A Mourning Wedding

by Carola Dunn

  “Oh, I didn’t mind. Just saying what she did was as much as she could manage in the way of gratitude at present. She’s too confused to know how to respond, like a dog that’s been hurt or abandoned and doesn’t quite dare trust anyone. They’re usually snappish to start with, you know, until they learn what to expect.” Angela hesitated. “I sort of know how she feels. Daisy, does your husband still suspect Teddy?”

  “He couldn’t have …”

  “Not of bashing Lord Gerald. But my grandmother …? I’m awfully afraid Mother might have poisoned Uncle Aubrey to protect Teddy, except that I can’t see how he could possibly have known anything about Teddy. I mean, I don’t know which way his bedroom faces, but I suppose he could have looked out in the night and recognized Teddy. Only how could Teddy or Mother know about it? Uncle Aubrey wasn’t really interested in anything but his plants. He wouldn’t have mentioned seeing Teddy to anyone.”

  “No, it’s quite a puzzle.”

  “Besides, by the time he was killed everyone knew Teddy had arrived in the middle of the night. The police did, anyway. And I absolutely can’t imaging Mother hitting Lord Gerald.”

  “I shouldn’t think she’d be strong enough to do so much damage,” Daisy said.

  “No, but what if … what if Daddy did? I know he doesn’t seem to care much for Mother or Teddy, but for the sake of the family. There have been Devenishes at Saxonfield forever, and Teddy’s the only son and heir. Oh, Daisy, I don’t think I could bear it if all three of them were arrested!”

  “That sounds most unlikely,” said Daisy, but she wondered if Alec had considered the possibility.

  25

  The moment Lady Devenish walked into the library, Alec dismissed the possibility of her having hit Bincombe. She was too short and too flabby. Last time he saw her he had considered her a credible poisoner but doubted her ability to strangle her mother-in-law. Now he was quite sure she hadn’t the strength or the reach to wield a cricket bat in that near-deadly fashion.

  But now they knew more of the circumstances surrounding the poisoning of Lord Fotheringay’s tea, and no one had reported seeing her in the drawing room at tea-time.

  She claimed to have stayed in the sitting room set aside for the Devenishes when Lady Eva’s murder was discovered. “I had expected that tea would have been sent up,” she complained, “in the circumstances. I dare say it would have been if the rest of my family had not gone to the drawing room.”

  “The rest of your family?”

  “James, Teddy, Veronica, Angela. None of them came near me or thought to have tea sent up. Not being a Fotheringay, it would hardly have been proper for me to ring for it. So I went without.”

  “Not being a Fotheringay,” Alec picked up, “had you ever visited Haverhill as a child?”

  “No,” she said, surprised, “I met James in town. My mama-in-law was the only Fotheringay I met before our marriage.”

  “Lord Fotheringay must have been pleased to have someone new to show his conservatory to.”

  Lady Devenish sniffed disapprovingly. “In those days, it would have been considered most improper for a young married woman to meet a man in a conservatory!”

  One in the eye for Daisy! Alec avoided looking at Tom but was aware of the twitching of his moustache. “Are you saying you were never given a tour of the conservatory?”

  “Oh, James and I strolled through it now and then, but I never had the least interest in plants.”

  She admitted her children had mentioned to her that some of the plants in the conservatory were poisonous. She had simply forbidden them to go in there. It was disgraceful that Aubrey—who had children of his own!—should grow such stuff.

  Alec could not get her to budge from her assertion that she had no idea which plants were poisonous, nor from her claim of remaining in the upstairs sitting room at tea-time. She admitted waiting in the hall for Teddy after dinner. What else was to be expected of a mother whose only son had been dragged away from his meal by the police and might be coerced into confessing to things he had not done because they needed to make an arrest?

  “Whom did you see in the hall while you were waiting?” Alec wished he had thought of this line of questioning earlier.

