Printer's Error (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “No, I can’t find it at present. It’s not even as though any of them are Jews.”

  “And all of them,” said Carey, casting an eye down the list, “are well-known professional people, in any case, people that you couldn’t connect with hands and ear and things.”

  “I know. Well, read it over carefully, and if you get any bright idea, we can compare notes tomorrow. You can take a copy, if you like.”

  He got up from the deep settee, and walked towards the stairs. He began to mount them, pausing for a second at the dog’s-leg bend to wave his hand.

  Carey sighed, scanned the list, took out a small scribbling-pad, and began to copy from the list the names and addresses of the famous.

  • CHAPTER 4 •

  Private Investigation

  “Then a dead silence fell on all the knights, and each man anxiously beheld his neighbor.”

  •1•

  “What we also want,” said Carey to Bassin next morning, “is a copy of the police list of people who are not employed by Lyle’s, but who’ve been over the works recently.”

  “I know. Tried to dig it out of them, but nothing doing.”

  “Oh, well, if they won’t give it to you, I don’t suppose they’ll let me have it, so we must get at it some other ways. I have the glimmering of today’s bright thought. By lunchtime I may have enticed it out of its hole. If I have, I’ll share it with you.”

  “Do,” said Bassin. “I’m going to spend another morning with the proofs.”

  The two young men parted, thereupon, Bassin to sit under an apple tree (the proofs supported on a small iron table), in the pleasant and well-tended garden of the inn, Carey to go out, disreputably clothed as usual, in search of what he himself termed, in quotation, “a spot of art.”

  He had hired an ancient motor cycle combination, and in the sidecar of this he placed his gear. He drove off noisily through the village, round the bend by the horse-trough, and so to the printing works of Saxant and Senss.

  The works was a small, detached house at the end of a very narrow alley, and could not be seen from the street. Carey had to make enquiry before he discovered where it lay, and then, leaving his combination parked at the curb, he walked between a Methodist chapel and a doctor’s surgery, past an Institute reading-room, up to a door at the top of two steps.

  The brass on the door was shining, the paintwork was glossy and fresh and newly blistered by the sun, a small brass plate bore the names of the printers, and a card in the window at the side of the door was printed, in excellent type, with the words, Enquiries: please ring.

  Carey rang, and the door was opened by a boy in shirtsleeves.

  “Mr. Saxant?” said Carey.

  “Never here until eleven,” said the boy. He was not chewing gum, but managed to convey the impression that he was a confirmed gum-addict. Carey disliked him at sight. He enquired for Mr. Senss.

  “He’s in. Business?”

  Carey, glancing down at his stained and spotted flannel trousers, decided that perhaps the boy had a certain amount of justification for regarding him as a seedy, suspicious customer.

  “I’ve come from Mr. Bassin, Mr. Carn’s solicitor,” he said. The youth languidly strolled away, but, returning, stated that Mr. Senss was busy, and would see Mr. Bassin personally in an hour’s time, if he would be good enough to come back.

  So Carey, realising that Mr. Senss imagined that it was Bassin who had called, returned to fetch him from the “Lion” and to put into his mouth the questions he wanted asked.

  “He’ll see you. Upstairs, first left,” the office boy stated to Bassin, jerking his head towards the inner door of the room. Bassin walked towards it, opened it, and found himself confronted by a short passage and, at the end of it, a well-lighted flight of linoleum-covered stairs. He mounted these; found the door on the left. It bore out the youth’s allegation that Mr. Senss would be found within by having the junior partner’s name painted in white on the right-hand top panel. The spacing and lettering were pleasing to the eye, and Bassin examined the notification with some care. As he was about to tap on the door it was opened by a short, energetic, tousle-headed man in spectacles.

  “Good morning,” said Bassin, startled by this sudden apparition. The man demanded brusquely what he wanted.

  “I’m Justus Bassin of the firm Bassin, Lillibud and Bassin, solicitors, of Old Seward Street, London, E.C.,” Bassin replied, stifling a childish desire to click his heels, but adding with a grin, “Heil, Hitler” at the end of the sentence, a piece of bad manners—the War having not yet broken out—for which he reproached himself immediately.

