Unnatural Causes (7 page)

They started together on the inland path. Celia, who had not expected to walk home, was wearing light, high-heeled shoes which alternately skidded on the smooth sea pebbles
which littered the path or sank into soft patches of sand so that she lurched forward in Latham’s grip like a graceless and recalcitrant child. But her panic was over. Her eyes were getting accustomed to the night and with every stumble forward the roar of the sea grew fainter and less insistent.

But it was a relief when Justin Bryce spoke, his voice unaltered, ordinary: “Asthma is a peculiar complaint! This has been a traumatic evening—one’s first contact with murder—and yet one feels quite well. Yet last Tuesday one had the most appalling attack with no apparent cause. One may get a reaction later of course.”

“One certainly may,” agreed Latham caustically. “Especially if Forbes-Denby doesn’t confirm one’s alibi for Tuesday night.”

“Oh, but he will, Oliver! And one can’t help thinking that his testimony will carry rather more weight than anything your sleeping partner may say.”

Celia Calthrop, gaining confidence from their nearness, their normality, said quickly: “It’s such a comfort that Adam Dalgliesh happens to be here. After all, he does know us. Socially I mean. And being a writer himself I feel that he belongs at Monksmere.”

Latham gave a shout of laughter. “If you find Adam Dalgliesh a comfort I envy your capacity for self-deception. Do tell us how you see him, Celia! The gentleman sleuth, dabbling in detection for the fun of it, treating his suspects with studied courtesy? A kind of professional Carruthers, straight out of one of Seton’s dreary sagas? My dear Celia, Dalgliesh would sell us all to Reckless if he thought it would enhance his reputation one iota. He’s the most dangerous man I know.”

He laughed again and she felt his grip tighten on her arm. Now he was really hurting her, hurrying her forward as if
she were in custody. Yet she could not bring herself to shake free. Although the lane was wider here, the ground was still uneven. Stumbling and slipping, her feet bruised and her ankles aching, she had no chance of keeping up with them except in Latham’s remorseless grip. And she could not bear to be left alone.

Bryce’s voice fluted in her ear. “Oliver’s right you know, Celia. Dalgliesh is a professional detective and probably one of the most intelligent in the country. I don’t see that his two volumes of verse, much as I personally admire them, can alter that.”

“Reckless is no fool though.” Latham still seemed amused. “Did you notice how he said hardly a word but just encouraged us to babble on in our childish, egotistical way? He probably learned more from us in five minutes than other suspects would tell him in hours of orthodox questioning. When will we learn to keep our mouths shut?”

“As we’ve nothing to hide I don’t see that it matters,” said Celia Calthrop. Really Oliver was extraordinarily irritating tonight! One might almost imagine that he was a little drunk.

Justin Bryce said: “Oh, Celia! Everyone has something to hide from the police. That’s why one is so ambivalent about them. Wait until Dalgliesh asks why you kept referring to Seton in the past tense, even before we heard that his body had been found. You did, you know. Even I noticed it so it must have struck Dalgliesh. I wonder whether he’ll feel it his duty to mention the matter to Reckless.”

But Celia was too tough to be intimidated by Bryce. She said irritably, “Don’t be stupid, Justin! I don’t believe you. And, even if I did, it was probably because I was speaking of Maurice as a writer. And one does somehow feel that, as a writer, poor Maurice has been finished for quite a time.”

“God yes!” said Latham. “Dead and done for. Finished. Written out. Maurice Seton only wrote one effective passage of prose in his life but that was straight from the heart all right. And from the brain. It produced exactly the effect he intended. Every word selected to wound and the whole—lethal.”

“Do you mean his play?” asked Celia. “I thought you despised it. Maurice always said that it was your notice that killed it.”

“Celia darling, if my notice could kill a play, half the little pieces now running in London would have folded after the first night.” He jerked her forward with fresh impetus and for a minute Justin Bryce lagged behind them.

Hurrying to catch them up he called breathlessly: “Maurice must have been killed on Tuesday night. And his body was pushed out to sea late on Wednesday evening. So how did the murderer get it to Monksmere? You drove from London on Wednesday, Oliver. It wasn’t in the boot of your Jaguar, was it?”

“No dear,” said Latham easily. “I’m very particular what I carry in the boot of my Jaguar.”

