“You lied, too, Warren,” I said.
He fixed me in a hard stare. I ignored it and said, “At the party, you said you’d never been to Rose Cottage since Matilda moved in. Yet you claimed that the scratches on your hand came from Matilda Swift’s cat.”
“That’s hardly important.”
“But you weren’t telling the truth either time. I remembered that cat jumping down on Artie’s shoulder and thinking it must hurt to have its claws digging in. But Artie said the cat couldn’t hurt anyone. At first I thought he was talking about its disposition. But the fact is, the poor thing has been declawed, so it couldn’t have scratched your hand.”
“You’re right, Jessica. It wasn’t the cat that scratched me. It was . . . I scratched it on a . . . on a wire in my apartment.”
“No, Warren, I think you scratched it right here, at Rose Cottage. As beautiful as roses are, they have very sharp thorns.”
“Why would he be handling the rose bushes?” Paul Marshall asked. “He’s no gardener.”
“He was looking for something,” I said.
“Looking for what?” Marshall asked.
“He was hoping to find this,” I said, again holding up the letter Artie Sack had recovered for me from the barn. “Maybe if I read it, things will become clear.”
“Go ahead, Jessica,” Seth said.
I adjusted my half-glasses on my nose, cleared my throat and began reading:
Dear Matilda:
It’s unfortunate that we have found each other so late in our lives. I would have enjoyed knowing my sister years ago, when things in my life were happy and relatively carefree. But that is no longer the case, and I’m compelled to write to you in the hope that you will do the right thing by my son, Jeremy, should anything happen to me.
I don’t say this as a doomsayer. But certain events have recently taken place that cause me to question whether my life might be in danger.
Paul Marshall interrupted by laughing. “Poor, paranoid Tony,” he said, shaking his head. “He was accident-prone, as anyone who knew him can testify to. The last six months of his life, he really started going off the deep end, imagining someone was out to get him, run him over, drop something on his head.”
“You know what they say,” Seth said in response. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t following you.” To me he said, “Go on, Jessica. Continue reading.”
As I’ve told you, I’ve been working for more than a year on a formula for a new lining for our outerwear that is warmer and lighter than our competitors’. I thought I’d been successful, but there was the problem of it not meeting federal flammability standards. I’ve been working day and night to solve this problem, and only last night came up with the answer. That should be considered good news.
Ordinarily, I would have immediately shared this news with my partner, Paul Marshall, but I’ve grown not to trust him.
I glanced at Marshall, whose expression said he’d heard quite enough and was about to leave. “Please stay, Paul,” I said. Confident he would, I continued.
Paul has brought in a new VP named Warren Wilson. Warren and I have become friends, and from what he’s told me, my distrust of Paul is certainly justified, particularly where the formula for BarrierCloth is concerned. I decided that I needed some way of protecting myself and the formula, and have turned to Warren in this regard.
“What the hell is he talking about?” Paul growled at Warren, who averted his boss’s eyes.
“I think it will be explained shortly,” I said, picking up in the letter where I’d left off.
Warren and I have entered into a business partnership. In return for one half ownership in my formula for BarrierCloth, he has given me $300,000, and has arranged to seek a patent and trademark through a venture capital company of his own in Vermont, Nutmeg Associates.
Paul interrupted my reading again by shouting at Warren and shaking a finger for emphasis. “I’ll have you arrested, Wilson, for fraud and theft of company secrets.”
Wilson, to my surprise, took steps toward Paul, rather than backing away under his verbal attack. “Tony was right,” Warren said, thrusting his chin at Paul. “You would have stolen the formula and cut him out. I was protecting Tony. I only wish I could have protected him from murder—
his
murder in that fire.”
Jeremy sarcastically applauded Warren’s speech, causing the beefier Wilson to make a fist and shake it at Tony Scott’s son.
“No sense becoming upset, Warren,” I said. “But I must admit I’m having trouble understanding your allegiance to Tony Scott.”
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“It seems from Tony’s letter to his sister that he threw you, his new partner, a nasty curve,” I said. I didn’t give him a chance to reply and started reading again.
