“Apparently partly from his mother and partly from the estate of his late wife,” replied Reckless. He had finished with the papers and was now going through a small drawer of index cards with the methodical intentness of a scholar looking for a reference.
Seton gave a snort of laughter. “Is that what Pettigrew told you? Pettigrew! I ask you, Dalgliesh! Trust Maurice to have a solicitor called Pettigrew. What else could the poor devil be with a name like that? Pettigrew! Doomed from birth to be a respectable provincial solicitor. Can’t you picture him? Dry, precise, sixtyish, resplendent watch chain and pin stripes. God, I hope he knows how to draw up a valid will.”
“I don’t think you need worry on that score,” said Dalgliesh. Actually, he knew Charles Pettigrew who was his aunt’s solicitor. It was an old firm but the present owner, who had inherited from his grandfather, was a capable and lively thirty-year-old, reconciled to the tedium of a country practice by the nearness of the sea and a passion for sailing. He said: “I gather you’ve found a copy of the will?”
“It’s here.” Reckless passed over the single sheet of stiff paper, and Dalgliesh scanned it. The will was short and soon read. Maurice Seton, after instructing that his body be used for medical research and afterwards cremated, left ?2,000 to Celia Calthrop, “in appreciation of her sympathy and understanding on the death of my dear wife,” and ?300 to Sylvia Kedge, “provided she has been ten years in my service at the time of my death.” The remainder of the estate was left to Digby Kenneth Seton, on trust until he married, and then to revert to him absolutely. If he died before his half-brother or died unmarried the estate went absolutely to Celia Calthrop.
Seton said: “Poor old Kedge! She’s lost her ?300 by two months. No wonder she looks sick! Honestly, I’d no idea about the will. At least, I knew that I would very likely be Maurice’s heir. He more or less said so once. Anyway, he hadn’t anyone else to leave it to. We’ve never been particularly close but we did have the same father and Maurice had a great respect for the old man. But ?200,000! Dorothy must have left him a packet. Funny that, when you consider that their marriage was pretty well on the rocks when she died.”
“Mrs. Maurice Seton had no other relatives then?” asked Reckless.
“Not that I know of. Lucky for me, isn’t it? When she killed herself there was some talk of a sister who ought to be contacted. Or was it a brother? Honestly, I can’t remember. Anyway, no one turned up and no one but Maurice was mentioned in the will. Her father was a property speculator and Dorothy was left pretty well off. And it all came to Maurice. But ?200,000!”
“Perhaps your half-brother did well with his books,” suggested Reckless. He had finished with the card index but was still seated at the desk, making entries in a notebook and seemingly only half-interested in Seton’s reactions. But Dalgliesh, himself a professional, knew that the interview was going very much according to plan.
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so! Maurice always said that writing wouldn’t keep him in socks. He was rather bitter about it. He said that this was the age of ‘Soap-powder fiction.’ If a writer hadn’t a gimmick no one was interested. Bestsellers were created by the advertisers, good writing was a positive disadvantage and the public libraries killed sales. I daresay he was right. If he had ?200,000 I don’t know why he bothered. Except, of course, that he liked being a writer. It did something for his ego, I suppose. I never understood why he took it seriously, but then, he never understood why I wanted my own club. And I’ll be able to have it now. A whole chain of them if things go my way. You’re both invited to the opening night. Bring the whole of West Central with you if you like. No sneaking in on expenses to check on the drinking and see that the floor show isn’t too naughty. No women sergeants tarted up to look like provincial tourists on the spree. The best tables. Everything on the house. D’you know, Dalgliesh, I could have made a go of the Golden Pheasant if only I’d had the capital behind me. Well, I’ve got it now.”
“Not unless you also get a wife,” Dalgliesh reminded him unkindly. He had noted the names of the trustees in Seton’s will and couldn’t see either of those cautious and conservative gentlemen parting with trust funds to finance a second Golden Pheasant. He asked why Maurice Seton had been so anxious for Digby to marry.
“Maurice was always hinting that I ought to settle down. He was a great one for the family name. He hadn’t any children himself-none that I know of anyway-and I don’t suppose he was keen to marry again after the Dorothy fiasco. Besides, he had a dicky heart. He was afraid, too, that I might set up house with a queer. He didn’t want his money shared with a pansy boyfriend. Poor old Maurice! I don’t think he’d recognise a queen if he met one. He just had the idea that London, and West End clubs in particular, are full of them.”
