“Time to put the next part of the plan into motion, Giles,” I said. Quickly I outlined what I wanted him to do. “Got it?”
“Got it, Simon. You can count on me.” His earnest smile reassured me. “I’ll be waiting right here with my mobile phone.”
I tapped my pocket. “And mine is here, ready to ring you with the signal should I need you.” I walked over and picked up the phone from the bedside table. I punched in the butler’s extension and waited.
“Ah, Dingleby, could you tell me how I might find Miss Yaknova’s room?”
Dingleby could and did. I thanked him and rang off. “Here I go, Giles,” I said. “Wish me luck.”
“How about a kiss for luck, Simon?” His saucy stare offered an invitation that I decided not to resist, just this once. I leaned toward him and brushed his lips with mine.
I drew back to find him pouting. “Always leave them wanting more, eh, Simon?” he said.
“Exactly! Now, don’t fall asleep!”
“I won’t,” Giles said. “Be on your way.”
In the hall, the door closed behind me, I stood for a moment and eyed the guards Robin had posted in the hallway. As long as I acted as though I weren’t doing anything wrong, perhaps they wouldn’t stop me. According to Dingleby, Nina’s room was on this same floor, down the other wing. Ashford Dunn occupied the room next to her. I headed in that direction, nodding politely to the guard posted near the head of the stairs. He returned my nod and let me pass without question.
I counted the doors until I got to the right one. I knocked, and a moment later I heard Nina’s voice. “Who is it, and what do you want?”
“It’s Simon, Nina, and I want to talk to you.”
I waited a moment; then the door opened. Nina glared at me. “What the hell do you want, Simon?”
“If I might come in, Nina, I have a little proposition for you.”
She stared at me for a moment, considering. Then, stepping back, she opened the door and motioned for me to enter.
I did my best to ignore the so-called decor of this room. It was just as spacious and just as hideous as my own. Unlike mine, however, it reeked of cigarette smoke. Lady Hermione would not be pleased at having to air this room out for a week or two, but I doubted Nina cared that much how Lady Hermione would react.
The door that connected this room to the next one was closed at the moment, but I figured that Ashford Dunn was there, with his ear to the key-hole, figuratively if not literally. He’d be well aware of what transpired in this room, which was just what I wanted.
Nina lighted another cigarette before motioning for me to sit. I sat down and waited for her to take a seat near me. The chairs were only a few feet from the connecting door, which suited my little scheme perfectly.
“What is this little proposition of yours, Simon?” I had waited for Nina to speak first. Normally, she would have waited me out, but perhaps she was tired of playing her usual little games.
“I believe you will agree, Nina, that we all now find ourselves in a rather difficult, not to say delicate, position with the events of the last day or so.” I was giving it my pompous best, and I could see Nina’s eyebrows beginning to twitch in irritation. “You find yourself suddenly without some of your most stellar clients, not to mention that they’re also some of your biggest earners. We, on the other hand, find ourselves needing an agent who will be as aggressive as you have been in making good deals for us. It seems to me, therefore, that we each need something, and perhaps we can come to some kind of accommodation. ”
“Your point being...?” Nina said, expelling smoke in a furious puff. “Stop gas-bagging it Simon. Did the others appoint you their spokesman?”
“No, Nina, I’m speaking on my own behalf. The others may choose to do the same thing, of course. But this is about me.” I paused to let her think about that for a moment. “I need something from you, but I think perhaps you need more from me.”
Nina’s eyebrows rose at that. “Go on.”
“Here it is. I’m willing to let you continue as my agent, but we have to agree on certain terms. You will not—I repeat, not—come up with any more little schemes to force me into going public about my books. Is that understood?”
I got a very expressive rolling of the eyes for that one. She sat and thought for a moment. “Understood, Simon. What else?”
“You will sign a statement to that effect, to be witnessed by my solicitor, and kept on file in their offices.”
“Oh, really, Simon. That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”
“No, Nina, I don’t think. Someone needs to hang tough on you, and it might as well be me.”
“Very well, then. I will sign a statement to that effect.”
“Good,” I said, offering her a smile. “Then I think we can do business.”
“Is that it?”
“Not quite,” I said. I sat and waited for a moment. “You’re also going to have to give up the boy toy next door.”
“What do you mean, Simon? Don’t be absurd. Why should I give up Ash? He’s going to make us both millions!” Nina ground out her cigarette in an ashtray already overflowing with butts and immediately reached for another.
“Do you really want to be in bed with a murderer, Nina?” I asked in an intentionally offensive tone.
