I held my breath, but it wasn’t long before I could breathe normally. The paper, the ink, the glues, the thread, and the casing were perfectly authentic. Without any shadow of a reasonable doubt, they said, The Need to Love was a period piece. The experts concluded that the book had most likely been printed before World War II, or at the very latest sometime during the 1940s. The date printed in the work, 1939, was the most plausible.
The room erupted. The judge pounded his gavel and demanded silence, but for a few minutes it was to no avail. I had created a most satisfactory scandal.
When order was restored, Nicolas’s solicitor rose to say that they would seek a second opinion. The request was granted. The judge asked that the forensic laboratory at Scotland Yard be accorded the task. Until then, there would be no decision as to how to rule on Nicolas’s suit. The delay didn’t worry me. I was confident that my work would prove infallible and that Scotland Yard’s best would arrive at the same conclusion.
I didn’t have the courage to find Nicolas and comfort him, though I knew it must have been a genuinely horrible experience for him. Instead, like a coward, I escaped to my office.
A package was waiting for me on my desk. It was a copy of The Need to Love that a bookseller had sent on from Southampton. Several days earlier I had issued a search request to every secondhand bookshop in England, at Millagard’s urging, to locate other extant copies of my masterpiece. My message-bearing bottles were coming home.
I rang up Millagard at his hotel to tell him of my “discovery.”
I heard him sigh.
“That isn’t going to help our case.”
“On the contrary,” I replied. “Who’s to say if this copy is identical to Miss Evans’s? Think about it, Laurent. If I give this copy to the forensic laboratory at Scotland Yard, isn’t there the possibility they’ll detect a difference?”
“And if they don’t? It would be doubly damning.”
“Quite so,” I agreed. “But we won’t lose anything by trying.”
“All right, Edward. I give you carte blanche.”
I asked how Nicolas was holding up, for the cruel pleasure of hearing that he wasn’t.
“I’m beginning to think he’s going off the deep end,” Millagard confided. “He’s ranting about how he is going to flay Marianne Evans alive.”
“Good heavens. Try to keep him from doing anything foolish. And don’t lose hope, old man, for God’s sake. In two weeks we’ll be through all this.”
I rang off and went home to put the final touch on my plan. From my safe, I took the medical file I’d made off with when Nicolas was in hospital. I found an ordinary unmarked envelope and addressed it to People magazine, then slipped the file inside. If the second found copy of The Need to Love was going to fuel the controversy, this little document would definitively weigh the scales on the side of imminent justice.
I slept fitfully the next few nights. Partly this was because of the remorse I felt creeping over me at moments for betraying Nicolas. However, even more, it was from a growing fear that I might betray myself. It began as a vague suspicion at first, but it soon turned into a full-blown obsession. I fretted that one day I would admit to what I had done, compelled by the same masochistic pride that drives some criminals to boast about crimes for which they were never caught. Might I do this, I wondered? How could I be sure? Unless you possess the thick skin of a seasoned professional killer, there is no way of knowing, and no way of stopping this fear. I learned to live with it.
Each morning I woke up exhausted but grimly determined not to stop the machine I had set into motion. Upsetting as this whole episode was, I would see it through. No longer was it a question of revenge; it was a question of justice. Besides, were I to stay my hand from pity, the consequences for me would be truly terrible.
I had great respect for the power of my hatred, and this gave me courage. It carried me. I wondered if I would fall apart when the hate was gone.
The three weeks preceding the second hearing dragged on. I spent much of them pacing around my office in circles, virtually incapable of concentrating on my work. Each week I read through People, looking for a story on Nicolas’s medical history, but there was nothing. My guess was that they were holding off until the eve of the second hearing, when public interest would be at its peak.
