Death of a Cozy Writer

for instructions, not with your men crawling all over the house. You must realize, it was almost certainly George behind that, but I don’t know why or how he did it yet. I can promise you I’m working on getting it out of him. As far as I knew, he was asleep all night next to me when Ruthven was killed. As long as I can keep his confidence, he might just let the truth slip. I had to keep playing the game. It was too important-and I was closer to unraveling the case than anyone had been able to get-to blow my cover. We’re talking about two men killed over this, not to mention millions of pounds in stolen treasures, taken not only from here but from museums all over the world. We’re closer to the truth than ever before, now.”

Sergeant Fear was wishing she’d be quiet. He got it, got it, got it. It was known that Scotland Yard had its own agenda, and sometimes played by its own rules when it suited them. It wasn’t the first time they’d elbowed the “provincials” out of the way over an international case deemed to be of overriding priority. He just resented being made to feel like some kind of fucking Cambridgeshire goatherd.

“Look, Chief Inspector; Sergeant. I know you’re angry at being left out in the cold. I would be, too. I couldn’t help it; I had no control, no real authority. This is not your average smuggling scheme. We still don’t know all the receivers in Europe and the Middle East, let alone all the suppliers. It would seem George was not only stealing from his father, but using this house as sort of a warehouse for incoming goods. Paulo is in on it with him, I’m sure, but I doubt Paulo knows the magnitude of what he’s involved in.”

“Natasha, I would suggest, with all due respect, that neither do you.”

22. MEMORY LANE

THE TWO POLICEMEN CAME stomping down the staircase into the hall to find Paulo taking Chloe’s fur coat at the main door. Just before Paulo kicked the door shut, St. Just glimpsed the black limousine that had transported her in state to the house.

The Hollywood-style sweep of staircase left him nowhere to hide. Inwardly, St. Just groaned, imagining she was there for a hand-holding session for which he had little time or inclination.

“God, but the press is vile,” she informed him. “One of them practically flung herself on the bonnet trying to stop us on the way in.” She took off her leather gloves, flapping them in his direction. “Needed to talk with you. And Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain.”

She marched into the library. At least, judging by her sturdy progress, she was relatively sober this time. Reluctantly, after a whispered conference with Fear, he followed, closing the door behind them.

“Seem to have been a few changes here,” she said, hands on hips, taking in the vast room. “All that military crap in the hallway is new since my time. As for this-” she waved one arm, taking in the paintings cramming the walls-“Adrian never could tell a racehorse from a plug mare. That much hasn’t changed. Speaking of plug mares, why haven’t you taken that one into custody yet?”

“I assume you are referring to Lady Beauclerk-Fisk.”

“Of course I mean Violet. What does she have to do, come running in here waving a poison-tipped spear and threatening to run us all through?”

“There’s no evidence…”

“Evidence? Her first, wealthy husband dies under ‘mysterious circumstances.’ She no sooner has her hooks into wealthy Adrian than he’s dead. What more evidence do you need? Oh, I see the truth now. Poor Ruthven. He probably got wind of what she was planning, so she killed him. She should have been locked up years ago, but all she had to do was bat those baby blues at male officialdom and off she flies to Gstaad or Monaco or wherever it was she disappeared to.”

“‘Baby blues?’ Had you met Violet before, then?”

“It’s just an expression.” She shrugged. “Oh, all right. I did know her, in the way one did know people in those days,” she said vaguely, not quite willing to meet his stare. “All the same crowd at the same wretched parties every weekend. Violet was always included because of the way she looked; I because of my money. I knew, and I didn’t care. Daddy sent me to England to snag a title and, by golly, I did.”

Her round, plain face brightened momentarily. Was marriage to Sir Adrian the singular accomplishment of her life, in Daddy’s eyes? And what would Daddy have said if he’d known the background to that title?

“You must have recognized her name on the invitation.”

“That’s exactly it, you see. I did not recognize the name Violet Mildenhall. I knew her as Violet Winthrop. You think I wouldn’t have mentioned that to Ruthven, if I’d put it together in time? I might have warned him to stay away from her, from this house, at a minimum.”

“All right.” Here St. Just felt it was time to divert the conversation into more procedural paths. There was still the looming question of what she had been doing when Sir Adrian met his demise. Feeling like a BBC news announcer forced to lurch from headline to unrelated headline, he put the question to her.

“At home, of course.”

“Can anyone vouch for you?”

“Mrs. Ketchen, of course.”

From what he had seen of Mrs. Ketchen, he thought it unlikely she had any idea whether on any given day her employer was at home, pinned under a lorry, or planting gunpowder in the basement of Westminster.

“All right,” he said patiently. “Tell me what you know, now, about that weekend in Scotland. And I mean, all that you know: gossip, facts, and innuendo. Let’s start with Violet. Everything you can remember. She was popular with men, Violet was, I take it?” “Popular? Popular?” Chloe, who had been peeking at the ending of a Graham Greene novel, swung on him, astonished, in an “is-there-no- limit-to-your-ignorance?” way. “Good God, man.

People nearly brought back dueling for Violet’s sake. She was a force of nature, no question about it. Pamela Harriman had nothing on her. Pam, of course, was older, but there was an enormous competition between them, at least on Pamela’s part. Quite deadly. Oh, yes, indeed. All the kiss-kiss in public, gloves off in private, if the rumors were true. I remember Averil-”

“Were you jealous of her? Then, I mean?”

“Then and now: no,” she said flatly. “You could really only gaze in dumbstruck awe where Violet was concerned, as at… oh, I don’t know. A thunderstorm. Or a train wreck. Somehow, she didn’t inspire jealousy, only wonder. Oh, there was the expected cattiness over her marriage to that old lizard Winthrop. But do you know, the more I saw them together, the more I came to believe that was a love match. Didn’t she have me fooled.”

“You were not in the camp that believed she killed him, then?”

“I wasn’t then. I am now. Do you really believe this is coincidence? Everywhere she goes, there’s a trail of bodies, or hadn’t you noticed? The problem was…” She didn’t seem to want to meet his eyes. “The problem was, I couldn’t imagine why she would kill him. It’s not as if he held her captive, you know. She was free to… you know…”

“I don’t know.”

Again the look of surprise. “To have discreet affairs, of course,” she said. “If she wanted them. It was quite the done thing in that crowd. I never got the impression that she did. Want affairs, I mean. Rather cold-blooded, she was, I always felt. All the men hoped differently, but I don’t think any of them got too far.”

In spite of her denials, St. Just wondered if there weren’t just a bit more jealousy here than she was willing to own to. And more than a shade of bitterness. She was taking Sir Adrian’s death with less hand-wringing than might have been expected, given the manner of his death, if nothing else. But then, it had been decades since their divorce.

He sat down, first leading her by the arm away from the bookshelves in front of which she’d planted herself and repotting her in a seat across from him.

“You weren’t entirely truthful with me when we first met, were you?”

“As truthful as the situation warranted. She killed Adrian, all right, but for the life of me I don’t see how Ruthven was a threat to her. Unless he knew she was planning to kill Adrian. And how could he? And-why wouldn’t she have waited a decent interval before killing him, if only to make it look good? Oh, I don’t know. I go ’round and ’round about it in my mind, and I can’t see the motive there. Not unless she’s insane.