Death Of A Snob Part 12

"Just fine," said Mr. Johnson. "Everything's running like clockwork."

"Not having any troubles with the colonel?"

"Och, no, I just get on with the work, Hamish, and ignore his tantrums. I'm thinking of working here permanently."

"And what has Priscilla to say to that?"

"Actually, it was her idea. She phoned up at Christmas, worried about what was happening, and when I told her everything, despite her lather's frequent interference, was running all right, she suggested I stay on. Suits me. The pay's a d.a.m.n sight better than at the Lochdubh. When are you coming back?"

"Shortly," said Hamish. "I'd better phone Priscilla. Still at Rogart?"

"Aye, still mere and having a grand time, by the sound of it."

Hamish then rang his mother and apologized for not having called sooner, and after asking about various members of the family, asked to speak to Priscilla. "I'm afraid you can't," came his mother's voice. "She's gone off tae the pub with your dad and his friends for a drink."

Hamish briefly tried to imagine the elegant Priscilla propping up some Highland bar with his father and friends and found he could not.

"Where are you, son?" asked his mother.

"In Glasgow."

"At Jean's?"

Jean was Hamish's cousin. "No," said Hamish, "I'm at the Fleur De Lys Hotel in the Great Western Road."

"What are ye doing there? It's awfy expensive."

"Och, it's chust a wee place," said Hamish, taking in the luxury of his bedroom surroundings for the first time and feeling like a kept man.

"No, no, I read an article aboot it," came his mother's voice. "How can you afford a place like that?"

Hamish found himself blushing. "It's a long story, Ma. I'll tell ye all about it when I get home."

He talked some more and then rang off. He undressed, got into bed and lay awake for a long time, thinking about the case; and the more he thought about it, the more he decided it must have been an accident and that the weird atmosphere of Eileencraig had put ideas of murder into his head.

But in the morning, over breakfast, he found Harriet was anxious to start the investigations. "I mink we should call on Diarmuid," she said. "Where does he live?"

"Morris Mace, as I recall."

She took out a street map and studied it. "Why, that's just around the comer. We can walk there"

Morris Place turned out to be a small square of Victorian houses, mostly divided into flats, but Diarmuid, it transpired, owned a whole house. They rang the bell and waited.

After some time, Diarmuid opened the door. He was impeccably dressed in a pin-striped suit, white shirt, and striped silk tie.

"Going out?" asked Hamish.

"I was thinking about going down to the office," said, Diarmuid, blocking the doorway, "although I'm pretty tired. I got back from the north in the small hours of the morning. What are you doing here?"

"We just wanted to ask you about Heather."

He heaved an impatient sigh and reluctantly stood back, allowing them to enter. He then led the way to a sitting-room on the first floor. It was thickly carpeted and had a green silk-covered three-piece suite, both armchairs and sofa being ornamented with silk ta.s.sels. Heavy green silk fringed curtains were drawn back to let in the pale, grey daylight. A gas fire of simulated logs was flaring away on the hearth. In one corner of the room there was a bar. A low coffee-table stood in front of the fire, its polished oak surface protected with coasters depicting paintings by Impressionist artists. Diarmuid ushered them into chairs and then sat down, adjusting his handsome features into what he obviously considered, an expression of suitable grief.

Hamish's first question appeared to surprise him. Was Heather writing a book? Diarmuid said no, although he added that she was always scribbling away at things. "If she had written a book," said Diarmuid, "then she would have got Jessie to type it. Jessie typed all her letters."

Hamish looked at him curiously. "Jessie was your secretary. Didn't she resent having to work for your wife as well?"

"Oh, no, she's a good girl, and besides, Heather paid her separately."

"Where is she now?"

"At home."

Hamish took out a small notebook in which he had written all the phone numbers and addresses of his suspects. "Would you mind if I used your phone and gave Jessie a call?"

"Help yourself," said Diarmuid, jerking his head to a white-and-gilt model of an early telephone which stood on a side-table by the window.

