The Horse You Came in On Read Online Free PDF

States. Scotland Yard can’t go messing around in the affairs of American sheriffs.”
    â€œHow bloody pompous,” she said, matter-of-factly.
    He smiled. “It’s not really pomposity. I don’t mean to be difficult.”
    â€œWell, you are being. A few days’ holiday in Philadelphia would make a change, wouldn’t it? Naturally, I’d pay your expenses. First class. Or take Concorde if you like.”
    â€œThat’s not really the point.”
    â€œOh, ho -hum, Superintendent.” She patted her mouth with the tips of her fingers, simulating a smile. “You know, when Alex plays poker he uses an expression I like. ‘Calling in markers.’ ” Her smile was bewitching, turning the face of this elderly woman into that of a much younger one.
    â€œUh-huh. You getting this, Wiggins? Bribing a police officer?”
    â€œPardon, sir?”
    â€œConsidering all the work I did for you at Castle Howe . . . well.” She smoked, regarding him. “With a great deal of help from Mr. Plant. How is he? Such a clever man.”
    Jury smiled. “Yes. He is. And so I take it, Lady Cray, you’re calling—”
    â€œCalling in my markers.”

6
    Staring through the plate glass window of the Starrdust, Wiggins was munching on some vegetarian melange he had bought over at Cranks in Covent Garden, and trying to muscle his way closer to the window and in between a little boy with spiky hair and a small girl wearing big glasses that dwarfed her face.
    â€œWould you just look at that, sir?”
    The Starrdust Twins, Joy and Meg, had outdone themselves with this window dressing. It was a replica of Covent Garden Market—not the new one that lay just over the street, with its collection of boutiques, health food restaurants, and space-age neon places, but the nineteenth-century marketplace. Jury felt a wave of nostalgia as he looked at the fruit and vegetable stalls, spilling over with tiny cabbages; at the floral hall and the flower sellers; at the miniature figures of porters balancing baskets on their heads or pushing carts. He could almost feel the bustle, smell the fish and game—two acres of it.
    The Starrdust’s owner was an astrologer and antiquarian; given that the shop dealt only in celestial, astrological, or otherwise otherworldly matters (not the least of which were the fortunes told by Carole-anne Palutski in her silken tent), Jury wondered at this backwards look into London’s history. And while he was wondering, the scene changed from light to dark as the scrim, all but invisible until now, rose on a night scene of little dark streets, a square with a horse-drawn carriage, and gaslights.
    All the children gasped and applauded. This included Wiggins.
    To enter the Starrdust was to step not back in time but out of it, much as if one were walking through a doorway open on nothing else but sheer blue sky and brilliant white clouds in a surrealistic painting. Light flowed and winked from the ceiling-sky, across which spilled a backlit Milky Way and planets which lit up and faded as the hidden lights brightened and dimmed. The shop was long and narrow, and the farther end was in total darkness except for the blue neon sign which spelled out “HorrorScope.” This must be a new sign, one Andrew Starr had made for the Wendy-house-like structure at the rear of the shop, which was the children’sfavorite part of the Starrdust. Starr was a man in his late thirties chronologically, but one who seemed never to have grown out of childhood. Perhaps this was why he was the only shopkeeper Jury knew who never tossed unaccompanied kiddies out the door.
    â€œSuper!”
    Out of the darkness walked Carole-anne Palutski, carrying a plate with a huge slice of coconut cake that she forked up as she advanced. “Want some?” She held out a forkful.
    â€œNo thanks, Madame Zostra. You look gorgeous, as always.”
    Madame