Unnatural Causes (18 page)

At the opposite end of the room stood a couple of showcases containing what was, in effect, a small museum of murder. As the exhibits had been given or bequeathed by members over the years and accepted in the same spirit of uncritical benevolence they varied as greatly in interest as, Dalgliesh suspected, in authenticity. There had been no attempt at chronological classification and little at accurate labelling and the objects had been placed in the showcases with more apparent care for the general artistic effect than for logical arrangement. There was a flintlock duelling pistol, silver-mounted and with gold-lined flashpans, which was labelled as the weapon used by the Rev. James Hackman, executed at Tyburn in 1779 for the murder of Margaret Reay, mistress of the Earl of Sandwich. Dalgliesh thought it unlikely. He judged that the pistol was made some fifteen years later. But he could
believe that the glittering and beautiful thing had an evil history. There was no need to doubt the authenticity of the next exhibit, a letter, brown and brittle with age from Mary Blandy to her lover thanking him for the gift of “powder to clean the Scotch pebbles”—the arsenic which was to kill her father and bring her to the scaffold. In the same case a Bible with the signature “Constance Kent” on the flyleaf, a tattered rag of pyjama jacket said to have formed part of the wrapping around Mrs. Crippen’s body, a small cotton glove labelled as belonging to Madeline Smith and a phial of white powder, “arsenic found in the possession of Major Herbert Armstrong.” If the stuff were genuine there was enough there to cause havoc in the dining room, and the showcases were unlocked.

But when Dalgliesh voiced his concern Plant smiled: “That’s not arsenic, Sir. Sir Charles Winkworth said just the same as yourself about nine months ago. ‘Plant,’ he said, ‘if that stuff’s arsenic we must get rid of it or lock it up.’ So we took a sample and sent it off to be analysed on the quiet. It’s bicarbonate of soda, Sir, that’s what it is. I’m not saying it didn’t come from Major Armstrong and I’m not denying it wasn’t bicarb that killed his wife. But that stuff’s harmless. We left it there and said nothing. After all, it’s been arsenic for the last thirty years and it might as well go on being arsenic. As Sir Charles said, start looking at the exhibits too closely and we’ll have no museum left. And now, Sir, if you’ll excuse me I think I ought to be in the dining room. That is, unless there’s anything else I can show you.”

Dalgliesh thanked him and let him go. But he lingered himself for a few more minutes in the library. He had a tantalising and irrational feeling that somewhere, and very recently, he had seen a clue to Seton’s death, a fugitive hint which his subconscious mind had registered but which obstinately
refused to come forward and be recognised. This experience was not new to him. Like every good detective, he had known it before. Occasionally it had led him to one of those seemingly intuitive successes on which his reputation partly rested. More often the transitory impression, remembered and analysed, had been found irrelevant. But the subconscious could not be forced. The clue, if clue it were, for the moment eluded him. And now the clock above the fireplace was striking one. His host would be waiting for him.

There was a thin fire in the dining room, its flame hardly visible in the shaft of autumn sunlight which fell obliquely across tables and carpet. It was a plain, comfortable room, reserved for the serious purpose of eating, the solid tables well spaced, flowerless, the linen glistening white. There was a series of original “Phiz” drawings for the illustrations to
Martin Chuzzlewit
on the walls for no good reason except that a prominent member had recently given them. They were, Dalgliesh thought, an agreeable substitute for the series of scenes from old Tyburn which had previously adorned the room but which he suspected the Committee, tenacious of the past, had taken down with some regret.

Only one main dish is served at luncheon or dinner at the Cadaver Club, Mrs. Plant holding the view that, with a limited staff, perfection is incompatible with variety. There is always a salad and cold meats as alternative and those who fancy neither this nor the main dish are welcome to try if they can do better elsewhere. Today, as the menu on the library notice board had proclaimed, they were to have melon, steak and kidney pudding, and lemon soufflé. Already the first puddings, napkin swathed, were being borne in.

Max Gurney was waiting for him at a corner table, conferring with Plant about the wine. He raised a plump hand in
episcopal salute which gave the impression both of greeting his guest and of bestowing a blessing on the lunches generally. Dalgliesh felt immediately glad to see him. This was the emotion which Max Gurney invariably provoked. He was a man whose company was seldom unwelcome. Urbane, civilised and generous, he had an enjoyment of life and of people which was infectious and sustaining. He was a big man who yet gave an impression of lightness, bouncing along on small, high-arched feet, hands fluttering, eyes black and bright behind the immense horn-rimmed spectacles. He beamed at Dalgliesh.

“Adam! This is delightful. Plant and I have agreed that the Johannisberger Auslese 1959 would be very pleasant, unless you have a fancy for something lighter. Good. I do dislike discussing wine longer than I need. It makes me feel I’m behaving too like the Hon. Martin Carruthers.”

This was a new light on Seton’s detective. Dalgliesh said that he hadn’t realised that Seton understood wine.

“Nor did he, poor Maurice. He didn’t even care for it greatly. He had an idea that it was bad for his heart. No, he got all the details from books. Which meant, of course, that Carruthers’ taste was deplorably orthodox. You are looking very well, Adam. I was afraid that I might find you slightly deranged under the strain of having to watch someone else’s investigation.”

