The James Joyce Murder Read online

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  Amanda Cross

  THE JAMES JOYCE MURDER

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

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  Also by Amanda Cross

  and available from Bello

  In the Last Analysis

  The James Joyce Murder

  Poetic Justice

  The Theban Mysteries

  The Question of Max

  No Word from Winifred

  A Trap for Fools

  The Players Come Again

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  To the first reader of this—and other things

  Prologue

  James Joyce’s Ulysses, as almost everybody knows by now, is a long book recounting life in Dublin on a single day: June 16, 1904. It was on June 16, 1966, exactly sixty-two years later, that Kate Fansler set out for a meeting of the James Joyce Society, which annually held a “Bloomsday” celebration.

  Adopting what she hoped was a properly Joycean attitude, Kate reminded herself that she would be approaching the Gotham Book Mart, home of the James Joyce Society, at almost the same hour in which Leopold Bloom, the hero of Ulysses, had walked out upon Sandymount Beach. “And had I any sense at all,” Kate thought, “I would be on a beach myself.” But having become temporary custodian of the Samuel Lingerwell papers, and thus unexpectedly involved in the literary correspondence of James Joyce, Kate thought it only proper that she attend tonight’s celebration.

  The Gotham Book Mart, on New York’s West Forty-seventh Street, welcomes members of the James Joyce Society into a room at the rear of the shop. Kate was somewhat surprised to discover how many men were present—not only prominent Joyce scholars, but young men, the sort one least expected to encounter at the meetings of a literary society. But the reason was not far to seek. Writing their doctoral dissertations on Joyce, they hoped to come upon some secret, still undiscovered clue in the labyrinth of his works which would make their academic fortunes. For Joyce had by now, in the United States, added to all his other magic powers that of being able to bestow an academic reputation.

  Kate was not a member of the James Joyce Society, but the name of Samuel Lingerwell assured her entrance, a welcome, a glass of the Swiss wine Joyce had especially favored. One thing is bloody certain, Kate thought after a time. When I pick a graduate student to help me with the Lingerwell papers, he will have to be most unJoycean, unLaurentian, unModern altogether. Someone who will not be searching for his own fortune among dear Sam’s literary remains. On the whole, a Jane Austen devotee, I should imagine. Someone who calls her “Jane.” I shall ask Grace Knole to recommend a likely candidate.

  Which explains how Emmet Crawford came to spend the summer at Araby.

  Chapter One

  The Boarding House

  “Kate,” Reed Amhearst said, disentangling his long legs from the small car, “what on earth are you doing here? If you had decided to embrace the rural life, you might, in decency, have let me know. It’s a great shock to return from Europe and find you established on some deserted hilltop in the Berkshires. What is the matter with that cow?”

  Before Kate could answer, a red cat tore around the corner of the house with a brown dog in hot pursuit. “More of the local fauna,” Kate said, in what she hoped were conciliatory tones. “Come inside and tell me all about New Scotland Yard. The cow is bellowing for her calf.”

  “Has she lost it?”

  “It was taken away from her; she’ll forget it in a day or two. How was England?”

  Reed followed Kate into the huge vaulted living room, at one end of which chairs were grouped about a large fire. What certainly looked like a bar stood close by. Reed was proceeding toward the fireplace in a decorous manner when, from a nearby stairway he had not noticed, there burst as though catapulted into their midst a smallish boy. Reed pondered the possibilities of catapulting him back, and reluctantly dismissed them.

  “See if you can answer this,” the smallish male creature said, ignoring Reed. “Which is faster, bleeding to death or suffocating?”

  “Suffocating, I should think,” Kate ventured. Reed stared in fascination.

  “You’re wrong, wrong, wrong. I knew you’d be. Just remember this.” The boy’s gestures at this point indicated that Reed, too, might benefit from his advice. “If one man is drowning, and another is bleeding from a severed artery, work on the bleeding man first. It takes nine minutes longer to die from lack of oxygen than to bleed to death. How’d you like to shoot a few foul shots, Kate?”

  “At the moment I’m engaged.” Kate said. “Where is William?”

  “Arguing with Emmet about some guy called James Joyce.”

  “Well, tell William to stop arguing about James Joyce and shoot some fouls with you. I take it today’s essay is complete?”

  “O.K., I’ll get William,” the boy returned, departing with an alacrity that suggested an unwillingness to dwell upon the subject of today’s essay.

  “Kate . . .” Reed began.

  “Sit you down,” Kate said. “Let me get you a drink and try to explain the whole thing.”

  “I’ve only come for a few days,” Reed told her, accepting the chair. “This sounds as though it might carry us through to next Groundhog Day. Why didn’t you tell me you were moving to the country? Who is that boy? Who is William? Who is Emmet? Not to mention the maternally stricken cow, the fiery cat and the pursuing dog. And who is James Joyce?”

  “Certainly you know who James Joyce is?”

  “If you mean the Irish author of several indecipherable books, I know who he is. But given the extraordinary aspects of this establishment, he might be the gardener. For God’s sake, sit down and explain. I return from only six months in England to find you transformed, transported and transfigured.”

