Night and Day

by Caron Allan

  ‘Come away, dear,’ George was saying, and then he and Flora drew her away and into the house, past the staring guests.

  ‘I just—f-found him,’ she felt she had to explain. ‘I was going to go around him—I thought he was a drunk, but then...’

  ‘Come upstairs, Dottie dear,’ Flora was saying, ‘let’s get you out of those wet things.’

  Dottie looked down at her dress in surprise. She really was wet through, and she hadn’t even noticed.

  Chapter Two

  It was a relief to sit in an armchair in Flora’s bedroom clutching a hot toddy between her frozen fingers.

  Flora had tried to persuade Dottie to take off her wet things and get into bed, but Dottie had already made up her mind to go home. The hot drink was welcome and helped to calm her nerves as well as her stomach.

  Downstairs in the hall, George was telephoning to Dottie and Flora’s father, explaining what had happened and asking him to drive over to pick Dottie up. And as he was talking, the bell of the ambulance rang in the street outside and jangled her nerves. Flora was rubbing Dottie’s back, sitting on the arm of her chair and fussing over her younger sister like a mother hen.

  ‘Poor Archie Dunne,’ Flora said, ‘I can hardly believe it.’

  ‘Who? W-what, you know him? That was his name?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t see for myself, of course, but that’s who George said it was.’

  Dottie was silent, thinking. Somehow it was worse that they knew him. Flora took the empty glass from her, the toddy was all gone. Usually that kind of thing made her feel a little tipsy, Dottie thought, but not today. She still felt cold inside. That poor man...

  George came into the room.

  ‘Flossie dear, do you think we ought to tell everyone to go. It doesn’t seem...’

  Flora gasped. ‘You’re right—I’d forgotten all about them.’ With a last pat of Dottie’s back, she got up, saying over her shoulder, ‘Shall I get rid of the guests whilst you telephone to the police? And I should think Charles and Alistair will be wet through and half frozen by now. I’ll order some more hot toddies.’

  They hurried away, George saying, ‘Lord yes, the police.’ A moment later, Dottie heard Flora clear her throat and say in a loud carrying voice, ‘I’m terribly sorry, everyone, but in the light of what’s happened...’

  Dottie didn’t listen to any more. She could hear the murmuring and the sound of movement on the floor below. Feeling fidgety, she got to her feet and went across to the window. Twenty yards or so down the street Charles and Alistair were smoking cigarettes and standing beside the body of the man Flora had called Archie Dunne. Someone had covered his face with something white, a handkerchief perhaps, and Dottie felt glad about that. She didn’t like to think of the rain pouring down on him. Not that it was so heavy now—barely even a drizzle, but all the same.

  The ambulance driver and his mate were bringing out a stretcher for him—the body—and beyond them, a little bunch of spectators had gathered, some holding their hats instead of wearing them, as a mark of respect. But the ambulance men didn’t put him—it—onto the stretcher. After a quick examination of the dead man, they just stood there with George’s friends, talking. At first she didn’t know why, then she remembered they had to wait for the police.

  Next, a car arrived and a gentleman in a smart suit got out, carrying a squat and heavy-looking medical bag. After a brief conference with Charles and Alistair, he went over and, putting down some newspaper, knelt beside the dead man, carefully checking his injury, feeling his wrist, and removing the handkerchief from his face. Just a few minutes later, he covered the man’s face again, and went to join the ambulance-men and George’s two friends, and settled in to wait for the police to arrive. After another brief word, Charles and Alistair shook hands with him and returned to the house.

  Below her, almost as soon as the two young men had come in, the front door opened again, spilling a pool of yellow light onto the wet steps, and people began to leave, murmuring sympathetically to one another and pulling on coats, and she caught the odd words and phrases: ‘How awful!’ and ‘Simply ghastly!’ She heard the sound of footfalls on the stairs, and then Flora returned with another steaming glass for her. ‘How are you holding up, darling?’

  Dottie nodded and took the glass. She wouldn’t drink any of it, but it would be nice to warm her hands. She couldn’t seem to stop shivering.

  As Flora bustled away to continue to see out her guests, Dottie said, ‘Was he married, do you know?’

  ‘Archie? Well yes, he married Susan Moyer last spring. You remember Susan, don’t you? She was at our school, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she was.’ Dottie turned back to the window. ‘Poor Susan.’ Outside it looked for all the world as if a street party was in full flow. Presently, when all the guests had gone except Charles and Alistair, she went down to the drawing-room and helped Flora tidy up all the glasses and plates and the overflowing ash-trays; anything to keep her hands busy. George, Charles and Alistair were all sitting about, morose and trying to get warm. Whatever they said didn’t reach Dottie; her mind was seeing other scenes, hearing other words.

