The Last Detective

Chapter Seven

DIAMOND'S CALL TO DR LOUIS Junker was connected shortly after 3 p.m. He was using an amplifying phone so that Wigfull and Dalton, who had joined him in the office, could hear the responses.

'Who is this?' the voice from Pittsburgh asked.

'Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond, from Bath, in England. You won't know my name, sir.'

'That is correct.'

'I'm enquiring into the death of Mrs Geraldine Jackman, of" Brydon House in Bath.'

There was an understandable pause. The three detectives waited.

'Mrs Jackman – she's dead?'

'Sadly, yes.'

'Greg Jackman's wife? Dead?'

'Her body was recovered from a reservoir. It appears that she was murdered.'

'Murdered?' The voice climbed an octave. 'You can't possibly mean this.'

'She was last seen alive on Monday, 11 September. I understand that you were a guest of Professor Jackman at Brydon House at about that time.'

'September 11? Let me collect my thoughts a moment, will you? No, I left for Paris on the previous day… Now listen, Mr, em…'

'Diamond.'

'Mr Diamond. I know nothing about this, nothing. It's a total shock to me.'

Diamond boomed reassurance down the transatlantic cable. 'Dr Junker, there's no suggestion that you are implicated in Mrs Jackman's death. I am simply hoping that you can help me to piece together the events of that weekend. Do you mind?'

There was a silence sufficient for Dalton to murmur flippantly to Wigfull, 'He's calling his lawyer on the other phone.'

Junker's voice started up again. 'If you really think I can help, I'll do what I can. I'm still trying to comprehend this. Is Greg okay?'

'Professor Jackman is fine.'

'The last time I saw him was in Paris. He flew out to talk to me. Which day did you say she was killed?'

'I said she went missing on Monday, 11 September.'

'That Monday? Oh my God… that was the day he met with me in the hotel – late. It must have been around eleven in the evening. He told me he flew out in the afternoon. Look, if you're putting the heat on Greg Jackman, I think you should tell me. He was very good to me. They both were.'

Junker was a fast talker, and disembodied words in an unfamiliar accent can be difficult to take in. Diamond had a tape-recorder running and he could analyse the responses later. He still needed to conduct the interview effectively, to a structured pattern of question and answer.

'Dr Junker, nobody has been charged with this murder, if that's what you're suggesting. I'm simply asking for your help to establish some facts about the weekend prior to Mrs Jackman's disappearance.'

'Whatever you want.'

'Thank you. Let's take it from when you first got in touch with Professor Jackman.'

'That was back in July. We hadn't met before this summer. I wrote him when I heard about the Jane Austen exhibition he was putting on in the city of Bath. The nineteenth-century novel is my principal field of study. It so happens that I'm currently writing what I hope will become the definitive biography of Jane Austen. Do you need to know my background?'

'Not at this stage, sir. So you decided to come over?'

'In point of fact, I was coming to Europe on vacation. I adjusted my schedule to take in Bath to visit the exhibition, and Greg Jackman was kind enough to invite me to his home for the weekend.'

'I believe he was at Heathrow to meet you.'

'That's correct. This was on that Friday. Unfortunately there was some technical trouble with the airplane and the flight was delayed for hours. It was heroic of Greg to wait so long. I recall that we landed at 4.10 in the afternoon, almost seven hours late, and I didn't expect to see him, but he was there to shake my hand as if it was still only nine in the morning. Then we drove along the freeway to Bath. We stopped someplace for a sandwich. I couldn't tell you where.'

'Doesn't matter.'

'The trip took about two, two and a half, hours and we talked about his work and mine, as I recall. My memory of that evening is a little disordered. I was bushed, to be frank with you. I guess it was around 7.30 when we finally reached Brydon House, and I had been travelling a long time. Gerry – Mrs Jackman – came out to meet me. She was a dream; beautiful, just beautiful. There's no other word. Did you know she was a television actress? She was all ready to cook for me and I had to tell her that I was too tired to wait for a full meal, or to appreciate it, so she fixed me a sandwich and coffee. Greg went off to another room. He had some late calls to make about the exhibition. The poor guy hadn't figured on spending most of that day at the airport. Well, after I had eaten, Gerry showed me to my room and I took a shower.'

Now that he had got over his reservations about talking to the police, Junker was proving to be a witness with copious recall, almost too copious.

Diamond said, 'Dr Junker, if nothing else of importance happened that evening…'

'But I haven't told you about the caller.'

'The what?'

'The caller. Someone who came to the house – right?'