  Lady Devenish flushed. “I wasn’t watching,” she said evasively. “I remember Montagu coming out of the dining room and going upstairs. A couple of footmen went in, to clear the table. When they left, Lord Gerald came out of the Long Gallery and watched them cross the hall. He went to the drawing room door, looked in, then turned back to the dining room. And a few minutes later, Mrs. Fletcher went running after him. Then, of course, she came tearing out like a hoyden, bumped into a footman and made him drop his tray, and dashed into the library. Teddy came out, so I didn’t stay any longer.”

  She insisted she hadn’t noticed anything else. Alec let her go.

  “These mealy-mouthed women!” Tom exclaimed. “Mrs. Fletcher met her coming out of the cloakroom, so she must have seen Mrs. Fletcher going in, but not a word of it! I wonder who else she saw go in there and can’t bring herself to mention, coming or going?”

  “It doesn’t help,” Alec agreed. “If necessary, we’ll ask her point-blank. We’ll see Montagu first, though it looks as if he just went upstairs and stayed there. Then it’s past time we went over everything we’ve learnt so far. Let’s hope we’ll find something significant in our notes that we’ve been overlooking!”

  Ernie Piper was sent off to enquire after Lord Gerald and then go to find Montagu Fotheringay. He came back after a couple of minutes.

  “Dr. Philpotts is here, Chief, and he’d like a word with you in Lord Gerald’s room.”

  The police surgeon greeted Alec with a grin. “Pity I didn’t bet on my prognosis against Arbuthnot’s,” he said in a hushed voice. “The patient is sleeping normally now, not unconscious.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Ninety-nine per cent. All the easily visible signs are present. I don’t want to wake him by doing a more thorough examination. The longer he can sleep the better. He’s going to have one hell of a headache when he wakes up and he may very well not remember much, if anything, of what happened. He is not, I repeat not, to be pestered with questions.”

  “For how long?”

  “Hm. My surgery is at six. I’ll try to drop in at about five to have a look at him. I’ll tell you then.”

  Philpotts departed on his rounds and the nurse allowed Alec past the painted screen to take a peek at Bincombe. Normal colour had returned to his face and the flickering of his eyelids suggested that he was dreaming. Alec silently wished him happy dreams.

  “Don’t tell anyone his condition has improved,” he impressed upon the nurse. “His parents understand the need to keep it quiet.”

  “Not to worry, Mr. Fletcher. As if I’d do anything to endanger any patient of mine! We don’t want the nasty brute that hit him having another go.”

  Returning across the hall, Alec was intercepted by Baines. “Beg pardon, sir, but Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton arrived half an hour ago and they’re asking to see you.”

  “Pendleton?” Alec asked blankly, his head ringing with Fotheringays and Devenishes.

  “Miss Erica’s parents, sir.”

  “Oh yes. I expect they want to take her home. If that’s all, tell them that will be all right as long as she remains available at a known address for questioning, should it prove necessary. And the same goes for the other girl, Miss … Miss …”

  “Miss Julia Lasbury, sir?”

  “That’s the one. If her parents turn up, she may leave. And if you can get rid of them all without my seeing them, Baines, I shall be exceedingly grateful.” Alec handed over a ten-shilling note, hoping it would be reimbursed as a necessary expense. It was worth it anyway, though interviews with the Pendletons and Lasburys could not possibly be half as painful as the one with the Marquis and Marchioness of Tiverton.

  “I dare say it can be managed, sir,” said the butler suavely as the note vanis
hed.

  Piper caught up with Alec as he attained the haven of the library. “Mr. Montagu says if you want to talk to him you’ll have to come upstairs to his room, Chief. Says he’s not well, and I must say he looks like death warmed up.”

  “Did you ask him what’s wrong?”

  “Rheumatism in his hip. The pain kept him awake all night. I asked did he send for a doctor. He said the quacks just prescribe aspirin and a hot water bottle and a reducing diet.”

  “And I bet he follows the first two and won’t have anything to do with the third. All right, Ernie, I’m going to leave him to you. If he tells you anything other than that he was in his room at the relevant times, come and get me. Otherwise, when you have his statement, find Lady Devenish and see if you can get her to describe how he went upstairs last night—without putting the words in her mouth.”

  “Right, Chief!”

