Death of a Cozy Writer: A St. Just Mystery (28 page)

Frequently, thought St. Just. And it seemed that Albert was not alone in finding Adrian’s death to be a breath of fresh air. Of course, having more money than Croesus was wonderfully freeing, too. Had Albert been in touch with Coffield, he wondered? He made a mental note to find out.

“What I am learning about Sir Adrian hardly fits with what I know of his public image.”

Albert laughed.

“It is odd, that. He wrote what are called in the trade ‘cozy mysteries.’ He felt, especially as he grew older, that it was essential to his image to be perceived as this gentle, grandfatherly type, a male Miss Marple, if you like, with superhuman powers of deduction, doddering harmlessly about the village solving crimes in between sips of tea and sherry.”

“And this was not accurate?”

“You do have a gift for understatement, Inspector. No, this was not accurate. It was simply the image he wanted, or needed, to project. At first, I imagine, to bolster his sales. Eventually, I think, because he bought into his own bullshit. No, not by the furthest stretch of the imagination could the word ‘gentle’ be applied to him. Or ‘grandfatherly.’ Although I sometimes felt he had ambitions in that regard.”

“He wanted grandchildren, you mean?”

“His immediate offspring being such a disappointment, yes. Not so he could dandle them on his knee, of course. Heaven forbid: He detested children. I imagine it was more along the lines that he had dynastic ambitions. You know the sort of thing. Perpetuating the House of Beauclerk-Fisk was becoming a bit of a mania with him. All the more reason, I was not a top contender in the ‘Grab for the Gold’ sweepstakes in which we seemed forever to be engaged. Really, George’s announcement was a stroke of genius.”

“The first grandchild. Yes, I can see that might win him to George’s side.”

“It’s rather strange, you know, when you think of it. The four of us, with no children. For whatever reasons, Ruthven and Lillian never had them. I suspect that was Lillian’s doing. Just as well, no doubt. In my case, it would certainly be a new and different kind of miracle birth. Sarah? Always possible, but unlikely, at least in Father’s estimation—which is what we’re talking about, isn’t it? Father’s all-important estimation. Yes, he was bound to look at George with new eyes, if he thought George was his only hope of carrying on the famous family name and title. That
silly
title. Also, keeping the estate intact was the kind of thing Father tended to worry about. Entail, and all that rot. Still …”

“Still?”

“I rather thought the old man had hopes of Ruthven’s getting a grander title of his own one day. Becoming one of the ‘Press Barons,’ so to speak. Anyway, so it went, back and forth, year after year, Father constantly changing his mind which horse to back—sometimes hedging his bets, sometimes putting it all on the nose to win. Exhausting. It exhausted us all. George seems to have hit on the method that would settle it, once and for all.”

“Rather a cruel game, wasn’t it?”

“George’s or Father’s?”

“Both.”

“George learned from the best, you forget. My father had a self-regard that was truly Shakespearian in its dimensions. It was always, always, all about him, and if it wasn’t all about him, he would accuse whoever was ignoring him of being self-involved. One really could not win, up against that monstrous ego.”

“He was a vindictive man?”

Again, Albert laughed, a harsh, mirthless sound.

“Let me tell you a story by way of illustration, Inspector. Every once in awhile, some reporter would write a profile of him for one of the Sunday papers that accurately captured his personality and attempted to probe his background, rather than regurgitating the nonsense Father routinely fed to the gentlemen of the press. Said accurate reporter would soon find him- or herself out of a job. I always rather suspected Father would enlist Ruthven and his Fleet Street connections on these occasions.”

“How does this manuscript of his you say you found fit into what you’re telling me?”

“In keeping with his personality, I’d say he planned it as his last joke on the world. He knew when he died there would be a crush of authors—university types as well as popular authors—wanting to write the definitive biography. One of them might have the audacity to publish the truth, and he would no longer be in control of that. He decided to take the wind out of their sails by getting his own version out first, is my guess.”

