The Black Tower

CHAPTER SEVEN Mist on the Headland

THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL’S at Toynton was an uninteresting Victorian reconstruction of an earlier building, the churchyard a triangular patch of swathed grass between the west wall, the road and a row of rather dull cottages. Victor Holroyd’s grave, pointed out by Julius, was an oblong mound crudely patched with squares of weedy turf. Beside it, a simple wooden cross marked the spot where Father Baddeley’s ashes had been buried. Grace Willison was to lie next to him. Everyone at Toynton Grange was at the funeral except Helen Rainer who had been left to nurse Georgie Allan, and Maggie Hewson whose absence, unremarked, was apparently taken for granted. But Dalgliesh, when he arrived alone, had been surprised to see Julius’s Mercedes parked opposite the lych gate beside the Toynton Grange bus.

The churchyard was encumbered and the path between the headstones narrow and overgrown so that it took some time to manoeuvre the three wheelchairs round the open grave.

The local vicar was taking a belated holiday and his substitute, who apparently knew nothing of Toynton Grange, was obviously surprised to see four of the mourners garbed in brown monk’s habits. He asked if they were Anglican Franciscans, an enquiry which provoked a fit of nervous giggling from Jennie Pegram. Anstey’s answer, unheard by Dalgliesh, apparently failed to reassure and the priest, puzzled and disapproving, took the service with carefully controlled speed as if anxious to free the churchyard as soon as possible from the risk of contamination by the imposters. The little party sang, at Wilfred’s suggestion, Grace’s favourite hymn “Ye Holy Angels Bright.” It was, thought Dalgliesh, a hymn peculiarly unsuited for amateur unaccompanied singing and their uncertain and discordant voices rose reed thin in the crisp autumnal air.

There were no flowers. Their absence, the rich smell of newly turned earth, the mellow autumn sunlight, the ubiquitous scent of burning wood, even the sense of unseen but inquisitive eyes peering morbidly from behind the hedges, brought back with stabbing pain the memory of another funeral.

He had been a fourteen-year-old schoolboy, at home for his half term. His parents were in Italy and Father Baddeley was in charge of the parish. A local farmer’s son, a shy, gentle, over-conscientious eighteen-year-old, home for the weekend from his first term at university, had taken his father’s gun and shot dead both parents, his fifteen-year-old sister and, finally, himself. They were a devoted family, he a loving son. For the young Dalgliesh, who was beginning to imagine himself in love with the girl, it had been a horror eclipsing all subsequent horrors. The tragedy, unexplained, appalling, had at first stunned the village. But grief had quickly given way to a wave of superstitious anger, terror and repulsion. It was unthinkable that the boy should be buried in consecrated ground and Father Baddeley’s gentle but inexorable insistence that all the family should lie together in one grave had made him temporarily an outcast. The funeral, boycotted by the village, had been held on such a day as this. The family had no close relatives. Only Father Baddeley, the sexton and Adam Dalgliesh had been there. The fourteen-year-old boy, rigid with uncomprehended grief, had concentrated on the responses willing himself to divorce the unbearably poignant words from their sense, to see them merely as black unmeaning symbols on the prayer book page, and to speak them with firmness, even with nonchalance, across the open grave. Now, when this unknown priest raised his hand to speak the final blessing over Grace Willison’s body, Dalgliesh saw instead the frail upright figure of Father Baddeley, the wind ruffling his hair. As the first sods fell on the coffin and he turned away he felt like a traitor. The memory of one occasion on which Father Baddeley had not relied on him in vain only reinforced his present nagging sense of failure.

It was probably this which made him reply tartly to Wilfred when he walked up to him and said:

“We are going back for luncheon now. We shall start the family council at half past two and the second session at about four. Are you quite sure you won’t help us?”

Dalgliesh opened the door of his car.

“Can you give me one reason why it would be right that I should?” Wilfred turned away; for once he looked almost disconcerted. Dalgliesh heard Julius’s low laugh.

“Silly old dear! Does he really think that we don’t know that he wouldn’t be holding a family council if he weren’t confident that the decision would go his way? What are your plans for the day?”

Dalgliesh said that they were still uncertain. In fact he had decided to exercise away his self-disgust by walking along the cliff path as far as Weymouth and back. But he wasn’t anxious to invite Julius’s company.

He stopped at a nearby pub for a luncheon of cheese and beer, drove quickly back to Hope Cottage, changed into slacks and windcheater and set off eastwards along the cliff path. It was very different from that first early morning walk the day after his arrival when all his newly awakened senses had been alive to sound and colour and smell. Now he strode strongly forward, deep in thought, eyes on the path, hardly aware even of the laboured, sibilant breath of the sea. He would soon have to make a decision about his job; but that could wait for another couple of weeks. There were more immediate if less onerous decisions. How much longer should he stay at Toynton? He had little excuse to linger. The books had been sorted, the boxes were almost ready for cording. And he was making no progress with the problem which had kept him in Hope Cottage. There was small hope now of solving the mystery of Father Baddeley’s summons. It was as if, living in Father Baddeley’s cottage, sleeping in his bed, Dalgliesh had absorbed something of his personality. He could almost believe that he smelt the presence of evil. It was an alien faculty which he half resented and almost wholly distrusted. And yet it was increasingly strong. He was sure now that Father Baddeley had been murdered. And yet, when as a policeman he looked hard at the evidence, the case dissolved like smoke in his hand.

Perhaps because he was deep in unproductive thought the mist took him by surprise. It rode in from the sea, a sudden physical invasion of white obliterating clamminess. At one moment he was striding in the mellow afternoon sunlight with the breeze prickling the hairs on his neck and arms. The next, sun, colour and smell were blotted out and he stood stock still pushing at the mist as if it were an alien force. It hung on his hair, caught at his throat and swirled in grotesque patterns over the headland. He watched it, a writhing transparent veil passing over and through the brambles and bracken, magnifying and altering form, obscuring the path. With the mist came a sudden silence. He was only aware that the headland had been alive with birds now that their cries were mute. The silence was uncanny. In contrast, the sound of the sea swelled and became all pervasive, disorganized, menacing, seeming to advance on him from all sides. It was like a chained animal, now moaning in sullen captivity, now breaking free to hurl itself with roars of impotent rage against the high shingles.

He turned back towards Toynton, uncertain of how far he had walked. The return journey was going to be difficult. He had no sense of direction except for the thread of trodden earth under his feet. But he thought that the danger would be slight if he went slowly. The path was barely visible but for most of the route it was fringed with brambles, a welcome if prickly barrier when, momentarily disorientated, he lost his way. Once the mist lifted slightly and he strode forward more confidently. But it was a mistake. Only just in time he realized that he was teetering on the edge of a wide crevice splitting the path and that what he had thought was a rising bank of moving mist was foam dying on the cliff face fifty feet below.

