Unnatural Causes

by P. D. James

  “I think he wrote it,” said Dalgliesh. “When Max Gurney showed me Seton’s letter I recognised the typing. The same man typed the second manuscript.”

  As he spoke they were moving instinctively out of the bite of the wind into the shelter of the sunken lane which ran between the sand dunes and the bird sanctuary. Some twenty yards farther on was the third in a series of small observation hides which overlooked the sanctuary. This particular hide made a natural turning point to their beach walks and Dalgliesh did not need to ask his aunt whether they should go in. To spend ten minutes scanning the reed beds through his aunt’s binoculars and sheltering from the bitter east-coast winds had become one of those rituals which were part of an autumn visit to Monksmere. The hide was typical of its kind, a rough wooden shelter, reed-thatched, with a bench high enough to support tired thighs along the back wall and a slit at eye level giving a wide view over the marshes. In summer it smelt strongly of sun-baked wood, moist earth and lush grasses. Even in the cold months, this warmth lingered, as if all the heat and smells of summer were trapped within its wooden walls.

  They had reached the hide and Miss Dalgliesh was about to step first through the narrow entrance when Dalgliesh suddenly said: “No! Wait!”

  A minute earlier he had been strolling along almost in a dream. Now, suddenly, his brain awoke to the significance of the signs which his trained senses had subconsciously noted: the single line of male footprints leading from the sand-dusted lane to the hide entrance, a trace on the wind of a sick stench which had nothing to do with the smell of earth or grasses. As his aunt paused he slipped in front of her and stood in the entrance of the hide.

  His tall body blocked most of the light from the narrow entrance so that he smelt death before he saw it. The stench of sour vomit, blood and diarrhoea stung his nostrils as if the air of the little hut was saturated with corruption and evil. The smell was not unfamiliar to him but, as always, he had to fight against a momentary and intolerable urge to be sick. Then he bent down, the light streamed in behind him and he saw the body clearly for the first time.

  Digby Seton had crawled like a dog into the corner of the hut to die and he had not died easily. The pathetic body, rigid and cold, was huddled along the far wall, the knees drawn up almost to the chin, the head twisted upwards as if the glazed eyes had made one last despairing effort to catch the light. In his agony he had bitten his bottom lip almost in two and a stream of blood, blackened now, had mixed with the vomit which encrusted his chin and the lapels of the once-smart Melton overcoat. He had dug in the earth of the hut with torn and bleeding hands, smearing it over his face and hair and stuffing it even into his mouth as if in a last delirious craving for coolness and water. Six inches from his body lay his hip flask, the top unscrewed.

  Dalgliesh heard his aunt’s calm voice. “Who is it, Adam?”

  “Digby Seton. No, don’t come in. There’s nothing we can do for him. He’s been dead for twelve hours at least; from some irritant poison by the look of it, poor devil.”

  He heard her sigh and she muttered something that he could not catch. Then she said: “Shall I go for Inspector Reckless or would you rather I stayed here?”

  “You go, if you will. I’ll keep an eye on this place.” It was possible that he could have saved ten or fifteen minutes by going himself but there was nothing that anyone could do now to help Seton and he had no intention of leaving her alone in this stinking place of death. And she was a fast and strong walker; there would be little time wasted.

  She set off at once and he watched her until a turn in the lane hid her from sight. Then he made his way to the top of the sand dunes and found a sheltered hollow in which to sit, his back wedged against a clump of marram grass. From this point of vantage he could keep the hide under observation and could see on his right the whole sweep of the beach and on his left the sunken lane. From time to time he caught a glimpse of his aunt’s tall striding figure. She seemed to be making excellent time but it would be at least three-quarters of an hour before Reckless and his men, laden with stretcher and their paraphernalia, came into view. There was no spot closer to the beach to bring an ambulance than Pentlands and no shorter way to the hide than by the lane. Burdened with their equipment, they would have a hard time of it against the wind.

