“Surely that was a grave handicap for a detective writer?”
“Oh, he didn’t actually do murder as far as I know. At least, not in the service of his writing. But he kept to familiar characters and settings. You know the kind of thing. Cosy English village or small-town scene. Local characters moving on the chessboard strictly according to rank and station. The comforting illusion that violence is exceptional, that all policemen are honest, that the English class system hasn’t changed in the last twenty years and that murderers aren’t gentlemen. He was absolutely meticulous about detail though. He never described a murder by shooting, for example, because he couldn’t understand firearms. But he was very sound on toxicology and his forensic medical knowledge was considerable. He took a great deal of trouble with rigor mortis and details like that. It peeved him when the reviewers didn’t notice it and the readers didn’t care.”
Dalgliesh said: “So you saw him about ten weeks ago. How was that?”
“He wrote and asked to see me. He came to London purposely and we met in my office just after six-fifteen when most of the staff had left. Afterwards we came here to dine. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Adam. He was going to alter his will. This letter explains why.” He took a folded sheet of writing paper from his wallet and handed it to Dalgliesh. The paper was headed “Seton House, Monksmere Head, Suffolk.” The letter, dated thirtieth July, was typed and the typing, although accurate, was inexpert, and something about the spacing and the word division at the end of lines marked it as the work of an amateur. Dalgliesh realised immediately that he had recently seen one other typescript by the same hand. He read:
Dalgliesh was conscious of Gurney’s little black eyes on him as he read. When he had finished he handed back the letter, saying: “He was expecting rather a lot of you, wasn’t he? What was the firm getting out of it?”
“Oh, nothing, my dear Adam. Just a lot of hard work and worry and all of course for the greater glory of Maurice Seton. He didn’t even restrict the prize to our list. Not that it would have been reasonable, I admit. He wanted to attract all the really big names. One of his chief worries was whether they would bother to apply. I told him to make the prize large enough and they’d apply all right. But ?120,000! I never realized he was worth that.”
“His wife had money… Did he talk to anyone else about his plan do you know, Max?”
“Well, he said not. He was rather like a schoolboy about it. Tremendous swearings to secrecy and I had to promise I wouldn’t even telephone him about it. But you see my problem. Do I, or do I not, hand this over to the police?”
“Of course. To Inspector Reckless of the Suffolk CID, to be precise. I’ll give you his address. And you’d better phone him to say it’s on the way.”
“I thought you’d say that. It’s obvious, I suppose. But one has these irrational inhibitions. I know nothing of his present heir. But I imagine that this letter gives someone a whacking great motive.”
“The best. But we’ve no evidence that his heir knew. And, if it’s any comfort to you, the man with the strongest financial motive also has the strongest alibi. He was in police custody when Maurice Seton died.”
“That was clever of him… I suppose I couldn’t just hand this letter over to you, Adam?”
“I’m sorry, Max. I’d rather not.”
Gurney sighed, replaced the letter in his wallet and gave his attention to the meal. They did not talk again of Seton until lunch was over and Max was enveloping himself in the immense black cloak which he invariably wore between October and May, and which gave him the appearance of an amateur conjuror who had seen better days.
“I shall be late for our Board meeting if I don’t hurry. We have become very formal, Adam, very efficient. Nothing is decided except by resolution of the whole Board. It’s the effect of our new buildings. In the old days we sat closeted in our dusty cells and made our own decisions. It led to a certain ambiguity about the firm’s policy but I’m not sure that was such a bad thing… Can I drop you anywhere? Who are you off to investigate next?”
“I’ll walk, thank you, Max. I’m going to Soho to have a chat with a murderer.”
Max paused, surprised. “Not Seton’s murderer? I thought you and the Suffolk CID were baffled. D’you mean I’ve been wrestling with my conscience for nothing?”
“No, this murderer didn’t kill Seton although I don’t suppose he would have had any moral objections. Certainly someone is hoping to persuade the police that he’s implicated. It’s L. J. Luker. Remember him?”
“Didn’t he shoot his business partner in the middle of Piccadilly and get away with it? It was in 1959, wasn’t it?”
“That’s the man. The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the verdict on grounds of misdirection. Mr. Justice Brothwick, through some extraordinary aberration, suggested to the jury that a man who made no reply when charged probably had something to hide. He must have realised the consequences as soon as the words were out of his mouth. But they were said. And Luker went free, just as he said he would.”
“And how does he tie up with Maurice Seton? I can’t imagine two men with less in common.”
“That,” said Dalgliesh, “is what I’m hoping to find out.”
2
Dalgliesh walked through Soho to the Cortez Club. With his mind still freshened by the clean emptiness of Suffolk he found these canyoned streets, even in their afternoon doldrums, more than usually depressing. It was difficult to believe that he had once enjoyed walking through this shoddy gulch. Now even a month’s absence made the return less tolerable. It was largely a matter of mood, no doubt, for the district is all things to all men, catering comprehensively for those needs which money can buy. You see it as you wish. An agreeable place to dine; a cosmopolitan village tucked away behind Piccadilly with its own mysterious village life; one of the best shopping centres for food in London; the nastiest and most sordid nursery of crime in Europe. Even the travel journalists, obsessed by its ambiguities, can’t make up their minds. Passing the strip clubs, the grubby basement stairs, the silhouettes of bored girls against the upstairs window blinds, Dalgliesh thought that a daily walk through these ugly streets could drive any man into a monastery, less from sexual disgust than from an intolerable ennui with the sameness, the joylessness of lust.
The Cortez Club was no better and no worse than its neighbours. There were the usual photographs outside