The black tower reared out of the mist so suddenly that his first realization of its presence was to scrape his palms—instinctively flung forward—against its cold infrangible scales. Then, suddenly, the mist rose and thinned and he saw the top of the tower. The base was still shrouded in swirls of white clamminess but the octagonal cupola with its three visible slits seemed to float gently from behind the last sinuous threads of mist to hang motionless in space, dramatic, menacingly solid, and yet unsubstantial as a dream. It moved with the mist, a fugitive vision, now descending so low that he could almost believe it within his reach, now rising, numinous and unobtainable, high over the thudding sea. It could surely have no contact with the cold stones on which his palms rested or the firm earth beneath his feet. To steady his balance he rested his head against the tower and felt reality hard and sharp against his forehead. Here at least was a landmark. From here he thought he could remember the main twists and turns of the path.

It was then that he heard it; the spine-chilling scrape, unmistakable, of bone ends clawing against the stone. It came from inside the tower. Reason asserted itself over superstition so quickly that his mind hardly had time to recognize its terror. Only the painful thudding of his heart against the rib cage, the sudden ice in the blood, told him that for one second he had crossed the border into the unknowable world. For one second, perhaps less, childish nightmares long suppressed rose to confront him. And then the terror passed. He listened more carefully, and then explored. The sound was quickly identified. To the seaward side of the tower and hidden in the corner between the porch and the round wall was a sturdy bramble. The wind had snapped one of the branches and two sharp unleashed ends were scraping against the stone. Through some trick of acoustics the sound, distorted, seemed to come from within the tower. From such coincidences, he thought, smiling grimly, were ghosts and legends born.

Less than twenty minutes later he stood above the valley and looked down on Toynton Grange. The mist was thinning now and he could just discern the Grange itself—a substantial, dark shadow marked by blurs of lights from the windows. His watch showed that it was eight minutes past three. So they would all be closeted now in solitary meditation waiting for the four o’clock summons to announce their final votes. He wondered how, in fact, they were passing their time. But the result was hardly in doubt. Like Julius he thought it unlikely that Wilfred would have called a council unless he were sure of getting his way. And that, presumably, would mean handing over to the Ridgewell Trust. Dalgliesh assessed how the votes might go. Wilfred would no doubt have received an undertaking that all jobs would be safe. Given that assurance Dot Moxon, Eric Hewson and Dennis Lerner would probably vote for the take-over. Poor Georgie Allan would have little choice. The views of the other patients were less certain but he had the feeling that Carwardine would be content enough to stay, particularly with the increased comfort and professional skill which the Trust would bring. Millicent, of course, would want to sell out and she would have had an ally in Maggie Hewson, if Maggie had been allowed to participate.

Looking down on the valley he saw the twin squares of light from the windows of Charity Cottage where, excluded, Maggie waited alone for the return of Eric. There was a stronger and brighter haze from the edge of the cliff. Julius, when at home, was extravagant with electricity.

The lights, although temporarily obscured as the mist shifted and re-formed, were a useful beacon. He found himself almost running down the slope of the headland. And then, curiously, the light in the Hewson cottage windows went off and on again three times, deliberate as a signal.

He had such a strong impression of an individual call for help that he had to remind himself of reality. She couldn’t know that he, or anyone, was on the headland. It could only be by chance if the signal were seen by anyone at Toynton Grange, preoccupied as they were with meditation and decision. Besides, most of the patients’ rooms were at the back of the house. It had probably been no more than a fortuitous flickering of the lights; she had been uncertain, perhaps, whether to watch television in the dark.

But the twin smudges of yellow light, now shining more strongly as the mist thinned, drew him towards the Hewson cottage. It was only about three hundred yards out of his way. She was there alone. He might as well look in, even at the risk of becoming involved in an alcoholic recital of grievances and resentment.

The front door was unlocked. When no voice responded to his knock he pushed it open and went in. The sitting-room, dirty, untidy, with its grubby air of temporary occupation, was empty. All three bars of the portable electric fire were glowing red and the room struck very warm. The television screen was a blank. The single unshaded lightbulb in the middle of the ceiling shone down garishly on the square table, the opened and almost empty bottle of whisky, the upturned glass, the sheet of writing paper with its scrawl of black biro, at first relatively firm, then erratic as an insect trail across the white surface. The telephone had been moved from its usual place on the top of the bookcase and stood now, cord taut, on the table, the receiver hanging loosely over the edge.

He didn’t wait to read the message. The door into the back hall was ajar and he pushed it open. He knew with the sick and certain premonition of disaster, what he would find. The hall was very narrow and the door swung against her legs. The body twisted so that the flushed face slowly turned and looked down at him with what seemed a deprecating, half melancholy, half rueful surprise at finding herself at such a disadvantage. The light in the hall, from a single bulb, was garish, and she hung elongated like a bizarre and gaudily painted doll strung up for sale. The scarlet tight-fitting slacks, the white satin overblouse, the painted toe and finger nails and the matching gash of mouth looked horrible but unreal. One thrust of a knife and the sawdust would surely spill out from the stuffed veins to pyramid at his feet.

The climber’s rope, a smooth twist of red and fawn, gay as a bell rope, was made to take the weight of a man. It hadn’t failed Maggie. She had used it simply. The rope had been doubled and the two ends passed through the loop to form a noose, before being fastened, clumsily but effectively, to the top banister. The surplus yards lay tangled on the upper landing.

A high kitchen stool fitted with two steps had fallen on its side obstructing the hallway as if she had kicked it from under her. Dalgliesh placed it beneath the body and, resting her knees on its cushioned plastic, mounted the steps and slipped the noose over her head. The whole weight of her inert body sagged against him. He let it slip through his arms to the floor and half carried it into the sitting-room. Laying her on the mat in front of the fireplace he forced his mouth over hers and began artificial respiration.

Her mouth was fumed with whisky. He could taste her lipstick, a sickly ointment on his tongue. His shirt, wet with sweat, stuck to her blouse, gumming together his thudding chest and her soft, still warm but silent body. He pumped his breath into her, fighting an atavistic repugnance. It was too like raping the dead. He felt the absence of her heart beat as keenly as an ache in his chest.

He was aware that the door had opened only by the sudden chill of flowing air. A pair of feet stood beside the body. He heard Julius’s voice.

“Oh, my God! Is she dead? What happened?”

The note of terror surprised Dalgliesh. He glanced up for one second into Court’s stricken face. It hung over him like a disembodied mask, the features bleached and distorted with fear. The man was fighting for control. His whole body was shaking. Dalgliesh, intent on the desperate rhythm of resuscitation, jerked out his commands in a series of harsh disjointed phrases.

“Get Hewson. Hurry.”

Julius’s voice was a high, monotonous mutter.

“I can’t! Don’t ask me. I’m no good at that sort of thing. He doesn’t even like me. We’ve never been close. You go. I’d rather stay here with her than face Eric.”

“Then ring him. Then the police. Wrap the receiver in your handkerchief. May be prints.”

“But they won’t answer! They never do when they are meditating.”

“Then for God’s sake fetch him!”

