“Miss Newport claims she did not go.”
A new thought struck him. “Has this anything to do with why Mr. Oliver came to your room?”
“No. Mr. Edgecombe had told him John Lane’s sister was staying at the hotel. That’s why he came—to see if I was the ‘maid’ who’d given him the manuscript.”
“I see.” He expelled a rueful sigh. “Anything else to tell me?”
Rebecca lowered her head, then raised it again. “John did come here. To ask if I had delivered his novel into Mr. Oliver’s hands. He spent part of the night sleeping in my armchair. I believe it was him the page saw entering my room, and him I saw leaving that morning when you came upon me in the parlour.”
“The morning we found Mr. Oliver dead?”
She nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.
His heart squeezed. “Why are you crying? You don’t think John struck Mr. Oliver?”
“I don’t think he would, but... ”
“But what? Had he some reason to resent the man?”
She nodded and swiped at her wet cheek. He longed to wipe away her tears himself, to draw her into his arms and tell her everything would be all right. Even as he doubted it would be.
Shoving his hands behind his back to keep from reaching for her, he guessed, “Because Oliver was a successful author and John is not yet published?”
She shook her head. “It’s more than that. When John worked briefly as his secretary, he asked Mr. Oliver to read his first novel, hoping he would recommend it to his publisher or at least offer some advice. Mr. Oliver read it and told John it was not good enough, not publishable—that he should start on something new or give up writing altogether.”
“Difficult to hear, I can imagine, but surely not enough to kill a man over, years later.”
“You’re right. Though at first John believed the man’s harsh criticism. He was bitterly disappointed, ranted and raged, and burned all his notes and old copies. Eventually he seemed to calm down and began working for the newspaper.
“But then, the following year, when Mr. Oliver’s new novel was published, John discovered it washisbook. His story, his characters, his plot. Mr. Oliver had stolen it. He had changed the title and some names and places, but the story, the words, whole paragraphs and pages of description and dialogue—all John’s.”
Stunned, Frederick said, “You should have come to me. Perhaps I might have helped, talked to our solicitor, something.”
“We did try to assert John’s claim. We first met alone with William Edgecombe. He asked for proof, and sadly, we had very little. Mr. Oliver had never returned the pages John had given him, and John had destroyed his early drafts after Mr. Oliver’s rejection—onhisadvice, we then realized, no doubt hoping to protect himself from just such charges. John hired a lawyer for a short while, but he had little money for his fees. And at any rate, the lawyer told John he had no real case, not without proof. John did find an early outline, but the man said he could have written that anytime, even after Oliver’s novel was printed. He offered little hope.
“Later, John and this lawyer met again with Mr. Edgecombe along with Mr. Oliver, who of course denied everything and said that ideas are two a penny and can’t be owned. That even if they’d started with the same idea, it would become a completely different novel in a skilled author’s hands. In the end, Mr. Edgecombe, eager to avoid scandal, offered John a small settlement on the understanding that he would drop the matter.In turn, Edgecombe’s own lawyer threatened John with an action for libel should he breathe a word of his ‘baseless charges’ to anyone.
“John accepted the settlement. I told him he should not, for the amount was not worth giving up his right to reclaim what was his. But John rashly agreed, saying it was his word against Ambrose Oliver’s and why would anyone believe him?”
Frederick said, “Could you not testify to John’s authorship yourself?”
She again looked down, clearly embarrassed. “No, to my shame. John had asked me to read his manuscript at one point, and I’d meant to, but at the time, I was reading a novel I loved,Pride and Prejudice, so I kept putting it off. It was terribly selfish of me, I admit.
“The truth is, I had learned from a young age that John is highly sensitive to any criticism. Especially from me. He didn’t really want my opinion, he wanted my unmitigated praise, which I doubted I could give him. When this happened, John felt betrayed that I had never read the manuscript. I have felt guilty ever since.”
Frederick slowly nodded. “I believe I understand. Thank you for telling me.”
Sudden realization twisted Frederick’s gut. “Wait ... are you saying John wroteThe Faded Rose of Wickwood?”
Miss Lane reddened all the more. “Yes, although under a different title. I am sorry. Apparently in John’s version, any correlation to real people and places was more subtle, but after Oliver changed the names and made a few vague references less vague ... well. John never meant to hurt you, I know.”
“And here I vilified Ambrose Oliver....”
“You were justified, though perhaps not for the precise reason you thought.”
He ran an agitated hand through his hair as though to calm his whirling thoughts. “Why would John want you to give Mr. Oliver his new manuscript when the man had stolen the last one?”
Rebecca’s eyes turned down at the corners. “I asked the same thing. He told me he had tried every other way he knew to get a publisher to read it. Mr. Edgecombe won’t look at any submissions unless they come to him through one of his authors. John said he was desperate enough to try one more time.”
