EPILOGUE
Arriving back, the
following week, from a literary engagement in the South of France, Stephen
Jacobs' attention was arrested by a large caption on the front page of his
local newspaper which read: TWO MURDERS AND ONE SUICIDE - WIDOWER'S
REVENGE. Reading on,
he discovered that the three victims of the affair were none other than James
Kelly, Sharon Taylor, and Douglas Searle. "Oh my God!" he exclaimed, as he
read the stark details of the crime and the presumed circumstances surrounding
its perpetration.
He remembered the telephone call Douglas Searle had made to his
Finchley address, shortly after his return from holiday with Sharon, when the
caller had introduced himself as a friend of James Kelly who, in consequence of
various personal circumstances in the recent past, was keen to play a practical
joke on the writer. For he had
unwittingly collaborated in the crime by taking the older man into his
confidence and duly furnishing him with the information he required to track
Sharon down on the night she went to visit James. He had been under the impression that Mr
Searle was merely intending to embarrass and frustrate
Fortunately for Stephen Jacobs, however, his latest little
sadistic gamble, played at a discreet distance, had the potential of working
out to his advantage. For he had been at
cross-purposes with himself for too long and would now have an opportunity to
straighten things out, at last, with Jennifer Crowe, the girl he had been
really interested in all along, whose loss of Sharon's friendship, following
her tragic death, would be more than adequately compensated, he felt confident,
by the gain of his, especially as he would play her as he had played no other
woman before!
