The Mudflats of the Dead

CHAPTER 17

A DEAD MAN SPEAKS

‘My fancies, fly before ye;

Be ye my fiction – but her story.’

Richard Crashaw

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Dame Beatrice read her photocopy of Lost Parenthesis with more concentrated attention than she usually accorded to works of fiction; in fact, by the time she began the third chapter she was inclined to think that here was part of an autobiography rather than a slightly over-written piece of purely imaginative prose.

This impression was heightened by the fact that the narrative was told in the first person singular and that the writer, somewhat irritatingly, took himself very seriously indeed.

Not risking a disclosure of his true profession, Palgrave had described himself as a young interne and, although parts of the story appeared to have been plagiarised (whether the author realised it or not) from other and better writers, there was no doubt that he had done his homework by consulting non-fictional works on medicine, the law and morbid psychology.

The theme of the book was blackmail. The hero had found himself involved with a woman patient described as a few years older than himself. He had yielded to her charms to the extent of providing her with a baby whom, at her instigation, he had subsequently murdered.

On the strength of this (Dame Beatrice thought) unlikely episode, since to procure an abortion for the woman in these conscienceless days would have been a simpler and far less dangerous proposition that the calculated infanticide of a being already delivered from the womb, the mother black-mailed the young medico, bleeding him so mercilessly that he had seen fit to drown her.

This had happened on holiday and here the author had taken further risks. Under fabricated names, Saltacres and Stack Ferry were well, although over elaborately, described, and the characters, to anybody who knew the originals, were all too plainly not only Palgrave himself, but his acquaintances, including Miranda, Adrian, Morag and the dead Camilla.

The latter, indeed, appeared in several roles, or so it seemed to the percipient reader. She was both the predatory blackmailer and the hoydenish teenager. She also appeared to be a kind of Siamese twin of the apparently idolised (by the author) heroine, whom the first-person hero ended by marrying.

Incidents which Dame Beatrice knew of only by hearsay, such as the misappropriated car, the moonlight bathes, the bohemian set-up at the Saltacres cottage and the coincidental arrival at the cottage of Morag and Cupar Lowson (here renamed Nancy and Shaun McBride) would mean little, she thought, to readers who had never taken a peep behind the scenes, but might act like dynamite on anybody who had the facts which lay behind the incidents described in the book.

On the other hand, the descriptions of the various characters and the actions and motives attributed to each were so mixed and mingled and, in the reader’s view, often so impulsive and contradictory, that it was unlikely that any one person would have been able to identify herself or himself as a personage portrayed in the book.

‘No truth, no libel, I imagine,’ said Dame Beatrice, handing the script to Laura. ‘See what you make of it. Knowing as much as I do, and a good deal more which I surmise, I do not feel that I have brought an open mind to my perusal of this work. You, I trust, will do better.’

‘Doubtful,’ said Laura. ‘By this time I expect you’ve told me much of what you’ve found out, and you know what my mind is like — it is apt to fill in gaps. Is the book, as a book, worth reading?’

‘There, again, I can hardly tell. It is the book of an inexperienced author, but the story might interest some people and it is well, if somewhat elaborately, written.’

‘But you wouldn’t put it on your library list?’

‘As a contribution to my study of morbid psychology, perhaps I would.’

Laura took a couple of evenings to read the script. When she returned it. she said,

‘Could be hot stuff if you equated yourself with one or two of the characters, I suppose. That’s if you could get yourself disentangled from the various ladies involved. Naturally I’ve tried to sort out Camilla St John from Miranda Kirby from Morag Lowson from any of Camilla’s girlfriends, but it can’t be done, and the same goes for Palgrave himself, Adrian Kirby, Lowson, and the various medicos who, I suppose, are composite portraits of the schoolmasters Palgrave knew. Quite the nastiest bit of work seems to be Palgrave himself, as the book is written in the first person. In any case, the plot is wildly improbable.’

‘It can’t be, you know,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘if somebody thought it so probable that he or she went to the length of poisoning the author. I think I will show the book to Ferdinand.’

‘A man – the only one – who really terrifies me. If ever I am had up for serious crime, I pray I don’t come up against him.’

‘Oh, he is usually defending. He says it is far more fun than prosecuting and a great deal more difficult, too, because the prisoner usually has done it and to convince a jury that he has not, is a task of some magnitude.’

Sir Ferdinand read the book and asked what he was supposed to do about it.

‘Could it lead to the murder of the author?’ his mother enquired.

