Gin and Daggers

Chapter Twenty-three

Seth Hazlitt, Morton Metzger, Lucas Darling, and I sat with George Sutherland in his office at Scotland Yard. It was the following morning: the weather in London was what tourists always claim it is, chilly and damp. Tea in Styrofoam cups had been purchased from a vendor who serviced the Yard. It wasn’t an elegant tea service, but the tea tasted good.

“I can’t believe that dreadful man Montgomery Coots,” I said, “bouncing up and down on TV this morning, claiming he knew all along it wasn’t Count Zara who’d killed Marjorie; that it was Jane. The nerve of him to talk about how Scotland Yard almost derailed the investigation by accusing Zara.”

Sutherland, who’d removed his jacket and sat behind his desk in shirt, tie, and dark brown sleeveless sweater, laughed gently. “I think we can withstand the attack on our reputation by the Crumpsworth inspector.” He leaned forward and said to me, “I must admit, Jess, that when you asked me to announce that we’d identified Zara as the murderer, I came this close to denying you.” He held his thumb and index finger an eighth of an inch apart. “But I must admit it was effective. Obviously Harris, Ms. Portelaine, and the others felt confident they were off the hook.”

“Well, George, all I can say is that I appreciate your going along with me for twenty-four hours.”

“What an evil woman,” Lucas said.

“Jane?” I said. “I don’t think she’s evil, Lucas. I’m not excusing her for having killed Marjorie, but there is a mitigating factor, I think.”

“Which is?” Sutherland asked.

“A lack of premeditation. The others were involved in a classic conspiracy. For Jane, ramming the dagger into her aunt represented extreme frustration and fear. I suspect she’d never had a relationship with a man before, let alone with such a handsome, dashing, and supposedly talented one as Jason Harris. She would have done anything to keep him.”

“Ms. Giancona has been very cooperative,” Sutherland said. “According to her, Harris had Marshall, the butler, plant the pendant your husband gave you in Miss Ainsworth’s bedroom to cast suspicion on you, Jessica.”

I touched the pendant and said, “If Inspector Coots had his way, I’d be defending myself in the Old Bailey right now.”

I looked at Lucas. “I don’t wonder that Maria is being cooperative, after taking Jane’s blows. When I saw that girl’s face-and I am not excusing her, either, from having been part of the scheme-I knew deep inside that Jane had killed Marjorie. Until I saw how capable she was of physically venting her anger, I would have dismissed that notion.”

“Any word on the Maroney fella?” Morton asked.

Sutherland shook his head. “We’ll find him.”

I said, “I certainly was wrong there. I assumed it was Maroney who’d been killed and dumped in the Thames, but then I thought back to when I’d seen the body. It was such a fleeting glance, but the head was too small.”

“Harris was certainly effective at getting others to do his dirty deeds, wasn’t he?” Seth said. “He got Jane to kill Marjorie, and then convinced-or paid off-Maroney to find a drifter down by the docks, kill him, and disfigure him so that he was unidentifiable, then dump him in the river.”

“Yes,” I said, “and that would never have been established had Maria not been there when that deal was made with Maroney.”

“I’m intrigued with this Dr. Glenville Beers,” Sutherland said. “Miss Ainsworth and he had this intimate relationship all these years, and no one ever knew about it?”

“Wilfred, Marjorie’s chauffeur knew,” I said. “She trusted him implicitly, and for good reason.”

Sutherland stood. “Ready for your tour?” he asked, putting on his jacket.

“Sure am,” Morton said. He’d had the Savoy do a fast cleaning and pressing of his Cabot Cove uniform in anticipation of spending the morning with one of Scotland Yard’s chief inspectors. His respect for Sutherland was manifest in the fact he’d removed his Stetson upon entering the office. Morton generally left it on no matter what the event or who the person.

Sutherland talked as he led us to what’s commonly known as Scotland Yard’s “Black Museum.” “We moved into this glass and concrete edifice in 1967,” he said. “The previous headquarters on Whitehall was built on the scene of an unsolved crime.”

“How’d that happen?” Lucas asked.

“They were digging the foundation and discovered a woman’s body. Her head and arms had been severed. They tried their best to find the murderer but never did. Somewhat unpleasant having police headquarters constructed there.”

“Sounds like headquarters back in Cabot Cove,” Morton said.

“It does?” Seth and I said in unison.

“Don’t you remember when the new jail and sheriff’s office was put up five years ago? The construction workers found those tires Tommy Detienne had reported stolen from his Buick a year earlier.”

“I’d forgotten about that,” Seth said.

