by Carola Dunn
He bit his lip. ‘Perhaps that will be best. Off you go, then, sweetheart, and I’ll talk to you in a little while.’
Belinda looked dismayed. ‘I want to stay with you and Miss Dalrymple, Daddy.’
‘Grown-up talk, Bel.’
‘Go back to the lounge, darling, to Dr. Jagai.’
The child’s face cleared. ‘Oh yes, I’ll stay with him.’ She kissed her father and left.
‘Dr. Jagai?’ said Alec.
‘I’ll get to him in due course. You know I like to present my evidence in the proper order, otherwise I get confused.’
‘Present your evidence! Daisy, how the deuce do you keep getting mixed up in these affairs?’
‘For heaven’s sake, don’t you start ragging me! I’ve just had a frightfully uncomfortable – not to say unpleasant – bout on the ’phone with Mrs. Fletcher.’
‘Mother! Oh lord, I forgot . . . She must have been biting her nails to the quick.’
‘I sent her a wire from York, then rang up as soon as we got here, to the hotel. Belinda spoke to her and apologised. But of course she blames me for Belinda’s sins.’ Daisy noted Alec’s flush, acknowledgement that he had jumped to the same conclusion. ‘I couldn’t very well tell her it was her fuss over Deva made Belinda run away.’
‘No, I’m sorry.’ He looked tired and discouraged. ‘I’d better put through a call, though I haven’t time for long explanations. Mother does her best, but she’s old-fashioned in some ways and not young anymore. If only . . .’ He stopped.
‘If only your wife had not died?’ Daisy said gently. She was on the verge of telling him about Michael, but this was no time for wallowing in vain regrets. ‘Your mother’s attitude isn’t actually so old-fashioned, I’m afraid. You should have heard what some of the others were saying about Chandra Jagai. But let me begin at the beginning.’
With an effort he smiled. ‘Yes, of course. We’d better get on with it if I’m to speak to everyone this evening. Halliday’s managed to persuade all concerned to stay. He must have put it to them quite forcefully, which means you certainly persuaded him there’s a case.’
‘He’s a good egg. Did he show you the scene of the crime?’
‘He tried. I was in too much of a hurry to see Belinda, but it’s just as well. You’ll be able to give me an idea of what I’m looking for, I presume. I’ll just get Tring and Piper in here. They’ll need to hear this, and I’ll have Ernie take notes.’ He went out.
An official interview, then. Running over the course of events in her mind, Daisy shivered. She re-buttoned her cardigan and turned the cuffs down over her hands. The cold was partly internal, but the room, like the rest of the hotel, was decidedly chilly, hardly surprising as the radiators were all lukewarm. When she mentioned the matter to the landlord, Mr. Briggs, he had blandly explained that the boiler system was clogged with soot after the winter. The Raven’s Nest’s usual April customers were hardy anglers who never complained.
‘But I’m complaining,’ said Daisy.
Mr. Briggs could shut down the boiler altogether, let it cool, and have it cleaned out, or he could leave things as they were. How long did Miss Dalrymple intend to stay?
Miss Dalrymple had retreated, defeated, to the residents’ lounge, where a coal fire at least warmed half the room. It was balm to her soul to hear a blustering Desmond Smythe-Pike routed in precisely the same fashion a few moments later.
She didn’t like Smythe-Pike, but she must try not to let her likes and dislikes influence what she told Alec. Could the gouty squire have murdered old Albert McGowan?
Alec returned, followed by Detective Sergeant Tring and Detective Constable Piper. Despite his size, Tom Tring’s tread was cat-soft, and Daisy noticed that Ernie Piper now walked less like a flatfoot on the beat. The sergeant was wearing his less appalling suit, the vivid blue and green checks not quite so offensive to the fastidious eye as his favourite yellow and tan. He winked at Daisy, his little eyes twinkling.
‘Evening, Miss Dalrymple. Nice to see you again. What have you got for us this time?’
‘Evening, miss,’ said Piper with a smile as he produced his notebook and two of his ever-ready pencils.
Tring lit the gas lamps as Daisy began the tale.
