You know how last week Duke Silver was all “I don’t just care about you, Victoria Mars”? Well that actually turns out to be true, because this episode kicks off with him making his way downtown (walkin’ fast, faces pass), stopping for a quick chat with pretty much everyone he sees on his way to Scotland Yard, smiling all the way. He’s having a great day! At least, that is, until he finds New Superintendent lurking in Duke Silver’s office.
Duke Silver: Uh, what’s wrong?
New Superintendent: Just sit down. Look, we’ve had our differences, but I think you’re actually good at your job, so I put in a recommendation for you when I heard there was an open Chief Inspector position. You deserve it, and it even comes with more cash!
Duke Silver: Wow! Thank you!
Me: What’s the catch?
New Superintendent: Rude, recapper, there isn’t one… for me. But yeah, the position is in Glasgow and you’d have to move by the end of the month. It’ll be nice to go back home, right?
Duke Silver: Well thanks again, but I need some time to think about it.
I asssumed New Superintendent would shut that down. But instead, he just says he’s going out of town and expects an answer when he gets back. Now THIS is a good conundrum for our buddy. On the one hand, there’s a promotion, and getting to be around more Scottish people, which feels like a win. On the other hand, there’s leaving behind his work son Baby Detective and on again/off again thing with Victoria Mars. Given the literal actual name of this show, I feel like we can make a guess at which option he’ll choose, but who knows: there’s always room for surprises!
While Duke Silver tries to process all that, across town, Victoria Mars and Moses gossip about the rich and powerful. Or at least attempt to: unfortunately, all the powerbrokers are being stubbornly boring, which isn’t good for Victoria Mars, who feeds off scandal like a particularly puckish vampire.
Moses: Look, none of them have done ANYTHING interesting, why are you stuck on this?
Victoria Mars, embarrassed: Snooty’s been paying me to do background checks on potential husbands for Glasses. And I promised Glasses I’d find dirt on all of them; she wants to pick her own husband, the weirdo.
Moses: Well, find someone else to look into this stuff, I’m done.
Victoria Mars: Ok, look, I know this is a morally gray area!
Moses: I don’t care about the ETHICS, this is just boring! All of these people are identically dull, and you know I have to care about my reputation for being shady!
Victoria Mars: Are you… asking for more cash?
Moses: NO. I’m asking for something interesting to do. Why, you offering?
Victoria Mars: Ugh, no, you’re right: there are better uses of our time. I’ll go tell Snooty.
Moses: You know, I’m happy to do that for you… if the money’s right.
Victoria Mars: LMAO, I would genuinely love to see that.
Still giggling, the two leave the office, and run straight into a very dour Duke Silver, who as always is needlessly rude to Moses, who takes that as a sign to skedaddle.
Duke Silver, for some reason forgetting Moses works with Victoria Mars most episodes: What was he doing here?
Victoria Mars: That’s a nice waistcoat!
Duke Silver: Classic you, changing the subject when you don’t want to talk about something.
Victoria Mars: Hm. Well look, good running into you because I need help. Ivy has insisted on inviting Barney the Morgue Bureaucrat to dinner on Thursday and I 100% cannot do that solo. Pleeease?
Duke Silver: Look, I actually need to talk to you about something —
Victoria Mars: Sure, but I’m going to get a cab while we talk; Glasses is coming over and I’m running late. Also this better not be about Moses.
Duke Silver, having a hard time already since this is an emotional topic and now peeved as well: It’s not! But if you’re going to hang out with criminals… I’m getting off track, I don’t want to talk about Moses or Barney the EFFING Morgue Bureaucrat! I, uh. I got offered a promotion.
Victoria Mars: OMG, that’s amazing! Congratulations!
Duke Silver: Thanks. Uh. It’s in Glasgow.
Victoria Mars: Oh. Huh. That’s a bummer.
Duke Silver: That’s all you’re gonna say? It’s in GLASGOW. That’s in SCOTLAND.
Victoria Mars: Yeah man, I know about maps! But you’re obviously not going to take it, so…
Duke Silver: How do you know?
Me: Because she also knows what the show’s called?
Victoria Mars: Shush, recapper. I know because I’m your friend, and every time you’ve been offered a job outside of London you’ve turned it down! Including the last time they tried to make you a DCI in Nottingham! This is at least the third time we’ve done this — every time you stress about it and ultimately stay here. I get it, man: you’re comfortable!
