I have a dog. I was thinking of getting one, anyway — one of those sleek ones, like a whippet, the sort that turns up in drawing-room pictures of country gentlemen. However, I had cycled out to the Man with a Load of Mischief one wet afternoon (for sentimental reasons, perhaps — or does that sound too macabre?) and walked about. The stables, the eaves, the old sign raining rain, and I wandered back behind the stables to find — guess who? — Mindy. Matchett’s dog, which he had made no provision for. I can fancy a man killing five people, but to leave one’s dog stranded is really beneath contempt. At any rate, I allowed the brute to follow me home, a lengthy procedure, since Mindy is not very quick, as you may remember.
Those peculiar children — the Doubles? — visit me now and again. Heads pop up in the shrubbery at odd moments. The girl I especially admire for her having learnt so young the secret of truly good conversation: silence. She makes so few demands on one to sparkle with wit, and so forth, and we have many an interesting, if one-sided talk.
May I ask you a favor? If ever you come across another case — really, I am not particular — and if you would permit me to be of any help to you, do. My life here offers little challenge to the imagination.
There is no more snow.
The heavy embossed stationery was signed, in thick, black ink, with the one word: PLANT.
• • •
Jury bundled the letter back into its envelope and stuck it up on his mantel like a message left for him by someone who had come and gone. Looking at the little white square of Plant’s letter, with the address in small, black figures brought back to him great expanses of crystallized snow, with tracks running through it. Well, as Plant said, there was no more snow. He looked out of his window, gray and dismal with rain.
He plucked his raincoat from its peg behind the door and walked out the door.
Jury also loved the rain.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright C 1981 by Martha Grimes
Originally published in 1981 by Little, Brown & Company.
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First Scribner ebook edition March 2013
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The Man with a Load of Mischief Page 28