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Bat Wing by Sax Rohmer

S >> Sax Rohmer >> Bat Wing




"Did you hear it, Knox?" he said.

"A sound like the closing of a door?"

Paul Harley nodded.

"It _was_ the closing of a door," he replied; "but before that I
had distinctly heard a stair creak. Someone crossed the hall then,
Knox. Yet, as you perceive for yourself, it affords no hiding-place."

His glance met and challenged mine.

"The Colonel's visitor has left him," he murmured. "Unless something
quite unforeseen occurs, I shall throw up the case to-morrow."




CHAPTER XII

MORNING MISTS



The man known as Manoel awakened me in the morning. Although
characteristically Spanish, he belonged to a more sanguine type than
the butler and spoke much better English than Pedro. He placed upon the
table beside me a tray containing a small pot of China tea, an apple,
a peach, and three slices of toast.

"How soon would you like your bath, sir?" he enquired.

"In about half an hour," I replied.

"Breakfast is served at 9.30 if you wish, sir," continued Manoel, "but
the ladies rarely come down. Would you prefer to breakfast in your
room?"

"What is Mr. Harley doing?"

"He tells me that he does not take breakfast, sir. Colonel Don Juan
Menendez will be unable to ride with you this morning, but a groom will
accompany you to the heath if you wish, which is the best place for a
gallop. Breakfast on the south veranda is very pleasant, sir, if you
are riding first."

"Good," I replied, for indeed I felt strangely heavy; "it shall be the
heath, then, and breakfast on the veranda."

Having drunk a cup of tea and dressed I went into Harley's room, to
find him propped up in bed reading the _Daily Telegraph_ and smoking a
cigarette.

"I am off for a ride," I said. "Won't you join me?"

He fixed his pillows more comfortably, and slowly shook his head.

"Not a bit of it, Knox," he replied, "I find exercise to be fatal to
concentration."

"I know you have weird theories on the subject, but this is a beautiful
morning."

"I grant you the beautiful morning, Knox, but here you will find me
when you return."

I knew him too well to debate the point, and accordingly I left him to
his newspaper and cigarette, and made my way downstairs. A housemaid
was busy in the hall, and in the courtyard before the monastic porch a
negro groom awaited me with two fine mounts. He touched his hat and
grinned expansively as I appeared. A spirited young chestnut was
saddled for my use, and the groom, who informed me that his name was
Jim, rode a smaller, Spanish horse, a beautiful but rather wicked-
looking creature.

We proceeded down the drive. Pedro was standing at the door of the
lodge, talking to his surly-looking daughter. He saluted me very
ceremoniously as I passed.

Pursuing an easterly route for a quarter of a mile or so, we came to a
narrow lane which branched off to the left in a tremendous declivity.
Indeed it presented the appearance of the dry bed of a mountain
torrent, and in wet weather a torrent this lane became, so I was
informed by Jim. It was very rugged and dangerous, and here we
dismounted, the groom leading the horses.

Then we were upon a well-laid main road, and along this we trotted on
to a tempting stretch of heath-land. There was a heavy mist, but the
scent of the heather in the early morning was delightful, and there was
something exhilarating in the dull thud of the hoofs upon the springy
turf. The negro was a natural horseman, and he seemed to enjoy the ride
every bit as much as I did. For my own part I was sorry to return. But
the vapours of the night had been effectively cleared from my mind, and
when presently we headed again for the hills, I could think more coolly
of those problems which overnight had seemed well-nigh insoluble.

We returned by a less direct route, but only at one point was the path
so steep as that by which we had descended. This brought us out on a
road above and about a mile to the south of Cray's Folly. At one point,
through a gap in the trees, I found myself looking down at the gray
stone building in its setting of velvet lawns and gaily patterned
gardens. A faint mist hovered like smoke over the grass.

