Donald Bain - Gin and Daggers

She looked up, shifted gum from one side of her mouth to the other, pointed to a chair, and said, “Wait your turn.”

I cocked my head, was about to say something, then simply followed her instructions and sat, the new handbag Lucas had bought me at Harrods on my lap.

Ten minutes later, a door opened behind the receptionist and a handsome young man stood in the doorway. He wore gray slacks, an expensive, custom-tailored burgundy blazer with gold buttons, a white silk shirt, and a variegated ascot of primarily burgundy and blue. Black hair was carefully arranged on his head. His features were chiseled, and while he certainly was good-looking, there was a discernible cruelty to his mouth.

He looked around the room (undressed everyone is more like it) until his eyes rested upon me. He shook his head and said, “Sorry, I don’t have anything for you today.”

I got up and approached him, smiled, and said, “Mr. Simpson-”

“Look, I don’t know what your gimmick is, but you’re a little long in the tooth for what I have open. Sorry, I’d like to help you out but-”

“Mr. Simpson, I am not here looking for a job as a stripper. My name is Jessica Fletcher, and I would like to speak with you about the death of your stepbrother, Jason Harris.”

His expression changed now. He narrowed his eyes and asked, “What are you, a wopsie?”

“I don’t think so, but if you would tell me what that means, I might reconsider.”

He shook his head. “A policewoman?”

I laughed. “Heavens, no, I am not a policewoman, although I have known some. I am a writer of murder mysteries. I was one of Marjorie Ainsworth’s good friends and was unfortunate enough to have been the one to discover her body. I have been in touch with your stepbrother’s companion, Maria Giacona.” I was pleased he gave me the time to get all that out.

“Look, Mrs. Fletcher, you can see I’m busy. I’ve got jobs to fill tonight and not enough birds to fill them.”

“I can see you’re busy, and I don’t wish to intrude for more than a few minutes. Couldn’t you find those few minutes for me?”

He said to the others in the room, “Are you all available tonight?”

There was a chorus of “Yes.”

He said to his receptionist, “Carmela, send these two to Joey over at Raymond’s. Then get on the phone and see who you can hustle for these other openings. Come on,” he said to me. “Five minutes, no more.”

His office was larger than I thought it would be. The walls were covered with the sort of photographs that adorned the windows downstairs, only some of them were much bigger, life-size. In one corner of the room was a small circular platform. Spotlights covered with blue and red gel were trained on it. I assumed that was where young women auditioned for him, to stretch the use of the word. The thing about the office that gained my immediate attention, however, was the overpowering combination of perfume, cologne, makeup, and incense that burned in a bowl on his desk.

“Okay,” he said, “what is it you want to talk to me about?”

“As I said, I wanted to discuss Jason Harris’s murder. I understand you were called in last night to identify the body.”

He sat back in a chair and looked at the ceiling. “Christ, that was something I didn’t need. I couldn’t believe what they’d done to him.”

“Yes, I know, I saw the body this morning.”

He sat up straight. “Why did you look at his body?”

“Because I was with Maria Giacona. I took her to the police station this morning. She was, as you can imagine, terribly upset.”

“Yes, I dare say she would be. They’d been lovers for a while. You met Jason?”

“As a matter of fact, I did, at Marjorie Ainsworth’s house the weekend she was killed. Actually, I was to meet him again at his flat. Maria wanted me to talk to him about an allegation that he’d played some part in helping Marjorie Ainsworth write her latest novel, Gin and Daggers.”

His laugh was small and unpleasant. He lighted a cigarette, drew deeply on it, exhaled the blue smoke into the room-adding yet another odor-and said, “Mrs. Fletcher, Jason didn’t help her. He wrote the whole bloody thing.”

“I can’t believe that,” I said.

“Believe what you want, but it’s true. I told him he was daft to do it, that he ought to cut himself a better deal, get some kind of credit or at least get a piece of the action. He didn’t listen to me. She paid him a bloody pittance to lend his talent to that book, and look where it got him. He’s dead, nobody will ever know what a good writer he was, and her estate will make millions off his hard work. I think that stinks, Mrs. Fletcher, and I don’t mind telling you that.”

“If what you say is true, Mr. Simpson, I can understand your anger-and Maria’s too-but whether he did as much with the novel as you claim remains to be seen, at least for me. Under what circumstances did you and Jason become stepbrothers?”

“Simple. Jason’s father, an American, married my mother, a Brit.”

“And where are they?”

“Both dead, an automobile accident in the States.”

“No other family on either side?”

“I have cousins scattered about, but Jason had absolutely no one else. That’s why he carried a card indicating that if anything ever happened to him, I was to be called.”

“Of course. I’d already assumed that. Were you and Jason involved professionally, in a business sense?”

Simpson looked around his office and laughed. “Jason get involved in this business? No, he stayed far away. We kept our relationship purely social.”

“You were good friends, then, as well as stepbrothers.”

“Yes.”

I thought of Maria’s comment about them not liking each other.

“You don’t benefit from any success his writing might achieve, do you?”

“Hell, no. Why do you ask that?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I’m trying to find out as much as I can about Jason, about his life. Maria tells me that Jason used a number of names and incidents from his own life in Gin and Daggers as a way of proving his involvement with it. She says he made notations on the pages of the manuscript, but the manuscript seems to be missing. You wouldn’t have a copy of it, would you?”

Simpson shook his head. The door opened and his receptionist said, “I’ve got a couple more out here.”

“Yeah, one minute, don’t let them get away.” He said to me, “I’m afraid this is all the time I have, Mrs. Fletcher. It gets this way every afternoon. More clubs open up and need talent, and I make a living providing it.”

“Judging from the number of such establishments I’ve seen in Soho today like the one downstairs, you must be kept very busy. Are they… I mean, do you only supply striptease artists?”

“We don’t call them that anymore. They’re exotic dancers.”

“Exotic. Of course. They certainly are.”

“I also book ethnic musical groups. If you ever need the best Greek or Arabic band in London, give me a call.”

“I will, although I don’t think I’ll be in the market for that in the near future.” I stood and extended my hand. “Thank you, Mr. Simpson. You’ve been very gracious.”

“No problem, Mrs. Fletcher. I’ll tell you one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“That if you want to do something worthwhile in this world, let it be known that my brother wrote Gin and Daggers.”

“I’ll certainly think about that. Thank you again.”

As I crossed the waiting room, two girls who looked hardly older than teenagers giggled. I stopped, looked at them, and said with as much dignity as I could muster, “I have a gimmick.”

I decided to continue my leisurely stroll rather than return right away to the Savoy. Eventually I drifted into neighboring Mayfair, whose quiet elegance contrasted sharply with the more frenetic pace of Soho. I would have attempted to walk back to the Savoy, but I was running late for my drink with Seth and Morton. Besides, as sensible as my shoes were, my feet were beginning to feel the effects of the pavement.