‘Only by the critics. Is this the arsenic victim?’

‘Yes, indeed. It is all mixed up with that other case in which I was involved, the death by drowning at Saltacres.’

‘As I see it, the main theme of the story is blackmail. The death of the girl seems to have been incidental to the main plot.’

‘Yes, but, by inference, the hero drowned her.’

‘On the assumption that, as has been so glibly and yet somewhat truly said, each man kills the thing he loves. How much, and to what an unfathomable extent, writers are the products of the age into which they are born! Kipling would have been twice as good had he lived at the present day; Shakespeare less than a quarter as great, had he come on earth a century or so later than he did.’ He cocked an eye at Laura, but she refused to be drawn into contention.

‘So you see no reason why Palgrave should have been murdered?’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Oh, yes, I do. Somebody saw something in the story which threatened him.’

‘Him?’

‘Or her, but as the book is written in the first person by a man and, very obviously, from a man’s point of view, I am inclined to think that “him” is the operative word. The book, in fact, may well be Palgrave’s confession, and his death, in spite of what the police think, may have been an expiatory suicide.’

‘I might agree, if he had not also been responsible for trying to get the book suppressed. That seems to me extraordinary in the face of his letter to me.’

‘Somebody who, like you, has read the script, may be his murderer, then.’

‘And that would include me, as I first saw the book before Palgrave died. He wanted me to give it my blessing, as I think I told you. But I am still at a loss. His letter which accompanied the script hardly seems to me to contain a request that an author who wanted to suppress his book would make.’

‘I wonder what his first book was like,’ said Laura. ‘Any use to get hold of a copy and compare them? Means the public library, I expect. It will be out of print by now, no doubt, and we don’t even know who his publishers were, do we?’

‘Mr Pinfold will know,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘He will have taken possession of all Palgrave’s papers. It may be helpful to read his first book, although very few first novels do anything except give some clue to the author’s opinion of himself, for most must, of necessity, be autobiographical.’

‘Palgrave’s second book is that, too, in a manner of speaking, as I think we are agreed,’ said Ferdinand. ‘I wonder whether a talk with his publishers would be helpful?’

The publishers were cautious, though courteous when she visited them, and did not attempt to offer any help in suggesting a reason for Palgrave’s death.

‘Naturally, the murder of one of our authors is not the kind of publicity we look for,’ said the senior partner. ‘All the same, we are somewhat disappointed that Colin saw fit to withdraw his second book. We should have been interested to see it. When he had ironed out some rather regrettable mannerisms and pruned an extensive and dictionary-conscious vocabulary, he might have shown considerable promise. We were quite prepared to take a chance on his second book unless it was very bad indeed.’

‘I thought, when I read his two books, that he had talent,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Oh, you’ve seen the second one, then?’

‘He sent me a copy in the hope that I would write a preface, I think. Do you know why Mr Palgrave decided to withdraw the book from publication? It seems a mystery to me.’

‘We have no idea. His agents sent us a copy of his letter, but it is very short and offers no explanation of his action.’

‘Did you know him well?’

‘He came here several times. He was a very eager and enthusiastic author, of course, and expected rather more from his first book than was justified by the standard of his work, and by the fact that it was his initial attempt and by no means in the best-seller class, but his attitude was no phenomenon in our experience.’

‘Were you surprised when you knew that he did not wish to publish his second book?’

‘We were more than surprised. He had been in correspondence with us about the book, giving us a synopsis first of all, and in later letters giving us more details of the plot and a great deal of unnecessary information as to the book’s progress in its later stages. He seemed altogether delighted with the work. The very last thing we expected was a complete volte-face. We are at a loss to understand it.’

‘I suppose – I advance the theory with all diffidence – I suppose the letter to his agents postponing, or, as I understand it, forbidding publication, did come from Mr Palgrave himself, and not from some outside source?’

‘Such an idea has never occurred to us, nor, I am sure, to Peterheads. Who would take such a liberty?’

‘Either a practical joker or somebody who had an interest in suppressing the book.’

‘You say you have read the book, Dame Beatrice. Could there be such an interest?’

‘I hardly know. Blackmail is one of the themes explored in the story, and from previous knowledge which I assimilated from his acquaintances, I know that Mr Palgrave was not averse to including real incidents and real personalities in his narrative. I should be interested to see your copy of the letter which was sent to his agents.’

