A Mind to Murder

7

Back in his office at the Yard just over two hours later, Dalgliesh talked over the case with Sergeant Martin. The file lay open on the desk before him.

“You got corroboration of Mrs. Fenton’s story all right, sir?”

“Oh, yes. The colonel was quite forthcoming. Now that he’s recovered from the twin ordeals of his operation and the confession to his wife, he’s inclined to take both experiences rather lightly. He even suggested that the request for money could have been genuine and that it was reasonable to assume that it was. I had to point out that a woman has been murdered before he faced the realities of the situation. Then he gave me the full story. It agreed with what Mrs. Fenton had told me except for one interesting addition. I give you three guesses.”

“Would it be about the burglary? It was Fenton, I suppose?”

“Damn you, Martin, you might make an effort sometimes to look surprised. Yes, it was our colonel. But he didn’t take the fifteen pounds. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. The money was his, after all. He admits himself that he would have taken it back if he’d seen it, but, of course, he didn’t. He was there for quite another purpose, to get hold of that medical record. He was a bit out of his depth in most things but he did realize that the medical record was the only real evidence of what happened when he was a patient at the Steen. He mucked up his burglary attempt, of course, despite having practised glass-cutting in his greenhouse, and made an undignified exit when he heard Nagle and Cully arriving. He got nowhere near the record he wanted. He assumed it was in one of the files in the general office and managed to prise those open. When he saw that the records were filed numerically, he knew he couldn’t succeed. He had long forgotten his clinic number. I expect he put it firmly out of his mind when he felt he was cured.”

“Well, the clinic did that for him, anyway.”

“He doesn’t admit it, I can tell you. I believe that’s not uncommon with psychiatric patients. It must be rather disheartening for psychiatrists. After all, you don’t get surgical patients claiming that they could have performed their own operation given half a chance. No, the colonel isn’t feeling particularly grateful to the Steen nor inclined to give the clinic much credit for keeping him out of trouble. I suppose he could be right. I don’t imagine that Dr. Etherege would claim that you can do a great deal for a psychiatric patient in four months which was the length of time Fenton attended. His cure—if you can call it that—probably had something to do with leaving the army. It’s difficult to judge whether he welcomed that or dreaded it. Anyway, we’d better resist the temptation to be amateur psychologists.”

“What sort of man is the colonel, sir?”

“Small. Probably looks smaller because of his illness. Sandy hair; bushy eyebrows. Rather like a small, fierce animal glaring out from its hole. A much weaker personality than his wife, I’d say, despite Mrs. Fenton’s apparent frailty. Admittedly it’s difficult to be at one’s best lying in a hospital bed wearing a striped bed jacket and with a formidable Sister warning one to be a good boy and not talk too long. He wasn’t very helpful about the telephone voice. He says that it sounded like a woman and it never occurred to him that it mightn’t be. On the other hand he wasn’t surprised when I suggested that the voice could have been disguised. But he’s honest and, obviously, he can’t go further than that. He just doesn’t know. Still, we’ve got the motive. This is one of those rare cases in which knowing why is knowing who.”

“Are you applying for a warrant?”

“Not yet. We’re not ready. If we don’t go carefully now, the whole case could come apart in our hands.”

Again he was visited by the chilling presentiment of disaster. He found himself analysing the case as if he had already failed. Where had it gone wrong? He had shown his hand to the murderer when he had taken the clinic diagnostic index so openly into the medical director’s room. That fact would be round the clinic quickly enough. He had meant it to be. There came a time when it was useful to frighten your man. But was this killer the kind who could be frightened into betraying himself? Had it been an error of judgement to move so openly?

Suddenly Martin’s plain, honest face looked irritatingly bovine as he stood there unhelpfully waiting for instructions. Dalgliesh said: “You went to the Priddys’ place, I suppose. Well, let’s have the dirt about that. The girl is married, I suppose?”

“There’s no doubt about that, sir. I was there earlier this evening and I had a chat with the parents. Luckily Miss Priddy was out, fetching fish and chips for supper. They’re in quite poor circumstances.”

“That’s a non sequitur. However, go on.”

“There isn’t much to report. They live in one of those terrace houses leading down to the southern railway line in Balham. Everything’s very comfortable and neat but there’s no television or anything like that. I suppose their religion’s against it. Both the Priddys are over sixty, I reckon. Jennifer’s the only child and her mother must have been more than forty when she was born. It’s the usual story about the marriage. I was surprised they told me but they did. The husband’s a warehouseman; used to work with the girl at her last job. Then there was a baby on the way so they had to get married.”

“It’s almost pitiably common. You’d think that her generation, who think they know all the answers about sex, would make themselves familiar with a few basic facts. However, we’re told these little mishaps don’t worry anyone these days.”

Dalgliesh was shocked by the bitterness in his own voice. Was it really necessary, he wondered, to protest quite so vehemently about so common a little tragedy? What was happening to him?

Martin said stolidly: “They worry people like the Priddys. These kids get themselves into trouble but it’s usually the despised older generation who have to cope. The Priddys did their best. They made the kids marry, of course. There isn’t much room in the house but they gave up the first floor and made it into a small flat for the young couple. Very nicely done it was too. They showed me.”

Dalgliesh thought how much he disliked the expression “young couple,” with its cosy undertones of dewy-eyed domesticity, its echo of disillusion.

“You seem to have made a hit in your brief visit,” he said.

“I liked them, sir. They’re good people. The marriage didn’t last, of course, and I think that they wonder now whether they did the right thing in forcing it. The chap left Balham over two years ago and they don’t know where he is now. They told me his name and I saw his photograph. He’s got nothing to do with the Steen Clinic, sir.”

“I didn’t think he had. We hardly expected to discover that Jennifer Priddy was Mrs. Henry Etherege. Neither her parents nor her husband have anything to do with this crime.”

Nor had they, except that their lives, like flying tangents, had made brief contact with the circle of death. Every murder case produced such people. Dalgliesh had sat more times than he could remember in sitting rooms, bedrooms, pubs and police stations talking to people who had come, however briefly, in touch with murder. Violent death was a great releaser of inhibitions, the convulsive kick which spun open the top of so many anthills. His job, in which he could deceive himself that non-involvement was a duty, had given him glimpses into the secret lives of men and women whom he might never see again except as half-recognized faces in a London crowd. Sometimes he despised his private image, the patient, uninvolved, uncensorious inquisitor of other people’s misery and guilt. How long could you stay detached, he wondered, before you lost your own soul?

“What happened to the child?” he asked suddenly.

