Nigel was aware of a certain tension in the room during this apologia: it seemed to emanate from Liz Wenham, whose nails were beating a tattoo on the table.
‘What about the reviewers?’ he asked.
‘Owing to the delays caused by the author’s, h’m, attitude, we were badly behind schedule. Copies only went out a week before publication date—to postpone that date would have been inadvisable, for several reasons. I can only suppose that the reviewers had not had time to—’
‘Or the will to,’ put in Basil Ryle. ‘Blair-Chatterley is far from being universally loved by the military profession, and Time to Fight is a book that would be given to military experts for review.’
‘It’s news to me that reviewers read books.’ Miss Wenham sounded impatient. ‘Anyway, the point is that we’re in the dog-house.’
‘You’re insured against libel, I presume?’
‘There are no insurance policies against loss of prestige,’ replied the senior partner in oracular tones. ‘Technically, as you know, publisher, printer and author are held equally responsible in an action for libel. Even supposing our insurance policy will cover our share of the damages—and they’re likely to be enormous in the present case—there’s our reputation to consider. After such a flagrant libel, authors and agents might well fight shy of sending us their books: our whole reputation for—’ Arthur Geraldine’s pink cheeks quivered, his voice shook. ‘Why? I simply can’t understand it. We’ve always been a happy family here. Why should anyone want to do such a thing?’
It was a rhetorical question: but Nigel had little tolerance for rhetorical questions: he proceeded to answer it, dogmatically.
‘There are four possible motives. To damage your firm. To do down the author. To disoblige this Blair-Chatterley. Or, of course, pure mischief. I take it you want me to find out—’
Arthur Geraldine held up his hand: there was more hair on its back than on his head. ‘Precisely. We are not vindictive. But we must prevent any recurrence of the trouble. Finding the person responsible won’t help us in court; but we should at least feel secure against—’
‘Suspect anyone?’
Automatically, the three partners’ eyes sought one another in a silent consultation. Nigel could read their minds: they were debating the ethics of voicing suspicions for which they had inadequate grounds, or which they were ashamed of feeling. After a short pause, Mr. Geraldine spoke:
‘We have discussed it amongst ourselves, naturally. But we are quite at a loss. During the crucial periods, the proof copy of Time to Fight was in Protheroe’s room, accessible to——’
‘I’d rather go into the mechanics of it later, if you don’t mind. There was no one with a grudge against the firm?’
A slightly embarrassed silence, broken by Basil Ryle: ‘I still think Bates should be questioned.’
‘We’ve had all that out, Basil.’ Miss Wenham was visibly bristling.
‘Bates is—was our Production Manager,’ Arthur Geraldine explained. ‘He was certainly under notice at the time. But he’d been with us, let me see, thirty-two years, and always devoted to the firm’s interests. I am confident he is above suspicion.’
‘But you sacked him.’
Mr. Geraldine winced at the crude expression. ‘He was getting on in years, you know, and his methods had become just a leetle—ah hum—over-conservative, shall we say? So we asked him if he was prepared to retire, somewhat before the fixed date, on full pension of course.’
This Agag-like treatment of the subject only heightened the tension round the table. Nigel interpreted it—correctly, as it proved—to mean that the up-and-coming young Ryle had fallen foul of Bates or his methods, and forced his resignation, against the opposition of Liz Wenham certainly and perhaps of the senior partner.
‘And was he?’
‘Was he—’
‘Was your Mr. Bates “prepared to retire”? Did he go, or was he pushed?’
Nigel caught an approving gleam in Miss Wenham’s eye, as she said, ‘He certainly did not want to go. But he wouldn’t do a thing like that. It’s out of the question.’
Basil Ryle, sighing, shrugged his shoulders. ‘I think, if Mr. Strangeways agrees to help us, he must be allowed to have an open mind about everyone in the firm—including us round the table here.’
‘Ah, come now, Basil.’ A trace of Irish was heard, for the first time, in Arthur Geraldine’s speech.
‘Basil is right. We owe it to our employees.’ As so often when Liz Wenham spoke, it had the effect of a window opened to let in some bracing air. The uneasiness in the room was dispelled.