‘I begin to see that there are possibilities we had not considered, but if the law of libel had been infringed, surely it would have paid the objector better, had we published the book, to take us to court rather than to prevent publication altogether?’ He smiled benevolently. ‘Not that we should have published, of course, if we had had any doubts.’

Less inhibited, less dignified and perhaps less cautious than the senior partner of Kent and Weald, young Mr Peterhead put the cards on the table in no uncertain manner.

‘K and W,’ he said, ‘would have published the book. It’s not bad. Palgrave would have shown lots of promise once he could have forgotten that he was a schoolmaster. Apart from that, there would have been the posthumous fame of getting himself murdered. Very sorry about that, of course, but it would have helped sales no end. Still, it cuts both ways. Lost Parenthesis might have sold well on the strength of the author’s violent death, but, with no more books to come — well, t’other or which, I suppose, in the end. Not that I want to sound callous or materialistic, of course.’

‘Did you ever check to find out whether Mr Palgrave’s last letter was genuine?’

‘Genuine? How do you mean, Dame Beatrice? It had his signature on it all right.’

‘Did you not think it strange that he should wish to suppress his novel?’

‘Oh, authors are the queerest lot of people in the world. You’d be amazed at what we and their publishers have to put up with. I talked the letter over with my father and we decided to take no action for a week or two in the hope (and full expectation, I may add) that Palgrave would change his mind. By the time (as we’d heard nothing more) we had decided to write to him regretting his decision, hoping he had changed his mind and would instruct us to go ahead and send the book to Kent and Weald, we had the news that he was dead, so nothing further has been done, of course.’

‘That is very interesting. May I see his last letter to you? As I told you when I asked for this interview, I am accredited to the Home Office and am accustomed to working in co-operation with the police.’

‘Of course you may see his letter. The police have seen it and were surprised not to find an answer to it from us, but all we did was to telephone him. Our call was never answered except by his landlady. He was never at home during our office hours.’

‘He was dead, of course, by the time you wrote to him.’ She took the letter which young Mr Peterhead had extracted from a filing-cabinet. ‘I see that this is not dated. You would not remember what the postmark on the envelope was?’

‘I’m afraid not. I remember that the letter came by second-class post, though.’

‘Was that unusual?’

‘Yes, under the circumstances. That is why I remember it. One would suppose that if he didn’t want us to send his book to Kent and Weald he would either have telephoned or told us by first-class post. There would have been very little time to lose if he really wanted us to suppress the book and not let K and W have it.’

‘He could have written direct to the publishers himself, I suppose, though, asking them to return the book to him when they had received it from you.’

‘It does all seem a bit mysterious, because of course he could have done that.’

‘I would like to submit this letter to a handwriting expert, together with any other signatures of Mr Palgrave’s which you may have. It might also be interesting to find out whether this letter and the others were typed on the same machine.’

‘How about fingerprints?’ asked young Mr Peterhead, entering into the spirit of the thing with interest and considerable zest.

‘Useless, I fear. None of the fingerprints on this letter will be on record, with the exception of my own.’

‘Yours?’ The young man looked astonished and disbelieving. Dame Beatrice spread out a yellow claw.

‘There are times when mine have to be distinguished from those of the felons whose fraudulent documents I am called upon sometimes to handle,’ she explained. ‘I would like to repeat a previous question in slightly different words. I think I may receive a more significant answer from you this time. Now, Mr Peterhead, what was your reaction when you first read this letter? Granted, as you say, that authors are kittle cattle, what did you think of Palgrave’s request?’

‘As you see, it was not so much a request as an order. We were astounded. As a whole, authors are proud of their work and extremely jealous that it shall be appreciated by others to the extent that they appreciate it themselves. The point at which an author begins to think his stuff is no good, and wonders why he ever committed himself to writing it, is about two-thirds of the way through. By the time he’s got over that hurdle and finished the book, he’s convinced that the world has produced another genius and that his book is a masterpiece.’

‘And Palgrave, in that sense, was not noticeably different from the norm?’

‘Definitely not, I would say. We couldn’t understand his reactions. We concluded he was tired, that’s all. We knew he had had trouble, at the beginning, in getting down to the book, and, of course, he was combining authorship with another very demanding job.’

‘Schoolmastering is what you make of it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘The better the author, the worse the schoolmaster, perhaps.’

