The Case of the Missing Bronte

by Robert Barnard

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘You recognize these two?’

  And quick as a flash the answer came back:

  ‘No, no. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.’

  And the silly old buzzard started struggling to his feet as though we were making a social call. Why do I keep getting involved with raving lunatics in my cases? Other policemen spend their time with commonsense, down-to-earth, perfectly talk-to-able villains, yet as soon as there’s a certifiable lunatic on the horizon, the case is neatly lobbed into my lap. Here was this frail elderly man, beaten practically unrecognizable, and yet he fails to point the most fluttering finger of accusation at his tormentors because he still nourishes hopes of getting his precious little manuscript back, of having it all to himself, of drooling and dribbling over it in the privacy of his home, among his assemblage of old socks and cast-off suspender-belts. I ask you! And when I saw the shoulders of my two thugs perceptibly relax, and something close to a smirk waft over the lips of Rolf Tingvold, I got really mad. I started shouting at the silly old goat, demanding that he recognize them, admit that they’d roughed him up, come down to the station and lay a charge against them. But if he had any fear, it was not of me, and he sat there, immovable, complacent, denying it all.

  And so there I was, up against another brick wall. We all drove back to Leeds, and I put them through it at West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police HQ. By now they were visibly complacent. They — or rather Tingvold, who did all the talking — stuck to their story, which was really no story, a prolonged negative. They didn’t know Parfitt, they didn’t know Waddington, they didn’t know Tetterfield, they didn’t know Scott-Windlesham. If I thought I’d seen them coming out of Scott-Windlesham’s office, then I must have made a mistake, mustn’t I? Bang, bang went my head against the brick wall of their denials. The tables were turned since old Tetterfield’s refusal to recognize them, and they had only to keep up their stonewalling and eventually I would be forced to give in. And in the end I had to admit it, and let them go. They got up from their chairs, silent, and marched to the door.

  ‘Don’t think you’re getting away with this,’ I said feebly, falling into cliché. ‘I’ll know you again.’

  The Finn turned round, eyes narrowed, gazing intently, and spoke for the first time:

  ‘And we shall know you, Mr Police,’ he said.

  CHAPTER 12

  HOSPITAL VISITING

  The next few days augmented a feeling I was beginning to have of my head being held firmly up against a brick wall. Little things came up, such as the first dribbles of information about the two Scandinavians from the US, but most of the stuff that was shoved in my direction by the police at Milltown, Bradford and Leeds illuminated little and led nowhere. I had long conversations on the phone with Jan, in which she was pretty scathing, but dismally failed herself to come up with any further suggestions of where the investigation might go next. ‘Well, you’re the one there on the spot,’ she said resentfully, and with some truth. And I was on the spot in the other sense as well: I had a case to investigate, without the foggiest notion of the next steps to take; a manuscript to retrieve, without the first notion where it might be. Basically I was waiting till they allowed me to interview Miss Wing, without any great hopes of that getting me going again.

  Meanwhile I went over and over in my mind the pattern of the case as it now presented itself to me. That the manuscript had been in the hands of Dr Tetterfield seemed to me incontrovertible — the only way I could account for his extraordinary behaviour. How it got to him was important for the attack on Miss Wing, though not so important for the ultimate destination of the manuscript. But the obvious connection between Miss Wing and old Tetterfield was Timothy Scott-Windlesham, and I could easily see him committing the attack, in a frenzy of spite and fear. His motive in undertaking the theft was, I had no doubt, both academic and financial: he had no qualifications for editing a Brontë work, but if the manuscript could be kept under cover for a few years he could get himself qualified. And editing a newly discovered work by Emily Brontë would bring him academic kudos beyond his dreams. Not to mention an awful lot of money. Which no doubt was why he went in with mad old Tetterfield.

