by P. D. James
“Both clear and detailed. Perhaps I expressed myself clumsily. I should have said that I would like to have your assurance about certain matters. This club, the one run by Miss Dupayne, I take it that this was a purely private club held on private premises, that no members were under the age of sixteen and that no money was involved. What they were doing may have been reprehensible in some eyes, but it wasn’t illegal.”
Dalgliesh said, “Miss Dupayne wasn’t running a bawdy house and no member of her club was concerned with the death either of Neville Dupayne or Celia Mellock. The girl wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t been in the Murder Room at a particular time and she wouldn’t have been there if she hadn’t been a member of the 96 Club but, as I have said, only one person was responsible for her death: Muriel Godby.”
The Minister frowned. He had been meticulous in omitting the name of the club. He said, “There’s no doubt about that?”
“No, Minister. We have her confession. Apart from that, we would have made an arrest this morning. Tallulah Clutton recognized her assailant before she lost consciousness. The bloodstained iron bar was found in Godby’s car. The blood has yet to be analysed but there’s no doubt that it’s Clutton’s.”
The Minister said, “Exactly. But to return to the activities in Miss Dupayne’s flat. You suggest that the girl, who had an arrangement with Lord Martlesham to meet him that evening, did in fact go to the flat, entered the Murder Room by unbolting the door, motivated perhaps by curiosity and by the fact that entry to the museum that way had been specifically forbidden, and saw from an eastern window Muriel Godby washing her hands under the garden tap. Godby looked up and glimpsed her at the window, entered the museum, strangled her victim who was unable to escape to the flat through the closed handleless door, and put the body in the trunk. She was certainly powerful enough to do this. She then entered the flat by the outside door to which she had a key, switched off any lights in the flat, finally brought down the lift to the ground floor and left. Lord Martlesham arrived almost immediately afterwards. The absence of Celia Mellock’s car which was being serviced, the absence of a light in the hall and the fact that the lift was on the ground floor persuaded him that the girl had not kept the appointment. Then he saw the flames from the garage fire, panicked and drove off. The following morning Godby, arriving early as usual, had time and opportunity to break off the stems from the pot of African violets in Calder-Hale’s office and strew them on the body. The object, of course, was to make the second murder look like a copycat killing. She also re-locked and bolted the door from the flat into the Murder Room and checked that Mellock had left no incriminating evidence there of her presence. Neither that nor the ploy with the African violets could have been done immediately after the murder. Once the fire became visible she had to get away, and quickly, before the alarm was raised. I can see why Godby needed to take the handbag. It was important that the key to the flat wasn’t found on Mellock’s body. Quicker to grab the bag than to waste time searching for the key. There are, of course, ancillary details but that is the nub of the case.”
He looked up with the satisfied smile of a man who has again demonstrated his ability to master a brief.
Dalgliesh said, “That’s how the case presented itself to me. From the beginning I believed the two murders were connected. This view was confirmed when we had the evidence set out in my report that the trunk was empty at four o’clock on that Friday. That two completely unconnected murders should be committed at the same time and in the same place beggars belief.”
“But—forgive me—the girl could have come to the museum earlier and with another lover, met him in the basement archive room and then stayed hidden in the museum once it was closed. And if she did get into the museum other than from the flat, then the fact that she was a member of Miss Dupayne’s private club was totally irrelevant to her murder. There need, therefore, be no reference to the club.”
Dalgliesh said, “I was asked for a full report, sir, and you have it. I’m not prepared to alter it or to sign another. As Godby has signed a confession and proposes to plead guilty, there will be no trial. If a shortened version of the investigation is required for internal use, the department could no doubt provide it. And now, sir, I would like to leave. I have an urgent private appointment.”
He saw Harkness’s look of surprise and the Minister’s frown. But he said amiably enough, “Right. I have the reassurance I was seeking, that neither law nor justice requires that evidence of Miss Mellock’s private life should be made public. I think, gentlemen, that our business is finished.”
Dalgliesh was tempted to point out that he had received no such assurance and that no one in the room, including himself, was competent to give it.
Harkness said, “Lord Martlesham may, of course, speak out.”
“I’ve spoken to Lord Martlesham. He has an overdeveloped conscience which causes him some inconvenience, but he has no wish to cause inconvenience to others.”
