‘Yes, Levin.’ Mr Portman handed his secretary the final copies of Youth’s Companion. ‘Run these down to the printing plant and wait until the first run is completed. I want copies for myself, then send a note over to the Penny Press for the drays to come and pick up the copies for distribution tomorrow morning. And then, all of you, if you will just give Mr Dodgson a few minutes of your time, he may be able to discover which of you killed poor dear Sammy. And if he does,’ Portman’s genial manner hardened into a fierce determination, ‘I shall personally see to it that whoever it is pays the supreme price for it!’
With which Parthian shot Mr Portman went into the inner office, leaving Mr Dodgson to drink tea, Dr Doyle to stand by the office door, and the rest to stare uneasily at each other.
CHAPTER 22
Mr Dodgson looked about the office at the tea drinkers. Then he said, ‘Perhaps it would be better if I spoke with Mr Howarth first, then Mr Monteverde, then Mr Roberts, and then Mr Levin, if Mr Portman can spare him from his errands. Would you gentlemen prefer to do this individually, upstairs, in your own rooms?’
Monteverde and Howarth exchanged glances. Then Monteverde spoke up, ‘Win and I usually work together. We have no secrets from each other. I didn’t kill old Basset Hound, and as for poor David, he must have been caught by one of the looters last night in the Strand.’
‘Besides,’ Howarth pointed out, ‘our fires are nearly out, and it’s freezing up there. At least here we’re warm.’ He stretched out his hands towards Levin’s fire, which was still emitting enough heat to keep the room tolerable for human habitation.
‘Dr Doyle and I have already established that Mr Basset was killed in the stairwell, probably as he was leaving the building,’ Mr Dodgson said. ‘However, we are of the opinion that Mr Peterson’s death was not the result of some random violence connected with last night’s disturbance, but a deliberate attack.’
‘You mean, something David saw or heard made him suspect one of us?’ Howarth considered that for a moment.
‘It is possible,’ Mr Dodgson admitted.
‘And it would be just like him to twit whoever did it,’ Monteverde said with a wry smile. ‘He liked to ferret out little things about people, nothing criminal, you understand, just things people wouldn’t like known.’
‘Indeed? And what had he found out about you?’ Mr Dodgson asked.
Monteverde shrugged. ‘Only that I’ve got a cousin who spent time in South America with Garibaldi and wound up in an Italian prison for fomenting rebellion. David came to dinner at my father’s restaurant, got to chatting with Cousin Guido, and got the whole tale out of him. Of course he used it in one of his stories, just to show me that he knew all about it.’
‘A literary blackmailer. Quite unique,’ Mr Dodgson commented. ‘You seem to lead a blameless life, Mr Howarth. Surely you have no reason to dislike either Mr Basset or Mr Peterson.’
‘Although,’ Dr Doyle put in from his station at the door, ‘it must have been difficult to work with the man who stole your sweetheart away from you.’
Howarth blushed under his straggling beard. ‘It’s true, Myrna preferred David to me,’ he said. ‘But that was six years ago. We’re all good friends now.’
‘Nevertheless …’ Dr Doyle said meaningfully.
Howarth nodded. ‘David was starting to treat Myrna abominably. Staying out till all hours, drinking and carousing.…’
‘Carousing?’ Mr Dodgson echoed. ‘With whom?’
Howarth shrugged. ‘Oh, just other fellows from the Street. I don’t think he’d been after any other women, if that’s your thinking. David wasn’t that sort; just careless.’
‘And if he had been, um, unfaithful?’ Mr Dodgson hinted.
Howarth’s usually mild expression darkened. ‘I’d have had a word with him,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t think I could have tolerated it. Bad enough that he made such a point about his domestic bliss! Photographs of his children on his desk, knowing that all I have to come home to is Post-Office Polly. My dog,’ he explained hurriedly.
‘Not much meat for a blackmailer there,’ Dr Doyle put in from his place at the door.
‘And you, Mr Roberts,’ Mr Dodgson went on, ‘what did you think of Mr Peterson?’
The artist scowled and showed his sketchpad. Mr Peterson’s rotund features were attached to the body of a plump and satisfied pig.
