skinny and intellectual-lookingâfrom not getting enough to eatâand heâd developed a black Russian attitude towards life. His long suit was irony, and of course heâs brilliant. But he didnât get along with the other people in the office, women especially.â
âAny particular reason?â asked Ellery.
âIt might be this: Shortly after he landed the job, he began going out with a girl in the office. All I know about her is that her name was Gwladys, which she spelled with a w. She fell head over heels in love with him, they had an affair, and she soon became a nuisance. They quarreled and he stopped seeing her. And then she committed suicide. Of course, she was a hopeless neurotic, and it wasnât Dirkâs fault, but from that time on he had nothing to do with women.â
Dirkâs editorial job had required him to read a great many mystery stories. They stirred his imagination, so he began to write again, this time attempting a detective novel. To his surprise, his own firm accepted it for publication. It sold just under four thousand copies, but the notices were good.
âThat was the one he called Dead Is My Love ,â Martha said. âEllery, what did you really think of it?â
âFor the work of a new hand, it was surprising. The plotting was amateurish in spots, and the story had a wry quality, but it was different. I questioned Dirk about the morbidity of his writing when I first met him at a meeting of the Mystery Writers of America. His only comment was that murder is a morbid subject. Thatâs when he quit his job and devoted all his time to the typewriter, isnât it?â
âYes,â said Martha. âHe turned out three more detective stories in the next twelve months.â
âI remember,â Ellery nodded, âthat Dirk would open up to me in that period when at MWA gatherings heâd utter hardly a word to anyone else. He was hurt at the small sales of his books while what he felt to be inferior products earned two and three times as much. He covered up by being defiant. When I suggested a brighter, less Gothic, approach, some compromise with popular taste, Dirk replied that that was the kind of stuff he wanted to write, and if people didnât like if they didnât have to buy his books. I thought at the time it wasnât a very grown-up reaction. I wasnât surprised when he stopped writing detective stories.â
âThat was my doing, Iâm afraid,â Martha said with a slight tightness. âYou know, I chased Dirk. I decided to marry him three days after we met.â
âYou never told me that,â said Nikki accusingly.
âThereâs lots Iâve never told you, Nikki. I used to write him daily mash-notes. I was perfectly shameless about it. I was the one who encouraged him, after we were married, to try a serious novel.
âAnd maybe that was my big mistake,â Martha said. âHe was so happy, he worked so hard. And when the book came out and got an even smaller sale than his detective stories, and most of the critics panned it brutally â¦â
âThe Sound of Silence was a bad book, Martha,â said Ellery gently. âSouped-up realism that only succeeded in being slick melodrama.â
Martha was silent. Then she said: âWe had a time of it for a few weeks, but I finally loved some self-confidence back into him and he started on the next novel. And that turned out even worse â¦
âAfter the second book there wasnât a thing I could do to snap Dirk out of his depression. The harder I tried, the more I seemed to irritate him. When he went to work on his third novel, he locked himself in the study. And that was when I suppose I made my second mistake. Instead of hammering the lock off and pounding some sense into his thick head, I ⦠well, I looked around for something to do. Thatâs when I produced All Around the Mulberry Bush. The flop it