“A Legitimate Suspicion”*
by
Stefan Zweig
1881 − 1942

It’s “a pretty little book” – an old fashioned baby carriage on the cover with an old fashioned baby girl sitting in it looking right at me. It doesn’t have the slightest resemblance to a murder mystery, nothing at all except the title, “A Legitimate Suspicion”. It begins:

“Even though I lack the ultimate, irrefutable proof, I am absolutely certain he is the murderer. My husband often says to me “Betsy, you are an intelligent woman, you’re a very good observer and you are very quick, but sometimes you allow yourself to be carried away by your emotions and you often make hasty judgments.” My husband knows me for thirty-two years, and his warnings are… probably justified. So, since I do lack the absolute proof, I should bite my tongue and keep my suspicions to myself. But every time our paths cross and he comes near me, so nice and friendly, my heart stops and an inner voice says to me, it’s him, he’s the one, he alone, he’s the murderer.”

So far, however, I am wondering less who did it to whom than I am why on earth did my friend C go out of her way on a Saturday morning to bring this book to me. She doesn’t live close by, we just met for lunch yesterday and she said nothing….

“You must read this!”, she says, handing it to me.  I see the author.  Stefan Zweig? Really? “Why, why must I read this?” I ask as she is headed for the exit. “Oh you’ll know!” she says, and she’s gone, leaving me more curious still. So I read. And I’ll tell you the story as briefly as I can, even the ending, because as far as I know it has not been published in English.

Betsy couldn’t still that inner voice so insistently saying he did it! He’s the murderer!. So, as one sometimes does when one is obsessed with a certainty that can’t be proved, she decided to try one more time, just for herself, to replay the events, to go over the story from the beginning, how it all played out. One gets the feeling she truly means to be fair, that she is open even to discovering she is wrong, however firmly she doubts that.

She and her husband had retired to the outskirts of Bath in England where they found a beautiful tranquil spot in the middle of nowhere. A once busy canal now wound peacefully through a gently hilly countryside, and there, at the top of  a little hill which sloped gently to the waters edge they had a small house built. It was perfect for them, if perhaps at first, a bit isolated. Such a lovely spot, her husband predicted, would not long be ignored, and soon enough a young couple had a house built next to theirs.

John Charleston Limpley and his wife Ellen were childless. He went by train every day to Bristol, an hour’s journey each way, where he worked in a bank, and she at first was busy supervising the finishing touches to the new house. She introduced herself to her neighbours one day when she came to borrow a saw.

The husband didn’t waste a moment to present himself as well. The very next Saturday, in his shirt-sleeves, not waiting to make a formal first visit, he ran after Betsy and her husband whom he saw walking by to thank them exuberantly for being so kind to his wife. John Charleston Limpley was a very large man who did everything exuberantly. He enthused over absolutely everything, everything was absolutely the best anywhere on earth, this lovely paradise he hoped to live in the rest of his life, his lovely wife, a beautiful tree, a pretty hill….he talked so fast and with such great animation, hardly taking a breath, that it was impossible to interrupt him.

At first the retired couple was immensely impressed with this giant of a man, red-haired, freckled, kind, loving, generous, honest, loyal – there is not a positive quality they did not attribute to this born Scotsman who grew up in Canada. Even his Canadian “candour” was remarked and praised. Betsy finds herself still enumerating his good points even as she tries to explain how their initial positive feelings for him soon crashed – “… what made him difficult to bear was his noisy, vocal way of being permanently happy.”

It was about at this point that I began to suspect why my friend had insisted I read this book. My husband is a short little guy who is very friendly and outgoing. I suppose it is no wild coincidence that with so many positive qualities attributed to John Limpley, my very own husband should possess some of them – and perhaps a few subtleties which might be seen to be less positive, well-meaning as they might be. But I did not think my friend knew my husband well enough to know that just as John ran to get Ellen a jacket in response to one little cough, so my husband has only to hear me say, “Brrr” before he offers me his own favourite sweater. (A kindness I detest.)

I continued reading, now having half forgotten there was a murderer about trying to be friendly. Betsy gradually gets to know Ellen and confirms her own sense that she is not enthusiastically happy with her spouse. They had been looking forward year after year to having a child, but after six or seven years gave up hope. It occurs to Betsy that Ellen needs someone or something in her life to take some of the space her ebullient happy husband fills to bursting. She is thinking of an adopted child or a sport or some other activity, but in visiting a friend nearby she finds a new-mother bulldog with several puppies ready to leave for a good home. One of them mysteriously attaches himself to Betsy, and the idea comes to her: Wouldn’t this charming little animal be a wonderful companion for Ellen?

That evening she broaches the subject to her neighbours. Ellen is, as usual, silent, while John is so overboard with enthusiasm he wants to go get the dog immediately even if they have to break in! Needless to say, he is restrained from doing so but the very next day, Ponto, so he is named, arrives in his basket to become John Charleston Limpley’s major obsession, the smartest, most beautiful dog on earth, deserving of every toy, every ball, every bone. Every item that existed for a dog is purchased without regard for the price. The expression boundless enthusiasm comes to mind and is inadequate to describe the relationship that ensues. Ultimately Ponto becomes a tyrant. He is king and Limpley his devoted slave.

Betsy tells the story with such finesse I regret that I cannot simply present it here in her words, not mine. I cannot even summarize. I must simply state that after nine years of marriage, Ellen Limpley becomes pregnant. Her husband immediately transfers his obsessive attention from Ponto to his wife, and in the months of pregnancy that follow, this most intelligent dog in the world knows full well that he has been displaced, there is an invisible enemy in the house, and no matter how disdainfully he behaves towards his master/his slave, no matter what tricks he employs to regain his devoted attention, he fails utterly. Even the performance of his favourite pleasure – hurtling silently down the gentle hill towards the canal to butt some laundry baskets with their precious contents into the water, and then with a roar of triumph dance around the despairing women and girls as they collect their laundry piece by piece from the water that glistens as dark green as malachite.

