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A Hoosier Chronicle by Meredith Nicholson

M >> Meredith Nicholson >> A Hoosier Chronicle




For several days before the exposure Bassett had appeared fitfully at
the Whitcomb and in the Boordman Building. On the day that the
Republican "Advertiser" screamed delightedly over the Democratic scandal
in Ranger County, Bassett called Dan into his office. Bassett's name had
been linked to that of Miles, the erring treasurer, in the
"Advertiser's" headlines; and its leading editorial had pointed to the
defalcation as the sort of thing that inevitably follows the domination
of a party by a spoilsman and corruptionist like the senator from
Fraser.

Bassett indicated by a nod a copy of the "Advertiser" on his desk.

"The joke was on us this time. They're pinning Miles on me, and I guess
I'll have to wear him like a bouquet. I've been in Louisville fixing
this thing up and they won't have as much fun as they thought. It's a
simple case: Miles hadn't found out yet that corn margins are not
legitimate investments for a county's money. He's a good fellow and will
know better next time. We couldn't afford to have a member of the state
committee in jail, so I met the bondsmen and the prosecuting
attorney--he's a Republican--in Louisville and we straightened it all
out. The money's in bank down there. It proves to be after all a matter
of bookkeeping,--technical differences, which were reconciled readily
enough. Miles got scared; those fellows always do. He'll be good now."

Dan had been standing. Bassett pointed to a chair.

"I want you to write an interview with me on this case, laying emphasis
on the fact that the trouble was all due to an antiquated system of
keeping the accounts, which Miles inherited from his predecessors in
office. The president of the bank and the prosecutor have prepared
statements,--I have them in my pocket,--and I want you to get all the
publicity you know how for these things. Let me see. In my interview
you'd better lay great stress on the imperative need for a uniform
accounting law for county officials. Say that we expect to stand for
this in our next platform; make it strong. Have me say that this
incident in Ranger County, while regrettable, will serve a good purpose
if it arouses the minds of the people to the importance of changing the
old unsatisfactory method of bookkeeping that so frequently leads
perfectly trustworthy and well-meaning officials into error. Do you get
the idea?"

"Yes; perfectly," Dan replied. "As I understand it, Miles isn't guilty,
but you would take advantage of the agitation to show the necessity for
reform."

"Exactly. And while you're about it, write a vigorous editorial for the
'Courier,' on the same line, and a few ironical squibs based on the
eagerness of the Republican papers to see all Democrats through black
goggles." The humor showed in Bassett's eyes for an instant, and he
added: "Praise the Republican prosecutor of Ranger County for refusing
to yield to partisan pressure and take advantage of a Democrat's
mistakes of judgment. He's a nice fellow and we've got to be good to
him."

This was the first task of importance that Bassett had assigned to him
and Dan addressed himself to it zealously. If Miles was not really a
defaulter there was every reason why the heinous aspersions of the
opposition press should be dealt with vigorously. Dan was impressed by
Bassett's method of dealing with a difficult situation. Miles had erred,
but Bassett had taken the matter in hand promptly, secretly, and
effectively. His attitude toward the treasurer's sin was tolerant and
amiable. Miles had squandered money in bucket-shop gambling, but the sin
was not uncommon, and the amount of his loss was sufficient to assure
his penitence; he was an ally of Bassett's and it was Bassett's way to
take care of his friends. Bassett had not denied that the culprit had
been guilty of indiscretions; but he had minimized the importance of his
error and adorned the tale with a moral on which Dan set about laying
the greatest emphasis. He enjoyed writing, and in the interview he
attributed ideas to Bassett that would have been creditable to the most
idealistic of statesmen. He based the editorial Bassett had suggested
upon the interview; and he wrote half a dozen editorial paragraphs in a
vein of caustic humor that the "Courier" affected. In the afternoon he
copied his articles on a typewriter and submitted them to Bassett.

"Good, very good. Too bad to take you out of the newspaper business; you
have the right point of view and you know how to get hold of the right
end of a sentence. Let me see. I wish you would do another interview
changing the phraseology and making it short, and we'll give the
'Advertiser' a chance to print it. I'll attend to these other things.
You'd better not be running into the 'Courier' office too much now that
you're with me. They haven't got on to that yet, but they'll give us a
twist when they do."