‘What about your reader?’ Nigel asked. ‘By the way, is he the Stephen Protheroe who wrote Fire and Ash?’
‘Yes. A remarkable poem, wasn’t it?’ said Miss Wenham.
‘We have sold some 26,000 copies of it,’ remarked Mr. Geraldine, ‘since 1927, and there is still a modest demand. Extraordinary, you know, that he never followed it up.’
‘I should think that poem would be enough to burn anyone out. And is he to be above suspicion too?’
‘Stephen has been with us since 1930. He has no financial interest in the firm, though we did sound him about partnership a few years ago.’
‘He seems to have had the best opportunity to tamper with the proof copy,’ said Nigel.
‘Possibly.’ Arthur Geraldine’s very long, thin upper lip seemed to stretch yet further, giving him a shark-like look. ‘But if he did it, I’d never trust my own judgment again.’
They discussed ways and means for a while. It was decided that Nigel should pursue his investigations, under cover of being temporarily engaged as a specialist reader. None of them supposed that this cover would hold up for more than a day or two, but even so short a period might help. His fee was stated, and agreed to. Then Miss Wenham said:
‘Where’s he going to work?’
‘Better put him in the room next to Stephen’s,’ said Arthur Geraldine.
‘Miss Miles won’t welcome that,’ said Basil Ryle.
‘Oh damn, I’d forgotten she was still with us. How much longer do we have to entertain the woman?’
Ryle shrugged. It was evident to Nigel that the best-selling authoress was Ryle’s protégée, acceptable to the other two, if at all, for the money Wenham & Geraldine would make out of her.
‘How long has she been using the room?’ he mildly inquired.
‘Since we signed her up, last June, off and on. She was moving house then.’
‘And now she seems to have moved in permanently on us,’ muttered Liz Wenham.
Geraldine said, ‘Well, as long as it’s a golden egg, I suppose we can put up with her laying it on the premises. Mr. Strangeways had better go in with Stephen, then.’ Moving over to his desk, he dialled a number on the internal telephone.
‘Stephen, could you spare us a few minutes?’
The receiver buzzed at him like a wasp.
‘… Well, it is rather important. Thanks.’ He put down the telephone. ‘Stephen’s in a mood.’
Nigel looked forward with some interest to meeting the author of that acrid, tragic poem, Fire and Ash, in a mood or out of it. Stephen Protheroe, once upon a time ‘a name to be conjured with,’ ‘a young singer to be watched,’ etc., etc., had given the public no further opportunity to watch him or to conjure with him. Withdrawing again into the total obscurity from which Fire and Ash, his one published work, had emerged, he had been lost to view for over twenty-five years. Few of the many admirers of that book could have stated with any certainty whether he was still alive.
‘We’re all very fond of Stephen,’ said Liz Wenham. ‘And terrified of him.’
Chapter 2
First Impression
A LITTLE GRIG of a man darted into the room, with a movement that suggested fins rather than legs. The fish-like effect was accentuated by his thin mouth, which was opening and shutting silently. After a few seconds, the mouth achieved speech.
‘How much longer is that
bloody woman going to infest the building? She’s wasted half an hour of my time this morning already—pestering me about her punctuation. Punctuation! I ask you! Am I hired to put in stops for female morons? And I don’t like her scent either.’
Protheroe’s diatribe was itself most effectively punctuated—with loud sniffs. Nigel took in the high-bridged nose, the noble forehead, the fine eyes blazing through horn-rimmed spectacles, which surmounted so oddly a weak mouth and an almost non-existent chin. The man’s voice was equally paradoxical—deep and resonant, but occasionally cracking to a furious squawk. One’s eyes kept returning to his mouth, which had the habit of nibbling silently at words, before pronouncing them aloud.
‘I have worked in this firm now for a quarter of a century,’ Protheroe was proclaiming, ‘and I should have thought I had earned the right to a little (sniff) privacy. Of course, if you prefer me to spend my time spoon-feeding illiterate (sniff) ex-trollops rather than reading manuscripts, I’ll accommodate myself to your (sniff) new policy. Who’s this?’
