“You read the paper.”
“Yes, and saw it on the television. Are you really going to say that?”
“Yes, because I believe it to be true. I would do anything to avoid injuring the memory of my friend Marjorie Ainsworth, but I think there is a greater truth at stake here. Although Jason is no longer alive to receive the accolades he deserves, his talent should be recognized.”
A small smile came to her face.
“I knew you’d be pleased, Maria. Where have you been? You disappeared so suddenly.”
“I had to get away, Mrs. Fletcher. Jason’s murder was too much for me to bear.”
“I understand. I just wish you’d kept in touch, that’s all. Why did you come to the flat today? The landlady said you paid Jason’s back rent.”
“Yes. I thought I would live here for a while. I couldn’t bear to be near this place after he was killed, but now I have a need to touch everything that was his.”
“I understand that, too.” I did, of course. I’d gone through similar shifts in emotion after Frank died.
I suggested again that we find a pharmacy, and this time she was agreeable. We went downstairs and I asked the landlady for the location of the nearest one. She looked at Maria’s face and shook her head.
I repeated my question, and she told me there was one two streets away. Maria had started to walk in the direction the landlady pointed. I quickly asked, “The tall, thin lady who was here. How long ago did she leave?”
“The scarecrow? No more than fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you.”
The pharmacist invited us into the back room of his shop, where he prepared an icepack for Maria to hold against her face. He said there wasn’t anything else to be done, except report the attack to the police.
“No one attacked me,” Maria said. “I fell.”
“And I’m the Duke of Windsor,” he said. I offered to pay him, but he wouldn’t accept anything.
We left the pharmacy and walked slowly down the street until we reached a small pizza parlor. “Feel like a slice?” I asked. “I haven’t had pizza in a long time. Is the London version as good as we have back in the States?”
“I don’t know. I have never had pizza in the United States.”
“Come, let’s enjoy some pizza and a cold drink and talk a bit.”
She was more relaxed as we sat at a Formica table in the pizza parlor. I said, “Jane Portelaine is supposed to be on vacation in Spain. Why did she come to see you? Why did she hit you?”
“Mrs. Fletcher, I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“I suppose I can’t make you, but I have tried to be helpful. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Ms. Portelaine. Was it someone else?”
“Why do you think it was her?”
“Because I could smell her perfume. She uses a great deal of a fragrance known as Victorian posy. I smelled it in the room.”
“I might as well tell you what happened, Mrs. Fletcher. There’s nothing mysterious about it. I’d only met her once, through Jason, although I knew a lot about her. He would tell me what an ugly, nasty person she was, how much he hated her. He’d used her to get close to Marjorie Ainsworth, and said he wanted to stay close. Then she learned that Jason and I were lovers.”
“Why would it bother her that you and Jason were lovers?”
“Because…”
“Because she’d been Jason’s lover, too?”
Tears formed in Maria’s eyes. I said, “I’d heard about them having a relationship of some sort, although I can’t imagine she was nearly as meaningful to him as you were. Did you know about any romantic or sexual involvement between them?”
“No, I did not. I always assumed Jason was faithful to me.”
“Had the relationship between them been going on right up until the time he died?”
The tears came freely now and she shook her head, not as a denial but as a signal that she wanted to stop the conversation. I said, “Yes, I understand. This must be very painful for you. Frankly, I’m not only surprised that Ms. Portelaine is here in London, but that she would actually strike you. She’s never impressed me as the type of person who would resort to physical violence.” I’d no sooner spoken the words than I realized they weren’t exactly true-there had always been an edge to Jane’s personality.
I finished my soda. “Now that Jason is dead, Maria, what would cause Ms. Portelaine to attack you? I could better understand it if a relationship between them were going on at this moment, but Jason is dead.”
She wiped her eyes with a napkin, careful not to press on her nose or left eye, and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Fletcher, you’re a very kind person. I think what you are doing tomorrow, letting the world know that Jason wrote Gin and Daggers, is a wonderful thing.” She stood, turned on her heel, walked from the pizza parlor, took a right, and, by the time I reached the sidewalk, was lost in a crowd of people.
The press was still at the hotel when I arrived. So was Lucas. He bounded toward me, grabbed my arm, and said, “Trouble, Jess.”
I assumed he meant the press, and laughed it off.
“Not down here, Jess, up in your suite.”
I didn’t have a chance to ask questions because Lucas literally propelled me through the crowd and to the elevator, where a Savoy security guard kept others from getting on. We said nothing on the ride up, but the minute we were in the hallway, Lucas said in a stage whisper, “Everybody who’s ever been involved with Marjorie is waiting for you. They are furious.”
“Furious about what?”
“At your plans to announce tomorrow that Marjorie did not write Gin and Daggers.”
“Why should they be furious? What if it’s true?”
“Jess, we’re-no, I take that back. They’re dealing with stakes much bigger than your sense of honor and fair play.”
“Who let them in?” I asked.
“I okayed it. I didn’t know what else to do.”
As we entered the suite, everyone started talking at once.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I take it there is a message you wish to get across to me, but I will get it only if I hear one voice at a time.”
They sat on a long couch-Clayton Perry, Marjorie’s American publisher; Bruce Herbert, her American agent; Archibald Semple, her British publisher; and the London book critic, William Strayhorn.
“Is it true that you are going to announce that Marjorie did not write Gin and Daggers?” Strayhorn asked.
“I really don’t intend to reveal what I have to say until tomorrow, but yes, it does concern that.”
“Are you crazy, Jessica? Do you know what this will do to Marjorie’s reputation?” Perry asked.
“No, Mr. Perry, I am not crazy. Yes, I do know what this will do to Marjorie Ainsworth’s reputation, and, in my judgment, it will do very little. Her preeminence in the field of mystery writing-all writing for that matter-has been established over the course of many, many years and involves countless books. If she did not write this latest book, her fans will still think of her as the writer of all the others that gave them so much pleasure.”
“Don’t do it, Mrs. Fletcher,” Archibald Semple said weakly from the corner of the couch. “She was a British institution, and we do not make it a habit of attacking our institutions.”
I pulled a chair from the desk and placed it in front of them. “Gentlemen, can we please separate concern over Marjorie’s reputation and concern over the loss of profits if people are told that she didn’t write Gin and Daggers?” I looked at Bruce Herbert, who had said nothing. He raised his eyebrows, closed his eyes, and turned in the general direction of the window.
I continued. “No one thought more highly of Marjorie Ainsworth than I did, and no one in this world is more concerned about honoring her memory. However, there is the matter of a young man named Jason Harris, whose throat was slit, whose face was battered, and who was tossed in the Thames. He is the one who should receive literary credit for writing Gin and Daggers. I’m sorry, but I intend to see to it that he receives his just due.”