Five minutes later we passed a queer old Jacobean house, so deeply
hidden amidst trees that the early morning sun had not yet penetrated
to it, except for one upstanding gable which was bathed in golden
light. I should never have recognized the place from that aspect, but
because of its situation I knew that this must be the Guest House. It
seemed very gloomy and dark, and remembering how I was pledged to call
upon Mr. Colin Camber that day, I apprehended that my reception might
be a cold one.

Presently we left the road and cantered across the valley meadows, in
which I had walked on the previous day, reentering Cray's Folly on the
south, although we had left it on the north. We dismounted in the
stable-yard, and I noted two other saddle horses in the stalls, a pair
of very clean-looking hunters, as well as two perfectly matched ponies,
which, Jim informed me, Madame de Staemer sometimes drove in a chaise.

Feeling vastly improved by the exercise, I walked around to the
veranda, and through the drawing room to the hall. Manoel was standing
there, and:

"Your bath is ready, sir," he said.

I nodded and went upstairs. It seemed to me that life at Cray's Folly
was quite agreeable, and such was my mood that the shadowy Bat Wing
menace found no place in it save as the chimera of a sick man's
imagination. One thing only troubled me: the identity of the woman who
had been with Colonel Menendez on the previous night.

However, such unconscious sun worshippers are we all that in the glory
of that summer morning I realized that life was good, and I resolutely
put behind me the dark suspicions of the night.

I looked into Harley's room ere descending, and, as he had assured me
would be the case, there he was, propped up in bed, the _Daily
Telegraph_ upon the floor beside him and the _Times_ now open
upon the coverlet.

"I am ravenously hungry," I said, maliciously, "and am going down to
eat a hearty breakfast."

"Good," he returned, treating me to one of his quizzical smiles. "It is
delightful to know that someone is happy."

Manoel had removed my unopened newspapers from the bedroom, placing
them on the breakfast table on the south veranda; and I had propped the
_Mail_ up before me and had commenced to explore a juicy grapefruit
when something, perhaps a faint breath of perfume, a slight rustle of
draperies, or merely that indefinable aura which belongs to the
presence of a woman, drew my glance upward and to the left. And
there was Val Beverley smiling down at me.

"Good morning, Mr. Knox," she said. "Oh, please don't interrupt your
breakfast. May I sit down and talk to you?"

"I should be most annoyed if you refused."

She was dressed in a simple summery frock which left her round, sun-
browned arms bare above the elbow, and she laid a huge bunch of roses
upon the table beside my tray.

"I am the florist of the establishment," she explained. "These will
delight your eyes at luncheon. Don't you think we are a lot of
barbarians here, Mr. Knox?"

"Why?"

"Well, if I had not taken pity upon you, here you would have bat over a
lonely breakfast just as though you were staying at a hotel."

"Delightful," I replied, "now that you are here."

"Ah," said she, and smiled roguishly, "that afterthought just saved
you."

"But honestly," I continued, "the hospitality of Colonel Menendez is
true hospitality. To expect one's guests to perform their parlour
tricks around a breakfast table in the morning is, on the other hand,
true barbarism."

"I quite agree with you," she said, quietly. "There is a perfectly
delightful freedom about the Colonel's way of living. Only some horrid
old Victorian prude could possibly take exception to it. Did you enjoy
your ride?"

"Immensely," I replied, watching her delightedly as she arranged the
roses in carefully blended groups.

Her fingers were very delicate and tactile, and such is the character
which resides in the human hand, that whereas the gestures of Madame de
Staemer were curiously stimulating, there was something in the movement
of Val Beverley's pretty fingers amidst the blooms which I found most
soothing.

"I passed the Guest House on my return," I continued. "Do you know Mr.
Camber?"

She looked at me in a startled way.

"No," she replied, "I don't. Do you?"

"I met him by chance yesterday."

"Really? I thought he was quite unapproachable; a sort of ogre."

"On the contrary, he is a man of great charm."

"Oh," said Val Beverley, "well, since you have said so, I might as well
admit that he has always seemed a charming man to me. I have never
spoken to him, but he looks as though he could be very fascinating.
Have you met his wife?"

