by Carola Dunn
‘I hope so. Good-night, Mr. Fletcher.’ With a punctilious ‘Good-night’ to Tom and Piper, Kitty departed.
‘A nice young lady,’ said Piper, poring over his shorthand notes, ‘but she didn’t half rattle on.’
‘You can start transcribing into longhand, Ernie,’ said Alec. ‘Leave out the bit about the Berwick cockles! Tom, I want you to put a call through to the Yard; have them get on to the Sûreté and find out if Madame Pasquier’s really as affluent as she’s made out to her long lost family. What did Mrs. Smythe-Pike say her husband’s name is?’
‘Jewel,’ said Piper promptly. ‘Funny name for a man.’
‘Jules – J-u-l-e-s, Tom. I’m going to see if Belinda’s told Miss Dalrymple anything useful. Shan’t be long.’
He went upstairs and, after one false start down the wrong passage, knocked on Daisy’s door. Opening it, she gasped, ‘Thank heaven you’ve come.’
Thoroughly alarmed, he started to ask what was the matter, but she pushed past him, took a pair of steps in a single bound, and disappeared around a corner.
No hell-fiend followed on her heels. Alec looked into the room. No one there but Belinda, in bed, sound asleep. He crossed to the bed and stooped to kiss her cheek very softly, then returned to the door, puzzled.
The muffled rattle of a chain and whoosh of water enlightened him. When Daisy returned, he was leaning against the door-post, shaking with silent laughter.
Rather pink, she said indignantly, ‘I promised not to leave her alone for a single minute.’
‘Bless you, my dear’ What would she do if he kissed her? No, this was neither the time nor the place, in the middle of a case and on the threshold of her bedroom. ‘I wondered whether Belinda’s said anything of significance.’
Daisy frowned. Glancing both ways along the passage, she said, ‘Come in, just for a minute.’
He stepped in and closed the door, fighting a well-nigh irresistible urge to take her in his arms. Her back to the light, her hair was a halo of honey brown curls. Her blue eyes, always so beguiling in their open cheerfulness, were pools of mystery. Between her brows were two little lines of worry – worry for his daughter. He put out a finger to smooth them away.
She smiled, but he thought the pink in her cheeks deepened.
‘Belinda’s frightened,’ she said quickly, ‘which is only natural after today. I’m quite sure she believes the murderer has some reason to come after her, but she absolutely denies it, denies she knows anything.’
‘It is the murderer she’s afraid of, not – heaven forbid – of the police? Dr. Jagai said she feared being accused.’
‘She did ask if they – you – would think she’d done it. I suspect that was because she had been in a lot of mischief, what with running away and stowing away. I made the mistake of saying she had been “wicked” to run away from her grandmother rather than just naughty. And then the ticket-inspector threatened, in quite a joking way, to arrest her for being on the train without a proper ticket. I should have made sure she understood it was a joke.’
‘Don’t blame yourself, Daisy. You couldn’t have guessed it would matter, and if it stops her running off again it’s all to the good.’
‘I hope so. But, you see, she had a general sense of being in serious trouble already which explains her initial worry about being accused of murder. I don’t think that’s what’s disturbing her now. I have the strangest feeling, Alec, that Belinda holds an essential piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Perhaps she doesn’t recognize its place, but if we got hold of it, it would give us the whole picture.’
‘That,’ said Alec sombrely, ‘is exactly how I feel.’
CHAPTER 13
Failing Belinda’s piece of the puzzle, Alec could only do his best to collect as many other pieces as possible. ‘Madame Pasquier,’ he said to Piper.
Piper returned to report that Madame had retired to bed. ‘Plumb wore out, she was, having come all the way from gay Paree.’
‘Mrs. Gillespie, then. Mrs. Peter Gillespie.’
Enid Gillespie brought her husband with her. Not, as Alec momentarily assumed, because she felt in need of his protection. Her grip on his arm was the grip of a dog-owner on a collar, and he hung back like a reluctant dog hauled towards an unwanted bath. ‘Hangdog’ was the word. His heavy lower jaw and bristling red mustache failed utterly to give him an aggressive air.
It was otherwise with his wife. Short, spare, and erect, she looked the martinet from rigidly waved grey hair via thin-lipped mouth and stiff back to the sharp rap of her heels on the tile in the hallway.