“Never solved that crime, either.”

“Shall we continue?” said Sutherland, tossing me an amused smile.

The “Black Museum” was the name given the Yard’s archives by a reporter who considered it to be dark and evil. It’s not open to the general public, and a visit takes a special invitation from a high-ranking member of the Yard. We couldn’t go much higher than George Sutherland.

After we’d all entered the museum, he carefully locked the door behind us and conducted a tour that lasted almost two hours. It represented a remarkable monument to crime, to the criminal mind, and to detection. Death masks taken from prisoners hanged at Newgate Prison in the 1800s were displayed. There were sections on forgery, rigged gaming devices, burglary, drugs, kidnapping, and, most startling, sexual perversion. It was man, and woman, at their worst.

Many of the displays were chilling, but one in particular has stayed with me to this day. Sutherland said as we stood before it, “A young Southampton girl celebrated a birthday in 1945. One of her gifts arrived by post and contained a card telling her that the gift would bring things closer to her. It was a pair of binoculars. There they are.” He pointed to them in the glass case.

“Before the girl had a chance to look through the binocs, her father put them to his eyes, and adjusted the focusing screw. Sharp spikes sprang out from each eyepiece, blinding him for life. Whoever had intended to injure the young girl was not only a madman, but a remarkably skilled craftsman. He’d carved the binoculars from wood, fitted the spikes inside them on a rachet of sorts, used a coiled spring to activate them, and done a beautiful paint job with black rexine and enamel. To this day no one knows who is responsible for this grotesque crime.”

“A nut, like Jason Harris,” Morton said.

“Yes, or, as we Scots say, deleerit.”

“That was quite a tour, Inspector,” Mort Metzger said after we’d left the museum and were standing in the Yard’s main lobby.

“Yes, we’re quite proud of it,” Sutherland said. “We use it in our training of senior detectives. Do you have a crime museum back in Cabot Cove, Sheriff?”

“No, not enough happens there for a museum, ’less we display tires that got stole off Detienne’s truck, or the picture window that got broke in Miss Boonton’s house.”

Sutherland said, “I’d say your sheriff is a modest man, Jessica. I’ve heard about murder cases you’ve had a hand in solving back home.”

“Just a few, George, just a few.”

“Well, shall we go to lunch?” Sutherland asked. He’d insisted upon taking us to a farewell lunch at Joe Allen, on Exeter Street, which has been serving up American food since 1977 with great success. It was sweet of him to suggest that particular restaurant as a gesture to our American heritage. I would have preferred something more traditionally British, as I’m sure Lucas would, but Morton and Seth seemed delighted with the opportunity to be able to order what London insiders say is the best hamburger in town, and to garnish it with french fries and salads.

One of Sutherland’s uniformed staff drove us in an unmarked black police vehicle. As we were getting out in front of Joe Allen, and the uniformed officer held open the door for me, we all became aware of a commotion at the comer. “Grab him, somebody grab him. He stole my purse,” a lady’s voice cried.

We watched as a young man burst through a sizable crowd and ran in our direction.

“Oh my God, it’s him,” I said.

“Who?” Seth asked.

“Him, the one who mugged me.”

The young man with pink hair, black jacket, and silver earrings headed straight for us.

“I’ll get ’im,” Mort Metzger said. As the young man was about to race by us, Mort threw a body block, sending the thief sprawling to the concrete. Within seconds, Mort was on top of him, twisting his arms behind his back.

“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” the young punk rocker screamed.

“Sheriff Metzger, Cabot Cove, Maine, United States of America. You’re under arrest for the mugging of one Jessica Fletcher. You have the right to remain silent…”

“I never even bin in the bloody States.”

By now we’d all formed a circle around Mort and his prey.

“Are you sure this is the one who mugged you?” Sutherland asked me.

“Yes, positive. How could I miss anyone who looks like that?”

“What’s the old bag yappin’ about?” the mugger asked as Mort, now aided by the bobby who’d driven us, jerked him to his feet and flattened him against the wall.

“You mind your manners and mouth, son,” Mort said. The bobby put the cuffs on him.

Sutherland looked at me and grinned. “If you press charges, Jessica, you’ll have to return to testify at his trial.”

“I will?”

“Afraid so.”

“It would be a great inconvenience, George, and I know my schedule won’t allow it, but there is my civic duty to consider, isn’t there?”

“Yes, most definitely,” he said.

I looked at the young man, looked up into George Sutherland’s green eyes, and said, “Well then, book the bloody bloke!”

