Murder at Teatime (16 page)

Charlotte nodded. She knew full well he had been in the same place that he was now, but she wanted to see what his answer would be anyway.

“I was right here, reading
The Moonstone
by Wilkie Collins, one of the great classics of detection. A first edition, and quite valuable. The detective story has been overlooked as a collector’s item, but it is finally gaining the recognition it has long deserved. Especially the early detective stories, which are becoming valuable indeed. Take the work of the father of the detective story, the great Edgar Allen Poe. Only a few copies are still extant of his
Murders in the Rue Morgue
, a little pamphlet printed in 1841. Very valuable. And then there’s the
Beeton’s Christmas Annual
.…”

“Can you tell me if you saw or heard anything unusual?” interrupted Charlotte, knowing that once he got started on collecting detective fiction she would have a hard time getting him back on the subject of Thornhill’s murder.

Reaching into one of his many inside pockets, he withdrew a cigar. Charlotte observed that one of his pockets would be a good place to keep a container of poison at hand for dropping into a teapot.

“I’m sorry, no. I was immersed in my book.” He paused, and lifted the cigar to his mouth to moisten it. “I must correct myself. I did hear what sounded like an altercation. Franklin and someone else, in the library. Followed by the sound of a door slamming.”

“Did you hear what the quarrel was about?”

“It seems to me that I heard the other party say something like, ‘You’d better leave it to me, you understand?’ Oh yes, and I heard the doorbell ring. I believe it was answered by Mrs. Harris.”

The same words she had heard, she thought as she gazed out over the urns of geraniums to the lawn. She wondered whether Thornhill and Chuck had been arguing about the will. “Leave it to me,” sounded as if Chuck was talking about the Ledge House property. But wouldn’t he have said “Leave it to us,” referring to him and Marion, if he-was talking about the will? Thornhill had presumably left his house and grounds to his daughter, but until his will was retrieved from a Boston safe-deposit box they wouldn’t know for sure. She wondered whether Thornhill would have left the property to Marion, knowing that Chuck would probably sell it to Chartwell. Perhaps he had threatened to include a clause prohibiting development. Or he might have threatened to leave the property to the public. In either case, Chuck would have the strongest motive. The use of poison to dispose of affluent relatives had a long history, and the property—valuable as it was—was only a fraction of the total estate.

“Does that help you, Miss Graham?” asked Felix, who had gone through the elaborate ceremony of lighting his cigar.

“Yes, thank you,” she replied. “Mr. Mayer,” she continued, turning to face him, “Have you any idea of the value of the Thornhill collection?”

“That depends on whether or not the incunabula are recovered,” he said. “As we discussed the other day, the incunabula alone are worth in the neighborhood of four hundred thousand dollars.”

“If the incunabula are recovered.”

“The Thornhill collection contains about five thousand volumes, of which perhaps half can be considered rare. Such a collection, Miss Graham, is unique; it ranks among the finest botanical collections in the country. For that matter, the world. In today’s market, such a collection would be worth, in my estimation, a minimum of four million dollars.”

Charlotte was surprised.

“You see, Miss Graham,” he went on, “when it comes to collecting books, the whole is worth far more than the sum of the parts.”

“Have you any idea what will become of the collection now?”

“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? However, Franklin often told me that he would rather sell it than donate it to an institution, despite the persuasive arguments of our young scholar. You see, he was not a man of great wealth: the bulk of his estate was tied up in his books. To have bequeathed his collection to an institution would have been to deprive his heir—namely his daughter Marion—of her rightful inheritance.”

“Then you think his will stipulated that the collection should be sold—probably through you—with the proceeds to go to Marion.”

“That is what he led me to believe. You heard him say it yourself the other day. He always promised me that upon his death I would handle the sale of his collection. However, he always said I would be the first to go. It was a joke between us: who would outlive the other.” He smiled, his hazel eyes twinkling. “I know what you’re hinting at. It’s true that I stand to make a substantial commission on the sale of his collection, the kind of commission that comes along once in a lifetime. But to kill an old and beloved friend for profit? Business is bad, yes”—he shook his head slowly—“but never that bad.”

