The Black Tower

by P. D. James

  Dalgliesh held out his hand and felt it imprisoned between Anstey’s two palms. It took an effort of will not to flinch from this clammy encounter of moist flesh. He said:

  “I had hoped to pay a few days’ visit to Father Baddeley. I’m an old friend. I didn’t know until I arrived that he was dead.”

  “Dead and cremated. His ashes were buried last Wednesday in the churchyard of St. Michael’s Toynton. We knew that he would wish them to lie in consecrated ground. We didn’t announce his death in the papers because we didn’t know that he had friends.”

  “Except us here.” It was one of the women patients who added the gentle but firm correction. She was older than the other patients, grey haired and angular as a Dutch doll propped in her chair. She looked at Dalgliesh steadily with kind and interested eyes.

  Wilfred Anstey said:

  “Of course. Except us here. Grace was, I think, closer to Michael than anyone else and was with him on the night he died.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “He died alone, Mrs. Hewson tells me.”

  “Unhappily yes. But so at the last do we all. You’ll join us for tea I hope. Julius, you too, and Maggie of course. And did you say that you hoped to stay with Michael? Then you must, of course, spend the night here.”

  He turned to the matron.

  “Victor’s room, I think, Dot. Perhaps, after tea, you would prepare it for our guest.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “That’s very kind of you, but I don’t want to be a nuisance. Would there be any objection if, after tonight, I spent a few days in the cottage? Mrs. Hewson tells me that Father Baddeley left me his library. It would be helpful if I could sort and pack the books while I’m here.”

  Was it his imagination that the suggestion wasn’t entirely welcome? But Anstey hesitated only for a second before saying:

  “Of course, if that is what you prefer. But first let me introduce you to the family.”

  Dalgliesh followed Anstey in a formal charade of greetings. A succession of hands, dry, cold, moist, reluctant or firm clasped his. Grace Willison, the middle-aged spinster; a study in grey; skin, hair, dress, stockings, all of them slightly dingy so that she looked like an old-fashioned, stiffly jointed doll neglected too long in a dusty cupboard. Ursula Hollis; a tall, spotty-faced girl dressed in a long skirt of Indian cotton who gave him a tentative smile and brief, reluctant handshake. Her left hand lay limply in her lap as if wearied by the weight of the thick wedding ring. He was aware of something odd about her face but had moved on before he realized that she had one blue eye, one brown. Jennie Pegram; the youngest patient but probably older than she looked with a pale, sharp face and mild lemur-like eyes. She was so short necked that she seemed hunched into her wheelchair. Corn gold hair, parted in the middle, hung like a crimped curtain around the dwarfish body. She cringed deprecatingly at his touch, gave him a sickly smile and whispered “hullo” on a gasp of intaken breath. Henry Carwardine; a handsome, authoritative face but cut with deep lines of strain; a high beaky nose and long mouth. The disease had wrenched his head to one side so that he looked like a supercilious bird of prey. He took no notice of Dalgliesh’s proffered hand but said a brief “how do you do” with an uninterest amounting almost to discourtesy. Dorothy Moxon, the matron; sombre, stout and gloomy eyed under the dark fringe. Helen Rainer; large, slightly protruding green eyes under lids as thin as grape skins and a shapely figure which even the loose-fitting smock couldn’t wholly disguise. She would, he thought, be attractive were it not for the discontented droop of the slightly marsupial cheeks. She shook hands firmly with Dalgliesh and gave him a minatory glance as if welcoming a new patient from whom she expected trouble. Dr. Eric Hewson; a fair, good-looking man with a boyish vulnerable face, mud-brown eyes fringed with remarkably long lashes. Dennis Lerner; a lean, rather weak face, eyes blinking nervously behind the steel-rimmed spectacles, a moist handshake. Anstey added, almost as if he thought Lerner needed a word of explanation, that Dennis was the male nurse.

  “The two remaining members of our family, Albert Philby, our handyman, and my sister Millicent Hammitt you will meet later I hope. But I mustn’t, of course, forget Jeoffrey.” As if catching his name, a cat, who had been slumbering on a window seat, uncurled himself, dropped ponderously to the floor and stalked towards them, tail erect. Anstey explained:

  “He is named after Christopher Smart’s cat. I expect you remember the poem.