“She had a miscarriage, sir,” answered Martin. Of course, thought Dalgliesh. She would. Nothing could go right for such as the Priddys. Tonight he felt that he, too, was tainted with their ill luck. He asked what Martin had learned about Miss Bolam.

“Not much that we didn’t know already. They went to the same church and Jennifer Priddy used to be a Girl Guide in Bolam’s company. The old people spoke of her with a great deal of respect. She was helpful to them when the baby was on the way—I got the impression that she paid to have the house converted—and, when the marriage failed, she suggested that the Priddy child should work at the Steen. I think the old people were glad to think that someone was keeping an eye on Jenny. They couldn’t tell me much about Miss Bolam’s private life, at least nothing that we don’t know. There was one odd thing though. It happened when the girl got back with the supper. Mrs. Priddy asked me to stay and have a meal with them but I said I’d better be getting back. You know what it is with fish and chips. You just buy the right number of pieces and it isn’t easy to fit in an extra. Anyway, they called the girl in to say ‘good-bye’ and she came in from the kitchen looking like death. She only stayed a second or two and the old people didn’t seem to notice anything. But I did. Something had scared the kid properly.”

“Finding you there, perhaps. She may have thought that you’d mentioned her friendship with Nagle.”

“I don’t think it was that, sir. She looked into the sitting room when she first got back from the shop and said ‘good evening’ without turning a hair. I explained that I was just having a chat with her parents because they were friends of Miss Bolam and might be able to tell us something useful about her private life. It didn’t seem to worry her. It was about five minutes later that she came back looking so odd.”

“No one arrived at the house or telephoned during that time?”

“No. I heard no one anyway. They aren’t on the phone. I suppose it was something that occurred to her while she was alone in the kitchen. I couldn’t very well ask her. I was on my way out and there wasn’t anything you could put tongue to. I just told them all that if they thought of anything that might help, they should let us know at once.”

“We’ve got to see her again, of course, and the sooner the better. That alibi’s got to be broken and she’s the only one who can do it. I don’t think the girl was consciously lying or even deliberately withholding evidence. The truth simply never occurred to her.”

“Nor to me, sir, until we got the motive. What do you want to do now? Let him sweat a bit?”

“I daren’t, Martin. It’s too dangerous. We’ve got to press on. I think we’ll go now and have a little chat with Nagle.”

But when they reached the Pimlico house twenty minutes later, they found the flat locked and a folded scrap of paper wedged under the knocker. Dalgliesh smoothed it out and read aloud. “Darling. Sorry I missed you. I must speak to you. If I don’t see you tonight, I’ll be at the clinic early. Love, Jenny.”

“Any point in waiting for him, sir?”

“I doubt it. I think I can guess where he is. Cully was on the board when we did our phoning this morning but I made sure that Nagle, and probably everyone else at the Steen, knew that I was interesting myself in the medical records. I asked Dr. Etherege to put them back after I left. Nagle goes into the Steen on one or two evenings in the week to see to the boiler and turn off the art-therapy-department kiln. I imagine that he’s there tonight, taking the opportunity of seeing which records have been moved. We’ll look in anyway.”

As the car moved northwards towards the river, Martin said: “It’s easy to see that he needed the cash. You couldn’t rent a flat like that on a porter’s pay. And then there would be his painting gear.”

“Yes. The studio is pretty impressive: I should like you to have seen it. And there were the lessons from Sugg. Nagle may have got those on the cheap but Sugg doesn’t teach for nothing. I don’t think the blackmailing was particularly lucrative. That’s where he was clever. There was probably more than one victim and the amounts were nicely calculated. But even if he only made fifteen to thirty pounds a month, tax free, it would be enough to carry him over until he won the Bollinger or made his name.”

“Is he any good?” asked Sergeant Martin. There were subjects on which he never expressed an opinion but took it for granted that his super was an expert.

“The trustees of the Bollinger Trust think so, apparently.”

“There’s not much doubt is there, sir?” And Martin was not referring to Nagle’s talent for painting.

Dalgliesh said irritably: “Of course there’s doubt. There always is at this stage of an investigation. But consider what we know. The blackmailer instructed that the cash should be sent in a distinctively addressed envelope, presumably so that he could pick it out before the post was opened. Nagle gets to the clinic first and is responsible for sorting and distributing the post. Colonel Fenton was asked to send the money so that it arrived on the first of each month. Nagle came to the clinic on 1st May although he was ill and had to be taken home later. I don’t think it was anxiety about the Duke’s visit that brought him in. The only time he didn’t manage to get first to work was the day he got stuck in the tube and that was the day Miss Bolam received fifteen pounds from an unknown grateful patient.

“And now we come to the murder and theory replaces fact. Nagle was helping on the switchboard that morning because of Cully’s bellyache. He listens to Mrs. Fenton’s call. He knows what Miss Bolam’s reaction will be and, sure enough, he is asked to put through a call to the group offices. He listens again and learns that Mr. Lauder will be at the Steen after the JCC meeting. Sometime before then, Miss Bolam has got to die. But how? He can’t hope to entice her away from the Steen. What excuse could he use and how could he provide himself with an alibi? No, it must be done in the clinic. And perhaps that isn’t such a bad plan after all. The AO isn’t popular. With luck there will be plenty of suspects to keep the police occupied, some of them with pretty good reasons for wishing Miss Bolam dead.

“So he makes his plans. It was obvious, of course, that the phone call to Miss Bolam wasn’t necessarily made from the basement. Nearly all the rooms have telephones. But if the murderer wasn’t in the record room waiting for her, how could he ensure that she would stay there until he could get down? That’s why Nagle chucked the records about. He knew Miss Bolam well enough to be fairly sure that she couldn’t bear not to pick them up. Dr. Baguley thought that her first reaction might be to phone for Nagle to help. She didn’t, of course, because she was expecting him to appear any minute. Instead she made a start on the job herself, giving him the two or three minutes that he needed.

“This is what I think happened. At about ten past six he goes down to the porters’ restroom to put on his outdoor coat. It’s then that he unlocks the record-room door and throws the files on the floor. He leaves the light on and shuts the door but doesn’t bolt it. Then he unlocks the back door. Next he goes into the general office to collect the outgoing post. Miss Priddy is there but periodically visits the adjoining filing room. He only needs half a minute to telephone Miss Bolam and to ask her to come down to the record room as he has something serious to show her. We know how she reacted to that message. Before Nagle has a chance to replace the receiver, Jennifer Priddy is back. He keeps his head, depresses the receiver rest and pretends to be speaking to Nurse Bolam about the laundry. Then, without wasting any more time, he leaves with the post. He has only to take it to the box across the road. Then he darts down the mews, enters the basement by the unlocked back door, slips the chisel in his pocket, collects Tippett’s fetish and enters the record room. Miss Bolam is there as he expects, kneeling to pick up the torn and scattered files. She looks up at him, ready no doubt to ask where he’s been. But before she has time to speak, he strikes. Once she’s unconscious he can take his time over the stabbing. There mustn’t be any mistake and there isn’t. Nagle paints from the nude and his knowledge of anatomy is probably as good as that of most psychiatrists. And he was handy with that chisel. For this most important job he chose a tool he had confidence in and knew how to use.”

