by Carola Dunn
Alec let her go. He and Tom went on to interview all those who had been cleared of the attack on Bincombe by her, Daisy’s, and Lucy’s evidence.
Asked about tea-time, several people mentioned a row between Sally and Angela over the latter bringing her dog into the drawing room. Flora Fotheringay had overheard Lord Carleton speaking most disagreeably, not to say cuttingly, to his wife—making her glad not to be married. Mrs. Bancroft had drawn her husband’s attention to her mother, Lady Devenish, observing that she looked quite haggard. Sally had had to speak sharply to Jennifer, who seemed distracted and had slopped some tea into a saucer. Mrs. Henry Fotheringay had noticed Teddy Devenish, because she had had to admonish her elder daughter to stop making eyes at him.
Unfortunately, no one had any idea when these events had occurred. Most had not arrived on time and all agreed that people had been coming and going constantly.
The only two who had anything useful to report were Erica Pendleton and Julia Lasbury. They had wasted (Erica’s word) twenty minutes on Teddy Devenish before his disillusionment with women ceased to be provocative and became boring. They had ambushed (Tom’s word) the unhappy young man on his arrival in the drawing room a couple of minutes before the servants brought in the tea-things, prompt at quarter to five. Teddy Devenish could not have poisoned Lord Fotheringay, nor assaulted Lord Gerald.
“But he still could have strangled his grandma,” Tom pointed out, “and Lady Devenish could have done the rest to protect him.”
Lady Devenish and Sir James, Lord and Lady Carleton—the latter with no known motive, Mr. Montagu and John Walsdorf all still belonged on the list.
Meanwhile, on one of his trips back and forth to fetch people, Piper reported that the night nurse had arrived. The patient’s condition was unchanged, he said, Mrs. Reverend looked dead on her feet, and he had told her the Chief wouldn’t mind if she went straight to bed. Considering what Nancy Fotheringay had done that day, Alec was surprised she was capable of standing. Her stamina was as remarkable as her kindness.
A little later, Piper had brought in Sir Leonard. His four fresh constables had turned up at last. One at the lodge gate, one outside Lord Gerald’s room—what were the other two to do?
Alec tried to recall what he had wanted them for. Search for the weapon? Piper had found the cricket bat, for all the good it did them. “It would take an army to cover all the outside doors,” he thought aloud.
“Luckily these aren’t the sort of people who can sneak off across the park and disappear into the populace,” Sir Leonard offered. He was looking a little glassy-eyed.
“No. We’ll station one of your men in the conservatory. The doors are locked but there may be other keys around. I want it thoroughly examined in daylight. We could easily have missed something. The other chap had better patrol the house, to reassure people.”
“Most of them have gone up to bed, except those few you haven’t seen yet.”
“It’s past one o’clock, Chief,” Tom murmured.
“Lady Carleton, Ernie,” said Alec wearily. “She’s going to be upset if we’ve kept her up for nothing. All the rest we saw earlier. They can wait till morning, but give them my apologies.”
Lady Carleton entered accompanied by Ursula. “Since you won’t let me take my daughter home, I’m not letting her out of my sight,” she announced, wilted but still militant, “until you catch this maniac. She should have been in bed hours ago.”
Behind her back, Ernie Piper shrugged and rolled his eyes.
Alec gave him a resigned nod. “As you wish, Lady Carleton. Perhaps Miss Ursula can help us too.”
“I won’t have her badgered. She’s very sensitive.”
“I don’t mind, Mummy. It’s all too frightfully exciting for words,” Ursula enthused, not at all wilted. “The girls at school will be wild with envy when they hear I’ve been questioned by a real Scotland Yard ’tec!”
“Let’s start with you, then,” Alec said with a smile. “Tell me what you did at tea-time.”
“Mummy didn’t want to go down, because of there being a murderer on the loose. She didn’t want to go to lunch either, but Daddy made her. He said everyone would think one of us had killed Aunt Eva if we didn’t appear.”
“What nonsense, Ursula! As though anyone could possibly suppose such a thing.”
