Unnatural Causes

by P. D. James

  Suddenly Reckless, as if making up his mind to something, said harshly, “The Chief Constable wants to call in the Yard. He’s sleeping on it. But I think he’s already made up his mind. And there are those who will say it’s none too soon.”

  Dalgliesh could find nothing appropriate to say to this. Reckless, still not looking at him, added: “He seems to take your view, that the two crimes are connected.”

  Dalgliesh wondered whether he was being accused of trying to influence the Chief Constable. He couldn’t recall expressing this view to Reckless but it seemed to him obvious. He said so and added: “When I was in London yesterday it came to me how Maurice Seton could have been killed. It’s little more than conjecture at present and God knows how you’ll be able to prove it. But I think I know how it was done.”

  Briefly he outlined his theory, morbidly sensitive to every inflection in his own voice which the Inspector might interpret as criticism or self-congratulation. His story was received in silence. Then Reckless said: “What put you on to that, Mr. Dalgliesh?”

  “I’m not altogether sure. A number of small things I suppose. The terms of Seton’s will; the way he behaved at that basement table in the Cortez Club; his insistence on having one particular room whenever he stayed at the Cadaver Club; the architecture of his house even.”

  Reckless said: “It’s possible, I suppose. But without a confession I’ll never prove it unless someone panics.”

  “You could look for the weapon.”

  “A funny kind of weapon, Mr. Dalgliesh.”

  “But a weapon and a lethal one.”

  Reckless drew an ordnance survey map from his pocket and spread it out on the table. Together they bent their heads over it, the Inspector’s pencil hovering above the twenty-mile radius around Monksmere.

  “Here?” he asked.

  “Or here. If I were the killer I’d look for deep water.”

  Reckless said: “Not the sea, though. It might get washed up while we could still identify it. Not that I think it likely anyone would have connected it with the crime.”

  “But you might have. And the murderer couldn’t risk that. Better get rid of it where there was every chance it wouldn’t be found, or would be found too late. Failing an old mine shaft I’d have looked for a sluice or river.”

  The pencil came down and Reckless made three small crosses.

  “We’ll try here first, Mr. Dalgliesh. And I hope to God you’re right. Otherwise with this second death on our hands, it’s all going to be a waste of time.”

  Without another word, he folded the map and was gone.

  3

  After dinner there was more company. Celia Calthrop, her niece, Latham and Bryce arrived within a short time of each other, driving or fighting their way through the rising storm to seek a spurious safety at Jane Dalgliesh’s fireside. Perhaps, thought Dalgliesh, they could neither bear their own company nor feel at ease with each other. This at least was neutral ground, offering the comforting illusion of normality, the age-old protection of light and a warm fire against the darkness and enmity of the night. It certainly wasn’t a time for the nervous or imaginative to be alone. The wind was alternately howling and moaning across the headland and a fast-running tide was thundering up the beach driving the shingle in ridges before it. Even from the sitting room at Pentlands he could hear its long, withdrawing sigh. From time to time a fitful moon cast its dead light over Monksmere so that the storm became visible and he could see, from the cottage windows, the stunted trees writhing and struggling as if in agony and the whole wilderness of sea lying white and turbulent under the sky.

  The uninvited guests, their heads down, fought their way up the path to Miss Dalgliesh’s door with the desperation of a fugitive band.

  By half past eight they had all arrived. No one had troubled to fetch Sylvia Kedge, but apart from her the little company of five nights earlier was met again. And Dalgliesh was struck by the difference in them. Analysing it, he realised that they looked ten years older. Five nights ago they had been only mildly concerned and a little intrigued by Seton’s disappearance. Now they were anxious and shaken, possessed by images of blood and death from which they had little hope of shaking free. Behind the brave assumptions of ease, the rather desperate attempts at normality, he could smell fear.

  Maurice Seton had died in London and it was still theoretically possible to believe that he had died naturally or that someone in London was responsible for his murder if not for the mutilation of his body. But Digby’s death was on home ground and no one could pretend that there had been anything natural about it. But Celia Calthrop, apparently, was still prepared to try. She was squatting in the fireside chair, knees gracelessly splayed, her hands restless in the heavy lap.

