Shroud for a Nightingale

by P. D. James

  No, there would be no difficulty about the dancing. Whether she was equally expert was another matter. The evening would probably be a fiasco and whether he went with her or not she would probably talk in time. But when would that be? Dalgliesh liked to work fast. This was one of those cases where the number of suspects was limited to a small, closed community and he didn’t normally expect to spend more than a week on them. He wouldn’t exactly thank his subordinate for a wasted evening. And then there was that time in the car to be accounted for somehow. It wouldn’t be a good night to return empty-handed. And what the hell! It would make a good story for the boys. And if the evening became too impossible he could always ditch her. He’d better remember to take his own clothes in the car in case he needed to make a quick escape.

  “All right,” he said. “But it’s got to be worth my while.”

  “It will be.”

  Martin Dettinger’s dinner-jacket fitted him better than he had feared. It was strange, this ritual of dressing up in another man’s clothes. He found himself searching in the pockets as if they too could hold some kind of clue. But he found nothing. The shoes were too small and he made no effort to force them on his feet. Luckily he was wearing black shoes with leather soles. They were too heavy for dancing and looked incongruous with the dinner-jacket but they would have to do. He bundled his own suit in a cardboard box reluctantly provided by Mrs. Dettinger and they set off.

  He knew that there would be little chance of finding a space for the car in or near the Strand so drove over to the South Bank and parked next to County Hall. Then they walked to Waterloo Station and hired a taxi. That part of the evening wasn’t too bad. She had wrapped herself in a voluminous, old-fashioned fur coat. It smelt strong and sour as if a cat had got at it, but at least it was concealing. For the whole of the journey neither of them spoke a word.

  The dance had already started when they arrived shortly after eight and the great hall was unpleasantly full. They made their way to one of the few remaining empty tables under the balcony. Masterson noticed that each of the male instructors sported a red carnation; the women a white one. There was a great deal of promiscuous kissing and caressing pats of shoulders and arms. One of the men minced up to Mrs. Dettinger with little bleats of welcome and congratulation.

  “You’re looking marvellous, Mrs. D. Sorry to hear that Tony’s ill. But I’m glad you found a partner.”

  The glance at Masterson was perfunctorily curious. Mrs. Dettinger received this greeting with a clumsy jerk of the head and a slight leer of gratification. She made no attempt to introduce Masterson.

  They sat out the next two dances and Masterson contented himself with looking round the hall. The whole atmosphere was drearily respectable. A huge bunch of balloons hung from the ceiling, ready no doubt to descend for some orgiastic climax to tonight’s festivities. The band wore red jackets with gold epaulettes and had the gloomily resigned look of men who have seen it all before. Masterson looked forward to an evening of cynical uninvolvement, the gratification of observing the folly of others, the insidious pleasure of disgust. He recalled the description of a French diplomat of the English dancing “avec les visages si tristes, les derrières si gais”. Here the bottoms were positively staid, but the faces were fixed in grins of simulated delight so unnatural that he wondered whether the school had taught the approved facial expression with the correct steps. Away from the dance floor all the women looked worried, their expressions ranging from slight apprehension to almost frantic anxiety. They greatly outnumbered the men and some of them were dancing together. The majority were middle-aged or older and the style of dress was uniformly old-fashioned, the bodices tight and low cut, the immense circular skirts studded with sequins.

  The third dance was a quick step. She turned to him suddenly and said, “We’ll dance this.” Unprotesting, he led her on to the floor and clasped her rigid body with his left arm. He resigned himself to a long and exhausting evening. If this old harpy had anything useful to tell—and the old man seemed to think she had—then, by God, she would tell it even if he had to jangle her round this bloody floor until she dropped. The notion was pleasing and he indulged it. He could picture her, disjointed as a puppet loosed from its cords, the brittle legs sprawled awkwardly, the arms swinging into the final exhaustion. Except that he would probably drop first. That half-hour with Julia Pardoe hadn’t been the best possible preparation for a night on the dance floor. But the old bitch had plenty of life in her. He could taste and feel the beads of sweat tickling the corners of his mouth, but she was hardly breathing faster and her hands were cool and dry. The face close to his was intent, the eyes glazed, the lower lip sagging open. It was like dancing with an animated bag of bones.