Dan had been admitted to the ante-chamber of Bassett's confidence, but
he was to be permitted to advance a step further. At four o'clock he was
surprised by the appearance of Atwill, the "Courier's" manager. Dan had
no acquaintance with Atwill, whose advent had been coincident with the
"Courier's" change of ownership shortly after Dan's tentative connection
with the paper began. Atwill had rarely visited the editorial
department, but it was no secret that he exercised general supervision
of the paper. It had been whispered among the reporters that every issue
was read carefully in proof by Atwill, but Dan had never been
particularly interested in this fact. As Atwill appeared in the outer
office, Bassett came from his own room to meet him. The door closed
quickly upon the two and they were together for half an hour or more.
Then Bassett summoned Dan.

"Mr. Atwill, this is Mr. Harwood. He was formerly employed on the
'Courier.' It was he that wrote up the Hoosier statesmen, you may
remember."

Atwill nodded.

"I remember very well. Those articles helped business,--we could follow
your pencil up and down the state on our circulation reports. I jumped
the city editor for letting you go."

Atwill was a lean, clean-shaven man who chewed gum hungrily. His eyes
were noticeably alert and keen. There was a tradition that he had been a
"star" reporter in New York, a managing editor in Pittsburg, and a
business manager in Minneapolis before coming to supervise the "Courier"
for its new owner.

"Atwill, you and Harwood had better keep in touch with each other.
Harwood is studying law here, but he will know pretty well what I'm
doing. He will probably write an editorial for you occasionally, and
when it comes in it won't be necessary for the regular employees of the
'Courier' to know where it comes from. Harwood won't mind if they take
all the glory for his work."

When Atwill left, Bassett talked further to Harwood, throwing his legs
across a chair and showing himself more at ease than Dan had yet seen
him.

"Harwood," he said,--he had dropped the mister to-day for the first time
in their intercourse,--"I've opened the door wider to you than I ever
did before to any man. I trust you."

"I appreciate that, Mr. Bassett."

"I've been carrying too much, and it's a relief to find that I've got a
man I can unload on. You understand, I trust you absolutely. And in
coming to me as you did, and accepting these confidences, I assume that
you don't think me as wicked as my enemies make me out."

"I liked you," said Dan, with real feeling, "from that moment you shook
hands with me in your house at Fraserville. When I don't believe in you
any longer, I'll quit; and if that time comes you may be sure that I
shan't traffic in what I learn of your affairs. I feel that I want to
say that to you."

"That's all right, Harwood. I hope our relations will be increasingly
friendly; but if you want to quit at any time you're not tied. Be sure
of that. If you should quit me to-morrow I should be disappointed but I
wouldn't kick. And don't build up any quixotic ideas of gratitude toward
me. When you don't like your job, move on. I guess we understand each
other."

If Dan entertained any doubts as to the ethics involved in Bassett's
handling of the situation in Ranger County they were swept away by the
perfect candor with which Bassett informed their new intimacy. The most
interesting and powerful character in Indiana politics had made a
confidant of him. Without attempting to exact vows of secrecy, or
threatening vengeance for infractions of faith, but in a spirit of
good-fellowship that appealed strongly to Harwood, Bassett had given him
a pass-key to many locked doors.

"As you probably gathered," Bassett was saying, "Atwill represents me at
the 'Courier' office."

"I had never suspected it," Dan replied.

"Has anybody suspected it?" asked Bassett quickly.

"Well; of course it has been said repeatedly that you own or control the
'Courier.'"

"Let them keep on saying it; they might have hard work to prove it.
And--" Bassett's eyes turned toward the window. His brows contracted and
he shut his lips tightly so that his stiff mustache gave to his mouth a
sinister look that Dan had never seen before. The disagreeable
expression vanished and he was his usual calm, unruffled self. "And," he
concluded, smiling, "I might have some trouble in proving it myself."

Dan was not only accumulating valuable information, but Bassett
interested him more and more as a character. He was an unusual man, a
new type, this senator from Fraser, with his alternating candor and
disingenuousness, his prompt solutions of perplexing problems. It was
unimaginable that a man so strong and so sure of himself, and so shrewd
in extricating others from their entanglements, could ever be cornered,
trapped, or beaten.

Bassett's hands had impressed Dan that first night at Fraserville, and
he watched them again as Bassett idly twisted a rubber band in his
fingers. How gentle those hands were and how cruel they might be!

The next morning Dan found that his interview with Bassett was the
feature of the first page of the "Courier," and the statement he had
sent to the "Advertiser" was hardly less prominently displayed. His
editorial was the "Courier's" leader, and it appeared _verbatim et
literatim_. He viewed his work with pride and satisfaction; even his
ironical editorial "briefs" had, he fancied, something of the piquancy
he admired in the paragraphing of the "New York Sun." But his
gratification at being able to write "must" matter for both sides of a
prominent journal was obscured by the greater joy of being the chief
adjutant of the "Courier's" sagacious concealed owner.

