by Carola Dunn
‘Ugh! What on earth was he doing going skating in the dark? It seems a frightfully peculiar thing to do, and I distinctly heard him say he was going to bed.’ She recalled wondering whether he was aiming towards his own or Annabel’s bed, but Piper didn’t need to know that. A sudden longing for Alec’s competent presence swept over her. ‘Oh Lord, this does complicate matters,’ she exclaimed. ‘You’d better ring up the police station in Winchester and leave word for the Chief. He may want to come back tonight.’
‘Dr. Renfrew said he telephoned there first, miss, and left a message. That’s why he chewed my ear off, like it were my fault he couldn’t find the Chief nowhere.’
‘Too unfair,’ Daisy commiserated. ‘Did he tell you anything else?’
‘Summat about confusions and cold water.’ Piper eyed his notes dubiously. ‘And imaging?’
Daisy racked her brains. ‘Contusions and haemorrhaging? Bruises and bleeding?’ Not for nothing had she done a brief stint in a hospital office during the War.
‘I couldn’t say for sure, miss, ’cepting he’s doing some tests as he’ll have the results of come morning. Such long words them doctors use, you can’t rightly make head nor tail of ’em.’
‘Right now, I can’t make head nor tail of anything. Confusions is about right. I simply can’t believe Astwick went down to the lake after dinner.’
‘If ’tweren’t for them skates he had on, you’d think he’d gone to meet Payne, or one of his burglar chums. Lumme, miss, you don’t think the skates were kind of like a disguise, in case someone saw him there?’
‘He could just as well have said he was out for a stroll and a breath of fresh air.’
‘I s’pose so,’ Piper agreed, disappointed. ‘And it’s true there weren’t no sign I could find of anyone coming in from outside. So it was still someone here done him in. The time’s narrowed down to a couple of hours, though, and some on ’em has alibis. I can’t remember who, off-hand, but it’ll please the Chief.’
Almost everyone had been in the drawing-room for two hours after dinner. Almost everyone. Lord Wentwater had been alone in his study, and Annabel had left shortly before Astwick. Unless her maid could give her an alibi, she had to be considered a chief suspect.
‘No,’ Daisy cried, shaking her head, ‘it’s not so simple. It gets dark so early, anyone could have made the hole before changing for dinner, expecting Astwick to fall in in the morning.’
‘True, miss, but it still leaves just a few hours to account for. We didn’t look for alibis for before dinner, reckoning there was all night to do the job in. Some on ’em’ll be in the clear. Just knocking two or three off the list’ll cheer the Chief up.’
At that moment, the Chief was in dire need of something to cheer him up. His pipe clenched grimly between his teeth, he peered out through the open upper part of the windscreen into the darkness. The headlights illuminated silver needles of rain slanting across the lane, and the drumming of rain on the raised roof-hood vied with the drone of the engine. The little car sloshed bravely through the slush. The surface beneath was still frozen, and every now and then Alec had to correct a skid as the narrow wheels hit a patch of ice.
Squeezed into the seat beside him, Tom Tring reported on his questioning of the servants. ‘Nothing new on Astwick’s boots, Chief.’
‘Blast the boots. Payne may tell us whether there’s a pair missing or not, but I can’t see it’s going to help us much. What else?’
‘Talking of boots, Lady Wentwater’s boots and other outdoor clothes didn’t show no signs of having been worn for a day or two, nor Lady Josephine’s, nor Mr. Wilfred’s. That’s according to their personal servants. All the others, we know they was out at some point, when the body was found if not before.’
‘Hmm, interesting. And?’
‘Ah, let’s see now. The housemaid that did Astwick’s bedroom, Dilys her name is, and a neat, perky little baggage as I wouldn’t mind . . . ’
‘Spare me the rhapsodies, Tom. What did she have to say?’
‘Well, as a rule she didn’t have owt to do with Astwick’s clothes and that, but being as Payne was gone she tidied up a bit. Snooping, if you arst me,’ said the sergeant tolerantly. ‘A good job he’d locked the despatch case. Anyways, there’s two things she noticed that morning she thought was a bit fishy. It seems Astwick’s dressing gown was damp. Hanging on the back of the bathroom door, it was, and she took it down to the kitchen to dry.’