  Ernie Piper’s return coincided with the arrival of a footman bearing lunch. As they ate, he reported exactly what Alec expected: Montagu Fotheringay continued to claim to have stayed in his room at tea-time yesterday (“He was still upset about Lady Eva, like he told us, and he felt an attack of rheumatism coming on so he thought he’d better try slimming.”), and returned thither immediately after his interrupted dinner (“Missing tea didn’t work, just made him hungrier at dinner.”). Lady Devenish, asked to describe his gait, said he had walked heavily from the dining room to the stairs and ascended one step at a time, favouring his left leg.

  “So it looks like he’s out of it,” said Piper.

  “We can’t cross him off the list,” said Alec, spreading butter on a crisp roll to go with the cold chicken and salad. “But I don’t like the look of him. The trouble is, for one reason or another I don’t really like the look of any of them.”

  Their lunch was interrupted by a telephone call from Sir Bernard Spilsbury’s assistant. The Home Office’s Chief Pathologist confirmed that Lord Fotheringay had ingested a fatal dose of oleandrin and associated glycosides. The lack of evidence of gastrointestinal distress might be explained by the victim’s weak heart, which could have failed before the development of other visible symptoms.

  In a way, the confirmation of poisoning helped: if he had died naturally after all, then the attack on Bincombe made no sort of sense and they would have had to reconsider the whole situation. On the other hand, it was absolutely no help in trying to guess what Lord Fotheringay could possibly have known that Lady Eva’s murderer considered a threat.

  After lunch, Alec sent Piper to ask after Bincombe. The nurse said he had roused enough to drink a glass of water, and then gone back to sleep. She had told Lady Tiverton when she looked in on her son. Her ladyship had promised to tell no one but her husband. They were keeping to the suite of rooms Lady Haverhill had put at their disposal, attended by their own servants, so none of the household would witness their relief.

  “I asked the nurse if Lady Tiverton didn’t want to sit with him,” Ernie said. “She thought it was natural that a grand lady who could pay for a nurse wouldn’t want to take care of her sick child, but if you ask me it’s unnatural.”

  “I shouldn’t worry, young ’un,” said Tom. “You won’t be marrying a grand lady.”

  Ernie blushed, and Alec wondered briefly if his latest flame was turning serious. That was all well and good as long as it didn’t take his mind off his work.

  The thought made Alec wonder what Daisy was presently up to. It was not like her to keep her nose out of an investigation once she was involved, however peripherally. She hadn’t even come to ask after Bincombe. She must realize that he wouldn’t tell her, that he was serious about her not meddling in his cases.

  He mustn’t let her take his mind off his work.

  The three of them set to work collating statements. It was Ernie who realized that the Cambridge police had not yet responded to their enquiries. He telephoned. The constable stationed at the gate yesterday evening had seen two gentlemen come to post letters. He had made sure they returned up the avenue but had not thought to take their names or note the times. The postman had picked up such a mass of letters he couldn’t possibly recall any particular one.

  The collating went on. They made out schedules of the reported movements of all the suspects, which mightily impressed Sir Leonard when he came to check on their progress but which by no means added to their progress. When a footman brought a tea-tray into the library, they were still stuck with the same list of unsatisfactory suspects.

  Daisy arrived five minutes after the tea-tray. “I’ve been thinking,” she announced, perching on a corner of the long table and helping herself to a chocolate biscuit.

  Alec sat back with a sigh. “What have you been thinking?”

  “Well, tell me first how you’re doing.”

  “We don’t know who the murderer is, or who the murderers are. We still have six names on the list. We still have no idea what Lord Fotheringay could have observed, unless he saw a man wandering about with a stocking hanging out of his pocket. In which case, why the deuce didn’t he come to us as soon as he heard of his aunt’s murder?”

  “Well, he was the vaguest of men except where his plants were concerned. But I don’t believe that need worry you.”

  “What? Daisy, what do you know? What have you been doing?”

  “I’ve been talking to people and, as I told you, I’ve been thinking. And I think we’ve been looking at everything backwards. What if—”

  Dr. Philpotts came in. “You can talk to him now,” he announced. “No more than ten minutes. You leave at the least sign of agitation. You obey the nurse implicitly.” He helped himself to a chocolate biscuit. “I’ve got to run.”