Martin said: “He couldn’t have got down to the basement in time if he’d walked to the corner of Beefsteak Street for his Standard. But the newsboy there couldn’t swear that he’d seen him. He was carrying a paper when he returned to the Steen but he could have got that in his lunch hour and kept it in his pocket.”

“I think he did,” said Dalgliesh. “That’s why he wouldn’t let Cully see it to check the racing results. Cully would have seen at once that it was the midday edition. Instead Nagle takes it downstairs and later uses it to wrap up the cat’s food before burning it in the boiler. He wasn’t in the basement alone for long, of course. Jenny Priddy was hard on his heels. But he had time to bolt the back door again and visit Nurse Bolam to ask if the clean laundry was ready to be carried upstairs. If Priddy hadn’t come down, Nagle would have joined her in the general office. He would take care not to be alone in the basement for more than a minute. The killing had to be fixed for the time when he was out with the post.”

Martin said: “I wondered why he didn’t unbolt the basement door after the killing but, like as not, he couldn’t bring himself to draw attention to it. After all, if an outsider could have gained access that way, it wouldn’t take long for people to start thinking ‘and so could Nagle.’ He took that fifteen quid no doubt after Colonel Fenton’s break-in. The local boys always did think it odd that the thief knew where to find it. Nagle thought he had a right to it, I suppose.”

“More likely he wanted to obscure the reason for the break-in, to make it look like a common burglary. It wouldn’t do for the police to start wondering why an unknown intruder should want to get his hands on the medical records. Pinching that fifteen pounds—which only Nagle had the chance to do—confused the issue. So did that business with the lift, of course. That was a nice touch. It would only take a minute to wind it up to the second floor before he slipped out of the basement door and there was a reasonable chance that someone would hear it and remember.”

Sergeant Martin thought that it all hung together very well but that it was going to be the devil to prove and said so.

“That’s why I showed my hand at the clinic yesterday. We’ve got to get him rattled. That’s why it’s worth looking in at the Steen tonight. If he’s there we’ll put on the pressure a bit. At least we know now where we’re going.”

Half an hour before Dalgliesh and Martin called at the Pimlico flat, Peter Nagle let himself into the Steen by the front door and locked it behind him. He did not put on the lights but made his way to the basement with the aid of his heavy torch. There wasn’t much to be done: just the kiln to be turned off, the boiler inspected. Then there was a little matter of his own to be attended to. It would mean entering the record room but that warm, echoing place of death had no terror for him. The dead were dead, finished, powerless, silenced for ever. In a world of increasing uncertainty, that much was certain. A man with the nerve to kill had much that he might reasonably fear. But he had nothing to fear from the dead.

It was then that he heard the front-door bell. It was a hesitant, tentative ring but it sounded unnaturally loud in the silence of the clinic. When he opened the door, the figure of Jenny slid through so quickly that she seemed to pass by him like a wraith, a slim ghost born of the darkness and mist of the night.

She said breathlessly: “I’m sorry, darling, I had to see you. When you weren’t at the studio, I thought you might be here.”

“Did anyone see you at the studio?” he asked. He felt that the question was important without knowing why.

She looked up at him, surprised. “No. The house seemed empty. I didn’t meet anyone. Why?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Come on downstairs. I’ll light the gas stove. You’re shivering.”

They went down to the basement together, their footsteps echoing in the eerie, presageful calm of a house which, with tomorrow, would awaken to voices, movement and the ceaseless hum of purposeful activity. She began walking on tiptoe and, when she spoke, it was in whispers. At the top of the stairs she reached for his hand and he could feel hers trembling. Halfway down, there was a sudden faint noise and she started.

“What is it? What’s that noise?”

“Nothing. Tigger in his scratch tin, I imagine.”

When they were in the restroom and the fire was lit, he threw himself into one of the armchairs and smiled up at her. It was the devil of a nuisance that she should turn up now but somehow he must hide his irritation. With any luck he could get rid of her fairly quickly. She would be out of the clinic well before ten.

“Well?” he asked. Suddenly she was on the rug at his feet and clasping his thighs. Her pale eyes searched his in passionate entreaty.

“Darling, I’ve got to know! I don’t mind what you’ve done as long as I know. I love you and I want to help. Darling, you must tell me if you’re in any trouble.”

It was worse than he feared. Somehow she had got hold of something. But how, and what? Keeping his voice light he asked: “What sort of trouble, for God’s sake? You’ll be saying next that I killed her.”

“Oh, Peter, please don’t joke! I’ve been worried. There is something wrong, I know there is. It’s the money isn’t it? You took that fifteen pounds.”

He could have laughed aloud with relief. In a surge of emotion he put his arms round her and drew her down upon him, his voice muffled in her hair.

“You silly kid. I could have helped myself to the petty cash any time if I wanted to steal. What the hell started you off on this nonsense?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling myself. Why should you take it? Oh, darling, don’t be angry with me. I’ve been so worried. You see, it was the paper.”

“What paper, for God’s sake.” It was all he could do not to shake her into coherence. He was glad that she could not see his face. So long as he need not meet her eyes, he could fight his anger and the fatal, insidious panic. What in God’s name was she trying to say?

“The Standard. That sergeant came to see us this evening. I’d been to fetch the fish and chips. When I was unwrapping them in the kitchen, I looked at the paper they were wrapped in. It was Friday’s Standard and it had a large picture of that air crash all over the front page. Then I remembered that we had used your Standard to wrap up Tigger’s food and the front page was different. I hadn’t seen that picture before.”

He tightened his hold on her and said very quietly: “Did you say anything about this to the police?”

“Darling, of course I didn’t! Suppose it made them suspect you! I didn’t say anything to anyone but I needed to see you. I don’t care about the fifteen pounds. I don’t care if you did meet her in the basement. I know you didn’t kill her. All I want is for you to trust me. I love you and I want to help. I can’t bear it if you keep things from me.”

