The Mudflats of the Dead

well-read, and the story seemed to him well constructed and well written and to contain no legally objectionable matter whatsoever. He submitted the book to a solicitor well versed in libel cases, and received complete confirmation of his views.

‘Even if somebody in the know thought he was one of the characters,’ said the lawyer, ‘there is nothing which would stand up in the courts and certainly nothing, so far as I can see, which would lead the author to decide to withdraw the book from publication, let alone cause somebody to want him out of the way.’

‘All the same,’ said Pinhurst, ‘I think I’ll get a psychologist on to the thing. He may be able to read between the lines and find something which I can’t.’

‘She, not he,’ said the solicitor. ‘Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is your answer. She’s not only at the top of her profession, but she’s the mother of Sir Ferdinand Lestrange, Q.C., and a noted criminologist, attached to the Home Office, at that. Besides, I happen to know that she took an interest in that case of drowning at a place called Saltacres. The girl was found dead on the mudflats there and the mystery of her death has never really been cleared up.’

‘There’s still a doubt as to whether that was murder, accident or suicide, though, Mr Billington,’ said Pinhurst. ‘That’s how I understood it; whereas there’s no doubt about Palgrave. That was murder all right. But I’ll certainly contact Dame Beatrice. Further to what you said, her secretary is the Assistant Commissioner’s missus, so it’s all in the family, so to speak.’

‘I can add one more item. Palgrave knew the Hoveton St John girl. I stayed with my brother and another chap at the same place as where the girl got drowned. Dame Beatrice came to us about it and, of course, it was in all the local papers anyway.’

CHAPTER 16

FAINT, BUT PURSUING

‘Oh whaur hae ye been, Lord Rendel, my son?

O whaur hae ye been, my sweet pretty one?’

Lord Rendel (Border ballad)

« ^ »

Before contacting Dame Beatrice, Pinhurst said,

‘I reckon the first thing to do is to go through this lot again.’ He pushed the gleanings from Palgrave’s bureau across the desk to his sergeant. ‘You take first knock. Damned if I can come up with anything from them. If there were large, unaccounted-for sums of money in his bank account, I might suspect he’d been blackmailing somebody and the worm had turned, but there aren’t. The book is about blackmail, of course, but so are lots of thrillers.’

‘Schoolmasters don’t blackmail people, sir. If there was anything of that sort, the boot would be on the other foot, and, anyway, he wouldn’t have written about it.’

‘Suppose he’d got the goods on a colleague?’

‘It’s too melodramatic, sir.’

‘Well, you make a suggestion.’

‘A second bank account in another name?’

‘But you don’t believe in my blackmail theory.’

‘I believe in trying anything once, sir, but, no, I can’t swallow the blackmail idea, not with a schoolmaster. I’d as soon believe it of a parson.’

‘I knew a parson – knew of him, I mean – who was had up for paederasty, so you can’t go by a man’s calling. The thing is, where do we go from here?’

‘I’ll make a start on these business letters and bills for the second time of asking, as you suggested, sir. There just might be something.’

‘Well, if you can find it you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din. And that wouldn’t surprise me,’ said the Detective-Inspector dispiritedly. ‘This is my first case of murder – classical murder, I mean, not pub-brawl stabbings and beating up the Pakis and all that sort of thing – and I’m falling down on it. There doesn’t seem to be a lead anywhere.’

The young sergeant got to work on Palgrave’s papers and some time later made his report.

‘Only one thing strikes me, sir, and I don’t suppose it’s important. There’s a bill here – a receipted bill – from an agency which does typing for authors.’

‘Yes, I know. I didn’t miss it.’

‘Of course not, sir.’

‘So what?’

‘The bill is for typing a top copy and two carbons of a book called Lost Parenthesis.’

‘Granted. Don’t think much of the title. Wouldn’t tempt me to pick it up off a bookstall or even off the shelves in a public library, if I hadn’t felt bound to read the typescript as being one of the documents.’

‘There is also a bill for two photo copies. The thing is – where are they?’

‘Oh, they would have been sent off to different publishers, I expect, in hopes that one copy would strike oil. That’s the way these authors work, no doubt.’

‘But Palgrave wouldn’t need to do that sort of thing, sir. He already had a publisher. This was his second book and we’ve got the original signed contract agreeing to publish his first novel called If Wishes Were Horses and calling for an option on another book from him. He wouldn’t have needed to go touting for a publisher. No doubt this option book is Lost Parenthesis.’

‘I still think— oh, no, I don’t, though! You’re quite right. He had no need to shop around.’

‘No, sir, but that’s another matter which struck me. There is no letter from the publishers about Lost Parenthesis at all. There is the first letter from the literary agents, Peterhead and Peterhead, to say that they’ve received the typescript and are looking forward to reading it before they pass it on to the publishers, Kent and Weald, but it doesn’t look as though Kent and Weald ever received the typescript. I’m wondering whether that other letter from Peterheads, which Palgrave never read because he must have been dead when the landlady put it in his room, was in answer to one of his asking Peterheads not to send Kent and Weald his novel.’

‘That sounds a bit strange. I think I’ll get on to Peterheads and find out what they’re up to. Probably got a lot of scripts to place and haven’t got around to reading Palgrave’s novel yet. Perhaps, when they do, they’ll see why he wanted it withdrawn – if he did!’

‘Likely enough, sir, but then there’s another thing. He would have sent Peterheads the top copy, no doubt, but that still leaves the photo copies and one of the carbons (there is only one of the carbons among his papers) unaccounted for.’

‘Oh, that’s easily explained, I think. He probably lent them around among people he thought would read them uncritically and tell him what a genius he was. These writer chaps are all pretty conceited, I expect, especially when they’ve only had one book published. I remember my nephew getting a letter printed in the Daily Courier. Talked about it for weeks. Oh, yes, ten to one he distributed the copies among his friends. I can’t see that it matters what he did with them, anyway.’

‘No, sir. It just struck me as peculiar, that’s all. And there’s another thing, sir. Why the photo copies if he already had two carbons?’

‘Surely that’s an easy one. If his own publisher turned the book down – always a possibility, I suppose – he would need new fresh-looking copies to send to other firms.’

‘Then where are they, sir? That was only a carbon we found. You can’t mistake a carbon for photo copy. I’ve done enough typing in this office, sir, to know. I can’t help feeling there could be something funny about the other copies, even if a friend has the missing carbon, sir.’

‘Well, you’d better go in chase of his friends, then, but I think you’ll be wasting your time. Still, we’ve no other lead. Start with that young fellow from the school. He seems to have known Palgrave pretty well. He may know