Paul Magrs - Mystery Lady

I nodded. They were both right.

Beside each name on the contents page there was a different symbol, scrawled in reddish black ink.

Those scratchy runes looked awfully ominous.

‘Oh, and Dodie – look!’

Timmy was pointing at the thirteenth name on the list.

My own.

I was at the very end.

Dodie Golightly.

My name in print.

And I had a symbol next to my name, too.

It looked like a horrid kind of skull.

‘Oh, Dodie,’ said my best friend. ‘What the devil have we got ourselves into this time..?’

Timothy wanted to drive us to Bloomsbury in his new Mini car, but I told him not to bother. I would be quite happy taking the Underground. I felt I could do with some time to myself prior to my business meeting, just to clear my head a little.

My dear old friend Tim looked at me quizzically. ‘Now, this isn’t to do with my proposal last night, is it, Dodie?’

‘No, no, of course not,’ I protested brightly. ‘Honestly, I was flattered, but I hope you understand now as well as I do that it would never work between us. We make lovely chums and companions, don’t we? We have a lovely time together. Why complicate things by taking them into a sexual dimension?’

Timothy looked about ready to faint when I said the word ‘sexual.’

Behind me, Cassandra gave a quick snort of amusement.

‘I’ll be right as rain, once I’ve had some time alone, and had my big, important publishing meeting and got all of that out of the way.’ I pecked him on the cheek and readied myself to leave his gorgeous mews flat. Today I was in a magenta two-piece suit with a gauzy scarf and the tiniest hat.

‘You’ll join me at Television Centre?’ he asked, sounding just a little bit huffy. ‘You won’t forget?’

‘Of course not!’ Though, in actual fact, I’d already let our arrangement slip out of my thoughts. Luckily I had Cassandra with me.

She bobbed along at my elbow as we sallied forth into the wintry Chelsea morning. Last night’s snow had stuck and, though it made everything look gorgeous, it was tricky to walk on.

‘ Spin the Bottle, ’ Cassandra said apropos of nothing.

‘Pardon?’

‘The game show that Timothy is appearing on this evening. He wants us to be in the audience.’ She heaved a long sigh. ‘Well, you, anyway. He wants you there. I imagine he couldn’t care less whether I was there or not.’

‘What kind of a name for a TV show is ‘ Spin the Bottle ?’

‘It’s a very popular one. Timothy will be seen by millions, live on TV. He’s really going up in the world.’

I laughed. ‘Honestly, you’re such a sucker for vulgar show business, Cassie.’ Right then, as I strode gingerly along frozen pavements, it was longer-lasting literary fame that I was contemplating. I was thinking about the illustrious authors listed next to my name on that soggy contents page we found last night.

I was in a kind of pleasant daze as I went down the escalators and boarded the tube train.

‘Imagine, though, Cassie,’ I sighed. ‘Being published by Mephistopheles and Company. It would be just perfect, wouldn’t it?’

We sat staring at our own reflections in the dark glass of the windows opposite. The tunnels blurred and tracks underneath us sang.

‘It’s the natural home for the classy kind of murder stories you write,’ Cassie smiled at me. ‘So it’s no wonder this chief editor has asked to see you in person. I bet he’s read your first book and decided – why, she’s a genius at this penning mysteries lark! We must snap her up at once!’

‘Oh, shush, Cassie,’ I laughed. ‘Don’t tempt fate. Don’t jinx it…’ Though, of course, she was voicing my own hopes very precisely. This was another of Cassandra’s great gifts. Somehow she often knew exactly what was on my mind. Sometimes even before I did.

The tunnels and stairs and the streets outside were teeming with frosty and grumpy Londoners and visitors. They bustled about, muffled up in heavy outdoor clothes. It was mid-morning, but it felt that darkness was already encroaching as we stepped out into the refined seclusion of Bloomsbury. I don’t know what it was about the place, but I always felt instinctively at home there amongst its dark leafy squares and those tall and elegant buildings.

‘Well, you’re very bohemian, aren’t you?’ Cassandra said. ‘Just like Virginia Woolf and all those others who lived here, years ago. I think you’re out of your time, you are. You should have been living back then, really.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said, and it was true. I fancied myself as a member of the avant-garde, sometimes, when I thought about it. ‘Oh, heck, Cassie. I do feel a bit nervous…’

For now we were rounding the corner into Tavistock Square itself. And there: those downstairs windows lit up with a gentle apricot glow, and that polished brass door plaque. That was our destination. We were here.

Cassie tried to squeeze my hand as tight as she could. ‘Good luck,’ she whispered.

Hello again, Cassandra here. Well, I do like the look of him. That’s the first thing to say. He’s charm itself. The way he greets us in the main reception by a big spray of lilies and guides us oh-so-smoothly to his own little enclave on the first floor. Big window overlooking the snowy square outside. He’s giving it a lot of flannel about the firm and the offices and how it’s such a lovely place to work and both Dodie and I are all eyes.

He’s quite a looker, Henry Duke, managing director of Mephistopheles and Company. He’s what I would call suave. Posh, but not too bloomin’ posh. His manners are really lovely and he seems to hang on every word that Dodie says. She perches very picturesquely on a chair in front of his tidy desk and I think she gives a good account of herself.

All the while she’s looking about at his gorgeous first editions and his heaps of interesting-looking manuscripts. Her appetite is whetted by bookish gubbins like that, whereas I’m checking out his gold cufflinks and his fancy suit and the very cut of his jib.

If I’m not very much mistaken I think Mr Henry Duke has taken a shine to our Dodie at very first glance. I can detect a very definite amount of flirting going on.

Pretty soon they are done with pleasantries and are discussing literature. ‘I must say how impressed I was with your short story,’ he purrs at her. ‘I haven’t read all of this year’s ‘Horrible Book of Terror’ but Fox Soames – the range editor, you know – sent me a copy of your tale with a little note saying you were ‘one to watch.’’

Dodie flushes with pleasure at this.

‘I trust the judgment of old Fox Soames implicitly,’ says Henry. ‘He’s been editing this series since the very start. Back when my father was running the firm. Soames is a funny old stick but he knows a great tale of terror when he reads one, and both he and I agree that both you and your writing have a great future ahead of you, Miss Golightly.’

‘Please call me Dodie,’ she smiles. ‘And really, I think of myself as a writer of mysteries rather than terror…’

He shrugs. ‘Perhaps. But your story that I read was genuinely terrifying. I lay in bed till very late at night and I was absolutely rigid.’

Dodie’s eyes widen at this and I can tell that she wants to laugh. ‘Is that a fact, Mr Duke?’

‘I sent off for your first novel, which you published last year, I believe?’

‘Ah, yes,’ she says.

‘It was rather hard to get hold of. Your publisher –Mr Figgis - appears to operate out of a used bookstore in Morecambe. It took some wrangling to get them to actually part with a copy of your book and send it to me in the post.’