Fenella was unable to stop herself. Her momentum sent her over the edge.
She did not even have time to scream before she struck some object below and then fell again, this time onto the floor.
An acute silence ensued.
Vivian picked up her camera, moved cautiously farther out onto the balcony, and looked down. There was enough light seeping in through the cracks in the blinds to reveal Fenella sprawled on the floor next to a massive bronze statue of a nude female goddess. The gun had landed some distance away.
Glass shattered somewhere in the salesroom at the front of the shop.
“Vivian.” Nick’s voice roared through the old house.
Rex barked excitedly.
“In here,” Vivian called. But the words sounded thin and breathless. She took a deep breath and tried again. “Nick. I’m in here.”
She started down the stairs, hugging the wall because in her shaky condition she needed support and she knew now she could not trust the old railing.
Nick and Rex raced through the door that separated the salesroom from the back room. Rex bounded toward the staircase to give Vivian his customary greeting.
Nick hit the light switch and raked the scene in a glance.
“Vivian?” he said.
“I’m all right. Honestly.” She sat down on a step and hugged Rex. “I’m okay.”
Nick grabbed a sheet of paper off a nearby workbench and used it to pick up the pistol. He set it on a table.
“There should be prints,” he said. “She’s not wearing gloves.”
“Yes,” Vivian said.
Nick crouched next to Fenella and felt for a pulse.
Vivian held her breath.
Nick rose, shaking his head. “Looks like she struck her head on the statue on the way down.”
He crossed the room and started up the stairs.
Vivian got to her feet and fell into his arms.
“Nick,” she said.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “She’s the one who murdered Toby. Used her Duesenberg. I found it in the garage out back. Lots of damage.”
“That explains a few things.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
“How did you know about Fenella?” Vivian asked.
“A few loose ends have been bothering me,” Nick said. “Before he died Treyherne gave me a lot of information. He talked freely that night. I think he was having a nervous breakdown. But he never mentioned Flint or the fact that he’d killed Flint. A murder is a big thing to leave out of that kind of conversation.”
“You never got to ask him if he’d used Toby to find me because Treyherne jumped off the cliff.”
“This afternoon I called your family’s home in San Francisco. Your housekeeper said someone who convinced her he was a potential portrait client had telephoned asking how he could get in touch with you. She gave him the number of the Burning Cove Hotel.”
Vivian winced. “Of course. Dorothy would have assumed she was doing me a favor. But that means both Toby Flint and Treyherne tracked me down the same way—by calling my home in San Francisco. Lyra took the call from Toby. Dorothy got the one from Treyherne.”
“Yes, but I was still left with the fact that someone had used Flint to find you. If it wasn’t Treyherne, who was it? Another thing that’s been bothering me is that the police never found the Dagger Killer’s photos. They discovered some photography equipment but no pictures.”
Vivian glanced up at the gallery door. “I knew there would be a gallery of the death scenes.”
“Today I found some of Flint’s early pictures, the ones he did when he first arrived here in Adelina Beach. Art photos, not spot news work.”
“Toby once had dreams of doing art photography,” Vivian said.
“Fenella was his model. Her name and the dates of the photographs were in the envelope with the pictures. She also took some shots of him that he kept. The fact that there had once been a close connection between the two of them was the missing piece of the puzzle.”
“What do you mean?” Vivian asked.
“If Treyherne hadn’t used Flint to find you, that meant Flint was working for someone else. Someone who was in the picture but not obvious. I couldn’t overlook the fact that you and Flint and Fenella Penfield were connected.”
“And we know you don’t like coincidences.”
“There was one other coincidence I didn’t like. The desk clerk at the hotel mentioned that you had gone off to the Penfield Gallery with your portfolio.”
“All those factors came together to spark your intuition?”
“It would be more accurate to say they scared the living hell out of me.”
The sirens were louder now.
“You called the police?” Vivian asked.
“No, I didn’t want to take the time,” Nick said. “On my way through the lobby I told the hotel clerk to telephone Detective Archer and send him here.”
The sound of vehicles braking sharply in the street and the sudden cessation of the sirens announced the arrival of the police.
Nick looked up at the broken balcony railing. Then he fixed his gaze on Vivian.
“What the hell happened up there?” he asked.
“A lot,” Vivian said. “I’ll wait until Archer gets here. Meanwhile, would you kindly step out of the way? You’re blocking the light and casting a shadow.”
She reached into her pocket for a fresh flashbulb and readied the camera. The Speed Graphic had been through some rough handling, but it had been built for the real world of news photography. It worked flawlessly.
Eddy, the photo editor at the Adelina Beach Courier, allowed her to use the paper’s darkroom in exchange for an exclusive.
The sensational photo of the owner of one of the most respected art galleries in Southern California dead on the floor of her own back room, with Detective Archer and an imposing bronze nude gazing on somberly, went national.
Some of the family newspapers cropped out various portions of the nude goddess’s anatomy.
Regardless, this time there was a photo credit—Vivian Brazier.
Chapter 47
Vivian thought the day would never end but eventually she found herself in the hotel dining room with Lyra and Nick. She wasn’t hungry but Lyra was anxious that she eat something. Fortified by a couple of sidecars, she managed to nibble her way through most of the whole artichoke served with hollandaise and some of the baked fresh halibut that followed. She drew the line at dessert, preferring to sip on an after-dinner brandy while Lyra and Nick finished the ice cream.