by P. D. James
“I think so, Sir. I don’t think they thought for a moment that anyone else could have been responsible. They took it that I was checking-up on what opportunity Holroyd had to muck about with the chair himself. And if it were deliberately damaged, then my bet is he did it. He was a malicious man, from what I hear. It probably amused him to think that, when the chair was recovered from the sea and the damage discovered, then everyone at Toynton Grange would be under suspicion. That’s the kind of final thought that would give him quite a kick.”
Dalgliesh said:
“I just can’t believe that both brakes failed simultaneously and accidentally. I’ve seen those wheelchairs at the Grange. The brakes system is very simple but it’s effective and safe. And it’s almost as difficult to imagine that there was deliberate sabotage. How could the murderer possibly rely on the brakes failing at that particular moment? Lerner or Holroyd might easily have tested them before starting out. The defect might be discovered when the chair was braked on the cliff top or even on the journey. Besides, no one apparently knew that Holroyd was going to insist on an outing that afternoon. What did exactly happen on the cliff top, by the way? Who braked the chair?”
“According to Lerner, Holroyd did. Lerner admits that he never looked at the brakes. All he can say is that he noticed nothing wrong with the chair. The brakes weren’t used until they reached their usual stopping place.”
For a moment there was silence. They had finished eating and Inspector Daniel felt in the pocket of his tweed jacket and produced his pipe. As he stroked its bowl with his thumb before filling it, he said quietly:
“Nothing was worrying you about the old gentleman’s death was it, Sir?”
“He was medically diagnosed as a dying man and somewhat inconveniently for me he died. I worry that I didn’t visit him in time to hear what was on his mind; but that’s a private worry. Speaking as a policeman, I should rather like to know who saw him last before he died. Officially, it was Grace Willison, but I’ve a feeling he had a later visitor than she; another patient. When he was found dead next morning he was wearing his stole. His diary is missing, and someone broke into his bureau. As I haven’t seen Father Baddeley for over twenty years it’s probably unreasonable of me to be so sure that it wasn’t he.”
Sergeant Varney turned to his Inspector.
“What would be the theological position, Sir, if someone confessed to a priest, got absolution and then killed him to make sure that he kept his mouth shut. Would the confession take as it were?”
The young face was preternaturally grave, it was impossible to tell whether the enquiry had been serious, whether this was a private joke directed against the Inspector, or made with some more subtle motive. Daniel took his pipe from his mouth:
“God, you young men are an ignorant lot of heathens! When I was a kid in Sunday School I put pennies in the collection plate for black bambinos not half as ignorant as your lot. Take it from me lad, it would do you no good theologically or otherwise.”
He turned to Dalgliesh.
“Wearing his stole, was he? Now that’s interesting.”
“I thought so.”
“And yet, is it so unnatural? He was alone and may have known that he was dying. Maybe he just felt more comfortable with the feel of it round his neck. Wouldn’t you say that, Sir?”
“I don’t know what he’d do, or what he’d feel. I’ve been content not to know for the past twenty years.”
“And the forced bureau. Maybe he’d decided to make a start with destroying his papers and couldn’t remember where he’d put the key.”
“It’s perfectly possible.”
“And he was cremated?”
“Cremated, on the insistence of Mrs. Hammitt, and his ashes buried with the appropriate rite of the Church of England.”
Inspector Daniel said nothing more. There was, Dalgliesh thought bitterly as they rose to go, nothing else to say.
