by Andrew Garve
“He would!’’ I said. “It probably made his year for him.’’
“If he did,’’ Mary said, suddenly very alert, “it means that he had at least one opportunity to meet Blundell and talk to him, because Blundell was there.’’
I gave an inward sigh—she was still clutching at straws. “It wouldn’t have been much of an opportunity,’’ I said. “If I know those exhibitions, there was a milling crowd and a frightful din going on and no chance to do any serious talking at all.’’
“There was a big crowd, yes—scores of thriller writers, and the place was seething with fans. But once Shaw had made his contact he could have taken Blundell aside.’’
“I just can’t see it,’’ I said. “The first approach would have had to be made with tremendous care. Blundell would have had to be probed slowly and cautiously. I can’t believe it could have been done there and then. And, as I told you, there’s not a shred of evidence that they ever met again. None at Blundell’s end, and none at Shaw’s.’’
“If they were planning a crime together,’’ Mary said, “they’d naturally have kept their meetings secret.’’
“In the later stages, perhaps, but not at first—not while Shaw was doing his probing and the acquaintance was ripening. And there’d have had to be a great many of those meetings—you’d need to know a hell of a lot about a man and how he was likely to react before you could breathe even a hint of a joint criminal enterprise to him. It would have been a long, arduous job, particularly with an old man like Blundell, who was pretty much of a stay-at-home anyway. It’s just not credible that a close relationship could have been built up without anyone knowing about it.… Honestly, Mary, if I thought there was one chance in a thousand of getting anywhere with this idea of yours I’d be all for it, but I’m convinced it’s an absolute blind alley. I don’t believe for a moment that Shaw and Blundell conspired together. I think the whole thing’s quite fantastic.’’
I’d spoken more emphatically than I’d intended, but Mary had to be prized away somehow from the preposterous theory she was still clinging to. She turned very pale.
“If you’re right,’’ she said slowly, “there’s no explanation of Blundell’s letter to Shaw except that Daddy’s guilty.’’
I didn’t reply to that. There wasn’t any need.
She sat very still, holding the exhibition program listlessly between her fingers. I wondered if this was the moment to urge her to snap out of things and face up to the truth, but I decided it wasn’t. She looked too hard hit. I began to put the scattered papers back into the box. The gulf was between us again, deeper than ever.
I’d almost finished when she suddenly gave an exclamation. I turned quickly. She was staring at the back of the program. She no longer looked listless. I said, “Found something interesting?’’ She didn’t answer at first. She just sat there, frowning. After a moment she got up.
“Peter, have you a sheet of typing paper?’’
“Why, sure …!’’ I went and fetched her a piece. She folded it across the middle and took a fountain pen from her bag.
“I wonder if I might have your autograph?’’ she said.
She’d placed the folded sheet on a thin book and was holding it out to me, her thumb keeping the paper in position. I took the pen and scribbled my name on the paper. She opened it out and studied it for a moment. Then she picked up the exhibition program.
“It says here, ‘Visitors to the Exhibition are cordially invited to seek the autographs of their favorite crime writers.’ Suppose Shaw collected Blundell’s! Look at this!’’
She showed me the paper I’d signed. The way she’d held it I’d signed it about two-thirds of the way down the sheet, at a slightly odd angle. I remembered that Blundell’s signature in the photostat had been at a rather unusual angle too.
“If I were to type a letter above your signature now,’’ Mary said, “I’m sure I could make it seem like a genuine letter from you.’’
I looked at her doubtfully. “It’s a pretty corny idea, Mary.’’
“It may be, but it’s exactly the sort of idea a man like Shaw might have had. He could have got it from one of his two hundred thriller plots.’’
I thought about it for a bit. I could see points in its favor. I remembered how out-of-character it had seemed to me that a bad-tempered man like Blundell should write such an amiable letter to an importunate stranger. If Shaw had faked the letter after all, that was explained.… But there were insuperable objections.
“Let me get this clear,’’ I said. “Is it your notion that Shaw just happened to collect Blundell’s autograph because he was a fan and that when Blundell died he remembered he’d got it and that gave him his idea for a frame-up plan so he went ahead and copied your father’s story?’’