  Dalgliesh had spent only a few minutes in the hide but every detail was sharp and clear in his mind. He had no doubt that Digby Seton had been murdered. Although he had not searched the body—that was a job for Reckless—nor even touched it except to verify briefly that it was cold and that rigor mortis was well established, he had little doubt that no suicide note would be found. Digby Seton, that facile, uncomplicated, rather stupid young man, as pleased with his fortune as a child with a new toy and full of happy plans for bigger and brighter nightclubs, was hardly a likely suicide risk. And even Digby had sense enough to know that there were easier ways of dying than to have one’s stomach and guts burnt away with poison. There had been no bottle near the body except the hip flask. Almost certainly that had contained the stuff. The dose must have been very large. Dalgliesh’s mind ranged over the possibilities. Arsenic? Antimony? Mercury? Lead? All could produce those signs. But this was mere speculation. In time the pathologists would have all the answers: the name of the poison, the dose, the time it had taken for Seton to die. And the rest would be for Reckless.

  But assuming that the stuff had been put in the hip flask, who was a likely suspect? Someone who had access both to the poison and the flask. That was obvious. Someone who knew the victim well; knew that Digby, alone and bored, wouldn’t be able to resist taking a pull at the flask before facing the bitter wind and the long walk home. And that implied someone who could persuade him to a rendezvous at the hide. Why else should he have gone there? No one at Monksmere had ever known Digby Seton to be interested in birdwatching or in walking. And he had not been dressed for either activity. Nor had he carried binoculars. This was murder all right. Even Reckless would hardly suggest that Digby Seton had died naturally or that someone with a perverted sense of humour had put his corpse in the hide with the object of inconveniencing Adam Dalgliesh and his aunt.

  Dalgliesh had no doubt that the two murders were related but he was struck with their dissimilarity. It was as if two different minds were at work. The killing of Maurice Seton had been almost unnecessarily complicated. Although it might still be difficult to prove that the crime was indeed murder in face of the pathologist’s report of death from natural causes, there was little else natural about it. The difficulty was not lack of clues. There were too many. It was as if the murderer had needed to demonstrate his cleverness as much as he had needed to kill Seton. But this new killing was simpler, more direct. There could be no possibility here of a verdict of death from natural causes. This murderer was not trying any double bluff. There hadn’t even been an attempt to make it look like suicide, to suggest that Digby had killed himself in a fit of remorse over his brother’s death. Admittedly it wouldn’t have been easy to fake a suicide but Dalgliesh thought it significant that no attempt had been made. And he was beginning to understand why. He could think of one vital reason why this killer should want to avoid any suggestion that Digby had killed himself through remorse or had been in any way concerned in his brother’s death.

  Dalgliesh was surprisingly warm and comfortable in the shelter of the marram grass. He could hear the wind whistling in the dunes and the insistent thudding of the tide. But the tall clumps of grass shielded him so effectively that he had an odd sense of isolation as if the roar of wind and sea was coming from far away. Through the thin screen of grasses he could see the hide, a familiar, ordinary, primitive hut outwardly no different from half a dozen others which fringed the bird sanctuary. He could almost persuade himself that it was no different. Touched by this sense of isolation and unreality, he had to resist an absurd impulse to see if Seton’s body were really there.