It was his way of reestablishing his pride, to “release his pent up feelings”, to be seen to be present and powerful still, so Betsy observes. “In the space of one week”, she writes, “he pushed not less than three baskets into the canal, just to show … that he was still there and …should be respected.”

And in the space of that one page, I knew.

I sent my friend a brief email: subject: Uh-oh
I am on page 50 – i know what is coming. I can hardly bear it!
More later.
ez

She did not respond.

I continue to read, my courage faltering as Betsy describes the comings and goings next door, always through the eyes of Ponto, always conveying the agony of disappointment and despair he is experiencing with the arrival of Ellen’s mother who sleeps on his favourite couch, the midwife, the man with the long coat and the black bag, and finally the baby…

The moment the doctor opens the bedroom door to leave after the birth, Ponto is suddenly in the room, sees Limpley tenderly holding this thing which he knows to be his enemy, and he leaps onto him with his teeth bared ready to snatch the baby. Limpley is able to pass the baby off to Betsy who happens to be standing close enough and he goes after the dog with the fury one can only imagine from this outsized man of outsized emotions.

A terrible scene, too terrible to describe…ends well enough. The question arises what to do with Ponto – Betsy’s husband wants to shoot him on the spot, but the doctor insists he must be taken to town to be examined for the presence of rabies – he has bitten Limpley in two places.

The tests are done, the dog is rabies-free, and he is given to a butcher in town who has been looking for a bull dog. Ponto is all but forgotten in the happy household next door. Limpley is completely taken with his darling little girl, and Ellen is happy enough to see him, even excessively, adore his daughter.

A beautiful Sunday afternoon, Betsy and her husband join the Limpleys on their lower terrace near where the meadow makes a rather steep descent towards the canal. Right next to them on the lawn is the baby carriage with the charming little girl inside laughing and reaching for the little curls of sun beams on her covers. Ellen calls them to tea, they leave the baby in the carriage on the lawn where there is a lovely roof of greenery to shade the child who is now asleep. They are no more than 20 metres away on the upper terrace, a rose arbor blocking their view of the lower. They chat comfortably, happily, blessed. For once Limpley’s extraordinary cheerfulness does not seem inappropriate.

And suddenly they hear horrible cries from children down at the canal, and now cries of anguish from the women. They run down to the lower terrace and see that the carriage is gone. The cries from the canal are now more strident and horrifying than before. They run down the hill to find the carriage, which they had left safe and sound 10 minutes earlier, upside down in the water. One man has launched a raft to look for the baby and another is diving into the water, but it is a quarter of an hour before they find her body in the stagnant water covered with algae.

The police are called to determine the cause of the horrible event. “Was there negligence on the part of the parents, an accident or a crime?” An investigation takes place. It is ascertained that there is no way the carriage could have descended the hill unless it was forcefully pushed. By whom or by what will never be known, or rather, can never be proved. Betsy, for one, has reason to believe she knows – it is the dog, Ponto, he is the guilty one.

No charges are laid, no arrests.

My friend has not replied to my email. I phone her several times and leave messages – we must talk. I don’t want to ask how did she happen to find this book in the library? It is too strange.

My friend calls at last, she was away. I tell her the question I am not sure I want her to answer. She says she will send me an email.

As for the book….One day I went to the library….saw this pretty little book written by Zweig who I enjoy greatly….took it home and started reading it……Next day we went out for lunch…..When I returned home I decided to continue the book where I had left off……After a few pages I could not believe what I was reading…..so I just read it to the end…and thought of you….

Here’s the time-line: Wednesday I heard the CBC’s legal expert say the death of a baby left by his father in the bath was a tragedy but the death of the baby attacked by dogs when her teen mum and grandma were nearby was not.

Thursday my friend went to the library.

Friday we met for lunch and we talked about these baby deaths and how differently they were perceived. My friend, mother of six, said one should never leave a baby alone. Then she went home and finished the book.

Saturday morning my friend appeared as if by magic. She delivered the book into my hands and went away, apparently on vacation.

We have to talk…I want to say, Don’t believe what you hear on the radio/read in the paper… And don’t trust your memory when judging others. You simply don’t remember when you left the baby in her carriage on the porch to nap in the spring breeze, when you left him in his car seat on the dining room table while you went to get a coffee, or just right there, right there, right there, while you stepped outside to have a cigarette or to show your mum some flowers…..

In the year 1939 and the year 2010.   An unlawful killing takes place with or without malice…a moment of inattention…a baby dies…is it a crime, is it neglect, is it a terrible mistake, a heart breaking tragedy? The price will be paid without benefit of police, prosecutors, judges or juries. The teen mum, the grandma, the father, the grandfather, the neighbours, the children at the canal, the women hearing their cries, everyone everywhere who can hardly bare to even hear of it on the radio or read it in the newspaper or in a book of true fiction. Life is like that. And so it has always been.

©Elaine A. Zimbel 2010

part one is here:  http://www.elainezimbel.com/do-you-believe-what-you-hear-on-the-radio-read-in-the-paper-true-fiction

part two is here: http://www.elainezimbel.com/do-you-believe-what-you-hear-on-the-radio-part-two

*First published in 1987 as “War er es?” by S. Fischer Verlag in the anthology “Praterfruhling”
©Williams Verlag, Zurich and Atrium Press, London 1987 In English?
in French by Editions Grasset & Fasqelle, 2009