The Murder Room

by P. D. James

“Are you alone, Sir Daniel?”

  “I’m alone. I want to know what the hell this is about.”

  “It’s about your stepdaughter, Sir Daniel.”

  Before Kate could go on, he broke in. “And what in God’s name has she been up to now? Look, my wife isn’t any longer responsible for her and I never was. The girl is nineteen, she leads her own life, she’s got her own flat. She must cope with her own problems. She’s been nothing but trouble to her mother from the day she could speak. What is it now?”

  It was apparent that Sir Daniel was not at his sharpest in the early morning. That fact could have its uses.

  Kate said, “I’m afraid it’s bad news, Sir Daniel. Celia Mellock has been murdered. Her body was found earlier this morning in the Dupayne Museum, Hampstead Heath.”

  The silence was so complete that Kate wondered whether she had been heard. She was about to speak when Holstead said, “Murdered? How murdered?”

  “She was throttled, Sir Daniel.”

  “You’re telling me that Celia has been found throttled in a museum? This isn’t some kind of sick joke?”

  “I’m afraid not. You can verify the information by telephoning the Yard. We thought it best to speak to you first so that you can break the news to your wife. I’m sorry. This must be a terrible shock.”

  “My God it is! We’ll fly back today by the company jet. Not that there’s anything useful we can tell you. Neither of us has seen Celia for the past six months. And she never phones. No reason why she should, I suppose. She’s got her own life. She’s always made it plain what she thought of any interference from her mother and me. I’ll go now and break the news to Lady Holstead. I’ll let you know when we arrive. You’ve no idea yet who did it, I suppose?”

  “Not at present, Sir Daniel.”

  “No suspect? No obvious boyfriend? Nothing?”

  “Not at present.”

  “Who’s in charge? Do I know him?”

  “Commander Adam Dalgliesh. He’ll come to see you and your wife when you get back. We may have a little more information then.”

  “Dalgliesh? The name’s familiar. I’ll ring the Commissioner when I’ve spoken to my wife. You could have broken the news with more consideration. Goodbye, Inspector.”

  Before Kate could speak, the receiver had been banged down. He had a point, she thought. Had she broken the news of the murder immediately, she wouldn’t have heard that small outburst of rancour. She knew rather more about Sir Daniel Holstead than he would have wished. The thought gave her a small glow of satisfaction; she wondered why it also made her a little ashamed.

  4

  Kate returned to the cottage and took her seat, nodding a confirmation to Dalgliesh that the message had been given. They could discuss the details later. She saw that Marcus Dupayne still sat at the head of the table, his hands clasped before him, his face a mask. Now he said to Dalgliesh, “We are, of course, perfectly free to leave if that’s what any of us want or need to do?”

  “Perfectly free. I’ve asked you to come here because questioning you now is the quickest way to get the information I need. If any of you find that inconvenient, I can arrange to see you later.”

  Marcus said, “Thank you. I thought it as well to establish the legal position. My sister and I naturally wish to co-operate in any way we can. This death is a terrible shock. It’s also a tragedy—for the girl, for her family and for the museum.”

  Dalgliesh did not reply. He privately doubted whether the museum would suffer. Once reopened, the Murder Room would double in attraction. He had a vivid picture of Mrs. Strickland sitting in the library, those careful arthritic hands writing a new label, the Dupaynes standing each side of her. The original trunk in which the bodies of Violette Kaye and Celia Mellock were concealed is at present in the possession of the police. This trunk here is similar in age and type. The fantasy was disagreeable.

  He said, “Can you, between you, go through last Friday. We know, of course, what you were doing after the museum closed. Now we need a detailed account of what happened during the day.”

  Caroline Dupayne looked at Muriel Godby. It was she who began, but gradually all those present except Calder-Hale added to or confirmed what was said. A detailed picture of the day emerged, hour by hour, from the moment Tally Clutton arrived at eight o’clock for her regular cleaning until Muriel Godby finally locked the door and drove Mrs. Strickland to Hampstead underground station.

