Death of a Cozy Writer

infatuation as makes no difference. Because the kind of publicity he will receive from this is of the kind even he would blanch at-and, as I’ve said, of a kind he doesn’t need, anyway. But it’s an occupational hazard, I’d guess, in his case.”

“You’re talking riddles,” said Albert. He wanted to go in search of the nearest liquor cabinet, but the whirling room when he attempted standing defeated him.

“You do realize who she is, don’t you? Her maiden name was Mildenhall but her married name was Winthrop.”

He looked around him, to be met by blank stares.

“The Winthrop murder. Surely you remember? She was accused, and people think, rightly so, of murdering her husband.”

5. A STORY FROM THE PAST

“MY GOD,” SAID SARAH. “It can’t be.”

“I already have someone in my office checking the files, but you can be sure I’m right. It was sometime in the mid-1950s. We were unborn, then, of course, and even later you might have been too young to care about such things, but I, before long, was reading every newspaper I could lay my hands on. The coverage and speculation about the case went on for years.”

Interested in what he was saying, they all nodded encouragingly, suppressing irritation at Ruthven’s image of himself as child prodigy, tackling at a tender age the baroque yet subtle nuances of the Daily Mirror.

“Oh, yes, it’s she, all right,” Ruthven went on. “I recognized her face before the name dropped into place. Her photograph was everywhere at one time, and photographers simply hounded her for decades.”

“What a pretty, sanitized version we heard of her past this evening,” said George. “What was it she said about having made a famous marriage? Well put, that. I thought I’d seen her somewhere. But it was more recent.”

“No doubt,” said Ruthven. “Every so often the papers dig up the story for a rehash of the mystery.”

“They never caught who did it, did they?” said Sarah.

“They never tried,” said Ruthven. “They already had who did it. But money talks, then as now. There was even some question of evidence being removed, tampered with, although it was probably a matter of incompetence more than outright corruption. By the time the police got through trampling all over the clues and losing the evidence, there was no question of ever bringing her to trial. A complete farce. The old man had no family to speak of so there wasn’t even much of a stink raised from that end. And there was, indeed, a certain camp among the reading public that tended to plump for her innocence. Even then, it was felt a woman couldn’t have committed any crime that didn’t involve a little genteel poisoning.”

“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