Duke Silver: COMFORTABLE? I’m seriously thinking of taking the job! And yes, I know I’ve said that before!
And with that, he storms off in a huff. Later, Victoria Mars pours Glasses some tea and levels with her friend: she’s starting to run out of reasons why these various men aren’t good enough.
Victoria Mars, for some reason now thinks Snooty is a reasonable person?: Just talk to her and tell her you’re not ready!
Glasses: It’s not that I don’t want to get married yet, it’s that I don’t want to marry someone who isn’t into me.
Victoria Mars: Ah, you want love.
Glasses: Yeah! But Snooty thinks I’m silly. She keeps saying I’m too old and ugly to be choosy, but she’d never understand my situation, because everyone loves her.
Victoria Mars, and me, both almost spitting out our tea: LOL what? You’re an adult. Stand up for yourself.
Glasses: She’s scary!
Victoria Mars: Yes, but you’re amazing and anyone would be lucky to have you, so make her listen.
Glasses: Ok! I’ll tell her I don’t want to get married. Dad left me some cash… maybe I can set up my own house? It’ll be hard, but I’m an adult! I’ll figure it out! I can go to my accountant and find out my financial situation. Will you come with me? I’m scared of him.
Victoria Mars: You got this on your own; I’m not going.
Yeah, you knew it too: Victoria Mars obviously changes her mind. Outside the accountant’s office, Glasses explains that they’ll need to pretend to be cool about Snooty, because Mean Accountant is a big fan of hers, the weirdo. Apparently, according to Glasses, he’s not alone in his affections. Glasses even muses that she doesn’t understand how her aunt is still single. Obviously, Victoria Mars has some Opinions about this, but chooses to keep them to herself at present. Inside the office, Victoria Mars settles into the waiting room, sending her friend in alone. But alas, no accounting will be discussed today.
The gals fetch Duke Silver and Baby Detective, who take in the scene. While Duke Silver starts talking about how he’s ascertaining time of death with Baby Detective, Victoria Mars surveys the room.
Victoria Mars: This seems familiar?
Duke Silver: I told you to take Glasses to the station to give statements!
Victoria Mars: Yeah but as usual I’m ignoring you. The scene is staged, right?
Duke Silver: Anyway, Baby Detective, based on rigor mortis we can estimate that death occurred?
Baby Detective: Sometime last night!
Victoria Mars: At 11:45.
Duke Silver, snarky: Oh, I’m sorry, Victoria Mars apparently has a new undiscovered technique. Apologies.
Victoria Mars: No, look: the clock was stopped. And no, it didn’t just wind down… this whole scene is right out of a novel. “Quarter To Midnight.” You haven’t read it?
Duke Silver seems more like a historical documentary/This Old House kind of guy, so I for one am not surprised when he explains that he hasn’t read the book and asks Victoria Mars for a precis. Basically, the whole scene (blood stained lily, neck knife, clock stopped) is right out of the novel, like a reverse Law and Order.
Victoria Mars: You should read more.
Duke Silver: I do! Just not that book!
Baby Detective, loyally: I haven’t read it either.
Duke Silver: THANK you.
Baby Detective, also kind of into Victoria Mars, especially if Duke Silver isn’t going to make a move: But I do read a book a week. Right now I’m working through the Russian classics.
Duke SIlver:
Look for a visitor’s log or appointment book. Victoria Mars? Let’s talk in the hall.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that once there, he practically begs her to just go back and make her statement. Could she be helpful at the scene? Probably! But he’s grumpy at her for correctly pointing out his pattern of behavior earlier.
Duke Silver: I get it; you think I’m not ambitious enough!
Victoria Mars: What? No I don’t! You’ve just got your life the way you want it! You’re settled!
Duke Silver: Oh my God, that’s somehow even WORSE than comfortable, dude! We have to stop talking about this; I’ll inform you when I make a decision.
Victoria Mars: Can I just say —
Duke Silver: NO! Go talk to Hardscrabble.
Baby Detective, walking in at a bad time, again: Heyyy, so that book you mentioned. By Mystery Author? The victim was his accountant.
