That was an interesting thought. Someone here at Kinsale House this week could be the illegitimate son or daughter of a best-selling mystery writer. What headlines that would make! Nina could certainly get lots of publicity out of that for Isabella, and no doubt her sales would climb even higher as a result.
Who could it be? One of the attendees, a wanna-be writer? Possible, I thought, but not as interesting if it turned out to be one of the other writers.
Could it have been Norah Tattersall? But no, I decided; if it had been Norah, Isabella would surely have been more upset by her death. She had disliked Norah intensely, but if Norah had been her daughter, she wouldn’t have been so unaffected by her death. Isabella was not that cold and unfeeling, I was sure.
I reached for the folders containing the results of Giles’s research. I first looked at the date of Isabella’s birth. She was a bit older than I had thought, nearer eighty than seventy, though she certainly didn’t look it. Her child would now be in his or her fifties, and there were two among us who fit in that age group: Dexter Harbaugh and Patty Anne Putney. I checked the biographical information about each of them, and their birth dates confirmed what I had reckoned. Harbaugh was fifty-six, and Putney was about nine months younger. So it could be either of them, based on their dates of birth.
I delved further into their bios. Nothing in the accounts of their lives suggested that they had been adopted. Dexter Harbaugh was the son of a vicar in Surrey, and Patty Anne Putney had grown up in Devon, the daughter of a farmer.
Since the biographies yielded nothing, I skimmed the various interviews that Giles had found with each of them. Again, nothing. Neither ever said anything about having been adopted. In fact, neither of them said much at all about their respective childhoods.
Frustrated for the moment, I put the folders aside and sat staring into space. What would it matter if either Dexter Harbaugh or Patty Anne Putney really was the biological offspring of Isabella Veryan? Isabella would be appalled to have the indiscretions of her youth exposed to the public, and she might prefer not to claim someone as unpleasant as Dexter Harbaugh or as potty as Patty Anne Putney as her child.
But was any of this a solid motive for murder? As Isabella had herself observed, if she were going to murder anyone, it would most likely be Nina Yaknova. Wanda Harper had been merely Nina’s employee, and Norah Tattersall only a foolish witness, perhaps, to the first murder.
What had Wanda Harper done to make someone want to kill her? I had a better motive, in some ways, than anyone else, as far as I knew. Because Nina was behind Wanda’s impersonation of me, though, Nina was a more likely target than Wanda, should I have chosen to solve the problem by murder.
There was something I was missing; that much was obvious. Something to do with Wanda Harper and her connections to my fellow guests at Kinsale House. What was it, and how could I uncover it?
Giles interrupted my futile musings, bursting into the room with a tipsy smile and a hearty “Hullo, Simon!”
I stood up as Giles nearly tripped and fell into my arms. “You’ve been drinking, Giles.”
He grinned at me as he steadied himself with my assistance. “Quite right, Simon, I have. So would you have been. Absolutely ghastly dinner, I can tell you.” He burped. “Food was horrible, but the company was worse. Appallingly common, they all are, as my dear mater would say.” He burped again.
“I think you need to lie down for a bit, Giles.” I had never seen him in this state before, and I wasn’t amused.
He grinned and opened his mouth to speak, but I forestalled him. “And no, Giles, I will not lie down with you. Certainly not now, when you’re three sheets to the wind.”
“Only two, Simon, only two.” He sat down on the edge of my bed.
“Even so, Giles, I think you need a nap more than you need anything else.”
“ ’S what you always say, Simon,” he said. “Doesn’t matter. Lady Hermione wants you downstairs anyway.”
“Right now?” I said. “Whatever for?”
“Didn’t say,” Giles said between burps. “Wants all the writers in the drawing room right away. Said I’d tell you.” He sank back on the bed and was asleep a moment later.
I shook my head as I removed his shoes and turned him around so that his whole body was on the bed. I covered him with a blanket and left him to snore in peace while I went downstairs to discover what it was that Lady Hermione wanted.
Downstairs I found that good lady awaiting my arrival none too patiently.
“Sorry I’m late, Lady Hermione,” I said, “but your message was somewhat delayed in the delivery.”
“Yes, I could see young Blitherington might have trouble conveying it,” Lady Hermione responded sourly, “but at least you’re here. Please take a seat.” She waved a hand at the company seated around where she stood.
To her left, Isabella Veryan and George Austen-Hare occupied one sofa, while Patty Anne Putney and Dexter Harbaugh sat in chairs on either side of them. Nina Yaknova and Ashford Dunn sat close together on the sofa to the right of Lady Hermione. There was an empty chair beside it, which I took, being none too pleased at having to sit near Nina and her best-selling hack. As I sat, I could see one of Robin Chase’s men hovering discreetly in the background beyond Isabella and George.