  But then there was the question of how the real thugs, the professionals, came into the picture. Here things were much more misty, but I was ready to conjecture that the unsavoury old crook here (if he would pardon such an expression) was the unlovely Amos Macklehose. It was easy enough to see how he got wind of the manuscripts — either through a family tradition, or, more likely, through that cursed adherent of his in Hutton-le-Dales, who travelled regularly to the Tabernacle in Leeds, randy for robes and altar-cloths. Macklehose would certainly have been aware of the family’s Brontë connection, and would have seen the plausibility of the story at once. From him to James L. Parfitt was a simple enough step, especially if Parfitt had just landed in the country and was already putting out feelers about his interest in buying. And Mr Parfitt had his strong-arm boys — kept at arm’s length, probably never actually getting to see their patron. The thugs, I suspected, had come on a reconnaissance trip to Hutton, posing as Seventh Day Adventists or whatever it was, but they had left the action too late, and Timothy had popped in between intention and execution. They had followed the same trail as I did, and had had to catch up with the manuscript when it had passed to Tetterfield.

  So far, so good. Then came that blank wall. They had got instructions from Waddington, that I was willing to bet; and the instructions must have been to pass it on to someone. They organized the transfer at the tennis — crowded, chaotic, with very little likelihood of their being successfully prevented or properly observed. Clever of them, really. Because now I was back to square one. I had a list of four people who I was pretty sure had handled the manuscript at one time or another, yet I was no nearer to finding out where it was now. It had been handed on, and that was that. For all I knew the Norwegian toughs had now bowed out of the whole operation — leaving the field to heaven knows who. Mist had come down over the field of play, and for all one knew a whole new set of players were now kicking the ball.

  As I say, I was far from confident that, when Miss Wing was well enough to talk to me, she would have anything to tell that would lead the chase more than a few steps further. But I waited, fumbled about with irrelevancies, and eventually on Thursday morning I got the message from the hospital in Milltown that I could go over and have a talk with her — but only for a short time.

  It was a horrible glass and board sort of building, opened in the ’sixties but already looking as frayed and tatty as an ageing variety star. It wasn’t the sort of place that Miss Wing fitted into naturally, but the staff seemed competent enough. The sister to whom I spoke, outside the room where she lay, stressed that the time at my disposal was limited, and she did it with the sort of emphasis that only sisters and matrons have at their command.

  ‘She’s a very sick woman still,’ she said, ‘and I shall rely on you in no way to upset her.’

  She looked at me as if she had the strongest doubts whether she could rely on me at all. I was quelled, as men always are quelled by that sort of authority. I nodded meekly. She pursed her lips, said ‘Well . . .’ as if she would not be answerable for the consequences if I overstepped the mark, and led me into Miss Wing’s room.

  ‘Your visitor, Miss Wing,’ she said, with surprising gentleness.

  ‘Ah,’ said the figure on the bed. ‘They said I’d met you before. I wondered if it might be you.’

  Ill she certainly was. Pale, bandaged, and still horribly scarred on the face. The voice too was faint, lacking that clipped, schoolmistressy precision which I had rather liked before. But there was still a faint spark in the eye, something about the set of the shoulders as she lay there, that made me think she hadn’t given up, that in the end she would come back fighting and be as fit as she ever had been. I took a chair and sat down close by her bed.

  ‘You tell me the moment you get tired,’ I said. �
��And just say “don’t remember” if you don’t — don’t try and strain your memory. Close your eyes if it helps.’

  ‘Oh — it’s nice to see someone,’ she said. ‘I feel I’ve been half in and half out of life for weeks. Like being in a waiting-room at a station — between journeys, as it were. I’m not used to complete lack of mental activity, I can tell you. Ask away.’

  ‘Well, now, you remember our conversation in the Dalesman?’

  ‘Oh, very well. How is your charming wife?’

  ‘She’s fine. Now, I gather you did as I suggested, and went along to the University of Milltown?’

  ‘That’s right. A day or two later. A young man . . . I forget his name . . .’ She put her hand to her head.

