A Mind to Murder (19 page)

This hold up was, perhaps, to be expected. It was hardly likely that a London solicitor would be in his office after midday on Saturday. It was more dispiriting to learn by telephone that Mr. Babcock of Babcock and Honeywell had flown with his wife to Geneva on Friday afternoon to attend the funeral of a friend and would not be back in his City office until the following Tuesday. There was now no Mr. Honeywell in the firm, but Mr. Babcock’s chief clerk would be in the office on Monday morning if he could help the superintendent. It was the caretaker speaking. Dalgliesh was not sure how far the chief clerk could help him. He much preferred to see Mr. Babcock. The solicitor was likely to be able to give a great deal of useful information about Miss Bolam’s family as well as her financial affairs, but much of it would probably be given with at least a token show of resistance and obained only by the exercise of tact. It would be folly to jeopardize success by a prior approach to the clerk.

Until the details of the will were available there was little point in seeing Nurse Bolam again. Frustrated in his immediate plans Dalgliesh drove without his sergeant to call on Peter Nagle. He had no clear aim in view but that didn’t worry him. The time would be well spent. Some of his most useful work was done in these unplanned, almost casual encounters when he talked, listened, watched, studied a suspect in his own home, or gleaned the thin stalks of unwittingly dropped information about the one personality which is central to any murder investigation—that of the victim.

Nagle lived in Pimlico on the fourth floor of a large, white, stuccoed Victorian house near Eccleston Square. Dalgliesh had last visited this street three years previously when it had seemed irretrievably sunk into shabby decay. But the tide had changed. The wave of fashion and popularity which flows so inexplicably in London, sometimes missing one district while sweeping through its near neighbour, had washed the broad street bringing order and prosperity in its wake. Judging by the number of house agents’ boards, the property speculators, first as always to sniff the returning tide, were reaping the usual profits. The house on the corner looked newly painted. The heavy front door stood open. Inside, a board gave the names of the tenants, but there were no bells. Dalgliesh deduced that the flats were self-contained and that, somewhere, there was a resident caretaker who would answer the front-door bell when the house was locked for the night. He could see no lift so set himself to climb the four flights to Nagle’s flat.

It was a light, airy house and very quiet. There was no sign of life until the third floor where someone was playing the piano and playing well; perhaps a professional musician, practising. The treble cascade of sound fell over Dalgliesh and receded as he reached the fourth floor. Here there was a plain wooden door with a heavy brass knocker and a card pinned above it on which was lettered the one word—Nagle. He rapped and heard Nagle shout an immediate “come in”.

The flat was surprising. He hardly knew what he had expected, but it was certainly not this immense, airy, impressive studio. It ran the whole length of the back of the house, the great north window, uncurtained, giving a panoramic view of twisted chimney-pots and irregular sloping roofs. Nagle was not alone. He was sitting, knees apart, on a narrow bed which stood on a raised platform at the east side of the room. Curled against him, clad only in a dressing-gown, was Jennifer Priddy. They were drinking tea from two blue mugs; a tray holding the teapot and a bottle of milk was on a small table beside them. The painting on which Nagle had recently been working stood on an easel in the middle of the room.

The girl showed no embarrassment at seeing Dalgliesh but swung her legs from the bed and gave him a smile which was frankly happy, almost welcoming, certainly without coquetry.

“Would you like some tea?” she asked.

Nagle said:

“The police never drink on duty and that includes tea. Better get your clothes on, kid. We don’t want to shock the superintendent.”

The girl smiled again, gathered up her clothes with one arm and the tea tray with the other and disappeared through a door at the far end of the studio. It was difficult to recognize in this confident sensual figure the tear-stained, diffident child Dalgliesh had first seen at the Steen. He watched her as she passed. She was obviously naked except for the dressing-gown of Nagle’s; her hard nipples pointed the thin wool. It came to Dalgliesh that they had been making love. As she passed from view he turned to Nagle and saw in his eyes the transitory gleam of amused speculation. But neither of them spoke.