IV
Father Baddeley’s solicitors, the firm of Loder and Wainwright, occupied a simple but harmonious house of red brick facing directly on to South Street and typical, Dalgliesh thought, of the more agreeable houses which were built after the old town was virtually destroyed by fire in 1762. The door was propped open by a brass doorstop shaped like a miniature cannon, its dazzling muzzle pointing intimidatingly towards the street. Apart from this bellicose symbol the house and its furnishings were reassuringly welcoming, producing an atmosphere of solid affluence, tradition and professional rectitude. The white painted hall was hung with prints of eighteenth-century Dorchester and smelt of furniture polish. To the left, an open door led to a large waiting-room with an immense circular table on a carved pedestal, half a dozen carved mahogany chairs heavy enough to accommodate a robust farmer in upright discomfort, and an oil painting of an unnamed Victorian gentleman, presumably the founder of the firm, bewhiskered and beribboned and displaying the seal of his watch chain between a delicate thumb and finger as if anxious that the painter should not overlook it. It was a house in which any of Hardy’s more prosperous characters would have felt themselves at home, could with confidence have discussed the effects of the abolition of the corn laws or the perfidy of the French privateers. Opposite the waiting-room was a partitioned office occupied by a young girl, dressed up to the waist in black boots and a long skirt like a Victorian governess and above the waist like a pregnant milkmaid. She was laboriously typing at a speed which could have explained Maggie Hewson’s strictures about the firm’s dilatoriness. In response to Dalgliesh’s enquiry she glanced up at him through a curtain of lank hair and said that Mr. Robert was out at present but was expected back in ten minutes. Taking his time over lunch, thought Dalgliesh, and resigned himself to a half-hour wait.
Loder returned some twenty minutes later. Dalgliesh heard him galumphing happily into the reception office; there was the murmur of voices and a second later he appeared in the waiting-room and invited his visitor into his office at the rear of the house. Neither the room—poky, stuffy and untidy—nor its owner were quite what Dalgliesh had expected. Neither suited the house. Bob Loder was a swarthy, heavily built, square-faced man with a blotched skin and unhealthy pallor and small, discouraged eyes. His sleek hair was uniformly dark—too dark to be entirely natural—except for a thin line of silver at the brow and sides. His moustache was dapper and trim above lips so red and moist that they looked about to ooze blood. Noting the lines at the corner of the eyes and the sagging muscles of the neck Dalgliesh suspected that he was neither as young nor as vigorous as he was at pains to suggest.
He greeted Dalgliesh with a heartiness and bonhomie which seemed as unsuited to his personality as it was to the occasion. His manner recalled to Dalgliesh something of the desperate heartiness of ex-officers of his acquaintance who hadn’t adjusted themselves to civilian life, or perhaps of a car salesman with little confidence that the chassis and engine will hang together long enough to complete the sale.
Dalgliesh briefly explained the ostensible reason for his visit.
“I didn’t know that Father Baddeley was dead until I arrived at Toynton and the first I heard about his bequest to me was from Mrs. Hewson. That isn’t important. You probably haven’t had a chance to write yet. But Mr. Anstey wants the cottage cleared for the new occupant and I thought that I’d better check with you before removing the books.”
Loder put his head outside the door and yelled for the file. It was produced in a surprisingly quick time. After a perfunctory examination he said:
“That’s OK. Perfectly. Sorry about no letter. It wasn’t so much the lack of time as no address, don’t you know. The dear old chap didn’t think of that. Name familiar, of course. Ought I to know you?”
“I don’t think so. Perhaps Father Baddeley mentioned my name when he visited you. I believe he did call in a day or so before the start of his last illness.”
“That’s right, on Wednesday the eleventh p.m. That was only the second time we’d met, come to think of it. He first consulted me about three
years ago, soon after he arrived at Toynton Grange. That was to make his will. He didn’t have much but, then, he hadn’t been spending much and it had accumulated into quite a nice little sum.”
“How did he hear of you?”
“He didn’t. The dear old chap wanted to make his will, knew that he’d need a solicitor and just took the bus into Wareham, and walked into the first solicitors’ office he came to. I happened to be here at the time so I got him. I drew up the will there and then since that was what he wanted and two of the staff here signed it. I’ll say this for the old dear, he was the easiest client I’ve ever had.”
“I wondered whether his visit on the eleventh was to consult you about anything that was worrying him. From his last letter to me I rather gathered that he had something on his mind. If there’s anything I ought to do …”
He let his voice trail away in a long interrogation.
