Sheer Folly

by Carola Dunn

  Barker came in. In his discreet butlerian undertone, he said something to Mrs. Howell that sent her scurrying out of the room, her lips pursed. A night’s sedated sleep seemed to have calmed her crise de nerfs. At least she wasn’t foaming at the mouth.

  Barker next spoke to Pritchard, and then came over to Daisy. “Mr. Fletcher desired me to inform you, madam, that he will be lunching with Boyle. I understand they have much to discuss.”

  “Thank you, Barker. Bother!” she said to Julia as the butler bowed and turned away. “I wonder what . . . ? I suppose I’d better not go and try to find out now.”

  “I wouldn’t. But I’m a suspect, not an amateur detective.”

  “Darling, I’m just trying to work out what really happened. I know you and Charles weren’t involved, so the sooner we nail whoever did it, the better.”

  Pritchard came over to see if they wanted their drinks topped up. “Barker let you know your husband won’t be eating with us?” he asked Daisy. “I told him to give them the same as we’re having, but he said they requested sandwiches.”

  “Easier to eat at the desk,” Daisy explained.

  Lady Ottaline came down last, alarmingly bright-eyed and bursting with energy.

  “I hope I’m half as merry and gay when I’m as old as she is,” Julia whispered to Daisy. “How does she do it, after what she’s been through?”

  “Some kind of pills, I expect, or cocaine.”

  “No, surely . . . !”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. Don’t tell anyone I said so, even Charles.”

  Mrs. Howell rushed back into the room, her face now a mask of tragedy. “The police are pestering the servants again! Brin, how can you allow it? Right before lunchtime! I dread to think what the meal will be like.”

  “Perhaps Alec’s the lucky one,” said Daisy.

  The soup was too salty. The beef was like boot-soles, the roast potatoes limp, the gravy lumpy, the carrots bullet-hard, the brussels sprouts grey mush. The Yorkshire pudding had gone flat and was burnt round the edges. Remembering Mrs. Simmons, Daisy was prepared to bet her pudding had turned out beautifully and wished she’d invited herself to the Simmonses’ midday dinner. Mrs. Howell wrung her hands while everyone else tried to pretend the food was edible, though Lady Ottaline didn’t eat a single morsel.

  They were sitting pushing soggy jam roll round their plates when Lucy sauntered in.

  “Hello, all,” she drawled. “Do you mind if I abstract Daisy, Mrs. Howell? I need her support to face the massed constabulary.”

  “Lady Gerald! Have you eaten? I’ll have something—”

  “We stopped for a bite on the way, thanks.”

  “You’re early, Lucy,” said Gerald.

  She smiled. “Darling, the time I told you was based on the fact that Sergeant Thomkin refused to let me drive back.”

  Gerald was aghast. “You let him drive my car?”

  “No, I thought you’d prefer Carlin at the wheel. He treated your car with tender care, but poor Thomkin! He must have assumed a civil servant would drive sedately. Carlin’s time wasn’t much slower than mine.”

  “Young Carlin?” Sir Desmond frowned. “What the deuce is he doing back here? You brought him, Lady Gerald?”

  “Depending on how you look at it, I brought him, he brought me, or the police brought both of us. He’s talking to Alec and the Boyle man now.”

  Sir Desmond looked confused, as well he might. Lucy’s oracular explanation on top of his libations—he had done well by the wine with lunch—was enough to confuse anyone. “Boyle—the inspector? I haven’t spoken to him. Fletcher asked me a few questions.”

  “Much more fun, darling,” said Lady Ottaline with a coy, girlish giggle.

  “If you ask me,” Daisy whispered fiercely as Lucy tugged her from the room, “it’s a pity she didn’t go up with Rhino.”

  “Don’t take any notice of the poor old thing, darling.”

  “If she goes round saying that sort of thing, it could ruin Alec’s career.”

  “Bosh, no one pays her any attention.”

  “Lucy, does she take drugs?”

  “I should think so. Lots of people do. How else could she keep up such a killing pace? Come on, Boyle is panting for my pictures.”

  “Did your experiment work?”

  “À merveille. Wait till you see it. They’re all pretty good. There are three I’d like to use for the book, if they go forward with it, and three or four that should do for your article.”

