Dorothy Sayers - The Documents in the Case

‘It’s dangerous to talk about wanting people out of the way, you know,’ I went on, watching him.

‘Punk!’ he said. ‘Now, I’ll tell you, Mr Good Little Moral Boy, I’ll tell you just exactly where I was all the time — all the time, do you hear? And then you can come and beg my pardon.’

‘I don’t want—’ I began.

‘No, but I do. Got that? I do. And you may as well make a note of it. On Thursday, now — Thursday — have you got that? — I was at the dentist’s at two o’clock, see? First thing I did when I got to town. You can verify that, I suppose? Or do you imagine I have bribed the dentist? You’d better write his address down. Get on with it.’

‘Really, Lathom—’

‘No, you won’t. Any excuse not to believe me, I suppose. Well, I’ll do it for you. Dentist, two o’clock, name and address, here you are. Seven o’clock — you’ll allow that I couldn’t get to Devon and back between two-thirty and seven, I suppose — or do you imagine I chartered an aeroplane?’

‘I suppose nothing of the sort.’

‘Damn it, suppose what you like. I can give you what I was doing at four o’clock. Come now, that’s close enough, isn’t it? I had tea with Marlowe. He’s a painter, but even you will allow he’s honest enough. Tea with Marlowe, four o’clock. At seven, I dined at the ‘Ben Bourgeois’, and paid by cheque — you can confirm that, you know — and went on to the first night of Meyrick’s show. He saw me there. Is that good enough?’

He was writing all these times and places down, digging the pencil savagely into the paper. I said:

‘You seem to remember it all very clearly.’

‘Yes, that’s one in the eye for you, isn’t it, my lad? Sorry and all that, but you asked for it. I slept that night at the studio. I’m afraid I’ve only Mrs Cutts’s word for it, and, of course, she’d say anything.’

‘Very likely,’ said I.

‘That gives you a gleam of hope, doesn’t it? But seeing I didn’t get home till four ack emma, after celebrating with Meyrick’s crowd — ask them — it doesn’t leave much margin, does it? Particularly as I was up again at nine o’clock.’

‘That’s very unusual,’ I said, trying to speak lightly. ‘Whatever did you get up at nine for?’

‘To spite you. And incidentally, to sign for a beastly registered letter. Providential, wasn’t it?’

‘Obviously,’ said I.

‘At ten-thirty I went to see my agent. You know him, don’t you?’ I admitted knowing the agent.

‘I lunched at Lady Tottenham’s. Went to see her about a sitting at twelve and stayed on. Anything fishy about Lady Tottenham?’

‘Nothing, except her husband’s income. Sardines, isn’t it?’

‘Damned witty. You ought to put that in your next book. Then I went round to Winsor & Newton’s and paid a bill. By cheque. And ordered some stuff. No doubt they will be happy to show you their books.’

I was silent.

‘Dinner at Holtby’s. Very stately and all that. Old boy thinks of presenting a portrait to Liverpool Town Hall. Most respectable party. Went on to the Aitchbone — not so respectable, but full of people. Spent the night with the Goodman boys. Breakfasted there. Came on. Looked you up, and you had me under your own bloody inquisitive eye for the rest of the day. Now then!’

I asked him why he was so anxious to tell me all this.

‘To tell your pal Harrison,’ he snapped back. ‘He seems blasted anxious to stick his nose into my concerns. Tell him to keep out of it. I don’t like the swine.’

‘I don’t see,’ I said, ‘why you should work yourself up into this extraordinary state of mind because a man has made a few ordinary inquiries about his father. Unless, of course, you have anything special to hide.’

This seemed to sober him down. He pulled his face into something more nearly resembling amiability and then suddenly began to laugh.

‘I’m sorry. I lost my temper rather. Anything to hide? Good God, no — except that I’m sorry Harrison has got on to — that business with Margaret, you know. She must have let something out, accidentally. But I’ll swear the old man never knew a word about it. Not a damn thing. He was as right as rain — best of pals, and all that. But I don’t like that pup of his.’

I put down the pen with which I had been fidgeting all this time, got up and went and stood by him on the hearthrug.

‘Lathom,’ I said, ‘why did you come here?’

He looked at me, and for a moment I thought he was on the point of getting something off his chest. I had a horrible fear of what it might be. If he had spoken, I really do not know what I should have said or done. I might — I don’t know. I was really quite horribly frightened.

But nothing came of it. He shifted his gaze and said, in a curious, embarrassed way.

‘I’ve told you. I wanted to know what you’d done with Harrison — to find out how the matter stood. Afraid it’s been awkward for you. I didn’t quite realise. It can’t be helped. He’d have to know sometime, anyhow. I’d better be going.’

He held out his hand. In the state things were in, I could not take it. Either I was being a perfect Judas Iscariot, in which case I hadn’t the face to give him my hand, or else he was, in which case I felt I would rather be excused. It was all so involved that at the moment I was completely incapable of deciding anything.

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I’ve said one or two things, haven’t I? All right. Sulk about it if you like. I’m damned if I care.’

He slammed out. After a moment I went after him. ‘Lathom!’ I called.

I don’t know what I meant to say to say. The only answer was the bang of the outer door.

Honestly, Harrison, I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know whether I’ve been a skunk or a moral citizen. I don’t know whether I’ve warned a guilty man, or betrayed an innocent one, or the other way round. But I’m feeling like hell about it, because — well, frankly, because I cannot believe that an innocent man would have such a water-tight alibi.

It’s perfectly obvious he came here to ram the alibi down my throat. But it is an alibi. I’m enclosing the paper with the names and addresses he wrote down so pat. You can investigate it all, if you like, but it’s certain to be sound. He knew it. He was perfectly confident. Besides—

Anyway, I won’t touch it. It makes me sick.

I’ve finished that statement, by the way. Here it is. I hope to God the whole thing comes to nothing and I never hear of it again. I ask you, as a favour, to leave me out of it if you can.Yours very truly, J. Munting

51. Statement of Paul Harrison [Continued]

Disregarding the hysterical tone of his last few sentences, I felt that on the whole Munting was right, and had behaved with more discretion and public spirit than I had credited him with.

It was obvious to me that Lathom was losing his nerve. As to his guilt, I had by now no shadow of a doubt. The blatant way in which he had marked his trail, right up from Manaton to London and back again, and his determination to let Munting know all about it, were actions entirely inconsistent with the carelessness of an innocent man. The trouble was that he was now on the alert. At any minute he might take alarm and bolt. On this account, I decided to waste no valuable time in checking his alibi. The fact that he had produced it with such confidence left me no hope of breaking it down; moreover, some of the inquiries were of a sort that could only be made satisfactorily by the police.

It was evident that I must abandon the whole idea of a return to Manaton. Only one possibility was left, namely, that the poison had been left in such a place that my father was bound to add it to the dish of fungi himself; and that this manoeuvre had been carried out before Lathom left for London.