by P. D. James
The menu and wine list were already to the right of Ackroyd’s place. Taking them up, he said: ‘The Plants have retired, but we’ve got the Jacksons now, and I’m not sure that Mrs Jackson’s cooking isn’t even better. We were lucky to get them. She and her husband used to run a private nursing home but they got tired of the country and wanted to return to London. They don’t need to work but I think the job suits them. They’ve kept on with the policy of having only one main dish a day at luncheon and dinner. Very wise. Today, white bean and tuna fish salad followed by rack of lamb with fresh vegetables and a green salad. Then lemon tart and cheese to follow. The vegetables will be fresh. We still get all the vegetables and eggs from young Plant’s smallholding. Do you want to see the wine list? Have you a preference?’
‘I’ll leave that to you.’
Ackroyd cogitated aloud while Dalgliesh, who loved wine but disliked talking about it, let his gaze range appreciatively over the muddle of a room which despite, perhaps because of, its air of eccentric but organized chaos was surprisingly restful. The discordant objects, not carefully placed for effect, had through time achieved a rightness of place. After a lengthy discussion on the merits of the wine list in which Ackroyd apparently expected no contribution from his guest, he fixed on a chardonnay. Mrs Jackson, appearing as if in response to some secret signal, brought with her the smell of hot rolls and an air of bustling confidence.
‘Very nice to meet you, Commander. You’ve got the Snug to yourself this morning, Mr Ackroyd. Mr Jackson will be seeing to the wine.’
After the first course had been served, Dalgliesh said: ‘Why is Mrs Jackson dressed as a nurse?’
‘Because she is one, I suppose. She used to be a matron. She’s a midwife too, I believe, but we’ve no call for that here.’
Not surprisingly, thought Dalgliesh, since the club didn’t admit women. He said: ‘Isn’t that goffered cap with streamers going a bit far?’
‘Oh, do you think so? I suppose we’ve got used to it. I doubt if the members would feel at home if Mrs Jackson stopped wearing it now.’
Ackroyd wasted no time in coming to the purpose of the meeting. As soon as they were finally alone he said: ‘Lord Stilgoe had a word with me last week in Brooks’s. He’s my wife’s uncle, incidentally. Do you know him?’
‘No. I thought he was dead.’
‘I can’t think how you got that idea.’ He prodded at his bean salad irritably and Dalgliesh remembered that he resented any suggestion that someone he knew personally could actually die, and certainly not without the prior knowledge of himself. ‘He isn’t even as old as he looks, not eighty yet. He’s remarkably spry for his age.Actually he’s publishing his memoirs. The Peverell Press are bringing them out next spring. That’s what he wanted to see me about. Something rather worrying has happened. At least his wife finds it worrying. She thinks he’s had a direct threat of murder.’
‘And has he?’
‘Well, he’s received this.’
He took some time in taking the small oblong of paper from his wallet and passing it over to Dalgliesh. The words had been accurately typed on a word processor and the message was unsigned.
‘Do you really think it wise to publish with Peverell Press? Remember Marcus Seabright, Joan Petrie and now Sonia Clements. Two authors and your own editor dead in less than twelve months. Do you want to be number four?’
Dalgliesh said: ‘More mischievous than threatening, I should have thought, and the malice directed against the Press rather than Stilgoe. There’s no doubt that Sonia Clements’ death was suicide. She left a note for the coroner and wrote to her sister telling her that she intended to kill herself. I don’t recall anything about the first two deaths.’
‘Oh, they’re straightforward enough, I should have thought. Seabright was over eighty and had a bad heart. He died from an attack of gastroenteritis which brought on a heart attack. Anyway, he was no loss to Peverell Press. He hadn’t produced a novel for ten years. Joan Petrie killed herself driving to her country cottage. Accidental death. Petrie had two passions, whisky and fast cars. The only surprise is that she killed herself before she killed someone else. Obviously the poison pen dragged up these two deaths as makeweights. But Dorothy Stilgoe is superstitious. She takes the view, why publish with Peverell when there are other publishers?’