  They reached the door of Pritchard’s den. Daisy put her finger to her lips, Lucy nodded, and quietly they went in.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  To Daisy’s disappointment, as she and Lucy entered the den, Boyle was saying, “Thank you for your help, Mr. Carlin. Not that it helps much, but that’s not your fault, I suppose.”

  “I can’t see why you had to drag me all the way back, make me miss the tournament, for that! My partner’s furious.”

  Daisy had missed hearing his evidence, but the sound of his voice brought back to her the last time she had heard it, at breakfast the day before. Surely he couldn’t have told everything, or Boyle wouldn’t have been so disappointed. Unless he had already heard from someone else? But in that case he should be glad of confirmation.

  Daisy decided she’d better wait until Carlin left the room before she cast doubt on the completeness of his answers to Boyle’s questions.

  “I suppose I can leave now, after this totally unnecessary journey,” Carlin said sulkily.

  “I’d prefer that you not leave Appsworth, sir,” the inspector said. “And I’d be obliged if you’d stay just now and give us a hand. Good timing, ladies. Let’s have a look at these photographs.”

  DS Thomkin went to Pritchard’s blueprint drawers and took out a large sheet printed with what turned out to be a ground-plan of the grotto’s three caves. Boyle picked up a large manila envelope and opened it as the sergeant spread the plan on the desk.

  “Here, let me,” said Lucy, reaching for the envelope. She took out a sheaf of photos. “You said you wanted to see all of them, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  Alec pulled his chair closer.

  “These first few are of the front of the house.” Lucy spread them before Boyle, who pushed them aside with a grunt of irritation. “All right, here’s the stream.”

  “Now dried up,” said Daisy.

  The inspector contradicted her. “Not any more it’s not. There’s a fair trickle in it. All that rain last night, it broke through again. The stream, that’s another thing I want to talk to you about, Lady Gerald, but let’s see the rest of the pictures first.”

  Lucy laid out several shots of the grotto entrance from outside. Boyle glanced at them, but it was the interior he was interested in. He had Lucy, Daisy, and Carlin try to place the location of each photo, one by one, on the plan. They had a few disagreements.

  “We’d better get Pritchard or Howell for this,” Alec suggested, “or even Appsworth—”

  “Appsworth?” said Lucy and Carlin together.

  “Armitage,” Daisy enlightened them. “It turns out he’s really Charles Appsworth.”

  “Really!” Lucy was sceptical. “The long lost heir, I suppose.”

  “No, he’s—”

  “Please, ladies! Mrs. Fletcher, you can explain later. Lady Gerald, you haven’t got people in these photos, except the ones of the entrance, where he’s too small to identify.”

  “Oh, that’s Armit—Appsworth. For that sort of shot one wants a figure to show the scale. The others, well, I wasn’t taking holiday snaps, you know.”

  “So I—Strewth!” The inspector had reached the last of the grotto pictures.

  Lucy’s ghost had come out beautifully. The white statue of St. Vincent Ferrer, cowled, marble flame in hand, was distinct against a dim background. At his shoulder stood a doppelganger, a murky, blurred figure, but definitely another monk.

  “Very nice, Lucy,” said Alec dryly.

/>   “Do you think I can sell it to the Society for Psychical Research?”

  “Probably. Who is it?”

  “Appsworth again. Wouldn’t you expect him to haunt his ancestral home?”

  “Very good at play-acting, that young man,” Boyle growled.

  “Not really, inspector.” Daisy was well aware of the natural distrust of the police for acting ability. “Lucy told him exactly what to do, and with that robe and hood to hide inside, anyone could have done it. You’ll have noticed that the statue is of a Catholic monk. He’s the patron saint of plumbers. That’s what got Mrs. Howell carrying on about Papism.”

  “And the others are heathen idolatry.” He shuffled through the images of gods, goddesses, and half-clad nymphs. “Thank you, Lady Gerald. Now, while I have the three of you here, what’s this Mr. Fletcher tells me about people being pushed into the stream?”

  “Pushed!” Carlin exclaimed, startled. “Lady Ottaline fell in. She was wearing high-heeled shoes, completely inappropriate for the path. Mrs. Fletcher turned her ankle earlier in spite of wearing walking shoes.”