  Jane Dalgliesh must have made good time. It was less than forty-five minutes befo
re he caught the first glimpse of approaching figures in the lane. The straggling group came briefly into view and then they were hidden again behind the dunes. The second time he glimpsed them they seemed no nearer. Then, unexpectedly, they turned the last bend in the lane and were with him. He saw a windblown, incongruous little group, burdened with equipment and having the air of a badly organised and slightly demoralised expedition. Reckless was there, of course, grim-faced and rigid with anger, the ubiquitous raincoat buttoned to his chin. He had with him his sergeant, the police surgeon, a photographer and two young detective constables, carrying a stretcher and a rolled canvas shield. Few words were exchanged. Dalgliesh bellowed his report in the Inspector’s ear and then went back to his shelter in the dunes and left them to it. This wasn’t his job. There was no sense in having an extra pair of feet churning up the moist sand around the hide. The men got to work. There was much shouting and gesticulating. The wind, as if in spite, had risen to a crescendo on their arrival and even in the comparative shelter of the lane it was hard to make oneself heard. Reckless and the doctor disappeared into the hide. There at least, thought Dalgliesh, it would be sheltered enough. Sheltered, airless and stinking of death. They were welcome to it. After about five minutes they reappeared and the photographer, the tallest of the group, bent nearly double and edged his equipment through the opening. Meanwhile the two constables were making ineffective efforts to get up a screen around the hide. The canvas leaped and whirled in their hands and whipped around their ankles with every gust of wind. Dalgliesh wondered why they bothered. There were hardly likely to be many sightseers on this lonely shore nor were the sandy approaches to the hide likely to yield further clues. There were only three sets of prints leading to the door: his own, those of his aunt, and the third set which were presumably Digby Seton’s. They had already been measured and photographed and soon, no doubt, the flying sand would obliterate them completely.

  It was half an hour before they got the corpse out of the hide and placed on the stretcher. As the constables struggled to hold down the mackintosh covers while the straps were applied, Reckless came over to Dalgliesh. He said: “A friend of yours telephoned me yesterday afternoon. A Mister Max Gurney. It appears he’s been keeping to himself some interesting information about Maurice Seton’s will.”

  It was an unexpected opening. Dalgliesh said: “I lunched with him and he asked me whether he ought to get in touch with you.”

  “So he said. You’d imagine he would be capable of thinking it out for himself. Seton was found dead with marks of violence on the body. It stands to reason we’d be interested in the money side.”

  “Perhaps he shares your view that it was a natural death,” suggested Dalgliesh.

  “Maybe. But that’s hardly his business. Anyway, he’s told us now and it was news to me. There was no record of it at Seton House.”

  Dalgliesh said: “Seton took a carbon of the letter. Gurney will be posting the original to you and you’ll find the carbon markings on the back. Someone destroyed the copy, presumably.”

  Reckless said gloomily: “Someone. Perhaps Seton himself. I haven’t changed my mind yet about that killing, Mr. Dalgliesh. But you could be right. Especially in view of this.” He jerked his head towards the stretcher which the two policemen squatting at the poles were now bracing themselves to raise. “There’s no doubt about this one. This is murder, all right. So we take our choice. One murderer and one unpleasant practical joker. Or one murderer and two crimes. Or two murderers.”

  Dalgliesh suggested that this last was unlikely in such a small community.

  “But possible, Mr. Dalgliesh. After all, the two deaths haven’t much in common. There’s nothing particularly subtle or ingenious about this killing. Just a whacking great dose of poison in Seton’s hip flask and the knowledge that, sooner or later, he’d take a swig at it. All the murderer had to do was ensure that he wasn’t too close to medical help when it happened. Not that it would have done him much good by the look of it.”

  Dalgliesh wondered how the killer had succeeded in luring Seton to the hide. Had it been done by persuasion or by threats? Was Seton expecting to meet a friend or an enemy? If the latter, was he the sort of man to go alone and undefended? But suppose it were a different kind of assignation? For how many people at Monksmere would Digby Seton have been ready to walk two miles over rough ground on a cold autumn day and in the teeth of a rising gale?

  The stretcher was moving forward now. One of the constables had apparently been instructed to stay on guard at the hide. The rest of the party fell into line behind the corpse like an escort of shabby and ill-assorted mourners. Dalgliesh and Reckless walked together and in silence. Ahead, the shrouded lump on the stretcher swayed gently from side to side as the bearers picked their way over the ridges in the lane. The edges of the canvas flapped rhythmically like a sail in the wind and overhead a seabird hovered over the corpse, screaming like a soul in pain, before rising in a wide curve to disappear over the marshes.