“But her face! It’s covered with blood!”

“Lipstick. Smudged. Phone Hewson.”

Julius stood unmoving. Then he said:

“I’ll try. They will have finished meditating by now. It’s just four. They may answer.”

He turned to the telephone. From the corner of his eye Dalgliesh glimpsed the lifted receiver shaking in his hands, and the flash of white handkerchief which Julius had wrapped around the instrument as awkwardly as if trying to bandage a self-inflicted wound. After two long minutes the telephone was answered. He couldn’t guess by whom. Nor did he afterwards remember what Julius had said.

“I’ve told them. They’re coming.”

“Now the police.”

“What shall I tell them?”

“The facts. They’ll know what to do.”

“But oughtn’t we to wait? Suppose she comes round?”

Dalgliesh straightened himself up. He knew that for the last five minutes he had been working on a dead body. He said:

“I don’t think she’s going to come round.”

Immediately he bent again to his task, his mouth clamped over hers, feeling with his right palm for the first pulse of life in the silent heart. The pendant lightbulb swung gently in the movement of air from the open door so that a shadow moved like a drawn curtain over the dead face. He was aware of the contrast between the inert flesh, the cool unresponsive lips bruised by his own, and her look of flushed intentness, a woman preoccupied in the act of love. The crimson stigmata of the rope was like a double-corded bracelet clasping the heavy throat. Remnants of cold mist stole in the door to twine themselves round the dust-encrusted legs of table and chairs. The mist stung his nostrils like an anaesthetic; his mouth tasted sour with the whisky-tainted breath.

Suddenly there was a rush of feet; the room was full of people and voices. Eric Hewson was edging him aside to kneel beside his wife; behind him Helen Rainer flicked open a medical bag. She handed him a stethoscope. He tore open his wife’s blouse. Delicately, unemotionally, she lifted Maggie’s left breast so that he could listen to the heart. He pulled off the stethoscope and threw it aside holding out his hand. This time, still without speaking, she handed him a syringe.

“What are you going to do?” It was Julius Court’s hysterical voice.

Hewson looked up at Dalgliesh. His face was deathly white. The irises of his eyes were huge. He said:

“It’s only digitalis.”

His voice, very low, was a plea for reassurance, for hope. But it sounded, too, like a plea for permission, a small abdication of responsibility. Dalgliesh nodded. If the stuff were digitalis it might work. And surely the man wouldn’t be fool enough to inject anything lethal? To stop him now might be to kill her. Would it have been better to carry on with the artificial respiration? Probably not; in any case that was a decision for a doctor. And a doctor was here. But in his heart Dalgliesh knew that the argument was academic. She was as beyond harm as she was beyond help.

Helen Rainer now had a torch in her hand and was shining it on Maggie’s breast. The pores of the skin between the pendulous breasts looked huge, miniature craters clogged with powder and sweat. Hewson’s hand began to shake. Suddenly she said:

“Here, let me do it.”

He handed over the syringe. Dalgliesh heard Julius Court’s incredulous “Oh, no! No!” and then watched the needle go in as cleanly and surely as a coup de grâce.

The slim hands didn’t tremble as she withdrew the syringe, held a pad of cotton wool over the puncture mark and, without speaking, handed the syringe to Dalgliesh.

Suddenly Julius Court stumbled out of the room. He came back almost immediately holding a glass. Before anyone could stop him he had grasped the whisky bottle by the top of its neck and had poured out the last half inch. Jerking one of the chairs out from the table he sat down and slumped forward, his arms half circling the bottle.

Wilfred said:

“But Julius … nothing should be touched until the police arrive!”

Julius took out his handkerchief and wiped it over his face.

“I needed that. And what the hell! I haven’t interfered with her prints. And she’s had a rope round her neck, or haven’t you noticed? What d’you think she died of—alcoholism?”

The rest of them stood in a tableau round the body. Hewson still knelt at his wife’s side; Helen cradled her head. Wilfred and Dennis stood one on each side, the folds of their habits hanging motionless in the still air. They looked, thought Dalgliesh, like a motley collection of actors posing for a contemporary diptych, their eyes fixed with wary anticipation on the bright body of the martyred saint.

Five minutes later Hewson stood up. He said dully:

“No response. Move her to the sofa. We can’t leave her there on the floor.”

Julius Court rose from his chair and he and Dalgliesh together lifted the sagging body and placed it on the sofa. It was too short, and the scarlet-tipped feet, looking at once grotesque and pathetically vulnerable, stuck out stiffly over the end. Dalgliesh heard the company sigh gently, as if they had satisfied some obscure need to make the body comfortable. Julius looked round, apparently at a loss, searching for something with which to cover the corpse. It was Dennis Lerner who, surprisingly, produced a large white handkerchief, shook it free of its folds and placed it with ritual precision over Maggie’s face. They all looked at it intently as if watching for the linen to stir with the first tentative breath.

Wilfred said:

“I find it a strange tradition that we cover the faces of the dead. Is it because we feel that they are at a disadvantage, exposed defenceless to our critical gaze? Or is it because we fear them? I think the latter.”

Ignoring him, Eric Hewson turned to Dalgliesh.

“Where …?”

“Out there in the hall.”

Hewson went to the door and stood silently surveying the dangling rope, the bright chrome and yellow kitchen stool. He turned towards the circle of watchful, compassionate faces.

“How did she get the rope?”

“It may be mine.” Wilfred’s voice sounded interested, confident. He turned to Dalgliesh.

“It’s newer looking than Julius’s rope. I bought it shortly after the old one was found frayed. I keep it on a hook in the business room. You may have noticed it. It was certainly hanging there when we left for Grace’s funeral this morning. You remember, Dot?”

Dorothy Moxon moved forward from her shadowed refuge against the far wall. She spoke for the first time. They looked round as if surprised to find her in the company. Her voice sounded unnatural, high, truculent, uncertain.

“Yes, I noticed. I mean, I’m sure I would have noticed if it hadn’t been there. Yes, I remember. The rope was there.”

“And when you got back from the funeral?” asked Dalgliesh.

“I went alone into the business room to hang up my cloak. I don’t think it was there then. I’m almost sure not.”

“Didn’t that worry you?” asked Julius.

“No, why should it? I’m not sure that I consciously noticed that the rope was missing at the time. It’s only now, looking back, that I am fairly confident that it wasn’t there. Its absence wouldn’t have particularly concerned me even had I registered it. I should have assumed that Albert had borrowed it for some purpose. He couldn’t have done so, of course. He came with us to the funeral, and got into the bus before me.”

Lerner said suddenly:

“The police have been telephoned?”

“Of course,” said Julius, “I rang them.”

“What were you doing here?” Dorothy Moxon’s didactic question sounded like an accusation, but Julius who seemed to have taken control of himself, answered calmly enough:

“She switched the light off and on three times before she died. I happened to see it through the mist from my bathroom window. I didn’t come at once. I didn’t think it was important or that she was really in trouble. Then I felt uneasy and decided to walk over. Dalgliesh was already here.”

