The Two Hundred Ghost Read online

  The Two Hundred Ghost

  Henrietta Hamilton

  About the Author

  Henrietta Hamilton is the pseudonym for Hester Denne Shepherd who was born in Dundee in 1920 and was educated at St Hugh’s College, Oxford where she earned an honours degree in Modern Languages.

  During the Second World War, Hamilton served in the Wrens. Afterwards, she worked in a London bookshop, gaining first-hand experience of antiquarian bookselling — the background of her crime-solving duo, Johnny and Sally Heldar.

  During her life, Hamilton enjoyed writing and hill-walking. She died in 1995 in Hastings, East Sussex.

  Also By Henrietta Hamilton

  The Two Hundred Ghost

  Death at One Blow

  A Night to Die

  Answer in the Negative

  The Mystery of Underrated Crime Writers

  Sophie Hannah

  Is Agatha Christie underrated? It’s a question I’ve been asked hundreds of times since I wrote my first Poirot novel in 2014 — at literary festivals, bookshop events, in radio and podcast interviews. It’s always worded slightly differently, but that is the gist of it: we all agree that Dame Agatha is a great plotter, puzzle-maker and entertainer, but do we, at the same time, dismiss her as a serious writer and creator of literature, and, if so, are we right or wrong to do so?

  There is, of course, no ‘we’ about it. I never underrate Christie: I think she’s the greatest crime writer who has ever lived and probably always will be — and so my answer to this question that I have been asked hundreds of times is always a variation of, ‘Yes, she was absolutely a creator of brilliant literature and you’d be foolish to underrate her.’

  Christie, of course, is not the only crime writer whose brilliance has not been adequately recognised. The good news is that many publishers — Agora Books, Dean Street Press, Mysterious Press, Rue Morgue Press, British Library Publishing — are now on a mission to find and publish some of these under-appreciated writers. Agora Books is highlighting women, specifically, through its Uncrowned Queens of Crime series, which features Hilda Lawrence, whose Death Of A Doll is considered to be her best work. Originally published in 1947, the mystery, set in a New York boarding house for women, combines the cosy and the creepy to brilliant effect. It also offers a unique and hilarious spinster double-act, Miss Beulah and Miss Bessy, who are helping private investigator Mark East as he investigates the violent death of one of the boarding house residents. Lawrence’s characterisation is deft and her psychological insight sharp.

  The Uncrowned Queens of Crime series also spotlights Henrietta Hamilton. A copy of an earlier edition of Answer in the Negative was found by chance by a member of the publishing team who was browsing in a second-hand bookshop — which could hardly be more fitting, given that Hamilton was a master of the bibliomystery. She wrote about bookshop murders, stolen and forged books, and protagonists who meet in antiquated bookshops. Answer in The Negative, first published in 1959, features husband and wife amateur sleuth duo, Sally and Johnny Heldar, who meet in the series’ first title, The Two Hundred Ghost.

  Those who underrate Christie say things like, ‘Oh, come on! Her prose is wooden and her characters are two-dimensional.’ And I must admit that, until recently, this used to puzzle me, because one only has to glance at almost any page of almost any Christie novel to see that her prose is far from wooden; it is elegant, witty and crisp and perfect. Her characters are multi-faceted and complex — and frequently hoping to pass themselves off as two-dimensional because that third dimension of themselves that they’re desperate to conceal might just be the one that will send them to the gallows if they’re not careful.

  How, I used to wonder, could so many people fail to see the brilliance of Christie’s writing as writing? It was a mystery! Then one day last year I was on a panel at London’s Capital Crime Festival (defending Christie, again, against accusations that ‘she might have sold billions but, let’s face it, her writing was rubbish’) when the answer came to me. It was so obvious that I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to work it out: the underestimation of Christie’s work had nothing to do with the work itself and everything to do with the way in which it was first presented to the underestimators, and the way in which it is regularly discussed and dismissed in their immediate vicinity.