“I have spoken with Detective Inspector Chase,” Lady Hermione began, and for once her voice wasn’t raising the rafters, “and he has informed me that we may proceed with our schedule of workshops.”
“Really, Lady Hermione,” Dexter Harbaugh said, “do you think that is wise? Given the circumstances?”
I watched him with interest, my eyes roving back and forth between his face and that of Isabella Veryan, hoping to spot some likeness of feature or gesture.
“Anyone who is afraid to remain in this house may leave tomorrow,” Lady Hermione announced, though her tone made it clear how contemptible she would find anyone who admitted to such fear. “Detective Inspector Chase has given permission for that, of course. I would prefer you all to remain here and continue with the program as planned.”
“Mr. Murbles is most unhappy, Hermione,” Patty Anne Putney spoke, and I examined her with the same interest I had Dexter Harbaugh. For the moment, though, I could see nothing about either her or Harbaugh that reminded me of Isabella Veryan. “He is quite unused to being exposed to such an atmosphere of violence, and he would prefer to go home as soon as possible.”
Ashford Dunn leaned into Nina and muttered something into her ear.
“What did you say, Mr. Dunn?” Lady Hermione spoke in such a firm tone that Dunn jerked back, startled.
He looked at Lady Hermione like a schoolboy being admonished by his teacher.
“Speak up, Mr. Dunn,” Lady Hermione said when he simply mumbled at her.
“I said, ‘Why can’t she speak for herself, instead of always pretending that stuffed rabbit is talking?’ ” Dunn replied. “Absolutely potty, she is, always going on about ‘the rabbit says this’ and ‘the rabbit says that.’ ”
His words trailed off into a strained silence as he realized that several pairs of eyes were regarding him with utter loathing.
Isabella Veryan was the first to speak. “Thank you, Mr. Dunn, for confirming what the rest of us have suspected. You are every bit as unintelligent and unfeeling as we thought from having read what little we could stomach of your so-called novels.” She reached out a hand to comfort the now sniffling Patty Anne Putney, who clasped her hand gratefully. Mr. Murbles, however, seemed not in the least affected by Dunn’s gross insensitivity.
I could feel Dunn wanting desperately to be able to shrivel up and disappear into the sofa. His attempted brashness was no match for Isabella’s cutting aristocratic contempt.
Nina was made of sterner stuff than Dunn. “Dear Isabella to the rescue of the poor, defenseless child,” she said. She held Isabella’s gaze, challenging her, but Isabella never wavered. “So maternal of you, Isabella. It’s a pity you never had children, I must say.”
Isabella looked away from Nina for a moment, her eyes seeking mine. I nodded, once, and Isabella drew a deep breath, steeling herself. Nina had been waiting, smiling, to see how Isabella would respond to her bait.
“I think the time has come, Nina, to end this once and for all. I’m so weary of you and your pitiful lack of ethics or any moral sense whatsoever that I’d rather face any scandal that might result.”
The withering contempt in Isabella’s voice got to Nina, I could tell. Nina was so used to having others cower before her that she didn’t quite know how to handle someone who stood up to her as magnificently as Isabella was doing. She groped for something to say in the face of Isabella’s words but failed.
“You have talent, Nina,” Isabella continued. “I’ll grant you that. But it’s a pity that you couldn’t rely on your talent to bring you success. You have the insight and the energy to be a successful agent, but you have no moral center. Instead, you use the most vile and contemptible methods to get what you want, and you don’t care how it affects anyone else.”
I wanted to clap to encourage Isabella, because I was enjoying this mightily. Nina might never squirm this much again, and she deserved every unpleasant second of it. Probably for the first time in her career as an agent, she was utterly speechless.
The others stared at Isabella in fascination, wondering what was coming. All except Lady Hermione, that is; she watched her old friend with eyes full of sympathy and a shared pain at what this was costing Isabella.
“As Nina well knows,” Isabella said, her voice tight and controlled, “I do have a child, though that child has no idea I am his mother.”
Then it’s Dexter Harbaugh, I thought. No wonder Isabella didn’t want him to know, the prat.
“It’s an old story, one you’ve all read many times before, in many books. It’s the story of a young woman in love with a charming man, who anticipates her wedding vows, then finds herself in trouble and the man nowhere around to help her face the consequences.” She laughed, a bitter, painful sound. “In my case, at least, it wasn’t because the man knew and didn’t want to help. He was killed in the war before he ever knew he was going to be a father.”
Isabella paused, and everyone in the room waited, hardly daring to breathe, for her to continue. The policeman was so fascinated that he had forgotten the notebook and pencil clasped in his hands.
“I never wanted you to find out this way,” Isabella said, staring down at her hands, clasped together in her lap. At this point, she was speaking to only one person in the room. “Dear George, do forgive me, but I’m your mother.”