Unnatural Causes

BOOK TWO. LONDON
1

Dalgliesh set out next morning after an early and solitary breakfast, pausing only to telephone Reckless to ask for Digby Seton’s London address and the name of the hotel at which Elizabeth Marley had stayed. He didn’t explain why he wanted them and Reckless didn’t ask but gave the information without comment except to wish Mr. Dalgliesh a pleasant and successful trip. Dalgliesh replied that he doubted whether it would be either but that he was grateful for the Inspector’s co-operation. Neither troubled to disguise the irony in his voice. Their mutual dislike seemed to be crackling along the wire.

It was a little unkind to call on Justin Bryce so early but Dalgliesh wanted to borrow the photograph of the beach party. It was several years old but was a good-enough likeness of the Setons, Oliver Latham and Bryce himself to help an identification.

Bryce came paddling down in response to his knock. The earliness of the hour seemed to have bereft him of sense as well as speech and it was some time before he grasped what Dalgliesh wanted and produced the snap. Only then, apparently, was he struck with doubt about the wisdom of handing it over. As Dalgliesh was leaving he came scurrying down the path after him, bleating anxiously: “You won’t tell Oliver that I let you have it, will you, Adam? He’ll be absolutely furious if he learns that one is collaborating with the police. Oliver is the teeniest bit distrustful of you, I’m afraid. One must implore secrecy.”

Dalgliesh made reassuring noises and encouraged him back to bed, but he was too familiar with Justin’s vagaries to take him at face value. Once Bryce had breakfasted and gained strength for the day’s mischief he would almost certainly be telephoning Celia Calthrop for a little cosy mutual speculation about what Adam Dalgliesh could be up to now. By noon all Monksmere including Oliver Latham would know that he had driven to London, taking the photograph with him.

It was a comparatively easy journey. He took the quickest route and, by half past eleven, he was approaching the city. He hadn’t expected to be driving into London again so soon. It was like a premature ending to a holiday already spoilt. In a half-propitiatory hope that this might not really be so, he resisted the temptation to call at his flat high above the Thames near Queenhithe and drove straight on to the West End. Just before noon he had garaged the Cooper Bristol in Lexington Street and was walking towards Bloomsbury and the Cadaver Club.

The Cadaver Club is a typically English establishment in that its function, though difficult to define with any precision, is perfectly understood by all concerned. It was founded by a barrister in 1892 as a meeting place for men with an interest in murder and, on his death, he bequeathed to the club his pleasant house in Tavistock Square. The club is exclusively masculine; women are neither admitted as members nor entertained. Among the members there is a solid core of detective novelists, elected on the prestige of their publishers rather than the size of their sales; one or two retired police officers; a dozen practising barristers; three retired judges; most of the better-known amateur criminologists and crime reporters; and a residue of members whose qualification consists in the ability to pay their dues on time and discuss intelligently the probable guilt of William Wallace or the finer points of the defence of Madeline Smith. The exclusion of women means that some of the best crime writers are unrepresented but this worries no one; the Committee takes the view that their presence would hardly compensate for the expense of putting in a second set of lavatories. The plumbing at the Cadaver has, in fact, remained virtually unaltered since the club moved to Tavistock Square in 1900 but it is a canard that the baths were originally purchased by George Joseph Smith. The club is old-fashioned in more than its plumbing; even its exclusiveness is justified by the assumption that murder is hardly a fit subject for discussion in front of women. And murder at the Cadaver seems itself a civilised archaism, insulated from reality by time or the panoply of the law, having nothing in common with the sordid and pathetic crimes which took up most of Dalgliesh’s working life. Murder here evokes the image of a Victorian maid-servant, correct in cap and streamers, watching through a bedroom door as Adelaide Bartlett prepares her husband’s medicine; of a slim hand stretched through an Edinburgh basement railing proffering a cup of cocoa and, perhaps, arsenic; of Dr. Lamson handing round Dundee cake at his wealthy brother-in-law’s last tea party; or of Lizzie Borden, creeping, axe in hand, through the quiet house in Fall River in the heat of a Massachusetts summer.

