P James - Shroud for a Nightingale

Dowson cried out in vehement protest:

“She never looked to anyone for comfort or support! That’s what I’m trying to tell you! She slept with me because she wanted to. I’m not responsible for her. I’m not responsible for anyone. Anyone! I’m only responsible for myself. She knew what she was doing. It wasn’t as if she were a young, inexperienced girl who needed kindness and protection.”

“If you believe that the young and innocent need comfort and protection you’re thinking in cliches. And if you begin by thinking in cliches you end by writing them.”

The boy said sullenly: “Maybe. But that’s what I believe.”

Suddenly he got up and went over to the wall. When he came back to the center box Dalgliesh saw that he held a large smooth stone. It fitted snugly into his curved palm, a perfect ovoid. It was a pale gray, flecked like an egg. Dowson let it slide from his hand on to the table where it rocked gently into stillness. Then he sat down again and bent forward, his head in his hands. Together they looked at the stone. Dalgliesh did not speak. Suddenly the boy said:

“She gave it to me. We found it together on the beach at Ventnor, in the Isle of Wright We went there together last October. But of course you know. That must have been how you traced me. Lift it It’s surprisingly heavy.”

Dalgliesh took the stone in his hands. It was satisfying to touch, smooth and cool. He took pleasure in the sea-washed perfection of its shape, in the hard unyielding roundness of it which yet fitted with such gentleness into the palm of his hand.

“I never had a holiday by the sea when I was a boy. Dad died before I was six and the old woman hadn’t the money. So I missed out on the seaside. Jo thought it would be fun to go there together. It was very warm last October. Remember? We took the ferry from Portsmouth and there were only half a dozen people on it besides ourselves. The island was empty too. We could walk from Ventor to St. Catherine’s Lighthouse without meeting a soul. It was warm enough and deserted enough to bathe naked. Jo found this stone. She thought it would do as a paper-weight. I wasn’t going to tear my pocket carrying that weight home but she did. Then, when we got back here, she gave it to me as a keepsake. I wanted her to have it but she said that I’d forget the holiday long before she did. Don’t you see? She knew how to be happy. I’m not sure that I do. But Jo did. If you’re like that you don’t kill yourself. Not when you know how marvelous living can be. Colette knew about that She wrote about ‘a compelling fierce and secret rapport with the earth and everything that gushes from its breasts’.” He looked at Dalgliesh.

“Colette was a French writer.”

“I know. And you believe that Josephine Fallon could feel that?”

“I know she could. Not for long. Not often. But when she was happy she was marvelous. If you once know that kind of happiness you don’t kill yourself. While you live there’s a hope it could happen again. So why cut yourself off from the hope of it for ever?”

Dalgliesh said: “You cut yourself off from the misery too. That might seem more important But I think you’re right. I don’t believe Josephine Fallon killed herself. I believe she was murdered. That’s why I’m asking if there’s anything else you can tell me.”

“No. I was on duty at the Exchange the night she died. I had better give you the address. I suppose you’ll want to check.”

“There are reasons why it’s extremely unlikely to have been anyone who wasn’t familiar with Nightingale House. But we shall check.”

“Here’s the address then.”

He tore a corner from the newspaper covering the table and taking a pencil from his trouser pocket wrote down the address in a crabbed hand, his head nearly touching the paper. Then he folded it as if the message were secret, and pushed it across the table.

“Take the stone too. I’d like you to have it No, take it. Please take it You think I’m heartless, that I’m not grieving for her. But I am. I want you to find out who killed her. It won’t do any good to her or to the man, but I want yon to find out. And I am sorry. It’s just that I can’t let myself feel too much. I can’t let myself get involved. You understand?”

Dalgliesh took the stone in his hand and rose to go.

“Yes,” he said: “I understand.”

Mr. Henry Urquhart of Messrs. Urquhart, Wimbush and Portway was Josephine Fallon’s solicitor. Dalgliesh’s appointment with him was for twelve twenty-five p.m., a time disobligingly chosen, he felt, to intimate that every minute of the solicitor’s time was valuable and that he was prepared to spare the police no more than half an hour before lunch. Dalgliesh was admitted immediately. He doubted whether a detective sergeant would have been received so promptly. This was one of the minor advantages for his passion of doing the job himself, for resisting the pressures to make him into a desk detective, controlling the investigation from his office with a small army of detective constables, scenes-of-crime men, photographers, finger-print experts and scientists ministering to his ego and effectively cutting him off from all but the main protagonists of the crime. He knew that he had a reputation for solving his cases very fast but he never grudged time on jobs which some of his colleagues thought more appropriate to a detective constable. As a result he was sometimes given information which a less experienced interrogator would have missed. He hardly expected this happy bonus from Mr. Henry Urquhart This interview was likely to be little more than the formal and punctilious exchange of relevant facts. But it had been necessary for him to visit London. There were matters which he had to attend to at the Yard. And it was always a pleasure to visit on foot and in the fitful sunlight of a winter morning these secluded corners of the City.

Messrs. Urquhart, Wimbush and Portway were one of the most respected and successful of the City’s firms of solicitors. Dalgliesh felt that few of Mr. Urquhart’s clients could have been mixed up in a murder investigation. They might have their little difficulties from time to time with the Queen’s proctor; they might, against all advice, indulge in imprudent litigation or obstinately persist in devising unwise wills; they might require their solicitor’s services to devise technical defenses to the drink and driving laws; it might indeed be necessary to extricate them from all manner of folly and imprudence. But their killing would be done legally.

The room into which he was shown could have served as a stage set for a successful solicitor’s office. The coal fire was banked high in the grate. From above the mantel shelf the portrait of the founder gazed down in approval on his great grandson. The desk at which the great grandson sat was of the same period as the portrait and displayed the same qualities of durability, fitness for the task in hand, and a sturdy opulence which stopped just short of ostentation. On the other wall there was a small oil. Dalgliesh thought that it looked very like a Jan Steen. It proclaimed to the world that the firm knew a good picture when it saw one and could afford to display it on the wall.

Mr. Urquhart, tall, ascetic, discreetly gray at the temples and with the air of a reserved dominie, was well cast for the role of a successful solicitor. He was wearing an exceedingly well-cut suit, but in lovat tweed as if the more orthodox pin strip would have verged on caricature. He received Dalgliesh without apparent curiosity or concern but the Superintendent noted with interest that Miss Fallon’s box was already on the table before him. Dalgliesh stated his business briefly and ended:

“Can you tell me anything about her? In a murder inquiry anything we can learn about the past life and personality of the victim is helpful.”