Dalgliesh said:

“I saw the signal from the headland. Like Julius, I didn’t feel more than slightly uneasy, but it seemed right to look in.”

Lerner had moved over to the table. He said:

“She’s left a note.”

Dalgliesh said sharply:

“Don’t touch it!”

Lerner withdrew his hand as if it had been stung. They moved round the table. The note was written in black biro on the top sheet of a quarto-size pad of white writing paper. They read silently:

The first eight lines were plainly and strongly written, the last five were an almost illegible scrawl.

“Her handwriting?” asked Anstey.

Eric Hewson replied in a voice so low that they could barely hear him.

“Oh, yes. Her handwriting.”

Julius turned to Eric and said with sudden energy:

“Look, it’s perfectly plain how it happened. Maggie never intended to kill herself. She wouldn’t. She’s not the type. For God’s sake, why should she? She’s young enough, healthy, if she didn’t like it here she could walk out. She’s an SRN. She’s not unemployable. This was all meant to frighten you. She tried to telephone Toynton Grange and get you over here—just in time, of course. When no one replied, she signalled with the lights. But by that time she was too drunk to know exactly what she was doing and the whole thing became horribly real. Take that note, does it read like a suicide note?”

“It does to me,” said Anstey. “And I suspect it will to the coroner.”

“Well, it doesn’t to me. It could just as well be the note of a woman planning to go away.”

Helen Rainer said calmly:

“Only she wasn’t. She wouldn’t be leaving Toynton wearing just a shirt and slacks. And where is her case? No woman plans to leave home without taking her makeup and nightwear.”

There was a capacious black shoulder bag beside a leg of the table. Julius picked it up and began rummaging in it. He said:

“There’s nothing here. No nightdress or toilet bag.”

He continued his inspection. Then he glanced suddenly from Eric to Dalgliesh. An extraordinary succession of emotions crossed his face; surprise, embarrassment, interest. He closed the bag and placed it on the table.

“Wilfred’s right. Nothing should be touched until the police arrive.”

They stood in silence. Then Anstey said:

“The police will want to know where we all were this afternoon, no doubt. Even in an obvious case of suicide these questions have to be asked. She must have died when we were nearly at the end of our meditation hour. That means, of course, that none of us has an alibi. Given the circumstances it is perhaps fortunate that Maggie chose to leave a suicide note.”

Helen Rainer said calmly:

“Eric and I were together in my room for the whole of the hour.”

Wilfred stared at her, disconcerted. For the first time since he had entered the cottage he seemed at a loss. He said:

“But we were holding a family council! The rules are that we meditate in silence and alone.”

“We didn’t meditate and we weren’t precisely silent. But we were alone—alone together.” She stared past him, defiant, almost triumphant, into the eyes of Eric Hewson. He gazed at her appalled.

Dennis Lerner, as if to dissociate himself from controversy, had moved over to stand by Dot Moxon by the door. Now he said quietly:

“I think I can hear cars. It must be the police.”

The mist had muffled the sound of their approach. Even as Lerner spoke Dalgliesh heard the dual slam of car doors. Eric’s first reaction was to kneel by the sofa, shielding Maggie’s body from the door. Then he scrambled clumsily to his feet as if afraid to be discovered in a compromising position. Dot, without looking round, moved her solid body away from the door.

The little room was suddenly as overcrowded as a bus shelter on a wet night, smelling of mist and damp raincoats. But there was no confusion. The new arrivals moved solidly and calmly in, bringing with them their equipment, moving as purposefully as encumbered members of an orchestra taking their appointed places. The group from Toynton Grange fell back and regarded them warily. No one spoke. Then Inspector Daniel’s slow voice broke the silence.

“Well, now, and who found the poor lady?”

“I did,” said Dalgliesh. “Court arrived about twelve minutes later.”

“Then I’ll just have Mr. Dalgliesh, Mr. Court and Dr. Hewson. That’ll do to start with.”

Wilfred said:

“I should prefer to stay, if you please.”

“Well, Sir, I daresay. Mr. Anstey isn’t it? But we can’t always have what we’d prefer. Now if you’ll all go back to the Grange, Detective Constable Burroughs will accompany you and anything that’s on your minds you can say to him. I’ll be with you later.”

Without a further word, Wilfred led the way.

Inspector Daniel looked at Dalgliesh:

“Well, Sir, seemingly for you there’s no convalescence from death at Toynton Head.”

When he had handed over the syringe and given his account of the finding of the body Dalgliesh didn’t wait to watch the investigation. He had no wish to give the impression that he was keeping a critical eye on Inspector Daniel’s handling of the case; he disliked the role of spectator, and he felt uncomfortably that he was getting in their way. None of the men present were getting in each other’s. They moved confidently in the cramped space, each a specialist, yet giving the impression of a team. The photographer manoeuvred his portable lights into the narrow hall; the plainclothes fingerprint expert, his case open to display the neatly arranged tools of his craft, settled down at the table, brush poised, to begin his methodical dusting of the whisky bottle; the police surgeon knelt, absorbed and judicial, beside the body and plucked at Maggie’s mottled skin as if hoping to stimulate it into life. Inspector Daniel leaned over him and they conferred together. They looked, thought Dalgliesh, like two poulterers expertly assessing the qualities of a dead chicken. He was interested that Daniel had brought the police surgeon and not a forensic pathologist. But why not? A Home Office pathologist, given the huge areas which most of them had to cover, could seldom arrive promptly on the scene. And the initial medical examination here presented no obvious problems. There was no sense in committing more resources than were needed for the job. He wondered whether Daniel would have come himself if it hadn’t been for the presence at Toynton Grange of a Metropolitan Police Commander.

Dalgliesh formally asked Daniel’s permission to return to Hope Cottage. Eric Hewson had already left. Daniel had asked him only a few necessary brief and gentle questions before suggesting that he should join the others at Toynton Grange. Dalgliesh sensed the relief at his departure. Even these imperturbable experts moved more freely released from the inhibiting restraints of public grief. Now the Inspector exerted himself to do more than nod a curt dismissal. He said:

“Thank you, Sir. I’ll call in for a word with you before I leave if I may,” and bent again to his contemplation of the body.

Whatever Dalgliesh had expected to find at Toynton Head it wasn’t this; the old familiar routine commemoration of unnatural death. For a moment he saw it with Julius Court’s eyes, an esoteric necromantic rite, carried out by its drab practitioners in silence or between grunts and muttered words as brief as incantations, a secret ministration to the dead. Certainly Julius seemed engrossed by the procedure. He made no move to leave but stood to one side of the door and, without taking his fascinated eyes from Inspector Daniel, held it open for Dalgliesh. Daniel didn’t suggest that he, too, might now leave but Dalgliesh thought it unlikely that this was because the Inspector had forgotten his presence.

