The following excerpt from

AUCTION or "Madam, You Cannot Possibly Go Wrong On This Bed."

 by William Lloyd Hubbard

is used here with Bill's kind permission.

The Old Fall River Line

"Would you go as far as Fall River to pick up an estate?" I was asked by a member of a prominent local family. The person explained that, for personal reasons, the family wanted the material removed from the area and sold anonymously. I saw nothing wrong with the change of venue, so I agreed.

We were not disappointed. The house was not unlike the Bordens, another prominent Fall River family whose daughter Lizzie got into a bit of trouble years back. The family name was a prominent one in the mercantile and political scene at the turn of the century.

The house itself, externally somewhat decayed, was a curious survivor of turn-of-the-century affluence. The furniture, ornate oak and mahogany, was by Paine. Dozens of colored lithographs in baroque gold frames were suspended by wires from the ceiling molding. Bright circles of polished wood on otherwise begrimes surfaces revealed the mysterious disappearance of the bric-a-brac. In fact, only one room showed evidence of recent living. The last occupant, a ninety-year-old recluse, must have confined himself to that restricted area.

We removed the material, brought it to Amherst, and spent considerable time polishing the dirt away from the half century of neglect. I spent hours going through the hundreds of books, standard sets of famous authors for the most part. Then, I chanced upon an anomaly--two pristine copies of True Detective from the 1930's. Why should two copies of this cheap tabloid be in this house, this bastion of genteel respectability? Curious, I flipped through the pages. Suddenly, everything became clear, because there in lurid detail was the headline "Fall River Scion Murders Young Nurse." I read on and learned in exquisite detail about the crime of passion that had occurred. Torrid drawings simulated the scene and circumstances when the innocent was throttled.

Much was made of the fact that the body was removed to Rhode Island, away from Massachusetts where the murder had occurred and which had the death penalty.

Instantly the whole story came into focus. At some point, the murderer had been released and returned to the family home where he lived out his ninety years. This was the reason the family wanted the change of scene after almost fifty years. We never acknowledged to the family that we had figured out the true circumstances. One of our people, a fellow with a morbid sense of the dramatic, has the murderer's high school diploma hanging over his bed--a bizarre conversation piece, to say the least.

AUCTION is still in print. If you'd like to order a copy, the following link will take you to its listing on Amazon.   AUCTION, by Bill Hubbard