Read on for an exciting excerpt

from Murder, She Wrote:

Trick or Treachery

available from Signet.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt and I sat having breakfast, in Mara’s Luncheonette on Cabot Cove’s town dock, and discussing an article that had caught our attention in that morning’s Bangor Times. An organization called the Society for Paranormal Investigation, or S.P.I., had opened an office in a dilapidated building on the old quarry road and was offering to help people contact their dearly departed. Among those its founder, Lucas Tremaine, claimed to have reached was “The Legend of Cabot Cove.” The Legend was an early settler, Hepzibah Cabot, whose dramatic suicidal plunge into the sea after learning of her husband’s infidelity naturally made her the star in local ghost stories, particularly when Halloween rolled around each year.

Our discussion had become somewhat heated. I argued that allowing Lucas Tremaine to bilk our neighbors out of their hard-earned dollars was reprehensible, and that the law should step in to stop him. Seth, less incensed, insisted that you couldn’t keep people from parting foolishly with their money, and that those so inclined would soon realize their folly and stop going to him.

“All set for Halloween?” I asked when we left Mara’s and stood on the dock, breathing in the pristine October Maine air.

“The party, you mean?”

“Yes. Have you decided on a costume?”

“Thought I wouldn’t wear one,” Seth said.

“Everyone wears a costume to Paul Marshall’s annual Halloween party,” I said. “It’s one of the rules.”

“Seems like a foolish rule to me.”

“Silly or not, you don’t want to be a spoilsport. Would you like me to find a costume for you?”

“If I have to wear one, you might as well pick it out for me. Just don’t be gettin’ me any silly kind’a costume, Jess. Keep it simple. Maybe somethin’ in the military vein.”

“I’ll be happy to do that.”

“Sure you want to go as The Legend, Jessica? Lucas Tremaine might decide to hunt you down.”

“I don’t think I have to worry about that,” I said, smiling. “I’ll just scare him off.”

It took me almost an hour to re-create what The Legend of Cabot Cove was reputed to have looked like, according to local history. I wore a floor-length gauzy white dress, and applied greenish-white makeup that gave me the distinct look of a cadaver. I pulled on a long gray wig, and attached strands of green crepe paper to achieve the effect of seaweed. The resulting image was, as an admirer at the party later told me, “Absolutely scary,” and I was startled when I saw my reflection in the mirror. My blue eyes deepened in intensity when contrasted with my now bleached skin, and the pale billowy dress floated around my legs with each step I took, creating the impression of an ethereal figure not subject to gravity.

An eerie feeling crept over me, and I shivered. It must be the Halloween atmosphere, I decided, and patted the pocket into which I’d tucked my talismans-comb and lipstick-reminders of what I really looked like.

My mood of gloom-and-doom had disappeared by the time Seth and I arrived at Paul Marshall’s palatial estate. His household staff had turned the huge first-floor rooms of the main house into a replica of a vast dungeon, replete with catacombs and realistic spider webs, boiling cauldrons and faux stone walls, all accompanied by the sounds of rattling chains and eerie moans and cackles piped through the stereo system. His guests were arrayed in costumes that ranged from the inventive to mundane, outrageous to subdued. The most prevalent were identical moose outfits made especially for the event. They were worn by more than a dozen invited employees of Marshall-Scott Clothing, Inc., our host’s sportswear factory. There was no way to know who was under the giant moose heads, so complete was their disguise.

Late in the evening, a group of friends gravitated from the main room to one of several patios overlooking the sprawling grounds of the Marshall estate.

“You’d never know Paul Marshall was in financial difficulty, judging from this place,” my dentist Doug Treyz said absently.

“Is he?” asked Jack Decker, publisher of our Cabot Cove magazine.

“That’s the scuttlebutt from my treatment chair,” Doug said. “The way I hear it, his partner, Tony Scott, never did come up with a solution for BarrierCloth’s flammability problem, and paid the price with his life in last year’s fire. Without that, the company can’t compete with L.L. Bean and Lands’ End.”

“One of my patients told me that the two partners had taken out hefty ‘key man’ insurance policies not long before the accident,” Seth said. “Paul should have collected on the policy-millions, I understand.”

“Yes, but I heard the company hasn’t paid yet because of the suspicious nature of the fire,” Tina, Doug’s wife, added.

“Looks like if you want to know anyone’s financial condition around here, go for a root canal or a routine physical,” Marylou Decker said, raising her eyebrows.

“Maybe he did perfect the formula,” Decker offered. “I heard he might have.”

A pair of large white doves, or maybe they were swans, joined us on the patio. They turned out to be Peter and Roberta Walters, owners of the area’s only radio station.