  “Ach!” said the tousle-haired one. “Berggheist!” He pushed past Bassin and clattered down the stairs as though he were wearing the boots of a Prussian guardsman. He had slammed the door behind him, and Bassin was again confronted by the lettering, in white paint, of Mr. Senss’s name.

  He tapped at the door, and a pleasant voice with a German accent invited him to come in.

  “Ah, Mr. Bassin, I was so sorry to ask you to wait, but now I am at liberty again. And again this business. I think it is all so sad about poor Mrs. Carn, and the book, we think, at the bottom of it.”

  “Yes,” said Bassin, “that’s what I’ve come to see you about, once more.”

  “So? Sit down, Mr. Bassin. Please to take a cigarette.” He whipped out an automatic lighter and lit a cigarette for Bassin and then one for himself, flicked the lighter shut, and put it back in his waistcoat pocket, all so quickly that there seemed to be no interruption whatever of the conversation. “I think perhaps you have encountered Herr Bonner—pardon me—my stupid joke—did you not meet Herr Simplon on the stairs?”

  “Oh, was that Herr Simplon? He seemed in a bit of a hurry.”

  “Only short-tempered, I think.” He smiled. “He keeps an eye on me.”

  “Oh—a Nazi agent?”

  “So. When I hear of proofs being snatched and of threatening letters, and of the disappearance of authors and the murder of their wives, I say to myself: ‘Soon my turn. Herr Simplon has his eye on me here.’”

  “A bit of a dangerous trade—printing, under the circumstances, isn’t it?” Bassin enquired.

  “Printing, my friend, has always come under the heading of dangerous trades, from the time of our great German inventor of the art, and your printer Caxton, until now. There are laws like mantraps for printers, now, as always; laws against libel and indecency and scurrility and—oh, many. And in Germany now no freedom to print at all. Even the poets and novelists must only write what the State believes is good.”

  “Yes. But I should have thought—”

  “My dear boy, once a printer, always a printer. I print in Germany, and the Nazis do not like it, so I get out. I print here, and the Nazis still keep an eye on me, and one day, when I go a bit too far—like our last set of pamphlets—then I say to myself: ‘Kurt Senss, have you money for your funeral expenses, because soon, very soon now, Herr Simplon is going to see that you do not print any more.’”

  “I see,” said Bassin. “Mr. Senss, what I still want to know is this: Why should anybody want to steal those proofs? What was there different about them from the uncorrected set which you gave me? I’ve read them and reread them, and I can’t see that the author could have had much to correct. What had he done on the stolen set?”

  “My friend, I believe very little. I cannot remember, of course, but I can provide you, Mr. Bassin, with a copy of the printed book now very soon. Then you can make comparison. But I do not think your theory can be quite right, somehow.”

  “No,” said Bassin. “I see your point, of course. Not much point in stealing one copy of the corrected proofs as long as the printers had another and were proposing to issue a hundred copies of the book. It’s certainly a snag. Still, thanks very much. I’ll remember, then, that I can count upon getting a copy of the book when it’s printed.”

  “Next week, I hope. I shall remember. I will, in fact, make a litt
le note.”

  He opened a large morocco-covered desk-pad, and wrote, in German, a memorandum.

  “There is nothing else I can do this morning for you, Mr. Bassin?” he said.

  “Well, I don’t think so. What we’re trying to get hold of is a list of visitors to Lyle’s printing works at Falshanger, but I can hardly expect you to be able to supply that.”

  “No,” he smiled. “I have been over their works myself, and so has my partner, Mr. Saxant. Mr. and Mrs. Carn have both been over them, I know, and two members of the English Royal Family were shown the works about a year ago. They have a very fine plant there. They have machines there better than anything I ever saw in Germany even. They have a rotary machine that is—what do you say?—the last word in cleverness, and their four-colour printing plant is very interesting indeed. You should apply for permission to be taken over the works. It has to be obtained specially—they do not have Tom and Dick go—but to you they would give permission, I do not doubt. Have you ever seen a hand-press?”