“And there have been two adjourned inquests, Minister, and now there will be one other.”
The Minister said easily, “Oh I think you’ll find that the Coroner will confine his questions to what is relevant in establishing the causes of death. That, after all, is what a coroner is required to do. Thank you, gentlemen. I’m sorry to have kept you, Commander. Have a pleasant weekend.”
14
Hurrying to the lift, Dalgliesh looked at his watch. Three-quarters of an hour to get to King’s Cross. It should be more than enough. He had planned the journey well in advance. To drive from Victoria Street to King’s Cross on a Friday in the rush hour would be to court disaster, particularly with the Mayor’s retiming of the traffic lights, and he had left his car in his usual parking lot at his flat. The quickest, indeed the obvious route was to take the Circle or District line from St. James’s Park station the one stop to Victoria then change to the Victoria line. Five stations only and, with luck, he would be at King’s Cross within fifteen minutes. The plan to spend the waiting time at the British Library had been dropped. His summons to the Minister had put out all earlier calculations.
The journey began well. A Circle line train arrived within three minutes and there was no wait at Victoria. Once in the northbound Victoria line train he began to relax and was able to free his mind from the complications of the day to contemplate the very different complications and the promises of the evening ahead. But then, after Green Park, came the first intimation of impending trouble. The train slowed to an almost imperceptible speed, stopped for what seemed to Dalgliesh an interminable wait, then jerked into sluggish activity. They were hardly moving. Minutes dragged past in which he stood in a press of warm bodies, outwardly calm, but with his mind in a tumult of frustration and impotent fury. At last, they drew into Oxford Circus station and the doors opened to the shout of “All change!”
In the chaos of discharging passengers surging through those who had been waiting to board, Dalgliesh heard a man call out to a passing guard, “What’s wrong?”
“Line blocked ahead, sir. A defective train.”
Dalgliesh waited to hear no more. He thought quickly. There was no other direct line to King’s Cross. He would try for a cab.
And now he was lucky. A passenger was being set down at the corner of Argyll Street. Sprinting, Dalgliesh was at the cab door before she had time to alight. He waited impatiently while she fumbled for change, then said “King’s Cross, and as quickly as you can.”
“Right, sir. We’d best take the usual route, Mortimer Street, then Goodge Street and up to Euston Road.”
He had already moved off. Dalgliesh tried to sit back and discipline impatience. If he were late, how long would she wait? Ten minutes, twenty minutes? Why should she wait at all? He tried to ring her mobile but there was no reply.
The drive as he expected was tediously slow and, although their speed improved when they got to Euston Road, it was still little more than a crawl. And then disaster. Ahead a van had collided with a car. It
wasn’t a serious accident but the van had slewed across the road. Traffic was at a standstill. There would be an inevitable delay before the police arrived to direct the stream and get things moving. Dalgliesh thrust a £10 note at the cabbie, leapt out and ran. By the time he raced into King’s Cross station, he was twenty minutes late.
Apart from the uniformed staff, the small concourse serving the Cambridge line was deserted. What would Emma have done? What would he have done in her place? She wouldn’t want to go to Clara’s flat and spend the evening listening to her friend’s anger and condolences. Emma would go back to where she was at home, to Cambridge. And that is where he would go. He had to see her tonight, had to know the worst or the best. Even if she didn’t want to listen to him he could hand her the letter. But when he inquired of a station officer the time of the next train, he learned why the concourse was so empty. There was trouble with the track. No one could give any idea when it would be put right. The train arriving at three minutes past seven had been the last one in. Were all the gods of travel conspiring to thwart him? The official said, “There are the slow trains to Cambridge from Liverpool Street, sir. You’d be better to try there. That’s what most passengers are doing.”
There was no chance of getting a taxi in a hurry, he had seen the length of the queue as he sprinted past. But now there was another and, with luck, quicker way. Either the Circle or the Metropolitan line would take him to Liverpool Street in four stops if by some miracle it didn’t break down. He ran through the mainline station to the underground and tried to weave his way through the mass of people passing down the stairs. Finding coins for the ticket machine seemed an intolerable inconvenience, but at last he was on the platform and within four minutes a Circle line train arrived. At Liverpool Street he ran up the wide steps, past the modern clock-tower and stood at last on the higher level looking down at the wide blue departure board which stretched across the lower concourse. The train to Cambridge with its list of ten stopping stations was showing as departing from platform six. He had less than ten minutes to find her.
