I first wrote this story for Sisters in Crime (Volume II), having been inspired to do so by taking two summer sessions at Cambridge University through a program offered by UCLA. The first session, in 1988, was called “The Country Houses of Great Britain,” and from it I took my initial inspiration for a story which I called “The Evidence Exposed.” The second session, in 1989, was a course on Shakespeare, and its curious and whimsical look at William Shakespeare as a closet Marxist—no matter the anachronous bent of such a look!—became part of the foundation for a novel I wrote called For the Sake of Elena, which was set in Cambridge.
“The Evidence Exposed” was my first attempt at a crime story in abbreviated form. It was also the first short story I'd written in about twenty years. As such, it was a noble effort, but I was never completely happy with it. Indeed, fairly soon after publication, I realized that I'd killed the wrong person, and it became my intention to rewrite the story if I ever had the chance to do so.
A lot of life supervened in the meantime. I always seemed to have other novels under contract, courses to teach, and research to do. Occasionally, even, I was asked to write other short stories and when the request coincided with an idea that I believed could be contained in less than six hundred pages, I'd apply myself once again to the challenging format.
Finally, my Swedish publisher wanted to put out a “slim volume” of my stories—of which, at this point, there were only three. I agreed. My English publisher discovered this book and weighed in with a request to print it in English. My German and French publishers followed suit. And in very short order, my American publisher made the same request. At this point I realized that it was time to rewrite “The Evidence Exposed” as well as to add to the small collection two more stories that I'd been mulling over.
Consequently, I set about revising and rewriting “The Evidence Exposed,” and what you have here—for the first time—is the new version of that older and far clunkier story.
I'm quite pleased with the way it came out. It has a new point of view and a new victim. And Abinger Manor has a new owner. But the rest of the characters remain the same.