The Murder Room Read online

  Dalgliesh was silent. Ever since, as an eleven-year-old, he had read of that distraught and drugged woman being half-dragged to her execution, the case had lain at the back of memory, heavy as a coiled snake. Poor dull Percy Thompson had not deserved to die, but did anyone deserve what his widow had suffered during those last days in the condemned cell when she finally realized that there was a real world outside even more dangerous than her fantasies and that there were men in it who, on a precise day at a precise hour, would take her out and judicially break her neck? Even as a boy the case had confirmed him as an abolitionist; had it, he wondered, exerted a subtler and more persuasive influence, the conviction, never spoken but increasingly rooted in his comprehension, that strong passions had to be subject to the will, that a completely self-absorbed love could be dangerous and the price too high to pay? Wasn’t that what he had been taught as a young recruit to the CID by the older, experienced sergeant now long retired? “All the motives for murder are covered by four Ls: Love, Lust, Lucre and Loathing. They’ll tell you, laddie, that the most dangerous is loathing. Don’t you believe it. The most dangerous is love.”

  He put the Thompson–Bywaters case resolutely out of mind and listened again to Ackroyd.

  “I’ve found my most interesting case. Still unsolved, fascinating in its permutations, absolutely typical of the 1930s. Couldn’t have happened at any other time, not in precisely the way it did happen. I expect you know it, the Wallace case? It’s been written about extensively. The Dupayne has all the literature.”

  Dalgliesh said, “It was once featured on a training course at Bramshill when I was a newly appointed detective inspector. How not to conduct a murder investigation. I don’t suppose it’s included now. They’ll choose more recent, more relevant cases. They’re not short of examples.”

  “So you know the facts.” Ackroyd’s disappointment was so evident that it was impossible not to indulge him.

  “Remind me.”

  “The year was 1931. Internationally the year that Japan invaded Manchuria, Spain was declared a republic, there were riots in India and Cawnpore was swept by one of the worst outbreaks of inter-communal violence in the country’s history, Anna Pavlova and Thomas Edison died and Professor Auguste Piccard became the first man to reach the stratosphere in a balloon. At home the new National Government was returned in the election in October, Sir Oswald Mosley concluded the formation of his New Party, and two and three-quarter million were unemployed. Not a good year. You see, Adam, I’ve done my research. Aren’t you impressed?”

  “Very. That’s a formidable feat of memory. I don’t see its relevance to a very English murder in a suburb of Liverpool.”

  “It puts it in a wider context. Still, I may not use it when I come to write. Shall I go on? I’m not boring you?”

  “Please do. And you’re not boring me.”

  “The dates: Monday the nineteenth and Tuesday the twentieth of January. The alleged murderer: William Herbert Wallace, fifty-two years old, Prudential Company insurance agent, a bespectacled, slightly stooping, undistinguished-looking man living with his wife Julia at twenty-nine Wolverton Street in Anfield. He spent the days going from house to house collecting insurance money. A shilling here, a shilling there against a rainy day and the inevitable end. Typical of the time. You might have barely enough to feed yourself but you still put by a bit each week to ensure you could pay for a decent funeral. You might live in squalor, but at least you could make something of a show at the end. No quick dash to the crematorium and out again in fifteen minutes or the next lot of mourners will be hammering on the door.

  “Wife Julia, fifty-two, socially a little superior, gentle-faced, a good pianist. Wallace played the violin and sometimes accompanied her in the front parlour. Apparently he wasn’t very good. If he was enthusiastically scraping away while she was playing, you have a motive for murder but with a different victim. Anyway, they were reputed to be a devoted couple, but who’s to know? I’m not distracting you from the driving, am I?”

  Dalgliesh recalled that Ackroyd, a non-driver, had always been a nervous passenger. “Not in the least.”

  “We come to the evening of nineteenth January. Wallace was a chess player and was due to play at the Central Chess Club which met at a café in the centre of the city on Monday and Thursday evenings. On that Monday a call was received asking for him. A waitress took it and called the captain of the club, Samuel Beattie, to speak to the caller. He suggested that as Wallace was due to play but had not yet arrived, the man should try again later. The caller said he couldn’t, he had his girl’s twenty-first birthday on, but would Wallace come round tomorrow at seven-thirty to discuss a business proposition. He gave the name R. M. Qualtrough, the address twenty-five Menlove Gardens East, Mossley Hill. What is interesting and important is that the caller had some difficulty getting through, either genuine or contrived. As a result we know the operator reported the time of the call: twenty minutes past seven.

