The Winter Garden Mystery

by Carola Dunn

  “Not me!” Phillip hastily demurred. “I mean, I don’t know anything about the bally murder, but I shan’t skedaddle. Toodle-oo for now, then.”

  He left, and the girl came in to clear the table. Alec asked if they could use the room to discuss some business, and when she agreed he ordered more tea for Daisy and coffee for himself.

  Daisy gave him her papers. “I typed it all out,” she said, “so I wouldn’t forget anything.”

  “Splendid. Do you mind if I smoke while I read?”

  “Your pipe? Not at all, as long as you don’t mind my spelling.”

  He grinned, reaching into his pocket for pipe and tobacco pouch. “Not at all.”

  “I didn’t worry about spelling because I thought it was more important to make sure I wrote down absolutely everything which might be relevant, and I was up till one doing it anyway.”

  With a nod of approval, Alec flattened the papers on the table in front of him and started reading while he filled his pipe. The fragrance of fresh tobacco wafted to Daisy’s nose. It was a pity people insisted on burning the stuff when it smelled so much better unburnt. The pouch was embroidered in blue with a crooked “A.F.” Belinda’s work, she guessed. Would Alec’s daughter like her when they met?

  Sipping tea, she watched him as he read, intent on her words, oblivious of her presence. Though the pipe went out after producing a few curls of blue smoke, he kept it clenched between his teeth while making occasional marks in the margins of the report with his fountain-pen. His face was set in stern lines and he frowned once or twice. Cool and competent, he was all policeman now.

  He finished the last page. Straightening the papers, he said seriously, “You were right to call me in. You haven’t got anything definite here, but quite enough to make me wonder why the deuce Inspector Dunnett is ignoring it.”

  “Don’t blame him too much until you’ve met Lady Valeria.”

  His mouth tightened. “Whatever she’s like, it’s no excuse for a policeman neglecting his duty, let alone for wrongful arrest. You do realize though, don’t you, that while there appears to be no real evidence against Morgan, nor is there any to clear him?”

  “I know, but we’ll find something.”

  “We? Daisy, you are absolutely not to interfere in this case.”

  “I shan’t interfere, I’ll only help. You must admit it’s quite different from last time. I have no sympathy for whoever murdered an innocent young girl.”

  “Innocent?” he said dryly. “She was unmarried and pregnant, with at least two possible fathers for the child.”

  “Oh, Alec, don’t be a prude. She didn’t do anyone but herself any harm.”

  “On the contrary.” His lips twitched. “She gave more than one person a lot of pleasure.”

  “And don’t be coarse!” Daisy said severely.

  “I beg your pardon.” His voice was grave but those grey eyes laughed at her. Then he sobered and leafed through the papers. “I have one or two questions. First, who, besides Mr. Goodman, knew you were interested in the Winter Garden?”

  Daisy thought back. “The subject came up at breakfast. Bobbie was there, and Sebastian.”

  “Neither of them, nor Goodman, made any attempt to dissuade you from visiting it?”

  “No, but it would have looked awfully odd if they had, unless all three were in it together. Wait, Sebastian came in later. I’m sure we talked about the gardens in general in his presence—I refused an invitation to ride with him because I wanted to take advantage of the sunshine—but I can’t swear to mentioning the Winter Garden specifically.”

  Alec made a note. “Now, Owen Morgan. It’s a bit strange he should make a point of telling you about his girlfriend, that he wanted to marry her but she had deserted him.”

  “It’s not strange at all. He sounds very Welsh, you know. I asked him where he came from, which led to his family, which led to his being lonely here, which led quite naturally to the missing sweetheart.”

  “I see. Well, I must interview him as soon as I’ve made my bow to the C.C. and my peace with the local coppers.”

  “Can you get him out of prison?”

  “Probably. But he might be better off staying there.” He flipped through her report. “You say here the girl’s father threatened him.”

  “Because he thought Owen was the murderer.”

  “Even if he’s released, he’ll still be under suspicion. Anyway, that’s not a decision I can make until I’ve seen him.” Consulting his wristwatch, Alec pushed back his chair. “I must go, I have an appointment with the C.C. in Chester.”