I suffered quite a bit of guilt, Matilda, selling the formula to someone other than my partner of many years. I sometimes wonder whether I’m too suspicious of those around me, too quick to question their motives. But I know I’m right in this case if I’m to benefit myself from my work, and see to it that those I love reap the rewards after I’m gone. That’s why I did what I had to do with Warren Wilson after taking the money from him.
“What did he do to you, Warren?” Erica asked.
“Nothing. He was obviously going mad. You can tell from this stupid letter that he was nuts.”
“Paranoid perhaps,” I said, “but maybe he had cause to be. Let me finish the letter.”
Because Warren was willing to sell out Paul Marshall, I became convinced he’d do the same to me. So, I provided Warren with a fake version of the formula, one I knew wouldn’t pass muster in any lab. Warren has submitted the unworkable formula to the patent and trademark office, which, as a huge bureaucratic agency, will probably take years to come to a decision.
In the meantime, I intend to hide the working formula I perfected last night until I’ve had a chance to decide how best to protect it so that Jeremy will benefit one day. The cottage I live in on Paul’s estate is called Rose Cottage. It has a long brick wall covered with prize-winning roses. I love it here. It’s peaceful and quiet, things I treasure in life. If I should die, you’ll be able to find the new formula, the one that works, in that wall, behind the bricks. Artie the gardener will show you where. I trust him implicitly. Should anything happen to me, I beg you to come here, retrieve the true formula, and take all necessary steps to secure the proper trademark for it and arrange for Jeremy to reap whatever rewards there might be.
But I ask one thing of you, Matilda. Do not let Jeremy know that you are his aunt, or that he stands to benefit from the formula, until the truth has come out.
Thank you, Matilda. It gives me considerable comfort that I can ask this of someone whose blood I share, rather than entrusting it to strangers who can never be trusted.
Your loving brother, Tony
When I finished reading, I slowly lowered the letter and took in everyone’s faces. To say shock was written on most of them would be an understatement.
“The formula for BarrierCloth,” I said. “The
true
formula. Must have been upsetting, Warren, when you found out you paid a lot of money for the wrong formula.”
Paul Marshall grabbed Warren’s arm. “You told me Tony said he’d never perfected the formula.”
I continued, still looking at Warren. “The formula you’d registered for trademark protection under Nutmeg Associates, your Vermont corporation, instead of Marshall-Scott, didn’t work, did it, Warren?”
Paul roared. “Nutmeg Associates?”
Warren turned to Paul. “Don’t listen to her, Paul. She’s as crazy as the Swift woman was. I was protecting you. Tony Scott was a bad guy. He sold out everybody.”
“Hey, that’s my father you’re trashing,” Jeremy shouted.
Marshall glared at his vice president. “Protecting me? By registering the formula in another corporation’s name?” He looked at me. “Go on, Jessica, I’ve suddenly developed a keen interest in what you’re saying.”
But Warren spoke first. “I see what you’re getting at, Jessica. Of course. Paul here found out that his partner had sold him down the river. So he killed him and set that fire to cover it up.”
“I knew it,” Erica said, beginning to cry.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “No, Warren, I think it was you who killed Tony Scott in anger over having given him all that money for a worthless formula. You figured you had the true formula, and told Paul that Tony hadn’t been able to perfect it. But then you discovered through the lab in Vermont—Excel Laboratories—that it would never pass a government flammability test. What happened then, Warren? Did you demand the money back from Tony? Did he balk? He certainly was more cunning than his reputation as a mild-mannered, accident-prone inventor would suggest. I wouldn’t blame you for being angry at him but—”
“I didn’t kill anybody,” Warren said.
“What about Ms. Swift?” Seth asked.
“Yes, what about her?” Warren said, turning and pointing to Jeremy. “He’s the one who benefits from her death.”
“Jeremy didn’t know Matilda was his aunt,” I said. “He had no idea that his father had written the letter to Matilda, or that Matilda, his aunt, had taken out a half-million-dollar life insurance policy before coming here, with Jeremy as the beneficiary.”
“A half million?” Jeremy said, incredulous.