“That’s what he said,” Ursula persisted. “Anyway, I was simply starving again by tea-time, and I’d just persuaded Mummy to ring for a servant and ask to have tea brought up to the room—hers and Daddy’s—when Daddy came in and said not to be ridiculous, we must go down. Mummy wouldn’t go without him, so we all went. We were so late I thought there might not be any cakes and biscuits left, but it was all right, there was plenty for everyone. Sally even told Mrs. Walsdorf to send a maid for more hot water for the tea.”
“Aunt Sally,” her mother corrected her.
“She told me to call her Sally, Mummy, because Aunt Sally sounds like a fun fair—you know, the thing you throw things at—and we’re the same generation even if she is a bit older than me.”
“Thank you, Miss Ursula,” Alec said, cutting off whatever Lady Carleton was about to say. “Now, what about after dinner?”
Ursula pouted. “Mummy made me go upstairs with her. It’s not fair, Alice and Mary stayed down for coffee with the grown-ups. Then after a bit, Daddy came and said Lord Gerald had been attacked, and Mummy said she was going to try again to get you to let her take me home. Then you said everyone should wait in the drawing room, so we did.”
“Is that correct, Lady Carleton?”
“Yes, yes, but it really is most improper for a girl not yet out to call a woman ten years her elder by her christian name.”
“Never mind, Mummy, we’ll be calling her Lady Fotheringay after the funeral.”
“Ursula! And when have you attended a fun fair, I’d like to know?”
“Never,” her daughter lied promptly. “Some of the other girls talked about them. Is that all, Detective Chief Inspector? You see, Mummy, there was nothing to it. But what a story I’ll make of it when I get back to school!”
“Ursula, it is not a story we want spread about!”
Piper ushered them out, Lady Carleton expostulating all the way.
In spite of the girl’s obvious untruthfulness when it suited her, Alec believed her report. It exonerated her mother, but left her father completely unaccounted for at the crucial times.
Lord Carleton, Sir James and Lady Devenish, Montagu Fotheringay and John Walsdorf, Alec thought as he climbed the stairs towards bed, hoping Daisy was not sleeping too soundly She’d be pleased to hear the long list had shortened to five. No, six. He kept forgetting Teddy Devenish, because the boy had been in the library when Bincombe was attacked. He was still very much in the picture for his grandmother’s murder.
Alec could only trust it would not take another murder to narrow the six down to one.
23
“Are you awake, darling?”
“I am now.”
“Sorry!” Daisy kissed Alec’s ear in a most unsorry fashion.
He rolled over and took her in his arms. The ensuing interlude was entirely satisfactory to both.
The tower clock chimed eight. Alec sat up abruptly.
“I asked you to wake me at seven thirty!”
“I did. There’s no hurry. No one will be up for ages. You’ll think better if you’re rested. Lie down, darling, you’re letting a draught in.”
He obeyed, muttering, “I bet Tom and Ernie are up.”
“Haven’t they got things they can do without you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I told Tom to have another go at the servants this morning, and to see if he can find the gardener who assisted Lord Fotheringay in the conservatory. Thank heaven I have a sergeant I can rely on to ask the right questions without detailed instructions! And Ernie’s to go over the conservatory with a fine-tooth comb. We couldn’t do a thorough job by oil lamp and electric torch.”
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bsp; “That made it even beastlier finding him.” Daisy shivered, and Alec put his arm around her. “The gloom and shadows, I mean. I hope he’s survived the night. Or maybe I don’t, if he’s going to die anyway.”
“I shouldn’t tell you this, love, and you are absolutely not to repeat it to a soul, not even Lucy: the police surgeon is actually quite hopeful that Bincombe will come round.”
“Thank heaven! But why … Oh, you’re afraid the murderer might have another go at him if he’s afraid he’s recovering. Have you any idea who it is? You must have knocked a few people off the list, at least.”
“Just six names left. Last night that seemed an awful lot, but this morning it seems not too bad, considering how short a time we’ve been on the case and how many suspects we started with.”
“Good going. Who are they?”
“Daisy, you know that’s another thing I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Yes, you should,” she argued. “Otherwise how can I know whom to beware of? After all, it’s me he’s likely to come after next.”
