” He was again moving his glass around until light sparked it. “On this one afternoon, a child is playing in the grounds of a large, untenanted country house, playing with dolls or stuffed animals, and she looks up and across this desolate and untended garden-”

“Oh, stop editorializing. You weren’t-” Jury stopped. He wanted to cut out his tongue.

Harry laughed. “You nearly said ‘weren’t there.’ That’s good. Especially since it should be obvious that the so-called editorializing would show that I was there.”

“You were.” Jury tried not to break his wineglass over Harry’s head. “Don’t try and pull this again, Harry. Don’t try dazzling me with your agile arguments. I’m not falling for it a second time.”

“I wasn’t. Let me finish, will you? The little girl looks over these silent gardens toward the terrace, where she sees a man-no, there were two children. I forgot the boy-”

“Timmy.”

“Yes. Two of them. This is beginning to sound like The Turn of the Screw. With me as the sinister Peter Quint.”

“You’d make a poor Quint. He hadn’t your personality. And he was dead.” Jury finished off his wine.

Harry laughed and signaled to Trevor. “Then the girl claims that this man chased the two of them, caught them, and kidnapped them. Now, does this Jamesian spin really sound like an accounting of events free of fantasy?”

“You’re leaving out the blindfolding and keeping them captive in his cellar.”

“Oh, yes! How could I have forgotten? That lends such a note of realism to the story.”

Trevor had come down the bar with a bottle. He winked at Jury. “Mr. Johnson telling you another tall tale, Mr. Jury?”

“That’s just what I’m doing,” said Harry. “Only it’s not my tale. It’s someone else’s.” He turned from Trevor to Jury. “That’s all you have: the testimony of a couple of kids who can’t even describe their captor.”

“They do have names: Timmy and Tilda.”

“Hansel and Gretel, more likely.” Harry shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?” He smiled. “Never having met them.”

28

Joey launched himself out of the car the moment Jury opened the door. He made off across the wide green grass of Ardry End and ran round the corner of the house, with Jury following.

What was he heading for? Nothing and anything. The stable? The hermitage? There was no sign of Mr. Blodgett, resident hermit. But Jury (and presumably Joey) did see Aggrieved, Melrose Plant’s horse, and his goat, Aghast, out there beyond the stable, their heads down, grazing.

Jury had by this time reached the rear of the house and the wide kitchen garden and an unfamiliar man standing before the kitchen door. Had the man been a professional clown or a music hall hold-over, Jury would have said he was dressed in motley. He wore a faded purple velvet jacket, probably once a smoking jacket, a bright scarf round his neck, and a satin waistcoat. Checkered trousers completed this outfit. In his pocket was what looked like a half-pint of Cinzano.

Joey was running a circle round the horse and goat, barking. It sounded like a measured, tempered bark, as if it had a specific purpose.

The tall man inclined his head by way of acknowledging Jury. Jury returned the gesture, and at that point the door was opened by Ruthven, Melrose Plant’s manservant. Ruthven was taken aback by this duo at the kitchen door, seeming to have come here together.

“Superintendent Jury! Why-please come in.”

Ruthven did not appear surprised at the sight of the other visitor, who must have been here before. “And Mr. Jarvis, come in.”

On his way through the door, Jury said, “You might want to see to the dog out there harassing the other animals.” When Jarvis was out of earshot, Jury said, “Must be his, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. Lord Ardry’s expecting you; he’s in the drawing room. If you’ll just follow-”

“Oh, don’t bother, Ruthven, I know where it is. Go and see to your visitor.”

Ruthven bowed and went off toward the kitchen.

In the handsome drawing room, Melrose was situated at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows and talking to someone on the outside of it-Mr. Blodgett, probably. Blodgett came up to the windows regularly, either to make wild faces at Melrose’s aunt Agatha or to make a request or to keep Melrose abreast of estate happenings. Today’s happening (as Jury well knew) was the presence of a dog.

“My word,” said Melrose, mostly to the sky and earth, as he was leaning out the window. “Damned if you’re not right, Blodgett. D’you think it’s rabid, or what?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jury, joining them at the window. “It’s just an old dog. Must belong to the man in the kitchen. Jarvis? That his name? I told Ruthven about it.”

“I didn’t hear the front door. How long have you been here that you know more than I do?”

“That’s not hard.” Jury was leaning out the window now, elbowing Melrose aside. He could see Joey running herd on Aghast while Aggrieved looked on with seeming indifference. Jury couldn’t see the horse’s expression, but indifference figured in the tilt of his large brown head. Aggrieved would watch for a moment, then go back to chomping grass.