“Maybe you know, Pete,” Decker said, turning to them. “You keep up with the news. Did Tony Scott solve the flammability problem with BarrierCloth before he died?”

“Can’t prove it by me,” Pete Walters said.

My attention wandered from the conversation to the property beyond the patio. We had a clear view of a small cemetery adjacent to Paul Marshall’s estate where, among others, The Legend was buried with her unfaithful spouse. Beyond it, I knew, were two outbuildings, one of them known as “The Rose Cottage,” named for the magnificent flowers surrounding it. It had been rented some months back to a newcomer to Cabot Cove, Matilda Swift, an enigmatic, mysterious figure with a penchant for flowing gowns, whose hair was snow white, and eyes a piercing blue that bore right through you. She had arrived not much before Lucas Tremaine, and ever since odd things had been happening in town, including an almost constant static on everyone’s phones that the phone company couldn’t explain or fix.

“What’s new with the nut out on the old quarry road?” Pete asked, drawing me back from my musings.

“Lucas Tremaine?” Decker said. “Our copy editor, Brenda Brody, has been attending his-what would you call them, services?”

“Con games,” Seth said, guffawing.

“She calls them seances,” Decker said. “You know Brenda lost her husband a year ago.”

“Ayuh,” said Seth. “He was my patient. Fell off a ladder putting on a new roof. Damn fool was too old to be roofing.”

“Brenda’s a believer. I told her she was throwing away money, giving it to Tremaine, but when someone is grieving the way she is, you grasp at straws. She swears Tremaine puts her in touch with Russell and that they have long conversations,” Decker said.

“The man is a charlatan,” Doug Treyz said.

“Unconscionable,” added Pete Walters.

“There’s got to be a law against what he’s doing,” Doug said.

“If there were, Mort Metzger would have invoked it long ago,” I said, indicating Cabot Cove’s sheriff, who was dancing with his wife in the room behind us.

“Look at that.”

We directed our eyes to where Tina Treyz pointed. Two partygoers in moose costumes could be seen walking through the cemetery, their antlered heads silhouettes in the light of the full moon.

“Sneaking off for a little moose smooching, I suspect,” Seth said of the couple, smiling.

The festivities ended at midnight, but our host, millionaire Paul Marshall, invited a small group of us to linger awhile, including Seth and me. We gathered in the living room and enjoyed leisurely conversation after the crush of the party.

“I never really got a chance to talk with my guests,” Marshall said to me. “There are so many things that pulled me away during the evening.”

“It was a wonderful Halloween party, Paul-as usual,” I said as a waiter appeared with a tray of brandy, which I declined. “Thank you for inviting us.”

“Thank you for coming. Wouldn’t be as much fun without you. By the way, Jessica, you look terrific as The Legend. Are you sure I didn’t just see you haunting the cemetery?”

“This is the night she’s supposed to appear,” Seth put in, “but I can vouch for Jessica’s presence all evening.”

“Tonight was fun but-I just wish Tony Scott could have been here to share in it,” Marshall said, soberly.

“Yes, I’m sure you do,” I said.

“We were like brothers,” Marshall continued, waving the waiter away, “much more than business partners. I just can’t accept that he’s no longer here. When I first learned he’d died in that explosion and fire in our lab, I-”

A loud wail pierced the night air and all conversation ceased.

“I thought I told you to turn off the sound effects,” Marshall growled at a nearby moose.

“I did,” a masculine voice responded.

The wail rose again, raising the hairs on my arms. We rushed onto the patio and peered out over the dark property in the direction from which the sound seemed to have come. We heard it again, louder this time, now a scream, from the cemetery, or beyond.

“Good Lord,” Marshall said.

“I’d better see what’s happening,” Mort Metzger said, shifting into his law-enforcement mode.

He took off at a run, with the rest of us following. We raced through the cemetery, dodging tombstones and grave markers, the damp earth pulling at our shoes. The screams had stopped by now, but we followed the sound of sobbing. As we approached the Rose Cottage, two figures could be seen standing together near the bare branches of bushes that climbed the brick wall. They were in costume, their bodies so close together their moose heads touched as they slowly backed away from the onrushing crowd.

“Stand back!” Mort ordered, bringing us to a halt. But we weren’t so far away that we couldn’t see what had caught his attention. There, in a pool of moonlight, lay a motionless form. A stain, the same claret red as the roses that bloomed on this brick wall every spring, had turned the white hair to crimson. Those incredibly blue eyes were open and dull.

It was Matilda Swift.