  “Oh, I nearly forgot. Ben took some photos with my camera of the body in the trench.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the memory. “It seemed like a good idea. I don’t suppose they’ll show anything useful but if you want to pick them up in Chester, here’s the receipt. Don’t lose my pictures on the same roll.”

  “I shouldn’t dare.” He pocketed the slip of paper. “Thanks. Unless something unexpected comes up, I’ll see you this afternoon at Occles Hall. Daisy, you’ve done a good job but don’t go asking questions while I’m gone. You never know what you might stir up.”

  “All right, I won’t, if you promise not to cut me out of your investigation altogether.”

  Alec sighed and shook his head. “I’ll keep you abreast of things,” he said, “though I ought to be hanged for it.”

  Alec fetched his young constable, Piper, from the kitchen and they went out to the gravelled yard at the back of the inn. Petrie was flat on his back under his aging silver-grey Swift, invisible but for two long legs in oil-stained blue dungarees too short for them.

  “Found the trouble?” Alec asked, striking a match and cupping his hands around the bowl of his pipe in an effort to relight it.

  “I think so.” Petrie wriggled out, his hands filthy, a smear of oil on one cheek, and wisps of his usually slick hair sticking up all over. Alec liked him the better for his dishevelment. “There’s a nut fallen off,” he said, sitting up. “I hope Moss will have one that fits.”

  “Moss at the forge? The bereaved father?”

  “Yes, he lent me these dungarees. A good egg. He’s got a load of bloody rubbish up there, but he swears he knows exactly where to find all the bits that might turn out to be useful.”

  “Good luck. You won’t talk to him about anything to do with the case, will you? But if he should start on it, you might listen and remember.”

  Petrie began to scowl, then changed his mind and grinned. “All right, Chief Inspector. At least it’s good to know I’m not on your list of suspects this time.”

  “You never seriously were, you know. Miss Dalrymple was quite convinced of your innocence, and Miss Dalrymple’s convictions are damned persuasive.”

  “They are, aren’t they?” Petrie agreed.

  Alec drove to Chester. The Austin Chummy bowled happily along the country lanes at a steady thirty-five miles an hour while Ernie Piper reported on the Cheshire Cheese’s kitchen gossip.

  Most of what the young detective constable had heard merely confirmed already known facts about the commercial traveller: Daisy’s account of what Petrie had learned in the bar, plus the Occleswich constable’s findings as passed on by his superiors to the Met.

  “That’s not all, though, Chief,” Piper announced importantly. “I found out why this here George Brown was in Occleswich even though he weren’t trying to sell to the Village Store. He told the barmaid he’d been doing business in Whitbury, the market town. Summun there told him the village was worth a look and the Cheshire Cheese was a good place to stay, so he decided to try it, being headed this d’rection anyways.”

  “Well done! I’ll ask the local people to make enquiries in Whitbury. The town can’t be very big, compared with London at least, so you may have saved the sergeant a lot of work.”

  Piper’s thin chest swelled with pride. “There’s more, Chief. Seems he’d took a room for the night but he didn’t stay, which is why they all thought th
e girl had hopped it with him. So what I reckon is, he done her in and then scarpered.”

  “It’s a nice theory, except that he was a stranger in these parts. How would he have known the Winter Garden was there to bury her in?”

  “Oh.”

  Alec glanced at Piper’s crestfallen face and consoled him. “It’s not inconceivable. I shan’t dismiss the possibility that he may have visited Occles Hall at some time for some reason.”

  “Only then he’d’ve knowed about the village being pretty,” said Piper gloomily.

  “Probably. Just remember, in detective work recognizing the holes in your own theories is as important as coming up with them in the first place.”

  Piper perked up. “Right, Chief. ‘Course, him saying that about coming to see Occleswich could’ve been a blind. S’posing he knowed the girl before and arranged to meet her, like. P’raps she worked in a shop in Whitbury for a while.”

  “It’s worth checking. My impression is that she went straight from school into service at the Hall, but I don’t know for certain.”