‘And who is actually in charge now?’
‘Oh Gerard Etienne. Very much so. The last chairman and managing director, old Henry Peverell, died in early January and left his shares in the business in equal parts to his daughter Frances and to Gerard. His original partner, Jean-Philippe Etienne, had retired about a year previously, and not before time. His shares also went to Gerard. The two older men ran the firm as if it was their private hobby. Old Peverell always took the view that a gentleman inherited money, he didn’t earn it. Jean-Philippe Etienne hadn’t taken an active part in the firm for years. His moment of glory, of course, was in the last war where he was a hero of the Resistance in Vichy France, but I don’t think he’s done anything memorable since. Gerard was waiting in the wings, the crown prince. And now he’s well on stage and we’re likely to see action if not melodrama.’
‘Does Gabriel Dauntsey still run the poetry list?’
‘I’m surprised you need to ask, Adam. You mustn’t let your passion for catching murderers put you out of touch with real life. Yes, he’s still there. He hasn’t written a poem himself for over twenty years. Dauntsey’s an anthology poet. The best is so good that it keeps reappearing, but I imagine most readers think he’s dead. He was a bomber pilot in the last war so he must be well over seventy. It’s time he retired. The poetry list at Peverell Press is about all he does nowadays. The other three partners are Gerard’s sister Claudia Etienne, James de Witt, who’s been with the firm since he left Oxford, and Frances Peverell, the last of the Peverells. But it’s Gerard who runs the firm.’
‘What is he planning, do you know?’
‘Rumour has it that he wants to sell Innocent House and move to Docklands. That won’t please Frances Peverell. The Peverells have always had an obsession about Innocent House. It belongs to the partnership now, not to the family, but any Peverell thinks of it as the family home. He’s already made other changes, some staff sacked, including Sonia Clements. He’s right, of course. The firm has got to be dragged into the twentieth century or go under, but he’s certainly made enemies. It’s significant that they had no trouble at the Press until Gerard took over. That coincidence hasn’t escaped Stilgoe, although his wife is still convinced that the malice is directed against her husband personally, not the firm, and against his memoirs in particular.’
‘Will Peverell lose much if the book is withdrawn?’
‘Not a great deal, I imagine. Of course they’ll hype the memoirs as if their disclosures could bring down the Government, discredit the Opposition and end parliamentary democracy as we know it, but I imagine that, like most political memoirs, they’ll promise more than they deliver. But I don’t see how it can be withdrawn. The book is in production, they won’t let it go without a struggle, and Stilgoe won’t want to break the contract if it means publicly explaining why. What Dorothy Stilgoe is asking is, was Sonia Clements’ death really suicide and did someone interfere with Petrie’s Jag? I think she’s satisfied enough that old Seabright died from natural causes.’
‘So what am I expected to do?’
‘There must have been inquests in the last two cases and presumably the police carried out an investigation. Your people could take a look at the papers, have a word with the officers concerned, that sort of thing. Then, if Dorothy could be assured that a senior Metropolitan detective has looked at all the evidence and is satisfied, she might give her husband, and Peverell Press, some peace.’
Dalgliesh said: ‘That might serve to satisfy her that Sonia Clements’ death was suicide. It will hardly content her if she’s superstitious, and I don’t see what will. The essence of superstition is that it isn’t amenable to reason. She�
�ll probably take the view that an unlucky publisher is as bad as a murderous one. I suppose she isn’t seriously suggesting that someone at Peverell Press put an unidentifiable poison in Sonia Clements’ wine?’
‘No, I don’t think she’s going as far as that.’
‘Just as well or her husband will have his profits eaten up by a libel action. I’m surprised he didn’t go straight to the Commissioner or to me direct.’
‘Are you? I’m not sure. It would have looked – well, shall we say a little timid, a trifle over-concerned. Besides he doesn’t know you, I do. I can understand why he spoke to me first. And of course, one can hardly see him calling in at the local nick, joining the queue of lost-dog owners, assaulted wives and aggrieved motorists and explaining his dilemma to the duty sergeant. Frankly I don’t think he believed it would be taken seriously. His view is that, having regard to his wife’s concern and that anonymous note, he’s justified in asking the police to take a look at what is happening at the Peverell Press.’
