Death of a Literary Widow

by Robert Barnard

  Opportunity for these suspects was difficult to determine–so much more difficult because this was not an official investigation, and he was not a regular investigator. How did one ask someone what they were doing on the night of the twenty-eighth if one was pretending to be engaged in merely casual conversation? Rose, he knew, had had an opportunity–her dog-walking provided her with that. Her absence (if it was regular and fairly lengthy) would presumably have given a similar opportunity to her husband. But as far as the others were concerned he hadn’t a clue, and, rack his brains as he might, he had very little idea how he could find out.

  For the rest, there were two figures on the margin of the investigation. Kronweiser would most certainly never have burnt the papers, even to cover up murder. But what if he had taken advantage of an accidental blaze to kill Hilda? Perfectly possible, if he was on the spot. But why should he want to? There was no motive, and Greg had no notion whether he was around the house at the time or not. If so, he had certainly been working later than usual.

  Just thinking for a moment of character alone: who would he pick as murderer? Mentally he grouped them. Possible murderers: Viola Machin, Desmond Seymour-Strachey, Mr Kronweiser. Unlikely murderers: Rose Clough, Bill Clough. Impossible to say: Margaret, Hilary and Gerald Seymour-Strachey.

  Even as he grouped them, he shook his head: what did he really know about these people? Why did he think Rose unlikely? Because she seemed a nice woman and had had a nice mother, with whom she seemed to get on well. It was ludicrously nebulous. In fact he knew nothing of importance about her at all.

  And what, then, was there left for him to do? The background, certainly, still needed some filling out. He wanted to finish reading the works of Walter Machin that were available, perhaps have a good look at Gerald Seymour-Strachey’s autobiography and other writings, talk to people who knew Machin–grilling senior citizens in pubs, as he put it to himself: filling them with weak beer to stimulate their weaker memories. It was all necessary, no doubt, but with all the optimism of his youth he couldn’t see that it looked promising. And after that? Somehow–somehow–to find out who was where on the night of Hilda Machin’s death.

  And suddenly it struck Greg that there was something else of possible interest. There was Walter Machin’s will.

  • • •

  Greg had rung Helen from London to tell her when he would be arriving in Manchester, and she had promised to work late and go out with him for a meal. Her office was only ten minutes from Manchester Victoria, and Greg decided to step it out through the grey, grubby streets, in the foggy chill of a May evening.

  He was just turning into the featureless modern office block that housed the Hayes-Farringdon Company where Helen worked, when his eye was suddenly caught by a sign on the other side of the street: The Olivera Type-writer Company. He stopped in his tracks, scanned the window opposite for some minutes, then turned to walk into the building much more slowly and thoughtfully than before.

  ‘That Olivera office opposite,’ he said to Helen as he walked into the office–‘what sort of place is it?’

  ‘That,’ said Helen, ‘is a fine greeting for a girl.’

  ‘That Olivera office opposite,’ said Greg, coming up to her desk, sitting himself on the edge of it, and kissing her twice–‘what sort of place is it?’

  ‘That,’ said Helen, very coolly indeed, ‘– and I don’t think two very perfunctory kisses make things very much better–is an office-supply place. You’ve heard of Olivera typewriters, for heaven’s sake. They supply those–and filing cabinets and desks and desk chairs and all that sort of thing. Bulk orders mostly, to big firms. It’s the central Olivera place in Manchester.’

  ‘Not the sort of place you’d go to to pick up a new ribbon?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so–not unless you wanted a dirty look from the sales staff.’

  ‘Was that the place you saw Kronweiser going into?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I told you.’

  ‘You just said office place. I thought you meant a kind of stationers’. What could Kronweiser want at a place like that, do you think?’

  ‘Well, I suppose you could go there for a new typewriter, though as I say, they’re mainly interested in bulk orders. Perhaps they’re cheaper here than in the States.’

  ‘Hmm–well, perhaps. It doesn’t sound likely. Kronweiser’s gone, I heard the other day. Back home to finish his great work of rehabilitation. I suppose he could have had one sent to the plane to get it duty-free. How would I find out?’