Stephen Protheroe had at last become aware of Nigel’s presence, and whipped off his spectacles with the apparent object of seeing him better.
‘Our new reader. Mr. Strangeways—Mr. Protheroe.’
‘Hm’ff. Sorely needed. How do you do? You can take Miss Millicent Miles off my hands. I like the ‘Miss.’ A Miss is as good as a Miles, I told her just now. She always—she hates puns. So do I, but it’s the only way I can get her out of the room.’ He turned upon Liz Wenham. ‘New reader, did you say? We don’t want a new reader.’
‘Now sit down, Stephen, have a glass of madeira, and calm yourself.’
Protheroe peered at the proffered glass suspiciously, took a gulp, smacked his lips.
‘The madeira vine,’ he informed the company, ‘was introduced to the island by the Portuguese, from Cyprus, or possibly Crete, early in the fifteenth century. It is a cousin of the wine known to schoolboys as Malmsey, and to antiquarian pedants as Malvoisie. Under either name it no doubt tasted equally sickly.’
‘Stephen, could you stop talking for a minute and listen,’ implored Liz Wenham. The note of exasperated affection in her voice was not lost upon Nigel.
‘Strangeways has very kindly consented to investigate our little trouble over Time to Fight. You remember, Stephen, he was recommended to us yesterday by—’
‘Nobody here ever tells me anything.’
‘You just don’t listen—that’s your trouble,’ said Liz Wenham.
‘I shall observe your methods with interest,’ Protheroe gave Nigel a courtly bow. ‘The science, or perhaps one should say the art, of detection has long been to me—’
‘Perhaps we should let Strangeways proceed with his art, or science,’ Basil Ryle interposed.
‘“In my craft or sullen art,”’ chanted Protheroe. ‘A shade dubious, do you think? That “sullen”—did it come from the heart or the head?’
‘For God’s sake Stephen!’ exclaimed Arthur Geraldine. ‘This is a publishing house, not a Senior Common Room. You don’t seem to realise the gravity of this libel action.’
‘Protheroe has nothing at stake,’ snapped Ryle.
Liz Wenham bristled. ‘I think we all know how much spiritual capital Stephen has put into the firm.’
‘Now, children! No quarrelling!’ Protheroe turned to Nigel. ‘At your service.’
‘I’d like to study the proof copy that was tampered with, and the original typescript. I want the addresses of General Thoresby, Blair-Chatterley and Mr. Bates, and a list of your present employees, with the length of time each has been in the firm, and a specimen of his or her handwriting. In the meantime, perhaps I could have a talk with Protheroe.’
Arthur Geraldine nodded. He went to a corner of the room, opened a safe which was discreetly concealed behind a large screen—as though nothing to be associated with base lucre should meet the eye in this high-toned room—and returned to the table with a proof copy and a typescript bound in brown paper.
‘Er, you will be at pains, I am sure, my dear fellow, not to—’ The senior partner, looking oddly pathetic, broke off and tried again. ‘I do realise, of course, that you will have to ask a great number of questions. But we do not want the staff, er, well, you know, unduly—I mean, unnecessarily—upset.’
‘I am sure Mr. Strangeways is the soul of tact,’ said Liz Wenham soothingly.
With that, Nigel took his leave, escorted by Stephen Protheroe. Stephen pointed out the rooms of the other two partners, off the same passage as Geraldine’s. Then they mounted a flight of stairs, emerged on to a landing with the lift doors to their left and a notice, Wenham & Geraldine: Editorial Dept. on the wall in front of them, and stopped at a door three yards down the passage. To this door was fastened a card, bearing in large block capitals the legend MR. BLODWORTH – KEEP OUT.
‘Here we are,’ said Stephen. ‘Mr. Blodworth passed over many years ago, but we like to keep in touch with our past. And of course it does baffle a certain number of my unwelcome visitors—though not, I fear, for long.’ He gazed at the card meditatively; then, whipping out a thick pencil, wrote underneath KEEP OUT the words This includes you, Miss Miles. ‘Welcome to my hutch,’ he said, throwing open the door.
It was certainly very different from the great open spaces of the senior partner’s room.