Duke Silver:
Outside the crime scene, their tiff continues. Victoria Mars insists that Duke Silver should stop being such a stick in the mud and hire her for the case. She’s a huge fan of Mystery Author, having read all of his books, and besides, if Duke Silver won’t hire her, Glasses will. Wouldn’t it be better to collaborate, instead of fighting each other? Duke Silver, too worried about his five year plan to argue, agrees to hire her… for half her going rate.
Later, at a bookshop, we get to see Mystery Author in action at a reading of his latest book. The work? Pulpy, but fun. The audience? Enthusiastic and entranced. Everyone is just queueing up to get their books signed when Duke Silver and Victoria Mars make their entrance.
Bookstore Proprietress: Get to stepping, pal! This event is for ticket holders only, and you can wait outside until we’re done like everyone else.
Duke Silver: I’m a cop, lady: here to cop it up.
Bookstore Proprietress: So why’d you bring your wife?
Duke Silver: Why does everyone keep making this assumption?????
Victoria Mars: I’m not his wife, I’m a colleague: I’m a private detective.
Bookstore Proprietress: Seriously? I’ve heard some wild stories, but this?
Duke Silver: Ma’am, I don’t even want to be here! I’ve never read these books! I’m not a fan!
My dude, if there’s one thing you don’t want to be doing it’s pissing off a fandom community. Thankfully, the ravening wolves of Victorian-era BookTok are quieted by Victoria Mars’ assertion that she IS a big fan, and the ruckus also brings over Mystery Author’s Sister, who’s able to get her brother into a private room for a chat. Reader, he’s surprisingly chill for a person who’s stories may have led to a murder, especially since he knew the victim.
Mystery Author: Hey, quit editorializing! I didn’t know him well or anything, we only talked at tax season. Pretty buckwild that the murder seemed like what happened in my book though.
Duke Silver: I’m sure you get that I need to ask where you were last night.
Mystery Author: I’m sure I don’t. Get it, that is.
Mystery Author’s Sister: It’s a standard question, bud.
Mystery Author: Ugh, fine: I was at a hotel in town finishing my latest book. Had dinner with my sister and then I worked. All night; I’m up against a deadline here.
Victoria Mars: Is it true that you one time finished a book in the cab on the way to the publishers?
Mystery Author, starting out relatable and then taking a sharp turn into causing me deep professional jealousy: Oh, I’m TERRIBLE about deadlines. But I never get writer's block, I can just work whenever/wherever. You like my books?
Victoria Mars, fangirling a bit: YES. I actually love “Quarter to Midnight” best.
Duke Silver, all eyes on him: Uh. I haven’t read it. But I really liked “Curse of the Crimson Shadow”...
Mystery Author, rather put out: I didn’t write that one.
Later, at Scotland Yard, Victoria Mars explains the plot of “Quarter to Midnight” in great detail, allowing me to share with you this recap within a recap: the book, ostensibly based on Mystery Author’s life (he, like many authors, struggled for a long time to publish) follows a writer struggling to find inspiration to finish his latest work. Over the course of the novel, he slowly loses his mind; thinking his friends are trying to institutionalize him, he murders them both. But he can’t live with the guilt, like Macbeth.
Victoria Mars, perhaps forgetting her pal is SCOTTISH: You know “Macbeth”, right?
Duke Silver: Yes, smartypants, I know “Macbeth.” Go on.
Victoria Mars: Ok, geez, sorry: the author in the story lost both of his parents to scarlet fever as a kid, and he remembers seeing them in their coffins holding white lilies. And the time of death is when he killed his friends. On separate nights, of course.
Duke Silver: So if someone is out here recreating the book, they might kill again?
Victoria Mars: Yikes. Yup. Do we know more about the victim?
Duke Silver: Not really.
Victoria Mars: Cool. I’ll go re-read the book. See if we missed anything. You may want to pick up a copy too.
Duke Silver, as soon as she’s gone: Baby Detective! Get in here. Look, can you get me all the background on the accountant. And uh. A brief synopsis of Macbeth.
Baby Detective: When the hurlyburly’s done! When the battle’s lost and won!
Me: I’d have gone with “screw your courage to the sticking place” for inspiration, but I’m a Lady Macbeth stan, so...
Duke Silver: UGH, NERDS. Make it short.
His next stop? The bookstore, to attempt to purchase “Quarter to Midnight.” I say attempt, because Bookstore Proprietress, a proper fan, keeps trying to get him to start with a rotating list of other books by Mystery Author that she thinks will be a more appropriate entree into his work.
