The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [43]
Fortune. Honors. Acclaim.
And a peaceful farewell January 12, 1976.
Lady Gwendolyn smiled tremulously, then concluded, her clear voice gentle, “Upon a tall and shining gravestone at the little church in Cholsey, near Winterbrook, are graven these words by Spenser:
Sleep after Toyle
Port after Stormie Seas,
Ease after Warre,
Death after Life,
Doth greatly please.”
The silence held, full of reverence, a moment of shared beauty as delicate as sunlight slanting through stained glass.
Annie, who never carried Kleenex, used the back of her hand to smudge away a tear.
A chair scraped.
The harsh sound was a discordant intrusion.
Neil Bledsoe heaved himself to his feet.
AGATHA CHRISTIE
TITLE CLUE
Suntan in a bottle;
Who took that bath?
You know what Henry Ford said.” Bledsoe’s deep voice was smug. “He said history was bunk. He was right. That’s what you’ve heard today—bunk.” His mocking eyes moved from face to face, challenging, daring, taunting.
Lady Gwendolyn’s retort was icy and immediate. “Balderdash.”
Annie jumped to her feet. But so did almost everyone else in the huge meeting room, all clamoring to be heard.
Annie yelled, “Lady Gwendolyn’s every word can be documented. The recollections of family. Friends. Letters. Business correspondence. Every single—” she broke off, belatedly realizing that she couldn’t be heard above the outraged shouts and cries of the audience.
Bledsoe strode up the central aisle. He took the platform steps in a single bound. His voice was loud enough, deep enough, to carry to the far reaches of the room. “New sources. Papers hitherto untapped. The real truth. What you’ve heard here”—his voice rose in disdain—“is the official approved biography of one of the world’s richest and most secretive women. Find out what’s been hidden, swept under the rug.”
Annie darted up the steps after him. She skidded to a stop next to Lady Gwendolyn, whose blue eyes observed Bledsoe carefully but without surprise. Annie thought in a flash that nothing had truly surprised the English author in many years.
Henny’s voice rang from a near corner. “Nonsense!”
“There is no such source!” Emma Clyde bellowed.
Annie was so angry she trembled. “You aren’t going to ruin my conference with this kind of garbage. Get out of here!”
Shouts of accusation, disbelief, query, astonishment.
Bledsoe held up his hand. He was an undeniably commanding figure, his ruddy face flushed and insolent, his sensual lips spread in a taunting smile, his powerful body poised as if for battle. Arrogantly, he surveyed the unruly audience.
Annie’s eyes, too, swept the room. Yes, the conference-goers, almost to a person, were angry and vocal about it, except for a few quite still, almost frozen faces with a common expression—the beginnings of relief! The chunky editor, the young publicist, the regal agent, the retiring author’s widow, the charming author, each face mirrored a lessening of tension, a relaxation.
Startled, Annie turned toward Bledsoe.
And realized that he was equally well aware of the curious—to her—phenomenon. And it amused him.
Beyond even her fury at his unwarranted attack on Christie, she felt a sudden revulsion. How twisted and dreadful Bledsoe was.
Lady Gwendolyn cut through to the point.
“What,” she demanded peremptorily, “do you intend?”
Bledsoe looked down at the august British author, undaunted by her manner.
“I intend that the truth about Christie shall be known.” If before he had spoken loudly, now he roared with almost evangelical fervor. “I’m a man who’s not afraid to tell the truth. People don’t like the truth. They didn’t like the truth about James Barrie. Or Mark Twain. Or Georges Simenon. People who like fairy tales are going to fight against the truth about Agatha Christie. But the world deserves to know what kind of woman she really was.”
Angry shouts sounded against a backdrop of jeering catcalls and whistles.
Bledsoe threw back