The Black Tower (19 page)

“What about a possible defect of the chair?”

“I thought about that, Sir, and it was, of course, brought out at the inquest. But we only recovered the seat of the chair and one of the wheels. The two side pieces with the hand-brakes and the cross-bar with the ratchets have never been found.”

“Exactly the parts of the chair where any defects of the brakes, whether natural or deliberately produced, might have been apparent.”

“If we could have found the pieces in time, Sir, and the sea hadn't done too much damage. But we never found
them. The body had broken free of the chair in mid-air or on impact and Court naturally concentrated on retrieving the body. It was being tumbled by the surf, the trousers were waterlogged and it was too heavy for him to shift far. But he got his bathing towel into Holroyd's belt and managed to hold on until help, in the persons of Mr. Anstey, Dr. Hewson, Sister Moxon and the handyman Albert Philby arrived with a stretcher. Together they managed to get the body on to it and struggled back along the beach to Toynton Grange. It was only then that they rang us. It occurred to Mr. Court as soon as they reached the Grange that the chair ought to be retrieved for examination and he sent Philby back to look for it. Sister Moxon volunteered to go with him. The tide had gone out about twenty yards by then and they found the main part of the chair, that is the seat and the back, and one of the wheels.”

“I'm surprised that Dorothy Moxon went to search, I would have expected her to stay with the patients.”

“So should I, Sir. But Anstey refused to leave Toynton Grange and Dr. Hewson apparently thought that his place was with the body. Nurse Rainer was off duty for the afternoon, and there was no one else to send unless you count Mrs. Millicent Hammitt, and I don't think anyone thought of counting Mrs. Hammitt. It did seem important that two pairs of eyes should be looking for the chair before the light faded.”

“And what about Julius Court?”

“Mr. Court and Mr. Lerner thought they ought to be at Toynton Grange to meet us when we arrived, Sir.”

“A very proper thought. And by the time you did arrive no doubt it was too dark to make an effective search.”

“Yes, Sir, it was seven fourteen when we got to Toynton Grange. Apart from taking statements and arranging for the body to be removed to the mortuary, there was very little
we could do until the morning. I don't know whether you've seen that shore at low tide, Sir. It looks like a great sheet of black treacle toffee which some prodigious giant has amused himself by smashing-up with a gigantic hammer. We searched pretty thoroughly over a wide area but if the metal pieces are lodged in the crevasses between any of those rocks it would take a metal detector to find them—and we'd be lucky then—and lifting tackle to retrieve them. It's most likely, I think, that they've been dragged down under the shingle. There's a great deal of turbulence there at high tide.”

Dalgliesh said:

“Was there any reason to suppose that Holroyd had suddenly become suicidal, I mean—why choose that particular moment?”

“I asked about that, Sir. A week earlier, that is on the 5th September, Mr. Court with Doctor and Mrs. Hewson had taken him in Court's car up to London to see his solicitors and a consultant at St. Saviour's Hospital. That's Dr. Hewson's own training hospital. I gather that Holroyd wasn't given much hope that anything more could be done for him. Dr. Hewson said that the news didn't seem to depress him unduly. He hadn't expected anything else. Dr. Hewson more or less told me that Holroyd had insisted on the consultation just for the trip to London. He was a restless man and liked an excuse to get away from Toynton Grange occasionally. Mr. Court was travelling up anyway and offered the use of his car. That matron, Mrs. Moxon, and Mr. Anstey were both adamant that Holroyd hadn't come back particularly depressed; but then they've got something of a vested interest in discrediting the suicide theory. The patients told me a rather different story. They noticed a change in Holroyd after his return. They didn't describe him as depressed, but he certainly wasn't any easier to live
with. They described him as excited. Miss Willison used the word elated. She said that he seemed to be making up his mind to something. I don't think that she has much doubt that Holroyd killed himself. When I questioned her she was obviously shocked by the idea and distressed on Mr. Anstey's account. She didn't want to believe it. But I think that she did.”

“What about Holroyd's visit to his solicitor? Did he learn anything there to distress him I wonder.”

“It's an old family firm, Holroyd and Martinson in Bedford Row. Holroyd's elder brother is now the senior partner. I did ring him to ask but I didn't get far. According to him, the visit was almost entirely social and Victor was no more depressed than usual. They were never close but Mr. Martin Holroyd did visit his brother occasionally at Toynton Grange, particularly when he wanted to talk to Mr. Anstey about his affairs.”