Celia said complacently: “Well, I’m in the clear. Sylvia can give me an alibi until late on Tuesday and that’s obviously the crucial time. I admit that I was out alone on Wednesday night but Reckless will hardly suspect me of mutilating the body. And that reminds me. There’s one person who doesn’t even claim an alibi for Tuesday or Wednesday, Jane Dalgliesh. And what’s more—it was her chopper!”

Latham said: “Why in God’s name should Miss Dalgliesh wish to kill Seton?”

“Why should any of us want to?” retorted Celia. “And I’m not saying she did. I’m merely pointing out that it was apparently her chopper.”

Bryce said happily: “I wanted to at one time. Murder Seton, I mean. After I found Arabella I could willingly have killed him. But I didn’t. All the same, I can’t feel sorry about it. I wonder if I ought to ask to view the body after the inquest. It might shock me out of this insensitivity which I can’t feel is at all healthy.”

But Latham was still meditating on the missing chopper. He said fiercely: “Anyone could have taken it! Anyone! We all walk in and out of each other’s houses at will. No one here locks up anything. There’s never been the need. And we don’t even know yet that it was the weapon.”

“My dears,” said Bryce. “Consider this and calm yourselves. Until we know the cause of death we can’t even be sure that Maurice was murdered.”

They left her at the door of Rosemary Cottage and she watched them disappear into the night. Justin’s high voice and Latham’s laugh came back to her long after their figures had merged with the darker shadows of hedgerow and tree. There were no lights in the cottage and the sitting room was empty. So Elizabeth was in bed. She must have driven home fast from Tanner’s Cottage. Her aunt was uncertain whether to be glad or sorry. She had a sudden need of company but she couldn’t face questions or arguments. There would be much to discuss, but not tonight. She was too tired. She switched on the table lamp and, kneeling on the hearth rug, poked ineffectually at the slates and ashes of the dead fire. Then she got unsteadily to her feet, grunting with the effort like an old woman, and let herself down into an armchair. Opposite her an identical chair loomed squat and solid, plump with cushions, empty and poignant. Here Maurice had sat on that October afternoon six years ago. It was the day of the inquest; a day of cold and sudden squalls. There had been a good fire that evening. She had been expecting him and had taken care that both she and the room were ready. The firelight
and the one discreet lamp had shed a nicely calculated glow over the polished mahogany and cast soft shadows on the soft pinks and blues of cushions and carpet. The tray of drinks had been set ready to hand. Nothing had been left to chance. And she had waited for him as eagerly as a young girl before her first date. She had worn a dress of soft blue-grey wool. It had really made her look quite slim, quite young. It still hung in her wardrobe. She had never cared to wear it again. And he had sat opposite her, stiff and black in his formal mourning, an absurd little mannikin with his black tie and armband, his face rigid with grief. But she hadn’t understood then that it was grief. How could she? It was impossible that he could be grieving for that shallow, egotistical, monstrous nymphomaniac. Of course, there had been the shock of hearing that Dorothy was dead, had killed herself, the horror of identifying the drowned body, the ordeal of the inquest, of facing the rows of white, accusing faces. He knew what they were saying all right, that he had driven his wife to suicide. No wonder he had looked shocked and ill. But grief? It had never occurred to her that he might grieve. Somehow she had taken it for granted that there must, in his heart, have been a spring of relief. Relief that the long years of torment and self-control were over at last, that he could begin to live again. And she would be there to help him, just as she had helped with her sympathy and advice when Dorothy was alive. He was a writer, an artist. He needed affection and understanding. From tonight he need never be alone ever again.

Had she loved him, she wondered. It was difficult to remember. Perhaps not. Perhaps it had never been love as she imagined love to be. But it had been as close as she would ever get to that longed-for, elusive, oft-imagined cataclysm. She had dealt with its counterfeit in nearly forty novels; but the coin itself had never come within her grasp.