"No. Is she also American?"

My companion shook her head.

"I have no idea," she replied. "I have seen her several times of
course, and she is one of the daintiest creatures imaginable, but I
know nothing about her nationality."

"She is young, then?"

"Very young, I should say. She looks quite a child."

"The reason of my interest," I replied, "is that Mr. Camber asked me to
call upon him, and I propose to do so later this morning."

"Really?"

Again I detected the startled expression upon Val Beverley's face.

"That is rather curious, since you are staying here."

"Why?"

"Well," she looked about her nervously, "I don't know the reason, but
the name of Mr. Camber is anathema in Cray's Folly."

"Colonel Menendez told me last night that he had never met Mr. Camber."

Val Beverley shrugged her shoulders, a habit which it was easy to see
she had acquired from Madame de Staemer.

"Perhaps not," she replied, "but I am certain he hates him."

"Hates Mr. Camber?"

"Yes." Her expression grew troubled. "It is another of those mysteries
which seem to be part of Colonel Menendez's normal existence."

"And is this dislike mutual?"

"That I cannot say, since I have never met Mr. Camber."

"And Madame de Staemer, does she share it?"

"Fully, I think. But don't ask me what it means, because I don't know."

She dismissed the subject with a light gesture and poured me out a
second cup of coffee.

"I am going to leave you now," she said. "I have to justify my
existence in my own eyes."

"Must you really go?"

"I must really."

"Then tell me something before you go."

She gathered up the bunches of roses and looked down at me with a
wistful expression.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Did you detect those mysterious footsteps again last night?"

The look of wistfulness changed to another which I hated to see in her
eyes, an expression of repressed fear.

"No," she replied in a very low voice, "but why do you ask the
question?"

Doubt of her had been far enough from my mind, but that something in
the tone of my voice had put her on her guard I could see.

"I am naturally curious," I replied, gravely.

"No," she repeated, "I have not heard the sound for some time now.
Perhaps, after all, my fears were imaginary."

There was a constraint in her manner which was all too obvious, and
when presently, laden with the spoil of the rose garden, she gave me a
parting smile and hurried into the house, I sat there very still for a
while, and something of the brightness had faded from the coming, nor
did life seem so glad a business as I had thought it quite recently.




CHAPTER XIII

AT THE GUEST HOUSE



I presented myself at the Guest House at half-past eleven. My mental
state was troubled and indescribably complex. Perhaps my own uneasy,
thoughts were responsible for the idea, but it seemed to me that the
atmosphere of Cray's Folly had changed yet again. Never before had I
experienced a sense of foreboding like that which had possessed me
throughout the hours of this bright summer's morning.

Colonel Menendez had appeared about nine o'clock. He exhibiting no
traces of illness that were perceptible to me. But this subtle change
which I had detected, or thought I had detected, was more marked in
Madame Staemer than in any one. In her strange, still eyes I had read
what I can only describe as a stricken look. It had none of the heroic
resignation and acceptance of the inevitable which had so startled me
in the face of the Colonel on the previous day. There was a bitterness
in it, as of one who has made a great but unwilling sacrifice, and
again I had found myself questing that faint but fugitive memory,
conjured up by the eyes of Madame de Staemer.

Never had the shadow lain so darkly upon the house as it lay this
morning with the sun blazing gladly out of a serene sky. The birds, the
flowers, and Mother Earth herself bespoke the joy of summer. But
beneath the roof of Cray's Folly dwelt a spirit of unrest, of
apprehension. I thought of that queer lull which comes before a
tropical storm, and I thought I read a knowledge of pending evil even
in the glances of the servants.

I had spoken to Harley of this fear. He had smiled and nodded grimly,
saying:

"Evidently, Knox, you have forgotten that to-night is the night of the
full moon."

It was in no easy state of mind, then, that I opened the gate and
walked up to the porch of the Guest House. That the solution of the
grand mystery of Cray's Folly would automatically resolve these lesser
mysteries I felt assured, and I was supported by the idea that a clue
might lie here.

