Death of a Literary Widow

by Robert Barnard

  For some minutes there was silence, except for the noise of voracious eating.

  ‘That was fascinating,’ said Gerald at last, wiping his mouth in preparation for another descent on his plate. ‘Fascinating. Especially as most of the people might be considered my own family! Hilary and Hilda’s daughter, eh? I always said he was my son. Not that it would be any different if he were really Walter’s!’

  ‘The difficulty is motives. So far as I can see the discovery of the hoax has got me nowhere, and I’m back with the same old one: jealousy and a desire to stop Hilda’s mouth as far as Viola is concerned; money as far as the rest are concerned.’

  ‘I’m sure my eldest would do most things for money,’ said Gerald dispassionately. ‘But I’m not sure it would extend to murder. He’s a cautious, cold-blooded little sod. He’s the one I can hardly recognize as mine. Viola is much more my idea of a murderer. . . . Banked passions, m’boy, banked passions. An exciting woman, I’ll say that for her. There aren’t many like her these days. Still, she’s a bit wobbly on her pins, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes she is. Very slow and heavy.’

  ‘You’d have difficulty convincing a jury she could scramble up to the attic and start the fire.’ Gerald put his knife and fork down for an interval of mastication, and looked thoughtfully at Greg. ‘I’m not happy about that fire. A fire to cover a murder. Would anybody actually risk anything so chancy, if they’d really thought it out in advance? Don’t you think you might be looking at the whole thing the wrong way round?’

  Greg looked at him with slowly dawning comprehension:

  ‘You mean that the main thing was the fire? The destruction of the Machin papers? With the murder of Hilda nothing but an afterthought?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, m’boy, isn’t it?’

  The two sat for a little in thought.

  ‘If that were so,’ said Greg slowly, ‘there are really only two possibilities. Two people might want to destroy them, to preserve the secret of the hoax. One is Viola–but the same objections apply. The other, I suppose, is Kronweiser.’

  ‘Exactly. Nasty little tyke, as you described him.’

  ‘Oh, he’s that all right, and more. And I’ve considered him, don’t think I haven’t. When I realized he’d been investigating the phoney letter–’

  ‘Ah, he’d had suspicions, had he?’

  ‘Yes. He’d taken one of the letters Hilda faked over Walter’s signature to have the date of the typewriter checked. But it was all right–she wasn’t so green, our Hilda. It was only later that I found out a detail was wrong–she’d had Walter see the King and Queen drive past, when in fact they were in America.’

  ‘If you found that out, you can be sure Kronweiser would have checked that too. He’s an American researcher–thorough as hell. Just get them on to talking about their research topic and you’ll realize that–you’ve never heard anything as boringly exhaustive as they are. If Kronweiser had doubts, he’d have checked everything in that letter that could be checked. He’d have gone to biographies, newspapers, court circulars.’

  ‘But think–what an inadequate motive! He finds out there are fraudulent letters from the author he’s working on. He kills the woman who has been writing them.’

  ‘But you’ve got it wrong. You didn’t stop with the letters–why should he?’

  ‘OK. He found out the author he was working on was a literary hoax. Instead of exposing it, he burnt all the papers and killed the person most likely to expose the hoax.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But it’s inadequate. Murder, for a little thing like that.’

  ‘You’re wrong, m’boy,’ said Gerald, excitedly, shovelling the last of his meal into his mouth and pouring another glass of wine. ‘It’s the best motive you’ve got, by far. You don’t know these people. You don’t know what the academic situation is like in the States. It’s always been publish or perish, but in the last few years the competition has become fantastically cut-throat. Thousands of Ph.Ds in the dole queues–just like cotton-workers in the ‘thirties. You’ve no idea what you have to do to get jobs in the universities there these days. We’ve had Fulbright Professors over here–their families practically have to make an appointment to see them for half an hour on Thursdays and Sundays. Scribble, scribble, scribble. Notes here, queries there; they think up an idea for an article, and then they stretch it to three articles. You’ve got to have a list of publications as long as your arm before they’ll even look at you for what they call “tenure”. Otherwise your contract’s renewable every year–and if you let up, it’s the boot for you, and you’re lucky if you scrape a job with some Black Methodist Ladies College somewhere in the deep South. I tell you, it’s murder.’

  His passion had half-way convinced Greg, but he still frowned in puzzlement. ‘All right, I take your point. But why not make your reputation and get your book published by writing an exposure of the hoax?’

  ‘Because that would be nowhere near as satisfactory as perpetuating it. Look at it from this Kronweiser’s point of view. He exposes the hoax: a nine days’ wonder, congratulations–then what? He’s done a year’s work on a non-author. Useless! Then look what happens if the lid is kept on the hoax. He is editor of the works and author of the first critical book on an author of major interest. An endless stream of minor articles and reviews pours from his pen. Everything on working-class literature in this century is sent to be subjected to the Kronweiser scrutiny. He’s the expert! He’s got a corner in a growing literary commodity. His college is proud of him. He’s made! It’s a hell of a difference, boy. Just a hell of a difference.’

  ‘I’m beginning to see,’ said Greg. ‘I’m not saying you’re not right. But enough to murder for?’

  ‘Surely,’ said Gerald. ‘And is the murder the main point? That was to burn the manuscripts. The bulk of the evidence–including those forged letters–goes up in smoke. They could have been tested to find out when they were typed. Now there are only the copies of Kronweiser’s transcripts–not damaging at all. I’ll bet you before long he’s back in England and removes the telltale one from Jackson’s file. Right, then–imagine him waiting on the landing to make sure the thing was well and truly alight. Hilda Machin comes out of her room, starts to run–and he clocks her and leaves her. What was there on the landing?’