The lamb had arrived, pink and succulent and tender enough to be eaten with a spoon. In the few minutes of silence which Ackroyd thought a necessary tribute to a perfectly cooked meal, Dalgliesh recalled the first time he had seen Innocent House.
His father had taken him to London for his eighth birthday treat; they were to spend two whole days sightseeing and stay overnight with a friend, who was a parish priest in Kensington, and his wife. He could remember lying in bed the night before, fitfully sleeping and almost sick with excitement, the cavernous immensity and clamour of the old Liverpool Street Station, his terror of losing his father, of being caught up and swept along with the great army of grey-faced marching people. In the two days in which his father had intended to combine pleasure with education – to his scholarly mind the two were indistinguishable – they had perhaps inevitably tried to do too much. The visit had been overwhelming for an eight-year-old, leaving a confused memory of churches and galleries, restaurants and unfamiliar food, of floodlit towers and the dancing reflection of light on the black creased surface of the water, of sleek, prancing horses and silver helmets, of the glamour and terror of history made manifest in brick and stone. But London had laid on him her spell which no adult experience, no exploration of other great cities had been able to break.
It was on the second day that they had visited Westminster Abbey and later taken a river steamer from Charing Cross pier to Greenwich and he had first seen Innocent House, glittering in the morning sun, seeming to rise like a golden mirage from the shimmering water. He had gazed at it in wonder. His father had explained that the name was derived from Innocent Walk which ran behind the house, at the end of which had once stood an early eighteenth-century magistrates’ court. Defendants taken into custody after their first hearing were removed to the Fleet prison; the more fortunate walked down the cobbled lane to freedom. He had started to tell his son something of the house’s architectural history, but his voice had been overpowered by the tour-guide’s booming commentary, loud enough to be heard by every boat on the river.
‘And here, coming up on our left, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the most interesting buildings on the Thames: Innocent House, built in 1830 for Sir Francis Peverell, a noted publisher of the day. Sir Francis had visited Venice and had been very impressed by the Ca’ d’Oro, the Golden House on the Grand Canal. Those of you who have had holidays in Venice have probably seen it. So he hit on the idea of building his own golden house on the Thames. Pity he couldn’t import Venetian weather.’ He paused briefly for the expected laughter. ‘Today it is the headquarters of a publishing firm, the Peverell Press, so it’s still in the family. There’s an interesting story about Innocent House. Apparently Sir Francis was so absorbed by it that he neglected his young wife whose money had helped him to build it, and she threw herself from the top balcony and was instantly killed. The legend has it that you can still see the stain of her blood on the marble which can’t be cleaned away. It’s said that Sir Francis went mad with remorse in his old age and used to go out alone at night trying to get rid of that tell-tale spot. It’s his ghost that people claim to see, still scrubbing away at the stain. There are some watermen who don’t like sailing too close to Innocent House after dark.’
All eyes on deck had been docilely turned to the house but now, intrigued by this story of blood, the passengers moved to hang over the rail; voices murmured and heads craned as if the legendary stain might still be visible. Eight-year-old Adam’s over-vivid imagination had pictured a white-clad woman, blonde hair flying, flinging herself from the balcony like some demented storybook heroine, had heard the final thud and seen the trickle of blood creeping and starting across the marble to drip into the Thames. For years afterwards the house had continued to fascinate him with a potent amalgam of beauty and terror.