  The music crashed to a stop. The conductor swung round and flashed his artificial smile over the floor. The players relaxed, permitting themselves a brief smile. The kaleidoscope of colour in the middle of the floor coalesced then flowed into new patterns as the dancers disengaged and minced back to their tables. A waiter was hovering for orders. Masterson crooked his finger.

  “What will you have?”

  He sounded as ungracious as a miser forced into standing his round. She asked for a gin and tonic and when it came accepted it without thanks or apparent gratification. He settled for a double whisky. It was to be the first of many. Spreading the flame-coloured skirt around her chair, she began to survey the hall with that look of disagreeable intensity which he was beginning to know so well. He might not have been there. Careful, he thought, don’t get impatient. She wants to keep you here. Let her.

  “Tell me about your son,” he said quietly, careful to keep his voice even and unemphatic.

  “Not now. Some other evening. There’s no hurry.”

  He nearly shouted aloud with exasperation. Did she really think that he planned to see her again? Did she expect him to dance with her for ever on the half promise of a titbit of information? He pictured them, capering grotesquely through the years, involuntary participants in a surrealist charade. He put down his glass.

  “There won’t be another time. Not unless you can help me. The Superintendent isn’t keen on spending public money when there’s nothing to be learned. I have to justify every minute of my time.”

  He instilled into his voice the right degree of resentment and self-righteousness. She looked at him for the first time since they had sat down.

  “There might be something to be learned. I never said there wasn’t. What about the drinks?”

  “The drinks?” He was momentarily nonplussed.

  “Who pays for the drinks?”

  “Well, normally they are on expenses. But when it’s a question of entertaining friends, like tonight for example, naturally I pay myself.”

  He lied easily. It was one of the talents which he thought helped most in his job.

  She nodded as if satisfied. But she didn’t speak. He was wondering whether to try again when the band crashed into a cha-cha. Without a word she rose and turned towards him. They took the floor again.

  The cha-cha was succeeded by a mamba, the mamba by a waltz, the waltz by a slow fox-trot. And still he had learned nothing. Then there was a change in the evening’s programme. The lights suddenly dimmed and a sleek man, glistening from head to toe as if he had bathed in hair oil, appeared in front of the microphone and adjusted it for his height. He was accompanied by a languid blonde, her hair elaborately dressed in a style already five years out of date. The spotlight played upon them. She dangled a chiffon scarf negligently from her right hand and surveyed the emptying dance floor with a proprietorial air. There was an anticipatory hush. The man consulted a list in his hand.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment we have all been waiting for. The exhibition dances. Our medallists for the year will demonstrate for our delight the dances which won them their awards. Mrs. Dettinger, dancing”—he consulted the list—“dancing the tango.”

  He swept a chubby hand around the floor. The band cr
ashed into a discordant fanfare. Mrs. Dettinger rose, dragging Masterson with her. Her claw was like a vice round his wrist. The spotlight swung round and settled on them. There was a little burst of applause. The sleek man continued: “Mrs. Dettinger is dancing with—could we have the name of your new partner, Mrs. Dettinger?”

  Masterson called out loudly: “Mr. Edward Heath.”

  The sleek man paused, then decided to take it at its face value. Forcing enthusiasm into his voice, he proclaimed: “Mrs. Dettinger, silver medallist, dancing the tango with Mr. Edward Heath.”

  The cymbals clashed, there was a further spatter of applause. Masterson led his partner on to the floor with exaggerated courtesy. He was aware that he was slightly drunk and was glad of it. He was going to enjoy himself.

  He clasped his hand to the small of her back and assumed an expression of lecherous expectancy. It won an immediate giggle from the nearest table. She frowned and he watched fascinated while an unbecoming crimson flowed over her face and neck. He realized with delight that she was intensely nervous, that this pathetic charade actually mattered to her. It was for this moment that she had dressed so carefully, painted her raddled face. The Delaroux Medal Ball. The demonstration tango. And then her partner had failed her. Lost courage probably, the poor sap. But fate had provided her with a personable and competent substitute. It must have seemed like a miracle. It was for this moment that he had been enticed to the Athenaeum Hall, kept dancing here hour after tedious hour. The knowledge was exhilarating. By God, he had her now. This was to be her big moment. He would see that she didn’t forget it in a hurry.

