Lady Hermione’s program for the remainder of the day had to be scrapped, though Lady Hermione herself would, I think, have been perfectly happy to continue as if nothing untoward had occurred. One would prefer not to acknowledge the fact of a murder on the premises of one’s stately home, of course, but the rather pesky presence of the authorities meant that Lady Hermione had perforce to follow Robin Chase’s wishes in the matter. We thus spent much of the afternoon twiddling our thumbs idly in our rooms while we waited for the police to finish interviewing everyone in the house.
I spent quite some time in speculating upon just what Nina’s role in this brouhaha was. Had she engineered the whole scenario for some devious purpose of her own? Or had it started that way, and someone else had come along and hijacked her plot, so to speak?
Giles was spending the time more profitably. He had brought along his laptop computer and was busy roaming through cyberspace, finding out what he could about some of our fellow guests. I had expressed my doubts that he might find something truly useful among all the wealth of disinformation out there, but he merely smiled and told me to wait and see. I went back to my endless ruminations.
By the time the summons came for tea, Giles had amassed a stack of papers for his labors. “Anything useful?” I asked.
“I trust you will find it so eventually, Simon,” he said, shutting down his computer. Standing and stretching, he smiled at me again. “All of your fellow authors have various Web sites devoted to them, and I’ve found a number of interviews here and there on the Web for each of them. Not too many surprises, but I did find a few inconsistencies here and there. They might come to nothing, but I’ll do a bit more checking. We shall see.”
He refused to give me any other hints, so I decided not to force the issue. He had appointed himself Watson to my Holmes; so be it.
Downstairs, we found the group assembled for tea rather sparse in number. “I suppose many of them elected to have tea in their rooms or to skip it altogether,” Giles said in a low voice as we surveyed the room.
“Perhaps they feared someone would poison the tea,” I suggested half-seriously.
“Very likely.” Giles snorted. “No doubt they think there’s a mass murderer on the loose, just looking for his or her next victim.”
“I could suggest at least one candidate for that position.” I scowled in Nina’s direction, and she affected not to notice me, being heavily involved in a conversation with Ashford Dunn.
“I doubt we need to imagine what those two have spent the afternoon doing,” Giles said, snickering.
“Tut, tut, Giles,” I said, “keep your mind out of the gutter.”
He laughed heartily at that, and I couldn’t resist joining him. Almost as if he knew our laughter was directed at him, Dunn stared hard at us, then pointedly turned his back to us.
“Simon!” Isabella Veryan called to me, and Giles and I sauntered over to join her. She patted the sofa next to her, and I sank down beside her. Giles moved off toward the tea tray after I indicated that I cared for nothing.
“How are you, Isabella? How was your session with Detective Inspector Chase?”
“What a charming and perspicacious young man!” Isabella practically purred with satisfaction. “He appeared far more interested in discussing my work than in asking me questions about the unfortunate events here. He complimented me, and quite handsomely, on the accuracy of my depiction of police methods in my books.”
Knowing Robin as I did, I had no doubt he was sincere in his appreciation of Isabella Veryan’s literary efforts, but I also figured he had, without Isabella’s realizing he was doing so, questioned her adeptly about her movements. She was a shrewd old girl, but Robin had charmed her so effectively she probably hadn’t noticed what he was really after.
“Yes, he’s very charming and very, very intelligent,” I acknowledged. “He will soon sort out this whole mess, I’m sure.”
“I doubt he’ll have to look very far,” Isabella said. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at someone across the room. I followed her gaze, and she had fixed upon Nina and young Dunn.
“You think Nina is responsible?”
Isabella suddenly became fascinated by the pleats in her sensible tweed skirt. “Nina can be a remarkably effective agent, don’t you think, Simon?”
“Yes,” I said, “but before the last day or so, I had no idea what some of her methods were.”
“Nina is not always ethical.”
“Apparently not. Though I’m just now coming to realize that, Isabella. Perhaps you were more aware of that than I, before now?”
At last she gave over playing with her skirt and looked me in the eyes. “For a long time, Simon, I simply closed my eyes and let Nina have her way. After all, my books were selling well. Selling better and better with each new book, and Nina had a lot to do with that. She was most aggressive in dealing with my longtime publishers and getting them to market my books much more effectively. I had no complaints on that score, though I sometimes found Nina’s notions of appropriate publicity a bit... odd, shall we say?”
“I have not sought out the spotlight, and I know Nina has chafed at that,” I said. “But in the last year or two, you’ve been much in the public eye, haven’t you?”
Isabella nodded.