  “It’s the most terrible tragedy. Poor boy! I don’t suppose we shall ever know what drove him to it. And he had everything to live for: youth, money, talent, looks, charm.”

  This startlingly unrealistic assessment of Digby Seton was received in silence. Then Bryce said: “I grant you he had money, Celia. Or the prospect of it anyway. Otherwise one did tend to think of poor Digby as a whey-faced, ineffectual, conceited, vulgar little twit. Not that one bore him the least ill will. Nor, incidentally, does one believe that he killed himself.”

  Latham burst out impatiently: “Of course he didn’t! And Celia doesn’t even believe it either! So why not be honest for a change, Celia? Why not admit that you’re as scared as the rest of us?”

  Celia said with dignity: “I’m not in the least scared!”

  “Oh, but you ought to be!” Bryce’s gnome-like face was creased with mischief, his eyes sparkled up at her. He looked suddenly less harassed, less like a tired old man. “After all, you’re the one who gains by his death. There should be a nice little sum left even after double death duties. And Digby’s been a fairly regular visitor to you recently, hasn’t he? Didn’t he lunch with you yesterday? You must have had plenty of opportunities to slip a little something into his flask. You were the one who told us that he always carried it. In this very room. Remember?”

  “And where am I supposed to have got hold of arsenic?”

  “Ah—but we don’t know yet that it was arsenic, Celia! That’s exactly the kind of remark that you shouldn’t make. It doesn’t matter in front of Oliver and me but the Inspector may get wrong ideas. I do hope you haven’t been talking to him about arsenic!”

  “I haven’t been talking to him about anything. I’ve merely answered his questions as fully and honestly as I can. I suggest you and Oliver do the same. And I don’t know why you’re so keen to prove Digby was murdered. It’s this morbid love you both have for looking on the dark side.”

  Latham said dryly: “Just a morbid love of looking facts in the face.”

  But Celia was undaunted: “Well, if it were murder, all I can say is that Jane Dalgliesh was very lucky to have Adam with her when she found the body. Otherwise people might begin to think. But a CID Superintendent—well, naturally he knows how important it is not to disturb anything or tamper with the evidence.”

  Dalgliesh, too fascinated by the enormity of the remark and Celia’s capacity for self-deception to make his protest, wondered whether she had forgotten that he was there. The others seemed to have forgotten too.

  “What might people begin to think?” asked Latham quietly.

  Bryce laughed. “You can’t seriously suspect Miss Dalgliesh, Celia! If so you’re shortly going to be faced with the delicate problem of etiquette. Your hostess is at this moment preparing coffee for you with her own hand. Do you drink it gracefully, or pour it surreptitiously into the flower vase?”

  Suddenly Eliza Marley swung round at them: “For God’s sake shut up, both of you! Digby Seton’s dead and he died horribly. You may not have liked him but he was a human being. What’s more he knew how to enjoy life in his own way. It may not have been your way but what of it? He was happy planning his horrible nightclubs and deciding how to spend his money. You may despise that
but he wasn’t doing you any harm. And now he’s dead. And one of us murdered him. I don’t happen to find that amusing.”

  “My dear, don’t distress yourself.” Celia’s voice had taken on the vibrant, emotional tone which she now almost unconsciously assumed when dictating the more highly charged passages in her novels.

  “We’re all used to Justin by now. Neither he nor Oliver cared one whit for Maurice or Digby so it’s no use expecting them to behave with ordinary decency, let alone respect. I’m afraid they care for no one but themselves. It’s pure selfishness, of course. Selfishness and envy. Neither of them has ever forgiven Maurice for being a creative writer when all they’re fit for is to criticise other people’s work and batten on other men’s talent. You see it every day: the envy of the literary parasite for the creative artist. Remember what happened to Maurice’s play? Oliver killed it because he couldn’t bear to see it succeed.”

