The Case of the Missing Bronte (16 page)

It was a horrible glass and board sort of building, opened in the 'sixties but already looking as frayed and tatty as an ageing variety star. It wasn't the sort of place that Miss Wing fitted into naturally, but the staff seemed competent enough. The sister to whom I spoke, outside the room where she lay, stressed that the time at my disposal was limited, and she did it with the sort of emphasis that only sisters and matrons have at their command.

‘She's a very sick woman still,' she said, ‘and I shall rely on you in no way to upset her.'

She looked at me as if she had the strongest doubts whether she could rely on me at all. I was quelled, as men always are quelled by that sort of authority. I nodded
meekly. She pursed her lips, said ‘Well . . .' as if she would not be answerable for the consequences if I overstepped the mark, and led me into Miss Wing's room.

‘Your visitor, Miss Wing,' she said, with surprising gentleness.

‘Ah,' said the figure on the bed. ‘They said I'd met you before. I wondered if it might be you.'

Ill she certainly was. Pale, bandaged, and still horribly scarred on the face. The voice too was faint, lacking that clipped, schoolmistressy precision which I had rather liked before. But there was still a faint spark in the eye, something about the set of the shoulders as she lay there, that made me think she hadn't given up, that in the end she would come back fighting and be as fit as she ever had been. I took a chair and sat down close by her bed.

‘You tell me the moment you get tired,' I said. ‘And just say “don't remember” if you don't — don't try and strain your memory. Close your eyes if it helps.'

‘Oh — it's nice to see someone,' she said. ‘I feel I've been half in and half out of life for weeks. Like being in a waiting-room at a station — between journeys, as it were. I'm not used to complete lack of mental activity, I can tell you. Ask away.'

‘Well, now, you remember our conversation in the Dalesman?'

‘Oh, very well. How is your charming wife?'

‘She's fine. Now, I gather you did as I suggested, and went along to the University of Milltown?'

‘That's right. A day or two later. A young man . . . I forget his name . . .' She put her hand to her head.

‘Never mind. Timothy Scott-Windlesham it was. Now, do you remember what he said to you?'

‘Well, he was perfectly kind, but . . . well, he didn't seem particularly impressed. I suppose he was right to be sceptical, but he seemed rather an — what we used to call an
effete
young man when I was a girl. I thought perhaps
he didn't like to show himself impressed by anything. Languid, you know.'

‘That may be the reason,' I said cautiously. ‘Now, what did he suggest?'

‘Well, he said he wasn't an expert, but he offered to keep it for a bit and look into it.'

‘Did he indeed?'

‘Yes. But I didn't like to let it out of my hands. So he said the best thing to do was to take it along to the big libraries at Leeds or Halifax, or somewhere like that. I said I had no car, but he said there was no hurry because usually these things turned out to be less exciting than one hoped.'

‘I see. So you hadn't done anything more about it by the time you were attacked?'

‘No, I hadn't. I think I'd found talking to Mr . . . whatever . . . rather depressing.'

‘I see. When he was talking about libraries, did he mention the librarian of the West Riding Library, near Bradford?'

‘I don't think so. No. I'm sure he didn't.'

‘But you yourself had already mentioned the manuscript to people, hadn't you?'

She put her hand to her forehead again.

‘Yes. You've no idea how foolish that makes me feel: a schoolmistress all my life, always cautious and practical, advising precautions against this and that. And then to go and talk about it in the Dalesman, of all places. And by the way, Mr Trethowan, I really ought to confess . . .'

‘Confess?'

‘Yes. I'd talked about the manuscript even before you turned up in Hutton. I told Mrs Hebden, who is a good friend of mine.'

‘Ah — Mrs Hebden.'

‘That's right. And you see, she recognized you. She knew you'd been involved in cases — of a literary nature.'
(What delicacy! Not a trace of the snicker usual when the matter of my father's murder came up. I really loved Miss Wing!) ‘So you see, she rang me up as soon as you went down to the pub. And I — I feel awfully naughty about it — faked a casual meeting. I really don't usually go up and talk to complete strangers in public houses. Quite out of character, believe me. But I wanted expert advice, you see, and I felt sure you would be a good sort of person to go to.'