The "Advertiser" replied to Bassett's statement in a tone of hilarity.
Bassett's plea for a better accounting system was funny, that was all.
Miles, the treasurer of Ranger County, had been playing the bucket shops
with public moneys, and the Honorable Morton Bassett, of Fraserville,
with characteristic zeal in a bad cause, had not only adjusted the
shortage, but was craftily trying to turn the incident to the advantage
of his party. The text for the "Advertiser's" leader was the jingle:--

"When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;
When the devil got well, the devil a monk was he!"

Bassett had left town, but the regular staff of the "Courier" kept up
the fight along the lines of the articles Dan had contributed. The
"Advertiser," finding that the Republican prosecuting attorney of Ranger
County joined with the local bank in certifying to Miles's probity,
dropped the matter after a few scattering volleys.

However, within a week after the Miles incident, the "Advertiser" gave
Harwood the shock of an unlooked-for plunge into ice-water by printing a
sensational story under a double-column headline, reading, "The Boss in
the Boordman Building." The Honorable Morton Bassett, so the article
averred, no longer satisfied to rule his party amid the pastoral calm
of Fraser County, had stolen into the capital and secretly established
headquarters, which meant, beyond question, the manifestation of even a
wider exercise of his malign influence in Indiana politics. Harwood's
name enjoyed a fame that day that many years of laborious achievement
could not have won for it. The "Advertiser's" photographers had stolen
in at night and taken a flashlight picture of the office door, bearing
the legend

66

DANIEL HARWOOD

Harwood's personal history was set forth in florid phrases. It appeared
that he had been carefully chosen and trained by Bassett to aid in his
evil work. His connection with the "Courier," which had seemed to Dan at
the time so humble, assumed a dignity and importance that highly amused
him. It was quite like the Fraserville boss to choose a young man of
good antecedents, the graduate of a great university, with no previous
experience in politics, the better to bend him to his will. Dan's
talents and his brilliant career at college all helped to magnify the
importance of Bassett's latest move. Morton Bassett was dangerous, the
"Advertiser" conceded editorially, because he had brains; and he was
even more to be feared because he could command the brains of other men.

Dan called Bassett at Fraserville on the long distance telephone and
told him of the disclosure. Bassett replied in a few sentences.

"That won't hurt anything. I'd been expecting something of the kind. Put
you in, did they? I'll get my paper to-night and read it carefully.
Better cut the stuff out and send it in an envelope, to make sure. Call
Atwill over and tell him we ignore the whole business. I'm taking a
little rest, but I'll be in town in about a week."

Dan was surprised to find how bitterly he resented the attack on
Bassett. The "Advertiser" spoke of the leader as though he were a
monster of immorality and Dan honestly believed Bassett to be no such
thing. His loyalty was deeply intensified by the hot volleys poured into
the Boordman Building; but he was not disturbed by the references to
himself. He winced a little bit at being called a "stool pigeon"; but he
thought he knew the reporter who had written the article, and his
experience in the newspaper office had not been so brief but that it had
killed his layman's awe of the printed word. When he walked into the
Whitcomb that evening the clerk made a point of calling his name and
shaking hands with him. He was conscious that a number of idlers in the
hotel lobby regarded him with a new interest. Some one spoke his name
audibly, and he enjoyed in some degree the sensation of being a person
of mark.

He crossed University Square and walked out Meridian Street to Fitch's
house. The lawyer came downstairs in his shirt sleeves with a legal
envelope in his hand.

"Glad to see you, Harwood. I'm packing up; going to light out in the
morning and get in on the end of my family's vacation. They've moved out
of Maine into the Berkshires and the boys are going back to college
without coming home. I see the 'Advertiser' has been after you. How do
you like your job?"

"I'm not scared," Dan replied. "It's all very amusing and my moral
character hasn't suffered so far."

Fitch eyed him critically.

"Well, I haven't time to talk to you, but here's something I wish you'd
do for me. I have a quit-claim deed for Mrs. Owen to sign. I forgot to
tell one of the boys in the office to get her acknowledgment, but you're
a notary, aren't you? I've just been telephoning her about it. You know
who she is? Come to think of it, she's Bassett's aunt-in-law. You're not
a good Hoosier till you know Aunt Sally. I advise you to make yourself
solid with her. I don't know what she's doing in town just now, but her
ways are always inscrutable."