“No,” I said, “Jeremy didn’t have a motive to kill Matilda because he wasn’t aware of his relationship to her.” I fixed my eyes on Warren. “You searched Rose Cottage on Halloween night, looking for the real formula, Warren. Matilda Swift caught you, and when she ran for help, you followed her outside, grabbed the shovel and killed her.”
“You’re crazy. You can’t prove a thing.”
“I disagree, Warren,” I said. “Everyone, it seems, has been operating out of greed and paranoia. This distinguished family and its business perhaps isn’t as distinguished as it appears on the surface. But greed and paranoia aren’t crimes. Murder is. You’re the only one, Warren, who truly had reason to kill Tony Scott and then Matilda Swift. And now that your business relationship with Tony Scott has been revealed, and your lies about never having had any contact with Matilda are factored in, I think Sheriff Metzger and his law enforcement colleagues won’t have much of a problem convincing a jury of your guilt.”
Warren’s expression turned from defiance to panic, and he looked as though he might bolt. I peered into the darkness toward the rear of the cottage. “Sheriff,” I shouted, “I think it’s time for you and your deputies to join the party.”
Mort, followed by Wendell and Harold, emerged from the shadows.
“Got anything to say, Mr. Wilson?” Mort asked Warren.
“Go to hell,” he said.
“How could you?” Erica said. “You kept telling me you knew my father had arranged for Tony to be killed in the fire. And I believed you.” She turned to her father. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
Mort’s deputies moved to either side of Warren. “You’re under arrest,” Mort said as Harold and Wendell each took one of Warren’s arms.
Then Mort looked at me. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Where’s the real formula you’ve been talking about?”
I looked to where Artie Sack had stood silently at his sister-in-law’s side. “Artie,” I said, “it’s time for you to uncover the formula.”
The small crowd was silent.
Artie stepped forward. He walked to the wall and reached behind one of his cherished rose bushes, wresting several bricks from their places. He returned to us, carrying a narrow plastic tube. Inside, I knew, was the formula Anthony Scott had developed for BarrierCloth.
“Thank you, Artie,” I said, taking it from him and handing it to Jeremy Scott. “This is yours, Jeremy. It’s what your father wanted.”
“Hold on a second,” said Paul Marshall, stepping forward and grabbing the formula from Jeremy. “Tony and I were partners. This formula belongs to the company.”
Warren suddenly broke free of Wendell and Harold’s grip, yanked the formula from Paul and ran in the direction of the cemetery. Pandemonium broke out, everyone shouting to the deputies to catch the killer, some running to help.
But as Warren reached the first gravestone, The Legend rose before him. Her face was greenish gray in the pale moonlight, her white dress billowing in the breeze. She raised her white arms as Warren neared. He screamed and froze. The deputies were upon him seconds later and marched him to a patrol car. Mort retrieved the formula and handed it to Jeremy.
With a collective sigh, the crowd turned back to me.
“Was that The Legend?” Joan Lerner whispered. “Not that I believe in such things but—”
“I was told by Dr. Tremaine that she would, indeed, join us tonight, at this spot.” I turned to Tremaine. “Isn’t that right, Dr. Tremaine?”
“True,” he said, stepping forward. “I had a vision, and I trust my visions.”
“Poppycock,” Mort Metzger said.
“A vision, my foot,” Ed Lerner said.
“I predicted terrible plagues would descend on Cabot Cove, and look what’s happened.” Tremaine was smug.
“Oh, those plagues, Doctor,” I said, “you mean like all the dogs howling in Cabot Cove?”
“Exactly.”
I held up a whistle, the kind with a highfrequency sound that only canine ears can detect. “I found this dog whistle on your desk the night of the séance. Using this and the enormous public address system you have installed at your headquarters, you must have reached every dog for miles around.”
“Well, I predicted The Legend’s appearance, didn’t I?”
I left the group and approached the cemetery.
“Legend of Cabot Cove,” I yelled, “it’s time for you to show yourself to us again.”
Silence fell as everyone waited for what would happen next. There was nothing. I called again for Sophia Pavlou to make her appearance. I couldn’t believe it. Where was she? How could she let me down this way? I turned in disappointment and was returning to the group when Deputy Wendell Watson said, “There she is!”