Death on the Air Page 2

  His arrival had been unexpected and occurred, you might say, out of nothing. One of the questions writers are most often asked about characters in their books is whether they are based upon people in the workaday world – ‘real people’. Some of mine certainly are but they have gone through various mutations and in doing so have moved away from their original begetters. But not this one. He, as far as I can tell, had no begetter apart from his author. He came in without introduction and if, for this reason, there is an element of unreality about him, I can only say that for me, at least, he was and is very real indeed.

  Dorothy L Sayers has been castigated, with some justification perhaps, for falling in love with her Wimsey. To have done so may have been an error in taste and judgment though her ardent fans would never have admitted as much. I can’t say I have ever succumbed in this way to my own investigator but I have grown to like him as an old friend. I even dare to think he has developed third-dimensionally in my company. We have travelled widely: in a night express through the North Island of New Zealand, and among the geysers, boiling mud and snow-clad mountains of that country. We have cruised along English canals and walked through the streets and monuments of Rome. His duties have taken us to an island off the coast of Normandy and to the backstage regions of several theatres. He has sailed with a psychopathic homicide from Tilbury to Cape Town and has made arrests in at least three country houses, one hospital, a church, a canal boat and a pub. Small wonder, perhaps, that we have both broadened our outlook under the pressure of these undertakings, none of which was anticipated on that wet afternoon in London.

  At his first appearance he was a bachelor and, although responsive to the opposite sex, did not bounce in and out of irresponsible beds when going about his job. Or, if he did, I knew nothing about it. He was, to all intents and purposes, fancy-free and would remain so until, sailing out of Suva in Fiji, he came across Agatha Troy, painting in oils, on the boat deck of a liner. And that was still some half-dozen books in the future.

  There would be consternation shown by editors and publishers when, after another couple of jobs, the lady accepted him. The acceptance would be a fait accompli, and from then on I would be dealing with a married investigator, his celebrated wife, and later on, their son.

  By a series of coincidences and much against his inclination, it would come about that these two would occasionally get themselves embroiled in his professional duties, but generally speaking he would keep his job out of his family life. He would set about his cases with his regular associate, who is one of his closest friends; Inspector Fox, massive, calm, and plain-thinking, would tramp sedately in. They have been working together for a considerable time, and still allow me to accompany them.

  But ‘on the afternoon in question,’ all this, as lady crime novelists used to say, ‘lay in the future.’ The fire had burnt clear and sent leaping patterns up the walls of my London flat when I turned on the light, opened an exercise book, sharpened my pencil, and began to write. There he was, waiting quietly in the background ready to make his entrance at Chapter IV, page 58, in the first edition.

  I had company. It became necessary to give my visitor a name.

  Earlier in that week I had visited Dulwich College. This is an English public school, which in any other country would mean a private school. It was founded and very richly endowed by a famous actor in the days of the first Elizabeth. It possesses a splendid picture gallery and a fabulous collection of relics from the Shakespearean-Marlovian theatre: enthralling to me who has a passion for that scene.

  My father was an old boy of Dulwich College – an ‘old Alleynian’, as it is called, the name of the Elizabethan actor being Alleyn.

  Detective-Inspector Alleyn, CID? Yes.

  His first name was in doubt for some time, but another visit, this time to friends in the Highlands of Scotland, had familiarized me with some resoundingly-named characters, among them one Roderick (or Rory) MacDonald.

  Roderick Alleyn, Detective-Inspector, CID?

  Yes.

  The name, by the way, is pronounced ‘Allen’.

  PORTRAIT OF TROY

  Troy made her entrance with the sixth of the books about Alleyn. In those days, I still painted quite a lot and quite seriously, and was inclined to look upon everything I saw in terms of possible subject matter.