Dan was soon ringing the bell at Mrs. Owen's. Mrs. Owen was out, the
maid said, but would be back shortly. Dan explained that he had come
from Mr. Fitch, and she asked him to walk into the parlor and wait.

Sylvia Garrison and her grandfather had been at Montgomery since their
visit to Waupegan and were now in Indianapolis for a day on their way to
Boston. The Delaware Street house had been closed all summer. The floors
were bare and the furniture was still jacketed in linen. Sylvia rose as
Harwood appeared at the parlor door.

"Pardon me," said Dan, as the maid vanished. "I have an errand with Mrs.
Owen and I'll wait, if you don't mind?"

"Certainly. Mrs. Owen has gone out to make a call, but she will be back
soon. She went only a little way down the street. Please have a chair."

She hesitated a moment, not knowing whether to remain or to leave the
young man to himself. Dan determined the matter for her by opening a
conversation on the state of the weather.

"September is the most trying month of the year. Just when we're all
tired of summer, it takes its last fling at us."

"It has been very warm. I came over from Montgomery this afternoon and
it was very dusty and disagreeable on the train."

"From Montgomery?" repeated Dan, surprised and perplexed. Then, as it
dawned upon him that this was the girl who had opened the door for him
at Professor Kelton's house in Montgomery when he had gone there with a
letter from Fitch, "You see," he said, "we've met before, in your own
house. You very kindly went off to find some one for me--and didn't come
back; but I passed you on the campus as I was leaving."

He had for the moment forgotten the name of the old gentleman to whom he
had borne a letter from Mr. Fitch. He would have forgotten the incident
completely long ago if it had not been for the curious manner in which
the lawyer had received his report and the secrecy so carefully
enjoined. It was odd that he should have chanced upon these people
again. Dan did not know many women, young or old, and he found this
encounter with Sylvia wholly agreeable, Sylvia being, as we know,
seventeen, and not an offense to the eye.

"It was my grandfather, Professor Kelton, you came to see. He's here
with me now, but he's gone out to call on an old friend with Mrs. Owen."

Every detail of Dan's visit to the cottage was clear in Sylvia's mind;
callers had been too rare for there to be any dimness of memory as to
the visit of the stranger, particularly when she had associated her
grandfather's subsequent depression with his coming.

Dan felt that he should scrupulously avoid touching upon the visit to
Montgomery otherwise than casually. He was still bound in all honor to
forget that excursion as far as possible. This young person seemed very
serious, and he was not sure that she was comfortable in his presence.

"It was a warm day, I remember, but cool and pleasant in your library.
I'm going to make a confession. When you went off so kindly to find
Professor Kelton I picked up the book you had been reading, and it quite
laid me low. I had imagined it would be something cheerful and
frivolous, to lift the spirit of the jaded traveler."

"It must have been a good story," replied Sylvia, guardedly.

"It was! It was the 'AEneid,' and I began at your bookmark and tried to
stagger through a page, but it floored me. You see how frank I am; I
ought really to have kept this terrible disclosure from you."

"Didn't you like Madison? I remember that I thought you were comparing
us unfavorably with other places. You implied"--and Sylvia smiled--"that
you didn't think Madison a very important college."

"Then be sure of my contrition now! Your Virgil sank deep into my
consciousness, and I am glad of this chance to render unto Madison the
things that are Madison's."

His chaffing way reminded her of Dr. Wandless, who often struck a
similar note in their encounters.

Sylvia was quite at ease now. Her caller's smile encouraged
friendliness. He had dropped his fedora hat on a chair, but clung to his
bamboo stick. His gray sack suit with the trousers neatly creased and
his smartly knotted tie proclaimed him a man of fashion: the newest and
youngest member of the Madison faculty, who had introduced spats to the
campus, was not more impressively tailored.

"You said you had gone to a large college; and I said--"

"Oh, you hit me back straight enough!" laughed Harwood.

"I didn't mean to be rude," Sylvia protested, coloring.

They evidently both remembered what had been said at that interview.

"It wasn't rude; it was quite the retort courteous! My conceit at being
a Yale man was shattered by your shot."

"Well, I suppose Yale is a good place, too," said Sylvia, with a
generous intention that caused them both to laugh.

"By token of your Virgilian diversions shall I assume that you are a
collegian, really or almost?"

"Just almost. I'm on my way to Wellesley now."

