“Why? I can’t believe you would have done me any favors just because Winston Bancroft failed to deliver a couple of pictures.”
“That was something of a story, I’m afraid. Bancroft has already delivered his photos. But I needed to convince you that I really did want your pictures for the exhibition. I wanted to make sure you were in the gallery that evening so that you could witness your failure as an artist.”
“You just assumed my photographs would not get any attention? That no one would buy them?”
“Exactly. Later you were going to take your own life. The plan was for you to retreat here to my back room and put a bullet in your head. Everyone would have assumed you could not handle the pain of finding out for certain that you were a failure.”
“You had the whole scene composed in your mind.”
“Yes. I had it all worked out.”
“Do you really think the people who know me would have believed your ridiculous story for even sixty seconds?”
“Why not?” Fenella’s voice tightened. “You call yourself an artist. They’re notoriously dramatic and emotional. Unstable.”
“Nick Sundridge and my family would never have bought that version of events, trust me.”
“It doesn’t matter because plans have changed. The stairs. Go on. What I have to show you is in the room at the top.”
The overhead fixtures were off in the back room of the gallery and the blinds were closed but the staircase that led to the balcony on the floor above was illuminated by a couple of narrow windows.
Vivian started up the steps, moving as slowly as she dared, trying to buy time to come up with a strategy. Fenella followed close behind but not so close that Vivian could risk trying to shove her down the stairs.
The one thing that was clear now was that Fenella did not want to pull the trigger until after the so-called private viewing.
“Why murder Toby Flint?” Vivian asked.
“I needed him to find you after you and Sundridge disappeared,” Fenella said. “Toby never missed a meeting of the Adelina Beach Photography Club. I waited for him in his car that night. When he came out of the meeting hall I did a deal with him. I offered to pay off his gambling debts if he could find you. It didn’t take him long to discover that you and Sundridge were in Burning Cove.”
“He called my sister in San Francisco. She told him where I was. But that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You made him go to Burning Cove. You told him he had to do one more thing to get his money. He had to place the phone call that would draw me out of the hotel that night. You wanted me on that empty street so that you could run me down with your car.”
“I couldn’t think of any other way to get you out of the hotel. I knew you and Toby were friends. You trusted him.”
“Yes,” Vivian said. A sense of sadness flitted through her. “I did trust him. I thought he called me to warn me that I was in danger. But I guess he needed the money too much.”
“He needed the money all right. His life was at stake. I paid him a thousand dollars in cash. There was to be another thousand afterward. But that bastard betrayed me.”
“What do you mean? He made the call to the hotel, just as you paid him to do.”
“He telephoned you two hours before he was supposed to do it,” Fenella said, her voice rising to a shrill pitch. “I had a feeling I couldn’t trust him. I followed him that night when he left that cheap auto court where he was staying. When he went into that phone booth I knew he had decided to warn you. When he went back to his car I saw my chance to get rid of him and I took it. I knew then I’d lost the opportunity to get you. I had to drive back to Adelina Beach that night because I had to do something about the car. There was so much damage. I had no idea it would be that bad. When I read in the papers that Deverell had been struck and killed by a car it sounded so simple, so easy.”
“Nick was right—there was a connection between the murders of Deverell and Flint. It wasn’t a coincidence. You got the idea for using a car from the newspapers. You copied the technique.”
“The drive back to Adelina Beach was a nightmare with only one headlight and a cracked windshield. I didn’t dare wait until daylight because I was afraid someone here in town would see the car and ask questions.”
“You hid your damaged car in the garage behind your shop.”
“I didn’t know what to do with it. Do you have any idea how hard it is to conceal a well-known automobile that has sustained so much damage? I couldn’t take it to a local repair shop. I didn’t dare drive it to my home. The housekeeper and the gardener would have noticed. I decided to leave it in the old garage behind the gallery until I could figure out what to do with it.”
“You think your car is going to be a problem?” Vivian reached the landing and stopped. “Wait until you have to figure out how to get rid of my body.”
“That’s going to be the easy part, thanks to your snooping around. Open that door.”
Vivian walked halfway along the balcony and stopped in front of the door. She tried the knob.
“It’s locked,” she said.
“Of course it is. Here’s the key.”
Fenella tossed a key onto the floor. Vivian picked it up and inserted it in the lock. She got the door open and took two steps into a long, dark chamber.
“The light switch is to your right,” Fenella said as she stepped in and closed the door. “Turn it on.”
Vivian groped for the switch, found and flipped it. Most of the room remained in shadow but three carefully positioned and focused lights winked on. They illuminated three large, elegantly framed photographs on the wall.
Vivian tried to steel herself because she was almost certain now that she knew what Fenella wanted her to see. But that did nothing to mitigate the shock of raw horror that slammed through her.
She recognized all three pictures. She had shot the same scenes while surrounded by homicide detectives, uniformed officers, and other news photographers. But her front-page photos had revealed the harsh, gritty reality of violent death. The three death scenes on the wall had been manipulated using every trick in the pictorial photographer’s repertoire to make them appear to be paintings.
“You were the photographer who composed the pictures,” Vivian said. “Not Morris Deverell. There were two Dagger Killers, not one.”
“You’re wrong. Until I was forced to get rid of Toby Flint I’d never actually killed anyone. I was the artist. Deverell was just my assistant. I chose the subjects and booked the evening appointments. While we discussed new acquisitions for their art collections I put a little something into their drinks to make them go to sleep. Deverell helped me set up my camera and arrange the lighting. When all was ready, he used his dagger. He loved that part. When I looked through the lens and saw true perfection I took the picture.”