The Case of the Missing Bronte

by Robert Barnard

  ‘But it isn’t relevant. It has nothing to do with all this. And it would be so easy for silly people to get the wrong idea. I have nobody close, you see: a few cousins, but none I have any great contact with — except the Macklehoses, and the less contact I have there in the future, the better I’ll like it. I don’t see how anyone with a grain of religion in them could feel anything but contempt for him, and the rest of that branch of the family too.’

  ‘I have my eyes on him lovingly,’ I assured her. ‘If I can get him for anything, I fully intend to.’

  ‘Good. And all the better for those poor silly people who go to him, though I suppose they always drift along to some other crank or crook in the long run. Or get involved in politics. Well, as I said, I’m virtually alone, and I haven’t got much, but what little I do have I didn’t want to go back to the government, which heaven knows gets enough out of single people as it is. So I thought I’d leave it to someone I liked.’

  ‘Of course. Perfectly sensible. You don’t have to explain.’

  ‘Oh, but I do. I wanted to leave it to someone I liked, who was also young. Because I’ve always worked with young people, and liked them. Now, I’m not a great brain, as you know, but I’m rarely wrong about children. A nice boy, and a lively mind too, if only his school would find it out and encourage it. Not well-educated, poor boy, but enquiring, which is the important thing. And it appealed to me to give it to someone who has been — what’s the modern word? — disadvantaged . . . What awful things people do to the English language these days, don’t they? . . . So I left a few mementoes to some of my old colleagues at Broadlands, and the rest to Jason.’

  ‘Did you tell him this?’

  ‘Really, Mr Trethowan, do you think I’m a complete fool? There’s nothing so unsettling as knowing you’re going to inherit something at some time, even if it’s nothing very grand. Particularly for someone like Jason, who really has no expectations of that sort at all. No, it was entirely a secret between me and my lawyer. Until now,’ she added, with some bitterness.

  ‘The thing is, you see, that if the manuscript is what we think it might be, it changes you from a person of modest means into something like a very rich woman.’

  ‘It certainly does not,’ she said energetically. ‘And even if it did, little Jason would certainly not realize the value of the manuscript. I doubt if any of the older people in Hutton-le-Dales would either, come to that. And, you know, if I had thought of selling the manuscript, I would have made a very different will, leaving the cottage and things to Jason, and distributing the rest to charities: I have some I contribute my mite to regularly.’

  ‘Ah — I see. But you didn’t think of selling?’

  ‘No, indeed. What would I do with the sort of money that would fetch, if it’s genuine? I’d feel almost indecent taking it, for something I’d come across almost accidentally. And then, you see, it would probably go out of the country.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have wanted that. No, in so far as I’d decided anything, I intended to give it to the Haworth Parsonage Museum. Let them get some expert to edit it. I rather looked forward to all the publicity there would be, I admit. I’ve led a very retired life, Mr Trethowan, and the thought of all that excitement was like several gin and tonics. But beyond that, I didn’t want to profit from the manuscript. I wouldn’t have thought it right.’

  ‘And you told this to — who?’

  ‘I told everybody that. The people in the pub — ’

  ‘Mr Scott-Windlesham?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Self-righteous of me, perhaps, but I did tell everybody that was what I intended, if it should prove genuine.’

  And thereby, I thought, very nearly knocked another nail in your coffin. But I just leaned over and shook her hand, and said goodbye. As I was going, she said, almost energetically:

  ‘You’re not going to go and badger Jason, are you?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of it.’

  ‘I know you police,’ she said.

  ‘I think you’re going to get better,’ I smiled.

  CHAPTER 13

  LEANING HEAVILY

  The interview with Miss Wing was heartening, because she was a brave soul, and I liked her. But it was hardly heartening in any other way. It left the case very much where it had been. Her evidence didn’t even rule out Jason Curle as her attacker: he did not know he was Miss Wing’s heir, but he must have known about the manuscript. Probably everyone in the village who was not deaf or mentally defective knew about the manuscript. But I didn’t dwell on Jason Curle, because I was dwelling, rather lovingly, on Timothy Scott-Windlesham as the frightened, frenzied attacker.

