The Vivero Letter

'The pre-Columbian civilizations of Central America,' he answered. 'A sixteenth-century Spanish tray didn't mean much to me at the time. I was busy working on a dig in south Campeche. Halstead was with me then, among others. When the dig was finished for the season and we'd got back to civilization he picked a quarrel with me and left. With him went my de Vivero file.'

Halstead's voice was like a lash. That's a lie!'

Fallon shrugged. That's the way it was.'

So far we hadn't reached any point at which the tray was important, but here was the first mention of the deep-rooted quarrel between these two men, and that might be of consequence so I decided to probe. 'What was the quarrel about?'

He stole my work,' said Halstead flatly.

The hell I did!' Fallon turned to me. This is one of the things that crop up in academic circles, I'm sorry to say. It happens like this; young men just out of college work in the field with older and more experienced workers-- I did the same myself with Murray many years ago. Papers get written and sometimes the younger fellow reckons he's not given due credit. It happens all the time.'

'Was it true in this case?'

Halstead was about to speak up but his wife put her hand on his knee and motioned him to silence. Fallon said, 'Most certainly not. Oh, I admit I wrote a paper on some aspects of the Quetzaecoatl legend which Halstead said I stole from him, but it wasn't like that at all.' He shook his head wearily. 'You've got to get the picture. You're on a dig and you work hard all day and at night you tend to relax and, maybe, drink a bit. Now, if there's half a dozen of you then you might have a bull session -- what you English call "talking shop". Ideas fly around thick and fast and nobody is ever certain who said what or when; these ideas tend to be regarded as common property. Now, it may be that the origin of the paper I wrote happened in such a way, and it may be that it was Halstead's suggestion, but I can't prove it and, by God, neither can he.'

Halstead said, 'You know damn well that I suggested the central idea of that paper.'

Fallon spread his hands and appealed to me. 'You see how it is. It might have gone for nothing if this young fool hadn't written to the journals and publicly accused me of theft. I could have sued the pants off him -- but I didn't. I wrote to him privately and suggested that he refrain from entering into public controversy because I certainly wasn't going to enter into an argument of that nature in the professional prints. But he continued and finally the editors wouldn't print his letters any more.'

Halstead's voice was malevolent. 'You mean you bought the goddamn editors, don't you?'

Think what you like,' said Fallon in disgust. 'At any rate, I found my de Vivero file had vanished when Halstead left. It didn't mean much at the time, and when it did start to mean something it wasn't much trouble to go back to the original sources. But when I started to bump into the Halsteads around every corner I put two and two together.'

'But you don't know he took your file,' I said. 'You couldn't prove it in a law court.'

'I don't suppose I could,' agreed Fallon, 'Then the less said about it the better.' Halstead looked pleased at that, so I added, 'You both seem free and easy in throwing accusations about. This isn't my idea of professional dignity.'

You. haven't heard the whole story yet, Mr. Wheale,' said Mrs. Halstead.

'Well, let's get on with it,' I said. 'Go ahead, Professor Fallon -- or do you have anything to say, Dr. Halstead?'

Halstead gloomed at me. 'Not yet.' He said it with an air of foreboding and I knew there were some more fireworks ahead.

'Nothing much happened after that for quite a while,' said Fallon. Then when I was in New York, I received a letter from Mark Gerryson suggesting I see him. Gerryson is a dealer whom I have used from time to time, and he said he had some Mayan chocolate jugs -- not the ordinary pottery jugs, but made of gold. They must have come from a noble house. He also said he had part of a feather cloak and a few other things.'

Halstead snorted and muttered audibly, 'A goddamn feather cloak!'

'I know it was a fake,' said Fallon. 'And I didn't buy it. But the chocolate jugs were genuine. Gerryson knew I'd be interested -- the ordinary Mayan specialist doesn't interest Gerryson because he hasn't the money that Gerryson asks; he usually sells to museums and rich collectors.' Well, I run a museum myself -- among other things -- and I've had some good stuff from Gerryson in the past.

'We dickered for a bit and I told him what I thought of his feather cloak; he laughed about that and said he was pulling my leg. The chocolate jugs were genuine enough and [ bought those. Then he said he wanted my opinion on something that had just come in -- it was a manuscript account by a Spaniard who had lived among the Mayas in the early sixteenth century and he wanted to know if it was genuine.'