Mr Dodgson chuckled. ‘You have an excellent pen, sir, and a good eye for a likeness.’ He tapped another sketch on the page. ‘However, you have it wrong. I was not the White Rabbit. That was Dean Liddell. I was the Dodo.’ He unfolded the sheet of sketches he had abstracted from the wastebin to display the goatish head of the editor-in-chief. ‘Was this your opinion of Mr Basset?’
Roberts shook the hair out of his eyes. ‘He came into the shop where I was ’prenticed,’ he said. ‘He said he liked my style, and that I could better myself if I went to work here.’
‘And did you?’ Mr Dodgson asked.
‘I may not be London-bred, sir, but I know what’s toward. I let him know straight out that I wasn’t the sort he was lookin’ for.’ Roberts consulted with some inner muse, then continued. ‘He took me to dinner one time at the Café Royal, and that was that.’
‘But he kept you on,’ Mr Dodgson said.
‘Oh, aye, he did that. He knew he’d get no one else, not at his wages, and he needed me as much as I needed him.’ Roberts looked at the other two, who nodded in corroboration.
‘Eddie’s got a real touch,’ Howarth praised his friend.
‘And his cuts are far and away better than anything else on the Street,’ Monteverde added.
‘And Basset let you use the premises for your own work,’ Mr Dodgson said. ‘You have access to the attics, do you not?’
Roberts nodded. ‘Aye, I could get into the place should I need to touch up one of the cuts.’ He looked at Mr Dodgson with sudden suspicion. ‘Meaning, that I could have come in and pulled those heads off the walls?’
‘It is possible,’ Mr Dodgson said.
‘And I suppose you wouldn’t care to listen if I told you I did not?’ Roberts retorted truculently.
‘You would say that, of course,’ Mr Dodgson continued his questioning. ‘Did Mr Basset approve of your taking outside work?’
‘What business is it of yours what I do with my time?’ Roberts snarled. ‘I don’t have to answer to anyone for every minute. I do work here and there. All of us have something on the side. David used to write funny squibs for whoever would take them. Win writes sketches for variety acts.’
All eyes turned to the bearded writer, who flushed under the scrutiny. ‘Why not?’ he defended himself. ‘It’s jolly good fun, and I get theatre tickets for nothing.’
‘And you, Mr Monteverde,’ Mr Dodgson asked. ‘How do you supplement your income?’
Monteverde had been gazing into the fire. Now he spoke up. ‘You know, I just had a thought, Win. What do you think of a guide to good eating in London? A sort of Baedeker for travellers that tells which restaurants are worth patronizing and which are only indifferent? Perhaps with a rating system …?’ He let his voice trail off, as he followed this thought to its natural conclusion.
‘That might be quite useful,’ Howarth said, animated at the prospect of a new project. ‘And you could follow it up with similar books for other cities in England and extend it to the Continent…’
‘But we’d have to do it right,’ Monteverde said. ‘We’d have to eat at all of them.’ The thought seemed to cheer him up.
Mr Dodgson interrupted this speculation. ‘So all of you had other work besides this position, and you could, if necessary, go elsewhere. Why did you stay?’
Monteverde looked at Howarth; Howarth looked at Roberts. Then they all smiled sheepishly at one another.
Roberts spoke for the group. ‘The work was fun, especially with David in the office. He could jolly us all out of our black moods, ease Basset out of his tempers, even cope with Levin when he got that
high-and-mighty-look.’
‘David really made this place go,’ Howarth said, his voice starting to choke. For the first time that day, the full enormity of their loss penetrated to the three men. ‘He had such a sense of the ridiculous.’
‘The summer picnic was his idea, not Basset’s,’ Roberts said. ‘And there would be a little something at the Christmas holidays, too. David was the real soul of this magazine.’
‘And yet someone thought he was dangerous,’ Mr Dodgson pointed out.
‘Surely not!’ Monteverde protested.
‘It is becoming more and more apparent to me that Mr David Peterson was killed by the same person who stabbed Mr Basset because Mr Peterson indicated that he had seen or heard something that led him to suspect that person of the crime.’ Mr Dodgson gazed at the trio as if they were misbehaving undergraduates. ‘He should have gone directly to the police!’
‘The police?’ Howarth scoffed. ‘Not David!’