The house, which from the roadway had an air of neglect, proved on
close inspection to be well tended, but of an unprosperous aspect. The
brass knocker, door knob, and letter box were brilliantly polished,
whilst the windows and the window curtains were spotlessly clean. But
the place cried aloud for the service of the decorator, and it did not
need the deductive powers of a Paul Harley to determine that Mr. Colin
Camber was in straitened circumstances.

In response to my ringing the door was presently opened by Ah Tsong.
His yellow face exhibited no trace of emotion whatever. He merely
opened the door and stood there looking at me.

"Is Mr. Camber at home?" I enquired.

"Master no got," crooned Ah Tsong.

He proceeded quietly to close the door again.

"One moment," I said, "one moment. I wish, at any rate, to leave my
card."

Ah Tsong allowed the door to remain open, but:

"No usee palaber so fashion," he said. "No feller comee here. Sabby?"

"I savvy, right enough," said I, "but all the same you have got to take
my card in to Mr. Camber."

I handed him a card as I spoke, and suddenly addressing him in
"pidgin," of which, fortunately, I had a smattering:

"Belong very quick, Ah Tsong," I said, sharply, "or plenty big trouble,
savvy?"

"Sabby, sabby," he muttered, nodding his head; and leaving me standing
in the porch he retired along the sparsely carpeted hall.

This hall was very gloomily lighted, but I could see several pieces of
massive old furniture and a number of bookcases, all looking incredibly
untidy.

Rather less than a minute elapsed, I suppose, when from some place at
the farther end of the hallway Mr. Camber appeared in person. He wore a
threadbare dressing gown, the silken collar and cuffs of which were
very badly frayed. His hair was dishevelled and palpably he had not
shaved this morning.

He was smoking a corncob pipe, and he slowly approached, glancing from
the card which he held in his hand in my direction, and then back again
at the card, with a curious sort of hesitancy. In spite of his untidy
appearance I could not fail to mark the dignity of his bearing, and the
almost arrogant angle at which he held his head.

"Mr--er--Malcolm Knox?" he began, fixing his large eyes upon me with a
look in which I could detect no sign of recognition. "I am advised that
you desire to see me?"

"That is so, Mr. Camber," I replied, cheerily. "I fear I have
interrupted your work, but as no other opportunity may occur of
renewing an acquaintance which for my part I found extremely pleasant--"

"Of renewing an acquaintance, you say, Mr. Knox?"

"Yes."

"Quite." He looked me up and down critically. "To be sure, we have met
before, I understand?"

"We met yesterday, Mr. Camber, you may recall. Having chanced to come
across a contribution of yours of the _Occult Review_, I have
availed myself of your invitation to drop in for a chat."

His expression changed immediately and the sombre eyes lighted up.

"Ah, of course," he cried, "you are a student of the transcendental.
Forgive my seeming rudeness, Mr. Knox, but indeed my memory is of the
poorest. Pray come in, sir; your visit is very welcome."

He held the door wide open, and inclined his head in a gesture of
curious old-world courtesy which was strange in so young a man. And
congratulating myself upon the happy thought which had enabled me to
win such instant favour, I presently found myself in a study which I
despair of describing.

In some respects it resembled the lumber room of an antiquary, whilst
in many particulars it corresponded to the interior of one of those
second-hand bookshops which abound in the neighbourhood of Charing
Cross Road. The shelves with which it was lined literally bulged with
books, and there were books on the floor, books on the mantelpiece, and
books, some open and some shut, some handsomely bound, and some having
the covers torn off, upon every table and nearly every chair in the
place.

Volume seven of Burton's monumental "Thousand Nights and a Night" lay
upon a littered desk before which I presumed Mr. Camber had been seated
at the time of my arrival. Some wet vessel, probably a cup of tea or
coffee, had at some time been set down upon the page at which this
volume was open, for it was marked with a dark brown ring. A volume of
Fraser's "Golden Bough" had been used as an ash tray, apparently, since
the binding was burned in several places where cigarettes had been laid
upon it.