  “You just added that last one to make the series come out right.”

  “I certainly never expected to see you living in the same house with a small boy. What ages are Emmet and William?” Reed asked, as though suddenly struck with the awful thought that Kate had undertaken the housing of small boys in large numbers.

  “In their middle or late twenties, I suppose. William Lenehan is tutoring Leo, he of the various deaths, and Emmet Crawford is going over some papers for me. The cat belongs to Emmet, and the dog belongs to the gardener, whose name is not James Joyce but Mr. Pasquale. The cow belongs to the farmer down the road who uses our land. Leo is my nephew. Cheers.”

  “Well, despite a three-hour drive I had not anticipated, and surroundings I could not have imagined, it’s good to see you, Kate.”

  “And you. In the present circumstances, I might even risk hyperbole and say you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  “You’re tired of all those cows; I’m not even complimented. I’ve missed you, Kate. In England I kept thinking . . .”

  “Kate,” interrupted a young man from the doorway. “If that woman is permitted entrance into this house, I shall have to tender my resignation. Reluctantly, to be sure, since the collection is a fascinating one. There’s a letter—But I cannot have that woman hanging over me as though I were a pie and some extravagantly e
xciting news about you were the plum she was in hopes of pulling forth.”

  “Emmet, you must realize that country people are incurably curious, like cats. It’s only urbanites who can ignore their neighbors. Tell Mrs. Bradford Leo is my illegitimate child, that I murdered his father, and that I’m setting up a polyandrous colony here in the hope of starting a new religion. That ought to keep her quiet for a while.”

  “The only thing that would keep that woman quiet is a bullet in the brain, and even then I’d think her lips would go on moving out of sheer force of habit. Her excuse for being here, incidentally, is to borrow some vinegar.”

  “Can’t Mrs. Monzoni lend her some vinegar?”

  “Mrs. Monzoni wouldn’t lend Mary Bradford a wet paper towel. You had better go and cope. Why not tell her I’ve just served ten years for cannibalism, and am not to be trusted when aroused?”

  “Oh, very well. Reed, may I introduce Emmet Crawford. Mr. Reed Amhearst.” Kate departed with evident reluctance, followed by the palpable sympathy of Emmet.

  “Who is Mrs. Monzoni?” Reed asked.

  “The cook. Have you read the correspondence Joyce had with his English publishers in 1908? It’s enough to make a cat cry. Imagine thinking Dubliners obscene because it suggested that Edward VII was less than a paragon of virtue, and used the word ‘bloody’ on two occasions. Of course, Lingerwell changed all that, bless his courageous heart. He also did the Portrait and the Rainbow.”

  “Do you mean he was a painter?”

  “Who?”

  “Lingerwell.”

  “A painter? Why on earth should a painter publish the Portrait?”

  “I can’t imagine. Mr. Crawford, I have the unhappy sense of not having understood a single circumstance or statement since I first drove up that unduly precipitous hill . . .”

  “I bet it’s something in winter . . .”

  “To be frank, I have no interest in its condition during either the temperate or intemperate seasons. I am trying to understand what you’re talking about. How does one do a Rainbow?”

  “Aren’t you from the Library of Congress?”

  “Certainly not. I am from the office of the district attorney of the County of New York, if my profession happens to be germane to this extraordinary discussion.”

  “Sorry. The Library of Congress people have been rather camping on our doorstep. Have you come to make an arrest?”

  “I have come, I had hoped I had come, to pay a visit. I am a friend of Miss Fansler’s.”

  “That will be nice for Kate. William and I do rather stick to hermeneutics, theological and nontheological, and Leo’s conversation alternates between basketball and the grimmer aspects of first aid. Well, perhaps I may assume the departure of Mary Bradford and return to my Odyssean labors. See you at dinner.” He wandered out to leave Reed balancing the relative advantages of another drink and an immediate departure. With the return of Kate, the scales tilted decidedly toward the drink.

  “She’s gone,” Kate said, “though not without collecting a bottle of vinegar, expressing inchoate horror at the use of wine vinegar at twice the price of ordinary, asking if she could borrow the house for her garden club’s tea, informing me she was busier than anyone else on earth, and wondering, with barely concealed salaciousness, what were the functions of the two young men in this household. I have become very disillusioned about the rural character. I suspect that Wordsworth, when he took to the country, never spoke to anyone but Dorothy and Coleridge, and perhaps an occasional leech gatherer. Tell me about England.”

  “Kate! What are you doing here?”

  At that moment there arose from outside the cry as of a pack of wolves about to make the kill. “I forbear to ask what that is,” Reed said wearily.

  “I expect,” Kate said, walking in a leisurely fashion to the window, “that is the Araby Boys’ Camp arriving for a wienie roast. Reed, would you like to take me to dinner at a not very reputable hash-joint-cum-bar in a nearby town? I warn you that they play the jukebox constantly, but the surroundings might be more easily ignored.”