“You mean that Holroyd and Martinson are Anstey's solicitors?”

“They've acted for the family for over 150 years I understand. It's a very old connection. That's how Victor Holroyd came to hear about the Grange. He was Anstey's first patient.”

“What about Holroyd's wheelchair? Could anyone at Toynton Grange have sabotaged that, either on the day Holroyd died or on the evening before?”

“Philby could, of course. He had the best opportunity. But a number of people could have done it. Holroyd's rather heavy chair, the one which was used for these outings, was kept in the workroom at the end of the passage in the southern extension. I don't know whether you know it, Sir, but it's perfectly accessible even to wheelchairs. Basically it's Philby's workshop. He has the usual standard equipment and tools for carpentry and some metal work there.
But the patients can use it too and are, in fact, encouraged either to help him or to indulge in their own hobbies. Holroyd used to do some fairly simple carpentry before he got too ill and Mr. Carwardine occasionally models in clay. The women patients don't usually use it but there'd be nothing surprising to seeing one of the men there.”

Dalgliesh said:

“Carwardine told me that he was in the workroom when Philby oiled and checked the brakes at eight forty-five.”

“That's rather more than he told me. He gave me the impression that he hadn't really seen what Philby was up to. Philby was a bit coy about whether he could actually remember testing the brakes. I wasn't surprised. It was pretty obvious that they all wanted it to look like an accident if that could be done without provoking the coroner into too many strictures about carelessness. I had a bit of luck, however, when I questioned them about the actual morning of Holroyd's death. After breakfast Philby went back to the workroom shortly after eight forty-five. He was there for just an hour and when he left he locked the place up. He was glueing some repairs and didn't want them disturbed. I got the impression that Philby thinks of the workroom as his domain and doesn't exactly welcome the patients being allowed to use it. Anyway, he pocketed the key and didn't unlock the room until Lerner came fussing to ask for the key shortly before four o'clock so that he could get Holroyd's wheelchair. Assuming that Philby was telling the truth, the only people at Toynton Grange without alibis for the time when the workroom was unlocked and unoccupied early on the morning of 12th September are Mr. Anstey, Holroyd himself, Mr. Carwardine, Sister Moxon and Mrs. Hewson. Mr. Court was in London and didn't
arrive back at his cottage until just before Lerner and Holroyd set out. Lerner is clear too. He was busy with the patients at all the relevant times.”

That was all very well, thought Dalgliesh, but it proved very little. The workroom had been unlocked the previous evening after Carwardine and Philby had left and, presumably, also during the night. He said:

“You were very thorough, Sergeant. Did you manage to discover all this without alarming them too much?”

“I think so, Sir. I don't think they thought for a moment that anyone else could have been responsible. They took it that I was checking-up on what opportunity Holroyd had to muck about with the chair himself. And if it were deliberately damaged, then my bet is he did it. He was a malicious man, from what I hear. It probably amused him to think that, when the chair was recovered from the sea and the damage discovered, then everyone at Toynton Grange would be under suspicion. That's the kind of final thought that would give him quite a kick.”

Dalgliesh said:

“I just can't believe that both brakes failed simultaneously and accidentally. I've seen those wheelchairs at the Grange. The brakes system is very simple but it's effective and safe. And it's almost as difficult to imagine that there was deliberate sabotage. How could the murderer possibly rely on the brakes failing at that particular moment? Lerner or Holroyd might easily have tested them before starting out. The defect might be discovered when the chair was braked on the cliff top or even on the journey. Besides, no one apparently knew that Holroyd was going to insist on an outing that afternoon. What did exactly happen on the cliff top, by the way? Who braked the chair?”

“According to Lerner, Holroyd did. Lerner admits that he
never looked at the brakes. All he can say is that he noticed nothing wrong with the chair. The brakes weren't used until they reached their usual stopping place.”

For a moment there was silence. They had finished eating and Inspector Daniel felt in the pocket of his tweed jacket and produced his pipe. As he stroked its bowl with his thumb before filling it, he said quietly:

“Nothing was worrying you about the old gentleman's death was it, Sir?”

