Seton’s limbs might be useful for raw medical students to practise on, which was probably not what he had in mind. But his cadaver had already made its contribution to medical science.
Reckless was preparing to leave. He explained to Seton that he would be required at the inquest in five days’ time, an invitation which was received without enthusiasm, and began putting his papers together with the satisfied efficiency of an insurance agent at the end of a good morning’s work. Digby watched him with the puzzled and slightly apprehensive air of a small boy who has found the company of adults a strain but isn’t sure that he actually wants them to leave. Strapping up his briefcase, Reckless asked his last question with no appearance of really wanting to know the answer: “Don’t you find it rather strange, Mr. Seton, that your half-brother should have made you his heir? It isn’t as if you were particularly friendly.”
“But I told you!” Seton wailed his protest. “There wasn’t anyone else. Besides, we were friendly enough. I mean, I made it my business to keep in with him. He wasn’t difficult to get on with if you flattered him about his bloody awful books and took a bit of trouble with him. I like to get on with people if I can. I don’t enjoy quarrelling and unpleasantness. I don’t think I could have stood his company for long but then I wasn’t here very often. I told you I haven’t seen him since August Bank Holiday. Besides, he was lonely. I was the only family he had left and he liked to think that there was someone who belonged.”
Reckless said: “So you kept in with him because of his money. And he kept in with you because he was afraid of being completely alone?”
“Well, that’s how things are.” Seton was unabashed. “That’s life. We all want something from each other. Is there anyone who loves you, Inspector, for yourself alone?”
Reckless got up and went out through the open window. Dalgliesh followed him and they stood together on the terrace in silence. The wind was freshening but the sun still shone, warm and golden. On the green-blue sea a couple of white sails moved fitfully like twists of paper blown in the wind. Reckless sat down on the steps which led from the terrace to the narrow strip of turf and the cliff edge. Dalgliesh, feeling unreasonably that he could hardly remain standing since it put Reckless at a disadvantage, dropped down beside him. The stones were unexpectedly cold to his hands and thighs, a reminder that the warmth of the autumn sun had little power.
The Inspector said: “There’s no way down to the beach here. You’d have thought Seton would want his own way down. It’s a fair walk to Tanner’s Lane.”
“The cliffs are pretty high here and there’s little solid rock. It could be tricky to build a stairway,” suggested Dalgliesh.
“Maybe. He must have been a strange sort of chap. Fussy. Methodical. That card index, for instance. He picked up ideas for his stories from newspapers, magazines, and from people. Or just thought of them for himself. But they’re all neatly catalogued there, waiting to come in useful.”
“And Miss Calthrop’s contribution?”
“Not there. That doesn’t mean very much though. Sylvia Kedge told me that the house was usually left unlocked when Seton was living here. They all seem to leave their houses unlocked. Anyone could have got in and taken the card. Anyone could have read it for that matter. They just seem to wander in and out of each other’s places at will. It’s the loneliness I suppose. That’s assuming that Seton wrote out a card.”
“Or that Miss Calthrop ever gave him the idea,” said Dalgliesh.
Reckless looked at him. “That struck you too, did it? What did you think of Digby Seton?”
“The same as I’ve always thought. It requires an effort of will to understand a man whose passionate ambition is to run his own club. But then, he probably finds it equally difficult to understand why we should want to be policemen. I don’t think our Digby has either the nerve or the brains to plan this particular killing. Basically he’s unintelligent.”
“He was in the nick most of Tuesday night. I gave West Central a ring and it’s true all right. What’s more he was drunk. There was nothing feigned about it.”
“Very convenient for him.”
“It’s always convenient to have an alibi, Mr. Dalgliesh. But there are some alibis I don’t intend to waste time trying to break. And that’s the kind he’s got. What’s more, unless he was acting just now, he just doesn’t know that the weapon wasn’t a knife. And he thinks that Seton died on Wednesday night. Maurice couldn’t have been in this house alive when Digby and Miss Marley arrived on Wednesday. That’s not to say that his body wasn’t here. But I can’t see Digby acting the butcher and I can’t see why he should. Even if he found the body here and panicked he’s the sort to hit the bottle then belt off back to town, not to plan an elaborate charade. And he was on the Lowestoft not the London road when he crashed. Besides, I don’t see how he could have known about Miss Calthrop’s pleasant little opening for a detective story.”