  The slow rhythm began. He noted with irritation that it was the same old tune for this dance that they had played most of the evening. He hummed the words in her ear.

  She whispered: “We’re supposed to be dancing the Delaroux tango.”

  “We’re dancing the Charles Masterson tango, sweetheart.”

  Clasping her tightly he marched her belligerently across the floor in a strutting parody of the dance, swung her viciously around so that her lacquered hair nearly brushed the floor and he heard her bones cracking, and held her in the pose while he bestowed a smile of surprised gratification on the party at the nearest table. The giggle was louder now, more prolonged. As he jerked her upright and waited for the next beat she hissed: “What do you want to know?”

  “He recognized someone, didn’t he? Your son. When he was in the John Carpendar Hospital. He saw someone he knew?”

  “Will you behave yourself and dance properly?”

  “Perhaps.”

  They were moving again in an orthodox tango. He could feel her relaxing a little in his arms, but he still kept a firm hold on her.

  “It was one of the Sisters. He’d seen her before.”

  “Which Sister?”

  “I don’t know, he didn’t tell me.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “After the dance.”

  “Tell me now if you don’t want to end on the floor. Where had he seen her before?”

  “In Germany. She was in the dock. It was a war trial. She got off but everybody knew she was guilty.”

  “Where in Germany?” He mouthed the words through lips stretched into the fatuous smile of a professional dancing partner.

  “Felsenheim. It was a place called Felsenheim.”

  “Say it again. Say that name again!”

  “Felsenheim.”

  The name meant nothing to him but he knew he would remember it. With luck he would get the details later but the salient facts must be torn from her now while he had her in his power. It might not be true, of course. None of it might be true. And if true it might not be relevant. But this was the information he had been sent to get. He felt a surge of confidence and good humour. He was even in danger of enjoying the dance. He decided that it was time for something spectacular and led her into a complicated routine beginning with a progressive link and ending with a close promenade that took them diagonally across the hall. It was faultlessly executed and the applause was loud and sustained.

  He asked: “What was her name?”

  “Irmgard Grobel. She was only a young girl then, of course. Martin said that was why she got off. He never had any doubt she was guilty.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t tell you which Sister it was?”

  “No. He was very ill. He told me about the trial when he came home from Europe, so I already knew about it. But he was unconscious most of the time in hospital. And when he wasn’t he was mostly delirious.”

  So he could have made a mistake, thought Masterson. It was an unlikely enough story. And surely it would be hard to recognize a face after over twenty-five years; except that he must have watched that particular face with fascinated intensity all through the trial. It must have made an impression on a young and probably sensitive man. Enough, perhaps, for him to relive it in his delirium and delude himself that one of the faces bending over him in those few moments of consciousness and lucidity was the face of Irmgard Grobel. But supposing, just supposing, he had been right. If he had told his mother he might well have told his special nurse or blurted it out in his delirium. And what use had Heather Pearce made of her knowledge?

  He whispered softly into her ear: “Who else have you told?”

  “Nobody. I haven’t told anybody. Why should I?”

  Another rock swing. Then an over swing. Very nice. More applause. He tightened his hold on her and made his voice husky with menace beneath the fixed grin.

  “Who else? You must have told someone.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you’re a woman.” It was a lucky reply. The mulish obstinacy on her face softened. She glanced up at him for a second, then fluttered her sparse mascara-coated eyelashes in a travesty of flirtation. Oh God, he thought, she’s going to be coy.

  “Oh well … perhaps I did tell just one person.”

  “I know bloody well you did. I’m asking who.”

  Again the deprecatory glance, the little moue of submission. She had decided to enjoy this masterful man. For some reason, perhaps the gin, perhaps the euphoria of the dance, her resistance had crumbled. It was going to be hunky-dory from now on.

  “I told Mr. Courtney-Briggs, Martin’s surgeon. Well, it seemed only right.”

  “When?”