  Alec was both amused and pleased by the young man’s imaginative reasoning. He knew how difficult it was for the average constable on the beat to earn the coveted transfer to the plainclothes branch. He himself, with a university degree, had entered the force expecting that transfer as a reward for the obligatory years on the beat. The War had interrupted the upward course, but a commission in the Royal Flying Corps and a DFC had not hurt his prospects.

  Piper, under-educated product of a board school, had had a tougher row to hoe, but with a helping hand he might go far.

  “Of course, it’s possible the girl herself described the garden in arranging to meet him there for some reason,” Alec conceded, adding, “But don’t persuade yourself of George Brown’s guilt to the point where you forget the other suspects.”

  “I won’t, Chief. At least we know this gardener chappy’s in the clear.”

  “We do?”

  “Miss Dalrymple says so.”

  “Miss Dalrymple believes so.” Alec laughed. “Don’t mistake even Miss Dalrymple’s beliefs for evidence.”

  Piper blushed. “No, Chief. One more thing I heard in the kitchen, Chief,” he hurried on. “All the family at Occles Hall’s suspects, aren’t they? Seems Miss Roberta—that’s what they call her; Miss Parslow she’d be—she’s thick as thieves with that long-haired poet chap what’s staying at the Cheshire Cheese.”

  “Is she indeed! That is odd. According to Dai … Miss Dalrymple, Miss Parslow is the hearty, sporting, outdoor type. She doesn’t sound at all the sort to consort with long-haired poets.”

  “P‘raps it’s a disguise,” said Piper eagerly, to Alec’s relief failing to note his reliance on Daisy’s description. “Or p’raps he knows summat about the murder and he’s blackmailing her.”

  “I’ll have to talk to him. You’ve done very well. Now, unless you have any more tidbits for me, let’s have a bit of quiet while I think.”

  For the next few miles, he pondered not Piper’s theories but Dunnett’s astounding incompetence. Within a few hours of arriving in Cheshire, a very junior detective constable had opened up new lines of investigation which the Inspector should have followed up days ago. How on earth was Alec to handle the Chief Constable and Superintendent without entirely alienating them and losing their cooperation?

  Before he had worked out an approach, they came to the River Dee and crossed the bridge into the city of Chester. Alec had visited and explored the ancient town while an undergraduate studying history at Manchester, so he felt less than his usual regret on arriving in an interesting place. His work had taken him all over the country but he was better acquainted with the interiors of police stations than with historical sights.

  He gave Piper the receipt for Daisy’s photos. “Pick these up,” he said, “and wait for me at the desk at the station.”

  “Right, Chief.”

  On entering the Chester police headquarters, Alec was shown straight to the Chief Constable’s office. Its furniture was upholstered in red leather, as was the C.C. himself—at least the observable bit of him from collar to receding hairline. An ex-colonial civil servant, recently appointed, he was inclined to be querulous about the differences in the administration of justice between Blighty and her overseas possessions.

  “A lot of claptrap,” he snorted, “all these formalities, warrants, solicitors, habeas corpus, wrongful arrest. I say, Chief Inspector, have you met the Parslow woman yet? Frightful female, I give you my word, simply frightful. Rather face a native uprising any day, what?”

  Alec escaped as soon as he could and went to see the Superintendent of the Cheshire Constabulary Criminal Investigation Department. Mr. Higginbotham, a neat, spare Yorkshireman who must barely have met police height requirements, was delighted to welcome him. Nearing retirement, he found himself caught in the middle of a triangle composed of an inexperienced superior, a rash subordinate, and an influential termagant. Alec didn’t envy him.

  “I don’t say I’d have called in the Met,” he said defensively. “I could have sorted out the hugger-mugger, but I’m glad enough to have you on my patch since you offered. Here are the full reports.” He pushed a slim folder across his desk. “Anything I can do to help, Mr. Fletcher, just ask.”

  “Thank you, sir. Of course it was your request for a tracer on the commercial traveller which brought us into the case.” That should keep Daisy out of it. “I understand he may have been doing business in Whitbury before he went to Occleswich. I’d like permission to have some of your people check appropriate businesses in Whitbury to try if we can’t get a line on him from this end.”

