Read Online The Case of the Missing Bronte by Robert Barnard - Free Book Online Page A

knew her Timothy Scott-Windlesham. I guessed he was the sort of teacher who is marvellous at communicating his own lack of enthusiasm.
    â€˜It wasn’t Meredith, actually, I wanted to talk about,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I’d better introduce myself. I’m a police officer — Superintendent Trethowan.’
    Policemen are always imagining that people go white when they introduce themselves. Often they do, but for no reason relevant to the matter in hand. Anyway, I was pretty sure that Scott-Windlesham went a further shade of pastiness at this point. He said nothing, though, and merely goggled at me in an inarticulate and unacademic sort of way. His hands, on the arms of his desk chair, seemed to be almost gripping them. I was forced to go on without any encouragement from him.
    â€˜I’ve come to you because we have a little problem you might be able to help us clear up.’ Timothy Scott-Windlesham nodded, looking helpful, and seemed to have managed to swallow his first reactions. ‘I believe you had a visit some time last week from a lady with a question about the Brontës.’
    Timothy’s face fell again, indefinably.
    â€˜Ye-e-es.’
    â€˜A Miss Edith Wing.’
    â€˜Was that the name? It was Marjory — our secretary — who made the appointment. With Professor Gumbold being . . . far from well . . . an awful lot of extra stuff descends on me that ought by rights to be his pigeon. Not that I’m complaining. And of course, though thisMiss Wing wasn’t a student, still, I do think one of the things one has to do, perhaps particularly in a place like Milltown, with no old university tradition, is to keep oneself as open as possible, to the community at large, I mean, because if we are going to serve any real function in the community as a whole — ’
    He went on in this vein for some time. Perfectly unexceptionable sentiments, but they struck me as blather. We get used to blather, in the police. And I served for a time in the Houses of Parliament. Politicians’ blather is to impress, suspects’ blather is to gain time. I thought Timothy Scott-Windlesham wanted to gain time. I waited until the flow had dried up.
    â€˜And what exactly was it that Miss Wing wanted to see you about?’
    â€˜Well, as you said, the Brontës . . .’ I sat silent, to force him to go on. I thought it possible he was considering whether to tell an outright lie. If so, he decided against it.
    â€˜She had this little book, you know: tiny pages, minute script, practically unreadable. As far as I remember, she said she’d inherited it. And it was obviously very old — faded, dog-eared, and so on. Though of course that’s very easily faked.’
    â€˜You thought she might be a forger of some kind?’
    Timothy Scott-Windlesham shrugged his hunchy shoulders.
    â€˜Just one of the possibilities.’
    â€˜And when you had inspected the manuscript, you suggested — ?’
    â€˜Well, that it might be — no, wait: I think she brought that up, now I come to think about it. She suggested that it might be a manuscript of one of the Brontës.’
    â€˜I see. Did you agree with that?’
    â€˜Only in so far as that was certainly one of the possibilities. I wasn’t in a position to do any more thanthat. One would have to be an expert. Of course the Brontës are a fascinating topic, fabulous writers and all that — I meditate a little piece on Emily’s French essays in the near future — but I’m not myself a specialist in them. All I could say was that the Brontës were the first names to spring to mind — naturally.’
    It would all have been more convincing if I had not just heard his previously expressed opinions on the Brontës. In any case, the cloak of learning seemed to sit uneasily on his meagre frame.
    â€˜You don’t know of any other writers, then, using that