The Case of the Missing Bronte Read Online Free

have written a novel,’ objected Jan. ‘He wasn’t a stayer.’
    â€˜You only say that because the biographers say it. He stayed with the Robinsons at Blake Hall twice as long as Charlotte ever stayed at any of her governess jobs. If Mrs Robinson had been a bolter, perhaps Branwell would have been a stayer. After all, if Charlotte had died in 1845, exactly the same would have been said about her. She’d never stuck to anything.’
    â€˜Hmmm,’ said Jan dubiously. ‘It was always perfectly clear that there was more to Charlotte than there was to Branwell. He was the despair of the family, right from the time he grew up. And I can’t see the love of Mrs Robinson making much difference to him. We don’t even know that he ever had an affair with her. Daphne du Maurier thinks it was with one of the daughters.’
    â€˜I expect someone, somewhere, is writing a book to prove it was with the Robinson boy who was his pupil. Then we’ll have covered all the possibilities.’
    â€˜Any more bright ideas about what the manuscript could be?’
    â€˜Let’s see . . . I say, what if it turned out to be one ofthose awful modern sequels — Return to Wuthering Heights, or something? There was a rash of them a few years ago. All they lacked was genius.’
    â€˜Written in Emily’s tiny hand to give verisimilitude, I suppose? Come off it, Perry, you can do better than that. You know, this is unbearable. How do you think we’ll hear? Is it the sort of thing that would get into the papers?’
    â€˜Oh, sure. If it were authenticated. But it’ll take years before anyone gets to that point.’
    â€˜Oh, for God’s sake, Perry, I can’t wait years. I’m dying of the suspense as it is. Why can’t we go back there and ask her? Or even give her a ring?’
    â€˜Really, Jan, you don’t imagine I’d drive all that way on the off-chance . . .’ But actually, when it came to the point, I thought I might be forced to that. So I continued rather feebly: ‘Anyway, we obviously ought to try to ring up first. At the moment we don’t even know she’s gone to anyone at the University of Milltown.’
    â€˜Couldn’t we try ringing her, Perry? After all, she did rather drag us into the whole thing, didn’t she, so she can’t blame us for wanting to follow it up.’
    â€˜We’ll have to give her a bit longer, Jan. I mean, even if she has contacted an expert, she won’t have got a snap judgment. You know what that sort is like. It could be months before they even give a highly tentative and preliminary judgment, hedged around with ifs and buts and “to the best of our knowledges”.’
    As luck would have it, it was at that moment that the telephone rang in the hall.
    â€˜Perry Trethowan,’ I said.
    â€˜Perry Trethowan, you’re a perpetual surprise to me,’ said the voice of Assistant Commissioner Joe Grierley, my boss. ‘I never knew you had Yorkshire connections, Perry.’
    â€˜Northumberland,’ I corrected him. ‘You know thatperfectly well.’
    â€˜Yorkshire,’ insisted Joe. ‘Here are people asking about you from Yorkshire. When were you there last?’
    â€˜We passed through last week, as a matter of fact.’
    â€˜Exactly. Leaving behind indelible memories, apparently. Why do people remember you, Perry? Is it your size?’
    â€˜It’s because my father got done in in totally ridiculous circumstances and you insisted on sending me to help clear it up. What is all this, Joe? I’m off until six o’clock.’
    â€˜Did you meet an elderly lady in a pub? In a village called Hutton-le-Dales?’
    â€˜I did. We did. Jan and Daniel were with me.’
    â€˜So I gather. Will you speak to this bloke from Yorkshire? Something’s come up, and he thought you could help.’
    Naturally I assented, very