  At the end Piers said, “So there are two occasions on which Celia Mellock and her killer could have got in unseen, at ten o’clock in the morning and at one-thirty when Miss Godby left the desk and went over to the cottage to fetch Mrs. Clutton.”

  Muriel Godby said, “The desk couldn’t have been unattended for more than five minutes. If we had a proper telephone system, or if Mrs. Clutton would agree to have a mobile, I wouldn’t need to go over to the cottage. It’s ridiculous trying to manage with an old-fashioned system without even an answerphone.”

  Piers asked, “Supposing Miss Mellock and her killer did get in undetected, are there any rooms in which they could have been concealed overnight? What are the arrangements for internal locking of the doors?”

  It was Muriel Godby who replied. “After the front door has been locked to visitors at five, I go round with Tally to check that no one is in the museum. Then I lock the only two doors to which there are keys, the picture gallery and the library. Those contain the most valuable exhibits. No other room is locked except Mr. Calder-Hale’s office, and that isn’t my responsibility. He usually keeps it locked when he’s not there. I didn’t try his door.”

  Calder-Hale spoke for the first time. “If you had, you would have found it locked.”

  Piers asked, “What about the basement?”

  “I opened the door and saw that the light was still on. I went to the top of the iron platform and looked down into the basement. No one was there so I turned off the light. There isn’t a lock on that door. With Mrs. Clutton I also checked that all the windows were locked. I left at five-fifteen with Mrs. Strickland and dropped her at Hampstead tube station. Then I drove home. But you know all that, Inspector. We’ve been questioned before about last Friday.”

  Piers ignored the protest. He said, “So it would be possible for someone to be concealed down there in the archives between the sliding steel shelves? You didn’t go down the steps to check?”

  It was then that Caroline Dupayne broke in. She said, “Inspector, we’re running a museum, not a police station. We’ve had no break-in and no detectable theft for the last twenty years. Why on earth should Miss Godby search the archives room? Even if someone had been concealed when the museum was locked, how could he get out? The ground-floor windows are locked at night. Miss Godby, with Mrs. Clutton, carried out their usual routine.”

  Her brother had remained silent. Now he said, “We are all suffering from shock. I don’t need to say that we are as anxious as you to have this mystery solved and we intend to co-operate fully in the investigation. But there is no reason to suppose that any person who worked at the museum had anything to do with the girl’s death. Miss Mellock and her killer may have come to the museum merely as visitors or for some purpose known only to themselves. We know how they could have got in and how they could have been concealed. There is no problem about an intruder leaving undetected. After my brother’s death my sister and I waited for you in the library here. We left the front door ajar knowing that you were due to arrive. We waited for you for over an hour, plenty of time for the killer to make his escape unseen.”

  Mrs. Strickland said, “He’d be taking a terrible risk, of course. You or Caroline might have come out of the library or Commander Dalgliesh might have come through the front door at any moment.”

  Marcus Dupayne dealt with the comment with the controlled impatience with which he might have greeted a subordinate’s intervention at a departmental meeting. “He took a risk, of course. He had no option but to take a risk if he were to avoid being trapped in
the museum all night. He had only to look briefly out of the basement door to see that the hall was empty and the front door was ajar. I’m not suggesting that the murder took place in the basement. The Murder Room seems the more likely. But the archives room offered the best—indeed the only—safe hiding place until he could get away. I’m not arguing that it must have happened this way, only that it could have.”

  Dalgliesh said, “But the door to the gallery was also ajar. Surely you or your sister would have heard someone passing through the hall?”

  Marcus said, “Since it’s obvious that someone must have passed through the hall and we heard nothing, the answer is incontrovertible. We were, I remember, sitting with our drinks in front of the fireplace. We were nowhere near the door and we had no view of the hall.”

  His sister looked straight at Dalgliesh. She said, “I don’t want to seem to be doing your job for you, Commander, but isn’t there a possible reason why Celia came to the museum? She may have had a lover with her. Perhaps he was the kind who needs an element of risk to give sex that extra edge. Celia may have suggested the Dupayne as a possible venue. Knowing that I was a trustee here might have added a spice of danger to the sexual thrill. Then things got out of hand and she ended up dead.”