It was nearly three hours later before Inspector Daniel’s car drove up to Hope Cottage. The inspector was alone; Sergeant Varney and the others, he explained, had already left. He came in bringing with him remnants of mist like ectoplasm and a rush of cold damp air. His hair was jewelled with moisture and his long ruddy face glowed as if he had come in from a walk in the sun. At Dalgliesh’s invitation he took off his trench coat and settled himself in the wheel-backed chair in front of the wood fire. His black lively eyes roamed over the cottage, taking in the scruffed rug, the meagre grate, the shabbiness of the wall-paper. He said:

“So this is where the old gentleman lived.”

“And died. You’ll take whisky? Or there’s coffee if you prefer it.”

“Whisky, thank you, Mr. Dalgliesh. Mr. Anstey didn’t exactly make him comfortable, did he? But I daresay all the money goes on the patients, and very rightly no doubt.”

Some went on Anstey himself, thought Dalgliesh, remembering the sybaritic cell which was Wilfred’s bedroom. He said:

“It’s better than it looks. My packing cases don’t exactly add to the cosiness. But I doubt whether Father Baddeley noticed the shabbiness or if he did, that he cared.”

“Well, it’s warm enough anyway. This sea mist seems to seep into your bones. It’s clearer inland, though, once you get beyond Toynton village. That’s why we made good time.”

He sipped his whisky gratefully. After a minute’s silence he said:

“This business tonight, Mr. Dalgliesh. It looks straight-forward enough. Her prints and Court’s on the whisky bottle, and hers and Hewson’s on the telephone. There’s no hope of getting any dabs from the electric light switch, of course, and those on the biro don’t amount to anything. We found a couple of samples of her handwriting. The document chappies at the lab can take a look at them but it’s clear enough to me—and Dr. Hewson incidentally—that she wrote that suicide note. It’s a strong distinctive scrawl for a woman.”

“Except for the last three lines.”

“The reference to the black tower? She was pretty far gone when she added that. Incidentally, Mr. Anstey takes it as an admission that it was she who started the fire which nearly killed him. And that wasn’t the first attempt according to him. You’ve heard, no doubt, about the frayed climbing rope? He gave me a full account of the incident in the black tower including you finding the brown habit.”

“Did he? He was anxious enough at the time to keep it from the police. So now it’s to be laid very neatly at Maggie Hewson’s door.”

“It always surprises me—although it shouldn’t by now—how violent death unlooses tongues. He says that she was the one he suspected from the start; that she made no secret of her hatred of Toynton Grange or her resentment of him in particular.”

Dalgliesh said:

“Nor did she. I would be surprised if a woman who expressed her feelings with such uninhibited relish should feel the need for any other release. The fire; the frayed climbing rope; they strike me as being either part of a deliberate stratagem or the manifestations of frustrated hatred. Maggie Hewson was nothing if not candid about her dislike of Anstey.”

“Mr. Anstey sees the fire as part of a deliberate stratagem. According to him she was trying to frighten him into selling out. She was desperate to get her husband away from Toynton Grange.”

“Then she’d misjudged her man. My guess is that Anstey isn’t selling out. By tomorrow he’ll have made up his mind to pass Toynton Grange to the Ridgewell Trust.”

“He’s making up his mind now, Mr. Dalgliesh. Apparently Mrs. Hewson’s death interrupted their final decision. He was anxious for me to interview all the inmates as quickly as possible so that they could get down to it. Not that it took much time, to get the basic facts, anyway. No one was seen leaving Toynton Grange after the party arrived back after the funeral. Apart from Dr. Hewson and Nurse Rainer, who admit to having spent the meditation hour together in her room, all the others claim that they were alone. The patients’ quarters, as you no doubt know, are at the back. Anyone, anyone not disabled that is, could have left the house. But there’s no evidence that anyone did.”

Dalgliesh said:

“And even if someone did, this mist would have been an effective shield. Anyone could have walked about the headland unseen. Were you convinced, by the way, that Maggie Hewson did start the fire?”

“I’m not investigating arson or attempted murder, Mr. Dalgliesh. Mr. Anstey told me what he did in confidence and said that he wanted the whole subject dropped. She could have done it, but there is no real evidence. He could have done it himself.”

“I doubt that. But I did wonder if Henry Carwardine might have had a hand in it. He couldn’t have started the fire himself, of course, but he might have paid an accomplice. I don’t think he likes Anstey. But that’s hardly a motive. He doesn’t have to stay at Toynton Grange. But he’s highly intelligent and, I should have thought, fastidious. It’s difficult to imagine him embroiling himself with such childish mischief.”

“Ah, but he isn’t using his intelligence is he, Mr. Dalgliesh? That’s his trouble. He gave up too easily and too early, that one. And who can know the truth about motive? Sometimes I think not even the villain himself. I daresay it isn’t easy for a man like that, living in such a restricted community, dependent always on others, having always to be grateful to Mr. Anstey. Well, no doubt he is grateful to Mr. Anstey; they all are. But gratitude can be the very devil sometimes, particularly if you have to be grateful for services you’d rather be without.”

“You’re probably right. I know little of Carwardine’s feelings, or of anyone else’s at Toynton Grange. I’ve taken very good care not to know. Did the proximity of violent death induce any of the others to reveal their little secrets?”

“Mrs. Hollis had a contribution. I don’t know what she thought it proved, or why she thought it worth telling for that matter. But she may have wanted her little moment of importance. That blonde patient was the same—Miss Pegram isn’t it? Kept hinting that she knew Dr. Hewson and Nurse Rainer were lovers. No real evidence, of course, just spite and self-importance. I may have my ideas about those two, but I’d want more evidence than I heard tonight before I started thinking about conspiracy to murder. Mrs. Hollis’s story wasn’t even particularly relevant to Maggie Hewson’s death. She said that the night Grace Willison died she glimpsed Mrs. Hewson passing along the dormitory corridor wearing a brown habit and with the hood drawn over her face. Apparently Mrs. Hollis is in the habit of slipping out of bed at night and propelling herself round the room on her pillow. She says that it’s a form of exercise, that she’s trying to be more mobile and independent. Anyway on the night in question, she managed to get her door ajar—no doubt the idea of taking a skid down the passage—and saw this cloaked figure. She thought afterwards that it must have been Maggie Hewson. Anyone with proper business—any of the staff—would have worn the hood down.”

“If they were about their proper business. When exactly was this?”

“A little after midnight she says. She closed the door again and got back into bed with some difficulty. She heard and saw nothing more.”

Dalgliesh said consideringly:

“I’m surprised from the little I’ve seen of her that she could manage to get back to bed unaided. Getting out is one thing, pulling herself back would be a great deal more difficult. Hardly worth the exercise, I should have thought.”

There was a short silence. Then Inspector Daniel asked, his black eyes full on Dalgliesh’s face:

“Why did Dr. Hewson refer that death to the coroner, Sir? If he had doubts about his medical diagnosis, why not ask the hospital pathologist, or one of his local chums to open her up for him?”