I went out walking only once, out of an urgent need to get some air, and took advantage of the occasion to resolve the issue of rights to C. Irving Brown’s book. I called upon Anthony Ramsay, Philip Ramsay’s nephew, having already telephoned and explained why I wanted to meet with him. He confirmed that he was the only living relative of his uncle and said he would be willing to discuss the matter. At the appointed hour we met, and he presented me with Philip Ramsay’s last will and testament, dating from 1940, naming him as heir. I explained my somewhat paradoxical position. Being the English publisher of Nicolas Fabry, I wanted to acquire the rights for C. Irving Brown’s novel from Marble Arch Press, which had published The Need to Love in 1939. I explained I was willing to do this before hearing the latest test results, which could, after all, prove the whole thing a fraud. The countersuit claims would be my responsibility if he accepted my preemptive offer. Turner Press would undertake all obligations as pertains any future heirs of C. Irving Brown.
My honesty seemed to have pleased the man, who had never thought he would get a penny from Marble Arch. At the time of his uncle’s death, the press had had only three or four titles in circulation. What’s more, he made no attempt to push the price higher than the five thousand pounds I offered, though I would of course have gone higher—considerably higher. Without hesitating, he signed the agreement I had brought with me. I wrote him out a check.
Thoroughly delighted with myself, I walked back to my office, taking in the sights at a leisurely pace, something I hadn’t done since my visit to Vichy.
“Sir Edward, just what is the point of this agreement?” my solicitor Vanderon asked me when, several days later, I presented him with the contract.
“Very simple, really. Imagine that Brown does have heirs. If plagiarism is established as fact, Laurent Millagard would be forced to transfer to her or him whatever rights Nicolas had to Il faut aimer. That will inevitably mean another trial. I don’t doubt but that Millagard will be ruined. Now imagine he doesn’t have any heirs. By acquiring all rights from Marble Arch Press, I have an advantage over Millagard and Fabry, since not only am I free to reissue The Need to Love, I get what would have gone to the author or his heirs.”
Though not expressive by nature, Vanderon was unable to repress an appreciative smile. “You should have read law, Sir Edward,” he said, in a voice that nearly expressed admiration.
Chapter 12
As I had suspected, the day before the second hearing People printed Nicolas’s medical file in a grand story on the very first page. Its reporters pretended that they had discovered this exciting bit of evidence on their own. I was only too happy to let them have the credit.
The article quoted at length a well-known psychiatrist who explained that the “Fabrycation Affair” was far from being a simple case of plagiarism. Rather, it was a case of “cryptoamnesia,” as he called it. What this meant was that Nicolas could have read The Need to Love, and that his occasional amnesia had permitted him to be unconscious that he had done so, yet at the same time retaining each and every word in his subconscious.
The piece amused me greatly. That night I slept soundly.
The second opinion sought by the solicitors merely confirmed authenticity. The Need to Love was no forgery. Having analyzed several works published by Marble Arch Press, the Scotland Yard experts determined that the correspondences between The Need to Love and what remained of the Marble Arch Press’s books were clear in all the elements of design and production.
Undaunted, Nicolas launched into his self-defense. Brandishing a typescript covered with corrections and yellow tags, he professed his innocence. In an attempt to salvage his reputation, he tur
ned himself into a pitiful spectacle and talked openly about his fears about never becoming a truly great writer, about how he had been a prisoner of his own authorial indifference, and about how in Il faut aimer he had revealed his true self to the world as never before in his work, to “achieve the most complete form of sincerity” of which his masterpiece was the highest proof.
The judge listened to him with the smile of skepticism. Marianne Evans adjusted her hair and struck fetching poses.
This was too much for Nicolas. He started to shout, gesticulate wildly, shake his fist at the court, and generally accuse English justice of the same perfidy with which it had condemned Joan of Arc.
“There is something rotten in the Kingdom of England!” he thundered.
This was greeted with a chorus of indignation. The judge restored order, then solemnly opened a thin folder and read it over for a few moments before breaking the heavy silence that hung over the room.