  ‘Never mind. Timothy Scott-Windlesham it was. Now, do you remember what he said to you?’

  ‘Well, he was perfectly kind, but . . . well, he didn’t seem particularly impressed. I suppose he was right to be sceptical, but he seemed rather an — what we used to call an effete young man when I was a girl. I thought perhaps he didn’t like to show himself impressed by anything. Languid, you know.’

  ‘That may be the reason,’ I said cautiously. ‘Now, what did he suggest?’

  ‘Well, he said he wasn’t an expert, but he offered to keep it for a bit and look into it.’

  ‘Did he indeed?’

  ‘Yes. But I didn’t like to let it out of my hands. So he said the best thing to do was to take it along to the big libraries at Leeds or Halifax, or somewhere like that. I said I had no car, but he said there was no hurry because usually these things turned out to be less exciting than one hoped.’

  ‘I see. So you hadn’t done anything more about it by the time you were attacked?’

  ‘No, I hadn’t. I think I’d found talking to Mr . . . whatever . . . rather depressing.’

  ‘I see. When he was talking about libraries, did he mention the librarian of the West Riding Library, near Bradford?’

  ‘I don’t think so. No. I’m sure he didn’t.’

  ‘But you yourself had already mentioned the manuscript to people, hadn’t you?’

  She put her hand to her forehead again.

  ‘Yes. You’ve no idea how foolish that makes me feel: a schoolmistress all my life, always cautious and practical, advising precautions against this and that. And then to go and talk about it in the Dalesman, of all places. And by the way, Mr Trethowan, I really ought to confess . . .’

  ‘Confess?’

  ‘Yes. I’d talked about the manuscript even before you turned up in Hutton. I told Mrs Hebden, who is a good friend of mine.’

  ‘Ah — Mrs Hebden.’

  ‘That’s right. And you see, she recognized you. She knew you’d been involved in cases — of a literary nature.’ (What delicacy! Not a trace of the snicker usual when the matter of my father’s murder came up. I really loved Miss Wing!) ‘So you see, she rang me up as soon as you went down to the pub. And I — I feel awfully naughty about it — faked a casual meeting. I really don’t usually go up and talk to complete strangers in public houses. Quite out of character, believe me. But I wanted expert advice, you see, and I felt sure you would be a good sort of person to go to.’

  ‘Well, I wish, in the event, that I’d given better advice. And I’m very far from being an expert.’

  ‘Well, much better than I could have got in Hutton, believe me. But I’m afraid that after that I mentioned the manuscript several times in the pub. All sorts of people could have heard of it. So foolish of me, as if I didn’t know how any little thing gets around in a village like Hutton. I suppose that was the reason, really: so little happens there that when something does happen to you, you naturally want to talk about it.’

  ‘I shouldn’t reproach yourself. After all, when you took your manuscript along to an expert, you were bound to talk about it anyway, and ran the same risk of its getting around that you had it.’

  ‘You mean the gentleman at Milltown? You surely don’t think it could have been that, do you? I mean, a professional person . . . But I did wonder whether perhaps he wasn’t as unimpressed as he made out . . . Well, I don’t know. Certainly I should have told as few as possible, and I feel a silly old woman.’

  ‘Tell me, do you think your cousin Amos Macklehose could have known of the manuscript? Perhaps by family tradition?’

  ‘Cousin? Cousin? I don’t count him as my cousin! How many removes do they have to be before you can consider them utterly removed?’ Miss Wing’s fighting spirit was very much in evidence at the mention of that name. ‘All the same,’ she went on, crinkling her forehead, ‘I don’t see how he could have known and not my cousin Rose — I’d consider her my cousin, however many removes there were! And I’m sure she didn’t know. Because she was an English literature person, you see. A great reader, which I am not! And she would have been so excited if she had found it when she inherited the family papers that she would certainly have told me. If there had been any family tradition about it, someone would have investigated long ago. Because we’ve been going downhill for years!’