‘Don’t be silly Peter,’ she chided as they followed Piper into the parlour, ‘you’ll only make a fool of your self if you see them on your own. Remember, the police cannot force us to give statements. We are doing our duty.’
‘Yes, Enid.’
He appeared to be altogether under her thumb. However, she had signally failed to stifle her daughter’s spirit, Alec thought, biting back a smile at the memory of Kitty’s exuberance. He introduced himself and deliberately invited them to sit down before Mrs. Gillespie decided for herself to do so. His only hope with her was to gain and keep the upper hand.
He’d start by ignoring her. ‘It must be a great relief to you, Mr. Gillespie, that Albert McGowan is dead?’
‘Yes . . . No . . . I mean . . .’ stammered the unhappy man.
‘You asked to see me, Chief Inspector,’ his wife interrupted.
‘True, madam,’ Alec said coldly, ‘but since you chose to bring Mr. Gillespie with you, you can scarcely protest when I choose to ask him a few questions first. You are free to leave and return later, if you prefer.’
‘I shall stay. My husband is naturally distraught at his uncle’s untimely demise.’
‘You are distraught, sir? Or relieved? It must be a relief to know that you will soon inherit a large fortune, since your circumstances are somewhat straitened. Are they not?’
‘Not to say straitened!’ Gillespie’s protest was feeble.
‘But you can no longer afford to keep up the style to which you were accustomed.’
‘Everything is so expensive these days.’
‘My husband understands little of money matters,’ Enid Gillespie snapped. ‘That’s how he came to . . . to lose money,’ she ended lamely. A determined woman, but not clever.
‘To be prosecuted for fraud, you were going to say?’
‘He wasn’t convicted!’
‘Found innocent? Or, there’s a verdict in Scotland: Not Proven.’ Alec knew at once he had hit the mark. Peter Gillespie stared miserably at his shoes and his wife’s tight mouth became still tighter. ‘Not the same as innocent,’ Alec said.
So Harold Bretton’s disclosure to Daisy was the truth, not mere spite. Peter Gillespie had run afoul of the law, and was in financial difficulties. Whether the fraud was deliberate or the result of genuine incompetence was immaterial. He needed Alistair’s fortune, and he believed it to be large.
With Enid Gillespie off balance, Alec changed his tack. ‘Mr. Gillespie, what time did you go to Albert McGowan’s compartment to try to persuade him to change his will?’
‘I . . . What time did we talk to Uncle Albert, dear?’
She gave him a furious look and Alec guessed she had intended to deny seeing the old man. ‘I didn’t look at the time.’
‘But it was after Mrs. Smythe-Pike and Mrs. Bretton,’ Alec stated.
‘And after Desmond Smythe-Pike and Harold Bretton.’ Her resentment burst forth. ‘They’ve always thought themselves superior because he’s a landowner, and since our troubles they’ve been quite unbearable. It’ll serve them right if the place has to be sold.’
‘You don’t think Alistair McGowan is likely to change his will in their favour, then? In favour of his great-grandson?’
‘He’s more likely to change it in Geraldine’s favour,’ Peter Gillespie said gloomily, ‘even though she doesn’t need the money. She has two sons who are his grandsons.’
‘They are French,’ his wife spat out.
‘The Scots have always preferred the French to the English.’
No matter who the Scots preferred, Alec reflected, the identity of the heir to Alistair McGowan’s largely mythical fortune was still problematical. Albert’s death had not guaranteed the inheritance to either side of the family. Even before his death, they all had hoped his elder twin intended to disinherit him.
Which left none of them with a strong motive for murder. Whoever killed Albert McGowan had gambled on a change in his favour – or had lost his temper.
Harold Bretton was a gambler, according to Daisy. Desmond Smythe-Pike had a nasty temper, and Raymond Gillespie was emotionally unstable. Peter Gillespie was no longer the prime suspect.
‘So the Smythe-Pikes and Brettons had already seen Albert McGowan when you found him alive and well.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Gillespie regretfully, ‘but I’m certain one of them went back later. Harold Bretton wanted to try a calm, reasonable discussion, which wasn’t possible with his father-in-law present. Desmond’s notion of persuasion is to shout louder.’
