G Malliet - Death of a Cozy Writer

“He was bludgeoned to death, wasn’t he?” said Sarah.

“Something along those lines, I believe. I’ll have the details by tomorrow.”

“It is hard to picture her doing that, having met her,” said Sarah doubtfully.

“No doubt the police felt the same. Lizzie Borden, always the model for this kind of thing, was a big bear of a girl, and people had trouble believing her capable of wielding an axe to such stunning effect.”

He clapped his hands on his knees and rose to leave.

“So you see, it’s a thornier problem than we thought. I would suggest we all sleep on what to do about it.”

“We have to tell him,” said Sarah. “Warn him.”

“Don’t be daft,” said Albert. “He must know. In fact, knowing him, it’s part of the attraction.”

Sarah frowned, doubtful.

‘Marrying a known killer?” George considered. “I suppose I wouldn’t put it past him, but still, it does rather give one the creeps. I can’t say I like the idea of sleeping under the same roof with her, myself, come to that.”

Ruthven soon left, and after some further discussion of the “Can you believe this?” variety the rest wandered off to their assorted rooms.

Sarah took the precaution of locking the door behind them, before preparing for bed and settling down to a disturbed rest. Her last waking thought before drifting off was, “I don’t care what Ruthven says. I must warn him.”

Breakfast at Waverley Court was always an informal affair. Guests staggered down from upstairs as hunger moved them, to where vast quantities of food sat keeping warm under covered dishes on the sideboard. Sir Adrian always had a tray in his dressing room while he savored his latest fan mail, too voluminous to answer personally, even had he been inclined to do so. It was one of Jeffrey’s duties to keep from him any letter containing even a hint of criticism of him or his books, and to forge his signature on a standard form reply to his admirers.

Sarah was first down, looking decidedly the worse for wear, clumping into the room in giant Birkenstocks that made her look as if she had strapped cow pats to the soles of her feet. Today she was draped in a brown serge fabric gathered at the waist with something resembling hemp rope, making comparison with a sack of potatoes unavoidable.

She stumped over to the sideboard and investigated the contents of the warming pans-eggs, bacon, ham, kidneys, haddock, and cold pheasant-then began heaping large selections from each onto a Wedgwood plate. Paulo, who was supposed to be standing by at breakfast time, was nowhere to be seen. Sarah helped herself to a coffee that was mostly cream and castor sugar.

Her resolve during the night had flickered like a dying candle, becoming fully extinguished as the first streaks of dawn appeared. What had decided her, for the moment, against going to her father about Violet was the same fear that keeps honest citizens from going to the police: the fear of not being believed; the fear of being held up to ridicule and scorn. There was also, of course, the risk of retaliation from the offended party. In her muddled way, however, Sarah realized she feared retaliation from her father, not from Violet. It would be too much like telling the emperor he was wearing no clothes.

“Another early riser, I see.”

She turned from the sideboard to see Natasha, pencilslim in black, gliding in on a waft of what Sarah imagined was insanely expensive French perfume.

“Yes, good morning. I find I never sleep well when I’m at home. When I’m away from home, I should say.”

“I have rather the same problem. A hotel bed, no matter how comfortable, is never the same as having all one’s familiar things around, especially when one awakens in the night. Once in Paris I nearly plunged off the balcony, thinking I was on my way to the loo.”

“Have you stayed at many hotels?” asked Sarah, anxious for something to say, then flushed, realizing how peculiar that might sound.

Natasha laughed. “Only about a hundred nights a year. My job, you know.”

At Sarah’s even more stricken look, Natasha hastily added, “I’m an interior architect. I design art galleries, mostly. The occasional boutique or restaurant. I-well, my firm, actually-we gut and renovate old buildings, smarten up new ones. That’s how George and I met.”

“At a boutique?”

Natasha blinked. Was Sarah really as dim as she seemed? Kindly, she smiled. “No, we met at his art gallery.”

“Oh! Yes, I’d rather forgotten he’d gone in for all that. He and I don’t really stay in touch. And he’s had several careers, you know. George always had a bit of trouble… settling.”

With this she herself settled at the table and began digging into breakfast, wondering whether or not she should expand on this theme of George’s restlessness on such short acquaintance with Natasha. Really, Natasha seemed like quite a nice girl. Most of George’s girlfriends that she had met had been nice, although perhaps a bit more brittle upon leaving the relationship than upon entering it. Was she morally obligated to warn Natasha? The thought brought her back to her other moral dilemma of the day regarding her father and Violet. The dual quandary made her head start to pound.

“Really?” Natasha carried her toast and coffee to a seat across the table. Sarah watched as she dabbed the thinnest possible shaving of butter on the toast, then proceeded to cut the slice into dainty quarters. Her hair as it fell on either side of her face in the winter’s light was as black as a bruise, the slight upward tilt to her eyes even more pronounced as she bent her head to her task. Sarah wondered if there weren’t Russian blood somewhere in her background.

In the best tradition of the Girl Guides, Sarah believed that a hearty breakfast was the preventative for any ill ranging from dropsy to bubonic plague. Natasha couldn’t live another fortnight on the little she appeared to eat.

“Well, it looks as if he may have found his niche at last, then,” Natasha was saying. “The gallery is getting quite a reputation already, and in London, that is definitely saying something. George has a sharp eye for-” she stopped. Sarah was almost certain she had been going to say “the main chance.” Instead she continued, “-the up-and-coming young artist.”

“You amaze me. He never showed much interest as a child. My father has quite a good collection of paintings here, you know. Ancestors. Also horses and dogs from the tally ho! period. Quite rare, I understand. You should look around, if you’re interested in art.”

Natasha, who had already done a mental inventory of the contents of the house on public display, smiled. Sir Adrian might be a canny old fox when it came to his mystery plots, but someone had certainly sold him a bill of goods on some of the furniture and paintings.

She glanced at the crackle-glazed horror hanging over the fireplace to her left. Surely she’d seen the original somewhere in Wiltshire? But there, the Duke or whatever he was hadn’t appeared quite so wall-eyed and deranged, whatever his famed eccentricities, as he appeared in this appalling copy.

The George II sideboard at least was real, standing on leaf-carved cabriole legs ending in big hairy paw feet-a style she fervently hoped would never come back in favor. But as for ancestors: my grandmother’s arse, she thought. And the hunting scenes you couldn’t sell to a purblind rich American.

“Perhaps later,” she said. She hesitated, clearly wondering whether to broach a delicate subject. “I hope it’s all right, my being here.”

“Being here?”

“On such a family occasion. I feel rather like I’m intruding, but George insisted.”

“George never could stand to be alone for a single minute.” Then, fearing she had been rude, she hastily added, “You’re no more a stranger here than the rest of us. And it helps, somehow, having… an outsider. If you know what I mean. Not that you’re really-I mean…”