The tour-guide had been inaccurate about one fact; it was possible that the suicide story had also been embellished or untrue. He knew now that Sir Francis had been enchanted, not by the Ca’ d’Oro which, despite the intricacies of its fine tracings and carvings, he had found, or so he had written to his architect, too asymmetrical for his taste, but by the Palace of Doge Francesco Foscari, and it was the Ca’ Foscari which his architect had been instructed to build for him on this cold, tidal river. It should have looked incongruous, a folly, unmistakably Venetian and Venetian of the mid-fifteenth century. And yet it looked as if no other city, no other site would have been right for it. Dalgliesh still found it difficult to understand why it should be so successful, this unashamed borrowing from another age, another country, a softer, warmer air. The proportions had been changed and surely that alone should have rendered Sir Francis’s dream an impracticable presumption, but the reduction in scale had been brilliantly carried out and the dignity of the original somehow maintained. There were six great central window arches instead of eight behind the finely carved balconies of the first and second floors, but the marble columns with their decorated pinnules were almost exact copies of the Venetian palace and the central arcades here, as there, were balanced by tall single windows, giving the façade its unity and grace. The great curved door fronted a marble patio leading to a landing-stage and a flight of steps to the river. On either side of the house two brick-built Regency town houses with small balconies, presumably built to house coachmen or other servants, stood like humble sentries of the central magnificence. He had seen it from the river many times since that eighth-birthday celebration but had never been inside. He recalled having read that there was a fine Matthew Cotes Wyatt ceiling in the central hall and rather wished he could see it. It would be a pity if Innocent House fell into the hands of philistines.
He asked: ‘And what exactly has been going on at Peverell Press? What’s worrying Lord Stilgoe apart from his poison-pen letter?’
‘So you’ve heard the rumours. Difficult to tell. They’re being rather cagey about it and I don’t blame them. But one or two little incidents have become common knowledge. Not so little either. The most serious happened just before Easter when they lost the illustrations for Gregory Maybrick’s book on the Guy Fawkes conspiracy. Popular history, no doubt, but May brick knows his period. They expected to do rather well with it. He’d managed to lay his hands on some interesting contemporary plates, never before published, as well as other written records, and the whole lot were lost. They were on loan from the various owners and he’d more or less guaranteed their safety.’
‘Lost? Mislaid? Destroyed?’
‘The story is that he delivered them by hand to James de Witt who was editing the book. He’s their senior editor and normally responsible for fiction but old Peverell who edited their non-fiction had died about three months earlier and I suppose they either hadn’t had time to find a suitable replacement or wanted to save money. Like most houses they’re laying off rather than taking on. The rumour is that they can’t keep afloat much longer. Not surprising with that Venetian palace to maintain. Anyway, the illustrations were handed over to de Witt in his of
fice and he locked them in his cupboard while May brick watched.’
‘Not in a safe?’
‘My dear boy, we’re talking about a publishing house not Cartier’s. Knowing Peverells, I’m only surprised that de Witt bothered to lock the cupboard.’
‘Was his the only key?’
‘Really, Adam, you’re not detecting now. Actually it was. He kept it in a battered old tobacco tin in his left-hand drawer.’
Where else? thought Dalgliesh. He said: ‘Where any member of the staff or any unaccompanied visitor could lay hands on it.’
‘Well, someone obviously did. James didn’t need to go to the cupboard for a couple of days. The illustrations were due to be delivered personally to the art department the following week. You know that Peverells have put out their artwork to an independent firm?’
‘No, I didn’t know.’
‘More economical, I suppose. It’s the same firm that’s been doing the jackets for the last five years. Rather well, actually. Peverells have never let their standards slip on book production and design. You can always tell a Peverell book just by handling it. Until now, of course. Gerard Etienne may change that too. Anyway, when de Witt looked for the envelope it had disappeared. Huge fuss, of course. Everyone questioned. Frantic searches. General panic. In the end they had to confess to Maybrick and the owners. You can imagine how they took the news.’
‘Did the stuff ever come to light?’
‘Not until too late. There were doubts whether Maybrick would want to publish at all but the book was in the catalogue and it was decided to go ahead with alternative illustrations and some necessary changes to the text. A week after they’d finished printing, the envelope and its contents mysteriously reappeared. De Witt found it in his cupboard exactly where he had placed it.’
‘Which suggests that the thief had some respect for scholarship and had never intended to destroy the papers.’