‘You know Mr. Bretton returned?’
‘Ye . . .’ She wavered under Alec’s hard gaze. ‘No, not to say know, but he was talking about it, wasn’t he, Peter?’
‘Yes, oh yes, seemed dashed determined to try again.’
‘What about your sons? When did they try their powers of persuasion?’
‘They didn’t,’ said Enid Gillespie at once, but her husband said at the same moment, ‘Oh, Ray went before us, too. Judith dragged him along. Judith Smythe-Pike, that is. Nice girl, and good for him.’
‘Judith Smythe-Pike is one of these dreadful modern young women who think it clever to smoke and drink and swear. Amelia has no control over her whatsoever. Raymond is putty in her hands.’
‘You mean Raymond would kill if Miss Smythe-Pike told him to?’ Alec shot at her.
‘Certainly not,’ she said, but uneasily. ‘In any case, we spoke to Uncle Albert after Raymond saw him.’
‘And Jeremy?’
‘Jeremy declared nothing would make him approach his great-uncle. He said he considered it both useless and tasteless, but it’s just that he always prefers the easy way out.’ She threw a glance of contempt at her husband. ‘Like his father.’
Once started, Mrs. Gillespie was showing a disposition to be as outspoken as her daughter. Alec doubted she could lie convincingly.
‘Albert McGowan was alive and well when you found him,’ he said. ‘And when you left?’
She glowered at him. ‘Alive and as well as he ever was. He had ruined his constitution with overindulgence. No one could have guessed he would outlive his brother!’
‘Are you sure he didn’t just drop dead, Chief Inspector?’ Peter Gillespie enquired plaintively. ‘He was very old and not at all well.’
‘So I gather.’ Alec ignored the question. ‘Was he sitting up or lying down when you saw him?’
‘Sitting up,’ said Enid Gillespie, ‘and complaining bitterly that he was being kept from his after-lunch nap. We didn’t stay long. It was impossible to talk sense into the old . . . gentleman. He preferred that wretched black interloper to his own family!’
Not without reason, thought Alec.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Tom ostentatiously take out his watch and consult it. Time was passing and they still had several suspects to interview.
‘That will be all,’ he said, ‘for now. I shall want to speak to you again in the morning. Thank you for your cooperation.’
‘Cooperating is all very well,’ Mrs. Gillespie snapped, ‘but we are expected at Dunston Castle.’
‘Haven’t you telephoned?’
‘Sent a cable,’ said Peter Gillespie. ‘Uncle Alistair refuses to put in a telephone. We haven’t had a reply so we don’t know what he thinks of the delay.’
‘I shall endeavour to see that you are all delayed as brief a time as possible,’ Alec said, adding dryly, ‘and all the same length of time, so that no one gains an unfair advantage. Allow me to offer my somewhat belated condolences on the loss of your uncle.’
Mrs. Gillespie snorted, but her husband had the grace to look a trifle shamefaced as they departed.
‘Judith Smythe-Pike, please, Ernie. Well, what do you think, Tom?’
‘He might do it if she told him to, Chief, but I don’t think she’d trust the poor worm to do it right, and I don’t think she’d dirty her own hands. She wasn’t sure of Raymond.’
‘No, I noticed that. It’s a devilish thing, shell-shock’
Tom nodded sober agreement. ‘And he’s not accounted for on the city walls, neither. If his sister’d spotted him, he’d only to say he’d tried to save Miss Belinda.’
‘If that was him,’ Alec said savagely, ‘I’ll nail him come hell or high water, shell-shock or no.’ He forced himself to calm. ‘He seems to have spent most of his time on the train with Miss Smythe-Pike. We’ll see what she has to say.’
He looked round at the sound of footsteps in the hall. Instead of the expected Piper, a tall, thin young man in a well-cut but slightly shabby lounge suit appeared in the doorway.
‘If you want Judith,’ he announced belligerently, ‘you’ll have to put up with me, too.’
‘Really, darling, don’t be tiresome,’ came a drawl from behind him. Miss Smythe-Pike hooked her arm into her fiancé’s and he moved aside a little. Her shingled hair was so fair it was almost silvery by gaslight. Her black evening frock, long-sleeved and high-necked like the other ladies’, was unmistakably chic, with elaborate beading. ‘I’m sure the Chief Inspector won’t object. He let Uncle Peter stay with Aunt Enid.’
