A Confession?

Did Humbert actually kill Charlotte or was her death an accident as he described earlier in the book? In these later chapters I believe there is evidence that may expose what actually occurred, or at the very least gives a peek into the true events that may have actually occurred then what is written by him. We have established that Humbert is an unreliable narrator and he cannot be truly trusted, but this does not mean that he is not capable of slipping up. On page 286 there is an exchange of dialogue between Humbert and Dolly that seems to suggest something else may have occurred to Charlotte. “Lolita, who had been reading near the fire, stretched herself, and inquired, her elbow up, with a grunt: “where is she buried anyway?” “Who?” “Oh, you know, murdered mummy.”” Chapter 33 begins with Humbert retelling a botched job of G. Edward Grammar, this name being one of Nabokov’s jokes, This person was facing charges of killing his wife, and then trying to cover her murder by putting her in the car they owned then pushing it down a hill to make it look like a crash. This crash was witnessed by patrolmen, having witnessed the crash, the patrol men knew it was a severe crash but not so severe that the woman should have died. The paragraph ends with Humbert saying “I did better.” His telling of this murder and subsequent cover up and then him saying “I did better.” To me what Humbert wrote, explicitly implies that he murdered Charlotte and covered it up or somehow engineered her death to look like an accident.  

Is this book meant to be taken as a confession? If so for what crimes, does he actually confess guilt to any crimes, if so which crimes, and what is your evidence in the reading of those crimes? Other than the murder of Quilty, his guilt of this murder is obviously stated.

Has Dolly now become a con woman herself? Has she always been playing some angle to move people to her desires? Or is this an attempt on Humberts part to deflect blame from himself?

Could there have been a conspiracy between Dolly and Humbert to remove Charlotte, and Humbert in his writing this book is trying to remove any possible guilt from Dolly for her part?