  It was no doubt Miss Wing’s firm declaration of intent, to give the manuscript to Haworth, that did it. He must have had his intuitive hopes when she showed him the pages, and no doubt he went away — just as Jan and I did — and did a bit of research afterwards, to establish likelihoods and possibilities. He too must have been convinced. He had come within a stone’s throw of the literary discovery of the century, and if it went to Haworth he would be as far from participating in the glory, wealth and promotion that would flow from it as if he had never seen it. The lifeline to which he clung was Tetterfield, who was acquisitive, eccentric and unscrupulous enough to go in with him in any scheme. The two of them came to an agreement that Timothy procure the manuscript, which would then turn up some years hence, perhaps when Miss Wing was dead, in Tetterfield’s chaotic collection. No one could easily dispute the possibility of that. And then Tetterfield could nominate little Timmy as editor — for by that time the Meredith expert could have moved sideways and backwards into Brontë territory, and could have qualified himself in Brontë studies by a note here on a textual crux, a little article there on images of vampirism in Wuthering Heights . . .

  And yet, there seemed not much more to be done that was likely to confirm my guess. I could, of course, get a search warrant to go through Timothy’s residence, wherever that might be, but I could hardly doubt that any blood-stained clothing would long since have been destroyed, and that no trace would exist of any connection with old Tetterfield. Timothy was unlovely and unlovable, but he was no fool. Nor were my suspicions so firmly grounded that I could easily justify applying for a search warrant.

  I’d talked all this over on the phone with Jan, of course, but though she was scathing about my inaction and lack of progress, she had little to suggest herself beyond a checking of all the people who did contract typing in the North of England, in the hope that a typescript was being prepared before the thing was smuggled out of the country. I thanked her very much for the suggestion, and pointed out the numbers of people likely to be involved, and the practical difficulties any attempt along these lines was sure to encounter. She said I was a defeatist. I was beginning to think she was right.

  A couple of days after the interview with Miss Wing I gave Jan my usual no-progress report over the phone and then went disconsolately to the Dalesman to have a lunchtime pint and an infrared grilled steak pie of unutterable awfulness. When I got back to the cottage the phone was ringing, and went on ringing as I hurriedly let myself in. I caught it just before Jan gave up.

  ‘Oh, there you are. You take your time. Are you mowing the lawn for want of anything better to do?’

  ‘I was having my lunch. A pub lunch is a policeman’s inalienable right, though if I have any more like the one I’ve just eaten, I think I’ll be willing to give it up.’

  ‘Yes, well, something came up at lunch-time here.’

  ‘The food?’

  ‘No, it was rather good. Mordred was cooking. Shut up, Perry, and don’t distract me. This is serious. Do you remember your Uncle Lawrence once wrote his memoirs?’

  ‘Oh God! Why do you have to bring up things like that? Yes, I do remember, dimly. Weren’t they called The Pen is Mightier?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And the Guardian, when they reviewed it, missed out the space betwe
en the second and third words, and he got in a fearful bate and threatened to sue. I expect they knew what they were doing. Anything less mighty than Uncle Lawrence’s pen would be difficult to imagine.’

  ‘Yes, anyway, the subject came up, I can’t remember how . . . Oh yes, it was Aunt Kate complaining that Lawrence hadn’t mentioned her once in that book.’

  ‘I didn’t think the old boy had so much discretion.’

  ‘So Aunt Sybilla started going on about the trouble the book had caused, even though it only sold about ten copies. I think by then Uncle Lawrence was crippled with arthritis, and apparently his handwriting was in any case as indecipherable as the Rosetta Stone — ’

  ‘Just like his arrogance,’ I put in.

  ‘Yes, so it seems that the final manuscript was in quite an appalling mess, and Aunt Sybilla says that it had to be sent to “the cleverest little woman in Leeds, dear, can you imagine?” And even she made some mistakes that Lawrence was too lazy or too high-handed to pick up when he proof-read, so that when it came out it said he’d unceremoniously banged Queen Mary in an antique shop, instead of barged into — you know the sort of thing. Even more embarrassing if you correct it with an errata slip than if you don’t.’

