Gin and Daggers by Jessica Fletcher Read Free Book Online

like no other Marjorie Ainsworth novel I’d ever read. He was also right when he’d said that there were numerous examples of the classic Ainsworth style and touch, but that they were isolated, cropping up at intervals rather than being the basis for the narrative. I wondered at it, could do nothing else. Dare I ask Marjorie whether she’d been helped? I answered my own question with a resounding no. That would be a terrible offense. Undoubtedly, though, others would be asking her as the rumor swelled and those who read her book arrived at the same conclusion as Lucas Darling.
    What if Marjorie hadn’t written Gin and Daggers? Would that be taking unfair advantage of the reading public? I didn’t know the answer to that question and decided not to grapple with it at that point. I finished a chapter, laid the book down beside me, got into my robe and slippers, and went to an adjacent bathroom that was assigned to me, which could be reached only from the hallway. I returned ten minutes later, pausing at the railing and listening to muffled conversations from the library. Mrs. Horton stepped into the dining room and looked up at me. “Good night, Mrs. Horton,” I said. She mumbled something and left the room. A few minutes later I was in my bed, asleep.
     
     
    I sat bolt upright. I didn’t know what time it was. Had I been asleep ten minutes, an hour, four hours?
    It was a sound that had awakened me, and it seemed to come from Marjorie’s room. How to describe it? A cry for help? Not really. Sounds from someone engaged in a struggle? More like it, but hardly accurate. Whatever it was, it had been loud enough to awaken me and sinister enough to cause me to get out of bed, slip into my robe and slippers, and open my door. I looked up and down the hallway, which was dimly lighted by low-wattage sconces along the wall. I listened, heard nothing. I immediately tried to calculate how much time had elapsed between when I had first heard the noise and had looked into the hallway. Five minutes perhaps, considering the time it had taken me to process what I’d heard, to decide to investigate it, to find my slippers, one of which I’d inadvertently kicked under the bed, to get into my robe, and to cross the darkened room to the door. Five minutes.
    I entered the hallway, stepping gingerly as the ancient floorboards creaked beneath my feet, a sound I hadn’t heard since awakening.
    I stood outside Marjorie’s bedroom door. It was ajar, not enough so that you could see through the opening, but certainly not closed tight. I put my ear to it and listened, heard nothing but silence. The steeple bell at a nearby country church suddenly went into action: one, two, three chimes. It was three o’clock in the morning, unless the clock controlling the bell hadn’t been set correctly.
    I placed my fingertips against the door and pushed. It was heavy and did not swing open, had to be pushed more. I did that and peered into the room. Marjorie’s bed was king-sized and covered with a canopy. The room was dark except for a sharp shaft of moonlight that poured through an opening in the drapes. It was perfectly aimed, as though a theater lighting technician had highlighted a section of a stage where major action would occur.
    I stepped over the threshold and walked to the side of the bed, like a moth drawn to a summer candle. A whole arsenal of grotesque sounds rose up inside me but stopped at my throat—sounds of protest, of outrage, of shock and horror. Yet not a sound came from me as I looked down at the body of Marjorie Ainsworth, the grande dame of murder mystery fiction, sprawled on her back, arms and legs flung out, a long dagger protruding from her chest like a graveyard marker.
    All I managed to say—and it was in a whisper—was “Oh my God.” As I turned to leave, my slippered foot hit a metal object and propelled it under the bed. I didn’t stop to see what it was. I returned to the hallway and stood at the railing, my