  Kate had not spoken for some time. Now she asked Caroline, “From your knowledge of Miss Mellock, is that the kind of behaviour you’d think likely?”

  There was a pause. The question was unwelcome. “As I said, I didn’t teach her and I know nothing of her private life. But she was an unhappy, confused and difficult student. She was also easily led. Nothing she did would ever surprise me.”

  Piers thought, We should recruit this lot to the squad. Give them another half hour and they’ll have both murders solved. But that pompous ass Marcus Dupayne had a point. The scenario might be unlikely but it was possible. It would be a gift to a defending counsel. But if it had happened that way, with luck Nobby Clark and his boys would find some evidence, perhaps in the basement archives room. But it hadn’t happened that way. It was beyond credibility that two separate murderers were at the museum on the same night at roughly the same time killing such very different victims. Celia Mellock had died in the Murder Room, not in the basement, and he was beginning to think he knew why. He glanced across at his Chief. Dalgliesh’s look was serious and a little withdrawn, almost contemplative. Piers knew that look. He wondered whether their thoughts were running along the same lines.

  Dalgliesh said, “We already have your fingerprints which were taken after Dr. Dupayne’s murder. I’m sorry that the sealing of the Murder Room and the temporary closing of the museum will cause inconvenience to you all. I hope we shall be finished by Monday. In the meantime I think we have finished with everyone except Mrs. Clutton and Mrs. Strickland. We have, of course, all your addresses.”

  Marcus Dupayne said, “Aren’t we to be allowed to know how the girl died? I imagine the news will be leaked to the press soon enough. Haven’t we a reasonable right to be told first?”

  Dalgliesh said, “The news will not be leaked and nor will it be made public until the next of kin have been informed. I would be grateful if you would all keep silent to avoid unnecessary distress to family and friends. Once the murder does become public there will obviously be press interest. That will be dealt with by the Met public relations department. You may wish to take your own precautions against being pestered.”

  Caroline asked, “And the post-mortem? The inquest? What will be the timing there?”

  Dalgliesh said, “The autopsy will take place tomorrow morning and the inquest as soon as it can be arranged by the Coroner’s office. Like the inquest on your brother, it will be opened and adjourned.”

  The two Dupaynes and Calder-Hale got up to go. Piers thought that brother and sister resented being excluded from further discussion. Miss Godby apparently felt the same. She got up reluctantly and looked across at Tally Clutton with a mixture of curiosity and resentment.

  After the door had closed, Dalgliesh seated himself at the table. He said, “Thank you, Mrs. Strickland, for not mentioning the violets.”

  Mrs. Strickland said evenly, “You told me to say nothing and I said nothing.”

  Tally Clutton half rose from her seat. Her face paled. She said, “What violets?”

  Kate said gently, “There were four dead African violets on the body, Mrs. Clutton.”

  Eyes widening with horror, Tally glanced from face to face. She said in a whisper, “Violette Kaye! So these are copycat murders.”

  Kate moved to sit beside her. “It’s one of the possibilities we have to consider. What we need to know is how the murderer got access to the violets.”

  Dalgliesh spoke to her carefully and slowly. “We’ve seen small terra-cotta pots of these violets in two rooms, Mr. Calder-Hale’s and yours. I saw Mr. Calder-Hale’s plants on Sunday morning at about ten o’clock when I went to interview him. They were intact then, though I thought he was going to decapitate them when he yanked down the window blind. Inspector Miskin thinks there were no broken flowers when she was in Mr. Calder-Hale’s room with his visitors shortly before ten this morning, and Sergeant Benton-Smith noticed them when he went to the room shortly after the discovery of Celia Mellock’s body. They were complete at about ten-thirty this morning. We’ve checked and they’re complete now. One of the plants you have on your windowsill here has four stems broken off. So it looks as if the violets came from here and that means the person who put them on Celia Mellock’s body must have had access to the cottage.”

  Tally said simply, as if there could be no question that she would be disbelieved, “But the ones in here are from Mr. Calder-Hale’s office! I changed his pot for one of mine on Sunday morning.”

