“Did you give her any details about how the blackmail was organized?”
“I told her that my husband had sent fifteen pounds a month in an envelope addressed in green ink. That’s when she became suddenly very anxious that I should visit the clinic or at least leave my name. It was rude of me to ring off without ending the conversation but I suddenly became frightened. I don’t know why. And I had said all that I meant to say. One of the chairs in the restroom was vacant by then, so I sat down for half an hour until I felt better. Then I went straight to Charing Cross and had some coffee and sandwiches in the buffet there and waited for my train home. I read about the murder in the paper on Saturday and I’m afraid I took it for granted that one of the other victims—for there must have been others, surely—had taken that way out. I didn’t connect the crime with my telephone call, at least, not at first. Then I began to wonder whether it might not be my duty to let the police know what had been going on at that dreadful place. Yesterday I talked to my husband about it and we decided to do nothing in a hurry. We thought it might be best to wait and see whether we received any further calls from the blackmailer. I wasn’t very happy about our silence. There haven’t been many details of the murder in the papers, so I don’t know what exactly happened. But I did realize that the blackmail might be in some way connected with the crime and that the police would wish to know about it. While I was still worrying about what to do, Dr. Etherege telephoned. You know the rest. I’m still wondering how you managed to trace me.”
“We found you in the same way as the blackmailer picked out Colonel Fenton, from the clinic diagnostic index and the medical record. You mustn’t think that they don’t look after their confidential papers at the Steen. They do. Dr. Etherege is very distressed indeed about the blackmail. But no system is completely proof against clever and deliberate wickedness.”
“You will find him, won’t you?” she asked. “You will find him?”
“Thanks to you, I think we shall,” Dalgliesh replied.
As he held out his hand to say good-bye, she suddenly asked: “What was she like, Superintendent? I mean the woman who was murdered. Tell me about Miss Bolam.”
Dalgliesh said: “She was forty-one years old. Not married. I never saw her alive but she had light-brown hair and blue-grey eyes. She was rather stout, wide browed, thin mouthed. She was an only child and both her parents were dead. She lived rather a lonely life but her church meant a great deal to her and she was a Guide captain. She liked children and flowers. She was conscientious and efficient but not very good at understanding people. She was kind when they were in trouble but they thought her rigid, humourless and censorious. I think they were probably right. She had a great sense of duty.”
“I am responsible for her death. I have to accept that.”
Dalgliesh said gently: “That’s nonsense, you know. Only one person is responsible and, thanks to you, we shall get him.”
She shook her head. “If I had come to you in the first place or even had the courage to turn up at the clinic instead of telephoning, she would be alive today.”
Dalgliesh thought that Louise Fenton deserved better than to be pacified with easy lies. And they would have brought no comfort. Instead he replied: “I suppose that could be true. There are so many ‘ifs.’ She would be alive today if her group secretary had cancelled a meeting and hurried to the clinic, if she herself had gone at once to see him, if an old porter hadn’t had stomach ache. You did what you thought right and no one can do more.”
“So did she, poor woman,” replied Mrs. Fenton. “And look where it led her.”
She patted Dalgliesh briefly on the shoulder, as if it were he who needed the comfort and reassurance.
“I didn’t mean to bore you. Please forgive me. You’ve been very patient and kind. Might I ask one more question? You said that, thanks to me, you would get this murderer. Do you know now who it is?”
“Yes,” said Dalgliesh. “I think I now know who it is.”
7
Back in his office at the Yard just over two hours later, Dalgliesh talked over the case with Sergeant Martin. The file lay open on the desk before him.
“You got corroboration of Mrs. Fenton’s story all right, sir?”
“Oh, yes. The colonel was quite forthcoming. Now that he’s recovered from the twin ordeals of his operation and the confession to his wife, he’s inclined to take both experiences rather lightly. He even suggested that the request for money could have been genuine and that it was reasonable to assume that it was. I had to point out that a woman has been murdered before he faced the realities of the situation. Then he gave me the full story. It agreed with what Mrs. Fenton had told me except for one interesting addition. I give you three guesses.”
“Would it be about the burglary? It was Fenton, I suppose?”
“Damn you, Martin, you might make an effort sometimes to look surprised. Yes, it was our colonel. But he didn’t take the fifteen pounds. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. The money was his, after all. He admits himself that he would have taken it back if he’d seen it, but, of course, he didn’t. He was there for quite another purpose, to get hold of that medical record. He was a bit out of his depth in most things but he did realize that the medical record was the only real evidence of what happened when he was a patient at the Steen. He mucked up his burglary attempt, of course, despite having practised glass-cutting in his greenhouse, and made an undignified exit when he heard Nagle and Cully arriving. He got nowhere near the record he wanted. He assumed it was in one of the files in the general office and managed to prise those open. When he saw that the records were filed numerically, he knew he couldn’t succeed. He had long forgotten his clinic number. I expect he put it firmly out of his mind when he felt he was cured.”
“Well, the clinic did that for him, anyway.”
“He doesn’t admit it, I can tell you. I believe that’s not uncommon with psychiatric patients. It must be rather disheartening for psychiatrists. After all, you don’t get surgical patients claiming that they could have performed their own operation given half a chance. No, the colonel isn’t feeling particularly grateful to the Steen nor inclined to give the clinic much credit for keeping him out of trouble. I suppose he could be right. I don’t imagine that Dr. Etherege would claim that you can do a great deal for a psychiatric patient in four months which was the length of time Fenton attended. His cure—if you can call it that—probably had something to do with leaving the army. It’s difficult to judge whether he welcomed that or dreaded it. Anyway, we’d better resist the temptation to be amateur psychologists.”
“What sort of man is the colonel, sir?”
“Small. Probably looks smaller because of his illness. Sandy hair; bushy eyebrows. Rather like a small, fierce animal glaring out from its hole. A much weaker personality than his wife, I’d say, despite Mrs. Fenton’s apparent frailty. Admittedly it’s difficult to be at one’s best lying in a hospital bed wearing a striped bed jacket and with a formidable Sister warning one to be a good boy and not talk too long. He wasn’t very helpful about the telephone voice. He says that it sounded like a woman and it never occurred to him that it mightn’t be. On the other hand he wasn’t surprised when I suggested that the voice could have been disguised. But he’s honest and, obviously, he can’t go further than that. He just doesn’t know. Still, we’ve got the motive. This is one of those rare cases in which knowing why is knowing who.”