That’s what they all said but there wasn’t one in a million who really wanted to know the truth about a man. For a second he was tempted to tell her, spit the whole brutal story into her silly, pleading face and watch the sudden draining away of pity and love. She could probably bear to know about Bolam. What she couldn’t bear would be the knowledge that he hadn’t blackmailed for her sake, that he hadn’t acted to preserve their love, that there wasn’t any love to preserve and never had been. He would have to marry her, of course. He had always known that it might be necessary. Only she could effectively witness against him and there was one sure way to stop her tongue. But time was short. He planned to be in Paris by the end of the week. Now it looked as if he wouldn’t be travelling alone.

He thought quickly. Shifting her weight to the arm of the chair but still keeping his arms around her, his face resting against her cheek, he said softly: “Listen, darling. There’s something you’ve got to know. I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want to worry you. I did take the fifteen quid. It was a bloody stupid thing to do but there’s no sense in worrying about that now. I suppose Miss Bolam might have guessed. I don’t know. She didn’t say anything to me and it wasn’t I who phoned her. But I was in the basement after she was killed. I left the back door open and came back that way. I get sick of that old fool Cully booking me in and out as if I were as nutty as a patient and asking for the paper as soon as I appear. Why can’t he buy his own, the mean old devil. I thought I’d fool him for once. When I came in at the basement door, I saw that there was a light in the record room and the door was ajar, so I went to look. I found her body. I knew that I daren’t be found there, particularly if they ever discovered about the fifteen quid, so I said nothing and left again by the back door and came in as usual by the front. I’ve kept quiet ever since. I must, darling. I’ve got to take up the Bollinger by the end of this week and the police wouldn’t let me go if they started suspecting me. If I don’t get away now, I’ll never have the chance again as long as I live.”

That at least was true. He had to get away now. It had become an obsession. It wasn’t only the money, the freedom, the sun and the colours. It was the final vindication of the lean, pallid years of struggle and humiliation. He had to take up the Bollinger. Other painters could fail here and still succeed in the end. But not he.

And, even now, he might fail. It was a thin story. He was struck, as he spoke, by the inconsistencies, the improbabilities. But it hung together—just. He couldn’t see how she could prove it false. And she wouldn’t want to try. But he was surprised by her reaction.

“By the end of this week! You mean, you’re going to Paris almost at once. What about the clinic … your job?”

“For God’s sake, Jenny, what the hell does that matter? I shall leave without notice and they’ll find someone else. They’ll have to do without me.”

“And me?”

“You’re coming with me, of course. I always meant that you should. Surely you knew that?”

“No,” she said, and it seemed to him that her voice held a great sadness. “No, I never knew that.”

He tried to assume a tone of confidence tinged with slight reproach.

“I never discussed it because I thought there were some things we didn’t need to say. I know the time’s short but it’ll be easier if you don’t have to stick around too long at home waiting. They’d only get suspicious. You’ve got a passport, haven’t you? Didn’t you go to France with the Guides that Easter? What I suggest is that we marry by special licence as soon as possible—after all, we’ve got the money now—and write to your parents when we get to Paris. You do want to come, don’t you, Jenny?”

Suddenly she was shaking in his arms and he felt the warm wetness of her tears stinging his face.

“I thought you meant to go without me. The days went by and you never said anything. Of course, I want to come. I don’t care what happens as long as we’re together. But we can’t get married. I never told you because I was afraid you’d be angry and you’ve never asked me anything about myself. I can’t get married because I’m married already.”

The car had turned into Vauxhall Bridge Road but traffic was heavy and they were making poor time. Dalgliesh sat back in his seat, as if all day were before him, but inwardly he was fidgeting with anxiety. He could discover no rational cause for this impatience. The call at the Steen was merely speculative. The chances were that Nagle, if indeed he had called at the clinic, would have left before they arrived. Probably he was even now putting down his evening pint in some Pimlico pub. At the next corner the traffic lights were against them and the car slowed to a halt for the third time in a hundred yards.

Suddenly Martin said: “He couldn’t have got away with it for long, even by killing Bolam. Sooner or later Mrs. Fenton—or another victim maybe—would have turned up at the Steen.”

Dalgliesh replied: “But he might well have got away with it for long enough to take up the Bollinger. And even if the blackmailing came to light before he got away—what could we prove? What can we prove now, come to that? With Bolam dead what jury could be sure beyond reasonable doubt that she wasn’t the blackmailer? Nagle’s only got to say that he remembers seeing the odd envelope addressed in green ink and that he placed it with the AO’s post. Fenton will confirm that he thought the telephone calls came from a woman. And blackmailers do occasionally come to a violent end. Nagle wouldn’t go on with it after Mrs. Fenton’s call. Even that would help his case. Bolam dies and the blackmailing stops. Oh, I know all the arguments against it! But what can anyone prove?”

Martin said stolidly: “He’ll try to be too clever. They always do. The girl’s under his thumb, of course, poor little devil. If she sticks to her story that he wasn’t alone long enough to make that call …”

“She’ll stick all right, Sergeant.”

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know about the husband. If she looks dangerous, he probably thinks that he can stop her tongue by marrying her.”

Dalgliesh said quietly: “What we’ve got to do is to pull him in before he finds out that he can’t.”

In the porters’ room at the Steen, Nagle was writing a letter. He wrote easily. The glib and lying phrases flowed with unexpected ease. He would have died rather than send such a letter. It would have been unbearable to think that any eyes could see this spate of emotional claptrap and recognize it as his. But the letter never would be read except by Jenny. Within thirty minutes it would be thrust into the boiler, its purpose served and the oily phrases only an uncomfortable memory. In the meantime he might as well make it convincing. It was easy enough to guess what Jenny would want him to say. He turned over the paper and wrote:

It was a good ending, he thought. It would appeal to Jenny, anyway, and no one else was going to see it. He called to her and pushed the paper across the table.

“Will this do?”

She read it in silence. “I suppose so.”

“Damn it all, kid, what’s wrong with it?” He felt a surge of anger that his careful effort should be found inadequate. He had expected, and had braced himself to meet, her astonished gratitude.

She said quietly: “Nothing’s wrong with it.”

“You’d better write your bit then. Not on the end. Take a fresh sheet.”

He slid the paper across the table at her, not meeting her eyes. This was taking time and he could not be sure how much time there was.

“Better make it short,” he said. She took up the pen but made no effort to write.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“There isn’t much you need say. I’ve said it all.”

“Yes,” she said with great sadness. “You’ve said it all.”

He kept the rising irritation from his voice and told her: “Just write that you’re sorry to cause them unhappiness but you can’t help yourself. Something like that. Damn it all, you’re not going to the end of the world. It’s up to them. If they want to see you, I shan’t stop them. Don’t pile the agony on too much. I’m going upstairs to mend that lock in Miss Saxon’s room. When I come down, we’re going to celebrate. There’s only beer, but tonight you’ll drink beer, my darling, and like it.”

