Death of a Cozy Writer

“With his remarriage, you mean.”

“We have to keep in mind that Sir Adrian’s character combined the wanton destructiveness of a child with all the untrustworthiness of a detective novelist. He was bored. He was old and he was bored, jaded and discontented, in fading health. Disappointment over Ruthven may have driven him over the edge, who knows? So he spins the wheel again, just for mischief ’s sake.

“He has to do something that will make them all come running. He knew if he announced his wedding after the fact it was unlikely to cause a stampede to his door. Quite the opposite, in fact, was likely to happen. Oh, they would carry on and gnash their teeth, but they’d all stay in London to do that-and where was the fun in that? Eventually, curiosity might have brought one or two of them to Waverley Court. But not all-and perhaps not the one he most wanted to see: Ruthven. I think what he had in mind was to disown him publicly, a final, dramatic humiliation-on top of his remarriage-for Chloe.

“In any event, he stages this phony engagement or pre-wedding party, whatever you want to call it. That, he knew, would bring them all on the run. Especially Ruthven, the control freak. There was still a chance, you see, of changing their fates, preventing the wedding. Or so they thought.”

A final spurt of gravel, and Fear brought the car to a halt at the door of Waverley Court.

St. Just gazed balefully at the coat of arms over the imposing door.

“‘Blood alone moves the wheels of history.’ But I don’t think blood lines are quite what Mussolini had in mind.”

***

Something about the golden light shimmering off the dark mahogany fittings onto the group made him think of spiders trapped in amber.

They were arranged in an artful tableau, like stage actors holding their poses just before the curtain went up for the next act, clustered in pairs or groups reflecting their current, no-doubt constantly shifting, alliances.

Natasha stood near the mantelpiece, wearing a clinging gray dress that made her look as ephemeral as one of the puffs of smoke going up the chimney. George was at her side in one of his studiedly casual slouches designed to display his Armani to best effect.

Mrs. Romano and Paulo had tucked themselves into a far dark corner, standing, just the pair of them, distancing themselves from the rest. Her hand, he noted, lay protectively on her son’s arm.

Sarah had acquired a new partner: She sat on one of the sofas, flanked by Albert on one side, Jeffrey on another, an arrangement that served to point up the physical resemblance between the two men.

Violet, Chloe, and Lillian, all now in black, sat together in silence in a triangular grouping of chairs, watching him warily as he took up a position before the fireplace. The smoke from their cigarettes created a literal screen in front of them. Natasha and George withdrew at his approach, taking up a position behind the three women.

He paused, taking them all in, sizing them up, like a washed-in-the-blood minister about to exhort them to repent before it was too late.

It was Violet who spoke first. After all, he thought, it was her house, now.

“Do you have any idea of the hour, Inspector?” She stabbed out her cigarette in an angry gesture, swatting away the smoke. “Don’t you think we’ve been through enough?”

“I do indeed, Lady Beauclerk-Fisk. But I felt certain you would share my interest in solving the mystery of the murder of your husband, whatever the hour.”

“Have you solved it?” She wouldn’t meet his eyes; she might have been asking the ashtray.

“I have indeed. Although I doubt you will care to hear what I’ve learned,” he said.

He saw her large hand freeze in the act of lighting another cigarette, an infinitesimal hesitation that told him the arrow had struck home. As she tensed for further attack, he turned instead to Chloe.

“There is a tradition in this country of which I am certain you are aware: Lying to the police is deemed a crime. You failed to mention during any of our interviews Adrian’s involvement in the Win-throp murder. You even failed to mention he was there at the time.”

“You didn’t ask, Inspector,” she said. Her low voice was even, unconcerned. “Do you really imagine it had anything to do with Ruthven’s death? It couldn’t have done. And his death is all I care about, certainly not Adrian’s. I’d like to pin a medal on the person-”

“What if I told you your son’s death sprang directly from the death of Winthrop?”

A slight start of distress, followed by her usual quick recovery.

“I would say you were mistaken. Yes, Adrian was there. It was how we met. He was laid up with that ‘sprained ankle,’ or so he said, so he was mincing about the house with the women while the others were out shooting. Always his preference anyway, the company of women.” She angled a glance in Violet’s direction. “In a strange way, that murder brought us together. When I ran into him again in Paris, later in the season, it gave us something to talk about, didn’t it? Nothing like being suspects in a notorious crime to bring people together.”

She looked across at Sarah, who, as if on cue, moved marginally closer to Jeffrey.

“You also didn’t mention that his name was not Adrian Beau-clerk-Fisk when you met him, but John Davies. Why?”

She said nothing this time, but he knew the answer, incredible as it was: rampant, bloody-minded snobbery. She kept silent because that damned title-the one she had had to subsidize for Adrian-meant so much to her. As she had kept silent in part to keep the scandal of Ruthven’s parentage out of the headlines.

“You didn’t want me digging around in Adrian’s past,” he said for her. “That is a wish you shared in common with at least one other person in this room. Mrs. Romano, for one.”

He saw her grip tighten on Paulo’s arm. “Sir Adrian said never to talk about those days,” she said.

“You were certainly well-rewarded for your silence. I suppose the danger of your being recognized by Violet was minimal-it’s not as if she would have remembered an undercook from her household of decades ago. Any more than she spotted Jeffrey’s resemblance to her former scullery boy.”

“Mine?” Jeffrey looked genuinely startled. Turning to Sarah, he said, “I knew my father had emigrated from England in the fifties. I had no idea there was a connection. None at all.”

St. Just allowed his glance to rest on each of them in turn.

“As I was explaining to my sergeant on the way here, I thought at first the motive of the murderer might be muddled, indiscriminate- someone who wanted only to eliminate the family, one by one. And to some extent, that was true.”

Involuntarily, Albert flicked a glance in Sarah’s direction.

“The order in which they were eliminated did not seem to matter. Why kill Ruthven, when it was clear to anyone the real source of the conflict in this family was Sir Adrian himself? Why not go straight to the source-cut off the head of the snake?

“Then I thought, what if the choice of Ruthven were not random at all? What if there were a reason to eliminate Ruthven as heir? His death would point the finger of blame at the family, to be sure-at everyone in the house with a vested interest. Perhaps that was part of what the murderer wanted: to widen the field to such an extent no one person could be excluded as a suspect absolutely. And at the same time, to narrow the pool to be divided up on Sir Adrian’s demise.

“So there was that possibility: Ruthven was an inconvenience to be eliminated, by a cold-blooded killer who would have killed anyone who happened to get in the way. But-what if the motive were even more… personal than that?

“Ruthven was not well-loved, certainly, but the violent, brutal method chosen for his death spoke of something more frenzied than a desire to simply get him out of the way. That was when I realized the motives might be multiple-not muddled, multiple. Not random- multiple. I asked: What if someone felt betrayed by Ruthven? His wife, for example? The victim of his multiple infidelities.”

He looked to Lillian, who turned away disdainfully.

“Or, was it perhaps one of his victims on the other side of that coin, so to speak? His mistress, for example.”

Now he had captured even Lillian’s attention. They all looked at each other, mystified.

“No one came near the house that night. You said so yourself,” said Albert.