“Mr. Fabry,” he began, “you see fit to accuse the United Kingdom of plotting against you and your countrymen. Happily, your military career suggests how insincere the accusation, given that you are in an excellent position to know that the British people came to the rescue of your country during the last war. Were it not for your past heroism during that great conflict I would hold you in contempt of this court.”
“Your Honor!” interrupted Nicolas’s solicitor. “We are not here to judge anyone’s military record, in particular my client’s—which, as you suggest, is a distinguished one. Rather, we here are to consider the accusation brought against him by Miss Ev—”
“I quite agree,” the judge broke in, “and I was only making reference to your client’s distinguished record in response to his typically French accusation that—In any event, since that subject has been raised, I believe there is a new element to introduce, an element that was not known at the time of the first hearing. I am referring to the leakage to the print media of Mr. Fabry’s military file, and the fact that it offers an alternative to the possibility of plagiarism on his part.
A murmur of surprise rippled through the gallery. Nicolas sat up straight in his chair.
“I am specifically referring to what happened to Captain Fabry on July 17, 1943, when, during the course of a mission, he fell victim to an accident that left him—if I am to believe this report—with rather serious cerebral repercussions.”
“This is an outrage!” shouted Nicolas. “I was a hero! I was awarded the O.B.E., made a member of the Legion of Honor. I am completely fit in mind and body!”
“I wish I believed it so,” said the judge, sighing. “Nonetheless, the document I am holding is entirely authentic.”
He waved the paper he had removed from the folder in the air.
“I have never been aware of such a document,” cried Nicolas. “You cannot admit it for use in this hearing!”
“Your objection notwithstanding,” continued the judge, “this medical report would explain in an entirely logical fashion your having—how shall I put it?—‘unconsciously borrowed’ from Mr. Brown’s opus, even if the material proof had not already established that very fact.”
I am at a loss to describe the emotions that swirled around the room. All I heard was the beating of my heart, and I felt a mixture of triumph and nausea. My victory had left me with no strength. I do believe that at that instant I felt true pity for Nicolas. But I would not even then have given way to that cowardly compassion that even tyrants can inspire at the moment of their demise.
There was a brief recess, after which the judge rendered his verdict: the court rejected Nicolas Fabry’s countersuit and ordered the plaintiff to cover all costs.
In the havoc that followed I spotted Marianne Evans making her way through the crowd, looking arrogantly serene. The bitch! Then I saw Nicolas—again—facing a barrage of cameras and flashes on the steps of the Old Bailey, defeated but defiant. I felt a jealous pang at the strength he still managed to summon to proclaim his innocence. I admired the theatrical gesture of throwing his manuscript into the air. Damn the man! He could still find a way of being handsome, dashing, and—despite it all—graceful. Under the same circumstances all I would have managed to do was vomit. In his place I would have looked small and gray and shabby.
Not Nicolas. He kept his air of dismissive defiance when he announced that now the legalities were over and he had no choice but to accept this decision, he would remain in England until he had tracked down this so-called C. Irving Brown, whose work absolutely no one seemed to remember—“How very convenient!”
His innocence fairly cried out. I was relieved that Doris wasn’t there. She is very sensitive. Doubtless she would have turned to me with a questioning look.
“My reputation may be ruined,” continued Nicolas in a clear and steady voice, “but I will prove to all of you that I am an authentic writer, that my gifts are mine and mine alone.”
I managed to get him to climb into my car and drove him and Millagard to the Savoy. I had reserved him the best suite available, proof that my opinion of him hadn’t changed. I also felt I owed it to him. Millagard, knowing that difficult financial times were ahead, had selected a less expensive accommodation.
Nicolas never stopped talking—about the judge, Marianne Evans, England.
“All that anyone has found to give this C. Irving Brown reality, and to destroy my life, is two miserable dog-eared volumes. Diabolical! Do you really think that for one second I believe in the existence of this phantom? Until someone proves otherwise, I am the only, the sole, and the glorious author of Il faut aimer, my masterpiece. ME.”
