Plot It Yourself

when she was at her summer home in Vermont, a local woman in her employ came to her with something she said she had found in a bureau drawer. It was twenty-four typewritten sheets, and the top one was headed, ‘There Is Only Love, by Alice Porter.’ Its plot and characters and many details were the same as those of Ellen Sturdevant’s novel, though in much shorter form. The woman, named Billings, admitted that she had been persuaded by Alice Porter to search the house for the typescript-persuaded by the offer of a hundred dollars if she found it. But, having found it, she had a pang of conscience and brought it to her employer. Mrs Sturdevant has told me that her first impulse was to bum it, but on second thought she realized that that wouldn’t do, since Mrs Billings couldn’t be expected to perjure herself on a witness stand, and she phoned her attorney in New York.”

Harvey upturned a palm. “That’s the meat of it. I may say that I am convinced, and so is everyone who knows her, that Ellen Sturdevant had never seen that typescript before. It was a plant. The case never went to trial. It was settled out of court. Mrs Sturdevant paid Alice Porter eighty-five thousand dollars.”

Wolfe grunted. “There’s nothing I could do about it now.”

“We know you can’t. We don’t expect you to. But that’s only the beginning.” Harvey looked at the second sheet of paper. “In January 1956, Title House published Hold Fast to All I Give You, a novel by Richard Echols. Will you tell him about it, Mr Dexter? Briefly?”

Thomas Dexter passed a hand over his gray hair. “I’ll make it as brief as I can,” he said. “It’s a long story. The publication date was January 19th. Within a month we were shipping five thousand a week. By the end of April nine thousand a week. On May 6th we got a letter from a man named Simon Jacobs. It stated that in February 1954 he had sent the manuscript of a novelette he had written, entitled “What’s Mine Is Yours,’ to the literary agency of Norris and Baum. Norris and Baum had been Echols’s agent for years. Jacob enclosed a photostat of a letter he had received from Norris and Baum, dated March 26th, 1954, returning the manuscript and saying that they couldn’t take on any new clients. The letter mentioned the title of the manuscript, ‘What’s Mine Is Yours.’ It was bona fide; there was a copy of it in Norris and Baum’s files; but no one there could remember anything about it. More than two years had passed, and they get a great many unsolicited manuscripts.”

Dexter took a breath. “Jacobs claimed that the plot of his novelette was original and unique, also the characters, and that the plot and characters of Hold Fast to All I Give You, Echols’s novel, were obviously a steal. He said he would be glad to let us inspect his manuscript-that’s how he put it-and would give us a copy if we wanted one. His presumption was that someone at Norris and Baum had either told Echols about it or had let him read it. Everyone at Norris and Baum denied it, and so did Echols, and we at Title House believe them. Utterly. But a plagiarism suit is a tricky thing. There is something about the idea of a successful author stealing his material from an unsuccessful author that seems to appeal to ordinary people, and juries are made up of ordinary people. It dragged along for nearly a year. The final decision was left to Echols and his attorney, but we at Title House approved of it. They decided not to risk a trial. Jacobs was paid ninety thousand dollars for a general release. Though we were not obligated by contract. Title House contributed one-fourth of it, twenty-one thousand, five hundred.”

“It should have been half,” Harvey said, not arguing, just stating a fact.

Wolfe asked, “Did you get a copy of Jacobs’s manuscript?”

Dexter nodded. “Certainly. It supported his claim. The plot and characters were practically identical.”

“Indeed. Again, Mr Harvey, it seems to be too late.”

“We’re getting hotter,” Harvey said. “Wait till you hear the rest of it. Next: In November 1956, Nahm and Son published Sacred or Profane, a novel by Marjorie Lippin. Like all of her previous books, it had a big sale; the first printing was forty thousand.” He consulted his papers. “On March 21st, 1957, Marjorie Lippin died of a heart attack. On April 9th Nahm and Son received a letter from a woman named Jane Ogilvy. Her claim was almost identical with the one Alice Porter had made on The Colour of Passion-that in June 1955 she had sent the manuscript of a twenty-page story, entitled “On Earth but Not in Heaven,” to Marjorie Lippin, with a letter asking for her opinion of it, that it had never been acknowledged or returned, and that the plot and characters of Sacred or Profane had been taken from it. Since Mrs Lippin was dead she couldn’t answer to the charge, and on April 14th, only five days after Nahm and Son got the letter, the executor of Mrs Lippin’s estate, an officer of a bank, found the manuscript of the story, as described by Jane Ogilvy, in a trunk in the attic of Mrs Lippin’s home. He considered it his duty to produce it, and he did so. With Mrs Lippin dead, a successful challenge of the claim seemed hopeless, but her heirs, her son and daughter, were too stubborn to see it, and they wanted to clear her name of the stain. They even had her body exhumed for an autopsy, but it confirmed her death from a natural cause, a heart attack. The case finally went to trial last October, and a jury awarded Jane Ogilvy one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. It was-paid by the estate. Nahm and Son didn’t see fit to contribute.”

“Why the hell should they?” Gerald Knapp demanded.

Harvey smiled at him. “The NAAD appreciates your co-operation, Mr Knapp. I’m merely giving the record.”

Dexter told Knapp, “Oh, skip it. It’s common knowledge that Phil Harvey has an ulcer. That’s why the gods laugh.”

Harvey transferred the smile from Knapp and Bowen to Title House. “Many thanks for the plug, Mr Dexter. At all bookstores-maybe.” He returned to Wolfe. “The next one wasn’t a novel; it was a play- A Barrel of Love, by Mortimer Oshin. You tell it, Mr Oshin.”

The dramatist squashed a cigarette in the tray, his fifth or sixth-I had lost count. “Very painful, this is,” he said. He was a tenor. “Nauseous. We opened on Broadway February 25th last year, and when I say we had a smash hit I’m merely giving the record like Mr Harvey. Around the middle of May the producer, Al Friend, got a letter from a man named Kenneth Rennert. The mixture as before. It said he had sent me an outline for a play in August 1956, entitled ‘A Bushel of Love,’ with a letter asking me to collaborate with him on writing it. He demanded a million dollars, which was a compliment. Friend turned the letter over to me, and my lawyer answered it, telling Rennert he was a liar, which he already knew. But my lawyer knew about the three cases you have just heard described, and he had me take precautions. He and I made a thorough search of my apartment on Sixty-fifth Street, every inch of it, and also my house in the country at Silvermine, Connecticut, and I made arrangements that would have made it tough for anybody trying to plant something at either place.”

Oshin lit a cigarette and missed the ashtray with the match. “That was wasted effort. As you may know, a playwright must have an agent. I had had one named Jack Sandier that I couldn’t get along with, and a month after A Barrel of Love opened I had quit him and got another one. One weekend in July, Sandier phoned me in the country and said he had found