  ‘Ah — hence the Guardian misprint, I suppose,’ I said. ‘But get back to the little woman.’

  ‘I thought you’d be interested in her. Well, of course I asked who the little woman was, and Aunt Sybilla said, oh dear, what was it, such a frightfully clever little woman, though in the end she charged more than the book brought in, and so on and round and round, as she does. Finally Mordred went away — he’s writing the family history, you know — ’

  ‘A Family and its Fall. Yes, I know.’

  ‘ — and he found all the letters from her, and her account. Her name is Selina Boothroyd, and she lived at number 45, Jubilee Parade, Leeds. The letters were all very formal, positively cold, in fact, and I didn’t get much out of them, but apparently she’s quite well known, and can decipher practically anything.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ I said. ‘That might be worth following up. Leeds is a coincidence, after all. The clean-hands boys knew the Scands were being followed, that I might be led to this bird’s house, so they told them to arrange the hand-over some place where there was too much bustle for it to be noticed. And at the tennis the lady was not taken too far out of her way. It’s an idea, I must say. The only idea I’ve got at the moment. You know, Jan, I think I’ll go after it.’

  ‘I thought you would, Perry. You see, keeping contact with your family is worthwhile after all.’

  ‘I’m not sure that a disgraceful lifetime is redeemed by a useful dotage,’ I said. ‘But all right, I’ll go along with that: my family has its occasional uses, as well as its manifest and continual drawbacks.’

  ‘Did you know your sister had taken up writing?’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Yes. She’s writing for Bills and Coo, the romantic publishers. Does it while she’s watching over baby in the garden. She’s on one now called Forbidden Fruits.’

  ‘Oh God! The next thing we know she’ll be guzzling honey. See what I mean about a family and its fall?’

  And I banged down the receiver, once again happily ill-humoured about my family and its doings.

  But I didn’t stay crabby for long. The more I thought about it, the more I liked Jan’s gobbet of information. It was a logical step for Parfitt and Waddington to get a typescript made before trying to spirit the manuscript out of the country. And, if I’d thought about it properly, I would have realized that just any old typist simply wouldn’t do: they would inevitably make a hash out of the tiny script unless they had extensive experience of problem manuscripts. That, obviously, was what the Boothroyd woman could offer, and it sounded as if she could afford to price herself high. And if she turned out not to be the one, she could surely put me on to others in her line of country, people who offered the same sort of service. I took down the telephone directory and looked her up: Boothroyd, S., 45 Jubilee Parade, Leeds. I was just putting my finger in the dial when some instinct told me this was too important a matter to leave to the telephone. Probably Selina Boothroyd was a timid old lady. I have been known to charm timid old ladies. I have also been known to scare the wits out of them. I decided to pay her a visit.

  It was still early in the afternoon, and I decided to make a detour on the way. I dropped in at the Police Headquarters at Milltown and had a word with Capper, the inspector I’d spoken to when I first arrived. He was decidedly less harassed since the departure of the Prime Minister, but I had the impression that he was still very happy to leave everything to me, in a case whose literary ramifications gave him that bullish, aggressive feeling that people who don’t read do get when confronted with bookish matters. But he had some stuff for me about Rolf Tingvold and Knut Ratikainen — stuff hot from the FBI. They had indeed been seamen, thrown off a super-tanker five years before as troublemakers. The captain had described Ratikainen as a psychopath, and his subsequent career had gone some way to proving his point. He and Tingvold had drifted into the New York crime world, and had quickly proved themselves as reliable heavies, strong on intimidation and exemplary violence. Ratikainen, in particular, had executed with relish some particularly beastly jobs. He had served a one-year gaol sentence in New York, where he had quickly established a nasty sort of dominance over a community not noted for peaceable diffidence. Since then they had been on hire, and had built up their reputations as the criminal equivalents of a Scandinavian car: tough, quiet and reliable. And, in their case, very brutal.