“Thank you for your help,” said Charlotte, standing to leave. “I’m sorry I’ve had to disturb you with these questions.”

“I understand. We are all suspects. But
you
must understand that a book dealer’s good name is his stock in trade. The business of bookselling is a business that is rife with opportunities for the unscrupulous. The book dealer is constantly being faced with temptations: to accept a stolen book, to pay a gullible seller less than a book is worth, to purloin a valuable book from a collection he has been entrusted to appraise. The book dealer who yields to such temptations may make a profit in the short run, but he will not be in business very long. It is the book dealer who builds a reputation for honesty and fair play who survives and prospers.” He took a deep, self-satisfied puff on his cigar. “It is exactly because my reputation is
sans peur et sans reproche
that I am considered one of the world’s greatest book dealers.”

Charlotte thanked him again and left. Like Grace, Felix had turned out to have a strong motive after all. He flaunted his good name like a badge of innocence, but she couldn’t help thinking that reputation, as the bard had said, is “oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.”

On her way back to the Saunders’ house she stopped to rest in what had become one of her favorite spots: a bench under a big old oak tree overlooking the bar, which was now buried ten feet beneath a high tide. Out on the bay, the islands lay like lily pads on the calm silver surface of the sea. It was these islands that gave the Maine coast its character. In an era in which the sea had been an open highway, the islands had been its way stations. In the Saunders’ living room was a nineteenth-century map of the area. The islands were heavily dotted with the little black squares that indicated residences, while the mainland had practically none. But today, many of the islands were ghostly relics of their former selves. All that remained of once-prosperous homesteads were filled-in wells, fields grown up to poplar and pine, and tiny family cemeteries like the one on the Gilley Road. She shivered as she rose to leave: the death of centuries seemed close at hand on this island of Gilleys past.

As she stood up her reverie was interrupted by a peal of girlish laughter accompanied by the blare of rock music. Two girls—one carrying a radio the size of a small suitcase—were skipping down the road from the direction of Ledge House. A few minutes later they had caught up with her. The younger girl, who looked about eleven, ran right up to her. Like the other girl, whom Charlotte recognized as Wes’s daughter, she had the kind of careworn, old-young face that is often found among the children of the rural poor.

“Are you the movie star?” she asked. She was a scrawny little thing in dirty shorts, with a light brown ponytail.

“Shut up, Kim,” said the older girl from behind. “Maybe the lady don’t wanna be pestered by the likes of you.”

“You don’t mind, do you?” Kim said imploringly. She fingered the fine silk of Charlotte’s jacket. “I like your outfit. Ain’t it pretty, Tammy?”

The older girl, who looked about thirteen, had drawn alongside with the radio, which she carried in front of her like an armload of firewood. She had a pretty face and her father’s far-off light blue eyes.

“What’s your name?” asked Kim.

“Charlotte,” she replied, with a smile. “And I bet you’re Kim and Tammy. How do you like living on an island?”

“Ugh,” replied Kim, with an expression of disgust. “We hate it, don’t we, Tammy? There ain’t nothin’ to do.” Her accent was almost as thick as her father’s.

“Our friends are all in town,” Tammy concurred.

Charlotte was reminded of a young couple from Brooklyn she had once met who had just returned from a honeymoon in Bridge Harbor. There was nothing to do, they complained. No discos, no boutiques, no beach (actually there was a beach, but not the kind they were talking about). Kim and Tammy clearly shared the young couple’s feelings, magnified a thousand times by their isolation. They were trapped between the anachronistic world of their parents and the world they knew only from Kitty and Stan’s television.

“We’ve got one friend out here,” observed Kim. “Kevin. He gave Tammy that radio,” she announced proudly. She clung to Charlotte’s side. “Will you come visit?” she pleaded. “We ain’t never had a movie star come visit.”

Charlotte agreed, thinking it would be a good opportunity to ask their father some questions. They had reached the Saunders’ house, and Charlotte stopped to open the gate in the white picket fence.

“Please promise you’ll come,” said Kim. She hung on the gate as Charlotte swung it shut. “Pretty please?”