‘Well, I wish, in the event, that I'd given better advice. And I'm very far from being an expert.'

‘Well, much better than I could have got in Hutton, believe me. But I'm afraid that after that I mentioned the manuscript several times in the pub. All sorts of people could have heard of it. So foolish of me, as if I didn't know how any little thing gets around in a village like Hutton. I suppose that was the reason, really: so little happens there that when something does happen to you, you naturally want to talk about it.'

‘I shouldn't reproach yourself. After all, when you took your manuscript along to an expert, you were bound to talk about it anyway, and ran the same risk of its getting around that you had it.'

‘You mean the gentleman at Milltown? You surely don't think it could have been that, do you? I mean, a
professional
person . . . But I did wonder whether perhaps he wasn't as unimpressed as he made out . . . Well, I don't know. Certainly I should have told as few as possible, and I feel a silly old woman.'

‘Tell me, do you think your cousin Amos Macklehose could have known of the manuscript? Perhaps by family tradition?'

‘Cousin? Cousin? I don't count him as my cousin! How many removes do they have to be before you can consider them utterly removed?' Miss Wing's fighting spirit was very much in evidence at the mention of that name. ‘All
the same,' she went on, crinkling her forehead, ‘I don't see how he could have known and not my cousin Rose — I'd consider
her
my cousin, however many removes there were! And I'm sure she didn't know. Because she was an English literature person, you see. A great reader, which I am
not!
And she would have been so excited if she had found it when she inherited the family papers that she would certainly have told me. If there had been any family tradition about it,
someone
would have investigated long ago. Because we've been going downhill for years!'

‘That's rather what I thought,' I said. ‘I mean about investigating, not about going downhill.'

She smiled rather frailly.

‘He called, you know,' she said. ‘That Amos creature. He was visiting one of his flock — a rather pathetic old man who finds the local church a bit too humdrum for him. Macklehose was visiting him, and he came to the cottage. But I wouldn't let him in. I'd had enough of him when Rose was dying.'

‘Interesting,' I said. ‘Now, let's come to the night you were attacked. Is it too painful to talk about?'

She shook her head.

‘No. But I wish there were more I remembered.'

‘You went down to the Dalesman, didn't you? About how long were you there?'

‘Perhaps an hour. An hour and a quarter.'

‘And when you got home, it was dark?'

‘Yes, or very nearly. And there is practically no street lighting on the lane up to the cottage.'

‘Were you nervous at night?'

‘Good heavens, no. Perhaps when I first moved to Hutton — because I'd been used to living in a school, you know, with lots of people around me. But I'd given up feeling jittery long ago.'

‘You didn't notice lights on in the cottage?'

‘No. But I always left lights on in the hall and sitting-room. More cheerful to come home to.'

‘So you let yourself in. What happened then?'

‘Well, I hung my coat up. It had been drizzling earlier, and I'd taken it with me. Then . . . let me see . . . I went into the sitting-room. I was just about to go to the kitchen and make a nightcap when I thought I heard a noise from the other side of the cottage — where all the old stuff was, you know. But I didn't think about burglars — not at all. I thought it was cats. There's a big ginger torn marauds around there, and you know the sort of smells they leave if you let them get in. I thought I must have left a window open. So I went through the hall, opened the door — '

‘Yes?'

‘There was light coming into the room from the hall. I remember feeling some kind of obstruction, from behind the door. I just thought the carpet was up, or something . . . What did I do then? . . . Oh yes, I turned to put the light on, but before my hand got to the switch, this
shape
came at me from behind the door. I can't describe it any better than that. And before I knew anything it began to hit me — and then again, and again . . . It was terrible, terrible. Because I didn't lose consciousness at once, you see.'