  Higginbotham groaned and clutched his head. “You’ve already discovered something Dunnett missed? If anything in this world is certain, it’s that before I retire I’ll put paid to any hope that man has of promotion. I’ve taken him off the case, by the way. He wouldn’t even have known the fellow existed if it weren’t for a young lady who laid evidence. A Miss Dalrymple. I’d like to have her on the force!”

  “Oh no you wouldn’t,” Alec exclaimed incautiously.

  “Aha, know her, do you? I did wonder just what it was brought the Met to our doorstep.”

  His eyes were twinkling, Alec noted with relief. “Miss Dalrymple seems to be developing a bad habit of falling over bodies,” he responded ruefully, “and she … shall we say she has more respect for her notion of justice than for the forces of the law.”

  “No bad thing in this case,” said the Superintendent, equally rueful, “but you might remind her that curiosity killed the cat. If the lad we have in custody is innocent, there’s a killer out there.”

  “I have pointed that out, though perhaps not in sufficiently forceful terms.”

  “It’ll bear repeating. Now, I’ll have some men put onto the Whitbury search. What else can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Owen Morgan, sir. He has a solicitor, I take it?”

  “No. He was offered one at public expense but he refused. He won’t say a word to anyone. I hope you’ll have better luck. He’ll come up before the beaks on Monday and unless there’s some hard evidence by then, we’ll have to let him go. Then the Press will scrag us either for letting a murderer loose or for arresting the wrong man. Either way … .” He shrugged.

  “Out of the frying pan into the fire,” said Alec with sympathy. The Met was by no means immune to such situations. He stood up. “I think that’s all for the moment, sir.”

  “I’ll call down and have Morgan taken to an interview room.” Higginbotham rose and shook Alec’s hand. “You’ll keep me informed—and do try not to make my people look too bad.”

  “Of course, sir. Oh, one more thing. Do you know of any way George Brown could have been familiar with the Winter Garden?”

  “Yes, the Parslows used to hold an Open Day to show it off, before the War. Always being postponed because of bad weather and they haven’t started up again since. That’s the way you
’re looking, is it?”

  “I wouldn’t go so far. It’s not by any means the only line of enquiry I have to pursue.”

  Higginbotham grimaced. “Well, Occles Hall is a good deal farther off from London than from Chester. Good luck, Mr. Fletcher. If there’s anything else you need, ask for me or Sergeant Shaw.”

  Alec found Ernie Piper in the lobby, chatting with the desk sergeant. He had Daisy’s photographs, which Alec added to the thin file of police reports. A uniformed constable took them to a small, dingy room furnished with a bare desk and several hard wooden chairs lined up along the walls.

  The desk chair, Alec was glad to see, was at least padded, if not the height of comfort. He sat down. Piper set one of the straight chairs to face the desk, and took his place on another in a corner where he’d be inconspicuous from the prisoner’s point of view. He extracted his notebook and three well-sharpened pencils from the inside pocket of his modest brown serge suit jacket, placing two of the pencils in the outer breast pocket. Learning shorthand had been one factor in his promotion to the detective branch of the force and he was duly proud of it. Alec nodded approval of his arrangements.

  Another uniformed constable brought in Owen Morgan. Alec studied the slight, dark youth who stood before him in a shabby coat, his shoulders drooping hopelessly, sallow face drawn, seeming to hold himself upright by a huge effort of will.

  “Sit down, lad,” he said gently. Morgan slumped onto the nearest chair. “Cigarette?” A weary shake of the head answered him. “Coffee? No, tea,” he guessed. “Officer, three cups, please.”

  The constable saluted and went out.

  “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher, from Scotland Yard. You know, I could have you out of here today.”

  Morgan looked up, a momentary flash of hope in his reddened eyes. Then he shook his head again. “What’s the use, sir? I can’t go back there and she’ll never giff me a reference. It’s home to Merthyr I’ll haff to go and down the pit. It’ll break me mam’s heart, look you. I might as well stop here.”