  “Oh that!” Latham laughed. “My dear Celia, if Maurice wanted to indulge in emotional catharsis he should have consulted a psychiatrist, not inflicted it on the public in the guise of a play. There are three essentials for any playwright, and Maurice Seton hadn’t one of them. He must be able to write dialogue, he must understand what is meant by dramatic conflict and he must know something about stagecraft.”

  This was no more than Latham’s professional theme song and Celia was unimpressed.

  “Please don’t talk to me about craftsmanship, Oliver. When you have produced a work which shows the slightest sign of original creative talent there will be some point in discussing craftsmanship. And that goes for you too, Justin.”

  “What about my novel?” demanded Bryce, affronted. Celia cast him a long-suffering look and sighed deeply. She was obviously not prepared to comment on Bryce’s novel. Dalgliesh recalled the work in question: a short exercise in sensitivity which had been well received but which Bryce had apparently never found the energy to repeat. He heard Eliza Marley’s laugh.

  “Isn’t that the book the reviewers said had the intensity and the sensitivity of a short story? Hardly surprising when essentially that was all it was. Even I could keep the sensitivity going for a hundred and fifty pages.”

  Dalgliesh did not wait to hear more than Bryce’s first protesting wail. Predictably the argument was degenerating into literary abuse. He wasn’t surprised, having noticed this tendency before in his writing friends, but he had no wish to get involved. At any moment now they would be canvassing his opinion and his own verse no doubt would be subject to the devastating candour of the young. True, the argument appeared to be taking their minds from the subject of murder but there were more agreeable ways of getting through the evening.

  Holding the door open for his aunt as she came in with the tray of coffee, he took the opportunity to slip away. It was perhaps a little unkind to abandon her just at this moment to the contentions of her guests but he didn’t doubt her capacity to survive. He was less sure of his own.

  His room was still and very quiet, insulated by sound building and oak boards from the jabber of the dissenting voices below. He unlatched the window in the seaward wall and forced it open with both hands against the blast of the gale. The wind rushed into the room swirling the bed cover into folds, sweeping the papers from his desk and rustling the pages of his bedside Jane Austen like a giant hand. It took his breath away so that he leaned gasping against the window ledge, welcoming the sting of spray on his face and tasting the salt drying on his lips. When he closed the window the silence seemed absolute. The thundering surf receded and faded like the faraway moaning on another shore.

  The room was cold. He hitched his dressing gown around his shoulders and switched on one bar of the electric fire. Then he gathered up the scattered sheets of paper and replaced them with obsessive care, sheet on sheet, on the small writing table. The square white pages seemed to reproach him and he remembered that he hadn’t written to Deborah. It wasn’t that he had been too indolent, too busy or too preoccupied with the problem of Seton’s murder. He knew perfectly well what had held him back. It was a cowardly reluctance to commit himself further by even one word until he had made up his mind about the future. And he was no nearer that tonight than he had been on the first day of the holiday. He had known when they said goodbye on his last evening that she understood and accepted that this break was in some way crucial for them, that he wasn’t driving alone to Monksmere solely to escape from London or recover from the strain of his last case. There was no reason, otherwise, why she shouldn’t have come with him. She wasn’t as tied to her job as all that. But he hadn’t suggested it and she had said nothing except that last “Remember me at Blythburgh.” She had been at school near Southwold and knew and loved Suffolk. Well, he had remembered, and not only at Blythburgh. Suddenly he longed for her. The need was so intense that he no longer cared whether it was wise to write. In the face of this craving to see her again, to hear her voice, all his uncertainties and self-distrust seemed as unimportant and ludicrously unreal as the morbid legacy of a nightmare fading in the light of day. He longed to talk to her, but with the sitting room filled with people there would be no chance of telephoning tonight. Switching on the desk lamp he sat at the table and unscrewed his pen. The words, as sometimes happened, came simply and easily. He wrote them down without pausing to think too much or even to wonder whether he was being sincere.