  ‘For I will consider my cat Jeoffrey.

  For he is the servant of the living God, duly and daily serving him,

  For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electric skin and glaring eyes,

  For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.’”

  Dalgliesh said that he knew the poem. He could have added that if Anstey had destined his cat for this hieratic role, then he had been unlucky in his choice of the litter. Jeoffrey was a barrel-shaped tabby with a tail like a fox’s brush who looked as if his life were dedicated less to the service of his creator than to the gratification of feline lusts. He gave Anstey a disagreeable look compounded of long suffering and disgust and leapt with lightness and precision on to Carwardine’s lap where he was ill-received. Gratified at Carwardine’s obvious reluctance to acquire him, he settled down with much purring and foot padding and permitted his eyes to close.

  Julius Court and Maggie Hewson had settled themselves at the far end of the long table. Suddenly Julius called out:

  “Be careful what you say to Mr. Dalgliesh, it may be taken down and given in evidence. He chooses to travel incognito but actually he’s Commander Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard. His job is catching murderers.”

  Henry Carwardine’s cup began an agitated rattle in its saucer. He tried ineffectively to steady it with his left hand. No one looked at him. Jennie Pegram gave an apprehensive gasp, then looked complacently round the table as if she had done something clever. Helen Rainer said sharply:

  “How do you know?”

  “I live in the world, my darlings, and occasionally read the newspapers. There was a notorious case last year which gained the Commander some public notice.”

  He turned to Dalgliesh:

  “Henry will be drinking wine with me after dinner tonight and listening to some music. You may care to join us. You could perhaps wheel him over. Wilfred will excuse you, I know.”

  The invitation hardly seemed courteous, excluding as it did all but two of the company and peremptorily claiming the new arrival with no more than a token acknowledgement to his host. But no one seemed to mind. Perhaps it was usual for the two men to drink together when Court was at his cottage. After all, there was no reason why the patients should be compelled to share each other’s friends, or those friends obliged to issue a general invitation. Besides, Dalgliesh was obviously invited to provide an escort. He said a brief thank you and sat down at the table between Ursula Hollis and Henry Carwardine.

  It was a plain, boarding-school tea. There was no cloth. The scarred oak table reamed with scorch marks held two large brown teapots wielded by Dorothy Moxon, two plates of thickly cut brown bread, thinly spread with what Dalgliesh suspected was margarine, a jar of honey and one of marmite, a dish of rock buns, home made and pebbled with an excrescence of bullet black currants. There was also a bowl of apples. They looked like wind-falls. Everyone was drinking from brown earthenware mugs. Helen Rainer went over to a cupboard set under the window and brought over three similar mugs and matching plates for the visitors.

  It was an odd tea party. Carwardine ignored the guest except to push the plate of bread and butter towards him, and Dalgliesh at first made little headway with Ursula Hollis. Her pale intense face was turned perpetually towards him, the two discordant eyes searched his. He felt uncomfortably that she was making some demand on him, desperately hoping to evoke a response of interest, of affection even, which he could neither recognize nor was competent to give. But, by happy chance, he mentioned London. Her face brightene
d, she asked him if he knew Marylebone, the Bell Street market? He found himself involved in a lively, almost obsessive discussion about London’s street markets. She became animated, almost pretty and, strangely, it seemed to give her some comfort.

  Suddenly Jennie Pegram leaned forward across the table and said with a moue of simulated distaste:

  “A funny job catching murderers and getting them hanged. I don’t see how you fancy it.”

  “We don’t fancy it, and nowadays they don’t get hanged.”

  “Well, shut up for life then. I think that’s worse. And I bet some of those you caught when you were younger got hanged.”

  He detected the anticipatory, almost lascivious gleam in her eyes. It wasn’t new to him. He said quietly:

  “Five of them. It’s interesting that those are the ones people always want to hear about.”

  Anstey smiled his gentle smile and spoke as one determined to be fair.