“Extraordinary!” said Dalgliesh dryly.
Seton seemed unaware of the irony. He said anxiously: “Look, you do believe me about that phone call, don’t you? The murderer phoned me as I arrived here Wednesday night and sent me off on a fool’s errand to Lowestoft. The idea was to get me away from the house and make sure I hadn’t an alibi for the time of death. At least, I suppose that was the idea. It doesn’t make sense otherwise. It puts me in a spot all right. I wish to God that Liz had come in with me. I don’t see how I can prove that Maurice wasn’t in the house when I got here or that I didn’t take a late-night walk on the beach with him, conveniently armed with the kitchen knife. Have you found the weapon, by the way?”
The Inspector replied briefly that they hadn’t. He said: “It would help me, Mr. Seton, if you could remember more about this phone call.”
“Well, I can’t.” Seton sounded suddenly peevish. He added sullenly: “You keep asking me about it and I keep telling you! I don’t remember. Damn it, I’ve had a bloody great bang on the head since then! If you told me I’d imagined the whole thing I wouldn’t be surprised except that it must have happened or I wouldn’t have taken out the car. I was dog tired and I wouldn’t have set off to Lowestoft just for the fun of it. Someone phoned. I’m sure of that. But I can’t remember what the voice sounded like. I’m not even sure if it was a man or a woman.”
“And the message?”
“I’ve told you, Inspector! The voice said it was speaking from Lowestoft Police Station, that Maurice’s body had come ashore in my dinghy with the hands chopped off-”
“Chopped or cut?”
“Oh, I don’t know! Chopped I think. Anyway, I was to go to Lowestoft at once and identify the body. So I set off. I knew where Maurice keeps the car keys and luckily the Vauxhall had plenty of juice in her. Or unluckily. I damn near killed myself. Oh, I know you’re going to say it was my fault. I admit I had a pull or two from my hip flask on the way. Well, do you wonder! And I was bloody tired before I started. I had a lousy night on Tuesday-the West Central’s hardly a hotel. And then that long train journey.”
“And yet you set off for Lowestoft straight away without bothering to check?” asked Reckless.
“I did check! When I got to the road it occurred to me to see if Sheldrake had really gone. So I drove down Tanner’s Lane as far as I could and walked to the beach. The boat wasn’t there. That was good enough for me. I suppose you think that I ought to have rung back the police station but it never occurred to me that the message might be a hoax until I was on my way and then the easiest thing was to check on the boat. I say…”
“Yes?” enquired Reckless calmly.
“Whoever phoned must have known that I was here. And it couldn’t have been Liz Marley because she’d only just left when the phone rang. Now, how could anyone else have known?”
“You could have been seen arriving,” suggested Reckless.
“And I suppose you put the lights on when you got in. They could be seen for miles.”
“I put them on all right. The whole bloody lot. This place gives me the creeps in the dark. Still, it’s odd.”
It was odd, thought Dalgliesh. But the Inspector’s explanation was probably correct. The whole of Monksmere Head could have seen those blazing lights. And when they went out, someone would know that Digby Seton was on his way. But why send him? Was there something still to be done at Seton House? Something to be searched for? Some evidence to be destroyed? Was the body hidden in Seton House? But how was that possible if Digby was telling the truth about the missing boat?
Suddenly Digby said: “What am I supposed to do about handing the body over for medical research? Maurice never said anything to me about being keen on medical research. Still, if that’s what he wanted…” He looked from Dalgliesh to Reckless enquiringly.
The Inspector said: “I shouldn’t worry about that now, Sir. Your brother left the necessary instructions and official forms among his papers. But it will have to wait.”
Seton said: “Yes. I suppose so. But I wouldn’t like… I mean, if that’s what he wanted…”
He broke off uncertainly. Much of the excitement had left him and he was looking suddenly very tired. Dalgliesh and Reckless glanced at each other, sharing the thought that there would be little more to be learned from Maurice’s body once Walter Sydenham had finished with it, the eminent and thorough Dr. Sydenham whose textbook on forensic pathology made it plain that he favoured an initial incision from the throat to the groin.