Bookstore Proprietress: Ugh, I can’t pick! Anyway, why did you want to talk to Mystery Author in the first place?
Duke Silver: I’m sorry, I can’t discuss it.
Bookstore Proprietress: I knew something was up as soon as he arrived — he’s usually in a great mood at readings, but he was clearly upset today.
Duke Silver: Before I spoke to him?
Bookstore Proprietress: Yeah. I hope everything is ok?
Duke Silver, about to drop all his cash on these books:
Later that night, as he tries to make his way through the first book at the cop bar, Hardscrabble totally ignores his boss’ attempt to “concentrate” and brings him a beer. Normally I’m very opposed to anyone interrupting someone who’s trying to read, but in this case Hardscrabble might be doing our friend a favor so I guess I’ll let it slide.
Hardscrabble: So… this is out of character for you. You’re not much of a book guy, normally.
Duke Silver: It’s for the case. What do you want?
Hardscrabble: I just wanted to see how you were doing. Bring you a drink. See if you had any… news?
Duke Silver: We’ve worked together for a decade and you’ve never once bought me a drink. Seriously, what do you want?
Hardscrabble: Ok, fine: I heard New Superintendent talking to you about the promotion. On my way past your office. And I was thinking if you take it maybe you put in a good word for me to take your job?
Duke Silver: Real subtle.
Hardscrabble: Dude, I have a wife and four… five kids! I can’t afford subtle! Look, I know you’ve turned down offers like this before, but you’re not getting any younger, and eventually you’re going to stop getting those offers, and you’ll just be stuck here. Forever. Something to think about.
Duke Silver: Great. Thanks. Now I’m going to get back to this awful book.
And he does, spending the rest of the evening plowing through the hated novel. Victoria Mars is doing pretty much the same thing, until later that night she notices the publisher’s seal on her copy which gives her an idea. Alas, we have to wait for the next morning, when she corners Duke Silver at the shoeshine stand, to find out what that idea is.
Duke Silver: How’d you find me?
Victoria Mars: It’s Wednesday. That’s shoe shine day.
Duke Silver: WOW, rude. Anyway, what’s up?
Victoria Mars: I need to see the murder weapon. I re-read the book last night.
Duke Silver: Same. Did you know Mystery Author was raised in a workhouse?
Victoria Mars: I did. Lots of his characters have rags to riches stories.
Duke Silver: Ah, yes, much like the lawyer in the Greenwich one.
Victoria Mars: Extra credit work? I’m surprised and impressed!
Duke Silver: How do you wrap a compliment in an insult SO effectively?
Victoria Mars: Did you make a call on the job yet? Because I am here if you want to talk.
Duke Silver: Yes, because I love to be insulted. Moving on: you wanted to see the murder weapon?
Victoria Mars: Yeah, so you know how in the book the first victim is stabbed with his own knife, and then the second one is killed with that same knife? That made me wonder if —
Duke Silver: If Mean Accountant wasn’t our first victim. Good call.
Victoria Mars: Also, I noticed something about the publisher’s seal last night: a galloping horse. Just like the one engraved on this here knife.
Duke Silver: So if the murderer is sticking to canon, we better go see if anyone’s dead at the publisher.
Seems sensible, so they head right over to the publisher’s where they end up breaking down the door to find another body, just as expected, and just like the book. Next stop? The hotel where Mystery Author is staying, to ask more questions.
Mystery Author: Publisher was a good guy; he took me on when no one else would.
Duke Silver: And when did you last see him?
Mystery Author: We had dinner Thursday; he was happy. We talked about my book.
Victoria Mars: Would anyone want to hurt him?
Mystery Author: I, uh. My brain is all foggy.
Mystery Author’s Sister: He was up all night writing. I tell him to go to bed, but does he listen?
Duke Silver: And that’s what you were doing last night? Writing? What happened to your hand there?
Mystery Author: Yes, I was writing all night! And why are you asking me about my hand? It’s irrelevant! Sorry I’m being rude, but my friend just died. I, uh. I slipped. Too much brandy. Anyway, can we wrap this up? I should go look in on Publisher’s son, he’ll be wrecked.
Duke Silver: No. Both murders were exactly like ones in your book, and as you know, there’s a third death still to come.