  Remember me, you said, at Blythburgh

  As if you were not always in my mind

  And there could be an art to bend more sur

  A heart already wholly you inclined.

  Of you, the you enchanted mind bereave

  More clearly back your image to receive,

  And in this unencumbered holy plac

  Recall again an unforgotten grace

  I you possessed must needs remember still

  At Blythburgh my love, or where you will.

  This metaphysical conceit, like most minor verse, comes to you with an ulterior motive. I don’t need to tell you what. I won’t say that I wish you were here. But I wish I were with you. This place is full of death and disagreeableness and I don’t know which is worse. But God and the Suffolk CID willing I shall be back in London by Friday evening. It would be good to know that you might be at Queenhithe.

  Writing this note must have taken longer than he thought for his aunt’s knock on the door surprised him. She said: “They’re going, Adam. I don’t know whether you feel the need to say goodnight.”

  He went down with her. They were indeed going, and he was surprised to see that the clock said twenty past eleven. No one spoke to him and they seemed as unconcerned at his reappearance as they had been at his going. The fire had been let die and was now little more than a heap of white ash. Bryce was helping Celia Calthrop into her coat and Dalgliesh heard her say: “It’s naughty of us to be so late. And I’ve got to be up so early. Sylvia phoned me from Seton House late this afternoon and asked me to drive her to the Green Man first thing tomorrow. There’s something urgent she has to tell Reckless.”

  Latham, already at the door, spun round. “What does she mean—something urgent to tell him?”

  Miss Calthrop shrugged. “My dear Oliver, how can I know? She more or less hinted that she knew something about Digby but I imagine it’s just Sylvia trying to make herself important. You know how she is. But one can hardly refuse to take her.”

  “But didn’t she give you any idea what it’s all about?” Latham was sharply insistent.

  “No, she didn’t. And I certainly wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of asking. And I’m not going to hurry myself. If this wind continues I shall be lucky to get much sleep tonight.”

  Latham looked as if he would like to have questioned further but Celia had already pushed past him. Murmuring a final and abstracted goodnight to his hostess, he followed the others into the storm. A few minutes later, straining his ears against the howling of the wind, Dalgliesh heard the slamming of doors and the faint row of the departing cars.


  4

  The wind woke Dalgliesh just before three o’clock. As he drifted into consciousness he heard the three chimes of the sitting-room clock and his first waking thought was a drowsy wonder that so sweet and uninsistent a sound could strike so clearly through the bedlam of the night. He lay awake and listened. Drowsiness gave way to pleasure, then to a faint excitement. He had always enjoyed a storm at Monksmere. The pleasure was familiar and predictable: the frisson of danger; the illusion of being poised on the very edge of chaos; the contrast between the familiar comfort of his bed and the violence of the night. He wasn’t worried. Pentlands had stood for four hundred years against the Suffolk seas. It would stand tonight. The sounds he was hearing now hadn’t changed with the years. For over four hundred years men had lain awake in this room and listened to the sea. One storm was very like another, all impossible to describe except in clichés. He lay still and listened to the familiar noises: the wind hurling itself against the walls like a demented animal; the perpetual background surge of the sea; the hiss of rain heard as the gusts abated; and, in the momentary calm, the trickle of falling shingle from roof and window sills. At about twenty to four the storm seemed to be dying away. There was one moment of complete peace in which Dalgliesh could hear his own breathing. Shortly afterwards he must have drifted again into sleep.

  Suddenly he woke again to a gust so violent that the cottage seemed to rock, the sea roared as if it were about to break over the roof. He had never known anything like this before, even at Monksmere. It was impossible to sleep through such fury. He had an uncomfortable urge to be up and dressed.

  He switched on his bedside lamp and, at that moment, his aunt appeared in the doorway, close-buttoned into her old plaid dressing gown and with one heavy plait of hair hanging over her shoulder. She said: “Justin is here. He thinks we ought to see if Sylvia Kedge is all right. We may have to get her out of that cottage. He says that the sea’s coming in fast.”