Roger had quite a baby face which made it difficult to judge his age from his appearance. He was definitely older than thirty but below fifty years old. He was fit, like a man who could be a very pleasant friend or an archenemy; in short, he could get the job done no matter the situation. With his good looks, many women believed that he would make a very good lover.
Roger is what you would call a successful man; he had studied a little bit of law, he was a military veteran, a businessman, and currently a private detective.
Christiana was a very beautiful woman, endowed in every angle you could think of. Her curves made her the perfect candidate for every clothe she put on. In fact, she graced and added value to whatever she wore. Her blue eyes, golden hair, and ornaments sent chills over every many that laid eyes on her. John must have been a lucky man to get such a beautiful woman as his wife.
Christiana walked slowly into Roger's office requesting his services. She had already placed an appointment with him. She wanted him to investigate the death of her lovely husband. Though the coroner's report suggested that he had shot himself in an accident, she believed there was more to it. She caught the attention of everyone as she walked toward Roger's office.
"Mrs. Cooper, this isn't the kind of job this agency handles. I am sure you can find somebody else", he said as the would-be-client handed her the documents she had brought".
Roger tried to keep it professional to no avail; she was too beautiful a woman to not notice. Christiana realized he was feeling uneasy but it was normal, this was not the first time she had made someone feel uncomfortable with her looks.
"Why not?" she countered. "Is this not a detective agency? Is your building not marked Roger's Detective, Investigations and Protection Agency? Well, I want to know how it all happened and who had a hand in his death". "That's an investigation, isn't it? Moreover, I want protection from being swindled by the greedy men out there. Don't tell me you can't do it. I know you are a collector yourself with a handful of rare cars in your care. If you are not perfect for this job then I don't know who else is".
Roger grew more uncomfortable as she spoke. Turns out she wasn't just beautiful but intelligent as well. He wondered how much Christiana knew about him. Even if she didn't know anything, she had successfully locked him in a corner he had never found himself with any client.
He knew this was a big deal and he could walk away from it with something good to help him with his collection; maybe he could even get some of the cars from John's collection for his services. On second thought, Roger realized how uncomfortable it would be for him to see her every day until everything was done with.
"Well Mrs. Cooper, this agency and its services require some personal supervision from me. However, none of it demands my exclusive presence. If you want the services of this agency, I could turn it over to some of the staff here", he explained. With the look on her face, he knew his words generally meant nothing to her. For some reason, she wanted him on the job; nobody else but him.
"Now, I could do what you want to be done, but it would cost you three or four times what you'd gain by retaining me", he added hoping to change her mind.
"Well, that's for me to decide isn't it, Colonel," she replied. "How much would you want for this job?", she asked politely. "To start with, it's been some time since your husband died and I would to start the investigation from scratch if we really want to know what happened. In addition, your husband's collection consists of very rare cars of various types if you want me to catalog, appraise each item, issue lists, and negotiate with prospective buyers. The cataloging and appraisal alone would take more than a week, and it would be a couple more weeks until a satisfactory sale could be arranged." "How about Ten thousand dollars".
He was expecting an outcry; however, she nodded in agreement. "That seems reasonable enough, Colonel Roger, considering that you'd have to be staying with us at Mirfield, away from your office here in London,". "I'll give you a check for a thousand now, with a letter of authorization". Roger nodded in return.
"Very well then, you are hired. I will be in Mirfield sometime tomorrow, you can come for a list of prospective buyers and then we continue from there", she said.
"Before you go, I need to know your status in relation to the collection. Are you the sole owner?", he curiously asked. "No." She paused for a second, picking her words carefully. "We may just run into a little trouble here and there but that is nothing we cannot handle. You see, the collection is part of the residue of the estate, left equally to my two stepdaughters, Jennifer Cooper, Samantha Cooper, and myself. You understand, Mr. Cooper and I were married in 1945 after his first wife died."
"Well, your stepdaughters, now; would they also be my clients?", Roger quizzed. "Of course, they're just as interested in selling the collection for the best possible price, but beyond that, we may have a couple of divergent opinions but as I said before, that is nothing we cannot handle. For instance, Jennifer and her husband, Patrick, have been insisting that we let him handle the sale of the cars; because he is something of a businessman himself. He actually got some of the offers from the prospective buyers I was talking about. However, personally, I think they are playing him for the sucker he is", she explained.