  Daisy stared after him. “You mean Gerald is all right? You beast, Alec, you might have let me know!”

  “Could you have kept it from Lucy?”

  “Of course! Probably. I think so. I haven’t told her Dr. Philpotts was hopeful.”

  “Good for you,” Alec said ironically. “Now what’s this about looking at everything backwards?”

  26

  The walk with Angela and Tiddler had sparked Daisy’s reappraisal of the murders, or rather Angela’s comment when they reached the gazebo “ruins” and turned to look back at the house.

  “It’s so enormous. It must cost a fortune to run. Just think of all the animals I could save with all that money!”

  Lucy had said something similar when Daisy arrived at Haverhill just two days ago. Rescuing dogs had not come into it, but she had mentioned her grandfather’s enormous expenses and the “pots of money” which allowed him to pay for Lucy’s wedding as well. Daisy was sure Lucy had said something else even more significant, but she couldn’t quite pin it down.

  “When Angela and I got back to the house,” she told Alec, “people were practically queuing up to talk to me. Everyone was sure I must know what you were up to and what you’d found out. I didn’t have to go looking for people, honestly. All I did was sit in the sun in the Long Gallery and they came to me. I could do without the rest of the house, but I really do covet the Long Gallery. It’s a wonderful room.”

  “Great Scott, Daisy, if you have something to say, get on with it!”

  “Sorry, darling. You haven’t had a chance yet to appreciate it. Anyway, people asked me what was going on, and of course I didn’t tell them even what very little I know. But they also wanted to tell me their own ideas. Lucy was right, some of her relatives really are poisonous! The one thing that puzzled just about all of them was what Lord Fotheringay could have discovered that threatened Lady Eva’s murderer.”

  “I hope you weren’t asking questions,” Alec said ominously.

  “Oh no, darling. I may have just sort of nudged one or two people in that direction, but mostly I just looked at them.” Daisy widened what Alec persisted in referring to as her “misleadingly guileless” blue eyes. “And out it came.”

  “Ah,” rumbled Tom, “so you see Lord F’s murder as a stumbling block, Mrs.
Fletcher?”

  “The more I learn about him, the more it doesn’t make sense. His only interest was his plants, and he went through life blissfully unaware of anything else. I started to wonder what other motive Lady Eva’s murderer could have had for killing him. And that was when I started to think we’d got it all backwards.”

  Alec, Tom and Ernie all sat up straight and looked at her. It was most satisfactory. “Go on,” said Alec.

  “Suppose the original plan was to murder Lord Fotheringay and Lady Eva had information that would give away the murderer. After all, she was in the business of nosing about, so to speak. It’s far more likely than the other way round. It would have to be some clue that was meaningless at the time but which would have become significant after Lord F’s death. Yet it had to be something the person she saw knew she knew—Sometimes the English language is most inadequate!”

  “We know what you mean, Daisy. Get on with it!”

  “Then I remembered that she went to the conservatory at tea-time the day before, the day I arrived. Incidentally, darling, may I have some tea in your cup? I’m parched.” While Alec passed his cup and saucer to Tom, who presided over the pot, she continued. “Lady Eva realized Lord F hadn’t turned up to tea on the terrace and she decided he ought to be more sociable on such a grand family occasion. She marched off around the side of the house to fetch him. Thanks.” Daisy took a long draught of tea.

  “You think she saw—” Alec started.

  “Wait! Let me tell this in order or I’ll get muddled and miss things out. Any detail could be significant,” she quoted him. “The thing is, Lord and Lady F came out together just a moment later, from the Long Gallery. He had left the conservatory before Lady Eva arrived. It was the perfect opportunity for someone to pick a few oleander leaves unobserved.”

  “Which Lady Eva observed,” Piper put in. He had started taking notes.

  “Which Lady Eva observed. My feeling is, if she had seen a family member, who ought to have known better, picking the stuff, she would have scolded and quite likely mentioned it when she came back. But if it was a relative by marriage who might never have been told about the poisonous plants, she’d just warn them and leave it at that.”