“I hope not. It should be obvious that you’ve told me all you know.”
“That’s what I told people last night. But still, I’d be much more comfortable knowing, darling.”
With a sigh he gave in. “Lord Carleton. Sir James and Lady Devenish and Teddy—at least for Lady Eva’s murder, assuming conspiracy. And Montagu Fotheringay and John Walsdorf.”
“Not John Walsdorf. I was alone with him long before I had a chance to tell you everything. In fact, he could easily have read my note to you saying I had things to tell you. He wasn’t even one of the people who came up here and insisted on talking to me.”
“No? Who was? Tom only told me about Montagu.”
“Jennifer … Oh!”
“Oh indeed,” Alec said grimly. “Don’t write off John Walsdorf yet.”
“She left a bromide for me, in case I couldn’t sleep.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Come to think of it, she actually brought it for Lucy, who didn’t want it. But she left it on the little table by the door.” Daisy sat up. “Yes, it’s still there. Are you going to have it analysed?”
“Most definitely”
“Jennifer may not have known anything about anything John did.” She snuggled down again. “I suppose Lady Eva knew something about him?”
“Yes, and I’m not telling you what.”
“I wonder if it had anything to do with his letter.”
“His letter? Daisy, what have you been keeping from me now?”
“Nothing, really. I keep forgetting about it. Only when I went to the library first thing to call the doctor and police about Lady Eva, he was already there and writing something. He shoved it under the blotter when he saw me. Then this evening, after I found Gerald, Ernie Piper gave me the blotter to lean on when I wrote you that note. When I put it back on the desk, I saw Walsdorf’s letter lying there.”
“Did you read it?” Alec demanded.
“Darling, one simply doesn’t read other people’s letters.”
“Great Scott, Daisy, this is a murder investigation!”
“Actually, it was in a foreign language,” Daisy confessed. “I can’t see what it could possibly have to do with the murders.”
“We can’t tell unless we read it.”
Alec swung his legs out of bed, running his fingers through the crisp dark hair that never looked ruffled. He rubbed a hand over his chin. “I’ll have to shave.”
“And dress, darling. You don’t look very official in your pyjamas.”
“No?” he said in mock disappointment. “I thought you got me the dark blue for when I’m called out in the middle of the night.”
“Bel chose them, remember. You look very handsome in them, but not official. I’ll dig out your clothes while you wash and shave.”
“Thanks, love.”
A maid had unpacked his bag, the one that was kept in constant readiness at the Yard, and tucked the clean shirts and underwear and the large supply of handkerchiefs away in the chest of drawers. Even before they were married, Daisy had learnt that he always carried extra hankies for weeping witnesses and sobbing suspects.
She ferreted out vest, pants, socks and shirt. Finding his tie where he had discarded it the night before, she rolled it up tightly in an attempt to smooth it, as she didn’t want to waste time summoning a maid to iron it. He always wore his Royal Flying Corps tie when dealing with the upper classes. Not having a public school or club tie, it was the best he could do to put himself on a level with those who cared about such things, and it often helped.
He had hung up his suit neatly in the wardrobe, and the tie came out of its roll looking quite respectable, though the narrow end had a tendency to curl inward.
“Thanks, love,” said Alec, coming through from the bathroom to find all his clothes neatly laid out for him. “I think I’ll keep you.”
“What a relief! I assume all the people left on your list are on Lady Eva’s, too.”
“Yes, but I really am not going to tell you what for.”
“No, but you can tell me whether they’ve admitted knowing she knew.”
“Some have. Let me think: Montagu and Sir James, oh, and Teddy. Lady Devenish equivocated but I’m pretty sure of her. Walsdorf and Carleton adamantly deny Lady Eva ever spoke to them.”
“That’s interesting. Her son, daughter-in-law and brother on one side and distant relatives by marriage on the other. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were telling the truth. Why should she care if Walsdorf and Carleton misbehaved? The others might bring scandal on her family.”
Alec stopped buttoning his shirt and stared. “You may have a point there, Daisy. If I can just remember which of the others … Teddy Devenish, her grandson, had been spoken to severely. Lady Ione you know about—she was her niece.”