‘Yes, yes. Don't think about it. Try to think back a little, to before that. Obviously you didn't get much of a look at this shape . . .'

‘No, hardly any at all. I was turned towards the light switch, you see.'

‘But if you didn't actually
see
it, you may have got some
impression
of it. Of its size, for example.'

‘Oh, dear — I don't know . . .'

‘As big as me, for example?'

‘Oh no. I don't think so. It would have come at me — hit me — so much from
above
if it had been.'

‘Tell me, did you have a visit some days before the break-in, from religious canvassers — Seventh Day Adventists, or something?'

‘Yes. Yes, I did. Norwegians, I think. I talked with them a little, just out of curiosity. But it was odd: they didn't seem to know much about the Bible.'

‘No, I'm not surprised. Tell me, was the shape as big as those men, would you say?'

‘No, I wouldn't think so. Really, now you come to press it, I don't think it was a very
big
person at all. Not awfully strong. Because if it was, he could have stunned me right away, don't you think? But he went on hitting — not
hard,
but
often.
Horrible! But I think he was frightened, and perhaps not used to violence. That seems funny, if it was some kind of professional burglar. But it was so—
random,
somehow. And frenzied. Like a child, you know.'

‘You make me weep for him,' I said, thinking with distaste of the etiolated Timothy Scott-Windlesham, the reluctant thug, the amateur who takes minutes to stun his victim. There is something to be said for professionalism, even in thuggery.

‘Miss Wing, there is one other thing I wanted to ask you about: your will — '

She sighed, as if very tired and sad.

‘Oh yes. I've lain here wondering whether you'd look into that — whether you had the right . . .'

‘We have no right. But I'm afraid your friend Mrs Hebden let something slip. And of course we were interested, because the will was obviously relevant.'

‘But it
isn't
relevant. It has nothing to do with all this. And it would be so easy for silly people to get the wrong idea. I have nobody close, you see: a few cousins, but none I have any great contact with — except the Macklehoses, and the less contact I have
there
in the future, the better I'll like it. I don't see how anyone with a
grain of religion in them could feel anything but contempt for him, and the rest of that branch of the family too.'

‘I have my eyes on him lovingly,' I assured her. ‘If I can get him for anything, I fully intend to.'

‘Good. And all the better for those poor silly people who go to him, though I suppose they always drift along to some other crank or crook in the long run. Or get involved in politics. Well, as I said, I'm virtually alone, and I haven't got much, but what little I do have I didn't want to go back to the government, which heaven knows gets enough out of single people as it is. So I thought I'd leave it to someone I liked.'

‘Of course. Perfectly sensible. You don't have to explain.'

‘Oh, but I
do.
I wanted to leave it to someone I liked, who was also young. Because I've always worked with young people, and liked them. Now, I'm not a great brain, as you know, but I'm rarely wrong about children. A
nice
boy, and a lively mind too, if only his school would find it out and encourage it.
Not
well-educated, poor boy, but enquiring, which is the important thing. And it appealed to me to give it to someone who has been — what's the modern word? — disadvantaged . . . What awful things people do to the English language these days, don't they? . . . So I left a few mementoes to some of my old colleagues at Broadlands, and the rest to Jason.'

‘Did you tell him this?'

‘Really,
Mr Trethowan, do you think I'm a complete fool? There's nothing so unsettling as knowing you're going to inherit something at some time, even if it's nothing very grand. Particularly for someone like Jason, who really has no expectations of that sort at all. No, it was entirely a secret between me and my lawyer. Until now,' she added, with some bitterness.

‘The thing is, you see, that if the manuscript is what we think it might be, it changes you from a person of modest means into something like a very rich woman.'

‘It certainly does not,' she said energetically. ‘And even if it did, little Jason would certainly not realize the value of the manuscript. I doubt if any of the older people in Hutton-le-Dales would either, come to that. And, you know, if I had thought of selling the manuscript, I would have made a very different will, leaving the cottage and things to Jason, and distributing the rest to charities: I have some I contribute my mite to regularly.'