Albert stood up and retrieved the manuscript pages from his desk.

“I had to leave the rest of it with Mrs. Butter. This is as far as she got. It’s all in there. Ruthven was not his son. Ruthven was not my brother. Doting father that he was, he had no idea Ruthven was completely the wrong blood type to possibly be his offspring. It’s something he discovered by accident that time Ruthven was in hospital. He saw the medical chart somehow; probably it was clipped to the end of the hospital bed.”

St. Just pulled out his gloves to handle the pages, knowing it was probably a waste of time. They’d been too manhandled by too many people by now. He turned over the pages, trying to make sense of it.

“You’d need a Rosetta Stone to decipher this,” he said. “I wonder how that American secretary managed it.”

He looked over at Albert.

“You’ve had this from the beginning. I know you didn’t feel it worth mentioning to us. Did you tell anyone about it?”

Albert shook his head.

“I needed time to try to decipher the handwriting. Judging from the title, the book held implications, good or bad, for Violet. I needed time to decide how best to play my hand. The possible ramifications of this were huge, I’m sure you can appreciate, but I wasn’t sure I could anticipate all the fallout.”

“The ramifications were possibly also deadly,” said St. Just.

“I don’t follow.”

“Effectively, Ruthven was cut out of the will from the first moment Sir Adrian discovered that Ruthven was not his son.”

“True. But that removed Ruthven as a threat, don’t you see?” protested Albert. “At least, as far as the rest of the family is concerned.”

“But by your own acknowledgment, you didn’t know about this until Mrs. Butter told you. And you told no one the manuscript even existed.”

Seeing too late the trap into which he had fallen, Albert mentally kicked himself. Too late to save Sarah, or any of the rest of them, for that matter, with a lie.

“I did hint to Sarah that something was up. Something important.”

“That’s not the same as telling her her brother was really her half-brother, and not Sir Adrian’s flesh and blood. As far as your sister knew, your news might have been that you’d found a cure for dandruff.”

“I didn’t know exactly what the manuscript contained, that is true. But I knew it was important. I knew that from the way Adrian was skulking around the house with it—or, to be accurate, having that Paulo skulk around on his behalf, unless I miss my guess. I think you underestimate the strength of the bond between my sister and me. It’s almost … well, telepathic. She wouldn’t have made a move without first finding out what—if anything—I had learned.”

“Hardly likely to hold up as a defense in a court of law, wouldn’t you say, Sir?” said Sergeant Fear.

Alarmed, Albert turned to him.

“Oh, I say. You’re not serious? Sarah is incapable of this, I tell you. It doesn’t matter in the least what she knew about Ruthven’s real relationship to her. The entire idea is preposterous.”

St. Just was thinking that given Albert’s predisposition in favor of his sister, he was not the most impartial witness they could have found.

“In any event,” Albert continued, “there was always the possibility Father was lying, just making things up to cause mischief. Even Sarah would have known that, known
him
. It could all have been just another of his outlandish plots. It certainly has all the earmarks so far. Nothing about the man was real, beginning with the ‘Sir Adrian.’”

“You knew about that? And of course, didn’t feel it worth mentioning …”

“That he bought the title? I didn’t mention the Battle of Hastings, either, Inspector, which seems every bit as relevant. But, yes, one of Ruthven’s people sussed that one out. He let it slip to the rest of us during one of the phases when he was on the outs with Father. But that’s not entirely what I meant.”

“Go on.”

“One of the more interesting suggestions in the book is that the protagonist—someone loosely based on Father himself, and I do emphasize the ‘loosely’—had other conditions attached to gaining the title than just cash. The name Adrian goes back many centuries in the Beauclerk-Fisk clan. My father has his protagonist, born Joseph Evans, change his name to Montague Ruskin-Pall or some such rot, as a condition of being named heir. Do you see what I mean? It’s very possible all of us have a real surname of Bollocks or Dumbprat. You never knew what was true, not with Adrian. Not even if your name were your true name.”

