Sheer Folly

by Carola Dunn

“Surely Barker. . . . Oh, you’re going to tell the doctor about Alec?”

  “I think I’d better. It was almost certainly only an accident, but as long as there’s the least chance of hanky-panky being involved—. Well, the doctor will examine Lady Ottaline with a different eye if he might have to testify in court.”

  “Daisy, aren’t you rather putting the cart before the horse? I mean, just because Alec happens to be on the spot, it doesn’t mean a crime’s been committed.”

  “I know. But just think about it, a man who manages to make himself thoroughly disliked by—. Here’s Dr. Tenby.”

  “I’m off.” Julia disappeared in the direction of the stairs.

  Heading in the opposite direction, Daisy heard Barker remind the doctor of her name before bearing away his top-coat.

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Tenby” As he merely bowed silently, she went on, “I’ll take you up to Lady Ottaline.”

  He gave her an enquiring look. She realised that Barker had not known, when he rang up, who the patient would be, or indeed whether there would be a patient at all.

  “Lady Ottaline is your patient.” She started towards the stairs and he followed, black bag in hand. “Lady Ottaline Wandersley. You must have met her the other evening.”

  He grunted assent.

  “Did Barker tell you what happened?”

  “An explosion.”

  “Yes, we don’t know exactly how it happened, but it was probably a gas leak. Out in the grotto. Have you seen the grotto?”

  “Yes.”

  “It blew up. My husband is leading a rescue party, in case there are other victims.”

  “Burns?”

  “What? Oh, Lady Ottaline. No, she’s not burnt. I don’t exactly know, but my husband thinks she may have a concussion. Something about the eyes.”

  “Medical man?”

  “Alec? No, but he’s a police officer and he’s had to deal with a lot of injuries. As a matter of fact, he’s a detective chief inspector at Scotland Yard. Not that he’s here on business, just as a visitor, but I thought you ought to know. In case he finds out it wasn’t an accident and you’re asked to testify to an inquest, or even in court.”

  He gave an abrupt nod.

  “When you’ve finished with Lady Ottaline, he’d like you to go out to the grotto in case they find another victim.” Alec hadn’t actually stated as much, but he’d sent for the doctor before he knew anyone at all was injured.

  “Someone missing?”

  “Lord Rydal.”

  Another grunt. No doubt taciturnity had its admirers, but it made conversation very difficult.

  They reached the Wandersleys’ bedroom and Daisy knocked. A lady’s maid opened the door.

  “Dr. Tenby,” Daisy introduced him. She went straight off to change, despite her interest in Lady Ottaline’s condition. She was quite sure that her chance of learning anything from the doctor was nil.

  A quarter of an hour’s tramp brought Alec and his troop to their goal. They stood on the short turf on the edge of a pit some ten or twelve feet deep. A certain amount of debris was scattered about the rim, but most of what the explosion had thrown up had landed back in the hole. After hurrying uphill to get here, all except the gardener’s remaining boy were silent, catching their breath as they stared down at the jumbled mess.

  The boy said, “Me mum’ll take on something turrible if ’er finds out Oi bin down that ’ole.”

  “You’ll do what you’re told,” snapped Madison.

  “I’ll not order my men into yon death-trap,” Simmons snapped back.

  “Volunteers only,” said Alec.

  “Oi won’t tell me mum,” the boy assured him.

  “Death-trap,” mused Armitage. “I hope he isn’t really down there.”

  “Friend of yours?” Alec asked.

  “What? No, on the contrary. But it sort of spoils one’s abhorrence if it’s diluted with pity. A nasty end. I’ve been thinking. Assuming this was caused by a gas leak and not some natural occurrence, gas in the middle cave wouldn’t collect in great concentration because of the tunnel to the outer grotto. There’s—or there was—also a rift in the roof which let in a certain amount of light and plenty of air.”

  “Yes?” Alec encouraged him.

  “So if Rydal walked in with a lit cigarette, and he practically always had a lit cigarette in his holder, it might singe his eyebrows but I doubt it would create a disaster of this magnitude. The hermit’s lair on the other hand—”

  “The what?”