Because of the closure of the King’s Cross line there was a bulge of humanity shoving and pushing at the barrier. Joining them and working his way through, he called to the woman on duty: “I have to find someone. It’s urgent.” She made no move to stop him. The platform was crowded. Ahead of him was a mass of people moving alongside the train, jostling at the carriage doors, looking hopelessly for a vacant seat.
And then he saw Emma. She was walking, he thought a little disconsolately, bag in hand, towards the head of the train. He took the letter from his pocket and ran up beside her. She turned and he had time only to see her start of surprise and then, miraculously, her quick involuntary smile, before thrusting the envelope into her hand. He said, “I’m no Captain Wentworth, but please read this. Please read it now. I’ll wait for you at the end of the platform.”
And now he was standing alone. He turned away because he couldn’t bear to see her stuffing the letter into her pocket and entering the train. And then he made himself look. She was standing apart from the thinning crowd and she was reading. He could remember every word he had written.
I have told myself that I am writing this because it will give you time to consider before you reply, but that may only be cowardice. To read a rejection will be more bearable than to see it in your eyes. I have no reason to hope. You know that I love you, but my love gives me no claim. Other men have said these words to you and they will again. And I can’t promise to make you happy; it would be arrogant to assume that such a gift lay in my power. If I were your father, your brother or merely a friend I could find plenty of reasons to argue against myself. But you know them already. Only the greatest poets could speak for me, but this is not a time for other men’s words. I can only write what is in my heart. My only hope is that you may care enough to make you wish to risk this adventure together. For me there is no risk. I can hope for no greater happiness than to be your lover and your husband.
Standing there alone and waiting, it seemed to him that the life of the station had mysteriously vanished as if it had been part of a dream. The uneven stamp of marching feet, the waiting trains, the meetings and partings, the clamour, the closing of carriage doors, the shops and the cafés of the wide concourse beyond and the distant hum of the city all faded. He stood under the magnificent vault of the roof as if no other two persons existed but his waiting self and her distant figure.
And now his heart leapt. She was coming purposefully towards him and breaking into a run. They met and he took her outstretched hands in his. She looked up into his eyes and he saw that hers were brimming with tears. He said gently, “My darling, do you need more time?”
“No more time. The answer is yes, yes, yes!”
He didn’t take her in his arms, nor did they kiss. For those first sweet intimacies they needed solitude. For the moment he was content to feel her hands in his and let the extraordinary fount of happiness well up through every vein until it broke and he threw back his head and laughed his triumph aloud.
And now she too was laughing. “What a place for a proposal! Still, it might have been worse. It could have been King’s Cross.” She looked at her watch and added, “Adam, the train goes in three minutes. We could wake to the sound of fountains in Trinity Great Court.”
Releasing her hands, he bent and took up her case. He said, “But I have the Thames running under my windows.”
Still laughing, she tucked her arm in his. “Then let’s go home.”
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
P. D. James is the author of seventeen previous books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Departments of Great Britain’s Home Office. She has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2000 she celebrated her eightieth birthday and published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. The recipient of many prizes and honors, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991. She lives in London and Oxford.
ALSO BY P. D. JAMES
Fiction
Cover Her Face
A Mind to Murder
Unnatural Causes
Shroud for a Nightingale
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
The Black Tower
Death of an Expert Witness
Innocent Blood
The Skull Beneath the Skin
A Taste for Death
Devices and Desires
The Children of Men
Original Sin
A Certain Justice
Death in Holy Orders
Nonfiction
The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe
Highway Murders, 1811 (with T. A. Critchley)
Time to Be in Earnest:
A Fragment of Autobiography
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2003 by P. D. James
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Distributed by
Random House, Inc., New York.
www.aaknopf.com
Originally published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber, London.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks
of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
James, P. D.
The murder room / P. D. James.
p. cm.
1. Dalgliesh, Adam (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—England—London—Fiction. 3. London (England)—Fiction.
4. Museums—Fiction. 5. Large type books. I. Title.
pr6060.a467 m87 2003
823′.914—dc22 2003060409
eISBN: 978-1-4000-4264-7
v3.0
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