Every club has its peculiar asset. The Cadaver Club has the Plants. The members are apt to say “What shall we do if we lose the Plants?” much as they might ask “What shall we do if they drop the Bomb?” Both questions have their relevance but only the morbid dwell on them. Mr. Plant has sired-one would almost believe for the benefit of the club-five buxom and competent daughters. The three eldest, Rose, Marigold and Violet, are married and come in to lend a hand. The two youngest, Heather and Primrose, are employed in the dining room as waitresses. Plant himself is steward and general factotum and his wife is generally acknowledged as one of the best cooks in London. It is the Plants who give the club its atmosphere of a private townhouse where the family’s comfort is in the hands of loyal, competent and discreet family servants. Those members who once enjoyed these benefits have the comfortable illusion that they are back in their youth, and the others begin to realise what they have missed. Even the eccentricities of the Plants are odd enough to make them interesting without detracting from their efficiency and there are few club servants of whom this can be said.

Dalgliesh, although he was not a member of the club, had occasionally dined there and was known to Plant. Luckily, too, by that curious alchemy which operates in these matters, he was approved of. Plant made no difficulties about showing him round or answering his questions; nor was it necessary for Dalgliesh to emphasise his present amateur status. Very little was said but both men understood each other perfectly. Plant led the way to the small front bedroom on the first floor which Seton had always used and waited just inside the door while Dalgliesh examined the room. Dalgliesh was used to working under scrutiny or he might have been disconcerted by the man’s stolid watchfulness. Plant was an arresting figure. He was six feet three inches tall, and broad shouldered, his face pale and pliable as putty with a thin scar sliced diagonally across his left cheekbone. This mark, the result of an undignified tumble from a bicycle onto iron railings in his youth, looked so remarkably like a duelling scar that Plant had been unable to resist adding to its effect by wearing a pince-nez and cropping his hair en brosse, like a sinister Commander in an anti-Nazi film. His working uniform was appropriate, a dark blue serge with a miniature skull on each lapel; this vulgar conceit, introduced in 1896 by the club’s founder, had now, like Plant himself, been sanctified by time and custom. Indeed, members were always a little puzzled when their visitors commented on Plant’s unusual appearance.

There was little to be seen in the bedroom. Thin terylene curtains were drawn against the grey light of the October afternoon. The drawers and wardrobe were empty. The small desk of light oak in front of the window held nothing but a clean blotter and a supply of club writing paper. The single bed, freshly made up, awaited its next occupant.

Plant said: “The officers from the Suffolk CID took away his typewriter and clothes, Sir. They looked for papers, too, but he hadn’t any to speak of. There was a packet of buff envelopes and about fifty sheets of foolscap and a sheet or two of unused carbon paper but that’s all. He was a very tidy gentleman, Sir.”

“He stayed here regularly every October didn’t he?”

“The last two weeks in the month, Sir. Every year. And he always had this room. We’ve only got the one bedroom on this floor and he couldn’t climb stairs because of his bad heart. Of course, he could have used the lift but he said he hadn’t any confidence in lifts. So it had to be this room.”

“Did he work in here?”

“Yes, Sir. Most mornings from ten until half past twelve. That’s when he lunched. And again from two-thirty until half past four. That’s if he was typing. If it was a matter of reading or making notes he worked in the library. But there’s no typing allowed in the library on account of disturbing other members.”

“Did you hear him typing in here on Tuesday?”

“The wife and I heard someone typing, Sir, and naturally we thought it was Mr. Seton. There was a notice on the door saying not to disturb but we wouldn’t have come in anyway. Not when a member’s working. The Inspector seemed to think it might have been someone else in here.”

“Did he now? What do you think?”