  On a voyage out to New Zealand from England, we called at Suva. The day was overcast, still and sultry. The kind of day when sounds have an uncanny clarity, and colour an added sharpness and intensity. The wharf at Suva, as seen from the boat-deck of the Niagara, was remarkable in these respects: the acid green of a bale of bananas packed in their own leaves; the tall Fijian with a mop of hair dyed screaming magenta, this colour repeated in the sari of an Indian woman; the slap of bare feet on wet boards and the deep voices that sounded as if they were projected through pipes. All these elements made their impressions, and I felt a great itch for a paint brush between my fingers.

  The ship drew away, the wharf receded, and I was left with an unattempted, non-existent picture that is as vivid today as it was then.

  I don’t think it is overdoing it to say that when I began Artists in Crime, it was this feeling of unfulfilment that led me to put another painter on another boat deck making a sketch of the wharf at Suva and that she made a much better job of it than I ever would have done.

  This was Troy. It was in this setting that she and Alleyn first met.

  I have always tried to keep the settings of my books as far as possible within the confines of my own experience. Having found Troy and decided that Alleyn was to find her, too, the rest of the book developed in the milieu of a painters’ community. It was written before capital punishment was abolished in Great Britain, and Troy shared my own repugnance for that terrible practice: I had talked with a detective-inspector and learnt that there were more men in the force who were for abolition than was commonly supposed. I knew Alleyn would be one of them. He would sense that the shadow of the death penalty lay between himself and Troy. It was not until the end of the next book, Death in a White Tie, that they came finally together. In Death and the Dancing Footman, they are already married.

  My London agent, I remember, was a bit dubious about marrying Alleyn off. There is a school of thought that considers love interest, where the investigating character is involved, should be kept off stage in detective fiction or at least handled in a rather gingerly fashion and got rid of with alacrity. Conan Doyle seems to have taken this view.

  ‘To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman’, he begins, writing of Irene Adler. But after a couple of sentences expressive of romantic attachment, he knocks that idea sideways by stating that, as far as Holmes was concerned, all emotions (sexual attraction in particular) were ‘abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind’.

  So much for Miss Adler.

  An exception to the negative attitude appears in Bentley’s classic Trent’s Last Case, where the devotion of Trent for one of the suspects is a basic ingredient of the investigation. Dorothy L Sayers, however, turns the whole thing inside out by herself regrettably falling in love with her own creation and making rather an ass of both of them in the process.

  Troy came along at a time when thoroughly nice girls were often called Dulcie, Edith, Cecily, Mona, Madeleine. Even, alas, Gladys. I wanted her to have a plain, rather down-to-earth first name and thought of Agatha – not because of Christie – and a rather odd surname that went well with it, so she became Agatha Troy and always signed her pictures ‘Troy’ and was so addressed by everyone. Death in a White Tie might have been called Siege of Troy.

  Her painting is far from academic but not always non-figurative. One of its most distinguished characteristics is a very subtle sense of movement brought about by the interrelationships of form and line. Her greatest regret is that she never painted the portrait of Isabella Sommita, which was commissioned in the book I am at present writing. The diva was to have been portrayed with her mouth wide open, let
ting fly with her celebrated A above high C. It is questionable whether she would have been pleased with the result. It would have been called Top Note.

  Troy and Alleyn suit each other. Neither impinges upon the other’s work without being asked, with the result that in Troy’s case she does ask pretty often, sometimes gets argumentative and uptight over the answer and almost always ends up by following the suggestion. She misses Alleyn very much when they are separated. This is often the case, given the nature of their work, and on such occasions each feels incomplete and they write to each other like lovers.

  Perhaps it is advisable, on grounds of credibility, not to make too much of the number of times coincidence mixes Troy up in her husband’s cases: a situation that he embraces with mixed feelings. She is a reticent character and as sensitive as a sea urchin, but she learns to assume and even feel a certain detachment.

  ‘After all,’ she has said to herself, ‘I married him and I would be a very boring wife if I spent half my time wincing and showing sensitive.’

  I like Troy. When I am writing about her, I can see her with her shortish dark hair, thin face and hands. She’s absentminded, shy and funny, and she can paint like nobody’s business. I’m always glad when other people like her, too.