Loder said cheerfully:
“The dear old chap came in some perturbation of spirit. He was thinking of changing his will but hadn’t quite made up his mind. He seemed to have got the idea that I could somehow put the money into limbo for him while he came to a decision. I said: ‘My dear Sir, if you die tonight the money goes to Wilfred Anstey and Toynton Grange. If you don’t want that to happen, then you’ll have to make up your mind what you do want and I’ll draw up a new will. But the money exists. It won’t just disappear. And if you don’t cancel the old will or change it, then it stands.’”
“Did he strike you as sensible?”
“Oh, yes, muddled perhaps but more in his imagination than his comprehension if you get me. As soon as I pointed out the facts he understood them. Well, he always had understood them. It’s just that he wished for a moment that the problem wasn’t there. Don’t we all know the feeling?”
“And a day later he went into hospital, and less than a fortnight later the problem was solved for him.”
“Yes, poor old dear. I suppose he would have said that providence decided it for him. Providence certainly made its views known in no uncertain way.”
“Did he give you any idea what was on his mind? I don’t want to pry into professional confidences, but I did get a strong impression that he wanted to consult me about something. If he had a commission for me I’d like to try to carry it out. And I suppose I have the policeman’s curiosity to find out what he wanted, to clear up unfinished business.”
“A policeman?”
Was the flicker of surprise and polite interest in those tired eyes a little too obvious to be natural?
Loder said:
“Did he invite you as a friend or in a professional capacity?”
“Probably a bit of both.”
“Well, I don’t see what you can do about it now. Even if he’d told me his intentions about the will and I knew whom he wanted to benefit it’s too late to do anything about it now.”
Dalgliesh wondered whether Loder seriously thought that he had been hoping for the money himself and was enquiring into a possible way of upsetting Father Baddeley’s will.
He said:
“I know that. I doubt whether it was anything to do with his will. It’s odd, though, that he never wrote to tell me about my legacy, and he left the main beneficiary in the same ignorance apparently.” It was entirely a shot in the dark but it found its mark. Loder spoke carefully, a trifle too carefully.
“Did he? I’d rather thought that that particular embarrassment was part of the old chap’s dilemma, the reluctance to disappoint when he’d promised.”
He hesitated, seeming to think that he had said either too much or too little and added:
“But Wilfred Anstey could confirm that.”
He paused again as if disconcerted by some subtle implication in his words and, obviously irritated at the devious paths into which the conversation was leading him, said more strongly:
“I mean if Wilfred Anstey says he didn’t know that he was the principal legatee then he didn’t know and I’m wrong. Are you staying long in Dorset?”
“Rather less than a week, I imagine. Just long enough to sort out and pack the books.”
“Oh, yes, the books, of course; perhaps that’s what Father Baddeley meant to consult you about. He may have thought that a library of theological tomes would be more of a liability than an acceptable bequest.”
“It’s possible.” The conversation seemed to have died. There was a brief, somewhat embarrassed pause before Dalgliesh said, rising from his chair:
“So there was nothing else worrying him as far as you know except this problem of the disposal of his money? He didn’t consult you about anything else?”
“No, nothing. If he had, it might have been something I wouldn’t have felt able to tell you without breaking a professional confidence. But, as he didn’t, I don’t see why you shouldn’t know that. And what would he have to consult me over, poor old gentleman? No wife, no children, no relatives, as far as I know, no family troubles, no car, a blameless life. What would he need a solicitor for except to draw up his will?”
It was a little late to talk about professional confidence, thought Dalgliesh. There was really no need for Loder to have confided that Father Baddeley had been thinking of changing his will. Given the fact that he hadn’t in fact done so that was the kind of information which a prudent solicitor would feel was best left undisclosed. As Loder walked with him to the door, Dalgliesh said casually:
“Father Baddeley’s will probably gave nothing but satisfaction. One can hardly say as much of Victor Holroyd’s.”
The dull eyes were suddenly sharp, almost conspiratorial. Loder said:
“So you’ve heard about that, have you?”
“Yes. But I’m surprised that you have.”