“Because I forced his hand and gave him no choice. He couldn’t refuse to refer it without looking suspicious. And I don’t think he has any local chums. He’s not on those terms with his medical colleagues. How did you hear about it?”

“From Hewson. After hearing the girl’s story I had another word with him. But Miss Willison’s death was apparently straightforward.”

“Oh, yes. Just like this suicide. Just like Father Baddeley’s death. All apparently straightforward. She died of cancer of the stomach. But this business tonight. Did you find out anything about the rope?”

“I forgot to mention that, Mr. Dalgliesh. It’s the rope which has clinched it. Nurse Rainer saw Mrs. Hewson taking it from the business room at about half past eleven this morning. Nurse Rainer had been left behind to look after that bed-bound patient—Georgie Allan isn’t it?—but everyone else was at Miss Willison’s funeral. She was writing up the patient’s medical record and needed a fresh sheet. All the stationery is kept in a filing cabinet in the business room. It’s expensive and Mr. Anstey doesn’t like to issue it wholesale. He’s afraid that people will use it as scribbling pads. When she reached the hall Nurse Rainer saw Mrs. Hewson slipping out of the business room with the rope over her arm.”

“What explanation did Maggie give?”

“According to Nurse Rainer all she said was: ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to fray it. Quite the reverse. You’ll get it back practically as good as new, if not from me.’”

Dalgliesh said:

“Helen Rainer wasn’t in any particular hurry to provide that information when we first found the body. But, assuming she isn’t lying, it certainly completes your case.”

“I don’t think she is lying, Mr. Dalgliesh. But I did look at the boy’s medical record. Nurse Rainer began a fresh sheet this afternoon. And there seems little doubt that the rope was hanging in the business room when Mr. Anstey and Sister Moxon left for the funeral. Who else could have taken it? They were all at the funeral except Nurse Rainer, that very sick boy and Mrs. Hammitt.”

Dalgliesh said:

“I’d forgotten about Mrs. Hammitt. I noticed that almost everyone from Toynton Grange was at the cemetery. It didn’t occur to me that she wasn’t.”

“She says she disapproves of funerals. People ought to be cremated in what she calls decent privacy. She says that she spent the morning cleaning her gas stove. For what it’s worth, the stove has certainly been cleaned.”

“And this evening?”

“Meditating at Toynton Grange with the others. They were all supposed to be separate and alone. Mr. Anstey placed the small interviewing room at her disposal. According to Mrs. Hammitt, she never left it until her brother rang the bell to summon them together just before four o’clock. Mr. Court telephoned shortly afterwards. She died sometime during the meditation hour, no doubt about that. And the police surgeon reckons nearer four than three.”

Was Millicent strong enough, Dalgliesh wondered, to have strung up Maggie’s heavy body? Probably, with the help of the kitchen stool. And the strangling itself would have been easy enough once Maggie was drunk. A silent movement behind her chair, the noose dropped by gloved hands over the drooping head, the sudden upward jerk as the rope bit into the flesh. Any one of them could have done it, could have crept out unnoticed into the concealing mist towards the smudge of light marking the Hewson cottage. Helen Rainer was the slightest; but Helen was a nurse, skilful in lifting heavy bodies. And Helen Rainer might not have been alone. He heard Daniel speaking:

“We’ll get that stuff in the syringe analysed and we had better ask the lab to take a look at the whisky. But those two little jobs shouldn’t hold up the inquest. Mr. Anstey is anxious to get that over as soon as possible so that it doesn’t interfere with the pilgrimage to Lourdes on the twenty-third. None of them seems worried about the funeral. That can wait until they get back. I don’t see why they shouldn’t get away, if the lab can do the analysis quickly. And we know that the whisky’s all right; Court still seems healthy enough. I was wondering, Mr. Dalgliesh, just why he took that swig. Incidentally, he’d given her the whisky; half a dozen bottles for her birthday on 11th September. A generous gentleman.”

Dalgliesh said:

“I thought he might have been feeding her whisky. But I don’t think Court took that drink to save the forensic boys trouble. He needed it.”

Daniel gazed consideringly into his half-empty glass:

“Court’s been pressing his theory that she never intended killing herself, that the whole setup was play-acting, a desperate plea for attention. She might well have chosen that moment. They were all at the Grange making an important decision which affected her future, and yet she’d been excluded. He could be right; the jury may buy it. But it won’t provide much consolation for the husband.”

Hewson, thought Dalgliesh, might be looking elsewhere for consolation. He said:

“It seems out of character. I can see her making some dramatic démarche if only to relieve the monotony. What I can’t see is her wanting to stay on at Toynton as a failed suicide, attracting the slightly pitying contempt that people feel for someone who can’t even succeed in killing herself. My problem is that I find a genuine suicide attempt even less in character.”

Daniel said:

“Maybe she didn’t expect to have to stay at Toynton. Maybe that was the idea, to convince her husband that she’d kill herself unless he found another job. I can’t see many men taking that risk. But she did kill herself, Mr. Dalgliesh, whether she intended to or not. This case rests on two bits of evidence: Nurse Rainer’s story about the rope, and the suicide note. If Rainer convinces the jury, and the document examiner confirms that Mrs. Hewson wrote that note, then I’ll be taking no bets on the verdict. In character or not, you can’t get away from the evidence.”

But there was other evidence, thought Dalgliesh, less strong but not uninteresting. He said:

“She looked as if she were going somewhere, or perhaps expecting a visitor. She’d recently had a bath, her pores were clogged with powder. Her face was made up and she’d painted her nails. And she wasn’t dressed for a solitary evening at home.”

“So her husband said. I thought myself that it looked as if she’d dolled herself up. That could support the theory of a faked suicide attempt. If you’re planning to be the centre of attraction you may as well dress for the show. There’s no evidence that she did have a visitor, although it’s true enough that no one would have seen him in the mist. I doubt whether he could have found his way once he’d left the road. And if she was planning to leave Toynton, then someone would have had to fetch her. The Hewsons have no car, Mr. Anstey doesn’t allow private transport; there’s no bus today; and we’ve checked the car hire firms.”

“You’ve wasted no time.”

“A matter of a few telephone calls, Mr. Dalgliesh. I like to get these details out of the way while they’re in my mind.”

“I can’t see Maggie sitting quietly at home while the rest of them settled her future. She was friendly with a solicitor in Wareham, Robert Loder. I suppose he wasn’t calling for her?”

Daniel shifted his heavy weight forward and threw another plank of driftwood on the fire. The fire was burning sluggishly as if the chimney were blocked with mist. He said:

“The local boy friend. You aren’t the only one to suggest that, Mr. Dalgliesh. I thought it as well to ring the gentleman’s home and have a word. Mr. Loder’s in Poole General Hospital having his piles operated on. He was admitted yesterday and they gave him a week’s notice. A nasty painful complaint. Hardly a comfortable time, you might say, to plan to run away with another man’s wife.”

Dalgliesh asked:

“What about the one person at Toynton who did have his own car? Court?”