  Bassin said that he had not.

  “Then I will give myself pleasure to show you ours. You have time? Good. So have I. We make much pretence to be busy, but in reality”—he shrugged and laughed—“we are lazy the most of the time until the autumn.”

  “There’s just one thing,” said Bassin, when he had inspected and praised the press and the beautiful type founts, “if I may ask—”

  “But of course. What is it?”

  “Well, this book you were doing for Carn. These hundred copies…”

  “Yes. Not a good book. Not a good bargain for us. But we have to print some things we do not like to print, otherwise we cannot live. We should not print such a book of ourselves, let us say, but when we have an order—”

  “Yes, I quite appreciate all that. But, even so, you wouldn’t, under any circumstances, print a harmful book, would you?”

  “You have something on your mind, my friend. Tell me.”

  “Yes, I’ll tell you. It seems odd to me that you, who left Germany because you couldn’t stand the Nazis, should consent to print such a book as Carn’s.”

  “What is the connection, my dear sir?”

  “All this anti-Semitic stuff of Carn’s. It’s a bit thick, isn’t it? It reads like one of the Nazi anti-Jew outpourings.”

  “It does, yes. What is that to me, though? I agree it was a bad book, but to us merely—how do you say? A job.”

  “You don’t mind printing anti-Semitic books, then?”

  “No. Why should I? I do not love the Jews. One does not need to be a Nazi to be an anti-Semite, my good friend. I think one of the few things good in Germany was to turn out the Jews and make it hot.”

  “Oh, I see. Yes. Thanks very much. That’s made it all quite clear. I suppose I thought that all the people who didn’t like the Nazis would naturally stick together. I hadn’t realised—yes, I quite see your point.”

  “I hope so—and I hope not. It is not creditable, that I have a dislike for the Jews. Some are good people—of the best, one should agree. But I was unlucky, perhaps, and am sweated of bad Jews—Russian Jews—when I am a young boy. I am consumptive because of my treatment. It is not reasonable I dislike all Jews because of it, but it is, perhaps you agree with me, human, is it not?”

  “It sounds reasonable, certainly,” said Bassin, a little awkwardly. “Well, it’s awfully good of you to have let me take up your time, Mr. Senss. I suppose—” He hesitated, and then made up his mind. “I suppose you couldn’t let me have the other corrected proof—the one that Carn returned to you to work from, could you?”

  The printer shook his head.

  “It is all over the place, in bits,” he declared. “Also, we need it too badly to spare it just at present. I am so very sorry. Next week, however, the book itself for you, isn’t it?”

  “That’s it. Well, thanks very much for having put up with me and my questions. I do hope I haven’t wasted your time.”

  “You are welcome, Mr. Bassin, very welcome. I shall do little until Mr. Saxant arrives. Then we shall talk a little, and then go out to lunch. It is a pleasant life. A very pleasant, easy life, and I wish it long to continue. Good-bye. I will see you out. No, it is not any trouble.”

  He stood in the open doorway whilst Bassin walked down the alley towards the road. Carey had parked the motor cycle combination further along the street, and was not in sight. Bassin walked with his long stride between the buildings, which shut in the path and, at half-way, looked back, but Senss was gone and the door was shut. The office boy, also, had returned to his slothful ease and to his chewing gum.

  “Well, what news?” asked Carey.

  “Tell you when we get back. Can’t dig the corrected proofs out of them. Gathered that it was a bit of faux pas to ask for them. Could hardly expect them to part up, I suppose, when, presumably, they’re still working on them.”

  Carey trod on the self-starter, which sometimes acted, and did so on this occasion, and the two young men roared back to the “Lion.”