  “Mr. Carlin was the first to jump in to rescue her,” Lucy said. “Quite the hero.”

  Carlin flushed at her mocking tone. “Nothing heroic about it. The water was only four foot deep or so.”

  “But you didn’t know that,” said Daisy, “and it was dark.”

  “And you might have landed on top of her, for all you could see,” Lucy pointed out.

  “I was careful to jump in upstream of where she fell,” he said indignantly.

  “Charles—Mr. Appsworth—was ahead of us,” Daisy went on, “already past the corner. He heard Lady Ottaline scream and ran back, and he was the second to jump.”

  “A positive multitude of heroes. There stood Rhino on the brink, pretending to take off his coat, with Julia on one side of him and Wandersley on the other. Nothing will persuade me that he wasn’t pushed.”

  “Would you agree, Mrs. Fletcher?” Boyle asked.

  “I’d agree that he wasn’t at all keen to go in. He was so slow that Julia made some remark about his being too elderly for such exploits. He did take his coat off then, and next moment down he flew. He could have decided he’d better show willing after such a comment from the woman he loved.”

  “Much more likely Sir Desmond pushed him,” Lucy insisted.

  “You believe Lady Ottaline was also pushed?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Inspector, I don’t know! Perhaps it was her shoes. But considering she was with her cuckolded husband and the lover who wanted to ditch her—well, perhaps one of them succeeded.”

  “Succeeded?”

  “Ditched her.” Lucy was so pleased with her pun that she actually asked Boyle’s permission to go to the grotto. “I brought some more plates and I’d like to get a couple of shots of it the way it is now. Not for any particular purpose, more for my records. For the history books.”

  Boyle glanced at Alec, who shrugged.

  “I suppose . . .” The inspector paused. “Yes, why not? Don’t go up there alone, though, please. Take someone with you in case of accidents.”

  “Daisy?”

  “Of course, darling, but not right now.”

  “I’ll go with you, Lady Gerald,” Carlin offered, nobly in view of her sarcastic comments on his heroism.

  “Right-oh. I expect Gerald will, too. We’ll wait for you, Daisy, if you’re not too long.”

  “Just a couple of minutes. Get my coat for me, will you?”

  Lucy and Carlin departed.

  “What now, Daisy?” Alec asked.

  “You have information for us, Mrs. Fletcher? About Carlin?”

  “Yes. He may have told you already . . .”

  “Never mind. At worst you can confirm his statement.”

  Her pointing out of the overlooked gardeners seemed to have raised her in Boyle’s estimation. “Well, first, it’s something he said at breakfast. Howell was complaining because Sir Desmond hadn’t come down yet, thus delaying their business in Swindon. Carlin said something—I can’t remember his exact words, I’m afraid—about it being no use trying to hurry him, because he always went for a stroll after breakfast for the sake of his digestion. If he missed it he got dyspepsia and became thoroughly disagreeable.”

  Boyle perked up. “Sir Desmond always took a walk after breakfast?” He exchanged a look with Alec.

  “So Carlin claimed. Howell could confirm that he said so, I’m sure, because it annoyed him. Julia and Charles were there, too, I’m pretty sure, though whether they were listening is another matter.”

  “Do you know whether Wandersley actually did go out for a walk?” Alec asked.

  “ ’Fraid not. Shortly after he came down at last, Lucy and I left. That was just after the second thing I thought I ought to make sure you know. Carlin was the butt of one of Rhino’s sneering insults and departed in a huff.”

  “Well, now, he didn’t happen to mention that, either, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “In exchange, I hope you’re going to tell me whether Billy saw anyone in the gardens.”

  Alec smiled. “He saw Julia and Appsworth making off over the hills, in the direction of the area of the later explosion. They didn’t go anywhere near the grotto’s entrance.”

  “Thank heaven! Anyone else?”

  Boyle regarded her for a moment, his face expressionless. Then he said, “Billy saw someone going towards the grotto. He only caught a brief glimpse, between bushes or hedges or whatever because he’d come to a tricky bit of mowing and had to watch his scythe. He didn’t recognise the person.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “I’ve told you all I’m going to, Mrs. Fletcher, and probably more than I ought. You’ve been very helpful. Have you got any more questions, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “Just one. Let me make sure I’ve got it straight who was in the breakfast room when you and Lucy left. Howell, Rydal, Wandersley—anyone else? Pritchard?”