‘It all started with Anne Bretton. I was at school with her, and she’d seen me at King’s Cross and came looking for me in the train.’ Daisy saw Alec raise his eyes to heaven and guessed what he was thinking. She nearly told him she had no intention of taking Anne under her wing, but she didn’t want Piper writing that down. ‘She told me she and all her relations were on their way to Scotland at the command of her dying grandfather. He . . .’
‘His name, please, Daisy – Miss Dalrymple.’
‘Alistair McGowan, Laird of Dunston Castle. Anne and her husband had named their baby after him in an effort to persuade him to change his will in their favour. He’d left the huge family fortune and castle and everything to his brother, not a penny to his daughter – that’s Anne’s mother, Amelia Smythe-Pike. Do you want his reasons, Chief, or is that hearsay?’
‘It is, but it might give us a hint as to motive and this is not formal evidence, only notes to work from. I’ll have to get details of the will from his solicitor.’
‘Right-oh. In the first place, Alistair McGowan believes in inheritance through the male line. He had two daughters and Amelia Smythe-Pike had two daughters, so the baby is his first direct male descendent. In the meantime, his closest male relative was his twin brother Albert, the victim.’
‘Who was to inherit everything,’ said Alec. ‘So Amelia Smythe-Pike and Anne Bretton, or their husbands, had the best of motives to rid themselves of Albert McGowan.’
‘Wait, it’s much more complicated than that. With Albert dying first, everything goes to their sister’s son, Peter Gillespie. Not only is he a male – frightfully unfair, isn’t it? – but his mother married a Scotsman and he was born in Scotland, as were all his family. Alistair’s other prejudice is against the English. Amelia Smythe-Pike married an Englishman, her daughters were born in England, and Anne’s husband is English.’
‘So it’s the Gillespies who profit from Albert’s death?’
‘Unless the others persuade Alistair to change his will. They could have a better chance with Albert out of the way.’
‘Hmm.’ Alec pondered. ‘Possible, but not a very strong motive.’
‘That’s what I thought, until I considered Harold Bretton’s and Desmond Smythe-Pike’s characters, not to mention Peter Gillespie’s.’
‘Whoa! I must hear about all these characters, but in spite of your liking for chronological order you’d better tell me first what it was about Albert McGowan’s death that aroused your suspicions.’
‘In case you decide I was wrong after all?’ Daisy said indignantly. A muffled snort from D.C. Piper sounded suspiciously like a suppressed snicker. He bent his head over his notebook.
‘It’s always possible,’ Alec pointed out. ‘I’ve been known to be wrong myself. Once or twice.’
‘Hah! Just listen to this. Albert McGowan, having spent many years in India, liked it hot. In fact he had a morbid fear of draughts. Though the train was fearfully overheated, he kept his window closed and insisted that anyone entering his compartment shut the door quickly. Yet when he was found, the window was wide open.’
‘Since he wasn’t stuffed through it, I fail to see . . .’
‘You will. He suffered agonies from dyspepsia, for which he took bismuth. His valet, Weekes, put his medicine and a glass of water on a camp-stool by the window, yet he was found lying with his head towards the door, the medicine out of reach. The glass was empty but upright and there was a puddle on the floor.’
‘He knocked it over with his foot in his death throes . . . Ah, you’re sure Belinda didn’t set it upright? She’s a tidy child.’
‘I didn’t actually ask her, but even the tidiest child is unlikely to stop to right a fallen glass when confronted with a dead body!’<
br />
‘True. Fingerprints, Tom, if Halliday hasn’t done it already.’
‘Right, Chief,’ rumbled the sergeant. ‘McGowan could have taken his medicine and spilled the water before he lay down, though.’
‘True,’ Daisy conceded. ‘However, the valet and Dr. Jagai agree he would never have lain down flat on his back, as he was found – it was Weekes pointing that out that first made me suspicious. He had his own pillow, which Weekes had taken down from the rack for him. Not only was he not using it – possible, I suppose, if he was having a seizure or something and felt too ill to arrange it under his shoulders – but it’s missing.’
‘Missing?’ Alec was suddenly alert.
‘And Belinda found this on the floor.’ Daisy triumphantly produced the curly feather. ‘I think the murderer smothered the poor old man and then got in a panic and shoved the murder weapon out of the window, tearing it and knocking over the glass in the process.’