‘Then Palgrave wasn’t too bad a schoolmaster,’ said the literary agent. Dame Beatrice clicked her tongue and Peterhead laughed, but they both came back to the matter in hand when she said:

‘Well, perhaps you will mark this letter in some way so that you will know it again when I return it. I will give you a receipt for it, of course. There is one other small matter. The police have found a receipted bill from a typewriting agency for a top copy and two carbon copies of Palgrave’s book. There is also a receipted bill for two photo copies. We think we can account for all of these. Only one item seems to be unaccounted for. We have not found Palgrave’s own manuscript or typescript from which the other copies must have been made.’

‘Wouldn’t he have kept it by him?’

‘Apparently not. We can trace the other copies. He kept one, two of his friends have theirs and one came to me, but of the original copy there is no sign.’

‘In a safe deposit somewhere?’

‘I hope not. If it is, my theories may be useless. One other point, and I daresay it is not of the least importance: Palgrave seems to have typed all his letters to you. Is that not so?’

‘Yes, indeed it is. Like the one in your hand, all his letters to us were in typescript apart from the signature.’

‘But his novel was typed by an agency, yet he himself had a typewriter.’

‘Oh, that’s not unusual. Some of our authors like to send in a professional-looking copy and others shy away from the labour of making a fresh draft of a whole novel when they have finished the book. There is nothing extraordinary in the fact that Palgrave went to an agency. For one thing, a lot of people hate the fiddling business of dealing with carbons. I suppose it is a bit of a nuisance.’

‘Thank you, but that does not clear up my small point. I feel he is unlikely to have destroyed his own typescript. It must be somewhere, but we have not found it. Ah, well, now to get this signature examined.’

The tests took a little time, but the result of them justified her theories. Two handwriting experts who often found themselves on opposite sides in trials for forgery were for once in positive agreement. The evidence afforded by a comparison of the agents’ letter with the other letters supplied to Dame Beatrice was equally satisfactory. The signature on the withdrawal letter was not by the same hand as the signatures on three letters which had been sent to the publishers, neither had this key letter which forbade publication of the novel been typed on the machine the police had found in Palgrave’s lodgings.

‘So now,’ said Dame Beatrice to Laura, ‘to the telephone to get the police to track down the missing copy.’

‘As it’s the original draft which is missing,’ said Laura when Dame Beatrice had telephoned, ‘it seems to me it wouldn’t hurt to have me go along to that typing bureau – the police will have found the address among Palgrave’s things – and find out whether perhaps they know what happened to the original script. They must have had it to make the copies he ordered.’

‘Oh, I have told the police that I have no doubt as to who has the original draft. Mrs Lowson has it. There is every reason why she should have been sent that special very personal copy of the novel. I only hope she enjoyed reading it more than we did.’

‘Would she have recognised herself?’

‘There’s the telephone!’ said Dame Beatrice. The call was from Adrian Kirby. The police had just left his flat. They had asked for the Lowsons’ Lancashire address. He had had no option but to disclose it. He hoped he had done right. He had been alone in the flat because Miranda was at the art school.

Dame Beatrice, to whom Laura had handed the receiver, reassured him. She knew why the police wanted to get in touch with the Lowsons, she said. They were trying to trace a copy of Palgrave’s book. Somebody who must have read it had been attempting to suppress it.

‘But that implicates Miranda and me,’ said Adrian.

‘And Laura Gavin and my son and myself, not to mention a fellow teacher to whom Mr Palgrave had lent a copy, and, of course, anybody who may have been shown a first draft of the novel before it was retyped, or even one of the typists at the agency,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘All the same, I shall ring up the Lowsons and warn them to expect a visit from the police.’

‘I cannot prevent your doing that, but I advise against it.’

‘The Lowsons are our friends and there is little Camilla’s death to consider. Miranda and I have talked and talked about that. One of us who was at the cottage that night must have carried Camilla’s suitcase to the dunes and tried to hide it there so that it would appear that she had gone off with somebody else and left us. It must have been taken out of the cottage after her death, not before. There would have been no need to remove it while she was still alive. It was the act of a guilty person.’

‘Do you think Colin Palgrave was that guilty person?’

‘We wondered, but his own death seems to let him out.’

‘I think,’ said Dame Beatrice, rejoining Laura, ‘that I will go and see the Lowsons myself. It will be interesting to find out which of Mr Palgrave’s private readers saw fit to suppress the book, and as the narrator of the story is supposed to be a doctor the Lowsons may be promising material.’

‘I don’t suppose Dr Lowson himself would bother to read the typescript of a third-rate novel,’ said Laura, ‘but I bet Mrs Lowson has read it.’