"From what I understood, Eileen didn't know her mother was back until after the murder," Laura said, thinking aloud in an attempt to prevent discussing Felicia. "She must have found out somehow and decided to kill her mother and frame Elliot for the murder. But why?"
"Money, perhaps?" Harry suggested, sitting back in his seat with a sigh of frustration. "I'm sure she's the sole beneficiary of her father's estate."
"And why involve Johnny Dedman? Where does *he* fit into all of this?"
"No doubt that information would be contained in the missing file," Harry said. He looked thoughtful. "What if she's already destroyed it?"
"Then we're sunk," Laura confirmed in a grim tone. She turned into the driveway of Eileen Markham's spacious home- and groaned as she saw the television news vans parked outside. "Wonderful," she said, braking the car to a stop before it was seen.
Eileen Markham was standing on the steps leading up to the wide porch of the house, talking into several microphones that were pointed in her direction. Laura tapped the steering wheel, frustrated. "We can't very well barge in there- the media would recognize you instantly as Lord Bryce-Davies."
"Mmm. I daresay you're right about that. Why don't I go around to the back of the house and find a way in, look for the missing folder while you keep Eileen and the reporters occupied out here?"
Laura looked at him, uncertain. "If anyone discovers you in there- this little charade is over. You know that, don't you?"
"Don't worry," he assured her with a smile as he opened the door. "A quick in and out. No one will know I was there."
"Be careful," Laura called softly as he vanished into the landscaped flower beds that would take him to the back of the house. She waited a few moments and then released the brake to drive toward the gathering of vans.
As she exited the car, she heard a reporter asking, "Were you aware that your mother was alive all these years, Miss Markham?"
"No. I had no idea," Eileen insisted, bringing a lace-edged handkerchief to her eye as a tear slipped down her face. "I was so young when the accident happened-" she saw Laura and smiled gratefully. "Miss Holt. Thank goodness you're here." Laura took her place beside Eileen to confront the reporters, some of which she had spoken with on previous cases. "I'm sure you all recognize Laura Holt- I hired her agency and Remington Steele to find out what was going on- And I'm sure they'll prove that my father is innocent. Won't you, Miss Holt?" she asked, looking hopeful.
*The woman should have been an actress herself*, Laura thought as she confirmed Eileen's words. "We're going to try our best."
"Where is Mr. Steele?" Eileen asked, and Laura thought that the reporters leaned a bit closer to hear the answer.
"He's following a lead on the case," Laura responded easily. "With any luck, your father will be free by tomorrow morning- if not sooner," she informed her client with a delighted smile.
Eileen's smile wasn't quite as wide- and Laura could see something unsettling in her eyes. "Really?"
***
Harry's lips thinned as he used the lock-pick kit he'd purchased at a pawnbroker in London to open the French doors that led into what looked to be a study. It took him a bit longer than he'd anticipated, and he made a mental note to practice the procedure. It never hurt to hone one's skills, he thought as he entered the room and went to the neat-as-a-pin desk to start looking for the file from Johnny Dedman's office.
***
"Who do you think the killer is, Miss Holt?" a female reporter with dark, curly hair asked.
"I'm not ready to make that announcement just yet."
Someone came from one of the vans and whispered into the woman's ear. "Really?" she asked the young man. He nodded. Turning back to Laura and Eileen, she asked, "Are you aware that Johnny Dedman, the producer who had announced a few weeks ago that he was planning a movie about your father's life- which was also to have been Elliot Markham's return to acting, has been found dead in his apartment?" The other reporters expressed surprise and shock, sending their assistants to their own vans for confirmation.
"Oh, my," Eileen said, her voice sounding faint. Laura slipped an arm around the woman, concerned that she might collapse, only to find a momentary resistance- Eileen was faking her surprise. "How -?"
"Early reports are that he might have committed suicide," the reporter told them, smugly smiling at having gotten a scoop on her fellows. "Miss Holt, is Johnny Dedman the person you suspected of murdering Helen Markham and attempting to frame Elliot Markham for that murder?"
"No comment," Laura replied.
"I can't talk anymore," Eileen said, sobbing into her handkerchief. "Please. Send them away," she begged Laura.
