The Murder Room

by P. D. James

  Dalgliesh asked, “Do you know what he paid?”

  “He said he’d give Grandad what he’d paid for it, which was just over £300. Of course it was an awful lot to Grandad when he bought the picture. I think he and my gran had a row over it. But now he had to let it go.”

  Kate said, “Didn’t it occur to him to get someone from one of the London or provincial auction houses to give him a valuation? Sotheby’s, Christie’s, someone like that?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He didn’t know about auction houses. He said Mr. Dupayne told him he’d never get the same amount selling it that way, that they took a big commission and the tax man would be after him. Something about paying capital gains tax.”

  Kate said, “Well he wouldn’t. He didn’t make any capital gain anyway, did he?”

  “I know, but I think Mr. Dupayne muddled him up, and in the end he sold. After Grandad died Dad told me about it. When I found out where it was, I went to see it.”

  Dalgliesh said, “Did you hope somehow to get it back?”

  There was a silence. In the last few minutes David had forgotten he was speaking to a police officer. Now he looked at his wife. She shifted the baby on her lap and said, “Better tell him, Davie. Tell him about the masked man. You never did nothing wrong.”

  Dalgliesh waited. He had always, thought Kate, known when to wait. After a minute the boy said, “OK, I did think I might steal it. I knew I couldn’t buy it back. I’d read about thefts from galleries, how the picture is cut out of its frame and rolled up and taken off. It wasn’t real, I just liked thinking about it. I knew there would be some kind of alarm on the door but I thought I might break in through the window and grab the picture before anyone came. I thought the police couldn’t get there in under ten minutes if someone did ring them, and there wasn’t anyone close enough to hear the alarm anyway. It was a stupid idea, I know that now, but I used to brood about it and think about it, how it might be done.”

  His wife said, “But you didn’t do it, Davie. You only thought about it. You said yourself it wasn’t real. You can’t be had up for planning something you didn’t do. That’s the law.”

  Well not precisely, thought Kate. But Wilkins hadn’t after all been in a conspiracy to cause an explosion.

  Dalgliesh said, “But in the end you didn’t try?”

  “I went there one night thinking I might. But then someone arrived. That was on February the fourteenth. I went by bike and hid it in the bushes along the drive and I’d taken a large black plastic bag, one of those big rubbish bags, to wrap the picture in. I don’t know whether I’d actually have tried the robbery. When I got there I realized I hadn’t anything strong enough to break the ground-floor window and that the window was higher from the ground than I’d thought. I hadn’t really planned it properly. And then I heard a car. I hid in the bushes and watched. It was a powerful car and the driver drove into the car-park behind the laurels. I watched when he got out and then I crept off. I was scared. My bike was a bit further down the drive and I made my way to it through the bushes. I know he didn’t see me.”

  Kate said, “But you saw him.”

  “Not to recognize him again. I didn’t see his face. When he got out of the car he was wearing a mask.”

  Dalgliesh asked, “What kind of a mask?”

  “Not the kind you see in crime programmes on TV. Not the stocking pulled over the face. This just covered the eyes and the hair. The sort of thing you see in pictures of people at carnivals.”

  Dalgliesh said, “So you cycled home and gave up the idea of stealing the picture?”

  “I don’t think it was ever serious. I mean, I thought it was serious at the time, but it was more in my imagination. If it had been real I would have taken more trouble.”

  Kate said, “But if you had managed to get it you wouldn’t have been able to sell it. It may not have been recognized as valuable when your grandad bought it, but it would be now.”

  “I didn’t want to sell it. I wanted to put it on the wall here. I wanted it in this room. I wanted it because Grandad had loved it and because it reminded him of Great-Grandad. I wanted it because of the past.”

  Suddenly the pale face contorted and Kate saw two tears rolling down his cheeks. He put up a fist like a child and scrubbed them away. As if in a gesture of comfort, his wife handed him the baby. He cradled the child and nuzzled his lips in her hair.

  Dalgliesh said, “You did nothing wrong and we are grateful to you for helping us. Perhaps we’ll see each other again when you come back to look at the picture. A lot of people enjoy it. I know I did. If it hadn’t been for your grandfather it wouldn’t be in the Dupayne Museum and perhaps we wouldn’t have a chance of seeing it.”