‘It might have been panic, or he might have had good reason. Tom, I want the railway line searched for that pillow, however many men it takes, from however many police forces. Let’s hope the valet has some idea where the train was when he last saw it! And I think we’d better take a look at that compartment before we hear the rest. Piper, come with me. Join us, Tom, when you’ve arranged for the search.’
‘Right, Chief.’
‘Sorry, Daisy. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
With that, the three men dashed off, leaving Daisy quite pleased with herself but frustrated. She went to find Belinda.
In the lounge, Mr. and Mrs. Smythe-Pike, Anne and Harold Bretton, and the mysterious Geraldine occupied a group of chairs near the fire. Smythe-Pike had one leg raised on a footstool. They had all changed for dinner, the ladies in black winter frocks with long sleeves and high necks, topped with warm stoles. The warm weather in the South had not left them unprepared for the chilly North, especially Daisy guessed, for the miser’s castle. The blacks, no doubt packed in case he died during their visit, served instead as mourning for Uncle Albert.
No sign of Belinda, nor of Chandra Jagai. Anne saw Daisy and gave a little wave.
‘Daisy, can you tell us what’s going on?’ she said, coming over with her husband.
‘Not much. Have you seen Belinda?’
‘No. Perhaps she went up to her room. Mother says Mattie’s taken to her bed with a hot water bottle. She’s in a rotten state. I was never like that when I was pregnant.’
‘A rotten funk, if you ask me,’ Bretton put in. ‘It’s my belief she knows something.’ He gave a significant nod.
‘Poor Mattie,’ said Daisy with rather perfunctory sympathy. ‘Excuse me, I must find Belinda.’
She went over to the Smythe-Pikes. Neither had seen the child. Nor was she in the bedroom she and Daisy shared.
Daisy started worrying. Where on earth had she got to?
Dismissed from the conference, Belinda trailed unhappily back to the lounge. She liked Dr. Jagai, but just now she wanted Daddy, or at least Miss Dalrymple.
She cheered up when she saw Kitty and Judith and Ray talking to the doctor. She’d be safe with all her friends. She joined them.
‘Bel, have you got any sweets left?’ Kitty greeted her. ‘Mine are all gone and they say it’s going to be ages till they can serve dinner. They weren’t expecting so many people.’
‘They’re up in my room. I’ll fetch them.’
‘Get your coat and hat, too. We’re going out to explore the city walls and bastions. Hurry up, we’ve all brought our outdoor things down already.’
‘I don’t know if I ought,’ said Belinda doubtfully. ‘Sergeant Barclay said the walls are dangerous.’
‘Don’t be a baby.’
‘Don’t be rude, Kit,’ her brother admonished. ‘Belinda doesn’t have to come if she thinks she shouldn’t.’
‘My father wants to see me soon, too.’
‘Oh well, never mind, then,’ Kitty said. ‘I’ll find the best bits and show you in the morning. Come on, let’s go.’
By the time they, had all muffled up and departed, Belinda was beginning to think better of her refusal. No one else was in the lounge. No one came to light the gas. It was dreary and even a bit scary. Sudden footsteps in the hall outside made her jump.
Daddy might go on talking to Miss Dalrymple for ages. Miss Dalrymple had told her to go to Dr. Jagai, and he was out on the walls. Sergeant Barclay had told her not to explore alone, but all the others would be there.
Belinda raced upstairs for her hat and coat and gloves.
She slipped out of the front door and round to the steps Sergeant Barclay had pointed out. There were just a few steps, then a path led upwards between stone walls. Soon she passed a gate on the left leading into the Raven’s Nest Hotel’s back garden.
Oh dear! she thought. If the others came that way, they might be far ahead. She hurried on.
The sun had set but the wind had blown away the clouds and it was still quite light outside, the sky above a clear blue. Lamps were lit, though, in the windows of the big house behind the hotel. Their friendly glow heartened Belinda. As the path levelled off and swung to the left around the front of the house, she glanced back at it, then stopped to look. On its gate-posts perched stone lions with long manes and lots of big teeth. They gazed out over Belinda’s head, and she turned to see what they were staring at.
Ahead of her, the path met another running along the top of a steep, grassy bank, patched white and yellow with daisies and dandelions. The bank curved into the distance in both directions. Belinda guessed it must be the city wall, though it wasn’t at all what she had expected.
