call? WILL CALL WHEN CAN added a new dimension of mystery to the message. Where could she be if she couldn't phone straightaway? Frensic visualized her lying hurt in a hospital but if that was the case she would have said so. He reached for the phone to put a call through to Hutchmeyer Press before realizing that New York was five hours behind London time and there would be no one in the office yet. He would have to wait until two o'clock. He sat staring at the telegram and tried to think practically. If the police were investigating the crime it was almost certain they would follow their enquiries into Piper's past. Frensic foresaw them discovering that Piper hadn't in fact written Pause. From that it would follow that...my God, Hutchmeyer would get to know and there'd be the devil to pay. Or, more precisely, Hutchmeyer. The man would demand the return of his two million dollars. He might even sue for breach of contract or fraud. Thank God the money was still in the bank. Frensic sighed with relief.
To take his mind off the dreadful possibilities inherent in the telegram he went through to Sonia's office and looked in the filing cabinet for the letter from Mr Cadwalladine authorizing Piper to represent the author on the American tour. He took it out and studied it carefully before putting it back. At least he was covered there. If there was any trouble with Hutchmeyer Mr Cadwalladine and his client were party to the deception. And if the two million had to be refunded they would be in no position to grumble. By concentrating on these eventualities Frensic held at bay his sense of guilt and transferred it to the anonymous author. Piper's death was his fault. If the wretched man had not hidden behind a nom-de-plume Piper would still be alive. As the morning wore on and he sat unable to work at anything else Frensic's feeling of grievance grew. He had been fond of Piper in an odd sort of way. And now he was dead. Frensic sat miserably at his desk looking out over the roofs of Covent Garden and mourned Piper's passing. The poor fellow had been one of nature's victims, or rather one of literature's victims. Pathetic. A man who couldn't write to save his life...
The phrase brought Frensic up with a start. It was too apt. Piper was dead and he had never really lived. His existence had been one long battle to get into print and he had failed. What was it that drove men like him to try to write, what fixation with the printed word held them at their desks year after year? All over the world there were thousands of other Pipers sitting at this very moment in front of blank pages which they would presently fill with words that no one would ever read but which in their naive conceit they considered to have some deep significance. The thought added to Frensic's melancholy. It was all his fault. He should have had the courage and good sense to tell Piper that he would never be a novelist. Instead he had encouraged him. If he had told him Piper would still be alive, he might even have found his true vocation as a bank clerk or plumber, have married and settled down whatever that meant. Anyway, he wouldn't have spent those forlorn years in forlorn guest-houses in forlorn seaside resorts living by proxy the lives of Conrad and Lawrence and Henry James, the shadowy ghost of those dead authors he had revered. Even Piper's death had been by way of being a proxy one as the author of a novel he hadn't written. And somewhere the man who should have died was living undisturbed.
Frensic reached for the phone. The bastard wasn't going to go on living undisturbed. Mr Cadwalladine could relay a message to him. He dialled Oxford.
'I'm afraid I've got some rather bad news for you,' he said when Mr Cadwalladine came on the line.
'Bad news? I don't understand,' said Mr Cadwalladine.
'It concerns the young man who went to America as the supposed author of that novel you sent me,' said Frensic.
Mr Cadwalladine coughed uncomfortably. 'Has he...er...done something indiscreet?' he asked.
'You could put it like that,' said Frensic. 'The fact of the matter is that we are likely to have some problems with the police.' Mr Cadwalladine made more uncomfortable noises which Frensic relished. 'Yes, the police,' he continued. 'They may be making enquiries shortly.'