  •2•

  In the afternoon, Carey went off again on some jaunt of his own, and Bassin, at a loose end, pored over the proofs in a vain attempt to read more into them than he had managed to do before. They were, of course, not only uncorrected by the author, but an altogether unmarked set. That is to say, even errors, which the printer’s reader had discovered were not indicated on them… As he had already discovered, there were the usual printer’s errors in punctuation, occasional bad spacing, letters upside down, the letter “i” left out of a word, or words out of alignment. The only error which was unusual, he thought (although he had insufficient experience of printers’ proofs to know whether he were right in thinking this), was that not in one, but in two places the letter “d” had been substituted for the letter “b.” He noticed it particularly because in one place it came in a line of the song “Tom Bowling” which ran, on the proof, “Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom dowling,” and could not think why he had not noticed it at his first reading. Then he dimly remembered that as a little boy, when he had first learned to read, he had had some difficulty in distinguishing the two letters. The fact that the name began with the other slight error of a small instead of a capital letter had probably contributed to this oversight. The German word Donner, spelt Bonner on the proof, he had noticed at once, probably because of the capitals.

  He could detect no particular significance in these errors, but determined to point them out to Carey at lunch-time.

  He had reached this decision when Carey himself came bucketing into the yard with his motor cycle combination, parked it and, swinging a pair of motoring gloves as disreputable as the rest of his outfit, walked through the wicket gate, up the centre path, and over the lawn to speak to him.

  “I’ve got a few of them,” he said, looking up, “but it doesn’t help, I’m afraid.”

  “A few of what?” asked Carey.

  “People who have been over Lyle’s printing works within the past year.”

  “Oh, good. How many names?”

  Bassin gave him the names, and proposed that they should interview the people.

  “Counting or not counting the Royal Family?”

  “Oh, not,” said Bassin seriously.

  “Well, that leaves four, then. The Carns, both of them, Saxant, and Senss.”

  “Doesn’t get us far, but perhaps far enough. Lend me that contraption of yours, will you?”

  “Better still, I’ll drive, and you can sit in the sidecar again. I’ll sling my gear out.”

  He went back to the yard, followed by Bassin, who had been sitting at a small table in the garden, and whilst Bassin locked away the proofs in his bedroom, Carey stowed away his sketching materials and had brought the combination round to the front of the inn by the time Bassin was ready.

  “What’s the programme?”

  “Lyle’s works. I’ll flourish our four names at them, and demand the rest. It may work, and it may not.”

  �
�I’ve got a better idea than that. Ask to be allowed to verify the date of Carn’s visit. They’ll hand you the Visitors’ Book, sure as eggs, and you can take an eyeful of the other names.”

  “Better still, I can put them down.”

  The motor cycle woke up and began to roar like a lion again. Carey quietened it a little and then, with a spring and a long splutter, it shot off down the village street. He pulled its head round, and soon they were making forty miles an hour in the direction of Falshanger.

  The scheme worked. To demand to see the names of all visitors to the printing works during the past year was inviting a refusal, but for Bassin, in his capacity as the legal representative of Carn, to ask permission to verify a date was a different matter. The book was produced by the works manager, who was called away almost as soon as he had given the precious and instructive volume into Bassin’s hands, and Bassin scribbled vigorously, but not for very long. The works had had few visitors. Permission was not readily given for people to be taken over the huge building with its many floors and blocks. Apart from a party of boys from the local grammar school and two masters, a party of girls with a mistress, and a dozen Scandinavian journalists, who had made a third party under the leadership of a certain Mr. Alexander McGunn, only three persons had been conducted over the works. Rapidly Bassin wrote their names and addresses. The latter were not written in full, except for one, that of a certain Margery Sawbone who lived at 31 Brant Street, W. The other two, a Mr. William Simplon and a Mr. Charles Leaf, were local people. Their full address could be obtained very easily, Bassin thought.

  He waited for the manager to return, but he did not come, so Bassin closed the book, handed it in at the window of the office, which was next door to the manager’s room, sauntered down the steps and round to the side of the building. Here Carey, seated on the broad saddle of the motor cycle, was gazing earnestly at the green-painted doors of the packing shed, cut off from ground level by the high verandah-platform at which the paper and printed material was unloaded from or loaded on to lorries.

  “Hopeless,” said Bassin, following his eye. “We’ve got to let the police do that end of it, I’m afraid. They’ve got the men and the experience and, of course, the authority, to get on the track of the corpse if loaded in lorry, as our friend Mr. Mabb suggests. Not a bad chap that.”