One branch of her path led down to a narrow tunnel under the wall. As she took the other branch, she saw the sea beyond the wall, straight ahead. To both her left and her right, not too far away, high, square sort of mounds, grass covered, rose above the level of the bank. She couldn’t see any of her friends.
Seagulls cried overhead. It was a lonely sound.
Reaching the wall path, Belinda stopped again. Nearby were steps going down to the tunnel. On the other side of the path, the grass sloped down a short, slippery way and then fell absolutely straight to the ground, an awfully long way below.
It did look dangerous. Perhaps she ought to go back to the hotel.
Then she heard Kitty’s penetrating voice away to her right and saw a figure on top of the mound, silhouetted against the darkening sky. That was all right, then. She started off along the path, walking carefully.
As she approached the mound, she saw that it was actually a series of mounds and banks on top of a bit jutting out from the bank she was on. It must be a bastion, she decided, remembering Kitty’s word. The base was a smooth stone wall as high as where she was walking, nearly as high as a three-storey house.
Just beside her, below her, was a sort of open room or courtyard with walls all around. One wall had barred windows. A dungeon? she wondered, stopping to look. Maybe there had once been a roof.
It was too dark way down at the bottom to see much. Peering down, Belinda stepped onto the grass beside the path, careful not to go beyond the narrow flat strip onto the sloping part. It would be a nasty fall, might even kill her, and if it didn’t she didn’t want to be stuck down there in the gloom with night coming on.
Dusk was falling fast, she realized. Maybe she shouldn’t try to catch up with the others. She turned to look back at the town.
Close behind her loomed a muffled figure, dark, menacing, with arms outspread as if to herd her over the precipice. Silently it moved forward.
Belinda ducked under one arm and ran, screaming.
Her heart drummed in her chest. Thump, thump, thump. Her, shoes thudded on the path. Was he following? She couldn’t hear.
She risked a glance backwards. Her feet swerved, then slid out from under her. Suddenly she was slithering helplessly down.
CHAPTER 10
Daisy stood in the lobby, wondering where one small girl might hid
e – and why. Should she knock on all the bedroom doors, question the hotel staff, or send for Alec right away?
Before she had made up her mind, footsteps and excited voices approached from the nether regions of the hotel. Kitty Gillespie appeared, dressed for outdoors, pink-cheeked and windblown. Raymond was visible behind her.
‘Come on,’ cried Kitty. ‘She’s right here, Bel.’
A moment later, Belinda cannoned into Daisy’s arms and raised a face streaked with mud and tears, a long scratch down one cheek. ‘I thought I was going to die,’ she wept.
‘Die?’ Daisy gasped. ‘What happened, darling? What on earth have you been up to?’
Kitty and Raymond burst into simultaneous explanations. Dr. Jagai’s prosaic tones cut through. ‘I think it would be best, Miss Dalrymple, if we retired to somewhere rather more private.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Judith Smythe-Pike, her voice languid but the look she bent upon the doctor approving.
Her arm around Belinda’s thin shoulders, Daisy led them to the room set aside for police use. Judith raised delicate eyebrows at the magenta plush sofa. She was the only one in pristine condition. Belinda’s coat was smeared with mud like her face, one black lisle stocking was laddered, one braid had lost its ribbon and the other was coming loose. The doctor, Kitty, and Raymond were almost as bedraggled.
‘Dr. Jagai,’ said Daisy firmly as the brother and sister started gabbling again, ‘if you please.’
Ray grinned and put his hand over Kitty’s mouth.
‘We decided,’ Chandra Jagai began, ‘we four, to inspect the Elizabethan wall before dark. Belinda turned up just before we left and was invited to go with us, but she refused because she expected her father to send for her shortly. So we went on, to the bastion known, I believe, as the King’s Mount. We had been there for some time – a quarter of an hour, per haps, I’m not sure – when we heard screams. Naturally, we ran.’
‘They ran,’ Judith put in dryly. ‘I walked fast.’
‘It takes more than a few screams to knock Judith off her dignity,’ said Raymond with an affectionate look. ‘We found Belinda stuck in a bramble bush at the bottom of the wall, luckily on the town side.’