“And yet you set off for Lowestoft straight away without bothering to check?” asked Reckless.
“I did check! When I got to the road it occurred to me to see if Sheldrake had really gone. So I drove down Tanner’s Lane as far as I could and walked to the beach. The boat wasn’t there. That was good enough for me. I suppose you think that I ought to have rung back the police station but it never occurred to me that the message might be a hoax until I was on my way and then the easiest thing was to check on the boat. I say…”
“Yes?” enquired Reckless calmly.
“Whoever phoned must have known that I was here. And it couldn’t have been Liz Marley because she’d only just left when the phone rang. Now, how could anyone else have known?”
“You could have been seen arriving,” suggested Reckless.
“And I suppose you put the lights on when you got in. They could be seen for miles.”
“I put them on all right. The whole bloody lot. This place gives me the creeps in the dark. Still, it’s odd.”
It was odd, thought Dalgliesh. But the Inspector’s explanation was probably correct. The whole of Monksmere Head could have seen those blazing lights. And when they went out, someone would know that Digby Seton was on his way. But why send him? Was there something still to be done at Seton House? Something to be searched for? Some evidence to be destroyed? Was the body hidden in Seton House? But how was that possible if Digby was telling the truth about the missing boat?
Suddenly Digby said: “What am I supposed to do about handing the body over for medical research? Maurice never said anything to me about being keen on medical research. Still, if that’s what he wanted…” He looked from Dalgliesh to Reckless enquiringly.
The Inspector said: “I shouldn’t worry about that now, Sir. Your brother left the necessary instructions and official forms among his papers. But it will have to wait.”
Seton said: “Yes. I suppose so. But I wouldn’t like… I mean, if that’s what he wanted…”
He broke off uncertainly. Much of the excitement had left him and he was looking suddenly very tired. Dalgliesh and Reckless glanced at each other, sharing the thought that there would be little more to be learned from Maurice’s body once Walter Sydenham had finished with it, the eminent and thorough Dr. Sydenham whose textbook on forensic pathology made it plain that he favoured an initial incision from the throat to the groin. Seton’s limbs might be useful for raw medical students to practise on, which was probably not what he had in mind. But his cadaver had already made its contribution to medical science.
Reckless was preparing to leave. He explained to Seton that he would be required at the inquest in five days’ time, an invitation which was received without enthusiasm, and began putting his papers together with the satisfied efficiency of an insurance agent at the end of a good morning’s work. Digby watched him with the puzzled and slightly apprehensive air of a small boy who has found the company of adults a strain but isn’t sure that he actually wants them to leave. Strapping up his briefcase, Reckless asked his last question with no appearance of really wanting to know the answer: “Don’t you find it rather strange, Mr. Seton, that your half-brother should have made you his heir? It isn’t as if you were particularly friendly.”
“But I told you!” Seton wailed his protest. “There wasn’t anyone else. Besides, we were friendly enough. I mean, I made it my business to keep in with him. He wasn’t difficult to get on with if you flattered him about his bloody awful books and took a bit of trouble with him. I like to get on with people if I can. I don’t enjoy quarrelling and unpleasantness. I don’t think I could have stood his company for long but then I wasn’t here very often. I told you I haven’t seen him since August Bank Holiday. Besides, he was lonely. I was the only family he had left and he liked to think that there was someone who belonged.”
Reckless said: “So you kept in with him because of his money. And he kept in with you because he was afraid of being completely alone?”
“Well, that’s how things are.” Seton was unabashed. “That’s life. We all want something from each other. Is there anyone who loves you, Inspector, for yourself alone?”
Reckless got up and went out through the open window. Dalgliesh followed him and they stood together on the terrace in silence. The wind was freshening but the sun still shone, warm and golden. On the green-blue sea a couple of white sails moved fitfully like twists of paper blown in the wind. Reckless sat down on the steps which led from the terrace to the narrow strip of turf and the cliff edge. Dalgliesh, feeling unreasonably that he could hardly remain standing since it put Reckless at a disadvantage, dropped down beside him. The stones were unexpectedly cold to his hands and thighs, a reminder that the warmth of the autumn sun had little power.
The Inspector said: “There’s no way down to the beach here. You’d have thought Seton would want his own way down. It’s a fair walk to Tanner’s Lane.”
“The cliffs are pretty high here and there’s little solid rock. It could be tricky to build a stairway,” suggested Dalgliesh.
“Maybe. He must have been a strange sort of chap. Fussy. Methodical. That card index, for instance. He picked up ideas for his stories from newspapers, magazines, and from people. Or just thought of them for himself. But they’re all neatly catalogued there, waiting to come in useful.”
“And Miss Calthrop’s contribution?”
“Not there. That doesn’t mean very much though. Sylvia Kedge told me that the house was usually left unlocked when Seton was living here. They all seem to leave their houses unlocked. Anyone could have got in and taken the card. Anyone could have read it for that matter. They just seem to wander in and out of each other’s places at will. It’s the loneliness I suppose. That’s assuming that Seton wrote out a card.”
“Or that Miss Calthrop ever gave him the idea,” said Dalgliesh.
Reckless looked at him. “That struck you too, did it? What did you think of Digby Seton?”
“The same as I’ve always thought. It requires an effort of will to understand a man whose passionate ambition is to run his own club. But then, he probably finds it equally difficult to understand why we should want to be policemen. I don’t think our Digby has either the nerve or the brains to plan this particular killing. Basically he’s unintelligent.”
“He was in the nick most of Tuesday night. I gave West Central a ring and it’s true all right. What’s more he was drunk. There was nothing feigned about it.”
“Very convenient for him.”
“It’s always convenient to have an alibi, Mr. Dalgliesh. But there are some alibis I don’t intend to waste time trying to break. And that’s the kind he’s got. What’s more, unless he was acting just now, he just doesn’t know that the weapon wasn’t a knife. And he thinks that Seton died on Wednesday night. Maurice couldn’t have been in this house alive when Digby and Miss Marley arrived on Wednesday. That’s not to say that his body wasn’t here. But I can’t see Digby acting the butcher and I can’t see why he should. Even if he found the body here and panicked he’s the sort to hit the bottle then belt off back to town, not to plan an elaborate charade. And he was on the Lowestoft not the London road when he crashed. Besides, I don’t see how he could have known about Miss Calthrop’s pleasant little opening for a detective story.”
“Unless Eliza Marley told him on the way here.”