“I promise,” said Charlotte with a smile.

“There’s someone here to see you, Charlotte,” said Kitty as Charlotte entered the kitchen a minute later.

Tom Plummer was already comfortably settled in at the Saunders’ kitchen table, beer can in hand and potato chips and dip within arm’s reach. She greeted him and asked him about his trip—she hadn’t expected him until later that evening—and then fetched herself a glass of lemonade.

Kitty had been filling him in on Thornhill, Tom said as Charlotte joined them. For years, the Saunders had lived in the same Boston suburb as the Thornhills, and their acquaintance had been one of the reasons the Saunders had retired to Bridge Harbor. In fact, they had bought their property from Thornhill.

“Excuse me,” said Kitty, rising from the table. “I’m just going to see how Stan’s doing in the studio. I haven’t seen him all day. Besides, I imagine you two have plenty to talk about. Tom, we’re delighted to have you here,” she added. “Please let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“You’ve provided for me very well, thanks,” replied Tom, raising his beer. “And thanks for the information. I wish I had such an informative source for all the stories I work on.”

Kitty smiled, and, after fixing a tray with a glass of beer and a plate of potato chips, padded off to the studio.

“Okay, Plummer,” said Charlotte, once Kitty was gone. “What have you got?”

He smiled mischievously, stroking his mustache with smug self-satisfaction. “Lots of
very
interesting stuff,” he replied.

He was a stocky young man who looked as if he would be more at home coaching midget football than writing about crime. Boyishly handsome, he had an enthusiastic grin; a broad, open face; and a thick head of light brown hair that was parted down the middle. He didn’t fit the stereotype of the new journalist: the brash, trendy young reporter on the make, but it was precisely this open, innocent quality that made him so good at what he did. He had the cheek to talk his way into any milieu from board room to barrio, and the persistence to hang in there asking questions that nobody wanted to answer. But the naturally abrasive nature of his profession was tempered by his warm personality. People trusted him, and rightly so. He wasn’t the type to fawn all over his subjects one minute and stab them in the back the next. Even the subjects of his unflattering portraits respected him. They often told him that what he wrote was true, much as they didn’t like it.

“I know how you delight in keeping me on tenterhooks.”

He rocked his chair back against the chair rail on the wall, his beer can cradled in his hands. “First,” he said, “Mayer did report the books missing. But,” he continued, “your hunch about his finances was right on the mark.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow and took a drink of lemonade. She was thirsty after the walk from Ledge House. “Go on.”

“First, a little background. He’s a third-generation book dealer. His father and grandfather were book dealers in Vienna. He emigrated just before the war and went into business in New York. He’s done very well for himself: he’s considered the top dealer in the country. A man of great culture, shrewdness, and mystery. Apparently he’s always flying off on secret journeys to clinch million-dollar deals. He’s the book dealer who handles all the really big stuff, especially manuscripts and early printed books. But … he told you he sold the Gutenberg Bible for two point two million?”

Charlotte nodded. “The price he paid for it, or so he said.”

“He lied. He sold it for two point one million. He lost a hundred grand on that deal. He originally put it up for sale for two point seven. Then he lowered the price to two point five, and then to two point three. Finally he sold it at a loss because he needed the cash to buy stock he could move.”

“But a hundred thousand dollars isn’t that much to lose these days; certainly not enough to risk going to jail for.”

“That’s just the beginning. He’s been acting like a bettor who keeps raising the stakes in hopes of recouping his losses. The next loss was Audubon’s
Birds of America
. He bought it for one point two million and sold it for fifty grand less. If he’d sold the plates individually, he could have made a pile, but dismembering a classic plate book for profit is one of the worst sins a self-respecting book dealer can commit.”

“He was telling me how much he prides himself on his reputation.”

“You bet.” He continued: “He also took a beating on the Pratt Collection, a collection of nineteenth-century first editions. I could go on, but I won’t bore you. In short, a string of bad guesses and misjudgments, none of them terribly serious in and of themselves, but together adding up to financial disaster. In a better economy he might have pulled out of it all right, but not in the middle of a recession.”