Dalgliesh replied gravely that he had suffered more in pride than in health but that the strain was considerable. Luncheon with Max would, as always, be a solace.

Nothing more was said about Seton’s death for twenty minutes. Both were engaged with the business of eating. But when the pudding had been served and the wine poured Max said: “Now, Adam, this business of Maurice Seton. I may say I heard of his death with a sense of shock and”—he selected
a succulent piece of beef and speared it to a button mushroom and half a kidney—”outrage. And so, of course, have the rest of the firm. We do not expect to lose our authors in such a spectacular way.”

“Good for sales, though?” suggested Dalgliesh mischievously.

“Oh no! Not really, dear boy. That is a common misconception. Even if Seton’s death were a publicity stunt, which, admit it, would suggest somewhat excessive zeal on poor Maurice’s part, I doubt whether it would sell a single extra copy. A few dozen old ladies will add his last book to their library lists but that isn’t quite the same thing. Have you read his latest, by the way?
One for the Pot
, an arsenic killing set in a pottery works. He spent three weeks last April learning to throw pots before he wrote it, so conscientious always. But no, I suppose you wouldn’t read detective fiction.”

“I’m not being superior,” said Dalgliesh. “You can put it down to envy. I resent the way in which fictional detectives can arrest their man and get a full confession gratis on evidence which wouldn’t justify me in applying for a warrant. I wish real-life murderers panicked that easily. There’s also the little matter that no fictional detective seems to have heard of the Judge’s Rules.”

“Oh, the Honourable Martin is a perfect gentleman. You could learn a lot from him, I’m sure. Always ready with the apt quotation and a devil with the women. All perfectly respectable of course but you can see that the female suspects are panting to leap into bed with the Hon. if only Seton would let them. Poor Maurice! There was a certain amount of wishfulfilment there I think.”

“What about his style?” asked Dalgliesh, who was beginning to think that his reading had been unnecessarily restricted.

“Turgid but grammatical. And, in these days, when every
illiterate debutante thinks she is a novelist, who am I to quarrel with that? Written I imagine with Fowler on his left hand and Roget on his right. Stale, flat and, alas, rapidly becoming unprofitable. I didn’t want to take him on when he left Maxwell Dawson five years ago but I was outvoted. He was almost written out then. But we’ve always had one or two crime novelists on the list and we bought him. Both parties regretted it, I think, but we hadn’t yet come to the parting of the ways.”

“What was he like as a person?” asked Dalgliesh.

“Oh, difficult. Very difficult, poor fellow! I thought you knew him? A precise, self-opinionated, nervous little man perpetually fretting about his sales, his publicity or his book jackets. He overvalued his own talent and undervalued everyone else’s, which didn’t exactly make for popularity.”

“A typical writer, in fact?” suggested Dalgliesh mischievously.

“Now Adam, that’s naughty. Coming from a writer, it’s treason. You know perfectly well that our people are as hard-working, agreeable and talented a bunch as you’ll find outside any mental hospital. No, he wasn’t typical. He was more unhappy and insecure than most. I felt sorry for him occasionally but that charitable impulse seldom survived ten minutes in his company.”

Dalgliesh asked whether Seton had mentioned that he was changing his genre.

“Yes, he did. When I last saw him about ten weeks ago. I had to listen to the usual diatribe about the decline of standards and the exploitation of sex and sadism but then he told me that he was planning to write a thriller himself. In theory, of course, I should have welcomed the change, but, in fact, I couldn’t quite see him pulling it off. He hadn’t the jargon or the expertise. It’s a highly professional game and Seton was lost when he went outside his own experience.”

“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:

Dear Gurney
,

I have been thinking over our conversation of last Friday—and here I must digress to thank you again for a most enjoyable
dinner—and I have come to the conclusion that my first instinct was right. There is absolutely no sense in doing things by half. If the Maurice Seton Literary Prize is to fulfill the great purpose which I plan for it the capital outlay must be adequate, not only to ensure that the monetary value of the award is commensurate with its importance, but also to finance the prize in perpetuity. I have no dependents with a legitimate claim on my estate. There are those people who may think they have a claim but that is a very different matter. My only living relative will be left a sum which hard work and prudence will enable him to augment should he choose to exercise these virtues. I am no longer prepared to do more. When this and other small bequests have been made there should be a capital sum of approximately £120,000 available to endow the prize. I tell you this so that you may have some idea of what I intend. As you know my health is not good and although there is no reason why I should not live for many years yet, I am anxious to get this affair under way. You know my views. The prize is to be awarded biennially for a major work of fiction. I am not interested particularly in encouraging the young. We have suffered enough in recent years from the self-pitying emotionalism of the adolescent writer. Nor do I favour realism. A novel should be a work of imaginative craftsmanship not the dreary shibboleths of a social worker’s casebook. Nor do I restrict the prize to detective fiction; what I understand by detective fiction is no longer being written
.

Perhaps you will think over these few ideas and let me know what you suggest. We shall need trustees of course and I shall consult lawyers in regard to the terms of my new will. At present, however, I am saying nothing about this plan to anyone and I rely on you to be equally discreet. There will inevitably be publicity when the details are known but I should much deplore any premature disclosures. I shall, as usual, be staying
at the Cadaver Club for the last two weeks in October and I suggest that you get in touch with me there
.

Yours sincerely
,

Maurice Seton

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.”