"But if your stepdaughters are co-owners, what's my status? What authority, do I have to do any negotiating?", Roger asked. Christiana Cooper laughed hysterically. "That's no problem at all, my dear Colonel. Actually, it won't be as hard as it looks. If Jennifer gives you any argument, you can count on Samantha to take your side as a matter of principle; if Samantha opposes first, Jennifer will help you overrule her back into line. Patrick Stewart is accustomed to obeying orders and Steve Robins, Samantha's husband has shown no interest in the collection."
"Our attorney, Mr. Sean Grover who is the executor of the estate, will welcome you with open arms, once he finds out what you want to do. That collection has him talking to himself, already. Here if you come over to our happy home in the early afternoon, before Patrick and Steve we can reach some sort of agreement with Samantha and Jennifer", she added.
I think I'll talk to Grover, first.", Roger chipped in. "Yes. That would be smart," Christiana agreed. "After all, he's responsible for selling the collection." She moved over to the desk and sat down in Roger's chair while she wrote out the check and a short letter of authorization, then she returned to her own seat.
"One more thing, because of the manner of Mr. Cooper's death, the girls have a horror of the collection almost; No one has mustered the courage to open the garage. But I think their desire to get the best price out of it will overcome their fear."
"Yes. I'd heard that Mr. Cooper had been killed in a firearms accident, last November," Roger mentioned.
"We'd finished dinner about 7 pm, or a little after. At about half-past, Jennifer went out somewhere in the coupé. Steve had gone up to his laboratory, in the attic—he's one of these fortunate whose work is also his hobby; he's a biochemist and dietitian—and John was in the garage, cleaning his cars as he always did every night. Patrick was having a bath, and Samantha and I had taken our coffee into the east parlor. Samantha put on the radio, and we were listening to it.
"It must have been about 7:47 or 7:48 because the program had changed and the first commercial was just over when we heard a loud noise from the garage. Neither of us thought of a shot; my own first idea was of a door slamming. Then, about five minutes later, we heard Steve, pounding on a door, and shouting: 'John! John! Are you all right?' We ran up the front, and found Steve, in his rubber lab-apron, and Patrick, in a bathrobe, barefooted, standing outside the garage door. The door was locked, and that in itself was unusual; there's a Yale lock on it, but nobody ever used it.
"For a minute or so, we just stood there. Steve was explaining that he had heard a shot and that nobody in the garage answered. Samantha told him, rather impatiently, to go down to the library and up the spiral into the garage. You see," she explained, "the library is directly over the garage, and there's a spiral stairway connecting the two rooms. So Steve went upstairs and we stood waiting in the hall. Patrick was shivering in his bathrobe; he said he'd just jumped out of the bathtub, and he had nothing on under it. After a while, Steve opened the garage door from the inside, and stood in the doorway, blocking it. He said: 'You'd better not come in. There's been an accident, but it's too late to do anything. John's shot himself with his pistol".
"I pushed him aside and went in, and the others followed me. By this time, the uproar had penetrated to the rear of the house, and the servants— the butler, the cook—had joined us. We found John inside, lying on the floor, shot through the forehead. Of course, he was dead. He'd been sitting on one of his cars; he had his tools and polish and oil and rags on it. He'd fallen off it to one side and was lying beside it. He had a revolver in his right hand, and an oily rag in his left."
"We had something of an argument about what to do. The butler offered to call the police. He's English, and his mind seems to run naturally to due process of law. Patrick and Steve both howled that proposal down; they wanted no part of the police. At the same time, Samantha was going into hysterics, and I was trying to get her to quiet down. I took her to her room and gave her a couple of sleeping pills, and then went back to the garage. While I was gone, it seems that Steve had called our family doctor and then Patrick called Sean, our lawyer. Grover lives next door to us, about two hundred yards away, so he arrived almost at once. When the doctor came, he called the coroner, and when he arrived, about an hour later, they all went into a huddle and decided that it was an obvious accident and that no inquest would be necessary. Then, somebody, I'm not sure who called an undertaker. It was past eleven when he arrived, and for once, Jennifer got home early. She was just coming in while they were carrying John out in a basket. You can imagine how horrible that was for her; it was days before she was over the shock.."
Through the recital, Roger had sat silently, playing with a souvenir he had gotten from an Italian friend of his. Once or twice there had been a small catch in her voice, but otherwise, the narration had been a piece of straight reporting, neither callous nor emotional. Good reporting, too; carefully detailed.
"Yes, it must have been dreadful," he sympathized. "Odd, though, that an old hand with guns like Mr. Cooper would have an accident like that. I met him, once or twice, and was at your home to see his collection, a couple of years ago. He impressed me as knowing firearms pretty thoroughly... Well, you can look for me tomorrow, say around two. In the meantime, I'll see Grover for his legal advice before proceeding".