  ‘That’s rather what I thought,’ I said. ‘I mean about investigating, not about going downhill.’

  She smiled rather frailly.

  ‘He called, you know,’ she said. ‘That Amos creature. He was visiting one of his flock — a rather pathetic old man who finds the local church a bit too humdrum for him. Macklehose was visiting him, and he came to the cottage. But I wouldn’t let him in. I’d had enough of him when Rose was dying.’

  ‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘Now, let’s come to the night you were attacked. Is it too painful to talk about?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. But I wish there were more I remembered.’

  ‘You went down to the Dalesman, didn’t you? About how long were you there?’

  ‘Perhaps an hour. An hour and a quarter.’

  ‘And when you got home, it was dark?’

  ‘Yes, or very nearly. And there is practically no street lighting on the lane up to the cottage.’

  ‘Were you nervous at night?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. Perhaps when I first moved to Hutton — because I’d been used to living in a school, you know, with lots of people around me. But I’d given up feeling jittery long ago.’

  ‘You didn’t notice lights on in the cottage?’

  ‘No. But I always left lights on in the hall and sitting-room. More cheerful to come home to.’

  ‘So you let yourself in. What happened then?’

  ‘Well, I hung my coat up. It had been drizzling earlier, and I’d taken it with me. Then . . . let me see . . . I went into the sitting-room. I was just about to go to the kitchen and make a nightcap when I thought I heard a noise from the other side of the cottage — where all the old stuff was, you know. But I didn’t think about burglars — not at all. I thought it was cats. There’s a big ginger torn marauds around there, and you know the sort of smells they leave if you let them get in. I thought I must have left a window open. So I went through the hall, opened the door — ’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There was light coming into the room from the hall. I remember feeling some kind of obstruction, from behind the door. I just thought the carpet was up, or something . . . What did I do then? . . . Oh yes, I turned to put the light on, but before my hand got to the switch, this shape came at me from behind the door. I can’t describe it any better than that. And before I knew anything it began to hit me — and then again, and again . . . It was terrible, terrible. Because I didn’t lose consciousness at once, you see.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Don’t think about it. Try to think back a little, to before that. Obviously you didn’t get much of a look at this shape . . .’

  ‘No, hardly any at all. I was turned towards the light switch, you see.’

  ‘But if you didn’t actually see it, you may have got some impression of it. Of its size, for example.’

  ‘Oh, dear — I don’t know . . .’

  ‘As big
as me, for example?’

  ‘Oh no. I don’t think so. It would have come at me — hit me — so much from above if it had been.’

  ‘Tell me, did you have a visit some days before the break-in, from religious canvassers — Seventh Day Adventists, or something?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did. Norwegians, I think. I talked with them a little, just out of curiosity. But it was odd: they didn’t seem to know much about the Bible.’

  ‘No, I’m not surprised. Tell me, was the shape as big as those men, would you say?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t think so. Really, now you come to press it, I don’t think it was a very big person at all. Not awfully strong. Because if it was, he could have stunned me right away, don’t you think? But he went on hitting — not hard, but often. Horrible! But I think he was frightened, and perhaps not used to violence. That seems funny, if it was some kind of professional burglar. But it was so—random, somehow. And frenzied. Like a child, you know.’

  ‘You make me weep for him,’ I said, thinking with distaste of the etiolated Timothy Scott-Windlesham, the reluctant thug, the amateur who takes minutes to stun his victim. There is something to be said for professionalism, even in thuggery.

  ‘Miss Wing, there is one other thing I wanted to ask you about: your will — ’

  She sighed, as if very tired and sad.

  ‘Oh yes. I’ve lain here wondering whether you’d look into that — whether you had the right . . .’

  ‘We have no right. But I’m afraid your friend Mrs Hebden let something slip. And of course we were interested, because the will was obviously relevant.’