Murder Is a Must

by Marty Wingate

  Oona had her own personal assistant?

  “Of course, perfectly understandable,” I blathered. “I certainly hope we can work something out.” I wrote the amount budgeted on the notepad, added the 10 percent allowed increase and a note—borrow from staffing budget?—and showed it to Val. That might barely pay for the PA. Perhaps I’d contribute part of my own salary—anything to keep from being at Oona’s beck and call.

  “She’s Clara Powell,” Oona said, “and she lives with her grandmother in Shepton Mallet, so there won’t be any trouble for her to get here. And she is actually more an intern, so I’m sure whatever you can arrange will be fine with her.”

  Poor Clara. Val did the sums and came up with a new number that included both manager and PA, and when I read it out, Oona agreed for both of them.

  “Look,” she said, “we should get started ASAP. How about dinner this evening—the three of us can go over a general schedule and do a bit of brainstorming. We’ve no time to lose.”

  “Er . . . well—”

  “We are getting to this a bit late,” she reminded me.

  Val scribbled something on the notepad and pushed it toward me. Next weekend. I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “Let’s meet.”

  “Good. We’ve a great deal to do and very little time to do it.”

  * * *

  * * *

  We met at the Ask Italian off Broad Street—about halfway between Middlebank and Oona’s temporary digs just across the Pulteney Bridge. Six o’clock—we had our pick of tables.

  “It’s early,” I said to Val. “Isn’t it? We may be finished in an hour or two.”

  He smiled and played with my fingers, but Oona walked in and we had to attend to business—greetings, offers of congratulations, comments about looking forward to working together, and choosing a large table in the back. We ordered our food, and Val and I asked for wine, but Oona requested a bottle of fizzy water without ice. “I want to keep a clear head.” That should’ve told me.

  Our shared starter—mushroom crostini—arrived, and we each reached for one. Oona must’ve swallowed hers whole, because the next moment her mouth was clear, and she began her interrogation about the collection.

  “We’ve five thousand or so books in the library at Middlebank,” I said. “Some first editions, but many reprints, foreign editions, new covers, that sort of thing. The rare volumes are at the bank. None would fetch a mint, but to a collector they’d be treasures. We’ll need a new valuation for insurance purposes, so I’ll contact Bath Old Books tomorrow about that.”

  “We need a writer’s point of view to show how the Golden Age of Mystery affected Lady Fowling. Are you a writer, Val?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Yes, he is,” I said.

  “Are you published?”

  I kept quiet, even though I knew the answer. He had told me during a cozy chat on a cold winter’s night after Christmas while Dinah had been staying. She’d gone out with friends, but I expected her back at any moment—it was just the way Val’s and my luck had been running—and so we were on our best behavior. We had turned out the lights in my flat and sat at the window, the room glowing from the full moon, and exchanged a secret or two. That’s when I’d learned he’d written one book and it had been published not long before his wife—estranged, almost divorced—had died. The girls, not even five years old, had needed a father with a steadier job than writing, and so he had turned to teaching. I said I wanted to read his book, but he swore there were no copies left. “It was rubbish, chucked in the bin long ago.” But I’ve been known to have the occasional mooch around the charity shops of Bath, and so now when I did so, I kept an eye out on their bookshelves for Too Late for Regret by V. Moffatt.

  But Val’s reply to Oona made no mention of his own credits. “I have a few former students who are published. I could ask one of them.”

  “Good,” Oona replied, not seeing the smile I sent Val’s way. “Next, we’ll need a good angle—a connection between her and the authors she collected. Perhaps something she had that no one else did.”

  Val lifted an eyebrow.

  “Well, as it happens,” I said, a frisson of excitement zinging through me, “I’ve just come across evidence that Lady Fowling was given—by Dorothy L. Sayers herself—a first edition of Murder Must Advertise that was signed by members of the Detection Club in 1933.”

  Oona’s eyes widened. “All of them?”