  “It isn’t only a question of punishment though, Jennie, is it? There is the theory of deterrence; the need to mark public abhorrence of violent crime; the hope of reforming and rehabilitating the criminal; and, of course, the importance of trying to ensure that he doesn’t do it again.”

  He reminded Dalgliesh of a school master he had much disliked who was given to initiating frank discussion as a matter of duty but always with the patronizing air of permitting a limited expression of unorthodox opinion provided the class came back within the allotted time to a proper conviction of the rightness of his own views. But now Dalgliesh was neither compelled nor disposed to cooperate. He broke into Jennie’s simple, “Well, they can’t do it again if they’re hanged, can they?” by saying:

  “It’s an interesting and important subject, I know. But forgive me if I don’t personally find it fascinating. I’m on holiday—actually I’m convalescing—and I’m trying to forget about work.”

  “You’ve been ill?” Carwardine, with the deliberate care of a child uncertain of its powers, reached across and helped himself to honey.

  “I hope your call here isn’t, even subconsciously, on your own behalf. You aren’t looking for a future vacancy? You haven’t a progressive incurable disease?”

  Anstey said:

  “We all suffer from a progressive incurable disease. We call it life.”

  Carwardine gave a tight self-congratulatory smile, as if he had scored a point in some private game. Dalgliesh, who was beginning to feel himself part of a mad hatter’s tea party, wasn’t sure whether the remark was spuriously profound or merely silly. What he was sure was that Anstey had made it before. There was a short, embarrassed silence, then Anstey said:

  “Michael didn’t let us know he was expecting you.” He made it sound like a gentle reproof.

  “He may not have received my postcard. It should have arrived on the morning of his death. I couldn’t find it in his bureau.”

  Anstey was peeling an apple, the yellow rind curved over his thin fingers. His eyes were intent on his task. He said:

  “He was brought home by the ambulance service. It wasn’t convenient that morning for me to fetch him. I understand that the ambulance stopped at the postbox to collect any letters, probably at Michael’s request. He later handed a letter to me and one to my sister, so he should have received your card. I certainly found no postcard when I looked in the bureau for his will and for any other written instructions he may have left. That was early on the morning after his death. I may, of course, have missed it.”

  Dalgliesh said easily:

  “In which case it would still be there. I expect Father Baddeley threw it away. It’s a pity you had to break into the bureau.”

  “Break into?” Anstey’s voice expressed nothing but a polite, unworried query.

  “The lock has been forced.”

  “Indeed. I imagine that Michael must have lost the key and was forced to that extremity. Forgive the pun. I found the bureau open when I looked for his papers. I’m afraid I didn’t think to examine the lock. Is it important?”

  “Miss Willison may think so. I understood that the bureau is now hers.”

  “A broken lock does, of course, reduce its value. But you will find that we place little store on material possessions at Toynton Grange.”

  He smiled again, dismissing a frivolity, and turned to Dorothy Moxon. Miss Willison was concentrating on her plate. She didn’t look up. Dalgliesh said:

  “It’s probably foolish of me, but I wish I could be sure that Father Baddeley knew that I hoped to visit him. I thought he might have slipped my postcard into his diary. But the last volume isn’t in his desk.”

  This time Anstey looked up. The blue eyes met the dark brown, innocent, polite, unworried.

  “Yes, I noticed that. He gave up keeping a diary at the end of June apparently. The surprise is that he kept one, not that he gave up the habit. In the end one grows impatient of the egotism which records trivia as if it had a permanent value.”

  “It’s unusual surely after so many years to stop in mid-year.”

  “He had just returned from hospital after a grave illness and can’t have been in much doubt about the prognosis. Knowing that death could not be far off, he may have decided to destroy the diaries.”

  “Beginning with the last volume?”

  “To destroy a diary must be like destroying memory. One would begin with the years one could best endure to lose. Old memories are tenacious. He made a start by burning the last volume.”

  Grace Willison again spoke her gentle but firm correction:

  “Not by burning, Wilfred. Father Baddeley used his electric fire when he got home from hospital. The grate is filled with a jam pot of dried grasses.”