Hamish rang Jessie. When she answered, he asked her if Heather had ever asked her to type any pages of ma.n.u.script.

"No," said Jessie harshly. "Anything else? I'm busy with the funeral arrangements."

Hamish said no, nothing for the moment, and thoughtfully replaced the receiver.

There seemed to be nothing else to ask Diarmuid. Diarmuid appeared to have forgotten all about going to the office as he ushered them out.

"I feel like giving up," said Harriet gloomily as they left Morris Place. "It's such a long shot, Hamish."

"I'd like to try that editor in New York again," said Hamish. "I've got an idea."

"Well, we can't phone until at least three in the afternoon, when it'll be ten in the morning in New York," pointed out Harriet. "I'e got some shopping to do. I'll meet you back at the hotel this afternoon."

Hamish wandered about the city and then ate a solitary lunch, although his mind was not on what he was eating. Bits and pieces of scenes floated through his mind. Jane flushed and angry. John Wetherby electing to stay with Jane. The Carpenters, fat and miserable, trailing off to the station in Oban. Jessie, cool and competent, going off to hire a car in Oban. Diarmuid, relying on his secretary to do everything.

When Harriet came to his hotel room at three in the afternoon, Hamish began to speak immediately, as if he had been discussing the case with her all through lunch. "Look, what about mis? Heather actually succeeds in writing a blockbuster. Jessie types it and sends it off...but she puts her own name on it."

Harriet looked doubtful. "Would such as Jessie recognise a block-buster? Then we're back to means and opportunity. Jessie was not on the island when Heather was killed."

"But Diarmuid was," said Hamish. "That brief fling with Jane could have been a blind."

"He'd need to have been awfully fast to follow Heather all' the way over to the other side of the island, run all the way back, and then hop into bed with Jane," pointed out Harriet, "Then striking her down in the dark when he was supposed to be searching for her-well, that's hardly premeditated, and if there's money for a book involved, her death would have to be worked out carefully beforehand."

"There's something there," muttered Hamish. "I can feel it."

He picked up the phone and dialed the editor in New York. "I'm sorry to keep bothering you, but it's terribly important that I find out who wrote that book I was asking you about."

"Look, all right, all right," said the editor, "I'll give you the author's name. It's Fiona Stuart."

"Her address?"

The editor's voice was terse. "Sorry, can't do that."

Hamish sadly replaced the receiver. "It's no go. The book was written by someone called Fiona Stuart. Of course it could be a pseudonym."

"Give up, Hamish," said Harriet. "I'm beginning to think it way an accident."

"l.u.s.t one more try," begged Hamish. "Let me speak to that agent of yours."

Harriet sighed but phoned her agent in New York and told the surprised man that a Highland constable called Hamish Macbeth wished to speak to him about that block-buster.

"Well, you're in luck," said the agent as soon as Hamish was on the phone. "The advance publicity is out. It's a saga of vice and crime and pa.s.sion in the Highlands of Scotland, purple prose, I gather, at its worst. It's a story about a sensitive heroine who is raped by some Highland lord in Chapter One, gang-raped by yuppies in Chapter Two, mugged in Chapter Three. Falls in love with the villain in Chapter Four, and eventually, after bags of s.e.x and mayhem, meets her true love in tune for a steamy clinch in the last chapter, her true love being the one who raped her in Chapter One. It's called Rising Pa.s.sion and is reputed to out-Jackie Collins. Fiona Stuart is the name of the author."

Hamish put down the phone and told Harriet what her agent had said. "Hardly a romance," he commented.

"That's romance these days," said Harriet drily. "I bet it all bears no relation to the Highlands whatsoever, and what woman in her right mind would fall in love with a man who'd rapedher?"

Hamish put his head in his hands. "There must be some connection." He phoned the editor again. "I told you and told you," snapped the editor, "I can't tell you anything about her. Why don't you phone her agent, for Chrissakes?"

