Printer's Error

by Gladys Mitchell

  Although he could not see that anything was to be gained by doing so, Bassin followed his host through the French windows on to the lawn and so to the bridge. This they crossed, and proceeded past the farm and on to a broader path capable of taking a car. The church was less than a dozen yards away.

  “There you are! That’s the way he escaped,” said Thomas Carn. Less exuberantly, he led the way back to the house. “What do you want with me now?” he asked, in much less friendly tones. Bassin, seeing no reason against it, told him.

  “That manuscript and that typescript are somewhere in this house. I want them found and handed over,” he said.

  “But the man who took the letters and galleys has probably taken those, too,” Thomas Carn began to argue. Bassin, who had been primed by Mrs. Bradley, cut him short.

  “He did not remember that they existed. I’m pretty sure of that. Will you look for them, or shall I?”

  “Neither of us, my dear fellow. What are servants for?”

  He rang the bell, and Bassin explained to the maid what it was they required.

  “Oh, sir, the two-year room be what you want,” she said.

  “The two-year room?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Mr. Carn was very careful to put his finished work up there, to be kept for just two years. Missus had the seeing over it. Every week she would go up there, and take out and destroy the work that was two years old, no matter what it was.”

  “I see. A useful idea. Go to it, Bassin,” said Thomas Carn, with simulated enthusiasm.

  “May I? Thanks very much. Lead on, Ethel. This is where we find a jumping-off place, unless I’m greatly mistaken.”

  He was not mistaken. A short but careful search, during which he discovered notes, schemes of work, a short study entitled Reformation of a Typical Casual, brought him at last the manuscript and typescript of the book. They were clipped together, and dated in broad blue pencil.

  “Well, attaboy!” said young Mr. Bassin, well pleased. He returned to the “Lion” with his treasure, locked it in his case in his bedroom, locked his bedroom door, came down, and ordered a drink, and prepared, with what patience he could, to await the return of Mrs. Bradley.

  She came back amused. Bassin grinned in sympathy with her snapping black eyes, and her smile (like that of a basking alligator), and enquired how Carey fared.

  “He has broken the Sanctuary record,” his aunt replied. “It took the last record-holder half an hour to cast care and his lendings to the winds, but Carey managed to adopt the stark principles of nudism immediately he was given a hut in which to undress.”

  “They’ll have to introduce strip-tease,” said Bassin, much impressed by Carey’s heroism. “And what about Carn?”

  “I haven’t seen him, so far as I know,” Mrs. Bradley cautiously replied, “but that means nothing. I shall leave his unmasking to Carey. What of your own adventures, child?”

  “I’ve done pretty well. Better, in fact, than one had hoped. What do you think—oh, well, look here, what with people in chimneys and so forth—would you mind coming up to my room?”

  He locked the door upon them both, and then produced the manuscript and the typescript.

  “And it’s my opinion—probably worthless, but I’d better tell you—that Thomas Carn wasn’t too keen to brass up. Ask me, that man’s a villain. I don’t say of the deepest dye. Hasn’t enough pluck for that, I’d imagine. But there’s no doubt his heart is not in the right place. Nasty chap. Come in for his brother’s property, and jolly well means to stick to it.”

  “Interesting, child. These things sometimes run in families.”

  “What, hearts not in the right place, and nasty chaps? I agree. Also, luckily, vice versa. Well, here’s the stuff. Will you take a slant at it now, or shall I decant it on to you for a season?”

  “Let us admire it together. Where are the galleys?”

  “Here we are. Here’s the whole lot. Now a spot of careful comparison is the idea, I take it. Let’s shove our heads close together, and see what we can spot.”

  In a comradely manner they sat cheek by jowl and pored over all three copies. Each had a pencil, and, without speaking, underlined everything which did not tally on all three scripts.

  Time wore on. Bassin became exceedingly hungry, but did not (in view of Mrs. Bradley’s concentration of effort) care to mention the fact. At last, after several hours’ steady work, they had finished. Bassin pushed hair from his brow, sighed, took out his pipe, glanced at his companion, put it away again and said persuasively:

  “Just about dinner-time, don’t you think? Wonder what they’re giving Carey to eat? Nut foods and orange juice, I expect.”