  DEATH ON THE AIR

  Death on the Air was first published in Grand Magazine, 1936

  On the 25th of December at 7.30 a.m. Mr Septimus Tonks was found dead beside his wireless set.

  It was Emily Parks, an under-housemaid, who discovered him. She butted open the door and entered, carrying mop, duster, and carpet-sweeper. At that precise moment she was greatly startled by a voice that spoke out of the darkness.

  ‘Good morning, everybody,’ said the voice in superbly inflected syllables, ‘and a Merry Christmas!’

  Emily yelped, but not loudly, as she immediately realized what had happened. Mr Tonks had omitted to turn off his wireless before going to bed. She drew back the curtains, revealing a kind of pale murk which was a London Christmas dawn, switched on the light, and saw Septimus.

  He was seated in front of the radio. It was a small but expensive set, specially built for him. Septimus sat in an armchair, his back to Emily and his body tilted towards the wireless.

  His hands, the fingers curiously bunched, were on the ledge of the cabinet under the tuning and volume knobs. His chest rested against the shelf below and his head leaned on the front panel.

  He looked rather as though he was listening intently to the interior secrets of the wireless. His head was bent so that Emily could see the bald top with its trail of oiled hairs. He did not move.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ gasped Emily. She was again greatly startled. Mr Tonks’ enthusiasm for radio had never before induced him to tune in at seven thirty in the morning.

  ‘Special Christmas service,’ the cultured voice was saying. Mr Tonks sat very still. Emily, in common with the other servants, was terrified of her master. She did not know whether to go or to stay. She gazed wildly at Septimus and realized that he wore a dinner-jacket. The room was now filled with the clamour of pealing bells.

  Emily opened her mouth as wide as it would go and screamed and screamed and screamed…

  Chase, the butler, was the first to arrive. He was a pale, flabby man but authoritative. He said: ‘What’s the meaning of this outrage?’ and then saw Septimus. He went to the armchair, bent down, and looked into his master’s face.

  He did not lose his head, but said in a loud voice: ‘My Gawd!’ And then to Emily: ‘Shut your face.’ By this vulgarism he betrayed his agitation. He seized Emily by the shoulders and thrust her towards the door, where they were met by Mr Hislop, the secretary, in his dressing-gown.

  Mr Hislop said: ‘Good heavens, Chase, what is the meaning—’ and then his voice too was drowned in the clamour of bells and renewed screams.

  Chase put his fat white hand over Emily’s mouth.

  ‘In the study if you please, sir. An accident. Go to your room, will you, and stop that noise or I’ll give you something to make you.’ This to Emily, who bolted down the hall, where she was received by the rest of the staff who had congregated there.

  Chase returned to the study with Mr Hislop and locked the door. They both looked down at the body of Septimus Tonks. The secretary was the first to speak.

  ‘But – but – he’s dead,’ said little Mr Hislop.

  ‘I suppose there can’t be any doubt,’ whispered Chase.

  ‘Look at the face. Any doubt! My God!’

  Mr Hislop put out a delicate hand towards the bent head and then drew it back. Chase, less fastidious, touched one of the hard wrists, gripped, and then lifted it. The body at once tipped backwards as if it was made of wood. One of the hands knocked against the butler’s face. He sprang back with an oath.

  There lay Septimus, his knees and his hands in the air, his terrible face turned up to the light. Chase pointed to the right hand. Two fingers and the thumb were slightly blackened.

  Ding, dong, dang, ding,

  ‘For God’s sake stop those bells,’ cried Mr Hislop. Chase turned off the wall switch. Into the sudden silence came the sound of the door handle being rattled and Guy Tonks’ voice on the other side.

  ‘Hislop! Mr Hislop! Chase! What’s the matter?’

  ‘Just a moment, Mr Guy.’ Chase looked at the secretary. ‘You go, sir.’

  So it was left to Mr Hislop to break the news to the family. They listened to his stammering revelation in stupefied silence. It was not until Guy, the eldest of the three children, stood in the study that any practical suggestion was made.