Just then St. Just’s mobile rang. Holding up one hand to still Albert, he pulled it from his pocket and hit the answer button. Fear watched as the Chief Inspector’s face drained of color.

He walked to one end of the room, holding a hushed conversation. Ringing off after a few moments, he thoughtfully put the mobile away.

“Yes,” said St. Just, turning slowly to Albert.
What in the world
is the matter?
wondered Fear.
The man looks like he just heard his
granny died.
“I do begin to agree that nothing here is as it seems.”

Martha had been barred from cleaning the bedrooms until the police had completed their search, and her lack of attention was evident. While some attempt had been made to keep the clothes under control, a frilly cluster of bras hung from a bureau knob like a brace of grouse.

This one was probably called the Green Room, thought Fear, looking around at the gathered draperies looped extravagantly at the windows, the satiny tufted chairs near the fireplace. It was decorated in a shade he supposed his wife would call celery, but Fear felt it came perilously closer to the color of baby spit.

Natasha sat at a writing desk, evidently sketching a diagram of some sort. Sergeant Fear had had a race to keep up with St. Just as he stalked down the corridor from Albert’s room. Whatever had his superior upset, Sergeant Fear knew better than to say anything for the moment.

She glanced up from her work.

“George isn’t here, I’m afraid,” said Natasha.

“It’s not George we’ve come to see,” said St. Just. “I had rather an unusual call just now. Someone named Sir Michael Cheek, of Scotland Yard.”

He looked at her closely.

“Who are you, really, Miss Wellings?”

She smiled.

“If I told you, Inspector, I’d have to kill you.”

I SPY

_______________________

“SORRY, CHIEF INSPECTOR. BAD
joke. Detective Natasha Landeski of the Art and Antiques Unit at New Scotland Yard. That, as you know, is part of the Metropolitan Police Specialist Crime Operational Command Unit, or SO6. At your service.”

She held out her hand. St. Just looked at it as if a toad had sprouted in its palm.

Sergeant Fear, who had automatically flipped open his notebook, had heard enough. He shut his eyes tightly. When he opened them again, he drew a firm line under his notes and wrote beneath it, in large capital letters: FUCK.

Later, back at the station, he would take pains to blot this out, but for now, he let it stand. She really had led them up a garden path.

“I see my superior has finally notified you. I don’t have my real identification on me, for obvious reasons. My hands were tied until he gave the go-ahead to put you in the picture.”

St. Just stared at her coldly. If anything was more irritating than Scotland Yard on one’s turf, he had just decided it was Scotland Yard on one’s turf, incognito.

“What’s all this in aid of, then?” he asked.

“George, of course. Finding out what he’s really up to. And he’s up to quite a lot.”

“We ran a background check on George Beauclerk-Fisk. He came up clean—no form, at any rate.”

“He would. In your files, there would be little to implicate him—at least, not in the area of his activities in which we’re most interested. You can be certain the
real
investigative details aren’t in the shared database.”

“Why weren’t we told, dammit?” he demanded. “This was— is—a murder investigation.”

“I’m telling you now. It wasn’t my decision to make, it was Sir Cheek’s. My marching orders were to keep my cover, no matter what, and in my line of work, that means no matter
what
—I don’t have to tell you that. But now, as I say, my hands are untied. Let me give you a hint—”

“Thank you. That’s most kind. A hint from one of the professionals from London. Do take this down, Sergeant Fear; perhaps we can study it and learn from it later. Let’s have it, Miss Landeski, the whole story. If George so much as returned a videotape late, I want to know about it.”

“All right. Here you go, the short version: Almost nothing in this house is what it seems. I don’t mean the personalities—although heaven knows there’s a gold mine of dysfunction there—I mean the surroundings. The furnishings, the paintings. It’s a mixture of truly extraordinary art and antiques mixed in with the most extraordinary crap. It’s a bit hard to sort out because Sir Adrian had appalling taste to begin with, but—”