  As if she too had forgotten that they were police officers and were thinking of them as guests, Michelle Wilkins said, “Would you like some tea? I’m sorry I didn’t think of offering. Or there’s some Nescafé.”

  Dalgliesh said, “That’s very kind but I think we’d better not wait. Thank you again, Mr. Wilkins, for being so co-operative, and if there’s anything else that occurs to you, you can reach us at New Scotland Yard. The number’s on this card.”

  It was Michelle Wilkins who showed them out. At the door she said, “He won’t get into trouble, will he? He didn’t do anything wrong. He wouldn’t steal anything really.”

  “No,” said Dalgliesh. “He won’t get into trouble. He’s done nothing wrong.”

  Dalgliesh and Kate buckled themselves into their car. Neither spoke. Kate felt a mixture of depression and anger. She thought, God, what a dump! They’re a couple of children waiting to be exploited by anyone who thinks they’re worth bothering with. The baby looked fine, though. I wonder what they have to pay for that hovel. Still, the fact that they’ve got it won’t help them with the local authority housing waiting list. They’ll be pensioners before they qualify. They’d have done better to sleep on the streets, then at least they’d get priority. Not necessarily for a decent place, though. Probably they’d end up in a bed and breakfast. God, this is a terrible country to be really poor in. That’s if you’re honest. The scroungers and cheats do well enough, but try to be independent and see what help you get.

  She said, “That wasn’t particularly useful, sir, was it? Wilkins saw the masked man in February. That’s eight months before Dupayne’s murder and I can’t see Wilkins and his wife as serious suspects. He might have a grievance against the Dupayne family but why pick on Neville?”

  “We’ll check on that alibi but I think we’ll find he was where he said he was last Friday evening, at the doctor’s surgery. David Wilkins is just trying to connect.”

  “To connect, sir?”

  “With his father and grandfather. With the past. With life.”

  Kate was silent. After a couple of minutes, Dalgliesh said, “Ring the museum, will you, Kate, and see if anyone’s there. It’ll be interesting to see what the Dupaynes have to say about their masked visitor.”

  Muriel Godby answered the call. She asked Kate to hold on but spoke again within seconds. She said that both Caroline Dupayne and Mr. Calder-Hale were in the museum. Miss Caroline was about to leave but would wait until Commander Dalgliesh arrived.

  18

  They found Caroline Dupayne was studying a letter at the desk with Miss Godby and at once she led them into the office. Dalgliesh was interested that she was at the museum on a Monday and wondered how long she could absent herself from her job at the school. The family probably felt that if the police were going to infest the place, a Dupayne should be present to keep an eye on them. He sympathized. In times of complicated danger nothing is more impolitic than to distance oneself from the action.

  He said, “A young man who came to the museum on the night of February the fourteenth saw a man arriving by car. He was wearing a face mask. Have you any idea who it could have been?”

  “None.” She took the question with what he thought was a careful assumption of only the mildest interest. She added,
“What an extraordinary question, Commander. Oh, I’m sorry, you wondered if he could have been visiting me. It was February the fourteenth—St. Valentine’s Day. No, I’m too old for that kind of frolicking. Actually I was too old for it at twenty-one. He probably was a reveller, though. It’s a problem we have occasionally. Parking in Hampstead is pretty impossible and if people know this place, it’s a temptation to drive in and leave their cars here. Luckily it seems to happen less often now, although we can’t be sure. The place isn’t really convenient and the walk along Spaniards Road is gloomy at night. Tally is here, of course, but I have told her that if she hears noises after dark not to leave the cottage. She can phone me if she’s worried. The museum is isolated and we live in a dangerous world. You know that better than I do.”

  Dalgliesh said, “You haven’t thought of putting up a gate?”

  “We’ve thought of it, but it isn’t really practical. Anyway, who would be the gatekeeper? The access to the museum has to be open.” She paused, then added, “I don’t see what this has to do with my brother’s murder.”

  “Nor do we at present. It shows again how easily people can get in unseen.”