  ‘Well,’ said Helen, ‘I do know a girl who works in the outer office there, and we do sometimes meet up for lunch and I could try to put her on to it. . . . On the other hand, I am a girl who likes a bit of old-fashioned interest taken in her, and I do get cheesed when I have to take second place, especially when it’s to a dead widow of seventy-odd . . . ’

  For the rest of the evening, Greg showed interest.

  • • •

  ‘Are you alone?’ asked Helen, when she phoned through the next afternoon to the College of Further Education staff common room during Greg’s free period.

  ‘No,’ said Greg, looking towards an elderly female colleague in a drab woolly frock, hunched over piles of marking but twitching at the ears for anything of scandalous human interest. ‘Can I help you at all?’

  ‘Well, I took my friend from Olivera’s to lunch, which will cost you a couple of quid or a night out at the weekend. She promised to find out, and she’s just come back with the results. Now–he came in there with a letter.’

  ‘I see,’ said Greg greyly. ‘Was it any particular date?’

  ‘Yes–that was the point. It was dated nineteen thirty-nine, and it was about a visit to London.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Greg. ‘As a matter of fact, I think I may have seen it.’

  ‘Well, he had the original, and he wanted to know if the machine it was typed on was available before nineteen thirty-nine.’

  It was with difficulty that Greg restrained himself from saying ‘What!’, but knowing that his colleague would assume that he was being told he was about to become an unmarried father, and spread it, he said in the same world-weary voice: ‘That’s very interesting.’

  ‘Well, they investigated, and apparently it was quite easy, because it was a very distinctive typeface, which they’d only used on one machine. He came back a day or two later and they told him it definitely had been available before nineteen thirty-nine.’

  ‘Had?

  ‘Yes. The machine was only on sale between nineteen thirty-six and nineteen forty. He seemed satisfied, said he was grateful, and it was what he had hoped.’

  ‘I see,’ said Greg. Then, unable to frame any neutral question to follow up, he just said, ‘Thank you for the information, hope to see you soon,’ and put down the phone.

  For the rest of his duty period he walked around in a daze. The information, at first, had seemed to open up new vistas. Mr Kronweiser had been on to something. He had suspected someone of forging letters from Walter Machin. Was that it? Who then? Hilda Machin, presumably. Or perhaps the two old dears together. To keep his interest up. But it sounded more like Hilda alone–it was just the sort of thing to appeal to Hilda’s sense of humour. To feed Mr Kronweiser false letters and die of laughter as he lapped them up. Probably she had some old typing paper of Walter’s still around in the attic, so she could make them look convincing. It was just like Hilda–and she could tell herself she was giving the Walter Machin industry a boost while she was enjoying a good laugh. Kronweiser had got on to it and–what? Killed her? No, that was nonsense. Not just because it was a ridiculously inadequate motive, but because it wasn’t true. The typewriter wasn’t a later model than ‘thirty-nine. Kronweiser hadn’t proved forgery.

  Then–what? It was a dead end. For Kronweiser as for him. Kronweiser’s suspicions were set at rest, and he had gone back to the States. As for Greg–he was precisely where he had been before.

  Or was he missing the po
int? Was that not the reason behind Kronweiser’s enquiry at Olivera’s? And if it was not, what in the wide world was it?

  He racked his brains till he finished teaching, and he racked them while he tried to sleep, but nothing presented itself. He had a dreadful feeling that the next step would have to be the old-age pensioners.

  CHAPTER XVI

  CONVERSATION PIECE

  The Hamley Arms, Oswaldston, 30 May.

  ‘Oh aye, she were a gradely lass, were our ’Ilda. Thanks a lot–good pint this. Aye, a real bobby-dazzler. Born just round t’corner from us, so we felt right proud of her. Good with the kids at school, too. There were many as reckoned she threw ‘erself away when she started going wi’ Walter Machin.’

  ‘Why was that? He was in a good job, wasn’t he? And he seems to have kept in work.’

  ‘Oh aye–he were foreman, or a bit later on he were, any road. Youngest works foreman there’s been around these parts. Still, when all’s said, it’s not a clean job. There’s many thought our ’Ilda, being a school teacher, ought to have aimed higher. Gone for something with a bit of class. She had the looks for it, too.’