‘Very cosy, I am sure,’ said Nigel, eyeing with misgivings the cluttered desk, the naked bulb overhead, the shelves of dusty books, the two hard chairs which comprised the furniture and fittings of this glorified packing-case. One side of it was partitioned off from the room next door by a thin wall with a sliding, frosted-glass window in it. Through the wall could be heard the excitable chatter of a typewriter.
‘She actually composes her sickening works on a machine,’ said Protheroe, with an expression of deep disgust. ‘That shows you, doesn’t it?’
‘And where do I sit?’
‘Oh, I expect we can squeeze a little table into that corner. If we do, it will be physically impossible for our neighbour to get into the room at all. Then it only remains to seal up the sliding window and we shall be inviolable.’
‘Yes, that’s very nice. But how about getting out of the room? We shall need to do that from time to time.’
‘Oh dear me, are you one of those active detectives? I was hoping you would be the Nero Wolfe type, never budging from your chair.’
Clearing a space on the desk, Stephen put down the proof copy and typescript of Time to Fight; but Nigel showed no eagerness to examine them yet. Instead, he flicked a forefinger at them and asked:
‘Well, what can you tell me about all this?’
‘Tell you? How do you mean?’ Protheroe seemed a little disconcerted.
‘Go back to last July. The day this proof came back from the author. What date was it, by the way?’
‘The 22nd.’
‘Did it come by post, or did the author leave it in?’
‘Post. Does that matter?’
‘Probably not. What happened next? What’s the exact procedure in this house?’
While the typewriter clacked feverishly next door, Nigel extracted from Stephen Protheroe the following information. The proof had arrived by midday post on the 22nd. The parcel was brought to Basil Ryle’s room. After lunch he began scrutinising it, to make sure that the author had settled all the printer’s queries, and the author’s corrections made sense. A publicity meeting that afternoon prevented Ryle from finishing work on the proof, so he took it home with him. Reading it after dinner, he discovered that the offending passages had not been taken out. Next morning he discussed with Geraldine and Protheroe whether they should be quietly deleted in the office and the book sent to press, or whether General Thoresby should be consulted. Though the General had previously agreed to their deletion, Geraldine decided that the firm had better have a show-down with him, and get the record absolutely straight. So a meeting was arranged for 2 p.m. the same afternoon, between the partners, their legal adviser, a
nd the author. This, as Nigel had already been told, was a lively encounter: but the General had finally been induced to see reason, and the libellous passages were erased there and then. The meeting broke up a little before 3 p.m. Ryle at once brought up the proof copy to Stephen Protheroe, asking him to examine it for any literals which might have gone unnoticed by printer’s reader and author.
‘Is that part of your job normally?’ asked Nigel.
‘Oh, I’m just the little old dogsbody who sits up aloft. Ryle would have done it, but he was immersed in one of his publicity campaigns. He’s a (sniff) live-wire, you know. High-voltage fellow.’
‘So now we come to the zero hour. About 3 p.m. on 23rd July. You’re correcting the proof. How long did it take?’
‘I’d got most of it done by 6.30—I’m pretty fast, you know, and a Dead-Eye Dick for misprints. I finished it off next morning, by about 11, and gave it to Bates to post.’
‘What part of the book do the libellous passages come in?’
‘Chapter III and at the end of Chapter XIII.’
‘And had you got past Chapter XIII before you left that evening?’
‘Yes. I’d done fourteen out of the seventeen chapters.’
‘So the proof must have been tampered with after you left, or the next morning? Otherwise you’d have noticed the stet marks while you were reading it through that afternoon?’
‘I certainly would.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Positive.’
‘Well, let’s take the evening first. Have you any idea who was in the building after you left?’
The partners had discussed this with him yesterday, Stephen said. It was impossible to be certain even of their own movements on a night over four months ago. But, as far as they could remember, Geraldine had gone up to his flat on the top floor shortly after 6.30, Liz Wenham had left the office about 6.15, Basil Ryle had worked till 7.0 and then departed. As for the staff, some of them normally finished work at 5.0, the rest at 5.30, the only exceptions being the partners’ secretaries, who on occasion did overtime. The records showed that, on the night of the 23rd, none of these secretaries was kept late.