He took a screwdriver from the tool box and went out quickly before she had time to protest. His last glimpse was of her frightened face staring after him. But she didn’t call him back.

Upstairs it was a moment’s work only to slip on a pair of rubber gloves and prise open the door of the dangerous-drugs cupboard. It gave with a terrifyingly loud crack so that he stood rooted for a moment half expecting to hear her call. But there was no sound. He remembered clearly that scene some six months ago when one of Dr. Baguley’s patients had become violent and disorientated. Nagle had helped to control him while Baguley had called to Sister for paraldehyde. Nagle recalled the words.

“We’ll give it in beer. It’s pretty filthy stuff but they can hardly taste it in beer. Odd that. Two drams, Sister, to 2 cc.”

And Jenny, who disliked beer, would taste it even less. Quickly he put the screwdriver and the small blue bottle of paraldehyde in his jacket pocket and slipped out, lighting his way with the torch. All the clinic curtains were drawn, but it was important to show as little light as possible. He needed at least another undisturbed half-hour.

She looked up in surprise at his quick reappearance. He went over to her and kissed the back of her neck.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, I shouldn’t have left you. I’d forgotten that you might be nervous. The lock can wait, anyway. How’s the letter going?”

She pushed it over to him. He turned his back on her to read the few carefully penned lines deliberately, taking his time. But his luck had held. It was as neat and convincing a suicide note as was ever read in a coroner’s court. He couldn’t have dictated anything better. He felt a surge of confidence and excitement as he did when a painting was going well. Nothing could spoil it now. Jenny had written:

He put the letter back on the table and went to pour out the beer, his actions hidden by the open door of the cupboard. God, the stuff did stink! Quickly he added the foaming light ale and called to her.

“Are you happy?”

“You know I am.”

“Then let’s drink to it. To us, darling.”

“To us.”

She grimaced as the liquid met her lips. He laughed. “You look as if you’re drinking poison. Knock it back, girl. Like this!”

He opened his throat and drained his own glass. Laughing, she shuddered slightly and gulped down her ale. He took the empty glass from her and folded her in his arms. She clung to him, her hands like a cold compress on the back of his neck. Releasing himself he drew her down beside him onto the armchair. Then, clasped together, they slid to the floor and lay together on the rug in front of the gas fire. He had turned off the light and her face shone in the fierce red glow of the fire as if she lay in the full sun. The hiss of the gas was the only sound in the silence.

He pulled a cushion from one of the armchairs and pushed it under her head. Only one cushion; he had a use for the other. It could rest on the bottom of the gas stove. She would be less likely to wake if he made her comfortable on that last, brief slide from unconsciousness to death. He put his left arm around her and they lay tight clasped without speaking.

Suddenly she turned her face to his and he felt her tongue, wet and slippery as a fish, infiltrating between his teeth. Her eyes, their pupils black in the gaslight, were heavy with desire. “Darling,” she whispered. “Darling.”

Christ, he thought, not that. He couldn’t make love to her now. It would keep her quiet but it wasn’t possible. There wasn’t time. And surely the police pathologist could tell how recently that had happened to a woman. He thought for the first time with relief of her obsession with safety and whispered, “We can’t darling. I haven’t got anything with me. We can’t risk it now.”

She gave a little murmur of acquiescence and nuzzled against him, moving her left leg over his thighs. It lay there, heavy and inert, but he dare not move nor speak in case he broke that insidious drop into unconsciousness. She was breathing more deeply now, hotly and irritatingly into his left ear. God, how much longer was it going to take! Holding his own breath he listened. Suddenly she gave a little snort like a contented animal. Under his arm he sensed a change in the rhythm of her breathing. There was an almost physical release of tension as her body relaxed. She was asleep.

Better give her a few minutes, he thought. There wasn’t much time to spare, but he dare not hurry. It was important that there were no bruises on her body and he knew he couldn’t face a struggle. But there could be no turning back now. If she woke and resisted, it would still have to be done.

So he waited, lying so still that they might both have been dead bodies stiffening together into a final, stylized embrace. After a little time he raised himself cautiously on his right elbow and looked at her. Her face was flushed, her mouth with its short upper lip curved against the white, childish teeth was half open. He could smell the paraldehyde on her breath. He watched her for a moment, noting the length of the pale lashes against her cheeks, the upward slant of the eyebrows and the shadows under the broad cheek bones. Strange that he had never got round to drawing her face. But it was too late to think of that now.

He murmured to her as he lifted her gently across the room to the black mouth of the gas oven.

“It’s all right, Jenny darling. It’s only me. I’m making you comfortable. It’s all right, darling.”

But it was himself that he was reassuring. There was plenty of room in the large, old-fashioned oven, even with the cushion. The bottom of the oven was only a few inches from the ground. Feeling for her shoulder blades he edged her gently forward. As the cushion took the weight of her head, he looked to make sure that the gas jets were still unimpeded. Her head rolled gently sideways so that the half-open mouth, moist and vulnerable as a baby’s, hung just above them, poised and ready to suck up death. As he slid his hands from under her body, she gave a little sigh as if she were comfortable at last.

He gave one last look at her, satisfied with his handwork. And now it was time to hurry. Feeling in his pocket for the rubber gloves, he moved with fantastic speed, treading lightly, his breath coming in shallow gasps as if he could no longer bear the sound of his own breathing. The suicide note was on the table. He took the screwdriver and wrapped her right hand gently round it, pressing the palm around the shining handle, the right fingertip against the base of the blade. Was that how she would have held it? Near enough. He placed the screwdriver on top of the suicide note.

Next he washed up his own glass and put it back in the cupboard, holding the dishcloth in front of the gas fire for a second until the damp stain had evaporated. He turned off the fire. No need to worry about prints here. There was nothing to show when last it had been lit. He wondered briefly about the paraldehyde bottle and Jenny’s glass, but decided to leave them on the table with the note and the screwdriver. The natural thing would surely be for her to drink sitting at the table and then to move to the stove when she felt the first signs of drowsiness. He wiped his own prints from the bottle and clasped her left hand around it, her right-hand index finger and thumb on the stopper. He was almost afraid to touch her, but she was now deeply asleep. Her hand was very warm to his touch and so relaxed that it felt boneless. He was repelled by its limp flaccidity, by this touch which was without communication, without desire. He was glad when he had dealt similarly with the drinking glass and the bottle of beer. It would only be necessary now to touch her once again.

Last of all he took his own letter to the Priddys and the pair of gloves and threw them into the boiler. There was only the gas tap to turn on. It was on the right of the stove and within easy reach of her limp right arm. He lifted the arm, pressed her index finger and thumb against the tap and turned it on. There was the soft hiss of escaping gas. How long, he wondered, was it likely to take? Not long surely? Perhaps only a matter of minutes. He put out the light and backed out, closing the door behind him.