"Ah!" and his exclamation was heavy with meaning. A girl bound for
college became immediately an integer with which a young man who had not
yet mislaid his diploma could reckon. "I have usually been a supporter
of Vassar. It's the only woman's college I ever attended. I went up
there once to see a girl I had met at a Prom--such is the weakness of
man! I had arrayed myself as the lilies of the field, and on my way
through Pokip I gathered up a beautiful two-seated trap with a driver,
thinking in my ignorance that I should make a big hit by driving the
fair one over the hills and far away. The horses were wonderful; I found
out later that they were the finest hearse horses in Poughkeepsie. She
was an awfully funny girl, that girl. She always used both 'shall' and
'will,' being afraid to take chances with either verb, an idea I'm often
tempted to adopt myself."

"It's ingenious, at any rate. But how did the drive go?"

"Oh, it didn't! She said she couldn't go with me alone unless I _was_ or
_were_ her cousin. It was against the rules. So we agreed to be cousins
and she went off to find the dean or some awful autocrat like that, to
spring the delightful surprise, that her long-lost cousin from Kalamazoo
had suddenly appeared, and might she go driving with him. That was her
idea, I assure you,--my own depravity could suggest nothing more
euphonious than Canajoharie. And would you believe it, the consent being
forthcoming, she came back and said she wouldn't go--absolutely
declined! She rested on the fine point in ethics that, while it was not
improper to tell the fib, it would be highly sinful to take advantage of
it! So we strolled over the campus and she showed me the sights, while
those funeral beasts champed their bits at so much per hour. She was a
Connecticut girl, and I made a note of the incident as illustrating a
curious phase of the New England conscience."

While they were gayly ringing the changes on these adventures, steps
sounded on the veranda.

"That's Mrs. Owen and my grandfather," said Sylvia.

"I wonder--" began Dan, grave at once.

"You're wondering," said Sylvia, "whether my grandfather will remember
you."

She recalled very well her grandfather's unusual seriousness after
Harwood's visit; it seemed wiser not to bring the matter again to his
attention.

"I think it would be better if he didn't," replied Dan, relieved that
she had anticipated his thought.

"I was only a messenger boy anyhow and I didn't know what my errand was
about that day."

"He doesn't remember faces well," said Sylvia, "and wouldn't be likely
to know you."

As Mrs. Owen asked Dan to her office at once, it was unnecessary for
Sylvia to introduce him to her grandfather.

Alone with Mrs. Owen, Dan's business was quickly transacted. She
produced an abstract of title and bade him read aloud the description of
the property conveyed while she held the deed. At one point she took a
pen and crossed a _t_; otherwise the work of Wright and Fitch was
approved. When she had signed her name, and while Dan was filling in the
certificate, she scrutinized him closely.

"You're in Mr. Fitch's office, are you?" she inquired.

"Not now; but I was there for a time. I happened to call on Mr. Fitch
this evening and he asked me to bring the deed over."

"Let me see, I don't believe I know any Harwoods here."

"I haven't been here long enough to be known," answered Dan, looking up
and smiling.

Mrs. Owen removed her hat and tossed it on a little stand, as though
hats were a nuisance in this world and not worthy of serious
consideration. She continued her observation of Dan, who was applying a
blotter to his signature.

"I'll have to take this to my office to affix the seal. I'm to give it
to Mr. Wright in the morning for recording."

"Where is your office, Mr. Harwood?" she asked flatly.

"Boordman Building," answered Dan, surprised to find himself
uncomfortable under her direct, penetrating gaze.

"Humph! So you're Morton Bassett's young man who was written up in the
'Advertiser.'"

"Mr. Bassett has given me a chance to read law in his office. He's a
prominent man and the 'Advertiser' chose to put its own interpretation
on his kindness to me. That's all," answered Dan with dignity.

"Sit still a minute. I forget sometimes that all the folks around here
don't know me. I didn't mean to be inquisitive, or disagreeable; I was
just looking for information. I took notice of that 'Advertiser's' piece
because Mr. Bassett married my niece, so I'm naturally interested in
what he does."

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

Isaac G. Briggs - "Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia"

Arthur Christopher Benson - "The Child of the Dawn"

Oliver Optic - "Across India"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841"

President Obama teams up with one of Marvel's greatest heroes, reports Alison Flood
Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

Murder One closing so did we commit this crime?

Barack Obama is teaming up with Spider-Man in a new comic from Marvel, which will see the future president exchanging a fist-bump with Peter Parker's alter ego.

