“Nothing. I snoop by nature. Whereas you, presumably, were looking for Miss Kedge?”
“Sylvia’s not here. I thought she might be in her little dark room at the back but she isn’t. I’ve come with a message from my aunt. Ostensibly she wants to make sure that Sylvia’s all right after the shock of last night. Really, she wants her to come and take dictation before Oliver Latham or Justin nab her. There’s going to be great competition for La Kedge, and I’ve no doubt she’ll make the most of it. They all like the idea of having a private secretary on call for two bob a thousand words, carbons supplied.”
“Is that all Seton paid her? Why didn’t she leave?”
“She was devoted to him, or pretended to be. She had her own reasons for staying, I suppose. After all, it wouldn’t be easy for her to find a flat in town. It’ll be interesting to know what she’s been left in the will. Anyway, she enjoyed posing as the loyal, overworked little helpmeet who would be so happy to transfer to auntie if only it didn’t mean letting poor Mr. Seton down. My aunt never saw through it, of course. But then, she’s not particularly intelligent.”
“Whereas you have us all neatly catalogued. But you’re not suggesting that someone killed Maurice Seton to get his shorthand typist?”
She turned on him furiously, her heavy face blotched with anger. “I don’t care a damn who killed him or why! I only know that it wasn’t Digby Seton. I met him off that train Wednesday night. And if you’re wondering where he was on Tuesday night, I can tell you. He told me on the drive home. He was locked up in West Central Police Station from eleven o’clock onwards. They picked him up drunk and he came before the Magistrate on Wednesday morning. So, luckily for him, he was in police custody from eleven o’clock on Tuesday night until nearly midday on Wednesday. Break that alibi if you can, Superintendent.”
Dalgliesh pointed out mildly that the breaking of alibis was Reckless’s business, not his. The girl shrugged, dug her fists into her jacket pockets and kicked shut the gate of Tanner’s Cottage. She and Dalgliesh walked up the lane together in silence. Suddenly she said: “I suppose the body was brought down this lane to the sea. It’s the easiest way to where Sheldrake was beached. The killer would have had to carry it for the last hundred yards, though. The lane’s much too narrow for a car or even a motorcycle. He could have got it by car as far as Coles’s meadow and parked the car on the grass verge. There were a couple of plainclothes men there when I came past, looking for tyre marks. They won’t get much joy. Someone left the gate open last night and Coles’s sheep were all over the lane this morning.”
This, as Dalgliesh knew, was not unusual. Ben Coles, who farmed a couple of hundred unproductive acres on the east of the Dunwich road, did not keep his gates in the best of repair and his sheep, with the blind perversity of their kind, were as often in Tanner’s Lane as in their own meadow. At tripper time the lane became a shambles when the bleating flock in full cry mingled with the herd of horn-happy motorists frantically trying to edge each other out of the only parking space in the lane. But that open gate might have been highly convenient for someone; Coles’s sheep in their happy scamperings might have been following an old local tradition. It was well known that, in the smuggling days, the flocks were driven nightly along the sheep paths which crossed the Westleton marshes so that all traces of horses’ hoofs were obliterated before the Excise Officers made their morning search.
They walked on together until they came to the stile which gave access to the northern half of Monksmere Head. Dalgliesh was pausing to say goodbye when the girl suddenly blurted: “I suppose you think I’m an ungrateful bitch. She makes me an allowance, of course. Four hundred pounds a year in addition to my grant. But I expect you know that. Most people here seem to.”
There was no need to ask whom she meant. Dalgliesh could have replied that Celia Calthrop was not the woman to let her generosities go unremarked. But he was surprised by the amount. Miss Calthrop made no secret of the fact that she had no private income-”Poor little me. I’m a working girl. I earn every penny I get”-but it was not therefore assumed that she lacked money. Her sales were large and she worked hard, incredibly hard by the standards of Latham or Bryce who were apt to assume that dear Celia had only to lean back in a comfortable armchair with her tape recorder on and her reprehensible fiction would gush forth in an effortless and highly rewarding stream. It was easy to be unkind about her books. But if one were buying affection, and the price of even a reluctant toleration was a Cambridge education and £400 a year, much might be necessary. A novel every six months; a weekly stint in Home and Hearth; appearances whenever her agent could get them on those interminably boring television panels; short stories written under one name or another for the women’s weeklies; the gracious appearances at church bazaars where the publicity was free even if the tea had to be paid for. He felt a spasm of pity for Celia. The vanities and ostentations which were such a source of amused contempt to Latham and Bryce suddenly appeared no more than the pathetic trappings of a life both lonely and insecure. He wondered whether she had really cared for Maurice Seton. And he wondered, too, whether she was mentioned in Seton’s will.
Elizabeth Marley seemed in no hurry to leave him and it was difficult to turn away from that resolutely persistent figure. He was used to being a confidant. That, after all, was part of his job. But he wasn’t on duty now and he knew well that those who confided most were apt to regret it soonest. Besides, he had no real wish to discuss Celia Calthrop with her niece. He hoped the girl didn’t intend to walk all the way to Seton House with him. Looking at her he could see where at least some of that £400 allowance went. Her fur-lined jacket was real leather. The pleated skirt of thin tweed looked as if it had been tailored for her. Her shoes were sturdy but they were also elegant. He remembered something he had once heard Oliver Latham say, he couldn’t remember when or why: “Elizabeth Marley has a passion for money. One finds it rather engaging in this age when we’re all so busy pretending to have minds above mere cash.”
She was leaning back against the stile now, effectively blocking his way. “She got me to Cambridge, of course. You can’t do that without either money or influence if you’re only moderately intelligent like me. It’s all right for the alpha people. Everyone’s glad to get them. For the rest of us it’s a matter of the right school, the right crammers and the right names on your application form. Aunt could manage even that. She has a real talent for making use of people. She’s never afraid of being a vulgar nuisance which makes it easier of course.”
“Why do you dislike her so much?” enquired Dalgliesh.
“Oh, it’s nothing personal. Although we haven’t much in common, have we? It’s her work. The novels are bad enough. Thank God we haven’t the same name. People are pretty tolerant at Cambridge. If, like the waterman’s wife, she was a receiver of stolen property under guise of keeping a brothel no one would care a damn. And nor would I. But that column she writes. It’s utterly humiliating! Worse even than the books. You know the kind of muck.” Her voice rose to a sickly falsetto. “Don’t give in to him, dear. Men are only after one thing.”