Luker had put on weight since their last meeting. The expensive suit was strained across his shoulders, his neck bulged over the immaculate collar. He had a strong, unpleasant face, the skin so clear and shining that it might have been polished. His eyes were extraordinary. The irises were set exactly in the centre of the whites like small grey pebbles and were so lifeless that they gave the whole face a look of deformity. His hair, strong and black, came down low to a widow’s peak imposing an incongruous touch of femininity to his face. It was cut short all over and shone like dog’s hair, glossy and coarse. He looked like he was. But when he spoke his voice betrayed his origins. It was all there: the small town vicarage, the carefully fostered gentility, the minor public school. He had been able to change much. But he had not been able to alter his voice.
“Ah, Superintendent Dalgliesh. This is very pleasant. I’m afraid we’re booked out this evening but Michael may be able to find you a table. You’re interested in the floor show no doubt.”
“Neither dinner nor the show, thank you. Your food seemed to disagree with the last of my acquaintances who dined here. And I like my women to look like women, not nursing hippopotami. The photographs outside were enough. Where on earth do you pick them up?”
“We don’t. The dear girls recognise that they have, shall we say, natural advantages and come to us. And you mustn’t be censorious, Superintendent. We all have our private sexual fantasies. Just because yours aren’t catered for here doesn’t mean that you don’t enjoy them. Isn’t there a little saying about motes and beams? Remember, I’m a parson’s son as well as you. It seems to have taken us rather differently, though.” He paused as if for a moment interested in their separate reactions, then went on lightly: “The Superintendent and I have a common misfortune, Sid. We both had a parson for a dad. It’s an unhappy start for a boy. If they’re sincere you despise them as a fool; if they’re not you write them off as a hypocrite. Either way, they can’t win.”
Sid, who had been sired by a Cypriot bartender on a mentally subnormal skivvy, nodded in passionate agreement.
Dalgliesh said: “I wanted a word with you and Miss Coombs about Maurice Seton. It isn’t my case so you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. But you know that, of course.”
“That’s right. I don’t have to say a damn word. But then I might be in a helpful, accommodating mood. You can never tell. Try me.”
“You know Digby Seton, don’t you?”
Dalgliesh could have sworn that the question was unexpected. Luker’s dead eyes flickered. He said: “Digby worked here for a few months last year when I lost my pianist. That was after his club failed. I lent him a bit to try and see him over but it was no go. Digby hasn’t quite got what it takes. But he’s not a bad pianist.”
“When was he here last?”
Luker spread his hands and turned to his companions: “He did a week for us in May, didn’t he, when Ricki Carlis took his overdose? We haven’t seen him since.”
Lil said: “He’s been in once or twice, L. J. Not when you were here though.” Luker’s staff always called him by his initials. Dalgliesh wasn’t sure whether the idea was to emphasise the general cosiness of their relationship with him or to make Luker feel like an American tycoon. Lil went on helpfully, “Wasn’t he in with a party in the summer, Sid?”
Sid assumed an expression of lugubrious thought. “Not summer, Lil. More like late spring. Didn’t he come in with Mavis Manning and her crowd after her show folded up in May?”
“That was Ricki, Sid. You’re thinking of Ricki. Digby Seton was never with Mavis.”
They were as well drilled, thought Dalgliesh, as a song-and-dance act.
Luker smiled smoothly: “Why pick on Digby? This isn’t murder and, if it was, Digby’s safe enough. Look at the facts. Digby had a rich brother. Nice for both of them. The brother had a dicky heart which might give out on him any minute. Hard luck on him but again, nice for Digby. And one day it does give out. That’s natural causes, Superintendent, if the expression means anything at all. Admittedly someone drove the body down to Suffolk and pushed it out to sea. And did some rather messy and unpleasant things to it first, I hear. It looks to me as if poor Mr. Seton was rather unpopular with some of his literary neighbours. I’m surprised, Superintendent, that your aunt cares to live among these people, let alone leaving her chopper handy for the dead.”
“You seem well informed,” said Dalgliesh. He was remarkably quickly informed too. Dalgliesh wondered who had been keeping him so clearly in the picture.
Luker shrugged. “There’s nothing illegal in that. My friends tell me things. They know I’m interested in them.”
“Particularly when they inherit £200,000?”
“Listen, Superintendent. If I want money I can make it, and make it legally. Any fool can make a fortune outside the law. It takes a clever man, these days, to make it legally. Digby Seton can pay me back the fifteen hundred I lent him when he was trying to save the Golden Pheasant if he likes. I’m not pressing him.”
Sid turned his lemur-like eyes on his boss. The devotion in them was almost indecent.
Dalgliesh said: “Maurice Seton dined here the night he died. Digby Seton is connected with this place. And Digby stands to inherit £200,000. You can’t blame people if they come asking questions, particularly as Miss Coombs was the last person to see Maurice alive.”
Luker turned to Liclass="underline" “You’d better keep your mouth shut, Lil. Or, better still, get yourself a lawyer. I’ll phone Bernie.”
“What the hell do I want Bernie for? I’ve told it all to him once when that CID chap was here. I’m telling the truth. Michael and the boys saw him call me over to his table and we sat there until nine-thirty when we left together. I was back here by ten-thirty. You saw me, Sid, and so did the whole bloody club.”
“That’s right, Superintendent. Lil was back by half past ten.”
“Lil should never have left the club,” said Luker smoothly. “But that’s my concern, not yours.”
Miss Coombs appeared magnificently unconcerned at the thought of Luker’s displeasure. Like all his employees she knew exactly how far she could go. The rules were few and simple and were well understood. Leaving the club for an hour on a slack evening was venial. Murder, under certain well-understood circumstances, was probably venial too. But if someone at Monksmere hoped to pin this killing on Luker he was in for a disappointment. Luker was not the man to murder for someone else’s benefit nor did he trouble to cover up his tracks. When Luker killed he had no objection to leaving his prints on the crime.