It was then that he remembered the front-door keys. They must be found on her. His heart struck cold as he realized how fatal that one mistake could have been. He edged into the room again by the light of his torch. Taking the keys from his pocket and holding his breath against the gas, he placed them in her left hand. He had reached the door before he heard Tigger’s mew. The cat must have been sleeping under the cupboard. It was moving slowly round the body now, putting out a tentative paw towards the girl’s right foot. Nagle found that he could not bear to go near her again.

“Come here, Tigger,” he whispered. “Come here, boy.” The cat turned its great amber eyes on him and seemed to be considering but without emotion and without haste. Then it came slowly across to the door. Nagle hooked his left foot under the soft belly and lifted the cat through the door in one swift movement.

“Come out of it, you bloody fool. D’you want to lose all nine lives at one go? That stuff’s lethal.”

He closed the door and the cat, suddenly active, shot away into the dark.

Nagle made his way without lights to the back door, felt for the bolts and let himself out. He paused for a moment, back against the door, to check that the mews was empty. Now that it was over, he had time to note the signs of strain. His forehead and hands were wet with sweat and he had difficulty with his breathing. He drew in deep gasps of the damp and blessedly cool night air. The fog wasn’t thick, hardly more than a heavy mist, through which the street lamp which marked the end of the mews gleamed like a yellow smudge in the darkness. That gleam, only forty yards away, represented safety. Yet all at once it seemed unattainable. Like an animal in its lair he gazed in horrified fascination at the dangerous beacon and willed his legs to move. But their power had gone. Crouching in the darkness and shelter of the doorway, his back pressed against the wood, he fought off panic. After all, there was no great hurry. In a moment he would leave this spurious sanctuary and put the mews behind him. Then it was only a matter of re-entering the square from the other side and waiting until there was a casual passerby to witness his vain hammering at the front door. Even the words he would speak were ready. “It’s my girl. I think she’s in there but she won’t open up. She was with me earlier this evening and, when she’d gone, I found the keys were missing. She was in a queer state. Better get a copper. I’m going to smash this window.”

Then the crash of broken glass, the dash to the basement and the chance to lock the back door again before the hurrying footsteps were at his heels. The worst was over. From now on it was all so easy. By ten o’clock the body would have been removed, the clinic empty. In a moment he would move on to the final act. But not yet. Not quite yet.

Along the Embankment the traffic was almost stationary. There seemed to be some kind of function on at the Savoy. Suddenly Dalgliesh said: “There’s no guard at the clinic now, of course?”

“No, sir. You remember I asked you this morning if we need keep a man there and you said no.”

“I remember.”

“After all, sir, it hardly seemed necessary. We’d examined the place thoroughly and there aren’t all those men to spare.”

“I know, Martin,” replied Dalgliesh testily. “Surprisingly enough those were the reasons for my decision.” The car came to a stop once more. Dalgliesh put his head out of the window. “What the hell does he think he’s doing?”

“I think he’s doing his best, sir.”

“That’s what I find so depressing. Come on, Sergeant. Get out! We’ll do the rest on foot. I’m probably being a bloody fool but, when we get to the clinic, we’ll cover both exits. You go round to the back.”

If Martin felt surprise, it was not his nature to show it. Something seemed to have got into the old man. As like as not Nagle was back in his flat and the clinic locked and deserted. A couple of fools they’d look creeping up on an empty building. Still, they’d know soon enough. He bent his energies to keeping up with the superintendent.

Nagle never knew how long he waited in the doorway, bent almost double and panting like an animal. But after a time, calmness returned and with it the use of his legs. He moved stealthily forward, hoisted himself over the rear railings and set off down the mews. He walked like an automaton, hands stiffly by his sides, his eyes closed. Suddenly he heard the footfall. Opening his eyes, he saw silhouetted against the street lamp a familiar bulky figure. Slowly, inexorably, it moved towards him through the mist. His heart leapt in his chest then settled into a regular, tumultuous throbbing that shook his whole body. His legs felt heavy and cold as death, checking that first fatal impulse to flight. But at least his mind worked. While he could think, there was hope. He was cleverer than they. With luck they wouldn’t even think of entering the clinic. Why should they? And surely she would be dead by now! With Jenny dead they could suspect what they liked. They’d never prove a thing.

The torch shone full on his face. The slow, unemphatic voice spoke: “Good evening, lad. We were hoping to meet you. Going in or coming out?”

Nagle did not reply. He stretched his mouth into the semblance of a smile. He could only guess how he looked in that fierce light: a death’s head, the mouth agape with fright, the eyes staring.

It was then that he felt the tentative rub against his legs. The policeman bent and scooped up the cat, holding it between them. Immediately it began to purr, throbbing its contentment at the warmth of that huge hand.

“So here’s Tigger. You let him out, did you? You and the cat came out together.”

Then, instantaneously, they were both aware of it and their eyes met. From the warmth of the cat’s fur there rose between them, faint but unmistakable, the smell of gas.

The next half-hour passed for Nagle in a confused whirl of noise and blinding lights out of which a few vivid tableaux sprang into focus with unnatural clarity and stayed fixed in his mind for the rest of his life. He had no memory of the sergeant dragging him back over the iron railings, only of the grip, firm as a tourniquet, numbing his arm and the hot rasp of Martin’s breath in his ear. There was a smash and the sad, delayed tinkle of broken glass as someone kicked out the windows of the porters’ room, the shrill screech of a whistle, a confusion of running feet on the clinic stairs, a blaze of lights hurting his eyes. In one of the tableaux Dalgliesh was crouched over the girl’s body, his mouth wide-stretched as a gargoyle’s, clamped over her mouth as he forced his breath into her lungs. The two bodies seemed to be fighting, locked in an obscene embrace like the rape of the dead. Nagle didn’t speak. He was almost beyond thought, but instinct warned him that he must say nothing. Pinned against the wall by strong arms and watching fascinated the feverish heave of Dalgliesh’s shoulders, he felt tears start in his eyes. Enid Bolam was dead and Jenny was dead and he was tired now, desperately tired. He hadn’t wanted to kill her. It was Bolam who had forced him into all the trouble and danger of murder. She and Jenny between them had left him no choice. And he had lost Jenny. Jenny was dead. Faced with the enormity, the unfairness of what they had made him do, he felt without surprise the tears of self-pity flow in a warm stream down his face.