Mystery Author: Yeah, yeah, the author in the book dies by suicide, but I won’t be doing that, I promise.
Mystery Author’s Sister: Yeah, but if someone is copying the books they may want to hurt you!
Duke Silver: We’re going to have someone watch you. If you want to go home, we can take you.
Mystery Author: Our home is being decorated. I’ll stay here.
Duke Silver: Great. I’ll wait with you until backup arrives. Victoria Mars, take this message back to the office.
The message? “Check his alibi.” Seems prudent! Especially after Victoria Mars chats with the night porter and finds out that Mystery Author definitely left the hotel that evening and didn’t come back until after midnight.
Duke Silver: A killer copying the murders in his own books?
Victoria Mars: Seems more likely someone would be trying to mess with his reputation.
Duke Silver: True, but hiding in plain sight does have its perks. Huh, looks like he was arrested a few months ago for public disorder. He was fighting with some woman in the street; they threatened to kill each other so they both got arrested! She’s an actress — you go talk to her, I’ll check out the bodies in the mortuary.
Baby Detective, entering the room: Oh hey Victoria Mars! Your cab’s here boss. Hey, on the way back can we stop in the theater district? I wanna grab some tickets for a new show.
Duke Silver:
Baby Detective: Or I could do that outside of work. Bye!
Duke Silver: Good gravy; what will happen to that child if I leave?
Victoria Mars: Well it’s a good thing you aren’t going to take the job, huh?
Duke Silver: BRO. How many times have we been over this? I haven’t decided yet, because I actually think about the life I’ve built for myself, unlike you. If you were offered the job you’d take it without a second thought!
Victoria Mars: Yeah, and when women are allowed to be Chief Inspectors we can talk about it.
Duke Silver: Seriously, if you were offered more money and higher profile cases you’d jump on it, no matter the location!
Victoria Mars: We’re different people!
Duke Silver, sarcastic: Yeah, because you’re all ambitious and I’m boring and predictable, I get it. You tease me about my life all the time :( Look, given my background, I have made something amazing of myself! I didn’t get the luxury of inheriting my dad’s business. Oh boy, that came out meaner than I meant it to, I’m sorry.
Victoria Mars, too annoyed to take the apology: Ok, I’m gonna leave now. Wouldn't want to stop you from having your 3pm whiskey.
She sure does know him well, because it is 3pm, and Duke Silver does go for the whiskey bottle. Although maybe that’s more to do with Victoria Mars than the hour? Across town, Victoria Mars knocks on Fightin’ Actress’ door, only to have the woman in question open it, proclaim our heroine “too pretty” and immediately close it again. Victoria Mars, undaunted, keeps knocking.
Fightin’ Actress: The maid can’t be hotter than me! She’s gotta be at least 10 years older. Tell them to recast!
Victoria Mars: I’m not an actress! I wanted to talk to you about Mystery Author. What was your deal?
Fightin’ Actress, letting her in: Oh, we were doing the do. We met at a party somewhere. We don’t see each other anymore; I’ve got a new, more… eager to please lover now.
Victoria Mars: How long were you together? And what happened the night you guys got arrested?
Fightin’ Actress: About a year? And that was my bad: he tried to break it off, and I got drunk and went to see him, and things snowballed. I claimed it was “Italian passion”; I’m not actually Italian but nobody’s heard of my country so I go with Italy for the optics. Look, I didn’t care that he broke up with me, it was how he did it! He sent his friend with a diamond necklace to buy me off.
Victoria Mars: Who was the friend?
Fightin’ Actress: His accountant. I call him the grim reaper; he broke up with at least a dozen of Mystery Author’s lady friend’s over the years.
Meanwhile, at the morgue, Duke Silver verifies that both victims were killed identically, and sends the boys out to canvass both neighborhoods.
Baby Detective, living up to my expectations: Screw your courage to the sticking place! What, you guys don’t stan Lady Macbeth?
Hardscrabble: Do I have to go with him?
Duke Silver: Yeah, if you want to keep your job. Baby Detective, hang back a sec? Look, kid, our job requires teamwork. You, more than anyone, need your coworkers to like, trust, and respect you. Quoting Shakespeare?
Baby Detective: I’m sorry :(
Duke Silver: I might not always be here to keep an eye on you; you need to start fitting in.