  ‘Did she have any other boy-friends?’

  ‘There was plenty as was willing, any road. Headmaster for one, only he were married. But no–Walter it had to be. An’ then, within a few years, they’d got the babby an’ she’d given up teaching. What a waste! Our Bill were in ’er class, an’ he were that upset. Not that she were soft wi’ them–firm but fair, that was our ‘Ilda.’

  ‘Do you think it was a happy marriage–at first, I mean?’

  ‘Depends on how you look at it, doesn’t it? Depends what she expected out of it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, like, did she go into it with her eyes shut or open? Because I mind our Dad saying: “She’d do better to take on a class o’ twelve-year-olds than take on Walter Machin!” An’ he were right, because he were a bit of a lad.’

  ‘He had an eye for the women, you mean?’

  ‘Oh aye. Always had, from when he were a lad. Damn near had to get married while he were still apprentice. Mind you, fair’s fair: they went after him just as much as he went after them–he were a good-looking chap, well set-up, like. And of course wi’ him working in a mill, there wasn’t any shortage of volunteers. I remember one time–before he met Hilda–he seemed to have a different lass every Saturday night for a year or more. And he didn’t have to stand them pictures, either! Hilda must have known all about it, so it just depends on whether she thought she could reform him, or whether she were content to take him as he was.’

  ‘Because he didn’t change after they married?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. Let’s say he cut down by eighty per cent. I suppose you ought to call that reform, in any language, eh? Good beer this, lad . . . ’

  The Dog and Whistle, Bury, 1 June.

  ‘Oh aye, we were at school together. Proper little rogue and vagabond, was our Walter. Teacher never had a moment’s peace with him, and I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve seen him waiting outside the headmaster’s study. Always up to some mischief or other. Kept us in stitches.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have expected him to become a writer?’

  ‘Writer? Writer! It was all he could do to spell his own name. Oh no–he never had no time for learnin’, not then. He was what you’d call a late developer. Or what’s that word that Lizzie–‘er as married my grandson–‘as picked up? Under-achiever. She’s got one like young Walter Machin, and that’s what the headmaster said he was. Our Lizzie goes round to everybody and says: “My Stanley’s an under-achiever,” like it was the Queen’s Award to Industry. Pleased as Punch she is. I said to her, I said: “In my time they called it idleness,” I said, “if it wasn’t stupidity.” But she just looks at me pityingly, like I was behind the times and needed to catch up with the latest ideas.’

  ‘What do you think it was in Walter Machin’s case?’

  ‘Well, stands to reason he was just lazy, doesn’t it? After all, he came to write those books the papers go on about. Must have been a clever enough chap underneath. In fact, we all knew he was sharp, sharp as a carving knife. And I know he went to classes and things after he left school. But what he was really good at was machines. By gum, he could make them go! He loved anything mechanical, did Walter. If it was something he hadn’t seen before, he’d bend over it like it was a babby, and in half an hour he’d know that machine inside out.’

  ‘Is that why he was made a foreman, do you think?’

  ‘Aye. Firms appreciate that sort of thing. And it was all pure pleasure to Walter. If you asked him what he’d rather have–a night wi’ a pretty lass or a day wi’ a Rolls-Royce engine, I think he’d have had to toss for it. You could almost hear him purring when he got near anything wi’ cogs and pistons.’

  ‘Someone in one of those Sunday newspapers’ articles called him “the poet of machinery”.’

  ‘Aye, well, I can well believe it. There wasn’t much Walter didn’t know about machines, and what he didn’t know he could learn in five minutes. So it didn’t make a scrap of difference, him being backward, like. He was always in work, right from the day he left school.’

  ‘What about his home background?’

  ‘Ee–well, it’s getting near my time for going home, I think I’d better be making a move. . . . ’

  ‘Won’t you have another drink?’

  ‘Well, I’ll just ‘ave a quick one–thanks very much.’

  The Castle, Blackburn, 2 June.