  “I’m not quite sure—we haven’t located the actual book yet. It’s possible her ladyship carried out a bit of subterfuge to keep it safe.”

  “Now”—Oona sat back and threw her arms wide—“that is the sort of thing that will turn heads.”

  “Although,” I hurried to add, “it’s probably better not to mention it until we have the book in hand. Don’t you think?”

  “Bollocks,” she replied.

  Our meals arrived. Val stuck a fork in his lasagna, causing a plume of steam to issue forth. I inhaled the aroma of my carbonara, before catching and twisting strands of linguine onto my fork. As I stuck the wad in my mouth, I noticed Oona had already finished a third of her risotto.

  “Who runs the Charlotte now?” she asked.

  The pasta seemed to swell in my mouth. I chewed furiously, attempting to shove the rest of it into my cheeks like a chipmunk. Val touched my hand and replied slowly, “Let’s see now, what is that woman’s name? I know that Hayley has done them an enormous favor taking those empty dates in April, and I’m sure that—”

  “Naomi,” I answered with a cough. “Naomi Faber. She wasn’t there for the Centre’s exhibition you managed.”

  “Naomi.” Oona seemed to roll the name round in her mind for a moment, and then shook her head. “No, don’t believe I know her.”

  We returned to eating, and I shoveled food in as quickly as I could, but it wasn’t long before Oona dropped the spoon into her empty bowl and pushed it aside. I left my carbonara to congeal.

  “Now,” she said, “I’ve got a few questions for you.”

  It was the nightmare of being on Mastermind and unprepared as she quizzed me about the minutiae of detective stories as they would relate to the displays. I spoke about Miss Marple and ventured a vague comment about Sayers’s Murder Must Advertise, which I intended to start reading that night. Then Val stepped in and headed her off in a different direction—Lady Fowling’s notebooks.

  Throwing him a grateful look, I added, “They’ll help us create an aura of her presence. I see the exhibition as a personal look at Lady Fowling—her strength after being widowed so young, the way she made literature her life. Women writers dominated the Golden Age of Mystery, and her ladyship championed them. That’s worth bringing to the world’s attention and celebrating.”

  “It’s perfect,” Val said.

  But had I said too much? I shouldn’t tread on Oona’s toes—exhibitions, after all, were her business.

  A quietness settled on her as she looked off into the middle distance. I opened my mouth to apologize, but Oona spoke first. “I’ll want to read through these notebooks—can you have them ready tomorrow?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she shifted to logistics—furniture moving, display cases, and signage.

  “Signage will be your department, Hayley,” Oona said, and my stomach hurt. “I believe we can do this, but I see a solid three months of work ahead.”

  I saw three months of sleepless nights—and I had no one to blame but myself.

  The cleaner had started to mop the floor before we left the restaurant, and a lone server stood sentinel by the front door, waiting to lock up.

  Out on the pavement in a chilly drizzle, Oona said, “I’ll see you at eleven tomorrow. I’ll have Powell with me.”

  She strode off, and Val put his arm round my shoulders as we watched her
go. “Steady on, Hayley Burke, curator of the First Edition library,” he said.

  6

  Death.

  “His name is Death?” I said, unable to keep the incredulity from my voice. I’d set my phone on the counter and had Val on speaker—it was the next morning before work, and I was in my kitchen fishing a tea bag out of my mug and pulling the milk from the fridge.

  Val laughed. “Ah, Murder Must Advertise. How far have you got?”

  “Well, the murder happened before the book started. This ‘Death’ fellow has just started working at the ad agency, and I can’t quite tell if he thinks it’s murder or not. It’s quite entertaining. Sayers could really turn a phrase, couldn’t she?”

  “She wrote the tag line ‘Guinness is good for you’—that’ll live on.”

  “The victim in Murder Must Advertise died in a fall down a staircase, and there was a staircase at Sayers’s old ad agency,” I said. “That’s what Lady Fowling mentioned in her letter.”

  “A writer uses everything in his or her memory and experience to come up with a good story. Sayers was no exception. Lunch?”