The room was suddenly full. There were more uniformed men, one of them burly as a Holbein, pig-eyed, slow-moving. There was the hiss of oxygen, a murmur of consulting voices. Then they were edging something onto a stretcher with gentle, experienced hands, a red-blanketed shape which rolled sideways as the poles were lifted. Why were they carrying it so carefully? It couldn’t feel jolting any more.

Dalgliesh didn’t speak until Jenny had been taken away. Then, without looking at Nagle, he said: “Right, Sergeant. Get him down to the station. We can hear his story there.”

Nagle moved his mouth. His lips were so dry that he heard them crack. But it was some seconds before the words would come and then there was no stopping them. The carefully rehearsed story tumbled out in a spate, bald and unconvincing: “There’s nothing to tell. She came to see me at my flat and we spent the evening together. I had to tell her that I was going away without her. She took it pretty badly and, after she’d left, I found that the clinic keys were missing. I knew she was in a bit of a state so I thought I’d better come along. There’s a note on the table. She’s left a note. I could see she was dead and I couldn’t help, so I came away. I didn’t want to be mixed up in it. I’ve got the Bollinger to think of. It wouldn’t look good getting mixed up with a suicide.”

Dalgliesh said: “You’d better not say anything else for the present. But you’ll have to do better than that. You see, it isn’t quite what she has told us. That note on the table isn’t the only one she left.”

With slow deliberation he took from his breast pocket a small folded sheet of paper and held it an inch from Nagle’s fascinated, fear-glazed eyes.

“If you were together this evening in your flat, how do you explain this note which we found under your door knocker?”

It was then that Nagle realized with sick despair that the dead, so impotent and so despised, could bear witness against him after all. Instinctively he put out his hand for the note then dropped his arm.

Dalgliesh replaced the note in his pocket. Watching Nagle closely, he said: “So you rushed here tonight because you were concerned for her safety? Very touching! In that case let me put your mind at rest. She’s going to live.”

“She’s dead,” said Nagle dully. “She killed herself.”

“She was breathing when we’d finished with her. Tomorrow, if all goes well, she’ll be able to tell us what happened. And not only what happened here tonight. We shall have some questions about Miss Bolam’s murder.”

Nagle gave a shout of harsh laughter: “Bolam’s murder! You’ll never get me for that! And I’ll tell you why, you poor boobs. Because I didn’t kill her! If you want to make fools of yourselves, go ahead. Don’t let me stop you. But I warn you. If I’m arrested for Bolam’s murder, I’ll make your names stink in every newspaper in the country.”

He held out his wrists to Dalgliesh. “Come on, Superintendent! Go ahead and charge me. What’s stopping you? You’ve worked it all out very cleverly, haven’t you? You’ve been too clever by half, you bloody supercilious copper!”

“I’m not charging you,” said Dalgliesh. “I’m inviting you to come to headquarters to answer some questions and to make a statement. If you want a solicitor present, you’re entitled to have one.”

“I’ll have one all right. But not just at the moment. I’m in no hurry, Superintendent. You see, I’m expecting a visitor. We arranged to meet here at ten and it’s nearly that now. I must say we’d planned to have the place to ourselves and I don’t think my visitor will be particularly pleased to see you. But if you want to meet Miss Bolam’s killer, you’d better stick around. It won’t be long. The person I’m expecting has been trained to be on time.”

Suddenly all his fear seemed to have left him. The large brown eyes were expressionless again, muddy pools in which only the black iris burned with life. Martin, still clasping Nagle’s arms, could feel the muscles bracing, could sense the physical return of confidence. But before anyone had time to speak, their ears caught simultaneously the sound of footsteps. Someone had come in by the basement door and was moving quietly down the passage.

Dalgliesh moved to the door in one silent stride and braced himself against it. The footsteps, timid, hesitant, stopped outside. Three pairs of eyes watched as the doorknob turned, first right, then left. A voice called softly: “Nagle! Are you there, Nagle! Open the door.”

With a single movement Dalgliesh stepped to one side and crashed open the door. The slight figure moved forward involuntarily under the blaze of the fluorescent lights. The immense grey eyes widened and slewed from face to face, the eyes of an uncomprehending child. Whimpering, she clutched a handbag to her breast in a sudden protective gesture as if she were shielding a baby. Wrenching himself from Martin’s grip Nagle snatched it from her and tossed it to Dalgliesh. It fell plumply into the detective’s hands, the cheap plastic sticking warmly to his fingers. Nagle tried to keep his voice level but it cracked with excitement and triumph.

“Take a look inside, Superintendent. It’s all there. I’ll tell you what you’ll find. A signed confession of Enid Bolam’s murder and one hundred pounds in notes, a first payment on account to keep my mouth shut.”

He turned to his visitor. “Sorry, kid. I didn’t plan it this way. I was willing enough to keep quiet about what I’d seen but things have changed since Friday night. I’ve got troubles of my own to worry about now and no one’s going to pin a murder charge on me. Our little arrangement’s off.”

But Marion Bolam had fainted.

Two months later a magistrate’s court committed Marion Grace Bolam for trial on a charge of her cousin’s murder. A capricious autumn had hardened into winter and Dalgliesh walked back alone to headquarters under a grey blanket of sky which sagged with its weight of snow. The first moist flakes were already falling, melting gently against his face. In his chief’s office the lights were lit and the curtains drawn, shutting out the glittering river, the necklace of light along the Embankment and all the cold inertia of a winter afternoon.

Dalgliesh made his report briefly. The AC listened in silence, then said: “They’ll try for diminished responsibility, I suppose. How did the girl seem?”

“Perfectly calm, like a child who knows she’s been naughty and is on her best behaviour in the hope that the grown-ups will overlook it. She feels no particular guilt, I suspect, except the usual female guilt at being found out.”

“It was a perfectly straightforward case,” said the AC. “The obvious suspect, the obvious motive.”

