The Silkworm

“I had heard something of the sort,” said Chard, still examining his teak floorboards for damage. “That won’t interfere with this line of inquiry, though?”

His self-absorption was remarkable, Strike thought. He remembered Chard’s copperplate writing on the card with the painting of violets: Do let me know if there is anything you need. Perhaps his secretary had dictated it to him.

“Would you like to tell me who the alleged collaborator is?” asked Strike.

“This is extremely painful,” mumbled Chard, his eyes flitting from Alfred Wallis to the stone angel and up to the spiral stairs.

Strike said nothing.

“It’s Jerry Waldegrave,” said Chard, glancing at Strike and away again. “And I’ll tell you why I suspect—how I know.

“His behavior has been strange for weeks. I first noticed it when he telephoned me about Bombyx Mori, to tell me what Quine had done. There was no embarrassment, no apology.”

“Would you have expected Waldegrave to apologize for something Quine had written?”

The question seemed to surprise Chard.

“Well—Owen was one of Jerry’s authors, so yes, I would have expected some regret that Owen had depicted me in that—in that way.”

And Strike’s unruly imagination again showed him the naked Phallus Impudicus standing over the body of a dead young man emitting supernatural light.

“Are you and Waldegrave on bad terms?” he asked.

“I’ve shown Jerry Waldegrave a lot of forbearance, a considerable forbearance,” said Chard, ignoring the direct question. “I kept him on full pay while he went to a treatment facility a year ago. Perhaps he feels hard done by,” said Chard, “but I’ve been on his side, yes, on occasions when many another man, a more prudent man, might have remained neutral. Jerry’s personal misfortunes are not of my making. There is resentment. Yes, I would say that there is definite resentment, however unjustified.”

“Resentment about what?” asked Strike.

“Jerry isn’t fond of Michael Fancourt,” mumbled Chard, his eyes on the flames in the woodburner. “Michael had a—a flirtation, a long time ago, with Fenella, Jerry’s wife. And as it happens, I actually warned Michael off, because of my friendship with Jerry. Yes!” said Chard, nodding, deeply impressed by the memory of his own actions. “I told Michael it was unkind and unwise, even in his state of…because Michael had lost his first wife, you see, not very long before.

“Michael didn’t appreciate my unsolicited advice. He took offense; he took off for a different publisher. The board was very unhappy,” said Chard. “It’s taken us twenty-odd years to lure Michael back.

“But after all this time,” Chard said, his bald pate merely one more reflective surface among the glass, polished wood and steel, “Jerry can hardly expect his personal animosities to govern company policy. Ever since Michael agreed to come back to Roper Chard, Jerry has made it his business to—to undermine me, subtly, in a hundred little ways.

“What I believe happened is this,” said Chard, glancing from time to time at Strike, as though to gauge his reaction. “Jerry took Owen into his confidence about Michael’s deal, which we were trying to keep under wraps. Owen had, of course, been an enemy of Fancourt’s for a quarter of a century. Owen and Jerry decided to concoct this…this dreadful book, in which Michael and I are subjected to—to disgusting calumnies as a way of drawing attention away from Michael’s arrival and as an act of revenge on both of us, on the company, on anyone else they cared to denigrate.

“And, most tellingly,” said Chard, his voice echoing now through the empty space, “after I told Jerry, explicitly, to make sure the manuscript was locked safely away he allowed it to be read widely by anyone who cared to do so, and having made sure it’s being gossiped about all over London, he resigns and leaves me looking—”

“When did Waldegrave resign?” asked Strike.

“The day before yesterday,” said Chard, before plunging on: “and he was extremely reluctant to join me in legal action against Quine. That in itself shows—”

“Perhaps he thought bringing in lawyers would draw more attention to the book?” Strike suggested. “Waldegrave’s in Bombyx Mori himself, isn’t he?”

“That!” said Chard and sniggered. It was the first sign of humor Strike had seen in him and the effect was unpleasant. “You don’t want to take everything at face value, Mr. Strike. Owen never knew about that.”

“About what?”

“The Cutter character is Jerry’s own work—I realized it on a third reading,” said Chard. “Very, very clever: it looks like an attack on Jerry himself, but it’s really a way of causing Fenella pain. They are still married, you see, but very unhappily. Very unhappily.

“Yes, I saw it all, on rereading,” said Chard. The spotlights in the hanging ceiling made rippled reflections on his skull as he nodded. “Owen didn’t write the Cutter. He barely knows Fenella. He didn’t know about that old business.”