Death of a Cozy Writer: A St. Just Mystery Read Free Page A

guess at age, I’d say. Oh, sorry, Mother, I didn’t—”
    “Never fear. The poor girl has my sympathy, not my envy. At my age, one is relieved to be past the attentions of men. But what can he—she—both of them—be thinking, to invite me? Surely he doesn’t imagine I’ll come, bearing gifts. Is he that far gone, do you think?”
    “When I last saw him, which, admittedly, was several months ago, he seemed to be much as ever. Argumentative, repellent. Perhaps more reptilian than usual. Looking to pick a fight, as always. Fortunately, I didn’t have time to give him one. This takeover bid with Grobbetter has been like perching in several rings of Hell simultaneously.” Ruthven had made and lost several fortunes buying up small Midland newspapers, sacking most of their workers save the sales staff whilst sucking the places dry of every conceivable asset (“increasing productivity,” was how his press releases put it), and selling the newly productive yet emaciated product to a competitor.
    His take-no-hostages philosophy had made him a legend in the publishing world, certainly in his own mind. Thinking he would one day in all likelihood inherit his father’s fortune made it easier for him to be fearless than other men.
    “Funny. That might have been the last time I saw him, too. At any rate, it was several months ago.”
    “Really?” Ruthven was genuinely stunned. His parents had parted on chilly rather than acrimonious terms—his mother was too vague for the kind of knock-down, drag-out the circumstances almost certainly warranted—that seemed even more to guarantee a complete and final breaking of all ties between them. Even though her brood at the time had barely moved on from formula to solid food, she had never really looked back.
    “Yes. He came down to London, on some pretext or other, I rather thought. Said he’d been for his annual in Harley Street. And something about his publishers … Anyway, he showed up completely out of the blue, didn’t telephone or write ahead. I thought I might faint, dear, when Mrs. Ketchen announced him. It was so unprecedented, I realized something must be up. Curiosity got the better of me. It has been a long time, you know. So many years I’ve lost count.”
    “I haven’t. It was my sixth birthday.”
    “Yes, dear. Rather awful for you.” She added, rather as if just remembering she had three other children, “For all of you, of course.”
    “What did he want?”
    “He didn’t say. That was the odd thing. I knew from the moment I saw him he was up to something—you know that gleam he gets in his eye when he’s just about to turn the screws—but in the end he ended up just exchanging the most banal pleasantries and after about an hour he left. I’m still puzzled by it. And rather put out: I cancelled my bridge game to find out what it was he wanted—I thought it might have something to do with you, so I was determined to hear him out, however unpleasant—and yet he never got around to telling me. Talked about his stock portfolio, mostly, as if I cared. He said the gout was troubling him worse than ever, but he wouldn’t take the painkillers the doctor had prescribed. He said he didn’t want to end up looking like Elizabeth Taylor in rehab.”
    “Perhaps he wanted to hear your views on Violet.”
    “I’m sure he didn’t have to ask to know my views,” his mother shot back.
    Oh, ho. So, she wasn’t quite as indifferent as she sounded.
    “I mean really, Ruthven. A girl like that, probably a Page Three girl.” She was fairly hissing now. “What can he be thinking? People have always been most sympathetic, but the press will have a field day—a threeday’s wonder, of course, it’s not like royalty getting married or having its phone calls intercepted, after all, but still. The worst of it is, the real tragedy of it is, what it’s going to mean to you. Has he given any hint? Have you heard from him?”
    “You mean apart from this execrable