The Disappearance of Mr James Phillimore
Page 12
“How did your afternoon go?” I asked.
“Frustrating.” Lynda’s voice gets huskier at night, which I find by no means unattractive. The rest of her isn’t bad either. With an effort of will I ignored my spouse’s pajama-clad physical charms and concentrated on what she was saying.
“After I sent in the story questioning whether Phillimore killed himself - with some juicy quotes from Roger to round out Mac’s logic - I started trying to contact some of the Phillimore victims on Faro’s list. Wow! I almost forgot already what it’s like to be on a story where people don’t want to talk to you. It’s hard to get through to the upper crust types of people who are on the victims list, anyway, and even harder now that they’re embarrassed about falling for a con job. So I got a combination of hang-ups and polite promises to take a message. And voice mails, of course. I’ll have to go at it again tomorrow.”
“Things will look better in the morning,” I promised with a yawn, turning out the bedside lamp.
“I had a nap this afternoon, remember? I’m not tired.” Lynda leaned over and engaged me in a long, lingering kiss. “In fact, I’m full of energy, tesoro mio.”
“Well, what do you know?” I murmured. “All of a sudden, I’m not tired either.”
Excerpt from the Professor’s Journal
June 11, 2012
Neville Heath’s passion for mystery novels, especially the works of Sebastian McCabe, makes him the perfect foil. When McCabe picks up on the clues I’ve planted, Neville is smart enough to see the implications that McCabe won’t get until it’s too late. Meanwhile, McCabe and his friends are following one false lead after another. This is starting to be more fun!
Chapter Eighteen
Colt .32
“I can’t believe we’re in London, eating breakfast at a McDonald’s,” Lynda said the next morning, sipping a cup of caffeine just a few doors away from the King Charles Hotel. “This isn’t exactly a health food store, Jeff.”
“It’s a lot cheaper than the restaurant in our hotel. Besides, this is the new McDonald’s. They have Quaker Oat So Simple.”
“Sebastian loved the buffet at the hotel,” Kate said. “He’s going to be out of sorts all day.”
Mac arrived about five minutes later, looking not so much out of sorts as distracted.
“What’s wrong?” Kate said.
“I have just had a most interesting conversation with Welles Faro,” my brother-in-law said, joining us at the table.
“What thrilling new development did he have to report?” Lynda said, acid dripping off of every word.
“According to his sources, someone has reported to Inspector Heath that yours truly owns a .32 Colt revolver, the same kind of gun used to kill Arthur James Phillimore.”
I was unimpressed. “Big deal. I could have told Heath that. I even mentioned it in Holmes Sweet Holmes and The 1895 Murder.”
Mac nodded. “Granted. You did not tell Heath, however, nor did I. It did not seem relevant. Now some unknown individual has reported this information to Scotland Yard, apparently with the intention of implicating me in Phillimore’s death.”
“The plot thickens,” I said. Lynda rolled her eyes. Hey, you have no idea how many years I’ve waited to say that!
“Well, that’s no problem,” Kate said. “You just go to this Inspector Heath and tell him that your gun is back in Erin. It is, isn’t it?”
“Of course, my dear! Whoever smuggled that illegal weapon into England, it was not I.”
Kate looked relieved.
“So what else did old Graybeard have to say?” Lynda asked. Faro’s morning story had been an interview with Heath that strongly hinted the Yard wasn’t completely satisfied with the suicide narrative. (“The investigation remains open and a cause of death has not been determined.”) But the word “murder” wasn’t used.
“Welles saw your story on the Grier News Service and asked me to send his congratulations,” Mac reported. “He also wondered whether your quotes of Roger Phillimore and Heather O’Toole were accurate. I assured him that they were.”
“He’d better not steal them for his column.”
“In a not-very-subtle way, he also made it clear that he was already aware of the former romance between Roger Phillimore and his stepmother.”
“That’s just the sort of thing he would know, isn’t it?” I said, beating Lynda to it.
“Indeed. And for that very reason, his treasure house of gossip, I asked Faro to fill me in on the first Mrs. Phillimore. It turns out that she is also an American - Lynette Crosby Phillimore, known as Nettie. Although not well known when Phillimore married her, she was wealthy in her own right. The Crosbys are an old Main Line family. After the divorce, she started a very successful political website known - I regret to report - as The Net.”
“I’d like to talk to her,” Lynda said.
“And I had better talk to Inspector Heath,” Mac said.
After breakfast, during which the conversation was restricted to Kate’s report on the McCabe children, Mac and Lynda both hit the phones. With a new day came better luck for Lynda. She was able to get an appointment in late afternoon with Mrs. Phillimore the First. Heath told Mac to dash on over.
Lynda went back to the hotel with Kate, saying she wanted to do some Internet research on Nettie and the Crosby clan, while I rode shotgun with Mac to Scotland Yard. I didn’t find out until later that Lynda also planned to do a little more shopping.
Heath welcomed us effusively. “Good to see you chaps. Your call quite took me by surprise, Sebastian - may I call you that?”