  “No, he went off earlier. Carlin left just ahead of us, and Howell was close behind him, I think. Julia and Charles were still there, if I remember correctly. Yes, they must have been, because Julia told Rhino he was appallingly vulgar. Can you believe it, he said she must be thinking of someone else and he started blethering about his quarterings!” Seeing Boyle looking blank, she explained, “The bits of an escutcheon—a family’s coat of arms—that show which noble families they’ve married into. He said with pride that the Earls of Rydal hadn’t married a commoner in centuries, which, come to think of it, was a sort of backhanded insult to Julia.”

  “He insulted everybody,” said Boyle, “but insults just rolled off his back.”

  “Exactly. Small wonder he got blown up! I wonder if anyone will truly mourn him. What has he got in the way of family? Perhaps he’s another person at home, kind to dogs, children, and his aged mother.”

  This flight of fancy alarmed the inspector. “He has an aged mother? We haven’t done anything about informing next of kin. It’s impossible to get hold of lawyers on a Sunday, even if we knew who his lawyer was.”

  “I haven’t the foggiest about his mother. I can’t imagine him having anything so normal as parents or brothers and sisters, which may sound unkind but you didn’t know him until he was dead. Mr. Pritchard probably doesn’t run to a Peerage. Mrs. Howell might possibly pore over one in the solitude of her room. Lucy probably knows, though she’ll never be as omniscient as her Great-aunt Eva.”

  “I’ll ask Lady Gerald later,” said Boyle impatiently. “If you’ve no further revelations for us . . .”

  “None that come immediately to mind. May I tell Miss Beaufort and Mr. Appsworth that Billy’s saved their skins?”

  The inspector shrugged. “If you want. Don’t tell anyone else, though, and tell them to keep quiet about it.”

  “Right-oh.” Daisy blew a kiss at Alec and whisked out of the room.

  In the drawing room, she found Lucy, Carlin, and Gerald only waiting for her arrival to go out. So were Julia
and Charles, who had decided to join them for a breath of air. Lady Ottaline wanted to go, too.

  “I’d have thought you’d had enough of that place,” Sir Desmond said, sounding bored. “Not to mention that you ought to take it easy till you’re fully recovered.”

  “Do stop fussing, Des, I’m perfectly all right. I might get an inhibition about grottoes if I don’t go. I can tell you, though, I shan’t smoke in there.” Waving her cigarette holder, she said to the hovering butler, “Barker, have my maid bring down my coat.”

  “I suppose I’d better come with you,” her husband said, “as your usual escort is—unavailable.”

  Carlin, standing near Daisy, whispered to her, “D’you think I ought to offer to take his place?”

  “Absolutely not. You steer clear of that imbroglio.”

  Looking relieved, he nodded. “Besides, you’ll need me as Mr. Fletcher isn’t going with us. He’s splendid, isn’t he? Not at all like that inspector chappie. You know, I rather wish I’d gone into the police instead of the civil service, only the parents wouldn’t have heard of it.”

  Which would have sounded like an insult in the mouth of Rhino, Daisy thought, but from the baby bureaucrat was merely a wistful musing.

  Pritchard now made up his mind that he must brace himself to see his ruined grotto for the first time. “Better get it over with in company, don’t you think, Owen?”

  “I want to see it in ruins,” said Mrs. Howell malevolently. “Owen, wait while I change my shoes.”

  Lucy had waited for Daisy, but she wasn’t about to wait for anyone else. She gathered her chosen companions together and shepherded them out through the French doors. Behind her, Daisy heard Lady Beaufort say placidly, “No, I think not, my dear. I’ll come and see it again when you have restored it—and installed a few seats along the path.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  “I hope Mrs. Fletcher isn’t going to come up with any more inspirations.” Boyle was thoroughly disgruntled. “We’re getting nowhere fast.”

  “We’re getting along nicely,” said Alec. “We’ve eliminated Julia and Appsworth—”

  “That may look like progress to you, sir, but to me it looks like we just lost our most likely suspects.”