  She was desperately tired. She had been persuaded to change out of her wet dress and was now wearing a pair of Flora’s lounging pyjamas, with George’s warm and sensible dressing-gown over them, and a pair of his socks to warm her feet. She still had to grit her teeth to prevent them from chattering. I wouldn’t have been much use in the Great War, she thought, if this is how I go to pieces.

  Her father arrived and had to be told what had happened then he sat down with the rest of them to await the arrival of the police.

  The police arrived half an hour later in a terribly noisy and attention-attracting manner. At the sound of the car’s bell, lights went on all up and down the street, and people looked out of windows and doorways. Cooks and maids stood watching from area steps, their hair in curlers under headscarves. Well-to-do ladies in negligées leaned out of upstairs windows, their hair likewise arranged. Mr Rogers from number 220 stood in his undervest and trousers, his braces hanging down, watching the street from his front doorstep. Several uniformed policemen arrived on foot or on bicycles; presumably they had been out on the beat and been called in to help. They held back the rapidly increasing crowd. Dottie, standing by the drawing-room window, saw a policeman in plain clothes—quite a young man, she thought to herself, and rather tall—get out of the newly-arrived car and make his way over to the where the body lay. He crouched beside the body, the hem of his overcoat trailing in the bloody puddle. What would his wife say about that when he got home? But perhaps she was used to it, Dottie thought. Perhaps policemen always went home from work with blood on their clothes. Then he stood and looked about him. After looking about him for a while, seemingly taking in the scene, he joined the medical chappie and had a chat with him.

  Finally, the body was removed and the ambulance drove away, the urgency of its bell seeming a mockery now. The crowd, with nothing left to gawp at, dispersed. The bicycle-riding and beat-walking bobbies soon followed suit, save one to watch over the scene. All was once again quiet in Mortlake Gardens. It seemed as though ice ages had come and gone before the policeman glanced in the direction of George and Flora’s home, his face little more than a blur in the darkness. He nodded to the medical man and turned to walk in the direction of the Gascoignes’s house. Dottie felt convinced that he had seen her standing there looking out, and she stepped back into the room, not wanting to be thought a ghoul.

  *

  Detective Sergeant William Hardy stood in the street and looked about him. Inwardly he cursed the rain. Why was it always at night, he thought, and always a wet night at that?

  He had a quick word with the police doctor and ascertained that it was definitely not an accidental death or suicide. A knifing, he was told. Possible mugging. Nothing to be done for the poor fellow.

  ‘Constable Maple? May I have a word?’ Hardy called to the uniformed policeman
who was standing back, overseeing the scene like a patient nursemaid. Constable Maple came over.

  ‘Sir!’ Maple said formally, but gave Hardy a friendly grin.

  ‘Evening Frank,’ Hardy said.

  ‘Bill. No Longden this evening?’

  ‘The Inspector has a bridge evening, then he’s off to stay with his in-laws in the country tomorrow,’ Hardy told him.

  ‘Nice enough for some!’

  ‘Indeed. Who was it found the body?’ Hardy asked. Maple pointed and then quickly outlined everything he knew. Glancing in the direction of the house, Hardy caught sight of a pale face at a window. As soon as she saw him looking, she drew back. Beside him, Maple was still putting him in the picture.

  ‘Young slip of a thing, she was, but they said she wouldn’t let go of his hand, not till he’d gone.’

  ‘Did she know him, then?’

  ‘Apparently not. Some of ‘em did; the men that tried to help him told me his name. Archie Dunne.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Hardy. ‘I’d better go and find out what else they know. See you in a bit, Frank.’

  ‘So Longden’s not going to show his face at all then? He’s really too busy playing bridge to see to a murder?’ Frank shook his head. ‘Don’t that beat all. I can’t see the top brass liking a sergeant being left to run a murder case.’

  ‘No doubt it’ll all be different once they’ve had their breakfasts and thought about it. Stick about for a bit, will you? Just in case.’

  *

  It was a quarter to one in the morning when the detective sergeant was shown into the drawing-room. It was the same young man Dottie had seen outside, as she had expected it would be, and up close he was every bit as young as she’d imagined him. Surely he couldn’t know anything about solving crimes? Where was the senior officer?

  He accepted the offer of a hot toddy with gratitude and settled down in an armchair with every appearance of a regular guest. Not even a notebook, thought Dottie. He couldn’t possibly have the slightest idea what he was doing, he was far too young. What were the police thinking, letting a sergeant conduct a murder enquiry? Because surely it had to be murder? A mugging or something of that sort.

  He asked her to tell him in her own words what had happened. As succinctly as possible, she told him how she had come to find the man. George confirmed he had recognised the dead man. Flora produced an address from the little book she kept in the drawer of the bureau, and Alistair, the doctor, added his own evidence that the man had clearly been stabbed, and that he was already beyond help when Dottie and the rest of them had arrived.

  None of this was written down, apart from the address, which Flora did herself. He asked Flora for a list of the guests who had attended her party, and she was able to provide that too.