‘You saw those two coppers,’ Monteverde added. ‘David wouldn’t give them credit for a pennyworth of brains between them. Calloway’s off chasing pickpockets, and MacRae’s looking for Fenians under the bed.’
‘David would be more likely to keep what he knew to himself,’ Roberts declared. ‘Only he’d let whoever did it know that he knew. Then he’d put it into a story and send it off to one of the magazines that takes crime stories, just to let on that he knew.’
‘Then he wrote for other publications?’ Dr Doyle stepped away from his post to join the discussion.
‘Of course he did. You can’t turn creativity off and on like a tap. David’s mind was always going in five directions at once,’ Howarth said. ‘And Basset never read any other magazines but ours, so he’d never know. Not that it mattered; none of them ever use bylines.’
Dr Doyle nodded. It had always bothered him that his name was not put under the tide of any of the stories published by Cornhill or The Boy’s Own Paper.
‘Oh, we’re used to it,’ Monteverde said with a shrug. ‘At Portman Penny Press, half the works are under pen names anyway. Heaven forfend that your future readers should learn that you got your start writing penny dreadfuls and shilling shockers!’
There was a general laugh at the idea of any of them having a future audience at all, let alone one that would care how they got their start in artistic or literary pursuits.
‘Ahem!’ Mr Dodgson brought them back to the reality of their situation. ‘I should like to understand what, exactly, happened after Dr Doyle and I took our leave of this office at four o’clock yesterday. According to Miss Harvey, there was some sort of altercation between Mr Basset and Mr Levin.’
Howarth and Monteverde exchanged looks again. Then Howarth said, ‘I don’t know what he’d done that put Basset over the edge, but whatever it was, it must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back because Basset sacked him.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mr Dodgson put a hand to his ear.
‘He discharged him, fired him, let him go!’ Howarth’s voice rose. In a more conversational tone, he went on, ‘Monte and I had seen it coming for a while. Levin was like the camel in the tent.’
‘Another camel?’ Mr Dodgson looked confused.
‘An old tale,’ Monteverde explained. ‘First the camel put his nose in, then his head, and so on, and by the time he was finished, the camel was in the tent and the driver was outside. That’s what was happening, only Basset was too besotted to see it.’
‘Besotted?’ Mr Dogson echoed. ‘Do you mean to tell me …?’
Howarth nodded; Monteverde shrugged.
‘It was obvious from the minute he walked in that Levin was one of Basset’s pets,’ Roberts said bitterly. ‘There’s some as will marry a pig for the muck!’
‘Dear me.’ Mr Dodgson digested this information. ‘To return to our muttons, as they say, where were all of you when Mr Basset left?’
Howarth frowned. ‘I had to go downstairs,’ he said diffidently. ‘Basset’s tantrums work on my insides sometimes.’
‘And David and I went upstairs because he wanted to see the cuts we already had,’ Roberts said.
‘And you, sir?’ Mr Dodgson turned to Monteverde.
‘Me?’ Monteverde’s nonchalant attitude cracked slightly. ‘I went upstairs to get my coat. It was damned cold in here, even with Levin’s little fire.’
‘So none of you were in this office …’ Mr Dodgson summed it up.
‘Miss Harvey was still here,’ Roberts recalled. ‘The poor girl was still waiting for her money. Levin gave her some when he came back up the stairs to close up.’
‘Is that when he sent you home early?’ Mr Dodgson asked.
‘Must have been,’ Howarth said. ‘I saw him when I came back. He was heading up the stairs ahead of me.’
‘And Mr Peterson …?’ Mr Dodgson’s usually unlined face was marked with a thoughtful frown.
‘David was just coming down as Levin and I were coming up,’ Howarth said. ‘Monte was in the office with Miss Harvey … Eddie, where were you?’ He turned to the artist, who shook his hair back and frowned.
‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘David and I had looked over the cuts, and he’d picked out one for the cover, and then he went down, and then I think I went all the way down the stairs to fetch up some water from the yard.’
‘And that is when Mr Levin decided that all of you were to leave early due to the inclement weather and the incipient mob outside,’ Mr Dodgson summed it up.
The three men nodded in agreement.