“Well, it could have been. The wife heard the typewriter going at about eleven o’clock in the morning and I heard it again at about four. But we wouldn’t either of us know whether it was Mr. Seton. It sounded pretty quick and expert-like but what’s that to go on? That Inspector asked whether anyone else could have got in. We didn’t see any strangers about but we were both busy at lunchtime and downstairs most of the afternoon. People walk in and out very freely, Sir, as you know. Mind you, a lady would have been noticed. One of the members would have mentioned it if there’d been a lady about the club. But otherwise-well, I couldn’t pretend to the Inspector that the place is what he’d call well supervised. He didn’t seem to think much of our security arrangements. But, as I told him Sir, this is a club not a police station.”

“You waited two nights before you reported his disappearance?”

“More’s the pity, Sir. And even then, I didn’t call the police. I phoned his home and gave a message to his secretary, Miss Kedge. She said to do nothing for the moment and she would try to find Mr. Seton’s half-brother. I’ve never met the gentleman myself but I think Mr. Maurice Seton did mention him to me once. But he’s never been to the club that I remember. That Inspector asked me particularly.”

“I expect he asked about Mr. Oliver Latham and Mr. Justin Bryce too.”

“He did, Sir. They’re both members and so I told him. But I haven’t seen either gentleman recently and I don’t think they’d come and go without a word to me or the wife. You’ll want to see this first-floor bathroom and lavatory. Here we are. Mr. Seton used this little suite. That Inspector looked in the cistern.”

“Did he indeed? I hope he found what he was looking for.”

“He found the ballcock, Sir and I hope to God he hasn’t put it out of action. Very temperamental this lavatory is. You’ll want to see the library, I expect. That’s where Mr. Seton used to sit when he wasn’t typing. It’s on the next floor as I think you know.”

A visit to the library was obviously scheduled. Inspector Reckless had been thorough and Plant was not the man to let his protegé get away with less. As they crushed together into the tiny claustrophobic lift, Dalgliesh asked his last few questions. Plant replied that neither he nor any member of his staff had posted anything for Mr. Seton. No one had tidied his room or destroyed any papers. As far as Plant knew there had been none to destroy. Except for the typewriter and Seton’s clothes, the room was still as he had left it on the evening he disappeared.

The library, which faced south over the square, was probably the most attractive room in the house. It had originally been the drawing room and, except for the provision of shelves along the whole of the west wall, looked much as it had when the club took over the house. The curtains were copies of the originals, the wallpaper was a faded Pre-Raphaelite design, the desks set between the four high windows were Victorian. The books made up a small but reasonably comprehensive library of crime. There were the notable British Trials and Famous Trials series; textbooks on medical jurisprudence, toxicology and forensic pathology; memoirs of judges, advocates, pathologists and police officers; a variety of books by amateur criminologists dealing with some of the more notable or controversial murders; textbooks on criminal law and police procedure; and even a few treatises on the sociological and psychological aspects of violent crime which showed few signs of having been opened. On the fiction shelves a small section held the club’s few first editions of Poe, Le Fanu and Conan Doyle; for the rest, most British and American crime writers were represented and it was apparent that those who were members presented copies of their books. Dalgliesh was interested to see that Maurice Seton had had his specially bound and embellished with his monogram in gold. He also noted that, although the club excluded women from membership, the ban did not extend to their books, so that the library was fairly representative of crime writing during the last 150 years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Surely that was a grave handicap for a detective writer?”

“Oh, he didn’t actually do murder as far as I know. At least, not in the service of his writing. But he kept to familiar characters and settings. You know the kind of thing. Cosy English village or small-town scene. Local characters moving on the chessboard strictly according to rank and station. The comforting illusion that violence is exceptional, that all policemen are honest, that the English class system hasn’t changed in the last twenty years and that murderers aren’t gentlemen. He was absolutely meticulous about detail though. He never described a murder by shooting, for example, because he couldn’t understand firearms. But he was very sound on toxicology and his forensic medical knowledge was considerable. He took a great deal of trouble with rigor mortis and details like that. It peeved him when the reviewers didn’t notice it and the readers didn’t care.”