  “My poor child!” said Mrs. Bradley in contrite tones. “You must be starved! Let us lock the door and go down at once.”

  They dined together and Mrs. Bradley chose the wines. A bucolic clod of a waiter noted the numbers on his cuff, bowed awkwardly, and went off to get the selected bottles. When he had gone, Mrs. Bradley said:

  “Will you trust me tonight with the fruit of our combined labours?”

  “Yes, rather, but I’m coming in with you.”

  “You must promise to go to bed, then, child. If I am set upon, I will promise, on my part, to scream loud enough to wake our friend Alfred.”

  Alfred returned at this moment to say that the wines would be “up” in a minute, and would they take fish?

  “I think not, Alfred,” said Mrs. Bradley, with kindly firmness, “although I’m sure it’s really very nice. Alfred, is there a priest’s hole in this house?”

  “No, madam, but there’s the fireplace room where King Charles hid, they do say.”

  “How do you get to it?”

  “Through that there bedroom of your, that’s how. But don’t ee go trying of it. Break your neck, most likely. Ask me,” said Alfred, leaning heavily on the table and breathing hard, “that’s how that German gentleman got hung up in the chimney. Just fools about, they do.”

  “Not in my bedroom, Alfred, I hope and trust.”

  “As to that there, well—” said Alfred ponderously. He broke off what appeared to be the commencement of a set of moral reflections, to go to the door and bring the wine in. “Want ’em both uncorked, sir? Right you are. One each, is it, or did ee mean to mix, ’em? Ee needn’t drink it all if ee don’t want it. Easy write the room numbers on they bottles.”

  When dinner was over, Bassin remarked that he supposed his room would be better than Mrs. Bradley’s own, if she intended to keep an all-night vigil. His room was in the newest wing of the house, which had been added in 1760. They went to it, and whilst Bassin prepared to go to bed, and then bounced in and almost immediately fell asleep, Mrs. Bradley, comfortably seated at the dressing table (which had plenty of knee-room) in a chair which was the right height, spread out the results of their research work, and laboured on it patiently until about four o’clock.

  When she was certain that nothing more which she could do would add to their knowledge of the author’s apparent intentions, opinions and foibles, she took off her skirt and her shoes, locked away the scripts in Bassin’s suitcase, crept into bed beside that good young man, who was tall and thin and was lying in the convenient shape of an arc from crown to knees, and fell asleep, too.

  Nothing disturbed the rest of either sleeper. At half-past six Bassin awoke, raised himself slightly and put an arm, son-like, over his sleeping companion.

  “What news?” he asked her, an hour later, when both had risen and were ready to go down to an early breakfast.

  Mrs. Bradley, who had just returned from her own room, where nothing, it was clear, had been disturbed during the night, wagged her head, and said that they would need to obtain a copy of the book in printed form before all their problems would be solved.

  “But you’ve some ideas,” said Bassin. “Let’s go for a good long walk and talk them over. We can sit in the middle of the great open spaces—what about Banner Down?—where no one can overhear us, or leap o
n us, or anything—and there you can spill the beans.”

  Mrs. Bradley assented to this eminently practical suggestion, wondered what Carey was doing, hoped the weather would remain warm and fair, and led the way down the stairs.

  After breakfast they met in the lounge burdened with the obvious impedimenta of camera, novels, illustrated papers, and tweed coats, and got into Mrs. Bradley’s car.

  George parked in a small, turf-covered patch surrounded by bracken, not on Banner Down, but forty miles farther on where hills came down in steep cliffs to the sea.

  “Lovely spot,” said Bassin. “George, just toot a bit if strangers, or, worse still, people we know, come in sight. Now then, Mrs. Bradley, what about the b’s and d’s?”

  “Some of the book,” said Mrs. Bradley, “has been translated from the German. I think Mrs. Carn did the translation because she reads alternatively body for song and brother for on the other side. No doubt her husband corrected these errors on the proof which we have not seen.”