  ‘A chair, a table–a lot of bric-à-brac.’

  ‘There you are–the instrument to hand. Probably the chair, I’d say. Quite likely she didn’t even see him there. And after the forging of the letters he must have seen Hilda as the main menace. He may even have thought she wrote the books.’

  ‘If he’s as smart and thorough as you say, he won’t think that for long,’ said Greg. ‘I think it might be as well for you to be careful. If he suspects . . . It’s easier the second time, they say.’

  ‘What about you? Does he know you’ve been snooping around?’

  ‘Not as far as I know, but could be. Things get around in Oswaldston.’

  ‘Then I’d watch out for yourself too.’

  ‘I’m not worried about that,’ said Greg. ‘But–what if you are right?’

  ‘I’m damn sure I’m right.’

  ‘What about proving it? What sort of a case could I possibly make?’

  ‘You want to see him tried?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Greg determinedly. ‘Call me priggish, and upright, and all the rest–but I do. I liked Hilda. If you want me to be primitive, I want to see him punished. I want to hear him squeal.’

  ‘You sound so old-fashioned,’ murmured Gerald. ‘This business of making a case, though, is not my field. It doesn’t sound promising. You said he wasn’t around any longer, didn’t you?’

  ‘No–he’s gone back to the States.’

  ‘You’d have to have a good case to get a warrant for extradition, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Don’t I know it. Practically watertight. And what chance is there of that? The police won’t even consider the possibility of its being murder.�
��

  ‘Has there been any talk of arson?’

  ‘No. There was no evidence–but then, that wasn’t suspected either, except by me. The insurance company might have gone into it more, but your son’s one of the local men.’

  ‘Then they’ll pay up generously and ask no questions, you can be sure of that. What else might you do?’

  ‘There’s the question of opportunity. Prove he was not at home, that he was seen in the area of the fire after it had started. But where does that get me? His work was there. He had every right to be in the vicinity. He used to go snuffling round the area, soaking up atmosphere. I’d have to prove he was there, that he lit the match, that he bashed Hilda over the head. I don’t see a snow-flake’s chance in hell of doing it now.’

  Gerald pondered a little. ‘Tell me,’ he said: ‘are you interested in getting the case to court and being patted on the back and called a smart boy, or are you interested in justice being done?’

  ‘I’m interested in justice being done.’

  ‘Funny. It’s not an abstraction that’s ever much appealed to me. Well–it occurs to me that you will, inevitably, see that–if you can wait long enough.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Justice takes many forms, doesn’t it? Think of President Nixon. Just think what’s going to happen to this man. He’ll go home. The Machin books will be published. His book on Walter will be published. He’ll become the Machin expert–deferred to, quoted. He’ll get his Associate Professorship, he’ll be looking around for a full chair. He’ll be throwing himself at the really good universities. And all the time he’ll be wondering. Then he’ll be waiting. He’s burnt his boats–he’s lost the option of exposing the hoax by becoming the “expert”. And it gradually comes to him that it’s only a matter of time before his whole career will collapse in ridicule. People are going to bust a gut laughing at this pompous little ass who’s put his shirt on a wooden horse.’

  ‘Why should he fear the hoax will be exposed?’

  ‘Because it’s bound to be, sooner or later. He won’t be allowed the last word, however polysyllabic his last word is. When you get a writer who’s rediscovered, the researchers descend on him like locusts. Eventually someone’s going to look at the records–the only things he can’t destroy. They’re going to look at the marriage certificate. Not conclusive perhaps–written some years before the books. Then they’re going to look at the will. Like you. They’re going to see how he struggles to write his own name–years after the books are supposed to have been written. And nothing like his signature on the contracts. And then they’re going to know.’

  ‘I wish I could be sure you were right.’

  ‘It’ll happen. I know the racket. And there’s another thing. We said just now we both weren’t safe from him. There’s one way of being a little bit safer: have a record of the hoax, a full account, safe somewhere, that we could threaten him with. I’ve been thinking of writing it myself anyway. It would give me a lot of satisfaction, and pass the time now I’m al–while the little lady’s away. I’ll deposit it at my bank, for publication when I die. Give me a chuckle as I’m going, eh? If the whole thing hasn’t been exposed by then, you can be sure it will be soon after.’

  Greg thought. ‘It’s an idea,’ he said. ‘You could say it’s a kind of justice.’

  ‘It’s the worst thing that could happen to him. Can’t you see it? Plodding his way up the ladder, step by laborious step. And all the time waiting–knowing that there’s this bloody great sword over his head, hanging by a thread. And he’ll know it’s going to fall, sooner or later. It’ll be the purest form of slow torture. Doesn’t the idea appeal to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Greg slowly. ‘I rather think it does.’

  by the same author

  DEATH OF A MYSTERY WRITER

  BLOOD BROTHERHOOD

  DEATH ON THE HIGH C’S

  A LITTLE LOCAL MURDER

  DEATH OF AN OLD GOAT

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  Copyright © 1979 Robert Barnard

  First U.S. edition published 1980

  by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Barnard, Robert.

  Death of a literary widow.

  First published in Great Britain in 1979 under title: Posthumous papers.

  I. Title,

  PZ4.B25877Daw 1980 [PR6052.A665] 823’.914

  ISBN 0-684-16648-8 80-13128

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4767-1630-5 (eBook)

  Copyright under the Berne Convention.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of Scribner.