Baby Detective: Where are you going??
Duke Silver: Nowhere, I’m just making a point. Talk to them about stuff they like. Make some friends. The more you seem like an outsider the weaker you’ll be, and these guys can smell weakness. You can fit in, right?
Baby Detective: You sound like my dad.
Duke Silver, speaking for all of us:
Later, at Victoria Mars’ office, Glasses stops by with an update: Snooty is super bummed that Mean Accountant was murdered.
Victoria Mars: About that: Mystery Author told us he only saw Mean Accountant a couple of times a year.
Glasses: That’s weird. He talked about Mystery Author ALL the time. Made it sound like they were besties. Then again, he might have been trying to impress Snooty, since he was secretly in love with her.
Victoria Mars: Pal, can we NOT talk about Snooty and/or her putative love life?
Glasses: Yeah, ok. Anyway, Mean Accountant did tons of favors for Mystery Author. Like recently he bought a house for the guy. Actually… the house is in Snooty’s neighborhood. Everyone was SUPER excited to have a famous author move in until… well, I don’t want to gossip.
Victoria Mars: Sure, it’s generally considered bad. But go on.
Glasses: Well, he moved in a couple of months ago and was doing all these major renovations. But then last week, the house got repossessed!
Now THIS is the kind of juicy gossip that needs to be shared with (and confirmed by) Moses, so share it Victoria Mars does. Turns out that Mystery Author is deeply in debt, owing money all over town.
Moses: Yeah, he went to the bailiff’s last night to try and get them to return a piece of furniture they repossessed. He’s been there every day this week trying to buy it back, but they won’t let him take it unless he pays the full tab.
Victoria Mars: What is it?
Moses: A writing desk. He claimed he couldn’t write without it.
Victoria Mars: Well he told me he could write whenever or wherever he wanted, so he’s lying about something.
Moses: Oh, many somethings: they caught him trying to break into the impound last night and roughed him up. Hence the bandaged hand.
Victoria Mars: I’m assuming you know somebody at the impound?
Moses: My dude, I know somebody everywhere.
Speaking of knowing somebody, later that night, Baby Detective tries to get to know his fellow detectives a bit better at their pub. Naturally, Hardscrabble mostly just calls him a wee baby, which is only ok when *I* do it, and Baby Detective also bumps into someone and gets covered in spilled beer. Undaunted, he tells Hardscrabble to shut it.
Hardscrabble, scary: Do you want to say that again? Didn’t think so, you spoiled baby!
Baby Detective: *upends an entire beer on Hardscrabble’s head”
Hardscrabble, pissed: You shouldn’t have done that.
Yeah, probably not, but honestly I’m surprised it took this long for Baby Detective to snap. Anyway, across town, Victoria Mars and Moses take a little ramble through the impound, where every item in Mystery Author’s house is piled high. Unsurprisingly, the stuff is all SUPER fancy, which may explain the debt. With the exception, that is, of the writing desk, which isn’t very fancy at all.
Victoria Mars: He must be sentimental about it?
Moses: Yeah, people do that. I once knew a man who got into a knife fight over a rocking chair that had belonged to his mom.
Victoria Mars: You?
Moses, probably lying: NO!
Victoria Mars: Huh, this is weird: someone’s carved Harpocrates into the desk. That’s the name of a lawyer in one of Mystery Author’s early books who makes all his cash defending men he knows are guilty of murder. And the Greek God of silence; a legendary secret keeper that one. But the desk, at least, is no match for me: found a secret latch!
Opening the drawer, Victoria Mars finds neat stacks of paper tied up in ribbons: marked up manuscripts for all of Mystery Author’s novels. But why are they hidden? We’re about to find out: Victoria Mars bursts into the hotel hallway right after Duke Silver has arrived to check in on Mystery Author. Striding into his room, she rips open the curtains to reveal that the man in question is sleeping in his bed, and not up writing as he’d claimed.
Duke Silver and Mystery Author: What the heck is happening?
Victoria Mars: I knew it. Ok, we need to be quick: no time to waste. The final death in the book is the author.
Duke Silver: And you want to leave him unguarded?
Victoria Mars: He isn’t the author.