  “So the next day Wallace set off to find Menlove Gardens East which, as you already know, doesn’t exist. He needed to take three trams to get to the Menlove Gardens area, searched for about half an hour and inquired about the address from at least four people including a policeman. Eventually he gave up and went home. The next-door neighbours, the Johnstons, were getting ready to go out when they heard knocking at the back door of number twenty-nine. They went to investigate and saw Wallace, who said that he couldn’t get in. While they were there he tried again and this time the door handle turned. The three of them went in. Julia Wallace’s body was in the front room lying face down on the hearth-rug with Wallace’s bloodied mackintosh lying against her. She had been battered to death in a frenzied attack. The skull had been fractured by eleven blows delivered with terrific force.

  “On Monday second February, thirteen days after the murder, Wallace was arrested. All the evidence was circumstantial, no blood was found on his clothes, the weapon was missing. There was no physical evidence linking him with the crime. What is interesting is that the evidence, such as it was, could support either the prosecution or the defence depending on how you chose to look at it. The call to the café was made from a phone box close to Wolverton Street at the time Wallace would have been passing. Was that because he made it himself, or because his murderer was waiting to ensure Wallace was on his way to the club? In the view of the police he was preternaturally calm during investigation, sitting in the kitchen with the cat on his knee and stroking it. Was that because he was uncaring, or because he was a stoic, a man who concealed emotion? And then the repeated inquiries about the address, was that to establish an alibi or because he was a conscientious agent who needed business and didn’t give up easily?”

  Dalgliesh waited in the queue at yet another traffic light as he was recalling the case more clearly. If the investigation had been a shambles, so had been the trial. The judge had summed up in Wallace’s favour, but the jury had convicted, taking only an hour to reach their verdict. Wallace appealed and the case again made history when the appeal was allowed on the grounds that the case was not proved with that certainty which is necessary in order to justify a verdict of guilty; in effect, that the jury had been wrong.

  Ackroyd prattled on happily while Dalgliesh gave his attention to the road. He had expected the traffic to be heavy; the homeward journey on a Friday began earlier each year, the congestion exacerbated by families leaving London for their weekend cottages. Before they reached Hampstead, Dalgliesh was already regretting his impulse to see the museum and mentally calculating the lost hours. He told himself to stop fretting. His life was already overburdened; why spoil this pleasant respite with regrets? Before they reached Jack Straw’s Castle the traffic was at a standstill and it took minutes before he could join the thinner stream of cars moving down Spaniards Road, which ran in a straight line across the Heath. Here the bushes and trees grew close to the tarmac, giving the illusion that they were in deep country.

  Ackroyd said, “Slow down
here, Adam, or we’ll miss the turning. It’s not easy to spot. We’re coming to it now, about thirty yards to the right.”

  It was certainly not easy to find and, since it meant turning right across the traffic, not easy to enter. Dalgliesh saw an open gate and beyond it a drive with thickly entwined bushes and trees on either side. To the left of the entrance was a black board fixed to the wall with a notice painted in white. THE DUPAYNE MUSEUM. PLEASE DRIVE SLOWLY.

  Dalgliesh said, “Hardly an invitation. Don’t they want visitors?”

  “I’m not sure that they do, not in large numbers. Max Dupayne, who founded the place in 1961, saw it as something of a private hobby. He was fascinated—one might say obsessed—by the inter-war years. He was collecting in the 1920s and ’30s, which accounts for some of the pictures; he was able to buy before the artist attracted big money. He also acquired first editions of every major novelist and those he thought worth collecting. The library is pretty valuable now. The museum was intended for people who shared his passion and that view of the place has influenced the present generation. Things may change now that Marcus Dupayne is taking control. He’s just retiring from the Civil Service. He may well see the museum as a challenge.”

