Unnatural Causes

8

The contrast between the brightness of the sitting room and the cool darkness of the autumn night was absolute. It was like stepping into a pit. As the door of Pentlands closed behind them Celia Calthrop experienced a moment of blind panic. The night pressed around her. She breathed darkness like a physical weight. It was as if the air had thickened with night, had become a heaviness through which she had to fight her way. There was no longer direction nor distance. In this black and numinous void the sullen, melancholy thudding of the sea sounded on all sides, so that she felt menaced and rooted like a lost traveller on some desolate shore. When Latham shone his torch on the path the ground looked unreal and very far away like the surface of the moon. It was impossible that human feet could make contact with this remote and insubstantial soil. She stumbled and would have lost her balance if Latham hadn’t gripped her arm with sudden and surprising force.

They started together on the inland path. Celia, who had not expected to walk home, was wearing light, high-heeled shoes which alternately skidded on the smooth sea pebbles which littered the path or sank into soft patches of sand so that she lurched forward in Latham’s grip like a graceless and recalcitrant child. But her panic was over. Her eyes were getting accustomed to the night and with every stumble forward the roar of the sea grew fainter and less insistent.

But it was a relief when Justin Bryce spoke, his voice unaltered, ordinary: “Asthma is a peculiar complaint! This has been a traumatic evening-one’s first contact with murder-and yet one feels quite well. Yet last Tuesday one had the most appalling attack with no apparent cause. One may get a reaction later of course.”

“One certainly may,” agreed Latham caustically. “Especially if Forbes-Denby doesn’t confirm one’s alibi for Tuesday night.”

“Oh, but he will, Oliver! And one can’t help thinking that his testimony will carry rather more weight than anything your sleeping partner may say.”

Celia Calthrop, gaining confidence from their nearness, their normality, said quickly: “It’s such a comfort that Adam Dalgliesh happens to be here. After all, he does know us. Socially I mean. And being a writer himself I feel that he belongs at Monksmere.”

Latham gave a shout of laughter. “If you find Adam Dalgliesh a comfort I envy your capacity for self-deception. Do tell us how you see him, Celia! The gentleman sleuth, dabbling in detection for the fun of it, treating his suspects with studied courtesy? A kind of professional Carruthers, straight out of one of Seton’s dreary sagas? My dear Celia, Dalgliesh would sell us all to Reckless if he thought it would enhance his reputation one iota. He’s the most dangerous man I know.”

He laughed again and she felt his grip tighten on her arm. Now he was really hurting her, hurrying her forward as if she were in custody. Yet she could not bring herself to shake free. Although the lane was wider here, the ground was still uneven. Stumbling and slipping, her feet bruised and her ankles aching, she had no chance of keeping up with them except in Latham’s remorseless grip. And she could not bear to be left alone.

Bryce’s voice fluted in her ear. “Oliver’s right you know, Celia. Dalgliesh is a professional detective and probably one of the most intelligent in the country. I don’t see that his two volumes of verse, much as I personally admire them, can alter that.”

“Reckless is no fool though.” Latham still seemed amused. “Did you notice how he said hardly a word but just encouraged us to babble on in our childish, egotistical way? He probably learned more from us in five minutes than other suspects would tell him in hours of orthodox questioning. When will we learn to keep our mouths shut?”

“As we’ve nothing to hide I don’t see that it matters,” said Celia Calthrop. Really Oliver was extraordinarily irritating tonight! One might almost imagine that he was a little drunk.

Justin Bryce said: “Oh, Celia! Everyone has something to hide from the police. That’s why one is so ambivalent about them. Wait until Dalgliesh asks why you kept referring to Seton in the past tense, even before we heard that his body had been found. You did, you know. Even I noticed it so it must have struck Dalgliesh. I wonder whether he’ll feel it his duty to mention the matter to Reckless.”

But Celia was too tough to be intimidated by Bryce. She said irritably, “Don’t be stupid, Justin! I don’t believe you. And, even if I did, it was probably because I was speaking of Maurice as a writer. And one does somehow feel that, as a writer, poor Maurice has been finished for quite a time.”

“God yes!” said Latham. “Dead and done for. Finished. Written out. Maurice Seton only wrote one effective passage of prose in his life but that was straight from the heart all right. And from the brain. It produced exactly the effect he intended. Every word selected to wound and the whole-lethal.”

“Do you mean his play?” asked Celia. “I thought you despised it. Maurice always said that it was your notice that killed it.”

“Celia darling, if my notice could kill a play, half the little pieces now running in London would have folded after the first night.” He jerked her forward with fresh impetus and for a minute Justin Bryce lagged behind them.

Hurrying to catch them up he called breathlessly: “Maurice must have been killed on Tuesday night. And his body was pushed out to sea late on Wednesday evening. So how did the murderer get it to Monksmere? You drove from London on Wednesday, Oliver. It wasn’t in the boot of your Jaguar, was it?”

“No dear,” said Latham easily. “I’m very particular what I carry in the boot of my Jaguar.”

Celia said complacently: “Well, I’m in the clear. Sylvia can give me an alibi until late on Tuesday and that’s obviously the crucial time. I admit that I was out alone on Wednesday night but Reckless will hardly suspect me of mutilating the body. And that reminds me. There’s one person who doesn’t even claim an alibi for Tuesday or Wednesday, Jane Dalgliesh. And what’s more-it was her chopper!”

Latham said: “Why in God’s name should Miss Dalgliesh wish to kill Seton?”

“Why should any of us want to?” retorted Celia. “And I’m not saying she did. I’m merely pointing out that it was apparently her chopper.”

Bryce said happily: “I wanted to at one time. Murder Seton, I mean. After I found Arabella I could willingly have killed him. But I didn’t. All the same, I can’t feel sorry about it. I wonder if I ought to ask to view the body after the inquest. It might shock me out of this insensitivity which I can’t feel is at all healthy.”

But Latham was still meditating on the missing chopper. He said fiercely: “Anyone could have taken it! Anyone! We all walk in and out of each other’s houses at will. No one here locks up anything. There’s never been the need. And we don’t even know yet that it was the weapon.”

“My dears,” said Bryce. “Consider this and calm yourselves. Until we know the cause of death we can’t even be sure that Maurice was murdered.”