Proposing a better ending for du Maurier's Rebecca

What I like about the conclusion to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca: He gets away w/ it! The snob of an aristocrat, Maxim de Winter, confessed to his (new) wife that he'd shot his first with, the eponymous Rebecca, and disposed of her body at sea in what he assumed would be written off as a fatal maritime accident. Unfortunately for this scheming no-good, an inquest found that she died because her yacht had been deliberately scuttled. The novel concludes with Maxim, the (unnamed) narrator, and some legal authorities pursuing more clues - leading them to a doctor who had treated Rebecca on the day before she died - and to the conclusion that she killed herself because she was depressed about a diagnosis of incurable cancer. Wrong on both counts, of course - she didn't sink the boat (Maxim did) and that's not what killed her (Maxim did). So as to our loyal narrator - she better watch her back! Maxim is a totally unstable, murderous maniac: The marriage isn't working out so he kills her, rather than face the "scandal" of a divorce? I also like that the mansion, Manderley, burns to the ground at the end (I vaguely remembered that from seeing the movie decades ago), and that we never know for sure who set the fire; we suspect the evil Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca's maid), but it would have been better if DdM had planted a few clues, such as Mrs. D being fascinated by fire, or "petrol." And was she trying to kill people? Had she locked the bedroom doors (as she did the night before the fire)? I kind of like that questions are left open for speculation (I also might have missed vital clues in my reading). What I don't like: all this build-up as to why R was visiting a dr., under an assumed name no less, and all that leads to his a diagnosis of cancer. One telling bit of info is that she wrote to her boorish and crude cousin and told him she had to meet him that night to tell him something important. If she went to all this trouble to keep her dr. visits private, she would not have told him of the diagnosis the night she receives it. DdM missed a good opportunity, I think: The dr. should have revealed that she was pregnant, and that could be why Maxim was driven to murderous rage, in that he knows the child is not his (it's from her evil cousin, Jack let's say) and he doesn't want that child to inherit the estate. Much better ending, I think.

To order a copy of "25 Posts from Elliot's Reading: Selections from the first 2,500 blog entries," click here.