Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 59, No. 1. Whole No. 338, January 1972

Child’s Play by Alan K. Young{© 1971 by Alan K. Young.}

Professor Amos Ponsonby, Briarwood College’s Professor of English emeritus, in a case of “instant detection”…

Professor Ponsonby stared with distaste at the glass of pale liquid in his hand. Admittedly he stood in the library of one of the oldest private-day schools in the state; the Laramie Academy for Young Ladies and Young Gentlemen was older, indeed, than neighboring Briarwood College itself. Admittedly, since the Misses Laramie concerned themselves only with young ladies and gentlemen aged six through twelve, the thousands of books on the shelves around him were intended primarily for young readers. Admittedly, too, the very occasion was a celebration of childhood — the dedication, by the Misses Laramie, of a collection of childhood holographs of the later-to-be-famous, a collection reputed to be one of the finest in the nation.

Ponsonby was quite willing to admit all this. Yet the fact remained that it was well after 9:00 p.m., that the young ladies and gentlemen aged six through twelve were, or should be, safe in their beds, and that it was their parents, godparents, aunts, uncles, and assorted guardians who were expected to survive this mummifying evening with nothing stronger than a few insipid cookies and a children’s drink. Pink lemonade! When he got home he’d have Mrs. Garvey fix him a good stiff rum toddy.

“Amos Ponsonby, you dear, dear man!” Lydia Laramie, elder of the two maiden sisters who comprised the third generation of their family to run Laramie Academy, had been flitting from knot to knot of parents like an aging lavender butterfly bouncing from blossom to blossom in a springtime garden; now she homed in on Ponsonby as on a favorite rose. “I’m so-o-o glad you could come! Have you had a chance to inspect our collection yet? It’s going to quite put Laramie Academy on the literary map, I promise you!”

With difficulty Briarwood College’s Professor of English emeritus pulled in his thorns. “No, I haven’t, Lydia. But I’m looking forward—”

“And what did you think of it? Dear Mr. Hawes assures us it’s now quite the finest collection of its kind in the country, perhaps in the world. He’s quite a scholar, you know, and he personally established the authenticity of every single item before he permitted us to buy it. And such an exciting collection, don’t you think? I mean the very idea of childhood holographs! All those young minds destined to go on to such great and noble things! Why, it’s almost like being in at the birth of genius. Or at least its early stages. Which one did you like best?”

“Actually, Lydia, I haven’t—”

“My favorite is the Thackeray, I think. The letter to his mother from Fareham telling how his grandmamma had bought him that ‘very loveley caliduscope.’ Although of course young Winnie Churchill’s little note to his ‘Dear Mamma’ from Ascot is delightful, too. And then of course the Swinburne essay — such an enchanting scrawl! And little Master Joseph Conrad’s letter to his Uncle Thaddeus, telling him about his eighth birthday party and about — how does he say it? — ‘the great lot of cakes and the great lot of kisses’ he’d got from all his aunts. And then there’s dear little Elizabeth Barrett writing so solemnly to Mr. Boyd to thank him for the Greek text he’d sent her — at once so solemn and so childish! And of course little Ralphie Emerson’s hieroglyphic letter to his brother. But then, they’re all so wonderful, don’t you think?”

“I’m afraid, Lydia, there’s something you—”

“Of course they don’t look their best in these old glass cases, but as soon as dear Mr. Hawes has been able to arrange the financing for us, we’ll have a brand-new library to house them in. I’m so-o-o sorry you won’t have a chance to meet him tonight; he had to leave unexpectedly for New York this afternoon — some sort of family matter — but he promised to return next week, and while he’s in New York he’s going to arrange the loan for our new library.

“We gave him our check for $10,000 — what they call earnest money — so that the bankers will know we’re responsible business women and not just two silly old schoolmarms. Although I must say I did have rather a time talking Ernestina into it. Giving dear Mr. Hawes the earnest money, I mean. And all because he uses a long cigarette holder, and ever since That Man was in the White House, Ernestina quite distrusts men who use long cigarette holders. So foolish, when dear Mr. Hawes has promised to match us dollar for dollar in financing our new library. But then Ernestina never was much of a judge—”

“Lydia!” This time, Ponsonby’s interruption brooked no denial. “Do you mean to tell me you and Ernestina have actually given Mr. Hawes your personal check for $10,000?”

“Why, yes, Amos. This afternoon, just before he left for New York. It’s what they call earnest money—”

“Poppycock! The last thing I want to do is spoil this evening for you, my dear, but as an old Mend, might I suggest that you call Homer Broadhurst at home right now and tell him to stop payment on that check first thing in the morning? Any New York bank will certainly check with the Briarwood National before cashing a check of that size, and — well, the truth is, Lydia, I’m rather afraid your Mr. Hawes is a fraud.”

“A fraud? But what—? How could you—?”

“He apparently told you that he had personally investigated and could vouch for the authenticity of every item in his collection. Yet just a moment ago you mentioned one which is, on the face of it, an impossibility.”

“But how can you say that, Amos, when you haven’t even looked—?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have to look, my dear. You mentioned a letter from young Master Joseph Conrad to his uncle describing his eighth birthday party, and you quoted, a line which made it obvious that the letter was written in English. Yet surprising though it may seem — I myself have always regarded it as one of the miracles of English literature — the man who wrote Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness, the man who is regarded by many as one of the greatest stylists of the English novel, the man of whom Virginia Woolf said, ‘it seemed impossible for him to make an ugly or an insignificant movement of his pen,’ the man who described the majesty and mystery of the sea as no other writer before or since, was born Teodor Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski in the village of Berdichev in the Polish Ukraine, and didn’t learn to read or speak let alone to write English until he was more than twenty years old!”