“No doubt you have found that exhausting,” I said when she made no further comment. “All those public appearances must take a toll on one’s energy, not to mention the fact that it eats away at one’s writing time.” I forbore to add the words particularly for someone of your age.
“Exactly!” The word burst from Isabella’s lips. “I tried, again and again, to explain to Nina how wearing I found all these dog-and-pony shows she insisted that I do, and she kept insisting that they were necessary if I wanted to keep selling books like I had begun to do. If I wanted a better advance for the next book, and so on, then I would have to agree to do what the publisher wanted, and keep my name before the reading public. Not only here in England, but in the United States and on the Continent as well.”
“Would your sales really suffer that much if you simply put your foot down and stayed home?”
Isabella sighed heavily. “I would like to think not, but how can one judge that? For many years I made a respectable, if not luxurious, living with my work. Then, about five years ago, my sales suddenly took off, and I made the bestseller lists for the first time. Ever since then, there has been increased pressure to sell more and more.”
I was struck by a sudden idea. “When did Nina become your agent?”
Isabella looked away. “About seven years ago.”
“And before that time,” I hazarded a guess, “you rarely made public appearances, didn’t attend mystery conventions, talk much to the press, and so on.”
She shook her head. “I lived the way I preferred: quietly. I was able to devote myself to my writing.”
“But that wasn’t enough for Nina.”
“No, she told me from the beginning, when I first signed with her, that she thought I wasn’t selling up to my potential, and that she could make me wealthy.”
“And so you signed with her?” I regarded her quizzically. Something about all this wasn’t quite adding up.
Isabella shifted uncomfortably, once again avoiding looking at me. “I did.”
“Something about what she was offering must have appealed to you, then.”
Isabella had begun to look as if she deeply regretted calling me over for this little tete-a-tete. “I suppose all writers must long for more recognition, bigger sales, and all that.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I didn’t write simply for my own amusement, nor did Isabella. All writers want an audience, the bigger the better. Any writer who tells you he doesn’t want to be a bestseller is lying.
Isabella, however, was lying about something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something had made her quite uncomfortable. Otherwise she wouldn’t have attempted to evade me with such a cliche.
“I simply detest being in the spotlight,” Isabella said unexpectedly. “Unlike some.”
I followed her gaze, and she was once again regarding Nina and Dunn with loathing.
“Yes, our Mr. Dunn seems quite happy as the focus of attention.”
“Perhaps he believes his handsome face and toothsome smile make up for the fact that he can’t write.” The venom in Isabella’s voice surprised me.
“I’ll admit that I did try to read one of his books, but I found it not to my taste.”
“Nina had the nerve to ask me to write a blurb for him!” Isabella was nearly bouncing on the sofa, she was so agitated. “I read as much of his swill as I could force myself to, but it makes John Grisham look like a Nobel laureate.”
I laughed. “That doesn’t mean it won’t sell, and sell big.”
Isabella shuddered. “Unfortunately not I had the truly delightful experience of seeing my name and his on the same bestseller list. For his second book, and my twentieth!”
“Whatever her faults, Nina does have an eye for what will sell.”
“I’m not gainsaying that, Simon,” Isabella muttered. “But I despise having to be associated with that talentless hack!”
“Going off about young Dunn again, eh, Isabella?” George Austen-Hare clumped to a stop in front of the sofa we occupied. Despite the fact that he was standing and I was seated, our eyes were almost on a level. I had to tilt my head only slightly to look up into his face. He was grinning.
“Told you, old girl, to ignore the blighter. Twenty years from now, whom do you think they’ll still be reading?” He slurped noisily at his tea. “You and me, m’dear, not that young wanker. No matter how pretty he is.”
“If I’m still around in twenty years, George, dear, and not totally gaga, perhaps I’ll take comfort in that fact.” Isabella had collected herself enough to smile at Austen-Hare.
“You’ll see old bones yet, Isabella.” Austen-Hare smiled back seraphically.
“Dear George,” Isabella said. “Thank heavens for good friends like you.”
He harrumphed into his tea, embarrassed by Isabella’s fond tone. “Pity that urn fell on the wrong head.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Austen-Hare nodded in Nina’s direction. “Should have been that witch. Dunno how she’s escaped being murdered this long.”
“George! You really shouldn’t say such things!” I couldn’t quite buy the tone of outrage in Isabella’s voice. I already knew she hated and feared Nina, but I was curious why Austen-Hare also loathed her.
Before I could question either of them further, squeals of outrage erupted across the room. Startled, we turned as one to look.
Patty Anne Putney had knocked Nina to the floor and was busily pounding her head against the carpet, while Mr. Murbles lay nearby, his head neatly separated from the rest of his small body.