Diamond gripped the arms of the chair and sat forward. 'I understand. Please go on.'

'This was how I got to hear about the Jane Austen letters. The shower revived me a little and I put on a change of clothes and went downstairs, figuring that if I could stay on my feet a couple of hours more, I would adjust to your English time and beat the jet-lag. When I got down, I heard Greg's voice from a room at the front of the house,, so I looked in there. He had somebody with him and it wasn't Gerry. A short woman with brown hair. They were standing over a table examining a document. I apologized for interrupting, but Greg called me in. It was obvious that he was fired up about something because he forgot to introduce me to the lady. He said, "Louis, you came at just the right moment. Feast your eyes on these!" Right off, I saw the reason for his excitement. Believe me, my heartbeat tripled. We were looking at two original letters in Jane Austen's hand. No question.'

Diamond listened impassively, avoiding Wigfull's eye. Having repeatedly questioned the existence of the Jane Austen letters, he could expect some gloating looks from that quarter. Not that he cared much. A good detective took nothing for granted.

Junker plunged into a description of the letters so detailed that it was unrealistic to harbour doubts any longer. Both had been penned in September, 1799, to Mrs James Leigh Perrot, Jane's aunt, at the Warden's House, Ilchester Gaol, where the accused lady was awaiting trial on a charge of shoplifting. They were written from Steventon, and signed Yr affectionate niece, Jane. The first had apparently been written in support of an offer from Jane's mother to send her two daughters to reside with the Leigh Perrots (Uncle James had joined his wife in captivity) in the Warden's House until their ordeal was over. Jane's 'chief wish? was that her aunt and uncle 'might be persuaded to ease the desolation of this undeserved confinement!' by sharing the experience with their loving nieces. The second, written after the offer had been welcomed, but declined, nicely complemented the first. Jane had not been able to suppress her sense of relief. It was lighter in tone and more spontaneous, short, but gossipy, and altogether more typical of her letter-writing style.

'Of course you have to guard against forgeries,' Junker went on. 'But I'd bet my last dollar that these letters were genuine. The style, the handwriting, all of it was so right. Even the spelling. Jane had an endearing blind-spot about the word 'believe', quite often reversing the 'i' and the 'e', and it cropped up in the second letter.'

By now the three detectives, agog to discover the identity of the donor of the letters, had heard more than they cared to know about Jane Austen's style and orthography.

To nudge the conversation in the right direction, Diamond said, 'A generous gift, then?'

'Amazing. Did I give you a physical description of the letters?'

'Thanks – but I can get that from Professor Jackman. What interests me more is the woman who was in the room that day. Had she found the letters herself?'

'So I was told.'

'You said you weren't introduced.'

'Not when I first came in. Greg was just too excited to notice. He did the honours later. Her name -1 think I have this right – was Mrs Didrikson.'

Dana Didrikson.

One mystery solved. This time Diamond's eyes locked with Wigfull's.

Intriguing possibilities opened up. Gregory Jackman's refusal to reveal the name – allegedly because his benefactor wished to remain anonymous – was open to new interpretations now.

'Did you catch the name?' the voice from Pittsburgh asked.

'Yes. I've heard it before, in another connection. Tell me, did the gift of these letters come as a total surprise to Professor Jackman?'

'I'm sure of it. He was jubilant. Who wouldn't have been?'

'Mrs Didrikson must have been excited, too.'

'I wouldn't say so '

'No?'

'I don't know the lady, but I'd say she was pretty cool about the whole thing. She didn't say much at all.'

'She must have told him where they came from.'

'She already had, before I stepped into the room. I heard the story later, how she had tracked down the letters through some dealer in postage stamps.'

'Do you think she knew their value?'

'Sure. She knew they were worth a bundle. I said in her presence that I was certain they would fetch a high price at auction. The weird thing is, it had no appreciable impact on her. I got the impression that she just wanted to hand them over and get the hell out of the place. Greg talked about giving them back to her when the exhibition was over, but she insisted they were a gift – a gift to him personally. Apparently this was her way of thanking him for some action of his in rescuing her son from drowning. Does that make any sense to you?'

'It fits the story we have.'