Mr Levin himself interrupted the conference. He popped his head into the office. ‘I wanted to tell Mr Portman that the presses are rolling, and the next issue of Youth’s Companion will be off the presses momentarily.’
‘Good show!’ Howarth crowed.
‘May we have a word, Mr Levin?’ Mr Dodgson asked. ‘You have been in and out all day, and I have not had the opportunity to ask your opinion of all this….’
‘Meaning, the murder of Mr Basset?’ Levin’s cheekbones flushed, while the rest of his face seemed chiselled in stone.
‘Meaning, all of the events of yesterday,’ Mr Dodgson said. ‘I would prefer to discuss these matters with you in private, since they concern your, um, personal relationships.’
Mr Levin’s classical features were tinged with pink. The other three men shared glances; then Mr Roberts strode to the door. ‘I’ve got to clean my tools before we leave,’ he announced.
Monteverde and Howarth followed him out of the door, murmuring excuses, while Dr Doyle resumed his post.
Levin remained standing, like a schoolboy being ticked off by the headmaster.
‘I have heard differing versions of how you came to be employed here,’ Mr Dodgson began. ‘Perhaps you can clarify the issue. Did you come in answer to an advertisement?’
Levin cleared his throat. ‘Mr Basset and I met through a … a charitable event,’ he said at last.
‘Indeed?’ Mr Dodgson’s expression was blandly benign. ‘I had not thought Mr Basset to be a charitable man.’
Levin’s voice took on an edge, and his accent sharpened. ‘Mr Basset ’ad … had interests in several charitable institutions, connected with books mostly.’
‘Including Toynbee Hall?’ Mr Dodgson suggested.
‘Mr Basset came down in answer to Mr Barnett’s request for books for the library,’ Levin said defensively.
‘I would not have thought that a young man named Levin would have any interest in Canon Barnett or St Jude’s,’ Mr Dodgson commented.
Levin’s cheekbones flamed and paled. ‘St Jude’s Library was open to anyone who wanted to improve himself,’ he said.
‘As you wished to do. Most enterprising of you.’ Mr Dodgson nodded his approval. ‘So Mr Basset came down to Toynbee Hall to assist Mr Barnett in his endeavours. You were there, he was there, and you met. Was that the first time you had encountered Mr Basset?’
Levin took a deep breath, then let it out. ‘This is very diffic
ult,’ he said. ‘Mr Basset was … he took an interest in me. When I told him that I’d been studying accountancy through St Jude’s, he said that I might come here to take a position that might, in time, lead to better things in the publishing business.’
‘And so you came to Youth’s Companion,’ Mr Dodgson summed it up.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And did Mr Basset keep his word?’
‘I beg pardon?’ Levin looked confused.
‘You seem to have had several different functions here. You open the doors, lay the fires, and run the errands, but you also keep the books, which is the work of an accountant or clerk; you write letters to contributors, which would be Mr Basset’s domain; and you also seem to be conversant with the work of the printers.’
‘I wanted to learn the business,’ Levin said. ‘Unfortunately, I ’ave never ’ad … had the time for literature.’ His accent was becoming more pronounced as he became more agitated.
‘And what did you think of Mr Basset as a person?’ Mr Dodgson persisted.
‘It wasn’t my place, was it?’ Levin’s voice took on an edge. ‘Mr Basset could be quite genial when he wished to be. He was pleased to offer me this opportunity, and I took it.’
‘You did not, for instance, meet him after business hours?’ Mr Dodgson asked casually.
‘After business hours?’ Levin’s voice shook.
Mr Dodgson leaned forward with the expression that had daunted an entire generation of undergraduates whose work had been found wanting. ‘I think you had best tell me the whole, young man. There were meetings, were there not? Perhaps he took you to dinner?’
‘ ’E were … he was,’ Levin corrected himself, ‘a gentleman who liked the company of younger men. Not boys but, like, young.’
‘Young men of the sort that congregate at the Café Royal.’ Mr Dodgson’s expression was one of extreme distaste.
Levin nodded. ‘I ’ave a few chums ’oo told me about the goings-on at the Café Royal,’ he admitted. ‘They said it was an easy way to earn a quid … that is, to earn a pound or two. That all I had to do was let ’im pat me about.’
The Problem of the Evil Editor Page 24