Dalgliesh moved about the studio, watched by Nagle from the bed. The room was without clutter. In its almost obsessional neatness it reminded him of Enid Bolam’s flat with which it had otherwise nothing in common. The dais with its plain wooden bed, chair and small table obviously served as a bedroom. The rest of the studio was taken up with the paraphernalia of a painter, but there was none of that undisciplined muddle which the uninitiated associate with an artist’s life. About a dozen large oils were stacked against the south wall and Dalgliesh was surprised by their power. Here was no amateur indulging his little talent. Miss Priddy was apparently Nagle’s only model. Her heavy-busted, adolescent body gleamed at him from a diversity of poses, here foreshortened, there curiously elongated as if the painter gloried in his technical competence. The most recent picture was on the easel. It showed the girl sitting astride a stool with the childish hands hanging relaxed between her thighs, the breasts bunched forward. There was something in this flaunting of technical expertise, in the audacious use of greens and mauve and in the careful tonal relationships which caught at Dalgliesh’s memory.

“Who teaches you?” he asked. “Sugg?”

“That’s right.” Nagle did not seem surprised. “Know his work?”

“I have one of his early oils. A nude.”

“You made a good investment. Hang on to it.”

“I’ve every intention of doing so,” said Dalgliesh mildly. “I happen to like it. Have you been with him long?”

“Two years. Part time, of course. In another three years I’ll be teaching him. If he’s capable of learning, that is. He’s getting an old dog now and too fond of his own tricks.”

“You appear to have imitated some of them,” said Dalgliesh.

“You think so? That’s interesting.” Nagle did not seem affronted. “That’s why it will be good to get away. I’m off to Paris by the end of the month at the latest. I applied for the Bollinger scholarship. The old man put in a word for me and last week I had a letter to say that it’s mine.”

Try as he would he could not entirely keep the note of triumph from his voice. Underneath the assumption of nonchalance there was a spring of joy. And he had reason to be pleased with himself. The Bollinger was no ordinary prize. It meant, as Dalgliesh knew, two years in any European city with a generous allowance and freedom for the student to live and work as he chose. The Bollinger trust had been set up by a manufacturer of patent medicines who had died wealthy and successful, but unsatisfied. His money had come from stomach powders but his heart was in painting. His own talent was small and, to judge by the collection of paintings which he bequeathed to the embarrassed trustees of his local gallery, his taste had been on a par with his performance. But the Bollinger scholarship had ensured that artists should remember him with gratitude. Bollinger did not believe that art flourished in poverty or that artists were stimulated to their best efforts by cold garrets and empty bellies. He had been poor in his youth and had not enjoyed it. He had travelled widely in his old age and been happy abroad. The Bollinger scholarship enabled young artists of promise to enjoy the second without enduring the first and it was well worth winning. If Nagle had been awarded the Bollinger he was hardly likely to be much concerned now with the troubles of the Steen Clinic.

“When are you due to go?” Dalgliesh asked.

“When I like. By the end of the month, anyway. But I may go earlier and without notice. No sense in upsetting anyone.” He jerked his head towards the far door as he spoke and added: “That’s why this murder is such a nuisance. I was afraid it might hold things up. After all, it was my chisel. And that wasn’t the only attempt made to implicate me. While I was in the general office waiting for the post someone phoned to ask me to go down for the laundry. It sounded like a woman. I’d got my coat on and was more or less on my way out, so I said I’d collect it when I got back.”

“So that’s why you went to see Nurse Bolam on your return from the post and asked her whether the laundry was ready?”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you tell her about the phone call at the time?”

“I don’t know. There didn’t seem any point. I wasn’t anxious to hang about the LSD room. Those patients give me the creeps with their moaning and muttering. When Bolam said the stuff wasn’t ready I thought it was Miss Bolam who had phoned and it wouldn’t have done to have said so. She was a bit too apt to interfere with the nursing responsibilities, or so they thought. Anyway, I didn’t say anything about the call. I might have done but I didn’t.”

“And you didn’t tell me either when you were first interviewed.”

“Right again. The truth is that the whole thing struck me as a bit odd and I wanted time to think about it. Well, I’ve thought, and you’re welcome to the story. You can believe it or not, as you like. It’s all the same to me.”

“You seem to be taking it pretty calmly if you really believe that someone was trying to involve you in the murder.”