You guessed it: Mystery Author’s Sister’s recap name is one word too long, and she’s preparing to harm herself when the clock strikes 11:45pm. Lucky for everyone involved, Victoria Mars and Duke Silver burst into the room in the nick of time, and talk her down. Later, in the interrogation room, we get the full story: Victoria Mars found notes from Publisher addressed to the REAL Mystery Author in the writing desk, and figured it out from there.
Real Mystery Author: Our mother died in the workhouse, and we didn’t know our dad. My brother wanted to be famous; he thought his struggle was like Charles Dickens and figured that’d be enough to make him a great writer. But he never succeeded, and I didn’t want to tell him that he wasn’t any good. I mean he knew, deep down. But he’s my brother; I would do anything to help him. I edited his story… so much so that by the time I submitted it he’d barely written any of it.
Victoria Mars: Why didn’t you just put your name on it? It’s not like we’re not known for female author’s in this country.
Real Mystery Author: He begged me not to: couldn’t handle that his spinster sister was the breadwinner. Once the book was successful I asked if we could put my name on the next one, and that's when they set up the meeting.
Duke Silver: They?
Real Mystery Author: Mean Accountant, Publisher, and my brother. They convinced me that my readership would be much smaller than that of a man, and promised I’d eventually get to publish under my own name… but now wasn’t a good time. Obviously, it was never a good time.
Victoria Mars: Why kill them?
Real Mystery Author: The only benefit I got from this arrangement was that I’d be well looked after. Comfortable. Secure. And then they came to repossess our house and I found out the truth: my brother had frittered away all of our money. My money. And those two just let him, because THEY were still getting paid.
Duke Silver: So this was revenge?
Real Mystery Author: Yeah, everyone would know the truth, and I’d be famous and dead. I’ve let my brother shine, for nothing. I was about to end up a poor spinster, back in a workhouse.
You know what, I’m just going to say it: hard to argue with this one. Anyway, case closed, Duke Silver offers to get Victoria Mars a cab, which she politely declines. Too politely.
Duke Silver: Can we just be normal? You being nice to me is creeping me out. Look, I didn’t mean what I said: I know you haven’t been handed anything, and that you work hard. But you just PUSH my buttons!
Victoria Mars: I only roast you because you’re my friend. But I know I can be kind of mean sometimes. I’m just jealous. You’re fulfilled; that’s not lack of ambition, that’s contentment. Most of us don’t get that. That’s why you’re one of the people who I respect the most.
Genuine honesty? In MY squabbling detectives? It’s more likely than you think! Anyway, she heads out for the evening, and Duke Silver returns to his office to find a very bruised Baby Detective snoozing on his couch.
Duke Silver: Oof, what happened?
Baby Detective: I did what you said and went for a drink to try and fit in. It didn’t work. Can’t go home to my dad like this so I figured I’d go to my work dad’s office instead.
Duke Silver: I have a spare room, you can crash with me.
Duke Silver, this is like feeding stray wildlife that visit your house! He’s never gonna leave now! Anyway, the next day, Duke Silver does his morning commute, again saying hi to everyone as if he were in a small town, and not London. Popping into New Superintendent’s office, he sits to wait until his boss finishes up some paperwork.
Duke Silver: How was your trip? Business or pleasure?
New Superintendent: Bad, and neither: I was visiting my in-laws. Anyway, did you think it over and realize how big of an opportunity this promotion is?
Duke Silver: Yes, and it IS a good opportunity. But it’s not right for me.
New Superintendent: Kid, I called in a LOT of favors to get this for you. It may not come up again.
Duke Silver: I get that, but my life is here.
New Superintendent: Ugh, I was hoping you’d say yes so I wouldn’t have to do this: Unpleasable Commissioner wants you out of here because he thinks his son is getting worse, not better.
Duke Silver: That’s not true, and I’ve been trying hard to help him!
New Superintendent: He’s not someone you can help; he’s an albatross! That’s why I told you to separate yourself from him. His dad wants someone to blame, and I can’t go on protecting you. Take the job in Glasgow, because there isn’t a job for you here.
I feel duty bound to point out, reader, that albatrosses can be good omens too! I believe in the wee Baby Detective, and Unpleasable Commissioner is a horrible garbage human who I hope gets his narratively earned just desserts. In the meantime, poor Duke Silver is faced with an unwinnable dilemma. How will he get himself out of this one, and will he get Victoria Mars to help him? We’ll just have to wait for the season finale next week to find out!