  “Mrs. Fletcher hasn’t told you? I suppose she hasn’t had the opportunity.” He explained Pritchard’s fancy of keeping a tame hermit in his grotto. “The room had some sort of natural ventilation, but no source of natural light. It also had a door. It seems to me, the most likely thing to have happened is that Rydal opened the door on a room full of gas. In that case, he’d have been blown backwards, I imagine. He’d be somewhere over there.” Armitage gestured to the left. On that side, the hole sloped up to become a depression that could easily have been a natural part of the hillside.

  “We should start digging in that dip?”

  “I’m a historian, not a geologist or an explosives expert. But my guess is, the confined explosion blew out the roof of the lair, which then collapsed. It also blew Rydal back into the middle cave, but quite likely didn’t do much direct damage to the cave itself. It would be the ground tremors from the blast that brought parts of that one down, leaving some of it undamaged.”

  “So he could quite well be alive in there, and it’s going to be devilish difficult to get him out.”

  Armitage, who had been pink from exertion, turned pale as a ghost and looked down at his feet. “I c-can’t dig in these shoes,” he stammered unhappily. He was wearing house-shoes, not having changed after lunch before the impromptu expedition to the grotto. “I have hiking boots back at the house—been tramping the downs to take a look at barrows and the ancient camps, you know—”

  “You’d better go and get them.” Alec, like Bincombe, had donned sturdy walking shoes for their drive into the country. One could never be certain even a Daimler would not throw a rod in the middle of nowhere. “More to the point, someone must explain to Mr. Pritchard what appears to have happened, and what we’re going to try. Knowing the territory, you have the best grasp of the situation. You’d better wait till the police and the doctor arrive and bring them back with you.”

  “Right you are, sir.” The colour began to return to Armitage’s cheeks as he turned to leave.

  “But first, old man,” Bincombe put in, “if Pritchard hasn’t yet had the gas turned off at the mains, make sure it’s done, pronto.” He reached out a long arm and twitched away a packet of Woodbines the undergardener had just pulled out of his pocket.

  While Simmons berated his underling for idiocy, Alec, Bincombe, Armitage, and Madison leant over the edge of the crater and sniffed. Alec caught no whiff of gas. Bincombe and Armitage both shook their heads. Madison thought he could smell it, but Alec suspected it was his imagination. As a man who spent much of his life breathing petrol fumes, he was not likely to have a sensitive nose.

  In the meantime, the youth had wandered off round the rim of the hole, poking and prying. He now came back, carrying something in a grubby handkerchief, which he showed to Simmons.

  The head gardener snorted. “A bit o’ copper pipe’s not going to make you rich, me lad!”

  “This ’ere’s a clue, Mr. Simmons. I bet it’s got dabs on it. That’s what they call fingerprints in the books.”

  “I’ll give you dabs!”

  “And it ben’t just a scrap o’ pipe. En’s got a gas tap—”

  “Chuck it away and—”

  “Let me see that!” Alec interrupted urgently.

  He took the trophy from its eager finder, careful to keep the indescribable handkerchief round it. A few inches of twisted pipe protruded from either end of the tap fitting. The tap itself was parallel to the pipe. Turned on.

&nb
sp; Frowning at the damning object in Alec’s hands, Bincombe shook his head and said, “I can’t believe even Rhino would be such a fool as to turn on the gas while holding a lit cigarette.”

  TWENTY

  Daisy was brushing her hair when she heard a tap at the door.

  “Come in!”

  It was a very young housemaid, her eyes bright with excitement and a touch of apprehension. “Mr. Pritchard says can you come down, madam. He wants to talk to you. Mr. Endicott’s here. He’s the p’liceman from the village, madam. It’s about her ladyship—Lady Ottaline that is—and the ’splosion. He’s ever so upset, madam, Mr. Endicott is.” She chattered on.

  Daisy wondered if Pritchard considered that being married to a policeman must make her an expert at soothing members of that profession. On the contrary, she recalled numerous episodes tending to confirm the reverse. Not that she intended to tell Pritchard that she was more likely to exacerbate Constable Endicott’s annoyance than to calm it.

  “Please tell Mr. Pritchard I’ll be down in a minute.”