  Like the solution to a flawless Agatha Christie mystery, it’s breathtakingly simple: the reason so many people believe that Christie's books lack serious literary worth is that they were first introduced to the books by people who believed that. And then perhaps they heard lots of other people saying, ‘Agatha Christie? Yeah, she’s my guilty pleasure. Her books are gripping but they’re not proper literature.’ And the Underestimators (unlike me and my gang, the Correct Estimators) did not think to question those people, because it’s much easier to believe what those around you believe than to observe carefully and then to form your own views.

  Despite the underestimation of Christie, she has triumphed over all her detractors by selling billions of books and becoming the bestselling novelist of all time — but how many other institutionally underestimated novelists have not been so lucky? How many might have reached more readers if so many people were not quite so determined to slot books into a weird, dysfunctional literary caste system that makes zero sense as soon as one realises that believing what generally has always been believed is a ridiculous way to carry on?

  Lawrence and Hamilton have an advantage over Christie in some ways: being less famous than she is, they are also less widely underestimated and underrated. Readers will have the chance to open these newly re-published novels and think, ‘Let me give this book a fair chance and make up my own mind about it.’ That’s something new readers of Agatha Christie could also do, no matter how many people they have heard being loudly wrong, for as long as they can remember, about her rightful place in the literary hierarchy.

  This edition published in 2020 by Agora Books

  First published in Great Britain by Hodder and Stoughton 1956

  Agora Books is a division of Peters Fraser + Dunlop Ltd

  55 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1BS

  Copyright © Henrietta Hamilton, 1956

  Copyright in the Foreword ‘The Mystery of the Underrated Crime Writer’ © Sophie Hannah, 2020

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  To

  MARY FRANCES SHEPHERD

  With love

  Chapter One

  The heavy mahogany clock on the mantelpiece struck five. Sally rose from her desk and closed the door against any further customers. Then she returned and went on with her work. It was a Wants List from Hiram P Goldberger of Washington, DC — an old and favoured customer — and it covered a quarto sheet of typing paper. It wasn’t strictly necessary to deal with it tonight, but the titles would have to appear in Heldar’s weekly list of requirements which she would type and send to the Antiquarian Book World tomorrow, and she preferred to have them indexed first. She picked up another index card and put it into her typewriter. ‘Johnson (Samuel) Rasselas 1759 2 vols 18mo.’

  She had got as far as that when she heard the three girls from the top floor coming downstairs. Coming quickly, talking quietly. They surged into the shop together: Miss Bates, the cashier, and Mrs Weldon and Betty, the typists. They said good nig
ht hastily to Sally, and Miss Bates added: ‘Don’t stay too long, Sally,’ in a voice that tried not quite successfully to be bright. Then they hurried out into the lighted darkness of the Charing Cross Road.

  Sally sighed a little. They had certainly got the wind up. They were all, to a certain extent, nervous types. Sally didn’t share their conviction that the Number Two Hundred ghost had risen again, but things were getting just a little beyond the joke that she and Little Liza had tried to make of the affair. Ever since the evening last week when Betty had thought she saw the ghost they had left hurriedly in a body immediately after five. They seldom had to work late. But Sally had begun to wonder what would happen next time one of them had to.

  She completed her index card with Hiram P Goldberger’s name and address and the date and started on another. Then the office door closed briskly down the passage, and Father William Heldar’s brisk step sounded. Father William had been eighty last birthday but he still did as good a day’s work as his middle-aged nephew or his grandson or his great-nephew. He came into the shop in his black overcoat, his black hat and neatly furled umbrella in his gloved hands, his handsome white head still bare.

  ‘Working late again, Miss Merton?’ he said. His voice was the voice of an old man, but still very much alive. ‘I don’t think I approve of all this working late. How long do you stay?’

  Sally had risen again. She looked into his shrewd blue eyes. ‘Not much after half-past five usually, Mr William.’