“Something like that.’’
“Well, I don’t think it’s possible. Shaw might just about have had time to copy your father’s book in the four weeks between its publication and the day he took his manuscript to the boat. But if he hadn’t started copying till after Blundell died, that would have cut his time to a mere couple of weeks or so and if he’d typed like a madman every night he couldn’t have done it—not with the rewriting, to. I’d say it was out of the question.’’
“All right,’’ Mary said, changing her ground rapidly, “perhaps he didn’t just happen to collect the autograph. Perhaps he’d already got the frame-up idea in mind and collected it deliberately, knowing he was going to copy Daddy’s book when it came out and that he’d need a supporting letter.’’
I shook my head. “The autograph wouldn’t have been any use if Blundell hadn’t died, because he could have repudiated the letter. And Shaw couldn’t possibly have counted on his death.’’
“He might have hoped for it.… You said Blundell was a heavily built man who drank a lot of brandy.’’
“Shaw would hardly have known about that,’’ I said. “Anyway, brandy’s not exactly cyanide—Blundell might easily have lived for another five years.’’
“M’m …! I suppose he did die naturally?’’
“His doctor must have been satisfied. Heavens, you’re not suggesting that Shaw bumped him off, are you?’’
“I just wondered.…’’ She was looking again at the exhibition program. After a moment, she said, “It says here, ‘Up to eighty well-known crime writers will be in attendance during each day of the Exhibition.’’’
“Well?’’
“Couldn’t he have got an autograph from each of them?’’
“How would that have helped?’’ I said. “He still wouldn’t have known that one of them would die.’’
“I should think he might have reckoned on one out of eight dying before Daddy’s book came out. A lot of them were pretty ancient.’’
“Suppose one hadn’t?’’ I said.
“Well, he could have hung on for a bit, couldn’t he?—someone would have been bound to die in the end. He could have produced his letter later on and said he’d only just read Daddy’s book. I don’t mean years later, but months, anyway.’’
“H’m … Well, it’s not absolutely impossible, I suppose.… I’m just trying to imagine him, though, rushing about at that exhibition collecting eighty autographs as a speculation.’’
“Perhaps he didn’t collect eighty—perhaps he just concentrated on the elderlies. That would have been much quicker.’’
“True … Okay, let’s agree for the sake of argument that that takes care of the signature. We’re still left with the text—what about that? Blundell’s letter to Shaw was definitely typed on Blundell’s typewriter.’’
“Then Shaw must have had access to it,’’ Mary said.
“When?’’
“After Blundell’s death, I should think. It doesn’t seem to have been very difficult. After all, you typed a few lines on it yourself.’’
“Yes, but then I wasn’t planning a crime. I can’t see Shaw calmly going along and asking for the key of Blundell’s
cottage when he was plotting to …’’ I broke off. “Just a minute, though!’’
“What, Peter?’’
“The window! There was a broken pane of glass in one of the downstairs windows, right next to the handle.’’
“There you are, then—he broke in! It would have been safe enough as long as he was careful—you said yourself the cottage was buried in the trees. And he had a car, hadn’t he?—he could have driven there one evening after work. Probably soon after the funeral, before Blundell’s things could have been moved.’’
“How would he have known the place was empty?’’
“He wouldn’t for sure, I suppose, not until he got there, but houses quite often are left empty for a while after a funeral, because people tend to go away. He’d have had to do a bit of reconnoitering, of course, but once he’d found there was no one about the rest would have been easy. He could have dashed off that letter in five minutes.’’
I pondered. It was physically possible—but I could see a lot more objections. I said, “He’d have been taking a good deal for granted in all this, wouldn’t he, besides a convenient death?’’
“How do you mean?’’
“Well, relying on being able to complete his faked letter by typing in the text, for one thing. The author who died might have been one of those who do all their writing by hand. Then Shaw’s autographed sheet of paper would have been useless.’’
“There can’t be many authors who don’t use a typewriter these days,’’ Mary said.
“Enough to make an extra hazard, I should think. Especially among the older hands.’’
