Every club has its peculiar asset. The Cadaver Club has the Plants. The members are apt to say “What shall we do if we lose the Plants?” much as they might ask “What shall we do if they drop the Bomb?” Both questions have their relevance but only the morbid dwell on them. Mr. Plant has sired-one would almost believe for the benefit of the club-five buxom and competent daughters. The three eldest, Rose, Marigold and Violet, are married and come in to lend a hand. The two youngest, Heather and Primrose, are employed in the dining room as waitresses. Plant himself is steward and general factotum and his wife is generally acknowledged as one of the best cooks in London. It is the Plants who give the club its atmosphere of a private townhouse where the family’s comfort is in the hands of loyal, competent and discreet family servants. Those members who once enjoyed these benefits have the comfortable illusion that they are back in their youth, and the others begin to realise what they have missed. Even the eccentricities of the Plants are odd enough to make them interesting without detracting from their efficiency and there are few club servants of whom this can be said.
Dalgliesh, although he was not a member of the club, had occasionally dined there and was known to Plant. Luckily, too, by that curious alchemy which operates in these matters, he was approved of. Plant made no difficulties about showing him round or answering his questions; nor was it necessary for Dalgliesh to emphasise his present amateur status. Very little was said but both men understood each other perfectly. Plant led the way to the small front bedroom on the first floor which Seton had always used and waited just inside the door while Dalgliesh examined the room. Dalgliesh was used to working under scrutiny or he might have been disconcerted by the man’s stolid watchfulness. Plant was an arresting figure. He was six feet three inches tall, and broad shouldered, his face pale and pliable as putty with a thin scar sliced diagonally across his left cheekbone. This mark, the result of an undignified tumble from a bicycle onto iron railings in his youth, looked so remarkably like a duelling scar that Plant had been unable to resist adding to its effect by wearing a pince-nez and cropping his hair en brosse, like a sinister Commander in an anti-Nazi film. His working uniform was appropriate, a dark blue serge with a miniature skull on each lapel; this vulgar conceit, introduced in 1896 by the club’s founder, had now, like Plant himself, been sanctified by time and custom. Indeed, members were always a little puzzled when their visitors commented on Plant’s unusual appearance.
There was little to be seen in the bedroom. Thin terylene curtains were drawn against the grey light of the October afternoon. The drawers and wardrobe were empty. The small desk of light oak in front of the window held nothing but a clean blotter and a supply of club writing paper. The single bed, freshly made up, awaited its next occupant.
Plant said: “The officers from the Suffolk CID took away his typewriter and clothes, Sir. They looked for papers, too, but he hadn’t any to speak of. There was a packet of buff envelopes and about fifty sheets of foolscap and a sheet or two of unused carbon paper but that’s all. He was a very tidy gentleman, Sir.”
“He stayed here regularly every October didn’t he?”
“The last two weeks in the month, Sir. Every year. And he always had this room. We’ve only got the one bedroom on this floor and he couldn’t climb stairs because of his bad heart. Of course, he could have used the lift but he said he hadn’t any confidence in lifts. So it had to be this room.”
“Did he work in here?”
“Yes, Sir. Most mornings from ten until half past twelve. That’s when he lunched. And again from two-thirty until half past four. That’s if he was typing. If it was a matter of reading or making notes he worked in the library. But there’s no typing allowed in the library on account of disturbing other members.”
“Did you hear him typing in here on Tuesday?”
“The wife and I heard someone typing, Sir, and naturally we thought it was Mr. Seton. There was a notice on the door saying not to disturb but we wouldn’t have come in anyway. Not when a member’s working. The Inspector seemed to think it might have been someone else in here.”
“Did he now? What do you think?”
“Well, it could have been. The wife heard the typewriter going at about eleven o’clock in the morning and I heard it again at about four. But we wouldn’t either of us know whether it was Mr. Seton. It sounded pretty quick and expert-like but what’s that to go on? That Inspector asked whether anyone else could have got in. We didn’t see any strangers about but we were both busy at lunchtime and downstairs most of the afternoon. People walk in and out very freely, Sir, as you know. Mind you, a lady would have been noticed. One of the members would have mentioned it if there’d been a lady about the club. But otherwise-well, I couldn’t pretend to the Inspector that the place is what he’d call well supervised. He didn’t seem to think much of our security arrangements. But, as I told him Sir, this is a club not a police station.”
“You waited two nights before you reported his disappearance?”
“More’s the pity, Sir. And even then, I didn’t call the police. I phoned his home and gave a message to his secretary, Miss Kedge. She said to do nothing for the moment and she would try to find Mr. Seton’s half-brother. I’ve never met the gentleman myself but I think Mr. Maurice Seton did mention him to me once. But he’s never been to the club that I remember. That Inspector asked me particularly.”
“I expect he asked about Mr. Oliver Latham and Mr. Justin Bryce too.”
“He did, Sir. They’re both members and so I told him. But I haven’t seen either gentleman recently and I don’t think they’d come and go without a word to me or the wife. You’ll want to see this first-floor bathroom and lavatory. Here we are. Mr. Seton used this little suite. That Inspector looked in the cistern.”
“Did he indeed? I hope he found what he was looking for.”
“He found the ballcock, Sir and I hope to God he hasn’t put it out of action. Very temperamental this lavatory is. You’ll want to see the library, I expect. That’s where Mr. Seton used to sit when he wasn’t typing. It’s on the next floor as I think you know.”
A visit to the library was obviously scheduled. Inspector Reckless had been thorough and Plant was not the man to let his protegé get away with less. As they crushed together into the tiny claustrophobic lift, Dalgliesh asked his last few questions. Plant replied that neither he nor any member of his staff had posted anything for Mr. Seton. No one had tidied his room or destroyed any papers. As far as Plant knew there had been none to destroy. Except for the typewriter and Seton’s clothes, the room was still as he had left it on the evening he disappeared.
The library, which faced south over the square, was probably the most attractive room in the house. It had originally been the drawing room and, except for the provision of shelves along the whole of the west wall, looked much as it had when the club took over the house. The curtains were copies of the originals, the wallpaper was a faded Pre-Raphaelite design, the desks set between the four high windows were Victorian. The books made up a small but reasonably comprehensive library of crime. There were the notable British Trials and Famous Trials series; textbooks on medical jurisprudence, toxicology and forensic pathology; memoirs of judges, advocates, pathologists and police officers; a variety of books by amateur criminologists dealing with some of the more notable or controversial murders; textbooks on criminal law and police procedure; and even a few treatises on the sociological and psychological aspects of violent crime which showed few signs of having been opened. On the fiction shelves a small section held the club’s few first editions of Poe, Le Fanu and Conan Doyle; for the rest, most British and American crime writers were represented and it was apparent that those who were members presented copies of their books. Dalgliesh was interested to see that Maurice Seton had had his specially bound and embellished with his monogram in gold. He also noted that, although the club excluded women from membership, the ban did not extend to their books, so that the library was fairly representative of crime writing during the last 150 years.