Donald Bain - Gin and Daggers

Once a relative calm had returned, I was urged to continue my speech-which I did, reluctantly, and with considerably less enthusiasm and confidence than before.

When I was finished, Lucas outlined the program for the rest of the conference. There were to be seminars on new forensic techniques, weapons, surveillance apparatus, poisons, police procedure, and everything else of which the working mystery writer likes to keep abreast. There were also to be talks on more esoteric subjects, such as the future of the murder mystery, historical perspectives, and evaluations of new works by a reviewing panel.

A coffee reception followed the dinner, and a receiving line of sorts was formed, with me at its head. It was an awkward situation, but I did my best to get through it, shaking too many hands, smiling too much, saying too often, “Yes, it was startling.” I was relieved when it was over and I could mingle freely.

“Excellent speech, Mrs. Fletcher,” Inspector George Sutherland said. It was good to see him, and I told him so.

“Dreadful incident,” he said. “The city is crawling with daft people like that. Sorry one of them had to decide to do away with you.”

I laughed nervously. “I’m just pleased that he didn’t accomplish his mission.”

“So am I. Might I get you a coffee, or would you prefer to slip away from your adoring public for a drink at the bar?”

The latter sounded appealing, and I graciously accepted, asking, though, for ten minutes before leaving. I walked over to Jimmy Biggers, who was talking with a contingent from the Dutch chapter of ISMW.

“Mr. Biggers, I owe you a debt of gratitude. I saw how you stopped him.”

He excused himself from the Dutch writers, and we moved a few feet away. “Mrs. Fletcher, will you give me a half hour of your time?”

“Now? I’m afraid I’m-”

“Mrs. Fletcher, I would never think of interfering with your responsibilities tonight. Could we meet tomorrow?”

“Yes, I suppose so, but what do you wish to meet about?”

He displayed his yellow teeth and said, “Marjorie Ainsworth, of course. I think you could use the services of someone who knows London as I do, its underbelly, its dark comers. I have some definite ideas on her murder and would like to share them with you.”

His Cockney accent was charming, and went with his physical appearance, which, I knew, represented stereotyping on my part. Cockneys don’t have a look; they simply happened to be born within hearing distance of Bow Bells, the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow Church in Cheapside.

“I’d also like to discuss that fellow over there with you,” he said, pointing to Montgomery Coots.

“Why?”

“He’s a nasty chap, and he’s fixated on you, Mrs. Fletcher, as a suss.”

“Suspect,” I said, remembering Lucas’s language lesson. “Preposterous.”

“Maybe so, but not to be taken lightly.”

I remembered what Lucas had said about Biggers’s reputation but, at the same time, I was eager to talk with him. We agreed to meet in the Grill for lunch. Then I remembered that Marjorie’s funeral was the next day. “Mr. Biggers, I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly meet with you tomorrow. I’ll be attending Marjorie Ainsworth’s funeral in Crumpsworth.”

“The day after then?”

“Call me, Mr. Biggers. I’m sure we can arrange something.”

“I certainly will, Mrs. Fletcher. Cheerio!”

I spent the next hour with the same warm feeling I’d had when Inspector Sutherland and I had tea at Brown’s. He was charming, and although I reminded myself on more than one occasion that he was investigating Marjorie’s murder, the ambience he created made it difficult to dwell upon such thoughts. We talked about many things, none of them having to do with crime. He told me his background-born in Wick, on Scotland ’s uppermost shores; father was a commercial fisherman, herring mostly, until the herring virtually disappeared; a harsh life in a harsh place, but a loving family. He’d received a degree in psychology from the University of Edinburgh, joined the Edinburgh police force, married a woman from London, transferred to the London MPD, then moved over to Scotland Yard. His wife had been killed in a car accident some years ago.

We left the Savoy bar and stood in the lobby. “Good night, Mrs. Fletcher. It is always a pleasure.”

“I might say the same thing, Inspector.”

“I saw you speaking with Jimmy Biggers.”

“Yes.”

“He’s notorious, you know, definitely aff the fuit.”

“Pardon?”

A big smile. “An old Scottish expression for morally unfit. Just be careful, that’s all.”

“I will. Thank you for the warning, Inspector.”

“Call me George, please.”

“If you’ll call me Jessica.”

“I assume your friends call you Jess.”

“Yes, my… close friends do.”

“And I? Shall it be Jessica or Jess?”

“Whatever pleases you.”

“One thing, before we end this evening. It seems to me it might be a good idea for me to assign permanent protection for you while you remain in London.”

“Oh, Inspector… George, I don’t think that’s at all necessary.”

“May I be the judge of that, Jessica?”

“Yes, if you wish.”

“Good. I’ll arrange it. Thank you once again for sharing some time with me. Good night… Jess.”

“Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister departed, Marjorie, and we commit her body to the ground…”

Mother Nature had not been kind to Marjorie Ainsworth on the day she formally departed this earth. A heavy rain fell, and a scolding wind whipped it about, giving credence to claims of experiencing “horizontal rain” in Great Britain.

Everyone who’d been at Marjorie’s house the weekend of her murder was present for the funeral, with the exception of Jason Harris. I’d hoped that he would surface, if only to pay his final respects to the woman who’d given him the benefit of her experience and talent. But he hadn’t. As I stood in the downpour wiping tears from my eyes, I wondered whether Maria Giacona had been right, and that her lover had, in fact, met some nasty fate.

The simple wood coffin containing the body of the world’s greatest writer of mysteries was slowly lowered into the soggy earth. The rector of the Crumpsworth church sprinkled clumps of mud over it as it disappeared from the view of the mourners. “The Lord be with you,” he said.

“And with thy spirit,” a few people muttered.

“Let us pray. Lord have mercy upon us.”

“Christ have mercy upon us.”

“Lord have mercy upon us.”

The press had been restricted to a cordoned-off area a hundred feet from the graveside. Young men from the congregation held large black umbrellas over those in attendance, which included not only those who’d been at Ainsworth Manor, but faces that had now become disconcertingly familiar-Crumpsworth Inspector Montgomery Coots, Chief Inspector George Sutherland, and, most surprising to me, the private detective Jimmy Biggers.

I looked up to the road where hundreds of spectators, restrained by uniformed Crumpsworth police, looked on. Were they avid readers of Marjorie’s books, townspeople who’d lost a local celebrity, the curious, the macabre? What did it matter? She was gone.

“Excuse me a moment, Lucas,” I said, heading for Jane Portelaine, who was slogging through deep muck to the road where cars were parked. Lucas and I had shared a limo from London.

“Jane,” I said.

She snapped her head in my direction and looked at me with what I could only read as anger.

“I was wondering if…”

“She would have enjoyed this weather, wouldn’t she?” she said, continuing to move her booted feet through the glop. “She loved the rain, loved darkness.”