"Miss Markham has nothing more to say at the moment," Laura told the reporters. "Good day." She turned to follow Eileen into the house, deliberately closing the door loudly behind them, in hopes of warning Harry if he were still in the house. When Eileen turned to look at her, Laura shrugged apologetically. "It slipped," she lied.
***
Harry quietly opened another drawer on the desk- in vain once more, it seemed. Nothing inside even remotely resembled the missing file. Hearing the front door close, he turned, brushing an obviously expensive Correa lamp, tipping it toward the floor. He managed to catch it, falling to his knees with a soft grunt in the process.
***
Eileen's tears seemed forgotten as her head turned toward a closed set of double doors. "What was that?" she asked, taking a step in that direction.
"I didn't hear anything," Laura lied. "I'd like to ask you a few questions about Johnny Dedman, Miss Markham." When Eileen continued to look at the closed doors, Laura continued. "How well did you know him?"
***
On his knees beside the desk, Harry was at eye level with the pad on top of the polished surface, and from this vantage point noticed that the edge wasn't flush against that surface. Curious, he carefully returned the lamp to the desk before lifting the edge to reveal that something yellow had been placed beneath it. He pulled it out and smiled upon reading the name on the file folder he held in his hand: Elliot Markham.
***
"I only met him once," Eileen informed Laura. "*Is* he the one you think murdered my mother and framed my father, Miss Holt?" she asked, lifting the handkerchief to her eyes again.
"What makes you think that Johnny might have done something like that?"
"I know he was upset with my father for refusing to make that movie," Eileen said. "I tried to tell Father that he was dangerous, that he couldn't be trusted."
"But what would Dedman have to gain by killing your mother and framing the man he wanted as his star for that murder?" Laura asked.
***
Harry started to stand, but felt something under his foot, something that hissed loudly and snarled before streaking across the room to perch on a chair and watch him warily. "Bloody cat," Harry muttered, grabbing the file and heading toward the doors through which he'd entered.
***
"Something is going on in my office," Eileen insisted, and this time Laura couldn't stop her. All she could do was follow her through the doors, holding her breath until she realized that the only occupant of the room was a fluffy white ball of fur that mewed piteously at her owner. "Snowy," Eileen said, picking up the cat. "What have you been up to, honey? You know you're not supposed to be in here."
"Pretty cat," Laura told her, looking around the room for any sign that Harry had been there or accomplished his mission.
"My father gave her to me a couple of years ago," Eileen told her, putting the cat back in the chair before moving toward the desk.
Laura noticed the cat's eyes were on the French doors, and followed that yellow gaze to find Harry standing there, pointing to the folder in his hand. The cat growled again, causing Eileen to stop and look at her.
"Snowy, that's not like you," she said, frowning again as the cat leapt to the floor and rushed toward the doors.
Laura held her breath as the cat tried to claw at the door, meowing. "Looks like she wants out," Laura noted.
Eileen picked Snowy up and looked through the glass pane. "She's a house cat. I've never seen her act that way before."
"Well, I have to be going," Laura began, and Eileen turned to look at her, the cat still in her arms, alternately purring loudly and growling at something unseen beyond the doors. Laura backed up a couple of steps. "I have to meet Mr. Steele to discuss the lead he was pursuing."
"Do you think it will help my father, Miss Holt?" Eileen asked.
"I'm sure of it," Laura promised. "By tomorrow morning at the latest, your father will be a free man."
"I hope so. I know he didn't kill Mother. I knew it all those years ago, and I'm just as sure of it now. Johnny Dedman must have killed her, and then killed himself when he realized what he'd done."
"Maybe. Mr. Steele thinks he's found something that can fill us in on what Mr. Dedman was up to these last weeks."
"Really?"
"A missing file about your father. He said he had an idea where it might be and took off to check it out."
"Sounds- interesting," Eileen responded slowly, going to stand behind her desk, releasing the cat to place her hands on the top. "I hope you and Mr. Steele will keep me informed? This not knowing is driving me crazy."
"Oh, you'll be the first to know when we find something, Miss Markham," Laura said. "I can let myself out," she said, finally reaching the door. "Good bye."
"Good bye," Eileen repeated, not moving an inch.
Laura turned and walked quickly to the front door, then out to the car. The news vans were gone, thank goodness. She drove slowly along the drive, looking for Harry. Just before the gate, he appeared from between two hydrangea bushes. Laura braked the car just long enough for him to open the passenger door before stepping on the accelerator.