“Unless Eliza Marley told him on the way here.”
“Why should she tell Digby Seton? It’s not a likely topic for conversation on the drive home. But all right. We’ll assume that she did know and that she told Digby or that, somehow or other, he knew. He arrives here and finds his brother’s body. So he immediately decides to provide a reallife mystery by chopping off Maurice’s hands and pushing the body out to sea. Why? And what did he use for a weapon? I saw the body, remember, and I’d swear those hands were chopped off, not cut, nor sawed, chopped. So much for the kitchen knife! Seton’s chopper is still in the pantry. And your aunt’s-if that was the weapon-was stolen about three months ago.”
“So Digby Seton is out. What about the others?”
“We’ve only had time for a preliminary check. I’m taking their statements this afternoon. But it looks as if they’ve all got alibis of a sort for the time of death. All except Miss Dalgliesh. Living alone as she does, that’s not surprising.”
The flat, monotonous voice did not change. The sombre eyes still looked out to sea. But Dalgliesh was not deceived. So this was the reason for the summons to Seton House, for the Inspector’s unexpected outburst of confidence. He knew how it must look to Reckless. Here was an elderly, unmarried woman living a lonely and isolated life. She had no alibi for the time of death nor for Wednesday night when the body was launched out to sea. She had an almost private access to the beach. She knew where Sheldrake lay. She was nearly six foot tall, a strong, agile countrywoman, addicted to strenuous walking and accustomed to the night.
Admittedly she had no apparent motive. But what did that matter? Despite what he had said to his aunt that morning Dalgliesh knew perfectly well that motive was not the first concern. The detective who concentrated logically on the “where,” “when” and “how” would inevitably have the “why” revealed to him in all its pitiful inadequacy. Dalgliesh’s old chief used to say that the four L’s-love, lust, loathing and lucre-comprised all motives for murder. Superficially that was true enough. But motive was as varied and complex as human personality. He had no doubt that the Inspector’s horribly experienced mind was already busy recalling past cases where the weeds of suspicion, loneliness or irrational dislike had flowered into unexpected violence and death.
Suddenly Dalgliesh was seized with an anger so intense that for a few seconds it paralysed speech and even thought. It swept through his body like a wave of physical nausea leaving him white and shaken with self-disgust. Choked with this anger he was luckily saved from the worst follies of speech, from sarcasm, indignation or the futile protest that his aunt would, of course, make no statement except in the presence of her solicitor. She needed no solicitor. She had him. But, God, what a holiday this was proving to be!
There was a creak of wheels and Sylvia Kedge spun her wheelchair through the French windows and manoeuvred it up beside them. She didn’t speak but gazed intently down the track towards the road. Their eyes followed hers. A post office van, brightly compact as a toy, was careering over the headland towards the house.
“It’s the post,” she said. Dalgliesh saw that her hands were clamped to the chair sides, the knuckles white. As the van drew up before the terrace he watched her body half-rise and stiffen as if seized with a sudden rigor. In the silence which followed the stopping of the engine, he could hear her heavy breathing.
The postman slammed the van door and came towards them, calling a cheerful greeting. There was no response from the girl and he glanced puzzled from her rigid face to the still figures of the two men. Then he handed Reckless the post. It was a single foolscap envelope, buff coloured and with a typewritten address.
“It’s the same kind as before, Sir,” he said. “Like the one I gave her yesterday.” He nodded towards Miss Kedge, then, still getting no response, backed awkwardly towards his van muttering, “Good morning.”
Reckless spoke to Dalgliesh: “Addressed to Maurice Seton, Esq. Posted either late on Wednesday or early on Thursday from Ipswich. Postmarked midday yesterday.”
He held the envelope delicately by one corner as if anxious not to impose more fingerprints. With his right thumb he edged it open. Inside there was a single sheet of foolscap paper covered with double-spaced typescript.
