Free Murder in the CIA by Margaret Truman

those key-man policies. In effect, she left me the agency.”
    Cahill was surprised, enough so that she wasn’t quite sure what to say. He filled the gap with, “I don’t mean she left it all to me, Collette. Her mother benefits from it, but she structured things so that I’m to run it for a minimum of five years and share in the profits. I was flabbergasted.”
    “That was wonderful of her.”
    “Typical of her is more like it. When will you be back in Washington?”
    “A day or two. I’ll stop by.”
    “Please do, Collette. Let’s have lunch or dinner. There’s a lot we can talk about.”
    “I’d like that. By the way, do you have any idea who she might have seen here in London before … before it happened?”
    “Sure, Mark Hotchkiss. They were scheduled for dinner the night she arrived.”
    “Who’s he?”
    “A British literary agent Barrie liked. Why, I don’t know. I think he’s a swine and I told her so but, for some reason, she kept talking to him about linking up. With all Barrie’s brights, Collette, there were certain people who could con her, and Hotchkiss is one.”
    “Know how I can reach him while I’m here?”
    “Sure.” He gave her an address and phone number. “But watch out for him, Collette. Remember, I said swine,
cochon
.”
    “Thanks, David. See you soon.”
    She replaced the phone in its cradle as the porter knocked. She opened the door. He placed the tea tray on a coffee table and backed out of the suite, leaving her sitting in a gold wingback chair. She wore a light blue robe; shafts of late-afternoon sunlight sliced through gaps in the white curtains and across the worn Oriental rug that took up the center of the room. One beam of light striped her bare foot and she thought of Barrie, who was always so proud of her feet, gently arched and with long, slender toes that were perfectly sized in relation to each other. Cahill looked at her own foot, short and stubby, and smiled, then laughed. “God, we were different,” she said aloud as she poured hertea and smeared clotted cream and black cherry jam over a piece of scone.
    She caught Mark Hotchkiss just as he was leaving his office, introduced herself, and asked if he were free for dinner.
    “Afraid not, Miss Cahill.”
    “Breakfast?”
    “You say you’re Barrie’s friend?”
    “Yes, we were best friends.”
    “She never mentioned you.”
    “Were you that friendly that she would have?”
    His laugh was forced. He said, “I suppose we could meet for something in the morning. You have a decent place near you on Sloane Street, right around the corner. It’s a café in back of the General Trading Company. Nine?”
    “Fine. See you then.”
    “Miss Cahill.”
    “Yes?”
    “You do know that Barrie and I had entered into a partnership arrangement just prior to her death?”
    “No, I didn’t know that, but I was aware it was being discussed. Why do you bring it up now?”
    “Why not bring it up
now
?”
    “No reason. You can tell me all about it in the morning. I look forward to it.”
    “Yes. Well, cheerio. Pleasant evening. Enjoy London. The theater season is quite good this year.”
    She hung up agreeing with David Hubler. She didn’t like Hotchkiss, and wondered what aspect of him had seduced Barrie into entering a “partnership agreement,” if that claim were true.
    She called downstairs and asked if they could get her tickets to a show. Which one? “It doesn’t matter,” Cahill said, “something happy.”
    The curtain went up on
Noises Off
at seven-thirty, and by the time the British farce was over, Cahill’s sides hurt from laughing, and the unpleasant reason for her trip had been forgotten, at least for the duration of the show. She was hungry, had a light dinner at the Neal Street Restaurant,and returned to the hotel. A porter brought cognac and ice to her room and she sat quietly and sipped it until her eyes began to close. She went to bed, aware as she fell asleep of the absolute quiet of this