“It was an idea I had put to him, Mr. Dalgliesh. I got a definite reply if not a very gentlemanlike one. What it amounted to was that he’d do a great deal for dear Maggie but that self-preservation was the first law of nature and it just happens that his tastes don’t run in that direction. Not that he was against the idea that she planned to leave Toynton. As a matter of fact, he suggested it, although I don’t know how he thought it tied up with his previous view that Mrs. Hewson faked a suicide attempt. Both theories can’t be true.”

Dalgliesh asked:

“What was it that he found in her bag, a contraceptive?”

“Ah, you noticed that, did you? Yes, her Dutch cap. She wasn’t on the pill seemingly. Court tried to be tactful about it, but as I told him, you can’t be tactful about violent death. That’s the one social catastrophe that the etiquette books can’t help with. It’s the strongest indication that she might have been planning to leave, that and her passport. They were both in the bag. You could say she was equipped for any eventuality.”

Dalgliesh said:

“She was equipped with the two items which she couldn’t replace by a brief visit to the nearest chemist. I suppose you could argue that it’s reasonable to keep the passport in her handbag. But the other?”

“Who’s to know how long it was there. And women do keep things in odd places. No point in getting fanciful. And there’s no reason to suppose that the two of them were set for a flit, she and Hewson. If you ask me he’s as tied to Anstey and the Grange as any of the patients, poor devil. You know his story, I suppose?”

“Not really. I told you. I’ve taken good care not to become involved.”

“I had a sergeant like him once. The women couldn’t leave him alone. It’s that vulnerable, lost small boy look they have, I suppose. Name of Purkiss. Poor devil. He couldn’t cope with the women and he couldn’t cope without them. It did for his career. He runs a garage now, somewhere near Market Harborough, they tell me. And it’s worse for Hewson. He doesn’t even like his job. Forced into it, I gather, by one of those strong-minded mothers, a widow, determined to make her ewe lamb into a doctor. Appropriate enough, I suppose. It’s the modern equivalent of the priesthood isn’t it? He told me that the training wasn’t so bad. He’s got a phenomenal memory and can learn almost any facts. It’s the responsibility he can’t take. Well, there’s not much of that at Toynton Grange. The patients are incurable and there’s not much that they or anyone else expect him to do about it. Mr. Anstey wrote to him and took him on, I gather, after he’d had his name removed from the Register by the GMC. He’d been having an affair with a patient, a girl of sixteen. There was a suggestion that it had started a year or so earlier, but he was lucky. The girl stuck to her story. He couldn’t write prescriptions for dangerous drugs at Toynton Grange or sign death certificates, of course. Not until they restored his name to the Register six months ago. But they couldn’t take away his medical knowledge and I’ve no doubt that Mr. Anstey found him useful.”

“And cheap.”

“Well, there’s that, of course. And now he doesn’t want to leave. I suppose he might have killed his wife to stop her nagging him to go, but personally I don’t believe it and neither will a jury. He’s the sort of man who gets a woman to do his dirty work.”

“Helen Rainer?”

“That’d be daft, wouldn’t it, Mr. Dalgliesh? And where’s the evidence?”

Dalgliesh wondered briefly whether to tell Daniel about the conversation between Maggie and her husband which he had overheard after the fire. But he put the thought from him. Hewson would either deny it or be able to explain it. There were probably a dozen petty secrets in a place like Toynton Grange. Daniel would feel bound to question him, of course. But he would see it as an irritating duty forced on him by an over suspicious and officious intruder from the Met. determined to twist plain facts into a tangle of complicated conjecture. And what possible difference could it make? Daniel was right. If Helen stuck to her story about seeing Maggie collect the rope; if the document examiner confirmed that Maggie had written the suicide note; then the case was closed. He knew now what the inquest verdict would be, just as he had known that the postmortem on Grace Willison would reveal nothing suspicious. Once again he saw himself, as if in a nightmare, watching impotently as the bizarre charabanc of facts and conjecture hurtled on its predestined course. He couldn’t stop it because he had forgotten how. His illness seemed to have sapped his intelligence as well as his will.

The spar of driftwood, charred now into a blackened spear, jewelled with sparks, slowly toppled and died. Dalgliesh was aware that the room was very cold and that he was hungry. Perhaps because of the occluding mist smudging the twilight hour between day and night, the evening seemed to have lasted for ever. He wondered whether he ought to offer Daniel a meal. Presumably the man could eat an omelette. But even the effort of cooking seemed beyond him.

Suddenly the problem solved itself. Daniel got slowly to his feet and reached for his coat. He said:

“Thank you for the whisky, Mr. Dalgliesh. And now I’d best be on my way. I’ll see you at the inquest, of course. It’ll mean your staying on here. But we’ll get on with the case as quickly as we can.”

They shook hands. Dalgliesh almost winced at the grip. At the doorway Daniel paused, tugging on his coat.

“I saw Dr. Hewson alone in that small interviewing room which they tell me Father Baddeley used to use. And if you ask me, he’d have been better off with a priest. No difficulty in getting him to talk. Trouble was to stop him. And then he began crying and it all came out. How could he go on living without her? He’d never stopped loving her, longing for her. Funny, the more they’re feeling, the less sincere they sound. But you’ll have noticed that, of course. And then he looked up at me, his face blubbered with tears and said,

‘She didn’t lie for me because she cared. It was only a game to her. She never pretended to love me. It was just that she thought the GMC committee were a set of pompous old bores who despised her and she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me go to prison. And so she lied.’

“Do you know, Mr. Dalgliesh, it was only then that I realized that he wasn’t speaking about his wife. He wasn’t even thinking of her. Or of Nurse Rainer for that matter. Poor devil! Ah, well, it’s an odd job we have, you and I.”

He shook hands again as if he had already forgotten that last crushing grip, and with a final keen-eyed survey of the sitting-room as if to reassure himself that everything was still in place, slipped out into the mist.

In the business room Dot Moxon stood with Anstey at the window and looked out of the curtain of misty darkness. She said bitterly:

“The Trust won’t want either of us, you realize that? They may name the home after you, but they won’t let you stay on as Warden, and they’ll get rid of me.”

He laid his hand on her shoulder. She wondered how she could ever have longed for that touch or been comforted by it. He said with the controlled patience of a parent comforting a wilfully obtuse child:

“They’ve given me an undertaking. No one’s job will be lost. And everyone will get a rise. From now on you’ll all be paid National Health Service rates. And they have a contributory pension scheme, that’s a big advantage. I’ve never been able to provide that.”

“And what about Albert Philby? You’re not telling me that they’ve promised to keep Albert on, an established, respectable national charity like the Ridgewell Trust.”

“Philby does present a problem. But he’ll be dealt with sympathetically.”

“Dealt with sympathetically! We all know what that means. That’s what they said to me in my last job, before they forced me out! And this is his home! He trusts us. We’ve taught him to trust us! And we have a responsibility for him.”