  “But we knew that already. Neville’s murderer did just that. I’m more interested in the young man who saw the mysterious masked visitor. What was he doing here, illegally parking?”

  “No, he didn’t have a car. He was just curious. He did no harm, made no attempt to break in.”

  “And the masked visitor?”

  “Presumably he parked and left too. The young man found the encounter rather frightening and didn’t wait to see.”

  “Yes, it would be—frightening I mean. This place is eerie at night and there was a murder here before. Did you know?”

  “I’ve not heard of it. Was it recent?”

  “It was in 1897, two years after the house was built. A parlour-maid, Ivy Grimshaw, was found stabbed to death on the edge of the Heath. She was pregnant. Suspicion fell on the house owner and on his two sons, but there was no real evidence linking any of the three to the crime. And they were, of course, prosperous, respectable local dignitaries. Perhaps more to the point, they owned a button factory and local people depended on the family for their living. The police found it convenient to believe that Ivy had gone out to meet her lover and that he disposed of her and the inconvenient child with one slash of the knife.”

  “Was there evidence of any lover outside the household?”

  “None came to light. The cook told the police that Ivy had confided to her that she had no intention of being thrown out onto the streets and could make things difficult for the family. But the cook later retracted. She went off for another job somewhere on the south coast with, I believe, a substantial farewell present from a grateful employer. The story of an outside lover was apparently accepted and the case died. It’s a pity it didn’t happen in the 1930s. We could have featured it in the Murder Room.”

  Except, thought Dalgliesh, even in the 1930s it couldn’t have happened in quite that way. The brutal murder of an immoral and friendless young woman had gone unavenged and respectable local people had kept their jobs. Ackroyd’s thesis might be simplistic and his choice of examples conveniently selective, but it was founded on truth; murder frequently was a paradigm of its age.

  Upstairs in his office, and breaking off reluctantly from his writing, Calder-Hale said, “February the fourteenth? Probably a Valentine’s Day party guest. Strange that he was on his own, though. People usually party in pairs.”

  Dalgliesh said, “Stranger that he put on his mask here. Why not wait until he had arrived at the party?”

  “Well it wasn’t being held here. Not unless Caroline was partying.”

  “She says not.”

  “No, it would be unlike her. I expect he was using the place as a handy illicit car-park. I turned away a car full of young revellers a couple of months ago. I tried to frighten them with the empty threat that I’d telephone the police. Anyway, they drove off quietly enough and even apologized. Probably didn’t want to leave their Mercedes to my mercy.” He added, “What about the young man? What did he say he was doing here?”

  “A casual explorer. He left in some hurry after the masked man arrived. He was perfectly harmless.”

  “No car?”

  “No car.”

  “Odd.” He turned again to his paper. “Your masked visitor, if he ever existed, had nothing to do with me. I may play my little games, but face masks are altogether too histrionic.”

  The interview was obviously at an end. Turning to go, Dalgliesh thought, That’s close to an admission of his secret activities, but why not? He’s been told that I know. We’re both playing the same game and let’s hope on the same side. What he’s doing, however apparently trivial and amateur, is part of a greater pattern. It’s important and he has to be protected—protected against everything but an accusation of murder.

  He would check with Marcus Dupayne but expected much the same explanation: a knowledgeable local making use of the place for a few hours’ free parking. It was reasonable enough. But one small thing intrigued him: faced with two mysterious visitors, both Caroline Dupayne and James Calder-Hale had been more concerned about the mysterious young man than about the masked driver. He wondered why.

  Calder-Hale was still in the frame. Earlier that evening Benton-Smith had timed the motorcycle journey from Marylebone to the Dupayne. His second journey had been the quicker, beating the first by four minutes. He had said, “I was lucky with the traffic lights. If Calder-Hale had equalled my best time it would have given him three-and-a-half minutes to set up the murder. He could have done it, sir, but only with luck. You can’t base a murder plan on luck.”

  Piers had said, “On the other hand, he might have thought it was worth a try. That dental appointment gave him an alibi of a kind. He couldn’t wait indefinitely if his motive was to keep the museum open. What puzzles me is why he should give a damn whether it closed or not. He’s got a cosy little setup but if he wants to do private work, there are other offices in London.”