Sitting in front of the dead fire she recalled the second when she had known the truth, and her cheeks burnt at the memory. Suddenly he had begun to cry, awkwardly as a child. In that moment all artifice had been forgotten. Only pity remained. She had knelt beside him, cradling his head in her arms, murmuring her comfort and love. And then, it had happened. His whole body stiffened and withdrew. He looked at her, catching his breath, and she saw his face. It was all there. Pity, embarrassment, a trace of fear and—hardest of all to accept—physical repulsion. In one bitter moment of complete clarity she had seen herself with his eyes. He had been grieving for that slim, gay, beautiful creature; and an ugly middle-aged woman had chosen that moment to throw herself into his arms. He had recovered himself, of course. Nothing had been said. Even the dreadful sobbing had been cut off in mid-gasp like that of a child suddenly offered a sweet. She reflected bitterly that there was nothing like personal danger to take the edge off grief. Somehow, gracelessly, she had stumbled back to her own chair, her face burning. He had stayed for as long as politeness dictated and she had handed him his drinks, listened to his sentimental reminiscences about his wife—dear God, had the poor fool forgotten so soon?—and feigned interest in his plans for a long holiday abroad, “to try to forget.” It was six months before he had thought it prudent to revisit Rosemary Cottage alone and even longer before he began tentatively to establish the understanding that she would be available whenever he wanted to escort a woman in public. Just before he left for his holiday he had written to tell her that she was named in his will “in appreciation of her sympathy and understanding on the death of my dear wife.” She had understood all right. It was the kind of crude, insensitive gesture which he would consider an adequate, appropriate apology.
But her first reaction hadn’t been anger or humiliation; she had merely wondered how much it would be. Since then she had wondered increasingly, and now the question had a fascinating immediacy. It might, of course, be a mere hundred or so. It might be thousands. It might even be a fortune. After all, Dorothy was reputed to have been a wealthy woman and Maurice hadn’t anyone else to leave it to. He had never had much use for his half-brother and lately they had grown even further apart. Besides, didn’t he owe it to her?

A slant of light from the hall fell across the carpet. Silently, Elizabeth Marley came into the room, her feet bare, her red dressing gown glowing in the half-light. She stretched herself out stiffly in the chair opposite her aunt, her feet towards the dying fire, her face deep in the shadows. She said: “I thought I heard you come in. Can I get you anything? Hot milk? Ovaltine?”

The tone was ungracious, embarrassed, but the offer was unexpected and Miss Calthrop was touched.

“No thank you, dear. You go back to bed. You’ll catch cold. I’ll make the drink and bring yours up.”

The girl did not move. Miss Calthrop made a fresh attack on the fire. This time a tongue of flame hissed round the coals and she felt the first welcome warmth on hands and face. She asked: “You got Sylvia home all right? How did she seem?”

“Not too good. But then, she never does.”

Her aunt said: “I wondered afterwards whether we ought to have insisted that she stay here. She really looked very ill, not safe to be alone.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I did tell her that we had a spare bed until the new
au pair
girl comes and that she was welcome to it. She wouldn’t consider it. When I pressed her she became overwrought, so I left it. After all, she’s thirty, isn’t she? She’s not a child. I couldn’t force her to stay.”

“No, of course not.” Celia Calthrop thought that her niece would hardly have welcomed Sylvia in the house. She had noticed that most women were less sympathetic to the girl than were men, and Elizabeth made no secret of her dislike. The voice from the armchair asked: “What happened after we left?”

“Nothing very much. Jane Dalgleish seems to think that he may have been killed with her chopper. Apparently she missed it about three months ago.”

“Did Inspector Reckless tell you that he was killed that way?”

“No. But surely …”

“Then we still don’t know how he died. He could have been killed in a dozen different ways and his hands chopped off after death. I imagine that they were. It wouldn’t be an easy thing to do if your victim were alive and conscious. Inspector Reckless must know if it happened that way. There wouldn’t be very much bleeding for one thing. And I expect he knows the time of death to an hour or so even without the PM report.”

Her aunt said: “Surely he died on Tuesday night? Something must have happened to him on Tuesday. Maurice would never walk out of his club like that and spend the night away without a word to anyone. He died on Tuesday night when Sylvia and I were at the pictures.”

She spoke with stubborn confidence. She wished it to be so, therefore, it must be so. Maurice had died on Tuesday night and her alibi was assured. She added: “It’s unfortunate for Justin and Oliver that they happened to be in town that evening. They’ve got alibis of a sort, of course. But it’s a pity all the same.”