Newth rose at six; Loxton arrived half an hour later. Newth checked the central heating boiler, switched off the burglar alarm, and then unlocked the back door of the hotel to admit Loxton. After that he opened the front doors of the hotel.
By the time he had returned to the kitchen, Loxton would already have got the kettle on for the first of the day’s many pots of tea. Newth would sit and enjoy a cup, passing the occasional comment on the weather, while Loxton prepared the Devereux residents’ breakfasts. Breakfast and tea were the only meals for which she was responsible; the alternating team of Mrs Ayling and Mrs Denyer, who were in charge of lunch and dinner, lived out and arrived at the hotel around eleven.
On the morning of the 5th of March, this pattern was disrupted.
Newth rose as usual at six and by quarter-past was shaved and dressed in his white porter’s jacket. He had been in the army for some years and did not believe in wasting long on his appearance.
When he was ready, he went to check the central heating boiler.
It was in the basement utility room adjacent to his bedsitter, and was an old solid fuel system. Though gas would have been less messy and cheaper to run, Miss Naismith was disinclined to make the large investment of replacing the boiler. So long as it worked, and so long as Newth was happy to cope with the mess, she felt that she was saving money by keeping it. In her running of the hotel, Miss Naismith made a great many dubious economies. Though obsessed by money, she was always resistant to anything that involved a large capital outlay, whatever long-term savings it might produce.
Newth loved the old boiler and tended it with great sympathy. Every morning he raked it out, removed the night’s accumulation of clinker, and put in more fuel. He found the warmth and the pulse of life from within the old iron body reassuring.
He checked it as usual on the morning of the 5th of March, then went upstairs to switch off the burglar alarm and admit Loxton.
His next task was to open the hotel’s main doors, so that the paper boy could bring in the day’s regular order and place them on the Reception counter. (The residents got very upset if their papers were left outside to catch the dampness of the sea mist or, worse, were folded too many times to fit through the hotel’s letter-box.)
But on the morning of the 5th of March Newth did not get as far as the front door. The sprawled debris of Mrs Selsby stopped him in his tracks.
Showing no visible emotion, he went forward to check that she was dead. Even without his army training, he would have been left in no doubt. The old lady was cold and still.
He paused for a moment, but his decision was quickly made. Loxton was unlikely to emerge from the kitchen, so he need not worry about her. Stepping over the inert form of Mrs Selsby, he went quickly but silently up the stairs to the top of the hotel and tapped on Miss Naismith’s door.
She was still asleep, but woke quickly, threw a housecoat over her surprisingly flimsy nightdress and came to the door. Newth explained the situation in few words and Miss Naismith instantly followed him downstairs.
She looked at the body in the Entrance Hall, then checked her watch.
“Put her in the Television Room, Newth. We don’t want the other residents upset. I’ll ring Dr Ashington.”
She went into the Office while Newth unquestioningly obeyed her orders. If he felt any distaste or perturbation at handling the corpse, he did not show it. Mrs Selsby’s body was still limp, though a slight stiffening around the jaw accentuated the strange angle at which her neck hung. With one arm cradling her back and another under her knees, Newth was surprised at how light she was. The skin had faded down to the bone, and now that too felt as if it might slowly dwindle and disappear.
Perhaps that was why Newth was so little moved. For a long time Mrs Selsby had been like an old poster pasted to the sea wall, slowly washed colourless and transparent by the elements. Her death, the moment when the last outline could no longer be traced, had been part of a long, almost imperceptible process.
♦
Dr Ashington was not best pleased at being woken before seven, but when he heard that his caller was Miss Naismith, he became all charm. The proprietress of the Devereux unfailingly recommended him to her residents, and, since snobbery (if not wealth) dictated that most of them should be private patients, he benefited from the connection. Some, when they arrived, swore by distant doctors (like Mrs Pargeter’s ‘chap in Harley Street’), but most soon came to realise the advantages of a local service. And, since Miss Naismith’s ground-rules for the Devereux excluded the chronically sick, Dr Ashington’s part of the bargain was not too onerous.
When he heard of Mrs Selsby’s death, he said he would be round straight away. “Is she still lying where she was?” he asked.
“Good heavens, no. I have the other residents to think of.”
“Hmm. She shouldn’t really have been moved. In the case of a violent death…”
“Oh, really, Doctor. What harm could it possibly do? She was definitely dead.”
“It’s not that. It’s the kind of question that might be asked at the inquest.”
“Inquest? Will there have to be an inquest?”
“Oh, I would imagine so.”
Miss Naismith was very put out. She had not considered the possibility of an inquest.
But through the gloom cast by that thought glowed a little spark of excitement. Mrs Selsby’s sea-front room was one of the most coveted in the hotel. Miss Wardstone was top of the list to take it over, and Miss Naismith thought that the necessary changeover would be a good opportunity to raise the room’s price.
And of course a new resident would have to be chosen to go into Miss Wardstone’s room. Miss Naismith determined to make her selection with rather more care than she had shown in admitting Mrs Pargeter.
And she also determined to charge rather more than hitherto for Miss Wardstone’s vacant room.
Which was one of the reasons for the smile of satisfaction with which she replaced the receiver on the telephone.
∨ A Nice Class of Corpse ∧
8
By the time the residents of the Devereux descended for breakfast at about eight o’clock, Dr Ashington had arrived, examined the corpse, and left.
Death, he had quickly concluded, had been caused by asphyxia following a broken neck. Given Mrs Selsby’s extreme frailty and short sight, he was unsurprised by her falling down the stairs. However, to Miss Naismith’s continuing pique, he still thought there would have to be an inquest.
The Television Room was then locked, not to be opened again until the body was collected later in the morning by the local undertakers (jolly, thriving men who knew they were on to a good thing operating on the South Coast). None of the residents would notice the locking of the door, as the room was not used at that time in the morning. The watching of breakfast television (or indeed television at any time before seven-thirty in the evening – except of course when Wimbledon or snooker was on) was regarded as slightly infra dig at the Devereux (though Mr Dawlish secretly watched TV-AM on a portable set in his bedroom, because he found himself strangely moved by the leotard of the Keep-Fit Lady).
Miss Naismith decided to delay the announcement of Mrs Selsby’s death until after breakfast. There seemed little point in putting the residents off their various orders of cornflakes, All-Bran, scrambled eggs, kippers and prunes. She swore Newth to silence and Loxton cooked away in the kitchen, unaware of the night’s accident.