‘Some men put on a dressing gown before they towel themselves dry,’ Alec pointed out. ‘Or perhaps he dripped on the floor when he got out of the bath, and dropped his dressing-gown in the puddle. We know he was in the habit of taking a bath before his dawn exercise. A cold bath, wasn’t it?’ Shivering, he braked as they reached an unsignposted fork in the road.
‘Right, Chief. No, go left here,’ he contradicted himself as Alec turned the wheel. ‘I meant, you’re right, a cold bath was what he took.’
A flurry of cold raindrops hit Alec in the face as he swung left, narrowly missing the ditch. ‘Silly ass,’ he growled around the stem of his pipe. ‘Didn’t know when he was well off. What else did your pretty housemaid notice?’
‘Astwick’s bed hadn’t been slept in,’ said Tom bluntly. ‘The covers was turned back neat, the way she left them. No wrinkles in the sheets, no hollow in the pillow.’
‘Oh hell. It looks as if he spent the night with Lady Wentwater, then.’
‘Looks like it, Chief. Her ladyship’s maid, Miss Barstow, was the only one as went upstairs between dinner and the chambermaid putting hot-water bottles in the beds at half ten. Lady Wentwater ordered her to draw a bath and then dismissed her for the night.’
‘But the earl might have walked in on them at any moment! Perhaps Astwick didn’t care. He was doing a moonlight to Rio anyway, so the social consequences wouldn’t bother him, and he’d have his revenge on Lady Wentwater one way or the other. I must admit, whatever it was she did that gave him a hold over her, I’m sorry for her.’
‘His lordship didn’t walk in on them, though,’ Tom reminded him, ‘at least by his own account. And she couldn’t’ve chopped a hole in the ice if she was having a bit of nooky with the victim, so it lets her out.’
‘Except that her only witness is dead. We’ve no proof he was with her, after all. He might have been exploring your Dilys’s charms in some garret. There’s a lamppost. Damn it, where the devil are we?’
The sergeant glued his nose to the bespattered side window, then let it down and stuck his head out. ‘Alresford,’ he announced. ‘Next right, then straight ahead. Not my Dilys, Chief, not but what she’d hardly’ve told me about his bed if he’d been in hers.’
‘He could have been in any other female servant’s,’ Alec said with a sigh, trying to find a way out for the countess. He turned right into the broad main street of the little town.
‘Don’t think so. Fact, I’m pretty sure not. Like Lady Josephine told you, I haven’t picked up the slightest hint he was interested in the maids. Someone’d’ve tattled if there was owt to tattle about, I’ll be bound. There’s always jealousies belowstairs like you wouldn’t believe, Chief. No, Astwick only fancied upper-crust ladies and at Wentwater he hadn’t eyes for nowt but her ladyship.’
‘Nonetheless, we’ve no evidence he spent that night in her bed. I’m not quite ready to dismiss the possibility of his having spent it in Lady Marjorie’s, if not in a maid’s. We’re really no further forward than before. I don’t see how I’m ever going to clear up this case unless Payne comes up with something startlingly new, which seems unlikely.’
‘He may lead us to the loot from the Flatford job, and even if he don’t, we picked up the good stuff from the other burglaries,’ Tring reminded him cheerfully.
‘True.’
‘That’s a feather in your cap, Chief, even if chummie’s no help with the Wentwater business, if it’s all in the family, like.’
‘As seems probable.’ Gloom returned. ‘It’ll take a she
af of peacock feathers to make up for arresting the earl, if that’s what I end up having to do. Suppose he overheard Astwick and his wife making love? His dressing-room’s right next door to the bedroom. He might have reckoned that setting up an accident would allow him to get his own back without ever admitting to knowing he’d been cuckolded.’
At the police station in Winchester, a stout, grizzled constable who looked well past the age of retirement was nodding off on a high seat behind the front desk. His blue uniform jacket strained at the seams, as if resurrected from slenderer days.
The telephone at his elbow rang just as Alec and Tring entered the station. Startled to wakefulness, he blinked at them, then turned his head to regard the shrilling instrument with deep suspicion. Taking the receiver from its hook, he held it at arm’s length and turned back to Alec.
‘What can Oi be a-doin’ fer ’ee, zir?’ he enquired in a slow country voice, ignoring the chittering coming from the telephone.