  ‘What has killed him?’ asked Guy.

  ‘It’s extraordinary,’ burbled Hislop. ‘Extraordinary. He looks as if he’d been—’

  ‘Galvanized,’ said Guy.

  ‘We ought to send for a doctor,’ suggested Hislop timidly.

  ‘Of course. Will you, Mr Hislop? Dr Meadows.’

  Hislop went to the telephone and Guy returned to his family. Dr Meadows lived on the other side of the square and arrived in five minutes. He examined the body without moving it. He questioned Chase and Hislop. Chase was very voluble about the burns on the hand. He uttered the word ‘electrocution’ over and over again.

  ‘I had a cousin, sir, that was struck by lightning. As soon as I saw the hand—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Dr Meadows. ‘So you said. I can see the burns for myself.’

  ‘Electrocution,’ repeated Chase. ‘There’ll have to be an inquest.’

  Dr Meadows snapped at him, summoned Emily, and then saw the rest of the family – Guy, Arthur, Phillipa, and their mother. They were clustered round a cold grate in the drawing room. Phillipa was on her knees, trying to light the fire.

  ‘What was it?’ asked Arthur as soon as the doctor came in.

  ‘Looks like electric shock. Guy, I’ll have a word with you if you please. Phillipa, look after your mother, there’s a good child. Coffee with a dash of brandy. Where are those damn maids? Come on, Guy.’

  Alone with Guy, he said they’d have to send for the police.

  ‘The police!’ Guy’s dark face turned very pale. ‘Why? What’s it got to do with them?’

  ‘Nothing, as like as not, but they’ll have to be notified. I can’t give a certificate as things are. If it’s electrocution, how did it happen?’

  ‘But the police!’ said Guy. ‘That’s simply ghastly. Dr Meadows, for God’s sake couldn’t you—?’

  ‘No,’ said Dr Meadows, ‘I couldn’t. Sorry, Guy, but there it is.’

  ‘But can’t we wait a moment? Look at him again. You haven’t examined him properly.’

  ‘I don’t want to move him, that’s why. Pull yourself together, boy. Look here. I’ve got a pal in the CID – Alleyn. He’s a gentleman and all that. He’ll curse me like a fury, but he’ll come if he’s in London, and he’ll make things easier for you. Go back to your mother. I’ll ring Alleyn up.’

  That was how it came about that Chief Detective Inspector Roderick
Alleyn spent his Christmas Day in harness. As a matter of fact he was on duty, and as he pointed out to Dr Meadows, would have had to turn out and visit his miserable Tonkses in any case. When he did arrive it was with his usual air of remote courtesy. He was accompanied by a tall, thickset officer – Inspector Fox – and by the divisional police surgeon, Dr Meadows took them into the study. Alleyn, in his turn, looked at the horror that had been Septimus.

  ‘Was he like this when he was found?’

  ‘No. I understand he was leaning forward with his hands on the ledge of the cabinet. He must have slumped forward and been propped up by the chair arms and the cabinet.’

  ‘Who moved him?’

  ‘Chase, the butler. He said he only meant to raise the arm. Rigor is well established.’

  Alleyn put his hand behind the rigid neck and pushed. The body fell forward into its original position.

  ‘There you are, Curtis,’ said Alleyn to the divisional surgeon. He turned to Fox. ‘Get the camera man, will you, Fox?’

  The photographer took four shots and departed. Alleyn marked the position of the hands and feet with chalk, made a careful plan of the room and then turned to the doctors.

  ‘Is it electrocution, do you think?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Curtis. ‘Have to be a p.m. of course.’

  ‘Of course. Still, look at the hands. Burns. Thumb and two fingers bunched together and exactly the distance between the two knobs apart. He’d been tuning his hurdy-gurdy.’

  ‘By gum,’ said Inspector Fox, speaking for the first time.

  ‘D’you mean he got a lethal shock from his radio?’ asked Dr Meadows.