"Can you give me the name of her agent?" asked Hamish. He waited. He was not hopeful at all. He expected the editor to read him out the name of a New York agent. Her American voice tw.a.n.ged over the line. "Here it is. Jessie Maclean, 1256b Billhead Road, Glasgow."

"Thank you," said Hamish faintly. He put down the phone and turned to Harriet. "Jessie's the agent. How does that work?"

"Easy!" cried Harriet, looking excited. "All my money goes to my agent. He takes his percentage and then sends the rest to me. If he decided to cash the money and disappear abroad, there's nothing I could do about it. Jessie takes Heather's book and acts as agent. She tells Heather she's sent it off to a New York publisher. Maybe, if she was shrewd enough, she'd send several copies round the New York publishers and then play one off against jthe other. Then she gets the stupendous offer of half a million. She doesn't tell Heather, but she knows the minute the book is published, Heather would know about it."

"But Heather might never have known about it," said Hamish. "She-Jessie, I mean-could just sit back and not offer it to any publisher in Britain. That way there would be a good chance that Heather would never find out about it being published in America."

"But don't you see, Hamish, for half a million she probably sold the world rights."

"Aye, but wait a minute, for that sort of money, wouldn't any editor want to talk to the author?"

"Doesn't need to. All the agent has to say is that the author is very retiring, so retiring she's written under a pseudonym. Jessie can cope with the copy-edited ma.n.u.script and the galleys and all that."

"So we've done it," said Hamish, clutching his red hair.

"But how do we prove it? There's no Fiona Stuart. It must; be Heather's book and Jessie pinched it. But proof? All Jessie has to say is that she wrote the book herself under an a.s.sumed name and acted as her own agent. There's no law against; mat. And even if we could prove it was Heather's book, how; could we tie Jessie in with the murder? She wasn't on the island. She didn't know about Heather's death until Diannuid phoned her."

"Wait a bit," said Harriet. "I've just had an idea. Listen to this. Diarmuid's the sort of weak man who has always had his life run for him by two women, Heather at home and Jessie in the office. Such a man likes to pretend he's the one; who makes all the decisions. What if Jessie phoned him?"

Hamish looked at her silently for a long moment and then phoned The Happy Wanderer. It was a bad line and Jane's voice sounded tinny and very far away. Hamish clutched the phone hard as he asked, "Did Diarmuid receive any phone calls on the night Heather's death was discovered?"

"He received one from some woman," came Jane's voice. "He took it in my office."

"So far so good," said Harriet when Hamish told her. "But she wasn't on the island."

They argued on about the pros and cons of the case until Harriet suggested they should see a movie and take their minds off it and return to the problem afresh. But nothing new occurred to either of them. Again, outside her door that night, Hamish wondered whether to try to kiss her, but again she had closed the door on him before he could summon up the courage.

Hamish lay in his bed, tossing and turning, thinking about Eileencraig. He fell into an uneasy sleep about two in the morning, and in his dreams he was being forced off the jetty by Geordie's truck while the maid from The Highland Comfort stood and laughed. He awoke abruptly and switched on the bedside light. That maid, glimpsed briefly, in the shadowy darkness of the stair. Fat with red hair. Wait a bit. What of a Jessie minus horn-rimmed gla.s.ses, with pads in her cheeks to fatten them and a red wig on her head? He could hardly wait for breakfast to expound this latest theory to his Watson. "Won't work," said Harriet. "The hotel would ask for her employment card."

"Not necessarily," said Hamish. "Goodness, if all the employees in hotels in Britain had to have employment cards, well, there'd be self-service. And The Highland Comfort must find it nearly impossible to get staff."

"I can't buy that," retorted Harriet. "There's little enough work on these islands as it is. Look at all the women eager to work for Jane."

"That's different. I bet Jane pays high wages. It's no use phoning up the owner of The Highland Comfort because he's not going to admit to a copper that he hires staff without employment cards. The owner's also the barman and he was complaining about having to do everything himself. Come on, Harriet, we're going to search Jessie's desk."