  The girl left. Daisy gave her curls a final whisk of the brush and put on lipstick to give herself courage. Her experience of past battles with Superintendent Crane of the Metropolitan Police, some won, some lost, were no help when it came to facing an irate village bobby.

  But when she reached the hall, she found PC Endicott bewildered, not angry. The round-faced young man, helmet in hand, was saying piteously to Pritchard, “You see, Mr. Pritchard, sir, there ben’t nuthen in the handbook about explosions.”

  “So you’ve already told me, Constable.” More than once, to judge by Pritchard’s face. “Ah, Mrs. Fletcher! This is PC Endicott. His sergeant is down with pleurisy, and he can’t make up his mind whether he ought to notify his superiors in Swindon or not.”

  Daisy tried to decide what Alec would prefer. Bringing in the Swindon brass hats without telling them he was from the Met was out of the question, certain to cause trouble. Honesty, though not always the best policy, was advisable in this case.

  On second thoughts, not just yet. “I should think, Mr. Endicott, your best course would be to go out to the scene of the disaster and find out exactly what happened. Then you can decide whether it should be reported or not.”

  The harried look lifted from Endicott’s face. “Aye, thet’ll be best. Thank ’ee kindly, ma’am.”

  “If you hurry, you can catch up with the lads from the village,” Pritchard suggested.

  Barker was miraculously on hand to show the constable to the back door.

  “Just what I would have suggested, Mrs. Fletcher,” said Pritchard. “Masterly inaction.”

  “Why didn’t you, then?”

  “I wanted to be sure you concurred. I didn’t want to make trouble for your husband by either giving information unnecessarily or witholding it. Now it’s up to him to make the decisions.”

  “Usually the best course.” Daisy sighed. “Don’t they say it’s a sign of growing old when policemen start to look like schoolboys?”

  Pritchard’s eyes twinkled. “I’d always heard the same of doctors.”

  “Oh, that’s all right then. Dr. Tenby doesn’t look at all like a schoolboy to me.”

  “More like an undertaker,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “But hush, here he comes. How is your patient doing, Tenby?”

  “Bad bruising. No concussion. Fainted from pain. Still considerable discomfort. I’ve left some powders.”

  “Should I send for a nurse?”

  “No, no, quite unnecessary. Lady Beaufort seems competent—”

  “Very competent.”

  “And her ladyship’s maid can do whatever is required. Where’s my other patient?”

  “We’re not certain there is one.”

  “But Lord Rydal is still missing,” Daisy put in. “Possibly blown up with the grotto. Oh, hello, Charles. What’s up?”

  Armitage squelched in. “Fletcher sent me to get my hiking boots,” he said, looking down apologetically at his sodden, mucky footwear. “I just met the copper already on his way, but I’m to escort you back, Dr. Tenby—”

  “Galoshes, sir.” Barker rematerialised at the doctor’s side, proffering the said objects. “The weather is inclement, I fear.”

  Tenby’s gloom deepened, but he didn’t protest. Perhaps it would have required the utterance of too many words.

  “If you wouldn’t mind waiting just a moment while I fetch my boots, Doctor.”

  “I shall send a maid for them, sir,” Barker told Armitage, departing once more.

  “Thanks!” Armitage turned to Pritchard. “And most important, sir, Fletcher wants to know whether you’ve had the gas supply to the grotto turned off.”

  “Yes, yes, immediately after the explosion. I take it there’s no sign of Lord Rydal?”

  “No. There’s a dangerous blockage between the outer and inner grottoes—trying to move it could cause further collapse—so the job has to be tackled from the other end.” He hesitated. “Fletcher didn’t say—I think I should tell you three, but for pity’s sake don’t tell anyone else.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Pritchard promised. Dr. Tenby’s lips were practically always sealed anyway.

  Daisy wasn’t prepared to promise the same, but Armitage apparently assumed that as Alec’s wife she was entitled to know all. Not that she hadn’t already guessed what he was about to reveal with so much premonitory palaver.

  “We’ve found what appears to be evidence that the explosion was not an accident.”

  “Hmph,” said the doctor, unimpressed or uninterested. “Pritchard, a stretcher.”