  Dalgliesh drove down a tarmacked drive so narrow that two cars would have difficulty in passing. On each side was a narrow strip of turf with, beyond it, a thick hedge of rhododendron bushes. Behind them spindly trees, their leaves just fading to yellow, added to the dimness of the road. They passed a young man kneeling on the turf with an elderly angular woman standing over him as if directing his work. There was a wooden basket between them and it looked as if they were planting bulbs. The boy looked up and stared at them as they passed but, beyond a fleeting glance, the woman took no notice.

  There was a bend to the left and then the lane straightened out and the museum was suddenly before them. Dalgliesh stopped the car and they gazed in silence. The path divided to curve round a circular lawn with a central bed of shrubs, and beyond it stood a symmetrical red-brick house, elegant, architecturally impressive and larger than he had expected. There were five bays, the central one brought well forward with two windows, one above the other, four identical windows in the two lower storeys on each side of the central bay and two more in the hipped roof. A white-painted door, glass-panelled, was set in an intricate pattern of brickwork. The restraint and complete symmetry of the building gave the house a slightly forbidding air, more institutional than domestic. But there was one unusual feature: where one might have expected pilasters there was a set of recessed panels with capitals in ornate brickwork. They gave a note of eccentricity to a façade which might otherwise have been formidably uniform.

  Ackroyd said, “Do you recognize it, the house?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Not unless you’ve visited Pendell House near Bletchingley. It’s an eccentric Inigo Jones dated 1636. The prosperous Victorian factory owner who built this in 1894 saw Pendell, liked it and didn’t see why he shouldn’t have a copy. After all, the original architect wasn’t there to object. However, he didn’t go as far as duplicating the interior. Just as well; the interior of Pendell House is a bit suspect. Do you like it?”

  He looked as naïvely anxious as a child, hoping his offering wouldn’t disappoint.

  “It’s interesting, but I wouldn’t have known it was copied from Inigo Jones. I like it, but I’m not sure I’d want to live in it. Too much symmetry makes me uneasy. I’ve never seen recessed brickwork panels before.”

  “Nor has anyone, according to Pevsner. They’re said to be unique. I approve. The façade would be too restrained without them. Anyway, come and see inside. That’s what we’re here for. The car-park is behind those laurel bushes to the right. Max Dupayne hated to see cars in front of the house. In fact, he hated most manifestations of modern life.”

  Dalgliesh restarted the engine. A white arrow on a wooden sign directed him to the car-park. It was a gravelled area of some fifty yards by thirty with the entrance to the south. There were already twelve cars neatly parked in two rows. Dalgliesh found a space at the end. He said, “Not a lot of space. What do they do on a popular day?”

  “I suppose visitors try the other side of the house. There’s a garage there but that’s used by Neville Dupayne to house his E-type Jag. But I’ve never seen the parking spaces full, or the museum particularly busy for that matter. This looks about normal for a Friday afternoon. Some of the cars belong to the staff anyway.”

  There was certainly no sign of life as they made their way to the front door. It was, thought Dalgliesh, a somewhat intimidating door for the casual visitor, but Ackroyd seized the brass knob confidently, turned it and thrust the door open. He said, “It’s usually kept open in summer. You’d think with this sun it’s safe to risk it today. Anyway, here we are. Welcome to the Dupayne Museum.”

  2

  Dalgliesh followed Ackroyd into a wide hall with its chequered floor in black and white marble. Facing him was an elegant staircase which, after some twenty steps, divided, the stairs running east and west to the wide gallery. On each side of the hall were three mahogany doors with similar but smaller doors leading from the gallery above. There was a row of coat hooks on the left wall with two long umbrella stands beneath them. To the right was a curved mahogany reception desk with an antiquated telephone switchboard mounted on the wall behind, and a door marked PRIVATE which Dalgliesh supposed led to the office. The only sign of life was a woman seated at the desk. She looked up as Ackroyd and Dalgliesh moved towards her.

  Ackroyd said, “Good afternoon, Miss Godby.” Then, turning to Dalgliesh, “This is Miss Muriel Godby who presides over admissions and keeps us all in order. This is a friend of mine. Mr. Dalgliesh. Does he have to pay?”

  Dalgliesh said, “Of course I have to pay.”