‘Deal with your ’phone call first.’
‘Don’t ’ee moind that, zir. Truth to tell, Oi can’t roightly foller what folks be zayin’ on the machine,’ he confided. Suddenly raising the receiver to his mouth, he bellowed into it, ‘Yes, zir!’and hung up. ‘If it be important, they’ll zend round or step by come marnin’. What can Oi be a-doin’ fer ’ee?’
Wondering how many messages had been lost or delayed, Alec exchanged an exasperated glance with Tom.
‘I’m Chief Inspector Fletcher, Scotland Yard,’ he announced.
The constable lumbered down from his stool and saluted, with the genial, placid air of one doing a favour. ‘Constable Archer, retired, zir,’ he introduced himself.
He had been recalled to duty because all able-bodied men were out hunting for the stolen jewels, at Alec’s request, so there was no point making a fuss about his incompetence. Alec asked for Gillett and was told that the Inspector had gone out to call off the search for the night.
‘Did he leave any message for me?’
Archer pondered. ‘Come to think on it, he did zay to tell ’ee he’d step home fer a bite o’ supper afore he come back.’
‘I could do with a pie and a pint meself, Chief,’ the sergeant rumbled behind him.
‘I suppose we’d better wait for Gillett, as he was the one who nicked Payne,’ said Alec resignedly. ‘All right, Tom, we’ll go and get something to eat. At this rate, we might as well have stayed to dine on the fat of the land at Wentwater.’
Dinner at Wentwater Court was as delicious as ever, but Daisy paid her food the scantest attention. The postmortem discovery dismayed her. The more she considered the changed time of Astwick’s death, the less she was able to imagine any reason for him to be skating at that hour. Yet how else could he have ended up drowned in the lake? It didn’t make sense.
Desperate for someone to discuss the matter with, she wished Alec would return. In fact, she was rather surprised when he didn’t. Surely the news was of sufficient moment to bring him back!
Payne’s revelations must be of still more interest to him. Of course, the recovery of Lord Flatford’s guests’ jewellery would bring grateful applause, whereas the arrest of Astwick’s killer, presumably a member of the earl’s family, meant nothing but trouble.
One of Lord Wentwater’s family was a killer. The word reverberated in Daisy’s mind. The simple change of a few hours in the time of death had somehow changed everything. Now she found it difficult – nearly impossible – to believe in a prank gone wrong. What had Astwick been doing down at the lake after dinner?
Surreptitiously she glanced around the table. With Phillip and Fenella gone, she was the only non family member. Except for James, all of them were there. Not one looked like a killer. They were subdued, even Wilfred, the weight of the continued police presence in the house making itself felt. Lady Jo, never one to despise her victuals, was eating as if it were her last meal. Annabel was pale and withdrawn. She jumped visibly when Sir Hugh asked her to pass the salt.
James? He had been in the drawing-room the whole of that evening. Daisy started to build a fantasy in which he had broken up the ice before dinner and forged a note from Annabel to Astwick inviting him to meet her to skate by moonlight. Astwick would have skated about to keep warm while he waited for her – but he’d never believe she’d issue such an invitation in the first place.
Somehow James must have managed it. Daisy couldn’t bear to think that any of the others were guilty.
She was glad to find Phillip in the drawing-room when they all repaired thither for coffee. He looked a bit down in the mouth, but he bucked up when he saw her. ‘What-ho, old thing,’ he greeted her. ‘Bearing up all right?’
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she said crossly, annoyed by his tactlessness.
‘Have you dined, Mr. Petrie?’ Annabel asked.
‘Yes, thanks. I stopped at a little place on the way when I realized I was going to be rather late. The roads are absolutely foul.’ He launched into a tale of motoring through rain and icy slush and narrow escapes from ditches. Daisy hoped Alec’s continued absence wasn’t due to a motoring mishap.
Coffee and its alcoholic accompaniments were served and consumed. Lady Jo invited her brother to partner her at her inevitable bridge, playing against Sir Hugh and Wilfred. Occasional dismayed exclamations of ‘Oh, Henry!’ suggested that the earl’s mind was not on his cards. Geoffrey drifted off in his unobtrusive way and Annabel and Marjorie talked quietly together by the fire.