“Well, perhaps he checked up in some way. He could have written letters to all his prospects—then he’d have known whether they typed or not, from the answers he got.’’
“That would have been a job.’’
“If it was to help his plot along,’’ Mary said, “he’d probably have got quite a kick out of it. Or perhaps he found some simpler way—perhaps he just asked them all at the exhibition.…’’ She suddenly broke off, her eyes large and bright. “Wait—I think I’ve got it … !’’
I waited.
“There was a special stand at the exhibition showing samples of work by various authors. It was one of the attractions for the fans. Each author had sent in a typical page of corrected manuscript and the pages were all pinned up on a board. Shaw would only have had to look at that and he’d have known straight away which authors used typewriters and whose autographs to go for.’’
I nodded. She’d covered the point and covered it well. But already I could see a worse snag ahead. “There’s still the question of paper,’’ I said.
“What about paper?’’
“The letter from Blundell to Shaw was on Egerton Bond, wasn’t it? The paper I found on Blundell’s desk in the cottage was Egerton Bond, too. That’s fine if Blundell wrote the letter himself—it ties up nicely. He just used a lot of Egerton Bond. But if Shaw faked the letter, on paper he’d chosen himself a year and a half earlier, then it’s a pretty odd coincidence, don’t you think?’’
“It could be just that—a coincidence.’’
“Well, I don’t know. There must be scores of different kinds of typing paper and Shaw could have picked any one of them. He could have picked, for instance, Waterton Bond, which was what Blundell was using when he wrote to your father a year or two back. But no, he picked Egerton Bond, the sort Blundell happened to have been using lately. I’d say it was a strong point against you, Mary.’’
“There may be some quite good explanation,’’ she said.
“Perhaps Shaw noticed that Blundell’s exhibit on the board was Egerton Bond?’’
“That can’t be it. Blundell was only one of his prospects, don’t forget. You’re not suggesting that Shaw made a note of the paper every author had used and then slipped out and bought some of each kind and presented the right sort for each autograph? There are limits!’’
She was silent for so long that I thought she really had no answer this time. But I was wrong. Suddenly she cried, “I know …!’’
“Well?’’
“Perhaps Blundell never used Egerton Bond at all! What was there to prevent Shaw taking a ream or two of Egerton Bond with him to Blundell’s cottage and exchanging it for whatever was there—because it was the sort he’d used for his letter? He could have planned to do that from the beginning, whoever it was who died.…’’
“H’m!—very ingenious!’’ I said.
“Well, he could, couldn’t he?’’
“I don’t see why not.… All right, let’s say that clears up the paper question. I can still see another objection, though—looking at the thing from Shaw’s point of view. When he came to write his letter on the paper that Blundell had autographed—after Blundell’s death—he had to put a date on it, didn’t he?’’
“Of course.’’
“Well, how would he have known what Blundell might have been up to on the date he chose? Suppose it had been discovered afterward—suppose we’d discovered, for instance—that Blundell had been seriously ill around that time, and not writing letters, or that he’d been in America, or something? Wouldn’t that risk have worried Shaw?’’
“No,’’ Mary said, “because the date on the letter was April 12, and that was the day before the exhibition opened. Shaw would have known that Blundell was around then. And I’d say that’s rather significant.’’
I nodded again, and fell silent. I had no more objections. I didn’t feel as excited as Mary obviously did—I hadn’t her faith—but I was deeply interested and certainly more hopeful than I’d been at any time before. This new case against Shaw, hypothetical though it was, seemed to me to be on a completely different plane from the conspiracy-with-Blundell idea. The air of fantasy had gone. I no longer had to struggle with an utterly unconvincing motive like the one that Mary had tried to attribute to Blundell. If Shaw had planned a frame-up on his own he’d done it from the most convincing of all motives—for the hard cash he hoped to get out of it. Given a sufficient degree of cunning, the thing was feasible—and Shaw somehow seemed to fit the part. A man who’d taken such exceptional pleasure in dissecting other people’s fictional plots might well have thought himself capable of planning a real one of his own. I could just imagine him sitting up in that room of his evening after evening, quietly spinning his web and reveling in his own ingenuity. He was exactly the right type for it—the mild, inoffensive, retiring type! What was more, there were aspects of his behavior that I hadn’t attached much importance to when I’d been thinking in terms of the unlikely Shaw-Blundell theory, but which now fitted in well. The fact that he hadn’t mentioned the subject of his plot to anyone, for instance. The fact that he’d told his sister about sending his manuscript to Galloway but not said a word to her about sending it to Blundell. Of course, nothing was certain. We hadn’t in any sense established that Shaw had faked the crucial letter from Blundell—we’d merely gone some way to establishing that he might have, which was quite a different matter. What we wanted now was positive evidence.