  Kate was practised in concealing her excitement. She said quietly, “How did that happen?”

  But it was to Dalgliesh that Tally turned, as if willing him to understand. “I gave a pot of African violets to Mr. Calder-Hale for his birthday. That was on third October. I suppose it was a silly thing to do. One ought to check with people first. He never has plants in his room and perhaps he’s too busy to want the bother of them. I knew he’d be in his room working on Sunday, he nearly always does come in on a Sunday, so I thought I’d water the violets and take off any dead flowers or leaves before he arrived. It was then that I saw four of the blooms were missing. I thought, like you, that they must have got broken off when he lowered the blind. He hadn’t been watering the pot either and the leaves weren’t looking very healthy. So I brought the pot back here to give it some care and substituted one of mine. I don’t suppose he even noticed.”

  Dalgliesh asked, “When did you last see the African violets undamaged in Mr. Calder-Hale’s office?”

  Tally Clutton thought. “I think it was on Thursday, the day before Dr. Dupayne’s murder, when I cleaned his office. It’s kept locked but there’s a key in the key cabinet. I remember thinking then that they didn’t look very healthy, but all the blooms were intact.”

  “What time on Sunday did you substitute the pots?”

  “I can’t remember exactly but it was early, soon after I arrived. Perhaps between half-past eight and nine.”

  Dalgliesh said, “I have to ask you, Mrs. Clutton. You didn’t break off those flowers yourself?”

  Still gazing into his eyes she answered, as docile as an obedient child. “No. I didn’t break off any of the flowers.”

  “And you’re quite certain of the facts you’ve told us? The African violets in Mr. Calder-Hale’s office were undamaged on Thursday thirty-first October and you found them damaged and replaced them on Sunday third November? You have absolutely no doubt about this?”

  “No, Mr. Dalgliesh. I have no doubt at all.”

  They thanked her for the use of the cottage and prepared to leave. It had been useful to have Mrs. Strickland there as a witness to their questioning of Tally, and now she made it apparent that she had no intention of hurrying away. Tally seemed glad of her company and made
a tentative suggestion that they might have some soup and an omelette before Ryan returned. There had been no sign of him since Kate had spoken to him, and he would have to be seen and questioned again, now more particularly about what he had done during the day last Friday.

  On Monday, after Tally had brought him back, he had provided one useful piece of evidence, the bitterness between Neville Dupayne and his siblings about the future of the museum. He had said that after receiving his day’s pay, he had gone back to a previous squat with a view to taking out his friends for a drink, but had found the house repossessed by its owners. He had then wandered round the Leicester Square area for a time before deciding to walk back to Maida Vale. He thought he had arrived home at about seven o’clock but couldn’t be sure. None of this had been verifiable. His account of the assault had agreed with that of the Major, although he hadn’t volunteered why he had found the Major’s words so offensive. It was difficult to see Ryan Archer as a prime suspect, but that he was a suspect at all was a complication. Wherever he was now, Dalgliesh devoutly hoped that the boy was keeping his mouth shut.

  Calder-Hale was still in his room and Kate and Dalgliesh saw him together. They couldn’t claim that he was uncooperative, but he seemed to be sunk in apathy. He was slowly collecting papers together and stuffing them into a commodious and shabby briefcase. Told that four stalks of African violets had been found on the body, he showed as little interest as if this had been an unexciting detail which wasn’t his concern. Casually glancing at the violets on his windowsill, he said that he hadn’t noticed that the pots had been exchanged. It was kind of Tally to remember his birthday but he preferred not to mark these anniversaries. He disliked African violets. There was no particular reason, they were just plants which had no appeal. It would have been ungracious to tell Tally this and he hadn’t done so. Usually he locked the door to his room when he left, but not invariably. After Dalgliesh and Piers had interviewed him on Sunday he had continued working until twelve-thirty and had then gone home; he couldn’t remember whether he had locked his door on leaving. As the museum was closed to the public and was remaining closed until after Dupayne’s funeral, he thought it probable that he hadn’t bothered to lock his office.