The Case of the Missing Bronte Read Online Free Page A

much less grudgingly than would normally be the case during my off-duty time. We were not, obviously, to lose contact with Miss Edith Wing. I waited, while complicated things were done on the switchboard at Scotland Yard, and eventually I heard a gentle, tired Yorkshire voice.
    â€˜Superintendent Trethowan?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I’m sorry to bother you off-duty. Has the Assistant Commissioner given you some idea what it’s about?’
    â€˜Not really. But yes, my wife and I did talk to an old lady in a pub in Hutton-le-Dales. Edith Wing the name was.’
    â€˜Yes, exactly. I’m afraid you were recognized. Now, what did you talk about?’
    â€˜Oh, mainly about a manuscript she’d discovered among papers she’d inherited.’
    â€˜Do you know what this manuscript was?’
    â€˜No, at least, not anything definite. But the handwriting was very individual, and very tiny, and it didoccur to us that it could be the manuscript of a Brontë novel. Perhaps an early version of one of the known ones, or else an unpublished one.’
    â€˜Is that really possible?’
    â€˜I don’t know. We’ve been looking into it. There does seem to be a chance — a long shot. Look, what is all this?’
    â€˜You see, Superintendent, you’ve got a reputation of being — well, a bit more at home with these things than the rest of us. I tell you frankly, I’m all at sea. And the fact is, we’re very short-staffed at the moment. The PM is visiting areas of high unemployment, and we’re drafting in reinforcements everywhere she goes, as you’ve probably seen — ’
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ I said, ‘but what has happened?’
    â€˜Miss Wing was attacked, I’m afraid, two nights ago, in her cottage. So far as we can see she must have surprised an intruder. It was a pretty savage attack about the head. Up to now she hasn’t regained consciousness. The doctors aren’t saying much, but there’s a question of brain damage, even if she does come round.’
    â€˜Poor old thing. And the manuscript?’
    â€˜There’s any amount of papers. Letters. Documents. But nothing that looks anything like a novel. Nothing I remember in little tiny handwriting either.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜You obviously know so much more about it than anyone here. That’s why we’d like you to come up.’
    â€˜You’d have to talk to the Yard about that.’
    â€˜In point of fact, I have done, Mr Trethowan. And the Assistant Commissioner was perfectly willing to second you up here, fairly unofficially, for a week or two, to head the investigation. We’d do all the basic stuff, of course — most of it’s done already, in fact. What we need is someone with a good idea of what he might be looking for, and who might be interested in it. You’ve seen it.You’re up on the background. The question is, are you agreeable?’
    Was I agreeable!
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes. Yes.’

CHAPTER 3
PASTORAL VISIT
    Jan, it need hardly be said, was desperate to accompany me. It’s funny: she has no desire to be at my right hand in cases of insurance frauds, or bankruptcy proceedings, or driving offences. Nor has she shown any desire to be in on shoot-outs with bank raiders, or on the long siege I once had round a block of flats where the IRA were holding hostages. But let there be a bit of glamour, or spice, or merely something different about a case, and she gets her bags packed at once. Luckily, as she very well knew, regulations are quite, nay crystal, clear on this point, and I could, without acrimony, knock the idea bang on the head, once and for all.
    â€˜I’ll keep in touch by phone,’ I said generously.
    â€˜I think,’ Jan said, stretching meditatively, ‘that the time has come to pay another visit to Aunt Sybilla and Aunt Kate.’
    â€˜Don’t be barmy, woman. We’ve