  “Yes—I’ll let you know when I can get away. First day, you know.”

  I was far more apprehensive on Oona’s first day than I had been on my own at the Society—and my nerves were not helped by Mrs. Woolgar’s sudden appearance at my office door fifteen minutes before our nine o’clock morning briefing.

  “Good morning, Ms. Burke. I’ve just seen an item in the Chronicle about the exhibition,” she said. “Not the print edition, but online.”

  Scrambling to get my laptop open and find the right web page, I stammered, “I haven’t . . . wait now . . . I thought we agreed it was a bit early to . . .” At last, I located it—a short item headed mysterious rare book surfaces—about the first edition of Murder Must Advertise signed by the most famous mystery writers of all time.

  “I didn’t think Oona would . . . Oh dear, Mrs. Woolgar, you don’t know the details, do you? It’s about the letter I found—the one Lady Fowling wrote to Dorothy L. Sayers. Will you sit down?”

  She perched on the edge of the wingback chair across the desk from me—Bunter curled up behind her—and I explained, ending with, “I wanted to ask your advice on the matter, but it’s been a whirlwind two days. As we don’t yet know where the book is, I thought it best not to say anything, but apparently Oona thought differently.”

  Mrs. Woolgar’s shoulders relaxed. “You’ve put your trust in Ms. Atherton—she must know best. And the book?”

  “I’m conducting a thorough search.”

  The front door buzzed. We both walked into the entry, and as she retreated into her office and closed the door, I called after her, “I’ll be in directly.”

  Please don’t be Oona. Not yet—it’s too early.

  Certainly not Oona—she didn’t have a tattoo of books behind her left ear.

  “Mr. . . . Bulldog,” I said. What was his surname? And surely he wasn’t really Bulldog. “Moyle. Mr. Moyle.”

  He peered out from under a wide-brimmed hat. “Do you know how much a first edition signed by the entire Detection Club would be worth?” he asked.

  Behind him, a steady rain fell. I opened the door farther.

  “Please come in,” I said, reminding myself this was what the First Edition library was for—people. “Would you like a coffee?”

  “Can I see it now?”

  “No, I’m sorry—”

  “Will you have an early viewing?”

  I swallowed a snort—I wasn’t a funeral director.

  “The exhibition is in April,” I replied. “Did you read about it in the Bath Chronicle?”

  “Alerts set up on my computer. Saw it early this morning and got the train.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Chippenham. Am I on the list?”

  “What list?”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  That’s it. “I’m in charge, Mr. Moyle,” I said, putting on my mum voice as if I were talking to a truculent teenager. “Details will go up on our website just as soon as they are available. You are signed up to receive our newsletter, aren’t you—under your actual name? What is your first name, by the way?”

  He hesitated. I gave him a slight frown. He stretched his neck to one side, and I heard it pop. “Stuart,” he said.

  “Fine, Stuart. We’re delighted you’ve stopped by, and be sure to keep an eye out for further information about the exhibition and our other events. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Apparently not. When he’d left, I walked into Mrs. Woolgar’s office saying, “I don’t know what he thought he would accomplish by coming all this way to—”

  The front door buzzed again, and I pivoted on the spot, ready to tell Stuart Bulldog Moyle that harassment was not the way to get on my good side, but when I flung the door open, I found instead Zeno Berryfield.

  “Hello, Ms. Burke,” he said with a smile. “Good morning.”

  He held up a clear, see-through umbrella, over an orange mackintosh that covered his teal suit, with the Smarties tie peeking out at the top. His high-shine black oxfords glistened with rain.

  “Mr. Berryfield, what a surprise.” I glanced past him to the pavement, hoping Oona wasn’t on her way in. “I’m afraid I—”

  “I’m only checking back to see if you need any further details before you make your decision about manager for your upcoming exhibition.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been back in touch,” I said, and then realized I’d only seen him the day before. “As it turns out, we have hired someone else. I so appreciate your giving me the time, and I’ve no doubt you will find many other opportunities here in Bath.”

