“Like you, I was alone in the world. I was growing weary of the constant traveling and my work abroad. Yes, I wanted to start a family of my own. Elizabeth seemed perfect.”
“Too good to be true.”
“Yes.”
Adelaide gripped the edge of the cot with both hands. “How did you discover that Garrick was a spy for a foreign power?”
“I was convinced from the start that Elizabeth had not hanged herself. After the funeral I went through her things. I found some letters in the bottom of her jewelry box. They were from Garrick. There were also photos of him and mementos of the times they had spent together. I finally understood that my marriage had been a lie from the start. She had married me to please Garrick. Once I started looking into his background, it didn’t take long to realize that from the very beginning of their relationship he had planned to use her.”
“How?” Adelaide asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Soon after I took over my father’s import-export business I was approached by a man who works for a certain government agency. I was asked to do some favors.”
“What kind of favors?”
“I told you that my business took me to some dangerous places. The whole world is preparing for war, Adelaide. I was often in a position to observe and photograph the construction of fortifications of various foreign harbors and airports. In the course of my business I met many of the people around the globe who are engaged in the manufacture and shipment of weapons and military equipment. I learned who is stockpiling fuel and other essential materials and where those things were stored.”
“You were a secret agent? A spy?”
“I was never on the government payroll. But, yes, I did favors for that agency I mentioned. Garrick knew that.”
“How did he find out?”
“When it was all over, my contact at the agency told me that they had discovered a freelance spy working at the very heart of the agency. He was selling secrets to anyone who came up with the money.”
“How did you discover that Garrick was working for a foreign power?”
“It wasn’t until I concluded that he had murdered Elizabeth that I began to realize what had happened. Garrick had used her and manipulated her. In his letters he swore he would marry her when he had the information he needed. He made her think that I was the foreign spy and that she was doing her country a service by reporting on my contacts overseas. I think that Elizabeth believed him. She would have believed anything he said. She was obsessed with him. At first, she seemed to have thought that it would be exciting to be a spy. But she soon became bored and frustrated with the task. She wanted out. Garrick killed her to keep her quiet.”
“What happened to Garrick?”
There was a short, brittle pause from Jake’s cot. For a moment she did not think that he would answer the question. But eventually he spoke quietly into the darkness.
“About a month after he murdered Elizabeth, Garrick died,” he said.
“How did that happen?”
“He spent an evening on a gambling ship anchored off Santa Monica. He had too much to drink, fell overboard, and drowned.”
The lack of even a nuance of emotion in his voice told her that there was probably a lot more to the story. She also knew that she was not going to get the rest—not tonight.
“That was certainly convenient from the government’s point of view,” she ventured.
“No, it wasn’t convenient for the government,” Jake said. There was a cold, sharp edge on the words. “The agency rather liked the idea of leaving Garrick in place so that they could watch him.”
“But that would have meant letting him get away with murder.”
“The spy game is a game that is played outside the rules. Those who take part do not allow themselves to be distracted by questions of legality or right and wrong, let alone justice. All that matters is information.”
She heard the bleak resignation in his voice and understood.
“It sounds as if you had your fill of that game,” she said.
“I will admit that it was thrilling for a time. I was young and up for adventure and risk. I told myself that I was doing my patriotic duty.”
“You were.”
“I like to think so. But I got weary of living in the shadows.”
“Trust me, no one understands that better than me.”
“I know that now,” he said.
“Is Elizabeth’s family aware that she was murdered?” Adelaide asked. “Or do they believe the suicide story?”
“At first they were convinced that Elizabeth took her own life. They knew all about her strange temperament. At the funeral her father told me that she had attempted suicide on more than one occasion in the past. But, yes, now they know the truth.”
“What happened?”
“After Garrick fell off that gambling ship, someone contacted Elizabeth’s father anonymously to tell him that his daughter had been having an affair with a foreign spy and that she had been actively engaged in espionage against her own country. The blackmailer claimed to be in possession of Elizabeth’s diary.”
“How did you come to suspect that it was Zolanda who had it?”
“When I went through Elizabeth’s appointment calendar, I found the dates and times of her sessions with Zolanda. On one of them she had jotted down a reminder that the psychic had requested her to bring her diary to the appointment. There was some nonsense about using it to analyze the energy of Elizabeth’s dreams.”
“Elizabeth’s family will be ruined if the contents of that diary land in the headlines,” Adelaide said.
“Yes. An illicit liaison can be dealt with by a powerful clan like the New York Bentons. Affairs are routine in that world. But accusations and insinuations of espionage and treason would destroy the family.”
Adelaide caught her breath. “That’s why you’re so determined to recover the diary. You’re trying to protect Elizabeth’s family from scandal.”
“That’s part of it, but the truth is I have an obligation to do everything I can to find that damned diary. I was her husband. I didn’t protect her.”
“Stop it.” Adelaide shot to her feet, clutching the blanket at her breast. “Listen to me, you are not responsible for what happened to Elizabeth. You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved or who cannot muster the willpower to save herself. You could not fix her unstable temperament. Obviously she was obsessed with Peter Garrick. She was doomed because of that obsession. That was not your fault.”
Jake was quiet for a long moment. “I have to find that diary.”
“I know. Believe me, I do understand. Your sense of duty and honor and responsibility won’t allow you any other option. But you must not blame yourself for the situation that Elizabeth and Garrick created. That is another matter entirely. You are simply trying to clean up the mess they made. It’s a task you have undertaken and you will see it through because that is the kind of man you are. But you are not at fault.”
Jake fell silent again for a short time.
“I have never thought of things in quite that way,” he admitted after a while. “It’s all been tangled up in my mind from the moment I walked down those basement steps and found Elizabeth. I was planning to tell her that I wanted a divorce, you see. I knew it would look as if she had hanged herself because she was so unhappy in her marriage.”
“So you blamed yourself for that, as well. What did happen there at the end?”
“Elizabeth was not a very good spy. She simply wasn’t interested in me or my business connections. All she cared about was Garrick, but she never managed to give him anything that he considered useful. When she got bored and restless with the role he had assigned to her, she became a liability as far as he was concerned. He finally concluded that she was more of a liability than an asset.”
“It’s all so sad,” Adelaide said. She became aware of the chill in the room. She pulled the blanket more securely around her shoulders and moved to stand in front of the dying fire. “Thank you for telling me about Elizabeth and the diary. It makes it easier to understand what we’re dealing with.”