  2

  It was early evening before Dalgliesh saw Reckless alone. The Inspector had spent the afternoon interviewing his suspects and checking on Digby Seton’s movements during the past few days. He arrived at Pentlands just before six o’clock, ostensibly to ask Miss Dalgliesh again if she had seen anyone walking along the shore towards Sizewell on the previous day and whether she had any idea what could have induced Digby Seton to visit the hide. Both questions had been answered earlier when Dalgliesh and his aunt had met Reckless at the Green Man to give their formal account of the finding of the body. Jane Dalgliesh had stated that she had spent the whole of Monday evening at Pentlands and had seen no one. But then, as she had pointed out, it would be possible for Digby—or indeed, anyone else—to have walked to the hide by the sunken lane behind the sand dunes or by way of the beach, and this path for most of its length wasn’t visible from Pentlands.

  “All the same,” said Reckless obstinately, “he must have come past your cottage to get into the lane. Would that really be possible without you seeing him?”

  “Oh perfectly, provided he kept close in to the cliffs. There is a strip of about twenty yards between my access to the beach and the beginning of the lane when I might have glimpsed him. But I didn’t. Perhaps he wanted to avoid notice and chose his moment to slip past.”

  Reckless muttered as if thinking aloud. “And that suggests a secret assignation. Well, we suspect that. He wasn’t the man to go birdwatching on his own. Besides, it must have been dusk before he set off. Miss Kedge said that he got his own tea at Seton House yesterday. She found the dirty tea things waiting for her to wash up this morning.”

  “But no supper?” enquired Miss Dalgliesh.

  “No supper, Miss Dalgliesh. It looks as if he died before he had his evening meal. But the PM will tell us more, of course.”

  Jane Dalgliesh made her excuses and went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Dalgliesh guessed that she thought it tactful to leave him alone with Reckless. As soon as the door closed behind her, he asked: “Who saw him last?”

  “Latham and Bryce. But nearly everyone admits to having spent some time yesterday with him. Miss Kedge saw him shortly after breakfast when she went up to the house to do her chores. He has kept her on as a kind of secretary-housemaid. Making use of her rather as his half-brother did, I imagine. Then he lunched with Miss Calthrop and her niece at Rosemary Cottage and left shortly after three. He called in on Bryce on his way home to Seton House to gossip about the return of your aunt’s chopper and to try to find out what you were doing in London. That little trip seems to have aroused general interest. Latham was with Bryce at the time and the three of them were together until Seton left shortly after four.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “The clothes he was found in. He could have carried his flask in his jacket, trousers or overcoat pocket. He took the coat off, of course, at Rosemary Cottage and Miss Calthrop hung it in the hall cupboard. At Bryce’s place he slung it over a chair.
No one admits to seeing the flask. As I see it, any of them could have put in the poison, Kedge, Calthrop, Marley, Bryce or Latham. Any of them. And it needn’t have been yesterday.”

  He did not, Dalgliesh noted, add Miss Dalgliesh’s name; but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t on the list.

  Reckless went on: “I can’t make much headway, of course, until I get the PM and know what the poison was. Then we shall get moving. It shouldn’t be too difficult to prove possession. This wasn’t the kind of stuff you get prescribed on EC 10 or buy over the chemist’s counter.”

  Dalgliesh thought he could guess what the poison was and where it had come from. But he said nothing. There had already been too much theorising in advance of the facts and he judged it wiser to wait for the post-mortem. But if he were right, Reckless wasn’t going to find it so easy to prove possession. Nearly everyone at Monksmere had access to this particular source. He began to feel rather sorry for the Inspector.

  They sat together in silence for a minute. It wasn’t a companionable silence. Dalgliesh could sense the stress between them. He couldn’t guess what Reckless was feeling, he could only recognise with a kind of hopeless irritation his own awkwardness and dislike. He looked across at the Inspector’s face with detached interest, building up the features in his mind as he might an Identikit picture, observing the flatness of the wide cheekbones, the patch of white smooth-looking skin at each side of the mouth, the downward fold at the corners of the eyes and the little rhythmic twitch at the upper lid which was the only sign that the man had nerves. The face was uncompromising in its ordinariness, its anonymity. And yet, sitting there in that grubby raincoat, his face grey with tiredness, he still had force and personality. It might not be a personality which others found appealing. But it was there.