‘Fancy a game of snooker?’ Phillip asked Daisy. ‘Lord, we haven’t played together in years. Do you remember when you and I used to team up against Gervaise? He usually beat both of us.’ He rambled on in a sentimental vein as they made their way to the billiard-room. ‘Things just haven’t been the same since Gervaise bought it,’ he concluded. ‘Well, my dear old thing, what about it?’
Daisy, who had been trying to remember Gervaise’s instructions on choosing a cue, said absently, ‘What about what?’
‘You and me, old girl. Teaming up. Tying the knot. Making a match of it.’
‘Oh, Phil, it’s awfully sweet of you to ask me again, but I still think we shouldn’t suit.’
‘Hang it all, I don’t see why not.’
She tried to let him down lightly. ‘For a start, neither of us has a bean. Setting up a household costs pots. What would we live on?’
‘I’m bound to make money soon,’ he said, incurably optimistic. ‘It stands to reason, bad luck can’t last forever. You have that bit from your great-aunt, haven’t you? If you go back to live with your mother until we get married, you can save up enough for a rainy day.’
‘Phillip, I am not going to live with Mother. You know what she’s like. She’s never forgiven my cousin for inheriting Fairacres and she never stops complaining, as though poor Edgar had any choice in the matter!’ She held up her hand as he opened his mouth. ‘And yes, Edgar and Geraldine have invited me to make my home with them at Fairacres but I’d be mad within a fortnight.’
‘They are rather stuffy,’ he admitted.
‘Stuffy! They’re absolutely mediaeval. Geraldine considers the tango debauchery and lipstick the sign of the devil. And I’d always be a poor relation. Thank you, I prefer to work for my independence.’
‘What about your sister? You always got on well with Violet. Surely she and Frobisher would take you in.’
‘I’d still be a poor relation, though Vi and Johnnie are dears. Even though Violet earned Mother’s approval by marrying young, she supports me when Mother starts ragging me about working.’
‘You wouldn’t have to, if you married me.’
‘I like earning my living, Phil. I like writing. I wouldn’t stop just because I married. You don’t understand that, and you’d hate it.’
‘Dash it, Daisy, I know I’m a frightful idiot, but I am deuced fond of you.’
‘You’re an old dear, but it wouldn’t work, believe me.’
‘You’re not still mourning your conchie, are y
ou?’
Daisy flared up. ‘Don’t call Michael that!’ With an effort she smothered her anger. ‘You see, we disagree about practically everything. Let’s agree to disagree. Are you going to set up the balls, or shall I?’
‘We can still be chums?’ Phillip enquired anxiously, collecting the red pyramid balls within the triangular frame.
‘Of course, you silly old dear. You have the white ball, you go first.’
They played an amicable game, Daisy sternly holding her tongue when he let her win by a couple of points. He’d have been hurt and baffled if she’d insisted on losing honestly.
Later, lying in bed, listening to the blown rain spatter against her window, she pondered his question. Was she still mourning Michael? She’d never forget him, never forget the breathless joy of being with him, of knowing he loved her. Yet the biting pain of her loss had dulled. Was it Annabel’s sympathy, her respect for Michael’s courage and dedication, that allowed Daisy to begin to let go?
Annabel, too, had loved a man disdained by society, and lost him. Daisy vowed to do all in her power to protect her new friend from the further troubles Astwick’s death was certain to bring upon her.
For the moment, Daisy didn’t want to think about the mystery of the drowning. If she tried to work out an answer to the latest complication in the riddle, she’d never fall asleep. Instead of speculating, she proposed to wander through memories of happy hours with Michael.
Somehow Alec’s dark brows and keen grey eyes kept intruding.
After a restless night filled with agitated dreams, Daisy drifted into a sound sleep shortly before dawn. She woke later than usual. When she went down to breakfast, Detective Constable Piper was talking on the telephone in the hall.
Not so much talking as listening and frantically scribbling, Daisy saw. She lingered, just out of earshot.
At last Piper hung up the receiver. His face was taut with excitement as he stared down at his notes, oblivious of Daisy’s presence. ‘Gorblimey,’ he said on a long, exhaled breath. ‘This’ll put the cat among the pigeons, right enough.’