  “I’ll see what I can arrange and send it after you. Barker,” he said as the butler silently returned, “can we provide anything in the way of a stretcher for Dr. Tenby?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Mrs. Fletcher,” said Pritchard, “ought I to ring up the Swindon police, now that it looks as if—”

  “Not unless Alec said to.” Daisy turned to Armitage.

  “He didn’t. He told me to bring Dr. Tenby and the police—. Oh, do you suppose he expected the bobby’s superiors to be on their way already? Are they?”

  Pritchard shook his head. “PC Endicott didn’t report the explosion to them. He wanted my advice as to whether he should.”

  “And I said no,” Daisy admitted. “I think Alec would want to speak to the constable before anyone sends for anyone else. If he wants them to come, he can send you back again, Charles.”

  “That’s all right, eh, as long as I have my boots.”

  “Here they come.”

  A maid arrived with the boots and Armitage put them on. He and Dr. Tenby went out into the rain. It was coming down quite heavily now, Daisy saw. She hoped it wouldn’t make the excavations more dangerous. At least Alec had plenty of assistants now—the gardeners, the villagers, Pritchard’s chauffeur. . . . And while on the subject of chauffeurs—

  The butler was back, no doubt having instructed his subordinates to construct a stretcher.

  “Barker, did Lord Rydal’s man go to help?”

  “No, madam. I am given to understand that Gregg failed to give satisfaction. His lordship informed him that his services would no longer be required after their return to London, but he chose to leave immediately.”

  “And who can blame him!” Pritchard muttered.

  “When was this?”

  “This morning, madam.”

  “And he actually did leave? How?”

  “Madam?”

  “I mean, did someone take him to the station, or was he seen trudging off down the drive with his bag in his hand and his box on his shoulder?”

  For once Barker was at a loss. “I’m afraid I don’t know, madam. Gregg not being one of the household. . . . Madison didn’t take him, that’s for sure. But he could have cadged a lift with Mr. Howell, or even with Sir Desmond’s chauffeur.”

  “They both took cars?”

  “I believe so, madam.”

  “T
hank you, Barker.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I must ensure that work on the stretcher is proceeding according to plan.”

  As Pritchard waved the butler away, Julia came down the stairs.

  “Mother’s still with Lady Ottaline.”

  “Your mother is a saint, Miss Beaufort,” Pritchard said warmly.

  Julia looked startled. “The old dear is being rather a brick,” she conceded.

  “My sister-in-law ought to be at Lady Ottaline’s bedside,” he acknowledged, “but I’m afraid she would not be a soothing companion.”

  Daisy and Julia exchanged looks, but tactfully held their tongues. His comment reminded Daisy that Lucy had been left alone with Mrs. Howell for far longer than was advisable. But he had appeared puzzled by her questions about the chauffeur, Gregg, and she owed it to him, if not to satisfy his curiosity, at least to hear him out. He might even contribute something useful. Also, she had questions for him.

  “Julia, be an angel and tell Lucy I’m on my way,” she said. “There’s a couple of things I must discuss with Mr. Pritchard.”

  “Right-oh, but first tell me, have you heard anything more about the grotto?”

  “Charles came to fetch Dr. Tenby. You just missed him.”

  “Bother! He’s all right?”

  “Yes, perfectly, apart from wet feet. He came for his boots, too. He said they can’t get through the grotto itself so they’ve all gone to dig in the hole in the hill.”

  “That’ll be fun, in this weather.” Wistfully, Julia added, “I suppose I’d be in the way.”

  “Definitely.”

  “You mustn’t dream of going out there, Miss Beaufort,” said Pritchard. “Mr. Fletcher has plenty of men to help him.”

  Julia nodded, sighed, and went off to the drawing room to rescue Lucy from Mrs. Howell—or vice versa.

  “Will you come into my study, Mrs. Fletcher? I must ring Sir Desmond again, to tell him Lady Ottaline is in no danger, though I expect he’s left the works by now.”

  “How did he take it?” Daisy asked, preceding Pritchard along the passage.

  “I was afraid you were going to ask me that. It’s very difficult to say. Do sit down.” With a little sigh, he sank into the chair behind his desk, looking tired. “He didn’t explode with anger—in the circumstances that’s a bad way to put it, but you know what I mean. He didn’t sound desperately worried, though I told him I didn’t know how badly she was injured.”