I shook my head and smiled. “What a wonderful play this would have made. Why didn’t you write it, instead of acting it out? It might have had a long run in the West End.”
Walter Cole stood. “I don’t know what any of this is about, but I’m leaving. I’ve done nothing but agree to publish Jason’s works. No crime in that for a publisher.”
“Unless you were part of the conspiracy to enhance Jason’s worth in the marketplace. I have a feeling, Mr. Cole, that you were in on this from the very beginning-that the four of you sat down one night, probably with a few bottles of wine, and decided to pull a grand hoax on the world.”
I looked at Jane Portelaine. “How could you have betrayed your aunt this way?”
Until I asked that, she’d been glaring at me with a face of stone. There was a discernible tremor in her long, lean body, and her fists were clenched at her sides.
“Marjorie Ainsworth was a difficult person, Jane, but she did not deserve to have her life end that way.”
“She was old, about to die anyway,” Harris said from where he sat in Marjorie’s usual chair, a freshly lit cigarette dangling from his fingers.
Now I was angry. I said, “I suppose the person floating in the Thames was old and about to die, too.”
Suddenly the room was bathed in harsh white light that poured through the window. Automobiles could be heard outside, along with the voices of many men. Marshall bolted from the table and ran into the adjacent drawing room. He looked through windows to the front, turned, and shouted, “There’s bloody police everywhere.”
“We can continue this discussion at Scotland Yard,” I said.
“There’ll be no discussion with me,” Jason said. “I didn’t kill the old lady, although I wouldn’t have minded doing it. I hated her, but I didn’t have to be the one to kill her.” He looked up at Jane. “Tell her how you did it, Jane, how you drove the stake into the witch’s heart.”
I stared at Jane, said nothing.
“It wasn’t hard, was it?” Harris said to Marjorie’s niece. “Over as quick as that.”
I continued to look at Jane and noticed that the nature of her trembling had changed. Now it was less born of anger and more rooted in other emotions. I asked softly, “Why, Jane?”
She slowly shook her head and lowered her eyes.
“Was it so important to you that Jason have a career he didn’t deserve that you would kill your own aunt?”
Jane’s voice matched the softening of her face. She slowly shook her head and said, “No.”
“Why did you kill her, Jane?”
“Because…” She slowly turned and looked at Jason Harris, who was smiling at her. She looked at me again and said, “Because I would lose him if I didn’t.”
The smug expression on Jason’s face caused me to want to rake it with my nails, throw lye in it, disfigure it the way the body dragged from the Thames had been disfigured.
The heavy metal knocker sounded against the front door. Marshall returned to the dining room, his face plastered with fright. “What do we do?” he asked Jason.
“Invite them in,” Harris said, stubbing out his cigarette and standing. He came around the table and said to me, “I have news for you, Jessica Fletcher.”
“And what might that be, Jason?”
“That I win no matter what. When this is over, my name is going to be very big and valuable in the publishing community.” He looked at Walter Cole. “Am I right, Walter?”
“I had nothing to do with any of this,” the publisher said again.
The police, led by George Sutherland, came through the front door and surrounded the dining room table.
I started to say something to Jason Harris, but was interrupted by a voice from the group. “I knew it all along, I did.”
Jimmy Biggers pushed past two uniformed police officers and winked at me. “We did it, Jessica.”
“Yes, Jimmy, we did. When you told me that Mr. Simpson was on his way to Ainsworth Manor, and that he had someone with him whose description matched that of Mr. Cole, I knew my instincts were right, and that there would be a gathering of sorts here tonight.”
“We’ll do us a press conference together, Jessica, as soon as we get back to London.”
“I’m not sure I’m up to press conferences, Jimmy, but we certainly will stand together.” I winked at him. “Good for business.”
He returned my wink and grinned.
I looked at Jason Harris and repeated what I’d started to say before Biggers interrupted. “You know, Jason, you’re absolutely right. The public loves a name embroiled in scandal. The problem is you don’t have the talent to give the public what it will expect from you. Then again, you’ll have plenty of quiet time in the penitentiary to sharpen your literary skills. Some pretty good books have been written by lifers.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Seth Hazlitt, Morton Metzger, Lucas Darling, and I sat with George Sutherland in his office at Scotland Yard. It was the following morning: the weather in London was what tourists always claim it is, chilly and damp. Tea in Styrofoam cups had been purchased from a vendor who serviced the Yard. It wasn’t an elegant tea service, but the tea tasted good.
“I can’t believe that dreadful man Montgomery Coots,” I said, “bouncing up and down on TV this morning, claiming he knew all along it wasn’t Count Zara who’d killed Marjorie; that it was Jane. The nerve of him to talk about how Scotland Yard almost derailed the investigation by accusing Zara.”
Sutherland, who’d removed his jacket and sat behind his desk in shirt, tie, and dark brown sleeveless sweater, laughed gently. “I think we can withstand the attack on our reputation by the Crumpsworth inspector.” He leaned forward and said to me, “I must admit, Jess, that when you asked me to announce that we’d identified Zara as the murderer, I came this close to denying you.” He held his thumb and index finger an eighth of an inch apart. “But I must admit it was effective. Obviously Harris, Ms. Portelaine, and the others felt confident they were off the hook.”
“Well, George, all I can say is that I appreciate your going along with me for twenty-four hours.”
“What an evil woman,” Lucas said.
“Jane?” I said. “I don’t think she’s evil, Lucas. I’m not excusing her for having killed Marjorie, but there is a mitigating factor, I think.”
“Which is?” Sutherland asked.
“A lack of premeditation. The others were involved in a classic conspiracy. For Jane, ramming the dagger into her aunt represented extreme frustration and fear. I suspect she’d never had a relationship with a man before, let alone with such a handsome, dashing, and supposedly talented one as Jason Harris. She would have done anything to keep him.”
“Ms. Giancona has been very cooperative,” Sutherland said. “According to her, Harris had Marshall, the butler, plant the pendant your husband gave you in Miss Ainsworth’s bedroom to cast suspicion on you, Jessica.”
I touched the pendant and said, “If Inspector Coots had his way, I’d be defending myself in the Old Bailey right now.”
I looked at Lucas. “I don’t wonder that Maria is being cooperative, after taking Jane’s blows. When I saw that girl’s face-and I am not excusing her, either, from having been part of the scheme-I knew deep inside that Jane had killed Marjorie. Until I saw how capable she was of physically venting her anger, I would have dismissed that notion.”
“Any word on the Maroney fella?” Morton asked.
Sutherland shook his head. “We’ll find him.”
I said, “I certainly was wrong there. I assumed it was Maroney who’d been killed and dumped in the Thames, but then I thought back to when I’d seen the body. It was such a fleeting glance, but the head was too small.”
“Harris was certainly effective at getting others to do his dirty deeds, wasn’t he?” Seth said. “He got Jane to kill Marjorie, and then convinced-or paid off-Maroney to find a drifter down by the docks, kill him, and disfigure him so that he was unidentifiable, then dump him in the river.”