Simon Brett - Situation Tragedy

That meant finding out a lot more about the books of R. Q. Wilberforce. He went to the payphone on the landing.

‘Hello. Gregory Watts.’

‘This is Charles Paris.’

‘Oh, good afternoon. Did you get the book all right?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘What else can I do for you?’

‘I seem to remember when we spoke, you said Wilberforce was still alive.’

‘Was last year, certainly.’

‘Look, I need to contact him very urgently. Have you got a phone number for him?’

‘No, I’ve got an address. Incidentally, when I wrote to him, I wrote to R. Q. Wilberforce, but his reply was very firmly signed in his real name, so perhaps you should use that.’

‘You mean R. Q. Wilberforce is a pseudonym?’

‘Certainly.’ Watts laughed. ‘I can’t imagine too many people are actually called R. Q. Wilberforce.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Oh yes. Mind you, his real name is pretty odd, too.’

‘Oh. What is it?’

‘Barton Rivers.’ There was a long silence. ‘Are you still there, Mr Paris?’

‘Yes, I. . yes. Good God.’

‘Shall I give you his address?’

‘Yes. . no. I mean, no, I don’t need it now.’

‘Oh, but I thought. .’

‘No, what I do need are copies of his books. All of them. And fast.’

‘I told you, that’s the only one I’ve got — or rather had. They’re pretty rare.’

‘But they must exist somewhere. Don’t you know of any libraries or. . ’

‘I suppose they might be around in a library, but you could spend weeks looking.’

‘I’ve got to find them. It’s really important.’

‘Hmm. . Well, the only thing I can suggest — I don’t know if any of them would have any — but there are one or two collectors who specialise in detective fiction. You could ask.’

‘Anything’s worth trying.’

Gregory Watts gave him three names and phone numbers.

Stanley Harvey’s cottage in Hampstead was, like his speech, precise to the point of being precious. On the telephone he had admitted with pride to being the possessor of an almost complete set of R. Q. Wilberforce, but he had been unwilling to have them inspected that evening. Charles had to use all his powers of persuasion and even resort to the phrase (for once used in a literal sense) ‘a matter of life and death’, before he achieved grudging consent. ‘But I’m going out at eight,’ said Stanley Harvey, ‘so you’ll have to be through by then.’

And no, there was no possibility of Charles borrowing any of the books.

When he opened the front door, Stanley Harvey lived up to the impression of his voice and cottage. He was a dapper little man in his early sixties, with a white goatee beard. A tweed Norfolk jacket and a Meerschaum pipe gave a Sherlockian image, which was reinforced by prints on the walls, models and memorabilia of the great detective.

Stanley Harvey seemed unimpressed by Charles Paris. ‘This is really extremely inconvenient. I hope you meant what you said about it being important.’

‘You must believe me. It is. It’s far too complicated to explain but it is important.’

Stanley Harvey sniffed. ‘I rang Gregory Watts and he confirmed that he had given you my number. Can’t be too careful. The collection is pretty valuable and I can’t let just anyone in.’

The emphasis, and the look that accompanied it, suggested he suspected Charles might be just anyone and still contemplated refusing admission. ‘Gregory Watts said you were an R. Q. Wilberforce collector.’

‘Hardly. I’ve only got one of the books. Death Takes A Short Cut .’

Stanley Harvey gave a superior smile. ‘Oh, I’ve got that, of course. I’ve got five of them, and there only ever were the six.’

‘First editions?’ Charles felt he had to ask, only to give Stanley Harvey the satisfaction of saying a supercilious ‘Of course.’

It had been a good question, because now Stanley Harvey’s desire to show off his collection was greater than his distrust of his visitor. ‘Come through,’ he said curtly.

They went to the back of the cottage and through a passage to what appeared to be a modern extension. As they walked, Stanley Harvey continued to parade his knowledge. ‘Of course, the reason R. Q. Wilberforces are so rare is that so few were printed.’

‘Oh?’ said Charles humbly.

‘Yes, he never really caught on as an author. He was too larky and the plotting was too slack, I believe. He had the books printed at his own expense.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes.’ Stanley Harvey had perked up now he saw what a humble student he had to lecture. Yes, he must have been a schoolteacher, he obviously enjoyed pontificating so much. A schoolteacher who had come into money.

Quite a lot of money, Charles reckoned when they went into the library. It was a purpose-built circular room. Packed bookshelves rose to the ceiling, alternating with tall windows protected with metal grids. All their books, arranged with the pernickety neatness that characterised their owner, were hard-backs of this century.

Charles made suitably appreciative noises.

‘Yes, not bad,’ said Stanley Harvey smugly. ‘One of the largest private collections in the world, so I believe.’

‘Of what?’ Charles couldn’t resist saying.

‘Detective fiction. All first editions of course. I have my own private cataloguing system.’

Yes, you would.

‘Conan Doyles along there — complete set of English and American firsts. Agatha Christie, the same. Raymond Chandler. . Dorothy Sayers, of course. Simenons in the original, English editions and some selected translations and — ’

‘What about R. Q. Wilberforces?’ asked Charles. It was twenty past six, the eight o’clock curfew was approaching fast, and he felt a desperate urgency to find out if he was on to something or just caught up in an elaborate fantasy.

‘Yes,’ said Stanley Harvey, with a moue of annoyance. ‘Of course. Right, if that’s all you’re interested in, over here.’

He moved across the room and pointed to a row of matching blue spines. ‘Here we are. R. Q. Wilberforce. The only one I haven’t been able to track down yet is Death Takes A Back Seat. But here we have Death Takes A Tumble, Death Takes The Wrong Turning, Death Takes A Drive, Death Takes A Stand and Death Takes A Short Cut . I also have some manuscripts and drafts of stuff that was never published, if that’s of interest.’ He gestured towards a rank of metal filing cabinets.

‘Did you collect them all one at a time?’

‘No, not the R. Q. Wilberforces, actually. I do with most of the stuff, get it from publishers or through dealers, but in fact I got all this lot together. Just after the war I wrote to R. Q. Wilberforce and asked if he’d got any material he wanted to get rid of. To my surprise he sent me the lot. With a very strange letter. Said that he had been going to throw it all away, said that the War had changed everything, that there was no time for frivolity any more, that life had been shown up in its true colours and it was a tragic business. He said that R. Q. Wilberforce was dead and he never wanted to hear anything about him again. The letter was very odd, sounded a bit unbalanced.’

‘Did he sign his own name?’

‘He signed R. Q. Wilberforce, I don’t know whether that was his name or not. I’ve got the letter filed if — ’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Stanley Harvey smiled a self-satisfied smile. ‘So I got a nice little haul there for nothing. Shows what a letter arriving at the right time can do. Always worth writing a lot of letters if you’re building up a collection.’

‘Yes.’ Charles looked at his watch. Half-past six. And he looked at the thickness of the five blue books on the shelf. ‘Look, perhaps you could save me a bit of time. All I need to find out is about the deaths in the books. Perhaps you can remember something of the plots.’