Fletch’s Fortune

Four

Mrs. Jake Williams—Helena, she insisted people call her—the hostess at the American Journalism Alliance Convention—had a way of greeting people as if they were delighted to see her.

“Fletcher, darling! Aren’t you beautiful!”

She extended both hands beyond her bosom.

“Hi, Helena, how are you doing?”

He leaned over her and kissed her.

They were standing near the reception desk in the hotel lobby.

An airport limousine had been waiting for them when their airplane had touched down.

Ignoring his luggage, Fletch had gone directly to the limousine and sat in it.

In a few moments, a quiet Fredericka Arbuthnot opened the car door and slid in next to him.

After the luggage had been stowed on top of the car and most of the other passengers from the airplane had taken seats, they left the airport, went through a small village blighted by a shopping center and straight out a rolling road to the plantation.

Almost immediately outside the village were the plantation’s white rail fences, on both sides of the road.

Fletch lowered his head to look through the windshield as the car turned into the plantation driveway.

On both sides of the driveway was a golf course. A brightly dressed foursome was on a green down to the left. The car came to a full stop to let a pale blue golf cart cross the gravel driveway.

The plantation house was a mammoth red-brick structure behind a white, wooden colonnade, with matching red-brick additions at both sides and, Fletch supposed, to the rear. They were motel-type units, but well-designed, perfectly in keeping with the main house, the rolling green, the distant white fences.

On the last curve before the house, Fletch glimpsed through the side window a corner of a sparkling blue swimming pool.

No one had said a word during the ride.

The driver’s polite question, aimed at the passengers in general, “Did you all have a nice flight?” when he first got into the car received no answer whatsoever.

It was if they were going to a funeral, rather than a convention.

Well, they were going to a funeral.

Walter March was dead.

He had been murdered that morning at Hendricks Plantation.

Walter March had been in his seventies. Forever, it seemed, he had been publisher of a large string of powerful newspapers.

Probably everyone in the car, at one point or another in their careers, had had dealings with Walter March.

Probably almost everyone at the convention had.

These were journalists—some of the best in the business.

Smiling to himself, Fletch realized that if any one of them—including himself—had been alone in the car with the driver, the driver would have been pumped for every bit of information, speculation, and rumor regarding the murder at his imagination’s command.

Together, they asked no questions.

Unless in an open press conference, where there was no choice, no journalist wants to ask a question whose answer might benefit any other journalist.

Fletch waited until his luggage was handed to him from the top of the car, and then went directly into the lobby.

While Helena Williams was greeting Fletch, Fredericka Arbuthnot, with her luggage, came and stood beside him.

She was continuing to look at him quizzically.

“Hello, Mrs. Fletcher,” Helena said, shaking Freddie’s hand.

“This isn’t Mrs. Fletcher,” Fletch said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Helena said. “We’re all so used to greeting anyone with Fletch as Mrs. Fletcher.”

“This is Freddie Arbuthnot.”

“Freddie? So many of your girls have had boys’ names,” Helena said. “That girl we met with you in Italy, Andy something or other.…”

“Barbara and Linda,” Fletch said. “Joan.…”

“There must be something odd about you I’ve never detected,” she said.

“There is,” said Freddie Arbuthnot.

“Furthermore, Helena,” Fletch said. “Ms. Arbuthnot and I just met on the plane.”

“That’s never been a major consideration before,” Helena sniffed. “I remember that time we were all having dinner together in New York, and I noticed you were looking at a girl at the next table, and she was looking at you, and next thing we knew, you were both gone! You hadn’t even excused yourself. Not a word! I remember you missed the tarte aux cerises, flambée.”

“I did not.”

“Well, anyway,” Helena said to Freddie, “just like everything else Fletch does, he is the most spectacular dues-payer. He’s coughed up every dime he’s owed the American Journalism Alliance lo these many years.…”

“She knows,” Fletch said.

“We were all staggered, Fletch darling.”

“I was a little surprised myself,” Fletch said. “Don’t let word get around, okay, Helena? Might ruin my reputation.”

“Fletch darling,” Helena said, with mock sincerity, hand on his forearm, “nothing could do that.”

Fletch said, “I’m sorry about Walter March, Helena.”

Helena Williams pushed the mental button for A Distraught Expression.

“The crime of the century,” she said. She had been married to Jake Williams, managing editor of a New York daily, for more years than anyone who knew Jake could believe. “The crime of the century, Fletch.”

“Hell of a story,” Freddie muttered.

“We had a vote this morning, those of us who were here, to decide if we would continue the convention. We decided to open it on time. Well, with all these people coming, what could we do? Everything’s arranged. Anyway, the police asked everybody who was here to stay. Having the convention running will help take everybody’s mind off this terrible tragedy. Walter March!” She threw her hands in the air. “Who’d believe it?”

“Is Lydia here, Helena?” Fletch asked.

“She found the body! She was in the bath, and she heard gurgling! She thought Walter had left the suite. At first, she said, she thought it was the tub drain. But the gurgling kept up, from the bedroom. She got out of the tub and threw a towel around herself. There was Walter, half-kneeling, fallen on one of the beds, arms thrown out, a scissors sticking up from his back! While she watched, he rolled sideways off the bed, and landed on his back! The scissors must have been driven further in. She said he arched up, and then relaxed. All life had gone out of him.”

Helena’s expression of shock and grief was no longer the result of mental button-pushing. She was a lady genuinely struggling to comprehend what had happened, and why, and to control herself until she could.

“Poor Lydia!” she said. “She had no idea what to do. She came running down the corridor in her towel and banged on my door. I was just up. This was just before eight o’clock this morning, mind you. There was Lydia at my door, in a towel, at the age of seventy, her mouth open, and her eyes closing! I sat her down on my unmade bed, and she fell over! She fainted! I went running to their suite to get Walter. I was in my dressing gown. There was Walter on the floor, spread-eagled, eyes staring straight up. Naturally, I’d thought he’d had a heart attack or something. I didn’t see any blood. Well, I thought I was going to faint. I heard someone shrieking. They tell me it was I who was shrieking.” Helena looked away. Her fingers touched her throat. “I’m not so sure.”

Fletch said, “Is there anything I can get you, Helena? Anything I can do for you?”

“No,” she said. “I had brandy before breakfast. Quite a sizable dose. And then no breakfast. And then the house doctor here, what’s-his-name, gave me one of those funny pills. My head feels like there’s a yellow balloon in it. I’ve had tea and toast.”

She smiled at them.

“Enough of this,” she said. “It won’t bring Walter back. Now you must tell me all about yourself, Fletch. Whom are you working for now?”

“The C.I.A.”

He looked openly at Freddie Arbuthnot.

“I’m here to bug everybody.”

“You’ve always had such a delightful sense of humor,” Helena said.

“He’s bugging me,” Freddie muttered.

“I’ve heard that joke,” Fletch snapped.

“Would you children like to share a room?” Helena asked. “We are sort of crowded—”

“Definitely not,” Fletch said “I suspect she snores.”

“I do not.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been told.”

“Well, you’re just so beautiful together,” Helena said. “What is one supposed to think? Oh, there’s Hy Litwack. I didn’t see him come in. I must go say hello. Remind him he’s giving the after-dinner speech tonight.”

Helena episcopally put her hands on Fletch’s and Freddie’s hands, as if she were confirming them, or ordaining them, or marrying them.

“We must have life,” she said, “in the presence of death.”

Helena Williams walked away to greet Hy Litwack.

“And death,” Fletch said, softly, “in the presence of life.”