"Do you know how close you came to being caught in there?" Laura asked him, glancing in the mirror as if she feared they were being followed.
"Believe me, Laura, I'm well aware of what happened. If it hadn't been for that bloody cat-"
"You didn't have to step on it, did you?"
"I didn't *see* it until I did!" Harry declared. "If I'd had a choice, I'd have preferred it to be a dog. I get along with dogs. *Cats*, however-," he declared darkly.
"I hadn't noticed," Laura commented, recalling his hidden affection for her own cat, Nero. "Nero's certainly never snarled at you like that."
"Nero's better behaved," Harry noted in a grudging tone of voice. He held up the folder. "She had it hidden under the pad on the desk."
"Let's go back to the office and see what it says, okay?"
"I think you'll find it interesting," Harry informed her.
"You've read some of it?"
"Just a couple of notes that Johnny Dedman made while I was waiting for you to pick me up. Eileen put him onto the idea of a movie about her father's life, starring her father."
***
Back at the office, Laura and Harry read the file as they sat in the conference area. "According to this," Laura said, "Johnny Dedman met Eileen Markham at her art gallery three weeks ago. He got an invitation for a showing, and went because he thought others in the film community might be there. He discovered that Eileen's father was Elliot Markham, and asked her why he had stopped acting."
Harry nodded. "She told him a bit about the accident and suggested that it would make a good plot for a movie- but that he would need to talk to her father for the details. Then she suggested that he might offer to let Elliot bring his private detective character out of retirement to play in the film as a detective trying to solve the murder of a well known actor's wife in a staged auto accident."
Laura peered closely at the handwritten notation in the margin of one of the pages. "What's this?"
Harry studied the cramped hand. "E. W. to be silent partner- will put up over half of money," he read.
The door opened and Murphy came in. "There you two are. Johnny Dedman is-"
"Dead," Laura finished for her surprised partner. "From an apparently self-administered dose of cyanide."
"How did you know that?" Murphy asked.
"We found him," Harry said.
"Oh."
"What did you find on Helen Markham, Murphy?" Laura asked.
He opened a note pad. "Not much. She vanished after the accident, and checked into that hotel you and Lord Harry followed her to three weeks ago." Harry noticed that Laura gave Murphy a thoughtful- almost angry look as he continued, as if she'd suddenly recalled something that she'd forgotten about. "Checked in using the name Helen Hamilton. Her maiden name. The clerk says that she hadn't paid her bill since she arrived- he was getting ready to toss her out."
Laura rose from the sofa. "Murphy, could I speak to you in your office for a moment, please?"
"Uh, sure," Murphy said, blinking in surprise at her request.
"Stay here," Laura told Harry. "See if you can find anything in that file about where Eileen was going to get the money to back Johnny Dedman's picture."
Harry nodded, watching as she and Murphy adjourned to the next office, closing the door behind them. Cautiously, he rose and moved nearer in hopes of overhearing their conversation.
****
Laura toyed with a pen on Murphy's desk as Murphy asked, "There's a connection between Dedman and Eileen Markham?"
"So it seems according to his records," Laura confirmed. "Murphy- did you - happen to meet someone named Felicia last night?" She looked up at him, willing him to tell her no, to convince her that she was wrong in what she suspected.
But even though he hid the guilt quickly, it wasn't quick enough. "Felicia?" he repeated.
"Oh, Murphy," she sighed. "Why?"
"Because I don't like the way that guy is wiggling his way into your life," Murphy explained. "I liked it when it was just you and me chasing the bad guys," he admitted. "How'd you find out?"
"Your little nick name for Harry," she said.
"I don't-"
"Lord Harry?" Murphy winced. "Apparently Felicia picked it up after you and she spoke. You told her what to say, didn't you?"
"How would I know that unless you tell me what she said?" Murphy countered.
***
Harry leaned closer to the door, trying to hear through the wooden panel. A sound near the other door caused him to turn in that direction, an ear still tuned to what was transpiring beyond the connecting door.
The sight of Eileen Markham standing there, the gun in her hand pointed at his heart, made Harry forget momentarily about Laura and Murphy. "Step away from the door, please, Mr. Steele."
To Be Continued---