The Museum of Literary Souls (A Short Story) Read Free

curious
glances at the figure of Mr. Berger.
    “Let’s go through it again, shall we?” said Carswell, and
Mr. Berger told his story one last time. The details remained the same. He was
certain of what he had witnessed.
    “I have to tell you,” said Carswell when Mr. Berger had
finished speaking, “that the driver of the train saw nothing and was unaware of
any impact. As you can imagine, he was quite shocked to hear that a woman had
been reported as throwing herself under his wheels. He aided in the examination
of the train himself. It turns out that he has some unfortunate experience of
such matters. Before he was promoted to driver, he was a fireman on an engine
that struck a man near Coleford Junction. He told us that the driver saw the
man on the rails but couldn’t brake in time. The engine made a terrible mess of
the poor fellow, he said. There was no mistaking what had happened. He seems to
think that if he had somehow hit a woman without knowing, we’d have no trouble
finding her remains.”
    Carswell lit a cigarette. He offered one to Mr. Berger, who
declined. He preferred his pipe, even though it had long since gone out.
    “Do you live alone, sir?” asked Carswell.
    “Yes, I do.”
    “From what I understand, you moved to Glossom fairly
recently.”
    “That’s correct. My mother died, and she left me her
cottage.”
    “And you say that you’re a writer?”
    “Trying to be a writer. I’ve started to wonder if I’m really
destined to be any good at it, to be honest.”
    “Solitary business, writing, or so I would imagine.”
    “It does tend to be, yes.”
    “You’re not married?”
    “No.”
    “Girlfriend?”
    “No,” said Mr. Berger, then he added, “not at the moment.”
    He didn’t want Inspector Carswell to think that there might
be anything odd or unsavory about his bachelor existence.
    “Ah.”
    Carswell drew deeply on his cigarette.
    “Do you miss her?”
    “Miss who?”
    “Your mother.”
    Mr. Berger considered it an odd question to ask but answered
nonetheless.
    “Of course,” he said. “I would visit her when I could, and
we spoke on the telephone once a week.”
    Carswell nodded, as if this explained a lot.
    “Must be strange, coming to a new town and living in the
house in which your mother died. She passed away at home, didn’t she?”
    Mr. Berger thought that Inspector Carswell seemed to know a
lot about his mother. Clearly he had not just been asking about a missing woman
during his time in Glossom.
    “Yes, she did,” he replied. “Forgive me, Inspector, but what
has this got to do with the death of this young woman?”
    Carswell took the cigarette from his mouth and examined the
burning tip, as though some answer might be found in the ash.
    “I’m beginning to wonder if you might not have been mistaken
in what you saw,” he said.
    “Mistaken? How can one be mistaken about a suicide?”
    “There is no body, sir. There’s no blood, no clothing,
nothing. We haven’t even been able to find the red bag that you mentioned.
There’s no sign that anything untoward happened on the track at all. So…”
    Carswell took one last drag on his cigarette, then dropped
it on the dirt and ground it out forcefully with the heel of his shoe.
    “Let’s just say that you were mistaken and leave it at that,
shall we? Perhaps you might like to find some other way to occupy your evenings
now that winter is setting in. Join the bridge club, or take up singing in the
choir. You might even find a young lady to walk out with. What I’m saying is
you’ve had a traumatic time of it, and it would be good for you not to spend so
much time alone. That way you’ll avoid making mistakes of this nature again.
You do understand me, don’t you, sir?”
    The implication was clear. Being mistaken was not a crime,
but wasting police time was. Mr. Berger climbed down from the stile.
    “I know what I saw, Inspector,” he said, but it was all that
he could do to keep the doubt from creeping