  “Last Wednesday. The Wednesday of last week, I mean. At his consulting rooms in Wimpole Street. He had just left the hospital on the Friday when Martin died so I couldn’t see him earlier. He’s only at the John Carpendar on Monday, Thursday and Friday.”

  “Did he ask to see you?”

  “Oh no! The Staff Nurse who was taking Sister’s place said that he would be very glad to have a talk with me if I thought it would be helpful and that I could phone Wimpole Street to make an appointment. I didn’t then. What was the use? Martin was dead. But then I got his bill. Not very nice, I thought, so soon after Martin had passed away. Two hundred guineas! I thought it was monstrous. After all, it’s not as if he did any good. So I thought I’d just pop into Wimpole Street and see him and mention what I knew. It wasn’t right for the hospital to employ a woman like that. A murderess really. And then to charge all that money. There was a second bill from the hospital for his maintenance you know, but it wasn’t anything like Mr. Courtney-Briggs’s two hundred guineas.”

  The sentences were disjointed. She spoke them close into his ear as opportunity offered. But she was neither breathless nor incoherent. She had plenty of energy for both the dance and the talk. And it was Masterson who was feeling the strain. Another progressive link leading into the doré and ending with a close promenade. She didn’t put a foot wrong. The old girl had been well taught even if they couldn’t give her grace or élan.

  “So you trotted along to tell him what you knew and suggested that he took a slice off his profits?”

  “He didn’t believe me. He said that Martin was delirious and mistaken and that he could personally vouch for all the Sisters. But he took
£50 off the bill.”

  She spoke with grim satisfaction. Masterson was surprised. Even if Courtney-Briggs had believed the story there was no reason why he should deduct a not inconsiderable amount from his bill. He wasn’t responsible for recruiting or appointing the nursing staff. He had nothing to worry about. Masterson wondered whether he had believed the story. He had obviously said nothing, either to the Chairman of the Hospital Management Committee or to the Matron. Perhaps it was true that he could vouch personally for all the Sisters and the £50 deduction had merely been a gesture to keep a tiresome woman quiet. But Courtney-Briggs hadn’t struck Masterson as the kind of man to submit himself to blackmail or to relinquish a penny of what he thought was due to him.

  It was at that moment that the music crashed to a finish. Masterson smiled benevolently on Mrs. Dettinger, and led her back to their table. The applause lasted until they reached it and then was cut off abruptly as the sleek man announced the next dance. Masterson looked around for the waiter and beckoned.

  “Well, now,” he said to his partner, “that wasn’t so bad, was it? If you behave yourself nicely for the rest of the evening I might even take you home.”

  He did take her home. They left early but it was well past midnight before he finally left the Baker Street flat. By then he knew he had as much of the story as she could tell him. She had grown maudlin after their return, a reaction, he felt, to triumph and gin. He had kept her supplied with the latter through the rest of the evening, not enough to make her unmanageably drunk but sufficient to keep her talkative and pliable. But the journey home had been a nightmare, not made easier by the cab driver’s glances of mingled amusement and contempt as he drove them from the hall to the South Bank car park, and by the disapproving superciliousness of the hall porter when they arrived at Saville Mansions. Once in the flat he had coaxed, comforted and bullied her into coherence, making black coffee for them both in the unbelievably squalid kitchen—a slut’s kitchen he thought, glad of one more reason to despise her—and giving it to her with promises that, of course, he wouldn’t leave her, that he would call for her again the following Saturday, that they would be permanent dancing partners. By midnight he had got out of her all he wanted to know about Martin Dettinger’s career and his stay in the John Carpendar Hospital. There wasn’t a great deal to be learned about the hospital. She hadn’t visited often during the week he was there. Well, what was the point of it? There wasn’t anything she could do for him. He was unconscious most of the time and didn’t really know her even when he woke. Except that once, of course. She had hoped then for a little word of comfort and appreciation, but all she had got was that odd laugh and the talk about Irmgard Grobel. He had told her that story years before. She was tired of hearing it. A boy ought to be thinking of his mother when he was dying. It had been a terrible effort to sit there watching. She was a sensitive person. Hospitals upset her. The late Mr. Dettinger hadn’t understood how sensitive she was.