Donald Bain - Gin and Daggers

“I don’t know. I have never had pizza in the United States.”

“Come, let’s enjoy some pizza and a cold drink and talk a bit.”

She was more relaxed as we sat at a Formica table in the pizza parlor. I said, “Jane Portelaine is supposed to be on vacation in Spain. Why did she come to see you? Why did she hit you?”

“Mrs. Fletcher, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“I suppose I can’t make you, but I have tried to be helpful. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Ms. Portelaine. Was it someone else?”

“Why do you think it was her?”

“Because I could smell her perfume. She uses a great deal of a fragrance known as Victorian posy. I smelled it in the room.”

“I might as well tell you what happened, Mrs. Fletcher. There’s nothing mysterious about it. I’d only met her once, through Jason, although I knew a lot about her. He would tell me what an ugly, nasty person she was, how much he hated her. He’d used her to get close to Marjorie Ainsworth, and said he wanted to stay close. Then she learned that Jason and I were lovers.”

“Why would it bother her that you and Jason were lovers?”

“Because…”

“Because she’d been Jason’s lover, too?”

Tears formed in Maria’s eyes. I said, “I’d heard about them having a relationship of some sort, although I can’t imagine she was nearly as meaningful to him as you were. Did you know about any romantic or sexual involvement between them?”

“No, I did not. I always assumed Jason was faithful to me.”

“Had the relationship between them been going on right up until the time he died?”

The tears came freely now and she shook her head, not as a denial but as a signal that she wanted to stop the conversation. I said, “Yes, I understand. This must be very painful for you. Frankly, I’m not only surprised that Ms. Portelaine is here in London, but that she would actually strike you. She’s never impressed me as the type of person who would resort to physical violence.” I’d no sooner spoken the words than I realized they weren’t exactly true-there had always been an edge to Jane’s personality.

I finished my soda. “Now that Jason is dead, Maria, what would cause Ms. Portelaine to attack you? I could better understand it if a relationship between them were going on at this moment, but Jason is dead.”

She wiped her eyes with a napkin, careful not to press on her nose or left eye, and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Fletcher, you’re a very kind person. I think what you are doing tomorrow, letting the world know that Jason wrote Gin and Daggers, is a wonderful thing.” She stood, turned on her heel, walked from the pizza parlor, took a right, and, by the time I reached the sidewalk, was lost in a crowd of people.

The press was still at the hotel when I arrived. So was Lucas. He bounded toward me, grabbed my arm, and said, “Trouble, Jess.”

I assumed he meant the press, and laughed it off.

“Not down here, Jess, up in your suite.”

I didn’t have a chance to ask questions because Lucas literally propelled me through the crowd and to the elevator, where a Savoy security guard kept others from getting on. We said nothing on the ride up, but the minute we were in the hallway, Lucas said in a stage whisper, “Everybody who’s ever been involved with Marjorie is waiting for you. They are furious.”

“Furious about what?”

“At your plans to announce tomorrow that Marjorie did not write Gin and Daggers.”

“Why should they be furious? What if it’s true?”

“Jess, we’re-no, I take that back. They’re dealing with stakes much bigger than your sense of honor and fair play.”

“Who let them in?” I asked.

“I okayed it. I didn’t know what else to do.”

As we entered the suite, everyone started talking at once.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I take it there is a message you wish to get across to me, but I will get it only if I hear one voice at a time.”

They sat on a long couch-Clayton Perry, Marjorie’s American publisher; Bruce Herbert, her American agent; Archibald Semple, her British publisher; and the London book critic, William Strayhorn.

“Is it true that you are going to announce that Marjorie did not write Gin and Daggers?” Strayhorn asked.

“I really don’t intend to reveal what I have to say until tomorrow, but yes, it does concern that.”

“Are you crazy, Jessica? Do you know what this will do to Marjorie’s reputation?” Perry asked.

“No, Mr. Perry, I am not crazy. Yes, I do know what this will do to Marjorie Ainsworth’s reputation, and, in my judgment, it will do very little. Her preeminence in the field of mystery writing-all writing for that matter-has been established over the course of many, many years and involves countless books. If she did not write this latest book, her fans will still think of her as the writer of all the others that gave them so much pleasure.”

“Don’t do it, Mrs. Fletcher,” Archibald Semple said weakly from the corner of the couch. “She was a British institution, and we do not make it a habit of attacking our institutions.”

I pulled a chair from the desk and placed it in front of them. “Gentlemen, can we please separate concern over Marjorie’s reputation and concern over the loss of profits if people are told that she didn’t write Gin and Daggers?” I looked at Bruce Herbert, who had said nothing. He raised his eyebrows, closed his eyes, and turned in the general direction of the window.

I continued. “No one thought more highly of Marjorie Ainsworth than I did, and no one in this world is more concerned about honoring her memory. However, there is the matter of a young man named Jason Harris, whose throat was slit, whose face was battered, and who was tossed in the Thames. He is the one who should receive literary credit for writing Gin and Daggers. I’m sorry, but I intend to see to it that he receives his just due.”

Strayhorn, the critic, stood and assumed a statesmanlike posture across the room, his elbow casually resting upon the mantel of the suite’s small fireplace. “Mrs. Fletcher,” he said, “I think it is safe to say that you believe in books.”

I turned so that I was facing him. “Of course I do.”

“We are very much in the midst of a society whose cynicism is unparalled. Nothing is trusted any longer-government, educators, physicians, solicitors, and publishers of books. The sales of hardcover books, particularly fiction, have been eroding at a steady rate for years.”

He stopped talking. I waited. When he said nothing else, I asked, “What does this have to do with the issue we’re discussing here today?”

“Can you imagine the sense of betrayal millions of people who loved Marjorie. Ainsworth will suffer if you make this announcement?”

I had to give him credit; at least he was basing his objections on a larger, loftier principle than the others, who obviously had their pocketbooks uppermost in mind. At the same time, I found his thesis to be absurd. Pointing out to the public that a great writer had lost her faculties toward the end of her long life and had engaged the services of a younger, more energetic writer to complete her latest work, would hardly mark the end of civilization as we know it. I didn’t put it to him quite that way, but I came close.

“What proof do you have?” Strayhorn asked, looking intently at me, the prosecuting attorney grilling a shaky witness.

“That will be revealed tomorrow, Mr. Strayhorn.”

“I insist, Mrs. Fletcher, that you present your evidence here and now.”

I returned the chair to its place beneath the desk. “No, I will not do that. Sorry, but you will all have to wait until tomorrow to hear the details.”