“Of course, Neville.” The only other people who do are named McCabe, but that’s all right. We’re all buddies here. I hope. “As I explained on the telephone, I thought it might be best to discuss this issue of the gun in person. Is it true that someone has reported to Scotland Yard that I own a gun of the same make and model as the murder weapon?”
Prince Charles! That’s who Heath reminded me of. That had been nagging at me since we’d first met, but now I had it. The resemblance was in the ears. Heath was probably close to two decades younger than the heir to the throne, but he had the same impressive handles on either side of his long face that I noted in some photos of the Prince.
“At this point we officially don’t know that there was any murder, Sebastian,” he said. “Nevertheless, I am inclined to think that there was. The autopsy has confirmed the presence of a sedative in the body as well as a good deal of alcohol. That doesn’t prove murder, of course, but it is another indicator in that direction.
“But as for any leads that may have come our way, I’m sure you can understand that I’m not at liberty to confirm or deny anything you’ve heard about that. That just isn’t on.”
“Of course, Neville, of course. Well, if you haven’t received such a report, let me be the first to tell you: I do own such a gun.”
“Really?” Heath’s ears flew up as he opened his eyes in the pretense of shock. “Well, there’s a little surprise. I suppose that slipped your mind during our chat yesterday.”
Mac, sitting in a chair in front of Heath, held up his hands as if to distance himself from the notion that he would ever forget anything. “By no means, Neville! It simply never occurred to me that you would be interested. The Colt .32, while perhaps not the most popular firearm, is sold in sufficient quantities as to be unremarkable. When we departed for England, I left my gun in a safe hidden behind a false panel at my home, where my parents are watching our children. If you care to contact Chief Oscar Hummel of the Erin Police Department, I am sure that he would be happy to go to my home and verify that the weapon remains there. You can call him at this cell phone number.”
He wrote down Oscar’s number on a page of the little notebook he always carries for jotting down plot ideas, tore it out, and handed it to Heath.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to write a mystery myself, but I could never come up with a good plot. Do you writer chaps ever base your stories on real life?”
Mac shook his head. “Not I. I find reality much too implausible. I leave the true crime writing to Jefferson and Lynda.”
Heath chuckled. “I think I see what you mean. I’ve had some cases that did strain credulity - stranger than fiction and all that. But might one take some of the circumstances of a real murder and fictionalize it - that is to say, invent a solution that might be quite different than the real one?”
“Of course. It’s been done dozens of times with Jack the Ripper alone, sometimes pegging a real historical person as the killer and sometimes using a fictional character.”
“Right. So let’s see how I’d do at it. Suppose I decided to write a regular whodunit about a world-class swindler who gets murdered. It’s made to look like suicide, but our detective sees through that ruse in no time at all.”
“Better make your sleuth a Scotland Yard inspector and not an amateur,” I said. “You want people to believe it, eh, what?”
Heath ignored me. He kept his eyes on Mac, which only added to the discomfort I was beginning to feel.
“Now, in an Agatha Christie story, or even one of your Damon Devlin adventures, the murderer would never be someone so obvious as one of the victim’s cheated clients or one of his wives. It would have to be somebody totally unexpected. Let’s see.” He stuck a pen in his mouth as if thinking deeply. His acting wouldn’t pass muster for a third-grade pageant. “Right, I have it. Brilliant! How about a mystery writer? Has a mystery writer ever murdered anybody?”
“In real life, not just on episodes of Columbo?” Mac stroked his beard. “Well, there was a convicted murderer who went on to become a popular mystery writer and is still writing today. However, I do not recall a mystery writer who went on to become a murderer, despite the many temptations afforded in that direction by critics, agents, and publishers. ”
“So my ending should be a real shocker! Let’s say our murderer is a mystery writer from the States who’s never even met the victim until shortly before he kills him.”
“Then what’s his motive?” I said, liking the direction of this conversation less and less. I say, Heath, old bean, can we go home to Erin now? I’ve had quite enough of England, thank you veddy much.
“Ah, this is the part where I fear it may get a bit far-fetched,” Heath allowed. “My fictional mystery writer is an avaricious sort who wants to get his hands on a literary artifact that is absolutely unique - perhaps some sort of journal that the victim has and the murderer wants.”
“I think I can see where you got that idea,” Mac said. “Did Phillimore’s Conan Doyle journal ever turn up?”
Heath shook his head. “No, and we searched Headley Hall, with Ms. O’Toole’s permission.”
“Well, it is a small item and easily concealed. As a work of fiction, your idea has possibilities. However, it would be a challenge. You would have to first establish that your killer had a mania for collecting.” You mean like those hundreds of mystery books spilling off the shelves in your house and office, Mac? “Then you would have to make it believable that he - or she - ”
“Let’s say ‘he’,” Heath tossed in.
Mac nodded. “ - that he is sufficiently psychopathic to take a human life for so slight a gain. I am intrigued by your project, Neville. If you should like me to look at a first draft, I would be delighted to offer my constructive criticism. We mystery writers are always happy to help aspirants in the field, even though they may become our competitors.”
