Donald Bain - Gin and Daggers

“He was that good?”

“Even better than that, Mrs. Fletcher. A hundred years from now, he’ll be required reading for school. kids in their Great Books classes.”

I had the feeling I was on the receiving end of a terrible overstatement, and really didn’t know what else to say.

“Don’t believe me, Mrs. Fletcher? You’ll have a different attitude once you read his work.”

“I’m certainly eager to do that. Would it be inappropriate for me to ask to see one of the manuscripts?”

“Very.”

“Well, if I share your view of it, I might be willing to lend a blurb for the dust jacket.”

Cole shook his head and returned to his chair. He put his feet up on the desk, revealing dirty tan chukka boots with holes in their crepe soles. “Look, Mrs. Fletcher, I don’t want to offend you, but having a blurb from a murder mystery writer is not the kind of endorsement I want for Jason. No offense, but murder mysteries are nothing but genre fiction, like Westerns and romantic novels. We’re talking about a major literary talent here. I’m looking for other major literary figures to acclaim him.”

I ignored the comment and said, “I’m fascinated that you would devote such effort and, I assume, money to promoting works of literary merit. No offense, Mr. Cole, but your publishing company obviously has made its mark with sexually oriented materials. This seems to be quite a departure.”

“So what?”

“So I wondered why. As good as you say Jason Harris was, I can’t conceive of his books generating the kind of income that your usual list does. Why change focus?”

He stood again and leaned against the wall behind his desk, his arms and ankles crossed, a scornful expression on his face. “Mrs. Fletcher, I took two hundred pounds and parlayed it into a very successful publishing company. I did it by giving the public what it wants-sex-and I’ve made bloody millions from it. Now I’ve decided that since I don’t need money anymore, it’s time I put my efforts into developing truly deserving artists of merit. You might say I’ve become altruistic in my middle age. You’ve made a lot of money writing silly murder mysteries. What are you giving back to literature?”

I stood and said, “I don’t see anything to be gained by continuing this conversation, Mr. Cole. It was good of you to allow me to barge in on you, and I wish you the best of luck with Jason’s books.”

“Thanks,” he said, “but I don’t need good luck.”

I went halfway to the circular staircase, turned, and asked, “Do you know Jason’s stepbrother, David Simpson?”

Stuart laughed. “I know of him. He provides real girls the way I publish stories about them.”

“Yes, I know that. Is he involved in any way in this project to publish his stepbrother’s works?”

“Doesn’t have a thing to do with it, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“What about Jason’s girlfriend, Maria Giacona? Have you spoken with her?”

“Never heard of her.”

“I see. Well, thank you again for your time.”

I was happy to leave the building and be out on the streets of SoHo. The sunshine felt clean and good after my encounter with Walter Cole. He certainly sounded convinced of the wisdom of publishing Jason Harris posthumously, but, at the same time, I had a feeling that most of what he’d said to me had been written by a public relations expert on the floor below, a company line, the sort of hype that would be used to create an audience for Jason Harris.

I walked to Dean Street, went up the stairs, and asked Carmela, David Simpson’s receptionist, whether he was in.

“Haven’t seen him all morning,” she said without looking up.

“Well, I would like to speak with him. Would you have him call me as soon as he has a moment?” I took a piece of paper from her desk and wrote my name and phone and room numbers on it. She looked at it, casually tossed it to the other side of the desk, and continued reading the tabloid in front of her. There was only one other person in the reception area, a woman whom I judged to be my age, although she had applied her makeup the way a young girl does the first time she gets into Mommy’s dressing table. She looked very tired, beaten down. I considered suggesting to her that we leave together and have a bite to eat, but knew that she would probably find that offensive, so I left by myself, returned to the Savoy, and called the room shared by Seth and Morton. Morton answered.

“What are you two up to today?” I asked.

“We were just about to head for the Tower of London.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“Gee, Jess, that would be terrific.”

“Good, lunch is on me, and so’s admission. I need a couple of hours of normalcy in the Bloody Tower.”

“… and so ninhydrin spray has proved to be extremely valuable in raising fingerprints that might not have been identifiable before its invention. Ninhydrin is quite different from fingerprint powder. It reacts to the amino acids in the skin rather than to salt in perspiration, and works quite well on paper, cardboard, and certain wood surfaces. It is, by the way, toxic and must be used very carefully. We prefer that our officers in the field not apply it at the site of a crime, but we are using it extensively in our laboratories.”

Members of ISMW who attended the panel discussion with Chief Inspector George Sutherland were treated to a fascinating morning in which new scientific investigative techniques were expounded upon. I’d always found that ISMW members fell into two categories, those who dwelt extensively in their books on technical matters, and those who included just enough detail to establish credibility, but who preferred to focus more on character and plot development. Judging from the questions that came from the crowd, most in attendance were from the former school.

Members of the panel lingered for a half hour after the session for informal conversation with attendees. I had a few minutes alone with Sutherland and asked him whether Marjorie’s mysterious lover could be considered a suspect. He told me he’d personally called Chester Gould-Brayton on that subject and had received the response he’d expected-that the solicitor-client privilege precluded him from divulging the lover’s identity. “Frankly, Jessica,” Sutherland said, “I really would be quite surprised if this unnamed romantic interest of hers had anything to do with her murder, although we intend to keep the option open.”

Lucas Darling invited Sutherland to join a select group for lunch, but he begged off because of his busy schedule that afternoon. He wished me a pleasant day and said he hoped I had not taken offense at his personal comments the night before.

“Quite the contrary, George, I was flattered.”

“May I call you again?”

“I thought we decided to postpone any personal considerations until Marjorie’s murder was solved.”

“Yes, and I consider myself a man of my word, but there have been times-rare, I admit-when I have been an outright liar, and this might be one of them.” We both laughed, and he left the hotel.

Lucas took us to Dirty Dick’s pub on Bishopsgate for lunch, and we enjoyed a pleasant meal in the atmosphere of synthetic dirt, grime, cobwebs, and dead cats used to carry through the pub’s theme. According to legend, Dirty Dick’s fiancée died on their wedding eve, and he was so stricken with grief that he shut the room that was to have been the site of their wedding breakfast and left everything, including the food, to decay. He never washed or changed his clothes again for the rest of his life, so deep was his sense of loss. An abandoned meal in a locked room-straight out of Great Expectations.