As I thought back to the all-important letter, I found myself wondering if the defense experts had gone into the question of the typing “touch’’ in the various exhibits they’d been shown—the letter to Shaw, and the Blundell letters to Galloway. Would Blundell and Shaw have had a different “touch’’? Probably they’d both been two-finger typists—most men were. Would that, I wondered, have emphasized differences, or concealed them? I was a two-finger man myself—perhaps I could judge from my own work. I felt in my pocket again for the bit of typing I’d done on Blundell’s typewriter and scrutinized the letters—but I couldn’t detect any distinctive pattern of pressures.… What I did see, though, suddenly gave me a startling new idea.
I looked across at Mary, deep in her own thoughts—and hesitated. It was a bright idea—but it might turn out to be a disastrous one.
“What is it?’’ she said.
“I’ve just thought of a
way we could test Shaw’s letter. The thing is, I don’t think it could prove that the letter was a fake. It could prove that it wasn’t a fake!’’
“Oh …! Well, go on.’’
“You know how a typewriter gets clogged up after a while if you don’t clean it—the letters, I mean—and it shows in the typing?’’
She nodded.
“I’ve just been looking again at the bit of typing I did on Blundell’s machine. The letters are quite badly clogged—especially the e and the a.’’ I showed her.
“Well?’’
“Well—if Shaw did fake his note on Blundell’s typewriter after Blundell’s death, the state of the letters would have been about the same as when I used it, because no one else would have touched it in between.’’
“And the photostat would show if they were,’’ Mary said.
“Yes—but this is the point. If the letters in the photostat are clogged, it means the question of who typed the letter is still open. Shaw could have done it, or the typewriter could have been in the same sort of state eighteen months ago and Blundell could have done it. But if they’re not clogged, it means that Shaw didn’t do the typing. It could be the end of our new theory—the end of everything.’’
“Let’s go and see,’’ Mary said.
We drove straight over to Kew. It was a horribly tense and silent journey. I almost wished I hadn’t had the damned idea, but it was too late now. The moment we reached the flat, Mary rushed to the bureau and got the photostat. Together we bent over it.
The letters a and e were clogged!
“Good for you!’’ I said softly.
“You see, Peter! It fits—it all fits. Oh, Peter, I really do believe we’re onto something at last. Darling!’’
She threw her arms round my neck and hugged me. It wasn’t a romantic embrace, but it was something. It looked as though the ice was really breaking up at last.
Chapter Nine
I drove to the office that afternoon in a much more cheerful frame of mind. Mary’s enthusiasm had been infectious. The mere possibility that Galloway might after all have been the innocent victim of a plot and that everything might yet come right was enormously stimulating. But the attempt to change Mary’s new idea from an outside chance to a certainty was going to be a lot tougher than theorizing, and I hadn’t a clue where to begin. The fact that the trail was stone cold made things infinitely more difficult. There wasn’t a hope that anyone would remember whether one insignificant little man had in fact collected a sheaf of autographs at an exhibition held eighteen months ago. There wasn’t a hope, at this stage, of checking whether Shaw had actually bought a ream or two of Egerton Bond paper at any time. There was equally little prospect that I’d be able to get any confirmation of a journey made into Essex so long ago, unless Shaw had been much more careless about it than his otherwise close attention to detail suggested. Back in the spring, I might have been able to find his footprints at the cottage—but not now.