  ‘But as far as the New York police are concerned, Parfitt is out of it,’ Capper said, with that depressing police determination not to tangle with men of power if he could avoid it. ‘No connection of any kind with these two thugs, or with things of this sort in general.’

  ‘No doubt,’ I sighed. ‘And no doubt that’s how he’ll keep it. Is he still in the area?’

  ‘No. He’s gone to Edinburgh.’

  ‘He won’t get any bargains there. He’s distancing himself, I suppose. Very fly, is Mr Parfitt. Probably he regards this job as virtually in the bag. What about the two thugs — I suppose they’ve dissolved themselves into thin air?’

  ‘Well — I’m afraid they have. The Leeds police couldn’t afford the men to keep a twenty-four-hour watch on them. They clocked out of their guest-house and left, and by the time the proprietor had contacted the police, there was no trail to follow. For all they know they may be anywhere in the country — may have left it, in fact. The only thing is, one of the Leeds constables — the bloke who helped you take them at the tennis — thinks he’s seen them in Briggate.’

  ‘Hopeful.’

  ‘That was two days ago. Any point in putting out an alert?’

  ‘None. I’ve no more on them now than I had when I grilled them. If I do get anything, I’ll let you know. At the moment I’m going to visit a lady typist.’

  ‘A typist? Oh — you think they may be getting the thing written out proper, like?’

  ‘It’s a chance. I’d like to bet the woman — if this is the one — will have been sworn to total secrecy. I may have to play it by ear — see what kind of a soul she is. People of that sort don’t often like getting involved with the criminal world. Appeals to conscience might work — or alternatively, coming the heavy might be necessary.’

  ‘Ah well,’ said Capper. ‘They don’t work by the rule book in Leeds.’

  ‘That’s rather what I hoped,’ I said, and took my leave.

  Of course, I wasn’t actually contemplating beating up Selina Boothroyd. Beating up old ladies is something I’ve rarely been called on to do in the course of my career, and when I have, I’ve derived little enjoyment from it. However, one can come the heavy cop with startling effect at times, particularly with the weak and timid. On the other hand, I had no notion whether Selina Boothroyd would turn out to be weak or timid, or even what age she might be. I had the impression she had not let my
Uncle Lawrence get the better of her, so perhaps she would not be a pushover after all.

  Jubilee Parade was in the oddly named Hyde Park area. It didn’t seem to have much to do with our own dear open space. It was a turning off Cardigan Road: I gathered much of the land around here had been owned by the Earl of Cardigan — he who had valiantly led his men into the Valley of Death, and then (most unfairly) ridden out of it practically alone. I drove around Jubilee Parade several times, and then parked my car round a corner out of sight.

  No. 45 was a house not unlike old Tetterfield’s in Bradford: a three-storey Victorian job, of rather discoloured brick, and surrounded by the sort of dark evergreens that add privacy rather than beauty to a garden, and seem to be striving to get the upper hand over the gardener. These had definitely got the upper hand. The windows of the house were small and grudging, but even if they had been larger the shrubs would have prevented much light from getting in. Most of the houses on Jubilee Parade were like this — well separated from their neighbours, with greenery dating from the time they had all been family houses. But most of them now seemed to be divided up, many of them inhabited by students and suchlike, and some seemed to house more than one Asian family. No. 45 was rather more run-down than the rest, and the total effect was desolate bordering on the eeries. I shook off the feeling. Victorian houses in the suburbs of Leeds might have draughts and musty smells, but I shouldn’t turn them into something out of late Hitchcock.

  I pushed open the gate, which stuck, and then swung loosely on its hinges. The front door was a brown-painted affair, peeling, with a lead-lighted window in a design of flowers unknown to botany. From somewhere inside I could hear the sound of high-speed typing, punctuated by longish pauses. So far, so hopeful. But then, she could equally be typing a sociological thesis. The knocker was stiff and unusable, but finally I found a bell tucked away in the brown paint, and put my finger on it.