  ‘Oh aye, he was the light of my life one time, was Walter Machin. Me and a couple of hundred others. I used to watch his every movement when he went around the mill–all the girls did. Wonder we didn’t do ourselves an injury, he was that much of an industrial hazard.’

  ‘What was so special?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand, lad. You’re a man–and the wrong generation an’ all. If he appeared in that door now, probably none of the girls here would give him a second glance: it’s all long hair and round shoulders now, isn’t it, like yesterday’s flowers. But Walter Machin was just what we went for in those days: we were all daft about him–couldn’t think o’ anything else, from morn to night.’

  ‘And I suppose he liked that?’

  ‘Aye, he did. Not that he ever acted cock o’ the walk–ee, doesn’t that sound awful? But what I mean is, he didn’t have that high an opinion of himself, just because he knew he could have any one of us for the asking. He had a sense of humour, did Walter, so it never got out of proportion.’

  ‘Did he–well, did he take advantage of the situation?’

  ‘Well, that’s one way of putting it. Not how I’d describe it myself. Because he never got a lass into trouble–except once, and that was when he was just a lad. He was very considerate like that–and he taught us girls a thing or two we lived to be grateful for later on, I can tell you.’

  ‘Did you and he–go together?’

  ‘Aye, we did. And for an admission like that from an old woman you can buy me another drink, young man. . . . Ta. Yes, we “went together” for three weeks. It was lovely. Just heaven. I wouldn’t like to tell you how often I’ve thought back on it. Must be hundreds of thousands of times. Because a husband’s not the same, is it? At least, mine wasn’t.’

  ‘Did you and Walter quarrel?’

  ‘Quarrel? Ee, no, lad: you couldn’t quarrel with Walter. You knew from the beginning the terms of the thing, and if you tried to make it more serious than that, you only lost him the quicker. No, there was no quarrel: he just went on to someone else, like he always did. Of course, I’d dreamed my dreams, but I wasn’t surprised. I’d known it would happen, all along. I was quite pretty, a neat enough lass, but I wasn’t anything special.’

  ‘I suppose Hilda Machin was, then?’

  ‘ ’Course she was. She’d had an education, hadn’t she? Gone to some sort of college. She could have had her pick, that one. Even then, they was very coy, the
m two.’

  ‘Coy?’

  ‘He didn’t like to admit he’d got hooked–not after the way he’d been going on. That sort’s always the most embarrassed, aren’t they? And she’d got modern ideas, and all–about married women being slaves, and what not–though to my way of thinking it’s always a toss-up which is the slave. Any road, they crept off to Bury one weekend–it was where his mam lived, where he’d been brought up and gone to school. And they got it done at the Registry, very quiet. There’s still folk around here will tell you they never were married at all, but it’s a lie: my Aunt Florrie was char at Registry Office, and she saw them there.’

  ‘Did he change after he got married?’

  ‘Well, all men do, don’t they?’

  ‘He gave up chasing the girls, did he?’

  ‘Oh–he didn’t lose his eye, not Walter. But he did cut down–it was only now and then. You’d know when he was breaking loose: you’d see him walking round t’mill like a cat wi’ two tails, and you’d say to yourself–“There’s something on.” O’ course, I only knew him a few years after he got married. I moved here to Blackburn wi’ my Arthur in ‘thirty-seven, and I never saw him again to my knowledge. But he was no age when he died, and if you ask me it was probably like that to the end, knowing Walter.’

  ‘He wasn’t the faithful type?’

  ‘Well–he was and he wasn’t. I think there was really only one woman for him after he married. He was faithful to her–but not strictly faithful, if you get my meaning.’

  The Pendle Arms, Oswaldston, 5 June.

  ‘Well, I never knew him really, till right at the end. I mean, I did get work at his mill in the summer of ‘forty–I’d been on t’dole for four years, since I left school–but he went into the RAF not long after, and I didn’t see him again till late ‘forty-six. He wasn’t the same chap, I’ll tell you that. I knew him well enough to spot that. Perhaps he was sick then–I don’t know. It was only two years or so later that he died–TB or summat. But he wasn’t the same chap.’