Bell, Book, and Scandal

the other one. Would you call and ask that copy center if they can use disks to print pictures?“
    Jane did what she was told. “They can. They’re only open for another hour though. We need to hurry.“
    Shelley asked the copy shop to print up fifty 4-by-6-inch shots. And she purchased several sheets of sticky labels.
    On the way back to the hotel, Jane asked, “Are you really sure you want to do this?“
    “It’s a public service, Jane. She’s a slimy eavesdropper and a vicious gossip. Somebody has to blow her cover and it might as well be us. Or rather Enid and Olga. Now let me print up these labels to put at the bottom of each picture.“
    The labels said, “This is Miss Mystery. Authors, be careful of what you say in her presence.“
    “Aren’t you skirting close to libel or slander, whichever it is?“ Jane asked.
    “No. I didn’t say anything specific enough. I didn’t claim she eavesdrops or says nasty things she overheard.“
    Shelley gave one sheet of labels to Jane, and they sat sticking the labels to the bottom of each picture. “Give Felicity a call, if you would. I’m sure she’d like a few copies for her writing pals.“
    “May we drop in on you for a moment?“ Jane asked Felicity. “Have you seen Miss Mystery’s post about Vernetta and us on her web site?“
    “No, but someone mentioned it in the elevator. I meant to look it up but have been too busy trying to pack all these things I’ve accumulated. Come on down.“ She gave her room number.
    Jane and Shelley took along a printout of the web page and all the pictures.
    “Wow, that’s unusually nasty of her,“ Felicity said when she’d read the printout. “I don’t remember her ever going after anyone except authors and the jerks who post their loony notes on her bulletin board section. She had no right to cite you two. Even though Enid and Olga don’t exist.“
    Then she took a look at the pile of pictures. “How did you make her stand still to be photographed?“
    Shelley said, “I trailed her for an hour, lurking where she couldn’t see me and my tiny camera. I didn’t dare use the flash and most of them were murky or had other people in the picture. This was the only good one.“
    “So what are you doing with so many of these?“ Felicity asked.
    “I want to put one on the conference bulletin board. It will probably disappear when the people staffing it come back in the morning. The rest... well, I thought you might want to share them with your writer friends so everyone will know what she looks like.“
    “That’s a brilliant idea. I’ll become a heroine. Let me put my shoes on and we’ll go downstairs.“
     

Twenty-six
     
    In the rush to have the pictures done of Miss Mystery, Jane and Shelley didn’t fail to enjoy their late-night dessert. They both ordered hot fudge sundaes and regretted this choice all night long. They each got up twice during the night to take antacids.
    “The real cure for this is bland food,“ Shelley said. “We’re supposed to meet Felicity for breakfast. We can enjoy watching what she eats while we stick with very slightly buttered toast.“
    When they reached the lobby shortly after eight in the morning, the whole place was awash in black-and-white copies of Miss Mystery’s picture. The woman claiming to be Lucille Weirather was frantically rushing around the lobby and meeting rooms, trying to find and destroy them. But new ones kept reappearing as if by magic.
    Felicity had asked them to meet her at the door of the restaurant and they joined her, laughing like loons.
    “How did you do that?“ Jane asked.
    “I gave out the color copies to several writing friends who had access to copiers. They distributed them everywhere at about six this morning. The one we put on the registration bulletin board has disappeared, as we expected. We’ve done the entire world of mystery writers an enormous favor. She won’t ever again get away with this eavesdropping at conferences. Her cover’s been blown.“
    “We’ve annoyed the planners,“ Shelley said with a hint of regret. “But it pays them back for posting a notice telling us which subjects we weren’t supposed to talk about.“
    “They’ll recover from it,“ Felicity said. “Often somebody commits an outrage at these conferences. I once went to one where a woman was carrying around a live chicken. Vernetta’s offense was a worse one than ours.“
    “I’m still wondering about who originally wrote the parts from the