  ‘Well, I think you should limit it to twice a week. You’re looking tired. And be sure you put in for overtime. Good night, Miss Merton.’

  ‘Good night, Mr William. Thank you.’

  Father William went out to the street. A few minutes later the door of his office opened and closed again. Surely, thought Sally, Miss Mundle wasn’t going already, and then she remembered that it was Tuesday, and Miss Mundle would be going to her evening classes, as she had gone once a week for the last thirty winters and more. Miss Mundle had been typist to Mr Henry, Father William’s brother and Mr Charles’s father, who had died twenty-five years ago, and since then invaluable secretary to Father William himself. She had known his two sons, Mr John, father of Johnny Heldar, and Mr Dicky, who had both been killed in the First World War. She had even known the Grand Old Man himself, Father William’s father, the founder of the firm, the original Mr John. She was as much a part of Heldar’s as the senior partners.

  The door of the passage cupboard, where Miss Mundle and Sally kept their outdoor garments, closed quietly. Miss Mundle came into the shop and beamed at Sally from behind her wire-rimmed glasses. ‘Working late again?’ she asked. ‘You do it too often.’

  Sally said something about the pot calling the kettle black, and Miss Mundle laughed. ‘Oh, I know,’ she said. ‘But I’m old and tough.’ She looked tough, standing there solid and square-set in her ugly coat and sensible felt hat and large serviceable shoes. ‘You look tired, dear.’

  ‘I’m tough, too.’

  ‘Well, I hope so, Sally. But don’t stay too long. Good night, dear.’

  She bustled off, and Sally returned to Hiram P Goldberger.

  Presently she heard Mr Charles come rather slowly downstairs. Mr Charles was thirty years younger than Father William, but in some ways, he seemed an older man. His grey hair was thin, and his shoulders were a little stooped. He peered kindly at Sally.

  ‘You’re looking tired, Sally,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t work late so often.’

  If it had been anyone but Mr Charles, she might have been slightly annoyed by being told for the third time in five minutes that she was looking tired. But one couldn’t be annoyed with Mr Charles. She smiled at him and said she was quite all right.

  ‘Perhaps you don’t feed yourself properly?’ he said, half apologetically. ‘Girls who have to look after themselves often don’t. Just a gas ring and things out of tins. Or so my wife says, and she’s usually right.’

  Sally knew Mrs Charles was perfectly right, but she said something gentle and noncommittal. Mr Charles shook his head and then said: ‘Well, I must be getting home. We’re having some people to dinner. Tim’s just reminded me, otherwise I should certainly have forgotten.’ He was always disarmingly frank about his vagueness. He sighed. ‘He’s getting out of it — taking a young woman out. Wish I could do the same. Get out of the party, I mean,’ he added hastily.

  They both laughed, and he said good night and went out. And then Sally heard Butcher’s curiously aggressive step coming down and became very busy with her typewriter.

  ‘Hullo, Sally,’ he said, lounging into the shop. ‘Working late again? It’s not good for you, you know. Makes you pale and thin. Why not come out and have a drink with me? Pubs open in a quarter of an hour.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Sally. ‘I’ve got some work to finish.’

  He was beside her, smelling strongly of cheap hair grease, looking down at her list. ‘Old Hiram P?’ He used an epithet rather unsuitable for mixed company. ‘Leave him till tomorrow.’

  ‘I prefer to get him done tonight.’

  ‘Oh, come on, now,’ said Butcher. ‘You’re much too nice to sit and work all evening. Don’t you ever want a bit of fun?’ His thick fingers closed on her shoulder.

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said coldly, and released herself. Her desk was right in a corner, and she couldn’t move far.