  “I never dreamed,” Reed said, leading Kate firmly from the room, “that I would look forward to a jukebox as to the Sirens singing.” Reed closed the Volkswagen door on Kate, walked round to the driver’s side, and again folded his long legs in place beneath the steering wheel. He turned the tiny car around and burst down the driveway so precipitously that Kate could well imagine the look of admiration directed at their back by numberless awestruck boys.

  “Why have you set up a boarding house?” Reed asked, when they were seated in the booth. “When I left you, you were a more or less rational associate professor of English. Have you lost your senses, your money or your grip? I have seldom been so alarmed about anyone.”

  “It’s not really a boarding house, of course, it just looks that way at a superficial glance. Actually, my whole summer situation can be summed up as a fortuitous concatenation of improbable events. Which is to say that life has this in common with prizefighting: if you’ve received a belly blow, it’s likely to be followed by a right to the jaw.”

  “I didn’t know you were fond of boys.”

  “I am not fond of boys. If you mean Leo, he is the right to the jaw. The point is, Reed, you simply weren’t here when I got around to the thought of consulting you. Surely there’s enough crime in New York without your rocketing off to England.”

  “England has gone a long way toward solving the problem of crime caused by drug addiction. They have not gone a long way toward solving the problem of eccentric behavior—in fact, I think they invented it. If Leo is the right to the jaw, may we begin by discussing, according to your exceedingly ill-informed and inappropriate figure from prizefighting, the belly blow?”

  “I don’t think you knew Sam Lingerwell—I’ll have the veal cutlets and spaghetti; I wouldn’t exactly recommend it, but it’s distinctly superior to the chicken pie.”

  “Two veal cutlets and spaghetti,” Reed told the waitress. “I heard of Mr. Lingerwell for the first time this afternoon; he was mentioned by Emmet Crawford in the midst of some extraordinary story about Edinburgh.”

  “Dublin, surely. James Joyce.”

  “You’re right. Dublin. Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “Sam Lingerwell died last fall, at the ripe and wonderful age of ninety. He sat down in a chair, lit up a cigar, and started to read a book by Sylvia Townsend Warner. They found him in the morning. I went to school with Lingerwell’s daughter, and in some way I continued to be friends with him and his wife long after his daughter joined a convent.”

  “A convent?”

  “I’ll come to that part of the story in a moment. Sam, and the Calypso Press which he started—well, you’ve got to read some of Alfred Knopf’s memoirs of publishing in his early days to know what I mean. Sam was one of the grand old men of publishing; there are scarcely any of them left. The sort who knew literature, had guts, and would have thought you were hallucinating had you mentioned the present tribal customs of Madison Avenue. They all went back to a time when it was possible to go into the publishing business without a million dollars, a taste for cocktails, a publicity manager and fourteen computers. All right, I’ll spare you the speech about the good old days. Suffice it to say, Sam was the best there was, and in those days that was pretty good. He was the American publisher who had the guts, the taste or whatever it took to publish James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence and lots of others, English and American, whom we now consider classics, but who were just thought to be dirty naturalists back around the First World War.”

  “Ah, I begin to understand what ‘rainbow’ Mr. Crawford and I were discussing.”

  “The Rainbow was later, of course, but I’m glad to hear you’re getting the idea. At the moment, we’re all thinking more about Joyce. Emmet, with occasional grunts of encouragement from me, is trying to sort out Sam’s letters by
author, so that we can decide whose correspondence ought to go where, which may explain why Dublin keeps coming up in the conversation. Dubliners was the first book of Joyce’s anybody published. Now don’t let me wander on to Joyce; one just keeps going, getting more and more complicated with each sentence and never arriving at any conclusion. Where was I?”

  “The good old days of publishing.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, Sam had been publishing marvelous books and corresponding with now famous authors for something like fifty years, and needless to say he’d accumulated quite a valuable library and collection of papers. In recent years he’d let people use some of the letters he could get his hands on for collections and so forth, but it was clear that something had to be done to organize his papers and library, so—two years ago he purchased the house in which you were so shocked to find me today, moved all his literary and other belongings up here, and prepared to follow in due course. In the meantime, he traveled. I doubt, really, that he would ever have moved up here. Sam liked to joke about what he would do in his ‘old age.’ ”

  “Where was his wife?”

  “She died a number of years ago. Sam had a fine life, friends, interesting occasions and good conversation, but his family life was a sad one. He and his wife had two daughters; one died of cancer in her early twenties, and the other, Veronica, the one I went to school with, became a nun. Sam was an agnostic humanist, like most of the intellectuals of his generation, and her conversion and all was a great blow to him. Still he saw her from time to time and they were on good terms. Sam left everything to Veronica in his will, including the house.”

  “How did you get involved in all this?”

  “That is the point, I do realize that. I’m sorry this explanation is so long, particularly since, once you understand the background to the story, it doesn’t become a bit more intelligible, really. As I said, Sam died. He didn’t have a funeral, not believing in these matters. The Times obituary mentioned Veronica’s convent, and I wrote her a note. A short while later I had a reply, and she asked to come and see me.”