  “I see, yes. Leib for lied, and bruder for druden. But presumably she knew German. Would she have made such mistakes by accident?”

  “If she really did not distinguish b’s and d’s I think she would. Then she wrote leather where the sense would appear to suggest to live, and, of course, apart from these errors in translation, Tom Dowling instead of Tom Bowling is particularly obvious.”

  “Leben and leder, yes. I suppose it was Mrs. Carn, and not Carn himself, who confused the two letters?”

  “I think so, because we noticed, in the manuscript, which you also brought from the House by the Brook, that there was no trace, before it was typed, of any confusion of the letters. He wrote ‘babble’ and ‘rid’ without alterations—”

  “Yes, but wouldn’t he have corrected his own typescript before it went to the printers?”

  “Yes, we saw that he did. He corrected ‘bitch’ to ‘ditch’ in one place, and ‘bib’ to ‘did’ in another, and ‘curd’ to ‘curb’ and ‘peddle’ to ‘pebble.’ No, I think we can take it for granted that it was Mrs. Carn who confused the two letters, and Carn who corrected the error whenever he detected it. But he doesn’t appear to have bothered too much with the typescript.”

  “What do you mean? Wouldn’t he know she had the slight kink of always mixing the letters up, and take special care to put the mistake right?”

  “Yes, child.” She regarded him with the soulless intelligence of a bird. “That’s why we are going to be able to find out Mrs. Carn’s murderer.”

  “But we know her murderer.”

  “Do we?”

  “Carn himself.”

  “Yes, but why should he murder his wife?”

  “Why shouldn’t he?”

  “They were fond of one another—”

  “She knew about his affair with Mrs. Saxant.”

  “Men don’t usually murder wives who find out that kind of thing.”

  “Still, it has been done.”

  “But, the most interesting error,” continued Mrs. Bradley, “is not on the typescript.”

  “What?”

  “The ‘Donner-Bonner’ error is not on the typescript, child.”

  “Good heavens! That’s rather odd.”

  “It is delightfully odd. In fact, it is the nucleus of our case against Mrs. Carn’s murderer, because Carn had actually corrected that same error on the typescript. This afternoon I shall go and see Carey, and find out what he has to report.”

  “I say, it is all a bit unfathomable, you know.”

  “Yes. Child, I want you to go back to London at once with a message to your father.”

  “Post it, Mrs. Bradley. I’m not going back to London now. ‘The hunt is up, the hunt is up, and it is well-nigh day.’”

  “Yes, the hunt is up,” Mrs. Bradley replied, “and that’s why I want you to go back to London immediately.”

  As she spoke, George, who had been standing about twenty yards away on a boulder, as though he were admiring the view, began to stroll towards them.

  “Somebody coming,” said Mrs. Bradley placidly.

  “Two men, a dog, two young ladies, and a bearded gentleman, madam,” observed George, “are in the close vicinity.”

  “Very good, George. We’re ready,” replied his employer. “Give the bearded gentleman a wide berth. I have my suspicions of beards in a place like this.”

  George took his place at the wheel, and as he did so there was the echoing sound of a shot, a scream from one of the girls who had just come in sight, and a yell of annoyance from George, who brought the car round and gave chase to the bearded man.

  “Obey orders, George, you insubordinate rascal,” said Mrs. Bradley. “This is not a punitive raid. Get Mr. Bassin away from here. He is the target, not you.”

  “I beg your pardon, madam,” said George, slewing round and leaving the valley at the rate of fifty miles an hour on a road just wide enough to take the width of the car. “It was the bearded gentleman, madam. He’s on a Brough Superior. I didn’t get the number. His mackintosh was hung over.”

  “He has made off at a pretty good bat, anyway,” said Bassin. “Why the devil should he take a pop at me? And who is he, anyway?”

  “The beard is an obvious, but, at a distance, a remarkably efficient disguise,” Mrs. Bradley remarked.

  “Yes, but you know who he is.”

  “I can guess, child, but we have no proof.”

  “If we could have got his number, that would be proof.”

  “Not if he had hired the motor cycle in a name not his own, and not in the place where he lives.”