“Too obvious for me, apparently,” said Dalgliesh bitterly. “If this case doesn’t cure me of conceit, nothing will. If I’d paid more attention to the obvious, I might have questioned why she didn’t get back to Rettinger Street until after eleven when the television service was closing down. She’d been with Nagle, of course, arranging the blackmail payments. They met in St James’s Park, apparently. He saw his chance, all right, when he went into that record room and found her bending over her cousin’s body. He must have been on her before she heard a sound. He took over from there with his usual efficiency. It was he who put the fetish so carefully on the body, of course. Even that detail misled me. Somehow I couldn’t see Marion Bolam making that final, contemptuous gesture. But it was an obvious crime, all right. She hardly made an attempt at concealment. The rubber gloves she wore were stuffed back in her uniform pocket. The weapons she chose were the ones nearest to hand. She wasn’t trying to incriminate anyone else. She wasn’t even trying to be clever. At about six-twelve she telephoned the general office and asked Nagle not to come down yet for the laundry; he couldn’t resist lying about that call, incidentally, which gave me another opportunity for being over-subtle. Then she rang for her cousin. She couldn’t be absolutely sure that Enid would come alone and the excuse had to be valid so she threw the medical records on the floor. Then she waited in the record room for her victim, fetish in hand and chisel in her uniform pocket. It was unfortunate for her that Nagle returned secretly to the clinic when he was out with the post. He’d overheard Miss Bolam’s call to the group secretary and wanted to get his hands on the Fenton record. It seemed safer to chuck it in the basement furnace. Coming upon the murder forced him to change his plan and he didn’t get another chance once the body was discovered and the record room sealed. Nurse Bolam, of course, had no choice of time. She discovered on Wednesday night that Enid intended to alter her will. Friday was the earliest evening when there was a lysergic-acid session and she would have the basement to herself. She couldn’t act earlier; she daren’t act later.”

“The murder was highly convenient for Nagle,” said his chief. “You can’t blame yourself for concentrating on him. But if you insist on indulging in self-pity, don’t let me spoil your fun.”

“Convenient, perhaps, but not necessary,” Dalgliesh replied. “And why should he have killed Bolam? His one aim, apart from making easy money, was to take up the Bollinger and get away to Europe without fuss. He must have known that it would be difficult to pin the Fenton blackmail on him even if the group secretary decided to call in the police. And, in fact, we still haven’t enough evidence to charge him. But murder is different. Anyone connected with murder is likely to have his private plans disorganized. Even the innocent can’t so easily shake off that contaminating dust. To kill Bolam only increased his danger. But to kill Priddy was a different matter. At one stroke he could safeguard his alibi, get rid of an encumbrance and give himself the hope of marrying the heiress of nearly thirty thousand. He knew he’d have little chance with Marion Bolam if she learned that Priddy had been his mistress. She wasn’t Enid Bolam’s cousin for nothing.”

The AC said: “At least we’ve got him as an accessory after the fact and that should put him away for quite a time. I’m not sorry that the Fentons will be spared the ordeal of giving evidence. But I doubt whether the charge of attempted murder will stick—not unless Priddy changes her mind. If she persists in supporting his story, we’ll get nowhere.”

“She won’t change her mind, sir,” said Dalgliesh bitterly. “Nagle doesn’t want to see her, of course, but nothing makes any difference. All she thinks about is planning their life together when he comes out. And God help her when he does.”

The AC shifted his immense bulk irritably in his chair, closed the file and pushed it across the table to Dalgliesh. He said: “There’s nothing that you or anyone else can do about that. She’s the kind of woman who pursues her own destruction. I’ve had that artist, Sugg, on to me, by the way. Extraordinary ideas about judicial procedure these people have! I told him that it’s out of our hands now and referred him to the proper quarter. He wants to pay for Nagle’s defence, if you please! Said that if we’ve made a mistake, the world will lose a remarkable talent.”

“It will be lost, anyway,” replied Dalgliesh. Thinking aloud, he added: “I wonder just how good an artist would have to be before one let him get away with a crime like Nagle’s. Michelangelo? Velazquez? Rembrandt?”

“Oh, well,” said the AC easily. “If we had to ask ourselves that question, we wouldn’t be policemen.”

Back in Dalgliesh’s office Sergeant Martin was putting away papers. He took one look at his super’s face, pronounced a stolid ‘good night, sir’ and left. There were some situations which his uncomplicated nature found it prudent to avoid. The door had hardly closed behind him when the telephone rang. It was Mrs. Shorthouse.

“Hullo!” she yelled. “Is that you? I had the devil of a job getting through to you. Saw you in court today. Don’t suppose you noticed me, though. How are you?”

“Well, thank you, Mrs. Shorthouse.”

“Don’t suppose we’ll be meeting again, so I thought I’d give you a ring to say cheerio and tell you the news. Things have been happening at the clinic, I can tell you. Miss Saxon’s leaving, for one thing. She’s going to work in a home for subnormal kids up north. Run by the RCs it is. Fancy going off to work in a convent! No one at the Steen ever did that before.”

Dalgliesh said he could well believe it.

“Miss Priddy’s been transferred to one of the group’s chest clinics. Mr. Lauder thought the change would do her good. She’s had a terrible row with her people and she’s living alone now in a bed-sitter in Kilburn. But you know all about that, no doubt. Mrs. Bolam’s gone to an expensive nursing home near Worthing. All on her share of Cousin Enid’s money, of course. Poor sod. I’m surprised she could bring herself to touch a penny of it.”

Dalgliesh wasn’t surprised but did not say so. Mrs. Shorthouse went on: “And then there’s Dr. Steiner. He’s getting married to his wife.”

“What did you say, Mrs. Shorthouse?”

“Well, re-married. Fixed it up very sudden they did. They got divorced and now they’re getting married again. What d’you think of that?”

Dalgliesh said that it was a question of what Dr. Steiner thought of it.

“Oh, he’s as pleased as a dog with a new collar. And a collar is just about what he’s getting, if you ask me. There’s a rumour that the Regional Board may close the clinic and move everyone to a hospital outpatient department. Well, you can’t wonder! First a stabbing and then a gassing and now a murder trial. Not nice really. Dr. Etherege says it’s upsetting for the patients, but I haven’t noticed it to speak of. The numbers haven’t half gone up since last October. That would have pleased Miss Bolam. Always worrying about the numbers, she was. Mind you, there are those who say we wouldn’t have had that trouble with Nagle and Priddy if you’d picked on the right one first go. It was a near thing all right. But what I say is, you did your best and there’s no harm done to speak of.”

No harm to speak of! So these, thought Dalgliesh bitterly, as he replaced the receiver, were the concomitants of failure. It was enough to taste his sour, corroding self-pity without enduring the AC’s moralizing, Martin’s tact, Amy Shorthouse’s condolences. If he were to break free from this pervasive gloom, he needed a respite from crime and death, needed to walk for one brief evening out of the shadow of blackmail and murder. It came to him that what he wanted was to dine with Deborah Riscoe. At least, he told himself wryly, it would be a change of trouble. He put his hand on the receiver and then paused, checked by the old caution, the old uncertainties. He was not even sure that she would wish to take a call at the office, what exactly her place was at Hearne and Illingworth. Then he remembered how she had looked when last they met and he lifted the receiver. He could surely dine with an attractive woman without this preparatory morbid self-analysis. The invitation would commit him to nothing more crucial than seeing that she had a pleasant evening and paying the bill. And a man was surely entitled to call his own publishers.