“Not any longer, Dot.”

“So we betray Albert and exchange what you’ve tried to build up here for Health Service rates of pay and a pension scheme! And my position? Oh, they won’t sack me, I know that. But it won’t be the same. They’ll make Helen matron. She knows that too. Why else did she vote for the take-over?”

He said quietly:

“Because she knew that Maggie was dead.” Dot laughed bitterly: “It’s worked out very nicely for her hasn’t it? For both of them.”

He said:

“Dot dear, you and I have to accept that we cannot always choose the way in which we are called to serve.”

She wondered how she had never noticed it before, that irritating note of unctuous reproof in his voice. She turned abruptly away. The hand, thus rejected, slipped heavily from her shoulders. She remembered suddenly what he reminded her of: the sugar Father Christmas on her first Christmas tree, so desirable, so passionately desired. And you bit into nothingness; a trace of sweetness on the tongue and then an empty cavity grained with white sand.

Ursula Hollis and Jennie Pegram sat together in Jennie’s room, the two wheelchairs side by side in front of the dressing table. Ursula was leaning across and brushing Jennie’s hair. She wasn’t sure how she came to be here, so oddly employed. Jennie had never asked her before. But tonight, waiting for Helen to put them to bed, Helen, who had never before been so late, it was comforting not to be alone with her thoughts, comforting even to watch the corn gold hair rise with each brush stroke, to fall slowly, a delicate shining mist, over the hunched shoulders. The two women found themselves whispering, cosily, like conspiring schoolgirls. Ursula said:

“What do you think will happen now?”

“To Toynton Grange? The Trust will take over and Wilfred will go, I expect. I don’t mind. At least there’ll be more patients. It’s boring here now with so few of us. And Wilfred told me that they plan to build a sun-lounge out on the cliff. I’ll like that. And we’re bound to get more treats, trips and so on. We haven’t had many recently. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of leaving. They keep writing from my old hospital wanting me back.”

Ursula knew that they hadn’t written. But it didn’t matter. She contributed her own morsel of fantasy.

“So was I. Steve is keen for me to move nearer London so that he can visit. Just until he’s found us a more suitable flat of course.”

“Well, the Ridgewell Trust have a home in London haven’t they? You could be transferred there.”

How strange that Helen hadn’t told her that! Ursula whispered:

“It’s odd that Helen voted for the takeover. I thought she wanted Wilfred to sell out.”

“Probably she did until she knew that Maggie was dead. Now that she’s got rid of Maggie, I suppose she feels she may as well stay on. I mean the field’s clear now, isn’t it?”

Got rid of Maggie. But surely no one had got rid of Maggie but Maggie herself? And Helen couldn’t have known that Maggie was going to die. Only six days ago she had been urging Ursula to vote for the sell out. She couldn’t have known then. Even at the preliminary family council, before they all parted for their meditation hour, she had made it plain where her interests lay. And then during that meditation hour, she had changed her mind. No, Helen couldn’t have known that Maggie was going to die. Ursula found the thought comforting. Everything was going to be all right. She had told Inspector Daniel about the hooded figure she had seen on the night of Grace’s death, not the whole truth, of course, but enough to lift a weight of nagging and irrational worry from her mind. He hadn’t thought it important. She had sensed that from the way he had listened, his few brief questions. And he was right, of course. It wasn’t important. She wondered now how she could ever have lain awake fretted by inexplicable anxieties, haunted by images of evil and death, cloaked and hooded, stalking the silent corridors. And it must have been Maggie. With the news of Maggie’s death she had suddenly become sure of it. It was difficult to know why, except that the figure had looked at once theatrical and surreptitious, so much a stranger, wearing the monk’s robe with none of the slovenly familiarity of the Toynton Grange staff. But she had told the Inspector about it. There was no need to worry any more. Everything was going to be all right. Toynton Grange wouldn’t close down after all. But it didn’t matter. She would get a transfer to the London home, perhaps on exchange. Someone there was sure to want to come to the seaside. She heard Jennie’s high childish voice.

“I’ll let you into a secret about Maggie if you swear not to tell. Swear.”

“I swear.”

“She wrote poison pen letters. She sent one to me.”

Ursula’s heart seemed to lurch. She said quickly:

“How do you know?”

“Because mine was typed on Grace Willison’s typewriter and I actually saw Maggie typing it the evening before. The office door was ajar. She didn’t know that I was watching.”

“What did she say?”

“It was all about a man who is in love with me. One of the television producers actually. He wanted to divorce his wife and take me away with him. It made a great deal of fuss and jealousy at the hospital at the time. That’s partly why I had to leave. As a matter of fact I could still go to him if I chose.”

“But how did Maggie know?”

“She was a nurse, wasn’t she? I think she knew one of the staff nurses at my old hospital. Maggie was clever at finding out things. I think she knew something about Victor Holroyd, too, but she didn’t say what. I’m glad that she’s dead. And if you had one of the letters, then you won’t have any more now. Maggie’s dead and the letters will stop. Brush a little harder and to the right Ursula. That’s lovely, lovely. We ought to be friends, you and me. When the new patients start arriving we must stick together. That’s if I decide to stay, of course.”

Brush poised in midair, Ursula saw in the mirror the reflection of Jennie’s sly, self-satisfied smile.

Shortly after ten o’clock, his supper eaten, Dalgliesh walked out into the night. The mist had lifted as mysteriously as it had appeared and the cool air, smelling of rain-washed grass, moved gently against his hot face. Standing in the absolute silence he could just hear the sibilant whisper of the sea.

A torch light, erratic as a will-o’-the-wisp, was weaving towards him from the direction of the Grange. Out of the darkness a bulky shadow emerged and took form. Millicent Hammitt had returned home. At the door of Faith Cottage she paused and called out to him.

“Goodnight, Commander. Your friends have left, then?”

Her voice was high, almost belligerent.

“The inspector has gone, yes.”

“You may have noticed that I didn’t join the rush to participate in Maggie’s ill-considered charade. I have no taste for these excitements. Eric has decided to sleep tonight at Toynton Grange. Much the best thing for him, no doubt. But, as I understand that the police have taken away the body, he needn’t pretend to oversensitivity. Incidentally, we’ve voted for the Ridgewell Trust takeover. What with one thing and another, quite an eventful evening.”

She turned to open the door. Then she paused and called out again. “They tell me that her nails were painted red.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hammitt.”

“Her toe nails, too.”

He didn’t reply. She said with sudden anger:

“Extraordinary woman!”

He heard the door close. A second later her light shone through the curtains. He went inside. Almost too weary to climb the stairs to bed, he stretched himself in Father Baddeley’s chair staring into the dead fire. As he watched, the white ash shifted gently, a blackened spar of driftwood glowed momentarily into life, and he heard for the first time that night the familiar and comforting moan of the wind in the chimney. And then there followed another familiar sound. Faintly through the wall came a merry syncopated jingle. Millicent Hammitt had turned on the television.