“Surely you’re not saying that Ash murdered those two women?” Nina’s outrage might have convinced someone else, but it didn’t convince me.
“Come off it, Nina. Either he did it or you did. Nothing else makes sense.”
She didn’t respond.
“Well, Nina, dearest, did you kill them?”
“No, I did not!” she snapped back at me.
“There you are, then. Ashford Dunn killed them.”
“Why would he do that?” Enough scorn dripped from those words to make a good-sized puddle on the hideous carpet.
“Because, my dear Nina, he’s an absolute fake, and you know it.” I listened closely, and I could hear the knob turning, oh, so quietly, on the connecting door. Dunn was definitely listening to what was going on in here.
“A fake? How so?”
Nina wasn’t going to give an inch; that was clear. “Don’t be bloody stupid, Nina. The game is up, and it’s time you realized it. If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up in prison with him. Is that what you want?”
She remained obdurate. She just sat there and stared at me.
“Look, Nina, I know he’s not really a lawyer, and it won’t be long before Robin Chase knows it, too. How is it going to look to his publishers, who’ve laid out quite a lot of money, when Dunn is exposed in all the tabloids as someone who couldn’t manage to finish law school? Nor did he clerk at the Iowa Supreme Court or have a job with a prestigious law firm in Boston. He’s a fake, pure and simple, and he killed two women to cover that up.” Still Nina said nothing.
“If that’s not enough for you, my dear, how about this? Were you aware that Dunn and Wanda Harper knew each other back in Iowa? When he was a student—and evidently not a very good one— and she worked in the law school’s office?”
That one really rankled her, even though she wasn’t saying anything yet.
“And one more thing, dearest Nina. I’ll bet it was Wanda Harper who introduced you to our young Mr. Dunn. Wasn’t it?” I didn’t wait for an acknowledgment. “They reeled you right in, had you right where they wanted you.”
Nina cut loose with a string of profanities, many of which focused on the murderous Mr. Dunn and his less-than-illustrious forebears. Lady Hermione would no doubt have found it exceedingly common. I was simply relieved to have gotten through to her at last. After this, Nina would be willing to shop her boy toy, no question.
“I take it, then, you’re ready to see sense, Nina, dear?”
“That bloody wanker!” Nina said, the flow of obscenities having weakened into the merest trickle. “I can’t believe him—or that bitch Wanda. They set me up. They bloody well set me up!”
“So you’ll be more than happy to cooperate with the police?”
“I can’t get to that dishy detective fast enough, Simon,” Nina assured me. “I’ll nail that wanker’s balls to the wall; see if I don’t.”
Poor Nina had been aching to rip someone to shreds, ever since Lady Hermione had humiliated her downstairs. Dunn deserved everything that was coming to him, and he’d be lucky if Robin got to him before Nina did.
I was reaching into my jacket pocket for my mobile phone when Dunn flung the connecting door open and startled Nina into dropping her cigarette and lighter onto the floor.
I won’t repeat the names he was calling Nina and me—this is not that kind of book, after all—but he was every bit as fluent with trash talk as Nina. I didn’t pay much attention to his words; I was too busy focusing on the nasty little gun clutched in his right hand.
“I ought to shoot both of you right now!” Dunn stood there, chest heaving, his handsome face contorted in rage. He waved the gun in a menacing manner, and Nina started backing up until she was standing beside me. The space between us and Dunn was a mere six feet or so. At such close range, he couldn’t miss if he fired at one of us.
During the commotion, I had pressed the button on my mobile phone that would speed-dial Giles and give him the prearranged signal. Right now he should be talking to one of the policemen out in the hall, explaining just how urgent it was to get Robin Chase upstairs and into Nina’s room. Help was on the way.
“Don’t be ridiculous, you idiot!” Nina was screeching at Dunn. “What’s the point of killing us? It’s all over, Ash; it’s all over!” I couldn’t believe it, but she started sobbing. Amid the sobs, I could make out what she was saying, over and over: “We’d have made millions. Why? Why?”
“Wanda Harper got greedy, didn’t she, Dunn? And then poor Norah Tattersall saw what you did and tried to blackmail you and Nina.” I tried to introduce a note of calm into the proceedings while I was stalling, waiting for the police to arrive.
“You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” Dunn sneered. “I ought to blow your head off right now.” He held the gun out and prepared to shoot. I could read his intentions in his eyes; indeed, I felt them emanating from him.
This put me in an interesting dilemma, one I hadn’t quite anticipated. If he did shoot me, how would I explain the fact that he didn’t kill me, or at least injure me very badly?