I followed her up the stairs to the first floor, and then up another winding staircase to the top. Unlike the first floor, where a corridor led to a succession of office doors, a visitor to the top level came off the stairs and stood in the middle of a huge office that spanned the entire floor. At one end, behind a chrome and leather desk so large I assumed it had to have been dropped into the building by crane, sat Walter Cole.
My escort immediately descended the staircase, leaving me to make my own introductions. I approached the desk and stopped a few feet in front of it. Cole had not looked up. He was hunched over a manuscript, a red pencil flying over the text. I decided not to interrupt, and simply waited. Eventually he glanced at me and said, “Jessica Fletcher. Famous American mystery writer. Sit down.”
Walter Cole was a painfully thin man, his chest concave, his eyes sunken. He had thin, brown-gray hair that hung to his shoulders in shapeless strands. He wore a blue shirt and red paisley tie.
He continued working on the manuscript, oblivious to the fact that I had taken a chair and was staring at him. I cleared my throat; he didn’t respond, just kept working.
“Mr. Cole, I…”
He abruptly dropped the pencil on the page and stood. “I’ve read all your books, Mrs. Fletcher. You’re very good.”
“Thank you.”
“You ought to dump that stodgy British publisher of yours and let me publish you. I’ll make you a better financial deal and see to it that distribution is a hell of a lot wider than what you currently have here.”
“That’s very generous, Mr. Cole, but I-”
“Can we make a deal? I can have a contract drawn up in ten minutes.”
I shook my head and laughed. “No, I’m afraid I’m quite content with my present situation. I didn’t come here looking for a publisher. I wanted to talk to you about Jason Harris.”
His face, bearing a visible network of tiny red spider veins, broke into a smile. He came around the desk and perched on its edge. “Glad to see you keep up with the business, Mrs. Fletcher. Yes, we’re very excited about publishing Jason’s works. Shame he’s about to achieve international recognition and won’t be around to enjoy it, but that places him in pretty good company, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, it has happened before. Mr. Cole, I met Jason at Marjorie Ainsworth’s house. I had only brief conversations with him but, based upon those conversations, I came away with the feeling that he had never really completed any work. Yet I read that you claim to have four novels he’d written.”
“That’s right.”
“Are any of them murder mysteries?”
Now his crooked smile turned into a laugh. “What are you getting at, Mrs. Fletcher, that he turned out the sort of stuff Ainsworth did? If he had, I wouldn’t be wasting my time publishing his output. Why he hung around her I’ll never know. She was beneath him. Jason Harris was a brilliant writer, someone who will take his place with the world’s literary greats once I get through publishing him.”
“He was that good?”
“Even better than that, Mrs. Fletcher. A hundred years from now, he’ll be required reading for school. kids in their Great Books classes.”
I had the feeling I was on the receiving end of a terrible overstatement, and really didn’t know what else to say.
“Don’t believe me, Mrs. Fletcher? You’ll have a different attitude once you read his work.”
“I’m certainly eager to do that. Would it be inappropriate for me to ask to see one of the manuscripts?”
“Very.”
“Well, if I share your view of it, I might be willing to lend a blurb for the dust jacket.”
Cole shook his head and returned to his chair. He put his feet up on the desk, revealing dirty tan chukka boots with holes in their crepe soles. “Look, Mrs. Fletcher, I don’t want to offend you, but having a blurb from a murder mystery writer is not the kind of endorsement I want for Jason. No offense, but murder mysteries are nothing but genre fiction, like Westerns and romantic novels. We’re talking about a major literary talent here. I’m looking for other major literary figures to acclaim him.”
I ignored the comment and said, “I’m fascinated that you would devote such effort and, I assume, money to promoting works of literary merit. No offense, Mr. Cole, but your publishing company obviously has made its mark with sexually oriented materials. This seems to be quite a departure.”
“So what?”
“So I wondered why. As good as you say Jason Harris was, I can’t conceive of his books generating the kind of income that your usual list does. Why change focus?”
He stood again and leaned against the wall behind his desk, his arms and ankles crossed, a scornful expression on his face. “Mrs. Fletcher, I took two hundred pounds and parlayed it into a very successful publishing company. I did it by giving the public what it wants-sex-and I’ve made bloody millions from it. Now I’ve decided that since I don’t need money anymore, it’s time I put my efforts into developing truly deserving artists of merit. You might say I’ve become altruistic in my middle age. You’ve made a lot of money writing silly murder mysteries. What are you giving back to literature?”
I stood and said, “I don’t see anything to be gained by continuing this conversation, Mr. Cole. It was good of you to allow me to barge in on you, and I wish you the best of luck with Jason’s books.”
“Thanks,” he said, “but I don’t need good luck.”
I went halfway to the circular staircase, turned, and asked, “Do you know Jason’s stepbrother, David Simpson?”
Stuart laughed. “I know of him. He provides real girls the way I publish stories about them.”
“Yes, I know that. Is he involved in any way in this project to publish his stepbrother’s works?”
“Doesn’t have a thing to do with it, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“What about Jason’s girlfriend, Maria Giacona? Have you spoken with her?”
“Never heard of her.”
“I see. Well, thank you again for your time.”
I was happy to leave the building and be out on the streets of SoHo. The sunshine felt clean and good after my encounter with Walter Cole. He certainly sounded convinced of the wisdom of publishing Jason Harris posthumously, but, at the same time, I had a feeling that most of what he’d said to me had been written by a public relations expert on the floor below, a company line, the sort of hype that would be used to create an audience for Jason Harris.
I walked to Dean Street, went up the stairs, and asked Carmela, David Simpson’s receptionist, whether he was in.
“Haven’t seen him all morning,” she said without looking up.
“Well, I would like to speak with him. Would you have him call me as soon as he has a moment?” I took a piece of paper from her desk and wrote my name and phone and room numbers on it. She looked at it, casually tossed it to the other side of the desk, and continued reading the tabloid in front of her. There was only one other person in the reception area, a woman whom I judged to be my age, although she had applied her makeup the way a young girl does the first time she gets into Mommy’s dressing table. She looked very tired, beaten down. I considered suggesting to her that we leave together and have a bite to eat, but knew that she would probably find that offensive, so I left by myself, returned to the Savoy, and called the room shared by Seth and Morton. Morton answered.
“What are you two up to today?” I asked.
“We were just about to head for the Tower of London.”
“Mind if I tag along?”
“Gee, Jess, that would be terrific.”
“Good, lunch is on me, and so’s admission. I need a couple of hours of normalcy in the Bloody Tower.”
Chapter Twenty