In this interesting, indeed unique apartment, East met West, unabashed
by Kipling's dictum. Roman tear-vases and Egyptian tomb-offerings stood
upon the same shelf as empty Bass bottles; and a hideous wooden idol
from the South Sea Islands leered on eternally, unmoved by the presence
upon his distorted head of a soft felt hat made, I believe, in
Philadelphia.

Strange implements from early British barrows found themselves in the
company of _Thugee_ daggers There were carved mammals' tusks and
snake emblems from Yucatan; against a Chinese ivory model of the Temple
of Ten Thousand Buddhas rested a Coptic crucifix made from a twig of
the Holy Rose Tree. Across an ancient Spanish coffer was thrown a
Persian rug into which had been woven the monogram of Shah-Jehan and a
text from the Koran. It was easy to see that Mr. Colin Camber's studies
must have imposed a severe strain upon his purse.

"Sit down, Mr. Knox, sit down," he said, sweeping a vellum-bound volume
of Eliphas Levi from a chair, and pushing the chair forward. "The visit
of a fellow-student is a rare pleasure for me. And you find me, sir,"
he seated himself in a curious, carved chair which stood before the
desk, "you find me engaged upon enquiries, the result of which will
constitute chapter forty-two of my present book. Pray glance at the
contents of this little box."

He placed in my hands a small box of dark wood, evidently of great age.
It contained what looked like a number of shrivelled beans.

Having glanced at it curiously I returned it to him, shaking my head
blankly.

"You are puzzled?" he said, with a kind of boyish triumph, which
lighted up his face, which rejuvenated him and gave me a glimpse of
another man. "These, sir," he touched the shrivelled objects with a
long, delicate forefinger "are seeds of the sacred lotus of Ancient
Egypt. They were found in the tomb of a priest."

"And in what way do they bear upon the enquiry to which you referred,
Mr. Camber?"

"In this way," he replied, drawing toward him a piece of newspaper upon
which rested a mound of coarse shag. "I maintain that the vital
principle survives within them. Now, I propose to cultivate these
seeds, Mr. Knox. Do you grasp the significance, of this experiment?"

He knocked out the corn-cob upon the heel of his slipper and began to
refill the hot bowl with shag from the newspaper at his elbow.

"From a physical point of view, yes," I replied, slowly. "But I should
not have supposed such an experiment to come within the scope of your
own particular activities, Mr. Camber."

"Ah," he returned, triumphantly, at the same time stuffing tobacco into
the bowl of the corn-cob, "it is for this very reason that chapter
forty-two of my book must prove to be the hub of the whole, and the
whole, Mr. Knox, I am egotist enough to believe, shall establish a new
focus for thought, an intellectual Rome bestriding and uniting the
Seven Hills of Unbelief."

He lighted his pipe and stared at me complacently.

Whilst I had greatly revised my first estimate of the man, my revisions
had been all in his favour. Respecting his genius my first impression
was confirmed. That he was ahead of his generation, perhaps a new
Galileo, I was prepared to believe. He had a pride of bearing which I
think was partly racial, but which in part, too, was the insignia of
intellectual superiority. He stood above the commonplace, caring little
for the views of those around and beneath him. From vanity he was
utterly free. His was strangely like the egotism of true genius.

"Now, sir," he continued, puffing furiously at his corn-cob, "I
observed you glancing a moment ago at this volume of the 'Golden
Bough.'" He pointed to the scarred book which I have already mentioned.
"It is a work of profound scholarship. But having perused its hundreds
of pages, what has the student learned? Does he know why the twenty-
sixth chapter of the 'Book of the dead' was written upon lapis-lazuli,
the twenty-seventh upon green felspar, the twenty-ninth upon cornelian,
and the thirtieth upon serpentine? He does not. Having studied Part
Four, has he learned the secret of why Osiris was a black god, although
he typified the Sun? Has he learned why modern Christianity is losing
its hold upon the nations, whilst Buddhism, so called, counts its
disciples by millions? He has not. This is because the scholar is
rarely the seer."