'Right. Well, by now I was beginning to sense that I shouldn't be there. Greg needed to talk this thing through with her. I mean, I have no idea what the lady's personal circumstances were, but she was parting with an extremely valuable item. I edged diplomatically toward the door, meaning to leave them to work things out. Just then the door opened and Mrs Jackman walked in. No, that's an understatement. She made an entrance like she was the star guest on a talk-show. She was reeking of expensive perfume and dressed in a skin-tight black gown that reached to the floor. This was the lady who only a half-hour before had been wearing a check shirt and faded blue jeans and had fixed me a sandwich. Okay, I thought, maybe they're planning to go out for dinner, even if Greg is still dressed in the casual clothes he wore to the airport. Anyway, he greeted her warmly and told her about the letters. She and Mrs Didrikson obviously knew each other, but there was a chill between them from the beginning and it didn't warm up much when Gerry Jackman gave the letters one quick glance and commented that she would never understand why people bothered to collect musty old things like that when they had no literary merit whatsoever.'

'Was she trying for a reaction?'

'That was the way I read it. Actually, she didn't get one. Mrs Didrikson didn't say a word. Greg tactfully attempted some kind of counterstatement, and I backed him up as well as I could, whereupon Gerry stepped really close to me -practically toe to toe – gave me a sexy look and asked me what was big on Broadway just now. She was blatantly upstaging Mrs Didrikson. I felt extremely uncomfortable. I answered her truthfully that I didn't live in New York and didn't keep up with the theatre. She persisted in engaging me in conversation to the exclusion of the others until Mrs Didrikson made it clear that she wanted to leave. Then Gerry broke off what she was saying and suggested to Greg that he take Mrs Didrikson out to dinner.'

That evening?'

'Yes, to thank her for all the trouble she'd taken to find the letters. I didn't know what game Gerry was playing and I still don't. Greg said that he couldn't abandon me, his house-guest, on my first evening, to which Gerry said she'd enjoy entertaining me. Dressed like that – she and I alone in the house – can you imagine?'

'Did he take up the suggestion?'

'No. Mrs Didrikson scotched it by saying she was busy that evening. He saw her to the door. In fact, he went out to the driveway with her, I imagine to have some private words. I was left with Gerry long enough for her to run a finger down my backbone and say that she couldn't be blamed for trying.' Dr Junker coughed nervously as if he were still undergoing the experience. 'Jesus, I'm an academic, Mr Diamond. I wear thick glasses and I'm forty-six years old. I have a receding hairline and a larger-than-average nose. I'm not accustomed to attractive women making passes at me. No one makes passes at me. In my position, what would you have done?'

Interesting as it might have been to have heard Diamond's answer, he refused to supply it. Instead, he asked, 'Are you telling me that something happened between you and Mrs Jackman? Is that what you're saying?'

'No, sir! I'm saying that I didn't take up the offer.' After the strong denial, Junker's voice changed to a discernible note of regret.

'I imagine it wouldn't have been easy, with Professor Jackman around.'

'You think she didn't mean it? That she was putting me on?'

'How can I say?' answered Diamond, his patience running out. 'I'm a policeman, not an agony aunt. What happened next?'

'She poured me a drink. Then I heard Mrs Didrikson's car move off and Greg came back. We spent some more time studying the letters. Quite properly, Greg decided they needed authenticating before he put them into the exhibition. The earliest he could arrange it was Monday. God, I wish I'd had the good sense to photograph them. You haven't found them, I suppose?'

'No.'

'That's too bad.'

'And after you'd finished your drink, Dr Junker?'

'I went to bed. I slept. Boy, did I sleep! I came to my senses around eleven next day. When I went downstairs, Greg had already left for the exhibition.'

'You and Mrs Jackman were alone, then?'

An uneasy laugh came down the line. 'True, only she wasn't acting up like she had the night before. She was curiously different toward me. Kind of friendly, but in no way suggestive. She drove me to the Assembly Rooms for the opening ceremonies and stayed with me the whole of the afternoon – which must have been insufferably boring for her. The exhibition, I mean. I photographed almost every item. To give Greg his due – it was a terrific show.'

'Did you have much conversation?'

'Sure.'

'Did you learn anything of interest about Mrs Jackman, her problems, her plans?'

'Sorry,' said Junker. 'We kept off personal matters. After my experience the previous night, I figured it was safer to stick with the nineteenth-century novel.'

'Did you meet anyone? Any of her friends, for instance?'

'A couple of guys from the English Department who wanted to talk to me about a piece I wrote for The Times Literary Supplement a while back, that was all.'

'Nobody who knew Mrs Jackman?'

'Plenty who recognized her. She must have signed her autograph a dozen times. I don't think she met anyone she already knew. She told me her friends weren't the book-reading sort.'

'That was probably true.' Diamond continued to fish for unconsidered suspects. 'Did you mention the letters to anyone?'