  Dalgliesh pictured the sitting-room of Hope Cottage. She was, of course, right. He recalled the old-fashioned grey stone jar, the crumpled bunch of dried leaves and grasses filling the narrow fireplace and thrusting their dusty and soot laden stalks between the bars. They probably hadn’t been disturbed for the best part of a year.

  The animated chatter at the other end of the table died into speculative silence as it does when people suddenly suspect that something interesting is being said which they ought to hear.

  Maggie Hewson had seated herself so close to Julius Court that Dalgliesh was surprised that he had room to drink his tea and had been overtly flirting with him during the meal, whether for her husband’s discomfiture or Court’s gratification it was difficult to say. Eric Hewson, when he glanced towards them, had the shame-faced look of an embarrassed schoolboy. Court, perfectly at his ease, had distributed his attention among all the women present, with the exception of Grace. Now Maggie looked from face to face and said sharply:

  “What’s the matter? What did she say?”

  No one replied. It was Julius who broke the moment of sudden and inexplicable tension:

  “I forgot to tell you. You’re doubly privileged in your visitor. The Commander doesn’t confine his talents to catching murderers, he publishes verse. He’s Adam Dalgliesh, the poet.”

  This announcement was met with a confused congratulatory murmur during which Dalgliesh fastened on Jennie’s comment of “how nice” as the most irritatingly inept. Wilfred smiled encouragingly and said:

  “Of course. We are certainly privileged. And Adam Dalgliesh comes at an opportune time. We are due to hold our monthly family social evening on Thursday. May we hope that our guest will recite some of his poems for our pleasure?”

  There were a number of answers to that question but, in the present disadvantaged company, none of them seemed either kind or possible.

  Dalgliesh said:

  “I’m sorry but I don’t travel with copies of my own books.”

  Anstey smiled,

  “That will present no problem. Henry has your last two volumes. I am sure he will lend them.”

  Without looking up from his plate, Carwardine said quietly:

  “Given the lack of privacy in this place, I’ve no doubt you could provide a verbal catalogue of
my whole library. But, since you’ve shown a complete lack of interest in Dalgliesh’s work until now, I have no intention of lending my books so that you can blackmail a guest into performing for you like a captive monkey!”

  Wilfred flushed slightly and bent his head over his plate.

  There was nothing further to be said. After a second’s silence, the talk flowed on, innocuous, commonplace. Neither Father Baddeley nor his diary were mentioned again.

  V

  Anstey was obviously unworried by Dalgliesh’s expressed wish after tea to talk to Miss Willison in private. Probably the request struck him as no more than the pious protocol of courtesy and respect. He said that Grace had the task of feeding the hens and collecting the eggs before dusk. Perhaps Adam could help her?

  The two larger wheels of the chair were fitted with a second interior wheel in chrome which could be used by the occupant to drive the chair forward. Miss Willison grasped it and began to make slow progress down the asphalt path jerking her frail body like a marionette. Dalgliesh saw that her left hand was deformed and had little power so that the chair tended to swivel, and progress was erratic. He moved to her left and, while walking beside her, he laid his hand unobtrusively on the back of the chair and gently helped it forward. He hoped that he was doing the acceptable thing. Miss Willison might resent his tact as much as she did the implied pity. He thought that she sensed his embarrassment and had resolved not to add to it even by smiling her thanks.

  As they walked together he was intensely aware of her, noting the details of her physical presence as keenly as if she were a young and desirable woman and he on the verge of love. He watched the sharp bones of her shoulders jerking rhythmically under the thin grey cotton of her dress; the purple tributaries of the veins standing like cords on her almost transparent left hand, so small and fragile in contrast to its fellow. This, too, looked deformed in its compensating strength and hugeness as she gripped the wheel as powerfully as a man. Her legs, clad in wrinkled woollen stockings, were thin as sticks; her sandalled feet, too large surely for such inadequate supports, were clamped to the footrest of her chair as if glued to the metal. Her grey hair flecked with dandruff had been combed upward in a single heavy plait fixed to the crown of her head with a plastic white comb, not particularly clean. The back of her neck looked dingy either with fading suntan or inadequate washing. Looking down he could see the lines on her forehead contracting into deeper furrows with the effort of moving the chair, the eyes blinking spasmodically behind the thin framed spectacles.