"I quite agree with you," I said, thinking that I detected the drift of
his argument.

"Very well," said he. "I am an American citizen, Mr. Knox, which is
tantamount to stating that I belong to the greatest community of
traders which has appeared since the Phoenicians overran the then known
world. America has not produced the mystic, yet Judaea produced the
founder of Christianity, and Gautama Buddha, born of a royal line,
established the creed of human equity. In what way did these magicians,
for a miracle-worker is nothing but a magician, differ from ordinary
men? In one respect only: They had learned to control that force which
we have to-day termed Will."

As he spoke those words Colin Camber directed upon me a glance from his
luminous eyes which frankly thrilled me. The bemused figure of the
Lavender Arms was forgotten. I perceived before me a man of power, a
man of extraordinary knowledge and intellectual daring. His voice,
which was very beautiful, together with his glance, held me enthralled.

"What we call Will," he continued, "is what the Ancient Egyptians
called _Khu_. It is not mental: it is a property of the soul. At
this point, Mr. Knox, I depart from the laws generally accepted by my
contemporaries. I shall presently propose to you that the eye of the
Divine Architect literally watches every creature upon the earth."

"Literally?"

"Literally, Mr. Knox. We need no images, no idols, no paintings. All
power, all light comes from one source. That source is the sun! The sun
controls Will, and the Will is the soul. If there were a cavern in the
earth so deep that the sun could never reach it, and if it were
possible for a child to be born in that cavern, do you know what that
child would be?"

"Almost certainly blind," I replied; "beyond which my imagination fails
me."

"Then I will inform you, Mr. Knox. It would be a demon."

"What!" I cried, and was momentarily touched with the fear that this
was a brilliant madman.

"Listen," he said, and pointed with the stem of his pipe. "Why, in all
ancient creeds, is Hades depicted as below? For the simple reason that
could such a spot exist and be inhabited, it must be _sunless_,
when it could only be inhabited by devils; and what are devils but
creatures without souls?"

"You mean that a child born beyond reach of the sun's influence would
have no soul?"

"Such is my meaning, Mr. Knox. Do you begin to see the importance of my
experiment with the lotus seeds?"

I shook my head slowly. Whereupon, laying his corn-cob upon the desk,
Colin Camber burst into a fit of boyish laughter, which seemed to
rejuvenate him again, which wiped out the image of the magus
completely, and only left before me a very human student of strange
subjects, and withal a fascinating companion.

"I fear, sir," he said, presently, "that my steps have led me farther
into the wilderness than it has been your fate to penetrate. The whole
secret of the universe is contained in the words Day and Night,
Darkness and Light. I have studied both the light and the darkness,
deliberately and without fear. A new age is about to dawn, sir, and a
new age requires new beliefs, new truths. Were you ever in the country
of the Hill Dyaks?"

Fidel and Che: a revolutionary friendship

After last week's fairly open theme, I thought I'd go with something a bit more structured this time. As I type this, I'm listening to Steeleye Span and thinking about the great ballad traditions of Britain and Ireland. What is a ballad? I suppose the most inclusive definition would be that it's a singable narrative poem: that covers a multitude but will do for the moment.

Ballads in English stretch back to the middle ages, with fine examples to be found among the Scottish border ballads and the English Robin Hood poems. These early ballads are among the best-known poems and stories in the language, and form part of the common heritage of English speakers everywhere. They gave rise to a tradition of ballad-making that endures down to the present day.

In fact, most poets since have tried their hand at the ballad at one time or another, and the result has been to deny any definition more specific than the one I ventured in my first paragraph. If you look around the internet, you'll come up with a wide selection of poems that are called ballads but have little in common formally. Stanza length varies from two to 10 or more lines, and all sorts of metrical and rhyming patterns are used. A good number will be singable in only the loosest possible sense, and at times the narrative tends to get lost in a mesh of more-or-less successful verbal embroidery.