Heath was all smiles. “That’s very generous of you, Sebastian, very generous indeed. I suppose I should think about an alibi for the killer, but I always think that’s overdone in mysteries, don’t you? I mean, most people can’t prove where they were at any given time. For example, where were you when Mr. Phillimore was killed?”
“I don’t know,” Mac said smoothly, “because I don’t know when he was killed.”
“Right. Let’s say Sunday morning.”
“I was with my wife and the Codys all day.”
“From how early?” Not that early. Heath waved away his own question. “It hardly matters, chaps. You two are best friends. A cynical sort like the Assistant Commissioner might say that’s no alibi at all. That just proves what I was saying - neat alibis are hard to come by in real life.”
“I concede your point,” Mac said. He actually seemed to be enjoying this joust. I thought it was about as much fun as the flu.
“Well, when you write your mystery based on this case,” I said, “make sure the killer isn’t somebody who is vastly familiar with English literature and even lived in England for a while and certainly knows how to spell ‘honour’ the English way like, oh, for instance, Mac.”
“Perhaps the killer was in such a hurry that the niceties of correct spelling escaped him,” the inspector said.
“But Mac’s the one who pointed out the American spelling to begin with!” I hate the way I start to shout when I get excited.
Heath smiled, damn him. “That’s just what a clever killer would do when he realized his mistake. In fact, isn’t that what the murderer did in one of your books, Sebastian? That was Sleight of Hand, I believe.”
“Quite so, Neville. You must be one of my most attentive fans.”
I wish Oscar were on this case. He reads Mac’s books, too - just to poke holes in the plots - but I bet he doesn’t remember them.
“It’s been a right thrill to meet you, Sebastian. In fact, please don’t leave London without letting me know.”
Chapter Nineteen
The First Mrs. Phillimore
“What the hell was that all about?” I said as we left the Yard. “Heath can’t possibly think you really had anything to do with Phillimore’s murder!”
Mac lit a Cuban cigar, bought in London. “Indeed, I am not certain that he does, old boy.”
I stopped dead. “Then what was the point of that whole interrogation in disguise?”
“Unless I am much mistaken, years of improving his mind with detective stories have imbued Inspector Heath with a very devious turn of mind. Perhaps he suspects that someone is trying to frame me and, in a subtle way, was warning me that this is how the killer intended the circumstantial evidence to be read.”
I didn’t say anything for a while as I tried to look at that idea from all angles. “After much consideration,” I said finally, “I think you’re bloody bonkers, to put it in the local lingo. Also barmy and daft! But who am I to say? You’re the one who spotted that ‘honour’ business and figured out that Phillimore might have been drugged. I have to admit that was way smart.” But don’t let it go to your head; there’s enough going on up there already.
Mac scowled, an expression not often seen on his bearded face. “Bah! That was child’s play. In fact, the ease of it bothers me. Even the missing Conan Doyle notebook seems too pat, the convenient way it sits there just waiting to be hauled out as a motive for yours truly. No, Jefferson, I sense a manipulative hand practically forcing my every move in this case and then turning my own detective work against me.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were paranoid. But I did know better.
“So what is your - our - next move?”
“Lynda has an interview in” - he looked at his Sherlock Holmes wristwatch - “three hours with Lynette Crosby Phillimore. I am sure she would not mind if we tagg
ed along.”
“As long as we don’t bring Faro with us, I think she’ll be fine with that.”
We did bring Kate, though, at Lynda’s insistence. My artistic sister is an introvert, so I’m not sure she really minded being by herself a lot on this trip, touring galleries alone. But Lynda insisted on feeling guilty about it. So my bride decided that we were going to descend en masse on Mrs. Phillimore at her home in Kensington, from whence she operated her profitable website. After a light lunch at a pub near our hotel, we headed for the Charing Cross Station to get on the Undergound. Lynda wore a new red dress she’d bought, and carried a matching umbrella. I made a mental note not to let her out of my sight long enough to go shopping again.
On the way, Lynda told us what she’d learned about Roger Phillimore’s mother from Internet research and from calls to those journalist friends of hers on Fleet Street.
“The first item of note is that she took more money away from the marriage than she brought to it,” Lynda began. “And she used her divorce settlement to start The Net.”
“I thought Mac said she came from an old Main Line family,” Kate objected. “Doesn’t that mean they were wealthy?”
“‘Were’ is the operative word, Kate. Oh, the Crosbys are still rich - Nettie went to Bryn Mawr and all that - but they’re not really rich. Think of the Kennedys, a once-great fortune diminished over the years. What earlier generations built up, the railroad baron and the hotel magnate, the later ones were pleased to fritter away as playboys and political activists. Nettie actually seems to be a kind of late-blooming throwback to her entrepreneurial ancestors. The Net is a big commercial success - there’s even talk that it may go public or be acquired by one of the big media giants like The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post were.”