“Suspect,” I said, remembering Lucas’s language lesson. “Preposterous.”
“Maybe so, but not to be taken lightly.”
I remembered what Lucas had said about Biggers’s reputation but, at the same time, I was eager to talk with him. We agreed to meet in the Grill for lunch. Then I remembered that Marjorie’s funeral was the next day. “Mr. Biggers, I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly meet with you tomorrow. I’ll be attending Marjorie Ainsworth’s funeral in Crumpsworth.”
“The day after then?”
“Call me, Mr. Biggers. I’m sure we can arrange something.”
“I certainly will, Mrs. Fletcher. Cheerio!”
I spent the next hour with the same warm feeling I’d had when Inspector Sutherland and I had tea at Brown’s. He was charming, and although I reminded myself on more than one occasion that he was investigating Marjorie’s murder, the ambience he created made it difficult to dwell upon such thoughts. We talked about many things, none of them having to do with crime. He told me his background-born in Wick, on Scotland ’s uppermost shores; father was a commercial fisherman, herring mostly, until the herring virtually disappeared; a harsh life in a harsh place, but a loving family. He’d received a degree in psychology from the University of Edinburgh, joined the Edinburgh police force, married a woman from London, transferred to the London MPD, then moved over to Scotland Yard. His wife had been killed in a car accident some years ago.
We left the Savoy bar and stood in the lobby. “Good night, Mrs. Fletcher. It is always a pleasure.”
“I might say the same thing, Inspector.”
“I saw you speaking with Jimmy Biggers.”
“Yes.”
“He’s notorious, you know, definitely aff the fuit.”
“Pardon?”
A big smile. “An old Scottish expression for morally unfit. Just be careful, that’s all.”
“I will. Thank you for the warning, Inspector.”
“Call me George, please.”
“If you’ll call me Jessica.”
“I assume your friends call you Jess.”
“Yes, my… close friends do.”
“And I? Shall it be Jessica or Jess?”
“Whatever pleases you.”
“One thing, before we end this evening. It seems to me it might be a good idea for me to assign permanent protection for you while you remain in London.”
“Oh, Inspector… George, I don’t think that’s at all necessary.”
“May I be the judge of that, Jessica?”
“Yes, if you wish.”
“Good. I’ll arrange it. Thank you once again for sharing some time with me. Good night… Jess.”
Chapter Eleven
“Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister departed, Marjorie, and we commit her body to the ground…”
Mother Nature had not been kind to Marjorie Ainsworth on the day she formally departed this earth. A heavy rain fell, and a scolding wind whipped it about, giving credence to claims of experiencing “horizontal rain” in Great Britain.
Everyone who’d been at Marjorie’s house the weekend of her murder was present for the funeral, with the exception of Jason Harris. I’d hoped that he would surface, if only to pay his final respects to the woman who’d given him the benefit of her experience and talent. But he hadn’t. As I stood in the downpour wiping tears from my eyes, I wondered whether Maria Giacona had been right, and that her lover had, in fact, met some nasty fate.
The simple wood coffin containing the body of the world’s greatest writer of mysteries was slowly lowered into the soggy earth. The rector of the Crumpsworth church sprinkled clumps of mud over it as it disappeared from the view of the mourners. “The Lord be with you,” he said.
“And with thy spirit,” a few people muttered.
“Let us pray. Lord have mercy upon us.”
“Christ have mercy upon us.”
“Lord have mercy upon us.”
The press had been restricted to a cordoned-off area a hundred feet from the graveside. Young men from the congregation held large black umbrellas over those in attendance, which included not only those who’d been at Ainsworth Manor, but faces that had now become disconcertingly familiar-Crumpsworth Inspector Montgomery Coots, Chief Inspector George Sutherland, and, most surprising to me, the private detective Jimmy Biggers.
I looked up to the road where hundreds of spectators, restrained by uniformed Crumpsworth police, looked on. Were they avid readers of Marjorie’s books, townspeople who’d lost a local celebrity, the curious, the macabre? What did it matter? She was gone.
“Excuse me a moment, Lucas,” I said, heading for Jane Portelaine, who was slogging through deep muck to the road where cars were parked. Lucas and I had shared a limo from London.
“Jane,” I said.
She snapped her head in my direction and looked at me with what I could only read as anger.
“I was wondering if…”
“She would have enjoyed this weather, wouldn’t she?” she said, continuing to move her booted feet through the glop. “She loved the rain, loved darkness.”
“She had the soul of a mystery writer,” I said. “I was surprised not to see your friend Mr. Harris here.”
Jane stopped abruptly. She looked at me with those same tempestuous eyes and said, “Mr. Harris is not a friend of mine, and I don’t know why you would raise his name to me.”
I suppose my face reflected the surprise I felt. I said, “I thought you two were close. At least, it seemed that way on the weekend. I don’t mean to offend but-”
“Mrs. Fletcher, my aunt is dead. That carries with it a certain finality, including the right of those close to her to enjoy their privacy. I am being curt, I know, but consider the circumstances.”
She’d lost the one person who had been a constant in her life for many years, and I admonished myself for being insensitive. Still, I was determined to pursue what I’d been thinking ever since I left the hotel that morning. “Would it be possible for me to visit the manor again while I’m still in London?” I asked.
“What for?”
“Oh, I don’t know, just the need to touch Marjorie’s surroundings once again before going home.”
“I can’t imagine why you would want to do that, but I suppose…”
I took advantage of this apparent weakening. “Could I stop by now?”
“No, that would be quite impossible.”
“Well, perhaps another day?”
“I suppose you could call me, Mrs. Fletcher. I will do what I can to accommodate you.”
I watched her continue walking to the road where Wilfred, their faithful chauffeur, opened the door for her. I assumed he would close it behind her, but Constable Coots climbed in after her, and the door was closed once he was inside. Strange, I thought, that Coots would ride to and from the funeral with someone who was obviously a suspect. Then again, it might represent a certain brilliance on his part. Stay close: that often paid off when investigating murder.
I’d reached the road and was approaching my limo when Sir James Ferguson, the producer of Marjorie’s Who Killed Darby and Joan?, came up behind me.
“Sir James. What a horrible day to bury someone.”
“Yes, Mrs. Fletcher, although I vividly recall a scene in one of Marjorie’s early novels in which the murderer was identified at just such a burial. Do you remember it? It was called Murder and Other Inconveniences.”
“Of course I do, but it hadn’t occurred to me to make the connection. How are you, Sir James?”
“Quite well. I still wish to find quiet time to spend with you while you are here in Loridon. I have some things to discuss with you.”
“Sounds terribly weighty.”
He broke into a smile; he had a wonderfully pleasant face. “Nothing of the sort, although I think we might benefit from a frank discussion about the possibilities of who murdered our dear friend and colleague. No, I just thought that you and I might find some common ground on a personal level, some pleasant dinner conversation, perhaps a spin around the dance floor at the Dorchester or Savoy, whatever would make the world’s most famous mystery writer happy.”