The five-page story takes place in Washington DC on inauguration day, when one of Spidey's oldest enemies, the Chameleon, attempts to stop Obama's swearing-in ceremony. Fortunately, Peter Parker is covering the event as a photographer, and jumps in to save the day.

"Ya hear that, Chameleon? The president-elect here just appointed me ... secretary of shuttin' you up," Spider-Man says as he thwacks the Chameleon in the face. "I hope this doesn't ruin the inauguration for you," he tells Obama, as the Chameleon is led away by security officials. "Honestly, I'm more upset by the Chameleon's shockingly deficient understanding of the electoral process," Obama replies.

Spidey then cedes the limelight to Obama. "This is your day, after all, and I know it wouldn't look good to be seen palling around with me," he says, in a nod to Sarah Palin's comment that the then presidential candidate had been "palling around with terrorists".

The story, written by Zeb Wells and illustrated by Todd Nauck and Frank D'Armata, will appear as a bonus feature in Amazing Spider-Man 583, which goes on sale on 14 January.

"When we heard that president-elect Obama is a collector of Spider-Man comics, we knew that these two historic figures had to meet in our comics' Marvel Universe," said Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada. "A Spider-Man fan moving into the Oval Office is an event that must be commemorated in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man."

In October, graphic novel biographies of Obama and his then rival John McCain were published by IDW. April will see Michelle Obama appearing in the Female Force comic book series.

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Poetry Workshop creature features

For many years my local corner shop displayed a large sign in its window telling local residents to "use us or lose us!" It always looked a rather toothless threat to me. After all, if I didn't use them, what difference would it make to me if they weren't there? And surely a corner shop, one that had been there for years, would have enough customers to survive without recourse to such apocalyptic warning? But it didn't and was soon converted into flats.

This community shop was destroyed not so much by the pressures of the supermarkets or people's commuting patterns, but simply by customer apathy. It's something to think about as crime writers and readers across the world mourn the imminent passing of Maxim Jakubowski's celebrated Charing Cross Road bookshop in London, Murder One.

Apathy is a strange word to connect to a bookstore that thrives on passion. It's noticeable when you walk through the door, when you speak to the friendly, knowledgeable staff, when you look at the shelves and see the vast range of titles on offer. This isn't your regular kind of bookstore: the first time I visited spent a whole lunch break looking up and down, from floor to ceiling from table to table; it was an hour that changed my perception of both crime writing and of bookselling.

Murder One was – and for a few weeks will remain – a shop that took crime seriously. Not in the sense that it intellectualised it, or made unsubstantiated claims for its importance, but in the way that it treated crime writing with the respect it was due. With a genre that has so many off-shoots, branches and sub-genres, it took a shop of Murder One's calibre to show just how diverse, interesting and mentally stimulating crime could be – far more than the guilty pleasure I had, until then, considered it.

Thanks to judicious recommendations, enticing table displays and hours of foraging among the stacks, I discovered writers that I would never have picked up, let alone read. You could always get the latest blockbuster, but delve a little deeper and you'd find books that were not stocked anywhere else, novels that, like the perfect crime, were hidden from public view. The Martin Beck novels by Sjöwall & Wahlöö – probably my favourite sequence of novels in any genre – were introduced to me via Murder One, as were Kem Nunn, Sue Grafton, and Henning Mankell. It's also the staff of Murder One who piqued my interest in the inimitable Fred Vargas, and I can't thank them enough for the introduction.

Inclusive and without snobbery, Murder One amply demonstrated that the best bookshops are places not just of commerce, but of community; places that make feel you belong. It's the kind of store that bibliophiles dream about: well-stocked, well-staffed and shabby enough to lose days browsing within. It's just unfortunate that such shops don't have enough paying customers to keep them afloat, or that these customers visit all too infrequently – something of which I'm certainly guilty.

These kinds of shops are facing a long, bloody battle – and one which, without significant reinforcements, they are likely to lose. As we hear of the travesty of another brilliant independent going down, we'll mourn the loss, wring our hands and damn Amazon and the supermarkets and Waterstone's. Yet perhaps the most important detail we'll probably keep under wraps: the last time we actually spent any money there.

Murder One closing its doors for the final time is undoubtedly a .38 shell for independent bookshops, but whether it's body blow or a warning shot all depends upon us, the consumers. No one, no matter how iconic or established, can exist on fond memories alone: just ask Woolworths. Use these shops now, because it doesn't take a master sleuth to deduce what will happen if we don't.

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