  But not, thought Dalgliesh, offices which offered so convenient a location for Calder-Hale’s secret activities for MI5.

  19

  When Kate telephoned to make an appointment she reported that Mrs. Strickland had asked to see Commander Dalgliesh on his own. The request was odd—their one encounter in the library on Dalgliesh’s first visit had hardly made them acquaintances—but he was happy to agree. Mrs. Strickland was not at present a serious suspect and, until and unless she became one, it would be foolish to jeopardize any useful information she might have by insisting on police protocol.

  The address, given to him by Caroline Dupayne, was in the Barbican and proved to be a flat on the seventh floor. It was not an address he had expected. This intimidating concrete block of serried windows and pathways seemed more appropriate to young financiers from the City than to an elderly widow. But when Mrs. Strickland opened the door and showed him into the sitting-room he could understand why she had chosen this flat. It looked out over the wide courtyard and beyond the lake to the church. Below, foreshortened figures of couples and small groups arriving for the evening’s performances strolled in what seemed a deliberately changing pattern of colour. The noise of the city, always muted at the end of the working day, was a rhythmic hum more soothing than distracting. Mrs. Strickland inhabited a peaceful City eyrie with a panorama of changing skies and constant human activity where she could feel part of the City’s life and yet be lifted above its frenetic getting and spending. But she was a realist: he had noticed the two security locks on the outer door.

  The interior of the flat was equally surprising. Dalgliesh would have expected the owner to be prosperous but young, as yet unburdened by the weight of the dead years, by family possessions, sentimental mementoes, by objects which, through long association, linked past to present and gave an illusion of permanence. If a landlord were furnishing a flat for a demanding tenant able to pay a high rent, i
t would look very like this. The sitting-room was furnished with well-designed modern pieces in pale wood. To the right of the window, which stretched almost the whole length of the wall, was her desk with a spotlight and a revolving typist’s chair. It was apparent that occasionally she brought her work home. There was a round table in front of the window with two armchairs in grey leather. The single picture was an abstract relief in oil, he thought by Ben Nicholson. It could have been chosen to tell him nothing about her except that she had been able to afford it. He found it interesting that a woman who had so ruthlessly expunged the past should choose to work in a museum. The only furnishing which alleviated the flat’s functional anonymity was the fitted bookcase which ran floor to ceiling along the right-hand wall. It was filled with leather-bound volumes so closely shelved that they looked gummed together. These she had found worth preserving. It was obviously a personal library. He wondered whose.

  Mrs. Strickland motioned him towards one of the chairs. She said, “I usually have a glass of wine about this time. Perhaps you’ll join me. Do you prefer red or white? I have claret or a Riesling.”

  Dalgliesh accepted the claret. She walked a little stiffly out of the room and returned within minutes, pushing the door open with her shoulders. He rose at once to help her, carrying the tray with the bottle, a corkscrew and two glasses, and placing it on the table. They sat facing each other and she left him to uncork and pour the wine, watching him, he thought, with indulgent satisfaction. Even with changing public views on when the late middle years have made their inexorable slide into old age, Mrs. Strickland was old, he guessed in her mid-eighties; given her history she could hardly be less. In youth, he thought, she must have had that admired blonde, blue-eyed English prettiness which can be deceptive. Dalgliesh had seen enough photographs and newsreels of women at war, uniformed or in civilian clothes, to know that this feminine gentleness could be wedded to strength and purpose, occasionally even to ruthlessness. Hers had been a vulnerable beauty, particularly susceptible to the dilapidations of the years. Now the spongy skin was criss-crossed with fine lines and her lips looked almost bloodless. But there were still traces of gold in the thin grey hair, brushed back and twisted into a plait at the back of her head, and although the irises had faded into a pale milky blue, her eyes were still huge under the delicately curved brows and they met Dalgliesh’s with a look both questioning and alert. Her hands reaching out for her glass were distorted with the excrescence of arthritis and, watching them fasten on the wine glass, he wondered how she managed such fine calligraphy.