So, what should a ballad be? Well, "proper" ballad stanzas are quatrains in which the first and third lines have four stresses and the second and third have three. The lines will rhyme A-B-C-B or A-B-A-B. It's as simple, and as difficult, as that. Here's an example, from Robert Burns's extremely singable Comin Thro' the Rye:

Gin a body meet a body
          Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body –
          Need a body cry.

Burns wrote a good number of ballads, and his lead was followed by many 19th-century poets. Two examples that I particularly like are Robert Browning's Confessions and Christina Rossetti's Up-Hill, but you can find ballads by just about any Romantic or Victorian poet if you look for them.

There is a long, strong tradition of ballads and ballad singers in Ireland, too. It is hardly surprising, then, that the great appropriator of tradition, WB Yeats, tried his hand at the form. At least four of his poems have the word "ballad" in the title; the pick of the bunch, for my money, is The Ballad of Father Gilligan, which may have benefited from having been written with a specific tune in mind.

Ballads continued to be written in the 20th century; perhaps the most unexpected exponents were Ezra Pound, with his Ballad of the Goodly Fere, and WH Auden. In fact, the ballad The Quarry is probably my favourite Auden poem.

And so, this week I invite a chorus of balladeering. You may choose to go the whole hog and write in ballad stanzas or you might prefer to take a more liberal view of the formal requirements. Either way, sing up and – as they say at all the best Irish sessions when calling for a bit of hush for the singer – one voice please.

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Obituary: Donald Westlake

The disputed Holocaust memoir, written by Herman Rosenblat, which was dropped from Penguin Group's publication schedule at the end of December is now set to appear as a work of fiction.

Rosenblat's memoir - which Oprah Winfrey called "the single greatest love story" she had heard in two decades in television - recounted how as a teenage boy in a Nazi concentration camp, he was kept alive by the food which was thrown to him by a young girl, Roma Radzicky. Penguin's US imprint Berkley Books had planned to publish the story, which sees Rosenblat reunited with Radzicky on a blind date years later, as Angel at the Fence: the True Story of a Love That Survived, next month.

But a Holocaust historian said it would have been impossible to approach the fence in the Schlieben concentration camp to throw food over it, concluding that this part of the story was made-up. Berkley initially defended the book, saying it was a work of memory, but then decided to cancel its planned publication, and demanded the return of the advance it had made to Rosenblat. A $25m film based on the book, to be called The Flower of the Fence, is still going ahead, with production due to start this year.

Publisher York House Press based in White Plains, New York, has entered into a tentative agreement with the film production company to publish a novel based on the film script early this spring. It said the book would be "grounded in fact", and would rise "to the proper levels of artistic value, ethical conduct and social responsibility".

A spokesperson for York House Press condemned the attacks which were made on the 80-year-old Rosenblat after the veracity of his story was questioned, describing them as a "savage" response to what was otherwise "a credible, heart-wrenching, and verifiable account" of his time in the concentration camp.

"No deliberate untruth is permissible, but beneath any fabrication is motivation and intent. We believe Mr. Rosenblat's motivations were very human, understandable and forgivable," the spokesperson said. "It is beyond our expertise to know how Holocaust survivors cope with their trauma. Do they deny, try to forget, rationalise or fantasise and promote fiction along with truth? Perhaps the coping mechanisms are as individual as the survivors themselves."

The president of the company producing the film, Harris Salomon from Atlantic Overseas Productions, said the book, "regardless of its shortcomings", would "challenge, educate and enlighten" readers about the horrors of the Holocaust. "The documented fact, acknowledged by his critics, is that Herman is a survivor of concentration camps," he said.

But Rosenblat's agent, Andrea Hurst, said that neither she nor Rosenblat were involved with this version of his story. "Usually book rights from films come out after the movie is released," she told guardian.co.uk. "I think the timing on this is very insensitive."

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