“I know I’m downright, but I’m sure Mr Dexter values honest criticism.”
An old lady, who he supposed was the Grafin, said, “I do not read many English books, Mr Dexter, but I am told that yours…”
“Do you mind drinking up?” Crabbin said and hustled him through into an inner room where a number of elderly people were sitting on a semi-circle of chairs with an air of sad patience.
Martins was not able to tell me very much about the meeting: his mind was still dazed with the death: when he looked up he expected to see at any moment the child Hansel and hear that persistent informative refrain, “Papa, Papa.” Apparently Crabbin opened the proceedings, and knowing Crabbin I am sure that it was a very lucid, very fair and unbiased picture of the contemporary English novel. I have heard him give that talk so often, varied only by the emphasis given to the work of the particular English visitor. He would have touched lightly on various problems of technique-the point of view, the passage of time, and then he would have declared the meeting open for questions and discussions.
Martins missed the first question altogether, but luckily Crabbin filled the gap and answered it satisfactorily. A woman wearing a brown hat and a piece of fur round her throat said with passionate interest: “May I ask Mr Dexter if he is engaged on a new work?”
“Oh yes… Yes.”
“May I ask the title?”
“The Third Man,” Martins said and gained a spurious confidence as the result of taking that hurdle.
“Mr Dexter, could you tell us what author has chiefly influenced you?”
Martins without thinking said, “Grey.” He meant of course the author of Riders of the Purple Sage, and he was pleased to find his reply gave general satisfaction-to all save an elderly Austrian who asked, “Grey. What Grey? I do not know the name.”
Martins felt he was safe now and said, “Zane Grey-I don’t know any other,” and was mystified at the low subservient laughter from the English colony.
Crabbin interposed quickly for the sake of the Austrians: “That is a little joke of Mr Dexter’s. He meant the poet Gray-a gentle, mild subtle genius-one can see the affinity.”
“And he is called Zane Grey?”
“That was Mr Dexter’s joke. Zane Grey wrote what we call Westerns-cheap popular novelettes about bandits and cowboys.”
“He is not a greater writer?”
“No, no. Far from it,” Mr Crabbin said. “In the strict sense I would not call him a writer at all.” Martins told me that he felt the first stirrings of revolt at that statement. He had never regarded himself before as a writer, but Crabbin’s self-confidence irritated him-even the way the light flashed back from Crabbin’s spectacles seemed an added cause of vexation. Crabbin said, “He was just a popular entertainer.”
“Why the hell not?” Martins said fiercely.
“Oh well, I merely meant…”
“What was Shakespeare?”
Somebody with great daring said, “A poet.”
“Have you ever read Zane Grey?”
“No, I can’t say…”
“Then you don’t know what you are talking about.”
One of the young men tried to come to Crabbin’s rescue. “And James Joyce, where would you put James Joyce, Mr Dexter?”
“What do you mean put? I don’t want to put anybody anywhere,” Martins said. It had been a very full day: he had drunk too much with Cooler: he had fallen in love: a man had been murdered-and now he had the quite unjust feeling that he was being got at. Zane Grey was one of his heroes: he was damned if he was going to stand any nonsense.
“I mean would you put him among the really great?”
“If you want to know, I’ve never heard of him. What did he write?”
He didn’t realise it, but he was making an enormous impression. Only a great writer could have taken so arrogant, so original a line: several people wrote Zane Grey’s name on the backs of envelopes and the Grafin whispered hoarsely to Crabbin, “How do you spell Zane?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure.” A number of names were simultaneously flung at Martins-little sharp pointed names like Stein, round pebbles like Woolf. A young Austrian with an ardent intellectual black forelock called out “Daphne du Maurier,” and Mr Crabbin winced and looked sideways at Martins. He said in an undertone, “Be kind to them.”
A gentle kind faced woman in a hand-knitted jumper said wistfully, “Don’t you agree, Mr Dexter, that no one, no one has written about feelings so poetically as Virginia Woolf? in prose I mean.”
Crabbin whispered, “You might say something about the stream of consciousness.”
“Stream of what?”
A note of despair came into Crabbin’s voice, “Please, Mr Dexter, these people are your genuine admirers. They want to hear your views. If you knew how they have besieged the Society.”
An elderly Austrian said, “Is there any writer in England today of the stature of the late John Galsworthy?”
There was an outburst of angry twittering in which the names of Du Maurier, Priestley and somebody called Layman were flung to and fro. Martins sat gloomily back and saw again the snow, the stretcher, the desperate face of Frau Koch. He thought: if I had never returned, if I had never asked questions, would that little man still be alive? How had he benefited Harry by supplying another victim-a victim to assuage the fear of whom, Herr Kurtz, Cooler (he could not believe that), Dr. Winkler? Not one of them seemed adequate to the drab gruesome crime in the basement: he could hear the child saying: “I saw the blood on the coke,” and somebody turned towards him a blank face without features, a grey plasticine egg, the third man.
Martins could not have said how he got through the rest of the discussion: perhaps Crabbin took the brunt: perhaps he was helped by some of the audience who got into an animated discussion about the film version of a popular American novel. He remembered very little more before Crabbin was making a final speech in his honour. Then one of the young men led him to a table stacked with books and asked him to sign them. “We have only allowed each member one book.”
“What have I got to do?”
“Just a signature. That’s all they expect. This is my copy of The Curved Prow. I would be so grateful if you’d just write a little something…”
Martins took his pen and wrote: “From B. Dexter, author of The Lone Rider of Santa Fe,” and the young man read the sentence and blotted it with a puzzled expression. As Martins sat down and started signing Benjamin Dexter’s title pages, he could see in a mirror the young man showing the inscription to Crabbin. Crabbin smiled weakly and stroked his chin, up and down, up and down. “B. Dexter, B. Dexter, B. Dexter.” Martins wrote rapidly-it was not after all a lie. One by one the books were collected by their owners: little half sentences of delight and compliment were dropped like curtseys-was this what it was to be a writer? Martins began to feel distinct irritation towards Benjamin Dexter. The complacent tiring pompous ass, he thought, signing the twenty-seventh copy of The Curved Prow. Every time he looked up and took another book he saw Crabbin’s worried speculative gaze. The members of the Institute were beginning to go home with their spoils: the room was emptying. Suddenly in the mirror Martins saw a military policeman. He seemed to be having an argument with one of Crabbin’s young henchmen. Martins thought he caught the sound of his own name. It was then he lost his nerve and with it any relic of commonsense. There was only one book left to sign: he dashed off a last “B. Dexter” and made for the door. The young man, Crabbin and the policeman stood together at the entrance.
“And this gentleman?” the policeman asked.
“It’s Mr Benjamin Dexter,” the young man said.
“Lavatory. Is there a lavatory?” Martins said.
“I understood a Mr Rollo Martins came here in one of your cars.”
“A mistake. An obvious mistake.”