Her ironic glance met Alec’s and he guessed she was very much aware that Peter Gillespie had not been there for his wife’s protection. There was a hint of a plea in her eyes, too. I don’t need protection either, it said, but let him think I do.
Or so Alec imagined. ‘Certainly you may stay,’ he told the young man, though he’d rather have seen them separately. He waved them to the magenta sofa, where they sat holding hands. Piper came into the room after them and took up his pad and pencil. ‘Miss Smythe-Pike – and Mr. Raymond Gillespie, is it not?’
‘Yes.’ His point won, Raymond recovered his manners. ‘How do you do, Mr. Fletcher,’ he said with a charming smile. His gaze flickered across Alec’s Royal Flying Corps tie but he didn’t mention it. His own tie was plain blue, not regimental. ‘I know your daughter, of course. A nice kid, and a great friend of my brat sister.’
‘I understand I have you to thank for liberating Belinda from a bramble bush.’
‘Oh, that was quite as much Kitty’s and Jagai’s doing.’
‘How is Belinda, Chief Inspector?’ Miss Smythe-Pike asked. Her fashionably languid voice made it difficult to tell if she was concerned or merely polite. ‘The poor child had quite a fright.’
‘A few bruises and the odd scratch. She was lucky. Does either of you have any idea whether she was really approached by a man, hostile or would-be helpful, or whether it was her imagination?’
They looked at each other and both shrugged. ‘We’ve been talking about it,’ said Raymond. ‘At first we assumed it was imagination, at least that she’d mistaken his intent. But suppose she saw something on the train which made someone want to put her away?’
Surely, he would not make such a suggestion if he were responsible – unless it was a bluff?
‘I expect Mr. Fletcher’s considered the possibility, darling.’ Again her eyes met Alec’s, and he was sure she knew what he was thinking. ‘I can’t see how we’ll ever know, failing a confession. You’ll want to hear about our movements on the train, Chief Inspector. We were together all the time. Ray didn’t want to pester Uncle Albert, but Daddy made me go, so he went with me. You see, Daddy and Uncle Albert had a row and he hoped I might be able to soothe the savage beast.’
‘And did you?’
‘A bit, but only by not mentioning mo
ney or wills.’
‘You don’t want your share of the family fortune?’
‘Oh I do, but Ray doesn’t. Or at least he refuses to beg for it.’ She gave Raymond an affectionate, if slightly mocking smile.
‘Even for your sake, Miss Smythe-Pike, so that you can get married?’ Alec felt like an utter cad, but it had to be said. ‘I understand your fiancé is unable to earn a living, because of his . . . disability.’
Raymond paled.
‘He’d never plead that!’ the girl said angrily. ‘He won’t even let me ask for a penny, on any grounds. We’ll manage somehow.’
‘Calm down, old dear.’ Raymond’s voice was a little shaky. ‘Mr. Fletcher has a job to do.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Alec apologized. ‘I’ve no intention of offending, but as you say, I’ve a murder to investigate. The two of you saw Albert McGowan after Mr. Smythe-Pike and Mr. Bretton, but before Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie?’
Miss Smythe-Pike answered, the bored, cynical drawl already back in place. ‘Yes, and wasn’t Aunt Enid mad!’
‘Can you put a time to it?’
‘I can’t. Can you, Ray? No, I’m afraid not. We didn’t stay long. It was ghastly hot in there, and he was out of humour and seemed tired.’
‘You didn’t see him lie down when you left?’
‘No, though he had a pillow on the seat beside him, so he may have. We went for a walk along the train – Ray gets fed up with sitting. Oh, just after we started out, the train went through Durham; you should get a time from that. The corridor we were in happened to be on the right side of the train and there’s a marvellous view of the castle and cathedral. Then we stopped for a bit to amuse Tabitha, my sister’s little girl, who was with her nurse in third.’
Alec glanced at Tom, who nodded. He’d check with the nurse tomorrow. He already had to ask the woman about the timing of Anne Bretton’s movements.
‘Superintendent Halliday had his men take the names and addresses of all the passengers, Chief,’ the sergeant reminded him. ‘We can always get hold of ’em if need be.’