  Neither of them, she thought, had heard the door to the basement stairs swing open and shut. But now she heard a faint sound and looked round to see Fred Malling standing in the doorway. Fred was very tall and thin to the point of emaciation, and his grey dustcoat hung so loosely on him that he gave the impression of a skeleton. The bright lights above the bookshelves made deep shadows in his hollow cheeks and about his bright sunken eyes. Sally thought suddenly that he was like an El Greco figure. She also thought that this was about the worst thing that could have happened.

  Before she could speak Fred said sharply: ‘You dirty swine! Take your filthy ’ands orf Miss Merton!’

  Sally stood up and tried to speak. But Butcher got in first.

  ‘So my hands are filthy, are they?’ he said. ‘How do you know she thinks they’re filthy? And you a chap that makes his living tying up parcels.’

  Fred’s pale face flushed. ‘She’s a nice girl,’ he said, and his voice trembled. ‘That’s ’ow I know. You damn well let ’er alone.’ He put down the pile of books he was carrying on the big table. They slipped and slithered off each other because his hands were shaking.

  Sally began to speak. But Butcher interrupted her. ‘You’d better be careful, Fred,’ he said. ‘Don’t excite yourself. We all know you ought to have been in a home years ago.’

  Fred’s face went ashen. Sally said in a voice she scarcely recognised: ‘I think you’d better go. Fred’s worth fifty of you. He fought in a war, too. I believe you kept well out of the fighting in the last one.’

  That got under his hide. She was glad when she saw the red fade from his cheeks, leaving them unpleasantly mottled. He used an equally unpleasant word.

  A door closed, far away upstairs. They heard it only faintly. But the firm step on the stairs became quickly clearer.

  Butcher said quietly but savagely: ‘Don’t you think you’ve heard the last of this, either of you.’ He moved quickly to the door and went out.

  Fred didn’t seem to have heard the closing of the door or the footsteps. He was just standing there, gripping his shaking hands together. Sally said gently: ‘It’s all right, Fred. He was just being beastly. Thank you so much for helping me.’

  ‘I know I’m only a packer, Miss,’ said Fred desperately. ‘But I couldn’t stand by an’ see ’im touching you. But I didn’t do no good. It was you standing up for me in the end.’ His voice was broken, and Sally saw to her dismay that he was crying.

  She hadn’t been sure whether she ought to try to get him out of the shop before Johnny came in, or whether Johnny had better know about this. But she had really had no choi
ce. Johnny was here.

  He was standing in the mouth of the passage. He was nearly as tall as Fred, and much broader in the shoulders and far stronger: the physique which with his brain had — so everyone said — made him a first-class commando officer. His face was unusually grave, and this was one of the occasions on which he wore something of the authority of his grandfather.

  ‘What’s been happening?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Just Butcher being horrible,’ said Sally.

  ‘’E was touching Miss Merton, Mr Johnny,’ said Fred. ‘An’ I wasn’t no bloody use — beggin’ your pardon, Miss. I’m sorry.’ The tears were still running down into the hollows of his cheeks.

  ‘You drew his fire, Fred,’ said Sally.

  ‘I see,’ said Johnny. He came over and put a hand on Fred’s shoulder. Sally had never seen him show such gentleness before. It struck her that he might have some experience in dealing with battle-shocked men.

  ‘Drawing the other chap’s fire is always a useful thing to do, Fred,’ he said, still quietly. ‘It’s a good thing you were here. Don’t worry about anything he may have said. It won’t be true. You go home now and get your supper. Is Alf still here?’

  ‘No, Mr Johnny. ’E an’ Billy went orf about five minutes ago.’

  ‘Well, you get home. We’ll have a talk in the morning. I’ll ring down to you. Good night, Fred.’

  ‘Good night, Mr Johnny, sir. Good night, Miss.’

  ‘Good night, Fred. And thank you.’

  Fred looked grateful. He went out of the shop, and they heard the door to the basement stairs swing open and shut. He would let himself out by the back door into the alley, the way Alf Lendicott, the head packer, and Little Billee, the messenger, had gone.