Diarmuid was at home.. He looked surprised at being asked' for his office keys but surrendered mem without too much of a fuss, which Hamish thought was highly suspicious, because surely a man would expostulate over a continuing investigation by a Highland bobby when his superiors had said the case was closed.

The estate office was in St. Vincent Street in the centre of Glasgow. Already it had a depressed air of failure about it. Outside, above the street, Christmas decorations winked on and off, intensifying the shadowy gloom of the deserted office.

Harriet switched oh the lights and looked about. "Well, this is easy. Her desk has her name on it. It's probably locked."

But the desk drawers slid open easily. Typing paper and carbons in the top drawer, headed stationery in the second, files in the third containing correspondence to do with the sale of houses.

"Nothing," said Hamish, disgusted. "Absolutely nothing. We'd better take the keys back to Diarmuid."

A grey drizzle was falling. Christmas was past and people were getting ready for the New Year's Eve celebrations still to come, but the city wore a tired, tawdry air, as if the Cal-vinistic ghosts of Glasgow were frowning at all this leisure time. The shops were full of people changing gifts and people clutching bits of toys which they had been supposed to a.s.semble at home, but whose instructions they could not follow, probably because the instructions had been badly translated from Hong Kong Chinese. Christmas had done its usual merry work of setting husband against wife, relative against relative, and spreading bad will among men in general. People looked overfed and hung over and desperately worried about how much they had already spent.

A drunk man on the comer was singing, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." It sounded like a sneer.

"I hate this time of the year," said Hamish. "Hardly any daylight. I wish they'd make Christmas a religious festival and stop all this nonsense of decorations, cards, and gifts. A waste of money."' Then he blushed, because he was staying in Glasgow at Harriet's expense and did not want her to think him mean.

"The trouble with Christmas," said Harriet, "is that everyone somehow wants to recapture the glitter and magic of childhood, and it never happens if you look for it. I sometimes think that the people who spend Christmas serving meals to the homeless get the best out of it. Easter's a different matter, but Christmas will always be a pagan festival. The Americans have the best festival-Thanksgiving. No stupid presents, just a good dinner and thanks to G.o.d, that's the way Christmas should be,"

And having thoroughly depressed each other, Hamish and Harriet made their way back to Diarmuid's to return the keys.

Diarmuid seemed almost glad to see them this time. He insisted they come indoors and join him for a drink. Harriet privately thought that the sheer relief of never having to, see his wife again had hit him at last. As they sat and talked, Hamish discovered to his amazement that Diarmuid thought his investigations merely a matter of police form. "I never knew you chaps were so thorough," said Diarmuid, sipping a large whisky. "And all because of an accident."

"Well, just to be even more thorough," said Hamish, looking about, "could I inspect Heather's things?"

"I gave her clothes to Oxfam," said Diarmuid. "Is that what you mean?"

He was wearing an open-necked shirt with a silk cravat. He felt the cravat and a worried frown marred his good looks. He stood in front of the mirror over the fireplace and care- -fully straightened his cravat. He looked at his reflection in the gla.s.s and slowly smiled. Hamish thought that Diarmuid had forgotten their very existence. He was looking at what he loved most in the world.

"Not clothes," said Hamish. "I was thinking more of paper and notebooks."

"Mmm?" Diarmuid turned as reluctantly away from his reflection as a lover does from the face of his beloved. "Oh, Jessie was round yesterday afternoon and cleaned the place up. She's got a kind heart. I couldn't bear to do it myself."

"And where did she put the stuff?"

"Into a coupleof big garbage bags. Why?"

"Where are the garbage bags?" said Hamish, getting to his feet.

"Downstairs, ready for collection. As a matter of fact, the garbage truck should be along about now. What...?"

He looked in amazement as Hamish and Harriet ran from the room. Then-he turned back to the gla.s.s and practised a slow, enigmatic smile. He thought that if he could raise one eyebrow like Roger Moore, it would enhance the effect.

Hamish, with Harriet behind him, hurtled out into the street. A small man was just heaving up two bags of garbage to put into the crusher.