Dalgliesh said: “So you saw him about ten weeks ago. How was that?”

“He wrote and asked to see me. He came to London purposely and we met in my office just after six-fifteen when most of the staff had left. Afterwards we came here to dine. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Adam. He was going to alter his will. This letter explains why.” He took a folded sheet of writing paper from his wallet and handed it to Dalgliesh. The paper was headed “Seton House, Monksmere Head, Suffolk.” The letter, dated thirtieth July, was typed and the typing, although accurate, was inexpert, and something about the spacing and the word division at the end of lines marked it as the work of an amateur. Dalgliesh realised immediately that he had recently seen one other typescript by the same hand. He read:

Dear Gurney,

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

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

Yours sincerely,

Maurice Seton

Dalgliesh was conscious of Gurney’s little black eyes on him as he read. When he had finished he handed back the letter, saying: “He was expecting rather a lot of you, wasn’t he? What was the firm getting out of it?”

“Oh, nothing, my dear Adam. Just a lot of hard work and worry and all of course for the greater glory of Maurice Seton. He didn’t even restrict the prize to our list. Not that it would have been reasonable, I admit. He wanted to attract all the really big names. One of his chief worries was whether they would bother to apply. I told him to make the prize large enough and they’d apply all right. But £120,000! I never realized he was worth that.”

“His wife had money… Did he talk to anyone else about his plan do you know, Max?”

“Well, he said not. He was rather like a schoolboy about it. Tremendous swearings to secrecy and I had to promise I wouldn’t even telephone him about it. But you see my problem. Do I, or do I not, hand this over to the police?”

“Of course. To Inspector Reckless of the Suffolk CID, to be precise. I’ll give you his address. And you’d better phone him to say it’s on the way.”

“I thought you’d say that. It’s obvious, I suppose. But one has these irrational inhibitions. I know nothing of his present heir. But I imagine that this letter gives someone a whacking great motive.”

“The best. But we’ve no evidence that his heir knew. And, if it’s any comfort to you, the man with the strongest financial motive also has the strongest alibi. He was in police custody when Maurice Seton died.”

“That was clever of him… I suppose I couldn’t just hand this letter over to you, Adam?”

“I’m sorry, Max. I’d rather not.”

Gurney sighed, replaced the letter in his wallet and gave his attention to the meal. They did not talk again of Seton until lunch was over and Max was enveloping himself in the immense black cloak which he invariably wore between October and May, and which gave him the appearance of an amateur conjuror who had seen better days.

“I shall be late for our Board meeting if I don’t hurry. We have become very formal, Adam, very efficient. Nothing is decided except by resolution of the whole Board. It’s the effect of our new buildings. In the old days we sat closeted in our dusty cells and made our own decisions. It led to a certain ambiguity about the firm’s policy but I’m not sure that was such a bad thing… Can I drop you anywhere? Who are you off to investigate next?”

“I’ll walk, thank you, Max. I’m going to Soho to have a chat with a murderer.”

Max paused, surprised. “Not Seton’s murderer? I thought you and the Suffolk CID were baffled. D’you mean I’ve been wrestling with my conscience for nothing?”

“No, this murderer didn’t kill Seton although I don’t suppose he would have had any moral objections. Certainly someone is hoping to persuade the police that he’s implicated. It’s L. J. Luker. Remember him?”

“Didn’t he shoot his business partner in the middle of Piccadilly and get away with it? It was in 1959, wasn’t it?”

“That’s the man. The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the verdict on grounds of misdirection. Mr. Justice Brothwick, through some extraordinary aberration, suggested to the jury that a man who made no reply when charged probably had something to hide. He must have realised the consequences as soon as the words were out of his mouth. But they were said. And Luker went free, just as he said he would.”

“And how does he tie up with Maurice Seton? I can’t imagine two men with less in common.”

“That,” said Dalgliesh, “is what I’m hoping to find out.”