I kept my thoughts to myself. I was waiting for him to utter Yasmina’s name. Why could he not see that what had happened contained some element of justice, that any literary prize based upon a crime, a deep and grievous wrong, could only bring misery? I was waiting for him to admit to what he had done to me and to Yasmina. It wasn’t just him. Why didn’t he see all this? Why did only I see it?
Nicolas carried on his monologue from the backseat, sliding from one side to the other like a trapped rat seeking a way out. Millagard and I stared silently straight ahead.
“I want to see another one!” Nicolas cried suddenly. “Another copy of this book! Do you understand? I want to see it, touch it, feel it. I’m going through every public library in England with a fine-toothed comb!”
“No need to go running around to libraries,” I said. “Every specialty bookshop in the country has been alerted to inform me immediately should they locate another copy of The Need to Love. “
“Not enough!” he bellowed in my ear. “I want to learn everything I can about this man! Everything!”
“Very well,” I replied. “Since you seem so intent on it, since you want to pour salt in the wound, we’ll start our search tomorrow. I’ll contact an old army friend of mine from the Dorchester days. There’s a chance he might let us have a look at Brown’s military file.”
I dropped them off at the hotel. We had settled on a time to meet the following day at my office. From there we would go down to Ipswich, Brown’s hometown, then to the War Office. Millagard thanked me warmly for all my efforts. Nicolas, who expected such devotion, said nothing.
Driving home, a chill went down my spine. What on earth had possessed me to promise Nicolas and Millagard I would contact my Dorchester friend about a military file? It seemed certain to set anyone beginning to have suspicions about me to thinking. Given his present state of mind, Nicolas wouldn’t guess the part I was playing in his downfall, probably not even suspect that someone might have obtained his military record through precisely the same means. Millagard, on the other hand, might. For all his panic, he had a subtle mind. How would he interpret my offer? In his place, it seemed to me I would have sniffed a plot—would have begun to see that Sir Edward Destry was indeed the only person in the world with all the necessary elements to concoct the whole bloody thing. It all added up: I had been a forger during the war and a printer; I was a publisher; I was
an expert in contemporary British literature; I was the English translator of Nicolas’s previous novels. And I had every reason to be jealous. You didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to suspect I might be involved.
On the other hand, I reasoned, forcing back the fear, how could anyone believe that a publisher would be crazy enough to destroy the career of one of his most successful writers and oldest friends?
I would need to be very careful with myself. By telling them I could get access to Brown’s file, I was showing distinct signs of an impulse to confess. That would explain why I was making allusions of a more or less subtle nature, and playing with puns and hints. Now that the verdict had been rendered, the only thing of interest left for me was whether or not I would spill the beans. The game had started to lose interest. It galled me that having to keep my triumph a secret deprived me of the most stunning victory I had ever known.
I also suspected that I was softening. My opinion of Nicolas had begun to change. Pitiful was all he really was. Listening to him rant and rave in the car on the way to the hotel, I had nearly wanted to laugh, as children laugh at someone with a disability. It was another sign that I was distancing myself from my plot.
Instead of returning to my apartment, I went by the Turner Press offices. As if reflecting my own feelings, the staff was depressed. Doris looked as if she were struggling to hold back tears, and indeed the minute she saw me she burst into sobs. The rest stared vacantly at the work on their desks.
My firm intention was to get back to work and put the whole dreadful business behind me. I had been ignoring the company’s business for months; mail had been piling up; my shelves were covered with unread manuscripts; there were piles of contracts I needed to review, payments to approve, invoices to consider. I had no heart for it. I was swept up in a conviction of the worthlessness of it all. What had I really accomplished? Ruined the career of a gifted writer, that’s what. The feeling of liberation that I had expected had not come. The wellspring of my genius, which Nicolas had kept captive, was not mine after all. The whole thing had been an exercise in self-deception.
Death by Publication Page 12
