Читать книгу Mystery Lady - Paul Magrs - Страница 12

Hello again, Cassandra here. Well, I do like the look of him. That’s the first thing to say. He’s charm itself. The way he greets us in the main reception by a big spray of lilies and guides us oh-so-smoothly to his own little enclave on the first floor. Big window overlooking the snowy square outside. He’s giving it a lot of flannel about the firm and the offices and how it’s such a lovely place to work and both Dodie and I are all eyes.

He’s quite a looker, Henry Duke, managing director of Mephistopheles and Company. He’s what I would call suave. Posh, but not too bloomin’ posh. His manners are really lovely and he seems to hang on every word that Dodie says. She perches very picturesquely on a chair in front of his tidy desk and I think she gives a good account of herself.

All the while she’s looking about at his gorgeous first editions and his heaps of interesting-looking manuscripts. Her appetite is whetted by bookish gubbins like that, whereas I’m checking out his gold cufflinks and his fancy suit and the very cut of his jib.

If I’m not very much mistaken I think Mr Henry Duke has taken a shine to our Dodie at very first glance. I can detect a very definite amount of flirting going on.

Pretty soon they are done with pleasantries and are discussing literature. ‘I must say how impressed I was with your short story,’ he purrs at her. ‘I haven’t read all of this year’s ‘Horrible Book of Terror’ but Fox Soames – the range editor, you know – sent me a copy of your tale with a little note saying you were ‘one to watch.’’

Dodie flushes with pleasure at this.

‘I trust the judgment of old Fox Soames implicitly,’ says Henry. ‘He’s been editing this series since the very start. Back when my father was running the firm. Soames is a funny old stick but he knows a great tale of terror when he reads one, and both he and I agree that both you and your writing have a great future ahead of you, Miss Golightly.’

‘Please call me Dodie,’ she smiles. ‘And really, I think of myself as a writer of mysteries rather than terror…’

He shrugs. ‘Perhaps. But your story that I read was genuinely terrifying. I lay in bed till very late at night and I was absolutely rigid.’

Dodie’s eyes widen at this and I can tell that she wants to laugh. ‘Is that a fact, Mr Duke?’

‘I sent off for your first novel, which you published last year, I believe?’

‘Ah, yes,’ she says.

‘It was rather hard to get hold of. Your publisher –Mr Figgis - appears to operate out of a used bookstore in Morecambe. It took some wrangling to get them to actually part with a copy of your book and send it to me in the post.’

Dodie looks ashamed. ‘My publisher, Mr Figgis. He’s rather small and eccentric.’ She sighs deeply. The publishing of her first novel was such a disappointment to her, I know. She puts a brave face on it. ‘The thing is,’ she sighs. ‘You bring out a book and you think your life is going to change overnight. Everything is going to be better, brighter, more perfect, for you are at last doing the thing that you have always longed to do. You are a published author. Unfortunately, reality hits pretty hard, soon afterwards, and not much has changed very much at all.’

Henry Duke is gazing at her admiringly. ‘How well you understand our strange profession. But you must realise, also, Dodie, that some publishers are simply rather better than others. Perhaps a thoroughbred like you ought not to be stabled with Mr Figgis of Morecambe after all?’

She beams at this suggestion. ‘Perhaps not.’

‘Of course, on the whole, I find the ‘Horrible Tales of Terror’ quite embarrassing, really. They were much more my father’s taste in books. I’d like to be pushing our list in a more literary direction… And you see, that’s what I feel about your work, my dear Dodie. You stretch the form. You push against the parameters of the tale of horror…’

‘Do I indeed?’ asks Dodie.

‘Oh, indeed. I think that the psychological insights in your story, let alone what you do to syntax, push your work into a different category altogether. It’s practically avant-garde…’

He’s flattering her something daft. What does this man want from my lovely Dodie?

And, do you know, as I watch him toadying, what I start to detect in the air… is fear. I’m very sensitive to such things. And… yes… he is scared of something. Someone or something has put the wind up him…

They’re talking about copy editing now and as Henry pours even more praise on Dodie, I can almost sense his aura vibrating.

I think my clever Dodie has detected it, too. She’s no slouch.

‘Why did you call me in, Mr Duke? It wasn’t just to discuss my work, was it?’

He looks haunted. ‘I’m afraid not, Dodie. You see, not only have I taken note of the quality of your work, I have recently become aware of your success in your little sideline career.’

She purses her lips. ‘My little sideline..?’

He smiles. ‘I have heard through the grapevine that you aren’t averse to tackling real-life mysteries. Not just fictional ones.’

‘And you have a mystery?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘One of our authors is missing.’