“He was medically diagnosed as a dying man and somewhat inconveniently for me he died. I worry that I didn't visit him in time to hear what was on his mind; but that's a private worry. Speaking as a policeman, I should rather like to know who saw him last before he died. Officially, it was Grace Willison, but I've a feeling he had a later visitor than she; another patient. When he was found dead next morning he was wearing his stole. His diary is missing, and someone broke into his bureau. As I haven't seen Father Baddeley for over twenty years it's probably unreasonable of me to be so sure that it wasn't he.”

Sergeant Varney turned to his Inspector.

“What would be the theological position, Sir, if someone confessed to a priest, got absolution and then killed him to make sure that he kept his mouth shut. Would the confession take as it were?”

The young face was preternaturally grave, it was impossible to tell whether the enquiry had been serious, whether this was a private joke directed against the Inspector, or made with some more subtle motive. Daniel took his pipe from his mouth:

“God, you young men are an ignorant lot of heathens! When I was a kid in Sunday School I put pennies in the collection plate for black bambinos not half as ignorant as
your lot. Take it from me lad, it would do you no good theologically or otherwise.”

He turned to Dalgliesh.

“Wearing his stole, was he? Now that's interesting.”

“I thought so.”

“And yet, is it so unnatural? He was alone and may have known that he was dying. Maybe he just felt more comfortable with the feel of it round his neck. Wouldn't you say that, Sir?”

“I don't know what he'd do, or what he'd feel. I've been content not to know for the past twenty years.”

“And the forced bureau. Maybe he'd decided to make a start with destroying his papers and couldn't remember where he'd put the key.”

“It's perfectly possible.”

“And he was cremated?”

“Cremated, on the insistence of Mrs. Hammitt, and his ashes buried with the appropriate rite of the Church of England.”

Inspector Daniel said nothing more. There was, Dalgliesh thought bitterly as they rose to go, nothing else to say.

Father Baddeley's solicitors, the firm of Loder and Wainwright, occupied a simple but harmonious house of red brick facing directly on to South Street and typical, Dalgliesh thought, of the more agreeable houses which were built after the old town was virtually destroyed by fire in 1762. The door was propped open by a brass doorstop shaped like a miniature cannon, its dazzling muzzle pointing intimidatingly towards the street. Apart from this bellicose
symbol the house and its furnishings were reassuringly welcoming, producing an atmosphere of solid affluence, tradition and professional rectitude. The white painted hall was hung with prints of eighteenth-century Dorchester and smelt of furniture polish. To the left, an open door led to a large waiting-room with an immense circular table on a carved pedestal, half a dozen carved mahogany chairs heavy enough to accommodate a robust farmer in upright discomfort, and an oil painting of an unnamed Victorian gentleman, presumably the founder of the firm, bewhiskered and beribboned and displaying the seal of his watch chain between a delicate thumb and finger as if anxious that the painter should not overlook it. It was a house in which any of Hardy's more prosperous characters would have felt themselves at home, could with confidence have discussed the effects of the abolition of the corn laws or the perfidy of the French privateers. Opposite the waiting-room was a partitioned office occupied by a young girl, dressed up to the waist in black boots and a long skirt like a Victorian governess and above the waist like a pregnant milkmaid. She was laboriously typing at a speed which could have explained Maggie Hewson's strictures about the firm's dilatoriness. In response to Dalgliesh's enquiry she glanced up at him through a curtain of lank hair and said that Mr. Robert was out at present but was expected back in ten minutes. Taking his time over lunch, thought Dalgliesh, and resigned himself to a half-hour wait.

Loder returned some twenty minutes later. Dalgliesh heard him galumphing happily into the reception office; there was the murmur of voices and a second later he appeared in the waiting-room and invited his visitor into his office at the rear of the house. Neither the room—poky, stuffy and untidy—nor its owner were quite what Dalgliesh
had expected. Neither suited the house. Bob Loder was a swarthy, heavily built, square-faced man with a blotched skin and unhealthy pallor and small, discouraged eyes. His sleek hair was uniformly dark—too dark to be entirely natural—except for a thin line of silver at the brow and sides. His moustache was dapper and trim above lips so red and moist that they looked about to ooze blood. Noting the lines at the corner of the eyes and the sagging muscles of the neck Dalgliesh suspected that he was neither as young nor as vigorous as he was at pains to suggest.