Max Collins - The London Blitz Murders

She had hoped for a smile or another light remark, but instead a melancholy cast came over his features.

“Bernard-is something wrong?”

His voice was soft; almost faint-she had to work to hear it, over the clatter of dishes and table chatter.

“When was it… twenty years ago? I was working on a particularly unpleasant exhumation case…. Is this bothering you? We did just eat, after all, and I-”

“I have never been prone to squeamishness, Bernard.”

“… Well, there he was, all laid out, ready for examination. And the young C.I.D. officer on the case, standing beside me, possibly nervous at his first autopsy, fired up a cigarette! I turned to him sharply and said, ‘Young man, you mustn’t smoke. I won’t be able to smell the smells I want to smell.’ ”

“And then,” Agatha said gaily, “you bent down over the corpse and sniffed away… as if the deceased were a rose garden…. I’ve heard that story, too.”

His face was blank and yet the distress was evident. “My sense of smell… it’s almost gone.”

She sat forward. “Oh, Bernard… how simply dreadful.”

He shrugged, slightly. “And what I insist upon calling lumbago… but which we all know is severe arthritis… has settled in the low of my back, most cozily.”

Her response was a flinch of a smile, followed by: “That’s the penalty of age-but these things happen, Bernard, and must be endured. As I get older, the gift of life seems stronger, more vital….”

“Even in time of war?”

She chose her words carefully; she knew he had lost a son in the Blitz-Peter, as she had surmised at their first meeting. “In such times, in a world of broken windows and bombs and land mines, it’s natural to expect that you yourself might be killed soon… that you will hear of the death of friends… that those you love best might be lost….”

A humorless smirk twitched on one cheek. “But one must not despair, I suppose.”

She shook her head. “One carries on. Not that one does not take… precautions.”

Something like amusement glimmered in the gray eyes. “Whatever precautions might a renowned mystery writer take?”

She sat up straight and announced, “I have just completed my last two books.”

“Your last…?”

“I have written one final novel about my vile little Belgian, and have taken the utmost pleasure in killing him off, too! And I’ve just completed one last Jane Marple mystery, as well.”

He sat forward. “You don’t intend to stop writing, my dear….”

She chuckled. “No. By my ‘last’ novels, I mean I’ve produced willfully posthumous novels-copies are in bank vaults here and in New York. These are a legacy of a sort, an insurance policy if you will, for my husband and daughter.”

He sat back, smiling a relieved smile. “I must admit, the thought of you giving up writing seems unlikely to say the least.”

She leaned an elbow on the table and rested her chin in a palm. “But the question is… what sort of writing will I pursue?”

“I don’t follow. Won’t you continue with mysteries and things?”

“There is a part of me that thinks those two novels should indeed be the last to feature that tired pair of out-of-date sleuths.”

“Out of date… how so?”

“They are of another time. Poirot’s world of upper-class Manor House shenanigans and Marple’s world of country-cottage village treachery. Postcards from a more innocent era.”

Sir Bernard’s eyes narrowed. “As opposed to missives from a world of broken windows and bombs and land mines?”

“Precisely.” She heaved a world-weary sigh. “I have moved more and more into espionage novels of late, and… am I boring you?”

“Do I seem bored?”

“Not at all… but I really would not like to-”

“Please, Agatha. I am privileged to be your father confessor.”

She chuckled again. “Bernard, I wonder if in the postwar world… should this war ever end, and should we find ourselves living in a country where writers can publish something other than variations upon Mein Kampf … I wonder if my style of murder will still be in vogue?”

Now he was openly amused. “What other style of murder were you considering?”

“If you laugh at me, I’ll throw a napkin at you. I swear I will.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “I believe you. The question was serious.”

She sighed. “So is the answer…. Are you aware of this new style of supposedly ‘realistic’ crime novel that’s come out of the States?”

“No.”

“Well, suffice to say there’s a school known as the ‘hardboiled’-”

“What a wretchedly unpleasant term.”

“Isn’t it? And the books themselves are rather wretchedly unpleasant, as well. One of them does write well-perhaps you’ve heard of him… Dashiell Hammett?”

“No.”

“Former Pinkerton detective. He writes nicely compact prose. But his followers are for the most part blood-and-thunder practitioners-bloody violence, blatant sex. There’s a fellow named Chandler who writes vividly, but his plots are incomprehensible rubbish… please don’t quote me.”

“You have my word.”

“But, still and all, these writers may be onto something….”

“Something unpleasant, I should say.”

“Indeed. They sense that the public… as the world around us grows ever more horrific… itself is growing numb, needing ever-increasing stimuli. Whatever I might think of their writing, they point toward the modern world. An unpleasant world.” She shuddered. “Can you imagine what the first big American crime writer, post-war, is likely to be like? What sort of unwashed brute will he be?”

Wisely, Sir Bernard left this rhetorical question unanswered. “I take it you are contemplating writing more realistically about crime and murder.”

She nodded, narrowing her eyes. “Bernard, you’ve stated it far more simply and eloquently than has the paid professional writer.”

“Thank you.”

“The question is-will you help me?”

“How?”

She leaned close and held his eyes with hers. “I want to accompany you to crime scenes. I want to see how you work, and how the police work, and achieve a firmer grasp on the reality behind the fantasy I serve up.”

He reared back. “Oh, Agatha, I don’t know that that’s a good idea.”

“It’s a splendid idea. Will you help?”

“I’m not so sure it can even be arranged.”

“Bernard, if the most renowned mystery writer on the planet joins forces with the foremost forensics detective in the universe… how could it not?”

He just sat there, stunned for a moment, then smiled and laughed. “You are truly a one of a kind, Mrs. Mallowan.”

“Thank you, Sir Bernard. Now, what is this case that’s got you studying in your little black notebook so diligently?”

The smile dissolved into a frown. “I wouldn’t advise starting there. It’s a most unpleasant matter.”

“Most murders are.”

“We may have… I must ask your discretion.”

“Certainly.”

He whispered: “We may have a modern-day Jack the Ripper on our hands.”

Agatha gasped. “Oh… that’s wonderful.”

Sir Bernard’s eyes tightened; he looked frankly horrified.

Her heart sank. “Please, please don’t think badly of me…. It’s just that this is exactly the kind of case I’m craving. Something big… a multiple murderer…. It’s just what the doctor ordered.”

His eyes were very wide. “My dear… this is not your… ‘fantasy’ world. Now, sit back and I will tell you about the crime scene I visited this morning.”

And he did. He even referred to his little black notebook, to make sure no details were omitted.