  “The number plates would have been enough for the police, I’m perfectly sure.”

  “I don’t want the police in yet, child.”

  “No,” Bassin agreed. “Not much point in having anybody arrested for taking unsuccessful pot-shots at us, I suppose. What’s the next move?”

  “We ought to tabulate our facts, balance them against any theories we may hold and—”

  “See who the cap fits. I get it. And now, I am in the mood for fun of the lowlier kind. George, drive in to Applebury. I require tomatoes.”

  He was some time in choosing, feeling every tomato carefully, and selecting only those which were completely ripe.

  “Are these the worst you have?” he enquired of the girl who was serving.

  “Except the throw-outs. You can have them if you want them, I suppose.”

  “Don’t sell ’em, Lally,” said a man from the interior of the dark little shop. “It’s a dick’s dirty trick, I bet.”

  “No, I assure you,” said Bassin. “But I don’t care for tomatoes unless they burst on the face.”

  “The over-ripe tomato is rated too highly as a weapon, or as an expression of opinion,” Mrs. Bradley remarked. “It is apt to scatter its properties in transit, and this detracts from the result when it reaches its target. Those which you have selected are excellent for your purpose, child. Get them weighed, and come along, or you will be too late.”

  So, two minds with but a single thought (albeit one of which Mrs. Bradley, in essence, disapproved), but not two hearts that beat as one, since the young man was keyed up to a state of pleased anticipation which his companion did not share, they sped back to the place at which the shots had been fired, and, by diligent enquiry, were able to trace the route by which the bearded motor cyclist had returned to civilisation. They were lucky enough to catch up with him, for George, who, owing to the prejudices of his employer, enjoyed few opportunities of testing to the full the capabilities of the car, drove at seventy miles an hour for most of the way, and, by dexterous manipulation of the wheel, avoided tedious halts in towns. They encountered only once traffic lights, which were against them, and picked up the bearded terrorist at the end of a long, built-up area.

  He was seated at the roadside tinkering with his conveyance’s inside. George, previously instructed by Bassin, played a devil’s tattoo on the horn. The motor cyclist looked up, and Bassin, terror of
the coconut-shy proprietors on Hampstead Heath, aimed in swift succession three of the ripe tomatoes, every one of which found its mark.

  By the time the bearded man had found his revolver the car had roared away, up and over the crest of a hill, George bending slightly forward, a grin of schoolboy pleasure (Mrs. Bradley caught it in the inside driving mirror) on his usually sober and impassive countenance, and Bassin, beside her, whooping in an imbecile manner which attracted the attention of the police but, fortunately, it seemed, sympathetically.

  George pulled up outside the “Lion,” rearranged his expression, and sat awaiting further orders.

  “What about both of us going to see old Carey?” Bassin suggested. Mrs. Bradley agreed that this would be an agreeable way of spending the afternoon, so they went in to a lunch of soup, roast pork, spinach, and ice cream, drank from a bottle labelled, with considerable felicity, Burgundy, Produce of France, and then co-opted George again to take them to the nudist camp.

  “I beg your pardon, madam,” said George, “but I believe I remember noticing that a preliminary notification was desirable in the case of parties wishing to attend upon the inmates.”

  “The what, George?” enquired his employer.

  “Well, madam, perhaps I should say the guests, but I can’t really imagine anybody in their right minds—all questions of prurience and the Defence of the Realm Act aside—”

  “No, neither can I, George. But we must remember that one half of the world and the other half of the world—”

  “Yes, but even the Polynesians, madam—”

  “Quite so, George. The state, as you point out, is pathological.”

  “Touching his first objection, Mrs. Bradley,” observed Bassin, “I take it that we don’t propose to advertise our coming?”

  “I think perhaps we should descend like the Assyrian. There is everything to be said in favour of a surprise attack, child. Drive on, George. We must waive the conventions for once.”

  “Very good, madam. Do you anticipate that we shall be ambushed at the entrance to the grounds?”

  “No, George, but perhaps we had better take precautions.”

  “I have my tin hat, madam, supplied to me, this time, as an air-raid warden, if you would care to avail yourself of its protection.”