  He kept the smile on his face, but I saw a light go out in his eyes, leaving them small and dark. “Yes, yes. Well, heigh-ho. I thank you for your consideration. Can you tell me who is your first choice?”

  “I’m not sure we’re ready to—”

  “I see. Yes, I do see. I wish you luck with this first choice, and I hope that if she does not work out, you will give me a call.”

  When I closed the door, I stared at it for a moment. It must be sparsely populated, I told myself—the world of exhibition management. I returned to Mrs. Woolgar’s office and sank into a chair.

  “Now. Right,” I said. “We need to arrange payment to the Charlotte.”

  “I’ve already been in touch with Mr. Rennie,” Mrs. Woolgar said. “He’ll have the check ready for you to collect by twelve o’clock.”

  From then on, it was business as usual. We chatted about choosing a new font for the newsletter, after which I returned to my office and rearranged my desk for the next half hour, keeping one eye on the clock as it crept closer and closer to eleven.

  Buzz!

  * * *

  * * *

  Hello, good morning,” I said, stepping back from the open door.

  They looked like winners of a mother-daughter dress-alike contest. Oona, as usual, wore her navy suit, low heels, and hair in a high bun. Next to her, but a head shorter, stood a young woman not much older than my Dinah, dressed in a navy suit, low heels, and with her black hair scraped up into a matching bun. She held a large umbrella over both of them, her arm stretched straight up to clear Oona’s head. Each had a satchel slung over her shoulder.

  Coats were shed and hung on hallstand pegs and the young woman shook the umbrella on the doorstep before inserting it into the stand as Oona made the introductions.

  “Hayley Burke, Clara Powell.”

  “Ms. Powell,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “Clara, please.” She pulled a pair of large, heavy-framed glasses out of a pocket and put them on, then gave my hand two firm pumps and smiled. Her glasses wobbled.

  “Hayley,” I said with a smile. “Lovely to meet you.”

>   “This is terribly exciting,” Clara said. She pulled a tablet from her satchel, as if she might begin taking notes on the spot. “We did a production of Busman’s Honeymoon at school for leaving—I played Honoria Lucasta, Lord Peter’s mother. My nana loves mysteries and remembers Lady Fowling. She’s terribly impressed Oona’s taken me on.”

  “Enough,” Oona said, and Clara clammed up. “Found her at Taunton College,” she continued, as if her PA were a stray puppy, “doing the office administration course and in desperate need of some real-world experience. She has great potential.”

  “Good morning,” Mrs. Woolgar said from her office doorway.

  After I made the next introductions, Clara admired the secretary’s 1930s-style outfit—cherry-red narrow skirt, white blouse with a wide lapel, and a narrow gold belt. “A timeless classic,” she said.

  Mrs. Woolgar beamed.

  “Right, where shall we begin?” Oona asked.

  I led the way to my office, where my desk became the manager’s. Bunter, who had taken up his post as ceramic cat on the mantel, watched Oona with large, dark eyes and whiskers at attention.

  “Is that a cat?” Oona asked.

  “He’s Bunter,” I said. “Lady Fowling always had a tortoiseshell cat, and she always named him Bunter.”

  “We should find a stuffed cat for the study display,” Oona said, and carried on without noticing Bunter had narrowed his eyes to slits. “Hayley, I’ve decided you should transcribe Lady Fowling’s notebooks.”

  “All of them?”

  “Certainly beginning with the fifties. Date each entry and categorize it—household, personal, Golden Age of Mystery. She may’ve left a clue to that book’s whereabouts. Plus, it’ll get you started on signage.”

  “I intended to search the library for the book.”

  “I’ll put Powell on it. Show her up, will you?”

  * * *

  * * *

  Such a lovely place,” Clara said, her head turning this way and that as we climbed the stairs. “Oh, is that Lady Fowling? She’s beautiful. Look at this library—it’s everything Oona said and more.”