  Miss Godby looked up at him. He saw a sallow, rather heavy face and a pair of remarkable eyes behind narrow horn-rimmed spectacles. The irises were a greenish yellow with a bright centre, the whole iris darkly ringed. The hair, an unusual colour between rich russet and gold, was thick and straight, brushed to the side and clipped back from the face with a tortoiseshell slide. Her mouth was small but firm above a chin which belied her apparent age. She could surely not be much above forty, but her chin and her upper neck had some of the sagging fleshiness of old age. Although she had smiled at Ackroyd, it had been little more than a relaxing of her mouth, giving her a look that was both wary and slightly intimidating. She was wearing a twinset in fine blue wool and a pearl necklace. It made her look as old-fashioned as some of the photographs of English débutantes seen in old copies of Country Life. Perhaps, he thought, she was deliberately dressing to conform to the decades of the museum. There was certainly nothing either girlish or naÏvely pretty about Miss Godby.

  A framed notice on the desk gave the admission charges as £5 for adults, £3.50 for senior citizens and students, free for the under-tens and those on job-seekers’ allowance. Dalgliesh handed over his £10 note and received with his change a round blue sticky label. Ackroyd, receiving his, protested: “Do we really have to wear these? I’m a Friend, I’ve signed in.”

  Miss Godby was adamant. “It’s a new system, Mr. Ackroyd. Blue for men, pink for women and green for the children. It’s a simple way of reconciling takings with the number of visitors and providing information on the people we’re serving. And, of course, it means that the staff can see at a glance that people have paid.”

  They moved away. Ackroyd said, “She’s an efficient woman who’s done a great deal to put the place in order, but I wish she knew where to stop. You can see the general layout. That first room on the left is the picture gallery, the next is Sports and Entertainment, the third is the History Room. And there on the right we have Costumes, Theatre and Cinema. The library is on the floor above and so is the Murder Room. Obviously you’ll be interested to see the pictures and the library, and perhaps the rest of the rooms, and I’d like to come with you. Still, I need to work.
We’d better start with the Murder Room.”

  Ignoring the lift, he led the way up the central staircase, sprightly as ever. Dalgliesh followed, aware that Muriel Godby was watching at her desk as if still uncertain whether they were safe to be left unescorted. They had reached the Murder Room on the east side and at the back of the house when a door at the top of the stairs opened. There was the sound of raised voices suddenly cut off and a man came hurriedly out, hesitated briefly when he saw Dalgliesh and Ackroyd, then gave them a nod of acknowledgement and made for the stairs, his long coat flapping as if caught in the vehemence of his exit. Dalgliesh had a fleeting impression of an undisciplined thatch of dark hair and angry eyes in a flushed face. Almost at once another figure appeared standing in the doorway. He showed no surprise at encountering visitors but spoke directly to Ackroyd.

  “What’s it for, the museum? That’s what Neville Dupayne has just asked. What’s it for? It makes me wonder if he’s his father’s son, except that poor Madeleine was so boringly virtuous. Not enough vitality for sexual capers. Good to see you here again.”

  He looked at Dalgliesh. “Who’s this?”

  The question could have sounded offensive if it had not been asked in a voice of genuine puzzlement and interest, as if he were faced with a new if not particularly interesting acquisition.

  Ackroyd said, “Good afternoon, James. This is a friend of mine, Adam Dalgliesh. Adam, meet James Calder-Hale, curator and presiding genius of the Dupayne Museum.”

  Calder-Hale was tall and thin almost to the point of emaciation, with a long bony face and a wide, precisely shaped mouth. His hair, falling across a high forehead, was greying erratically with strands of pale gold streaked with white, giving him a touch of theatricality. His eyes, under brows so defined that they could have been plucked, were intelligent, giving strength to a face which otherwise could have been described as gentle. Dalgliesh was not deceived by this seeming sensitivity; he had known men of force and physical action with the faces of unworldly scholars. Calder-Hale was wearing narrow and creased trousers, a striped shirt with a pale blue tie unusually wide and loosely tied, checked carpet slippers and a long grey cardigan reaching almost to his knees. His apparent anger had been expressed in a high falsetto of irritation which Dalgliesh suspected might be more histrionic than genuine.