“Oh, news gets around, don’t you know, in a country district. As a matter of fact I have friends at Toynton. The Hewsons. Well, Maggie really. We met at the Conservative dance here last winter. It’s a pretty dull life stuck there on the cliff for a lively girl.”
“Yes. It must be.”
“She’s quite a lass is our Maggie. She told me about Holroyd’s will. I gather that he went up to London to see his brother and it was rather taken for granted that he wanted to discuss his will. But it looks as if big brother didn’t much like what Victor proposed and suggested that he thought again. In the event, Holroyd drew up the codicil himself. It wouldn’t exactly present any problem for him. All that family have been brought up in the law and Holroyd started reading for the Bar himself before he decided to switch to schoolteaching.”
“I understand that Holroyd and Martinson act for the Anstey family.”
“That’s right, and have for four generations. It’s a pity grandfather Anstey didn’t consult them before drawing up his will. That case was quite a lesson in the unwisdom of trying to act as your own lawyer. Well, good afternoon, Commander. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
As he looked back when turning out of South Street, Dalgliesh could see Loder still watching after him, the brass cannon shining like a toy at his feet. There were a number of things about the solicitor which he found interesting. Not the least was how Loder had learned his rank.
But there was one other task before he turned his mind to his shopping. He called at the early nineteenth-century hospital, Christmas Close. But here he was unlucky. The hospital knew nothing of Father Baddeley; they admitted only chronic cases. If his friend had suffered a heart attack he would almost certainly have been admitted to the acute ward of a district general hospital despite his age. The courteous porter suggested that he should try either Poole General Hospital, Blandford or the Victoria Hospital at Wimborne, and helpfully directed him to the nearest public telephone.
He tried Poole Hospital first as being the nearest. And here he was luckier than he could have hoped. The clerk who answered the telephone was efficient. Given the date of Father Baddeley’s discharge he was able to confirm that the Reverend Baddeley had been a patient and to put Dalgliesh through to the r
ight ward. The staff nurse answered. Yes, she remembered Father Baddeley. No, they hadn’t heard that he had died. She spoke the conventional words of regret and was able to make them sound sincere. Then she fetched Nurse Breagan to the telephone. Nurse Breagan usually offered to post patients’ letters. Perhaps she could help Commander Dalgliesh.
His rank, he knew, had something to do with their helpfulness, but not all. They were kindly women who were disposed to take trouble, even with a stranger. He explained his dilemma to Nurse Breagan.
“So you see, I didn’t know that my friend had died until I arrived yesterday at Toynton Grange. He promised to return the papers we were working on to me, but they’re not among his things, I wondered whether he posted them back to me from hospital, either to my London address or to the Yard.”
“Well now, Commander, the Father wasn’t a great one for writing. Reading, yes; but not writing. But I did post two letters for him. They were both local as far as I can remember. I have to look at the addresses, you see, so that I post them in the right box. The date? Well, I couldn’t remember that. But he did hand them to me together.”
“Would those be the two letters he wrote to Toynton, one to Mr. Anstey and one to Miss Willison?”
“Come to think of it, Commander, I do seem to remember those names. But I couldn’t be sure, you understand.”
“It’s very clever of you to remember so much. And you’re quite sure you only posted those two?”
“Oh, quite sure. Mind you, one of the other nurses might have posted a letter for him, but I couldn’t find out for you without difficulty. Some of them have changed wards. But I don’t think so. It’s usually me that takes the letters. And he wasn’t one for writing. That’s how I remember the two letters he did send.”
It could mean something or nothing. But the information had been worth the trouble. If Father Baddeley had made an appointment for the night of his return home, he must have done so either by telephoning from the hospital once he was well enough, or by letter. And only Toynton Grange itself, the Hewsons and Julius Court were on the telephone. But it might have been more convenient for him to write. The letter to Grace Willison would have been the one arranging her appointment for confession. The one to Anstey might have been the letter of condolence on Holroyd’s death to which she had referred. But, on the other hand, it might not.