“There you are, then. If she hadn’t spoken to Walsdorf and Carleton, they had no motive to do her in.”
“It’s only a theory, but I must say it’s quite persuasive. I’ll keep it in mind. By the way, there’s one other suspect I forgot to mention. Tom thinks we ought to add Baines to the list.”
“Tom thinks the butler did it?” Daisy asked in astonishment.
“No, but he is the only servant with a key to the connecting door.”
“He might have had a chance to poison Lord Fotheringay’s tea, too, but I bet he was in the housekeeper’s room after dinner, drinking port and discussing the shocking doings. The coffee was in a Thermos. Servants expect to have time off in the evenings these days, even when people are being murdered right, left and centre. Gosh, I do hope Dr. Philpotts is right about Gerald!”
“No more fervently than I do. Quite apart from his being a good chap, I dread to think what Superintendent Crane and the AC are going to say about this débâcle.”
“There’s absolutely no need to worry about that, darling,” said Daisy. “They will undoubtedly blame the whole thing on me.”
Downstairs, Alec went first to enquire after Lord Gerald. The young uniformed constable on guard came to attention and saluted smartly.
“Anyone asking after him?” Alec asked.
“Just the one toff last night, sir. Gentleman, that is. Came when everyone else’d just gone upstairs.” He consulted his notebook. “Lieutenant Colonel Fotheringay. Said he’s by way of being acting host and besides, he needed to know in case his grandfather asked, which is Lord Haverhill, he said, which owns this place.”
“And you told him … ?”
“Lord Gerald Bincombe is unconscious, sir, and like to stay that way till he dies. That’s what the nurse says, anyways, sir. She come out a couple of times to the cloakroom, and that’s what she told me. PC Jones, he’s the man patrolling the house, he stopped here for a minute a couple of times so I could go piss, sir, and he said no one came while I was gone. Then this morning, the butler came to ask and I told him the same.”
Both entirely natural enquiries, Alec thought.
>
“And DS Tring, he came by, too, an hour ago maybe. Said to tell you he’d be talking to the servants and DC Piper was in the conservatory.”
“All right. I’ll arrange for someone to take over here as soon as I can.” He knocked gently and went on into the room.
Mrs. Maple had provided a Chinese-painted rattan screen to keep draughts from the door off the patient. The nurse came around it, finger to her lips. A plump, middle-aged woman, in a white cap and starched apron, she looked almost as crisp and alert as when Alec had spoken to her briefly last night, explaining what he wanted her to say about her patient’s condition.
“He’s moving his hands about, sir,” she said in a low voice, “and once or twice I’ve thought I heard him muttering.”
“A good sign?”
“Compared to what he was. Likely he’ll come round, I’d say But whether he’ll make sense and whether he’ll recover or relapse, your guess is as good as mine.”
Alec went round the screen. Bincombe lay still as a log, but it was possible to imagine that he had a touch of colour in his face. Alec felt hope rising.
“If he says anything you can make sense of, make sure you write it down and let me know at once. You’re all right until someone comes to relieve you?” he asked the nurse.
“Not to worry, sir, I’m good for as long as it takes. There’s many a time I’ve been on my feet all night. This was nothing.”
He thanked her and went to join Piper in the conservatory.
He found his detective constable helping a grizzled gardener repot the fallen palm.
“It’s what his lordship would’ve wanted,” the old man said doggedly, tears rolling unnoticed down his ruddy, seamed cheeks. “Just done it a couple o’ days ago, us did, him and me, seeing it was getting cramped in the old pot. Very slow grower, this here tree, and a rare ’un. Us’ve had it a dunnamany years. It grows leaning, see, on a slant like, and the top o’ the trunk’s thicker nor the bottom. And the loose soil in the new pot didn’t help none, else it wouldn‘t’ve fallen. The rest o’ the palms, the rootball gets that tight and heavy they’d just go on standing there, was you to break their pots. Mebbe you can tell me, sir, seeing this young fella can’t, who killed his lordship, that never did none any harm?”