“I’m not worrying. They didn’t succeed for one thing, and for another, I happen to believe that the chance of an innocent man getting convicted of murder in this country is practically nil. You ought to find that flattering. On the other hand—given the jury system—the chances of the guilty getting off are high. That’s why I don’t think you’re going to solve this murder. Too many suspects. Too many possibilities.”

“We shall see. Tell me more about this call. When exactly did you receive it?”

“I can’t remember. About five minutes before Shorthouse came into the general office, I think. It could have been earlier. Jenny may remember.”

“I’ll ask her when she gets back. What exactly did the voice say?”

“Just, ‘The laundry’s ready if you’d fetch it now, please.’ I took it that Nurse Bolam was phoning. I replied that I was just going out with the post and would see to it when I got back. Then I put down the receiver before she had a chance to argue.”

“You were sure it was Nurse Bolam speaking?”

“I’m not sure at all. I naturally thought it was at the time because Nurse Bolam usually does phone about the laundry. As a matter of fact the woman spoke softly and it could have been anyone.”

“But it was a woman’s voice?”

“Oh, yes. It was a woman all right.”

“At any rate it was a false message because we know that, in fact, the laundry wasn’t sorted.”

“Yes. But what was the point of it? It doesn’t add up. If the idea was to lure me down to the basement to frame me, the killer stood the risk that I’d arrive at the wrong moment. Nurse Bolam, for example, wouldn’t want me on the spot inquiring for the laundry if she were planning to be in the record-room slugging her cousin. Even if Miss Bolam were dead before the call was made it still doesn’t make sense. Suppose I’d nosed around and found the body? The killer couldn’t have wanted it discovered that soon! Anyway, I didn’t go down until I got back from the post. Lucky for me I was out with it. The box is only just across the road, but I usually go down to Beefsteak Street to buy a
Standard
. The man there probably remembers me.”

Jennifer Priddy had returned during the last few words. She had changed into a plain woollen dress. Clasping a belt around her waist, she said:

“It was the row over your paper that finished poor old Cully. You might have let him have it, darling, when he asked. He only wanted to check on his horses.”

Nagle said without rancour:

“Mean old devil. He’d do anything to save himself threepence. Why can’t he pay for it occasionally? I’m no sooner in the door before he puts out his hand for it.”

“Still, you were rather unkind to him, darling. It isn’t as if you wanted it yourself. We only glanced at it downstairs then used it to wrap up Tigger’s food. You know what Cully is. The least upset goes to his stomach.”

Nagle expressed his opinion of Cully’s stomach with force and originality. Miss Priddy glanced at Dalgliesh as if inviting his shocked admiration of the vagaries of genius and murmured:

“Peter! Really, darling, you are awful!”

She spoke with coy indulgence, the little woman administering a mild rebuke. Dalgliesh looked at Nagle to see how he bore it, but the painter seemed not to have heard. He still sat, immobile, on the bed and looked down at them. Clad now in brown linen trousers, thick blue jersey and sandals, he yet looked as formal and neat as he had in his porter’s uniform, his mild eyes unworried, his long, strong arms relaxed.

Under his gaze the girl moved restlessly about the studio, touching with happy possessiveness the frame of a painting, running her fingers along the window ledge, moving a jug of dahlias from one window to the next. It was as if she sought to impose the soft nuances of femininity on this disciplined masculine workshop, to demonstrate that this was her home, her natural place. She was entirely unembarrassed by the pictures of her naked body. It was possible that she gained satisfaction from this vicarious exhibitionism. Suddenly Dalgliesh asked:

“Do you remember, Miss Priddy, whether anyone telephoned Mr. Nagle while he was in the office with you?”

The girl looked surprised but said unconcernedly to Nagle:

“Nurse Bolam phoned about the laundry, didn’t she? I came in from the record-room—I’d only been gone a second—and heard you say that you were just on your way out and would go down when you came back.” She laughed. “After you put the receiver down you said something much less polite about the way the nurses expect you to be at their beck and call. Remember?”

“Yes,” said Nagle shortly. He turned to Dalgliesh. “Any more questions, Superintendent? Jenny’ll have to be getting home soon and I usually go part of the way. Her parents don’t know she sees me.”