'No way. Greg and I had agreed to say nothing about them to a living soul. In the academic world, you keep a hot property like that under wraps until you're one hundred per cent certain.'

Diamond continued to probe as Junker continued his account of the day, but the story that emerged was substantially the same as he had got from Jackman: the pub meal after the exhibition had closed for the day. The decision to retire early. Next day, a quiet morning with the Sunday papers in another pub.

'Just you and Professor Jackman?'

'Yes. The lady was still in bed, or so I understood.'

'Then this was the first Opportunity Jackman had of speaking to you alone since the episode on Friday evening?'

'Correct.'

'Did he refer to it?'

'Briefly. He tried to make some kind of apology and I said it wasn't necessary. He said Gerry had these unpredictable phases. I shrugged it off with some chauvinistic remark about women in general. That was all. We returned to the house after lunch, and pretty soon after, it was time to leave. Gerry was downstairs to wish me goodbye. She acted normally, we shook hands chastely and that was the last I saw of her. Greg drove me to the station in time to catch the London train. Next morning I was due to visit with a professor at University College.'

'Dalrymple.'

'You're well informed. Actually, I had to cancel. When I booked my flight to Paris I didn't realize how far out of town Heathrow is. There was no way I could fit in Edgar Dalrymple and catch my flight.'Junker paused. 'You want to know about my meeting in Paris with Greg?'

'If you please.'

'It won't take long. I went out for a meal Monday and when I got back I was amazed to see him standing in the lobby of my hotel. He told me the Jane Austen letters were missing and asked if it was possible that I'd taken them by mistake. You can imagine how I felt. It was obvious what he was thinking. I hadn't disguised my envy when those letters had dropped into his lap. Now it looked like I'd abused his hospitality by stealing them. Mr Diamond, I assure you that I hadn't – and there's no way I could have taken them in error. We searched my things together. My luggage, my room, everything. I believe I convinced him finally that I didn't have them. He said Gerry must have taken them out of spite. No one else knew about them. I had to agree with him. I said maybe she resented the fact that another woman had given nim this unique present. It could help to explain why she'd behaved so oddly at the time.'

'What did he think of your theory?'

'Not much. He said these histrionic scenes were pretty common. I guess he was more concerned about recovering those letters than trying to analyse his wife's behaviour. We parted in a civilized fashion. He promised to call me if the letters turned up. I said I might see him at breakfast, but in the morning he checked out early. I heard no more from him.'

By means of sign language, Diamond invited Wigfull and Dalton to pass him any questions they might want to put, but they shook their heads. He wound up the conversation and ended the call.

Nobody moved.

'Why the mystery?' said Wigfull after an interval.

'Explain.'

'Mrs Didrikson. Why didn't Jackman tell us it was Dana Didrikson who supplied him with the letters?'

'Are you looking for an answer,' said Diamond, 'or do I sense that you have it ready?'

Wigfull spread his hands to show how obvious his conclusion was. 'He's shielding her. He knows she killed his wife and he's shielding her.'

'Not too successfully,' commented Diamond.

'He expected it to come out, but he didn't wish to point the finger.'

'Why not?'

'Because he doesn't really blame her. He thinks she deserves to get away with it. It's not impossible that he loves the woman.'

Diamond's surprise at this confident analysis was surpassed only by his disbelief that it should have come from Wigfull, the plant from headquarters. He didn't object to anyone on the squad going for broke with some blinding theory… but Wigfull. He could only assume it was a rush to the head, a momentary loss of concentration, and he actually warmed to the man for showing that he was human. 'John, I'd like to hear more. What could her motive be?'

'Infatuation.'

Diamond glanced towards Dalton, who was preserving a statuesque neutrality.

'It's the classic set-up,' Wigfull said in support of his theory. 'She's a single parent, not too well-off, working her butt off to keep her kid in a private school. Jackman is the white knight, the fearless, good-looking fellow who rescued the boy from the jaws of death. She finds out he's a professor, loaded, with a big house and a wife who is not only making his life a misery, but actually tried to kill him. Dana sees him as the solution to all her problems if he'll ditch the wife. Inconveniently, he won't. He's so chivalrous, so loyal a husband, that he hasn't any plans for a divorce. So…' He climaxed his argument by drawing an extended finger across his throat, not a mime that fitted the facts, but sufficient to make the point.

'We'd better talk to her,' said Diamond, reserving judgement.

'Would you like to leave it to me?' Wigfull asked.

Diamond grinned. It wasn't a generous grin.