Murder Most Merry

“Ah,” Haig said. “And what did you determine, madam?”

“I didn’t read enough to form a judgment. Anyway, Into the Night was no great commercial success, so why tag along in its wake?”

“So you put the manuscript...”

“Back in its box, and left it on the table where I’d found it.”

Our client shook his head in wonder. “Murder on the Orient Express,” he said. “Or in the Calais coach, depending on whether you’re English or American. It’s beginning to look as though everyone read that manuscript. And I never noticed a thing!”

“Well, you were hitting the sauce pretty good,” Jon Corn-Wallace reminded him. “And you were, uh, concentrating all your social energy in one direction.”

“How’s that?”

Corn-Wallace nodded toward Jeanne Botleigh, who was refilling someone’s cup. “As far as you were concerned, our lovely caterer was the only person in the room.”

There was an awkward silence, with our host coloring and his caterer lowering her eyes demurely. Haig broke it. “To continue,” he said abruptly. “Miss Quinlan returned the manuscript to its box and to its place upon the table. Then—”

“But she didn’t.” Perigord said. “Harriet. I wanted another look at Woolrich. Maybe I’d missed something. But first I saw you reading it, and when I looked a second time it was gone. You weren’t reading it and it wasn’t on the table, either.”

“I put it back,” the agent said.

“But not where you found it,” said Edward Everett Stokes. “You set it down not on the table but on that revolving bookcase.”

“Did I? I suppose it’s possible. But how did you know that?”

“Because I saw you,” said the small-press publisher. “And because I wanted a look at the manuscript myself. I knew about it, including the fact that it was not restorable in the fashion of Into the Night. That made it valueless to a commercial publisher, but the idea of a Woolrich novel going unpublished ate away at me. I mean, we’re talking about Cornell Woolrich.”

“And you thought—”

“I thought, why not publish it as is, warts and all? I could do it, in an edition of two or three hundred copies, for collectors who’d happily accept inconsistencies and omissions for the sake of having something otherwise unobtainable. I wanted a few minutes’ peace and quiet with the book, so I took it into the lavatory.”

“And?”

“And I read it. or at least paged through it. I must have spent half an hour in there, or close to it.”

“I remember you were gone awhile,” Jon Corn-Wallace said. “I thought you’d headed on home.”

“I thought he was in the other room.” Jayne said, “cavorting on the pile of coats with Harriet here. But I guess that must have been someone else.”

“It was Zoltan,” the agent said, “and we were hardly cavorting.”

“Kanoodling, then, but—”

“He was teaching me a yogic breathing technique, not that it’s any of your business. Stokes, you took the manuscript into the john. I trust you brought it back?”

“Well, no.”

“You took it home? You’re the person responsible for its disappearance?”

“Certainly not. I didn’t take it home, and I hope I’m not responsible for its disappearance. I left it in the lavatory.”

“You just left it there?”

“In its box. on the shelf over the vanity. I set it down there while I washed my hands, and I’m afraid I forgot it. And no, it’s not there now. I went and looked as soon as I realized what all this was about, and I’m afraid some other hands than mine must have moved it. I’ll tell you this—when it does turn up, I definitely want to publish it.”

“If it turns up,” our client said darkly. “Once E. E. left it in the bathroom, anyone could have slipped it under his coat without being seen. And I’ll probably never see it again.”

“But that means one of us is a thief,” somebody said.

“I know, and that’s out of the question. You’re all my friends. But we were all drinking last night, and drink can confuse a person. Suppose one of you did take it from the bathroom and carried it home as a joke, the kind of joke that can seem funny after a few drinks. If you could contrive to return it, perhaps in such a way that no one could know your identity... Haig, you ought to be able to work that out.”

“I could,” Haig agreed. ‘If that were how it happened. But it didn’t.”

“It didn’t?”

“You forget the least obvious suspect.”

“Me? Dammit, Haig, are you saying I stole my own manuscript?”

“I’m saying the butler did it,” Haig said, “or the closest thing we have to a butler. Miss Botleigh, your upper lip has been trembling almost since we all sat down. You’ve been on the point of an admission throughout and haven’t said a word. Have you in fact read the manuscript of As Dark as It Gets?”

“Yes.”

The client gasped. “You have? When?”

“Last night.”

“But—”

“I had to use the lavatory,” she said, “and the book was there, although I could see it wasn’t an ordinary bound book but pages in a box. I didn’t think I would hurt it by looking at it. So I sat there and read the first two chapters.”

“What did you think?” Haig asked her.

“It was very powerful. Parts of it were hard to follow, but the scenes were strong, and I got caught up in them.”

“That’s Woolrich,” Jayne Corn-Wallace said. “He can grab you, all right.”

“And then you took it with you when you went home,” our client said. “You were so involved you couldn’t bear to leave it unfinished, so you, uh, borrowed it.” He reached to pat her hand. “Perfectly understandable,” he said, “and perfectly innocent. You were going to bring it back once you’d finished it. So all this fuss has been over nothing.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“It’s not?”

“I read two chapters.” she said, “and I thought I’d ask to borrow it some other time, or maybe not. But I put the pages back in the box and left them there.”

“In the bathroom?”

“Yes.”

“So you never did finish the book, our client said. “Well, if it ever turns up I’ll be more than happy to lend it to you. but until then—”

“But perhaps Miss Botleigh has already finished the book,” Haig suggested.

“How could she? She just told you she left it in the bathroom.”

Haig said, “Miss Botleigh?”

“I finished the book.” she said. “When everybody else went home, I stayed.”

“My word,” Zoltan Mihalyi said. “Woolrich never had a more devoted fan. or one half so beautiful.”

“Not to finish the manuscript.” she said, and turned to our host. “You asked me to stay,” she said.

“I wanted you to stay,” he agreed. “I wanted to ask you to stay. But I don’t remember...”

“I guess you’d had quite a bit to drink.” she said, “although you didn’t show it. But you asked me to stay, and I’d been hoping you would ask me, because I wanted to stay.”

“You must have had rather a lot to drink yourself.” Harriet Quinlan murmured.

“Not that much.” said the caterer. I wanted to stay because he’s a very attractive man.”

Our client positively glowed, then turned red with embarrassment. “I knew I had a hole in my memory,” he