  After a cosy hour of sipping hot toddies and listening to what they all had to say, the detective sergeant rose, and with obvious reluctance, said his farewells.

  ‘He asked us practically no questions, and made no notes. Surely a mere sergeant shouldn’t be leading a case of this sort? I hope he’s not that useless when he goes to see poor Susan,’ Flora commented as she kissed Dottie goodbye ten minutes later. Dottie couldn’t help but agree.

  Her father led her down the steps to the car, and helped her tuck in the folds of George’s dressing-gown before slamming the door.

  When they arrived home, he had to wake her, and then she had to endure her mother’s interrogation followed by pronouncements that it didn’t do a young woman any good at all to be mixed up with dead bodies. No doubt people would talk. Her reputation would be in tatters. Next time, she should be sure to step right round and keep going.

  It was half past two before she was able to get into bed and fall almost immediately into blissful oblivion.

  *

  Towards morning Dottie’s sleep lightened and she began to dream. In her dream she was wandering the streets of London, looking for Archie. She was calling for him as she ran down street after street, but all the streets looked the same and the cabby was running after her saying, ‘He’s down that way, Miss,’ then, ‘He’s over there, Miss,’ until she was completely confused, and the rain was pouring down, soaking her pyjamas, and the sheer stuff was clinging to her arms and legs, weighing her down and chilling her to the bone.

  Every so often, in the distance she would catch just a glimpse of a woman she somehow knew was Susan Dunne, her face hidden under a heavy black veil, and Dottie had to hide, because Susan couldn’t know Dottie was looking for Archie, there was a secret that Susan didn’t know, and she wouldn’t understand why Dottie was looking for her husband, so Dottie hid herself until Susan had gone by.

  When she found him, she knew it was too late, and the road sloped sharply uphill, and somehow, even by holding onto railings, she couldn’t pull herself up the hill. She couldn’t reach him, and his blood was pouring out onto the ground, and running in rivulets down the hill towards her, and she knew she would never get to him in time. She woke herself sobbing, to find bright sunshine pouring in at the window and her bedclothes in a tumble on the floor. No wonder she was shivering.

  There was a knock at the door, and the maid, Janet, came in with a breakfast tray, closely followed by Dottie’s mother who carried the teapot. Her mother bustled over to the bedside, tsked at the state of the covers and with a nod of the head indicated Janet should help her replace and straighten them.

  ‘Now Dorothy, I hope you won’t be lounging in bed all day, because we’re meeting the Angkatells and party for luncheon at the Royal Hotel, and there are a few things I need to get in Town first. You know, whenever you face adversity in life, I always say...’

  ‘...put a smile on your face and your best foot forward, yes, Mother, I know,’ Dottie said. She sat on the edge of the bed and felt thoroughly rotten. ‘I suppose there isn’t a chance you’d go without me?’

  Her mother’s scandalised look was enough to answer that question. With a sigh, Dottie promised to be downstairs in half an hour. Her mother left the room, evidently satisfied with that. Janet fidgeted with the tray, which was a sure sign she wanted to say something as soon as the coast was clear. The door closed behind Mrs Manderson.

  ‘So is it true then?’ Janet immediately asked, and her eyes were alight with excitement. Dottie nodded.

  ‘Yes, and it wasn’t the least bit like an adventure in a book. It was absolutely horrible. Whenever I think of that poor man, I just want to sob like a five-year-old.’

  ‘And is it true you was at school with his wife?’

  ‘Apparently. I didn’t recognise him, but George did, Flora said so immediately, and she said that he was married to a woman called Susan Moyer who went to our school. Not that I knew her all that well, I think she was a year or two older than me; it was really her sister I knew, Muriel Moyer. But poor Susan. Imagine sitting up in the evening at home, darning socks or reading a book, and thinking, he’ll be home in a minute, then I shall hear all about it, and make him some nice cocoa or a whisky or something, and all the time...’

  ‘The poor woman. No wonder you feel a bit queer. It don’t bleeding do to think about it.’

  ‘No it doesn’t,’ Dottie agreed. ‘But I don’t suppose my mother will have the faintest idea how I feel, so I might just as well get up and go out. She’ll expect me to.’

  ‘Well you just sit a bit longer and have your breakfast, you’ll need it after what you’ve been through, and take some sugar in your tea for the shock. I’ll put out your emerald wool. It looks a treat on you, and even though it’s quite mild out, you need to wrap yourself up after the shock you’ve had. Miss Flora sent your evening-gown round early this morning, and it’s a proper mess, I really don’t think we can wear it again. It’s just never going to look the same. There’s quite a bit of blood on the front. And near enough the whole frock is soaking wet. Did you sit in a puddle or summat?’

  Dottie thought back to the night before. ‘Yes, I’m afraid I did. I—well I didn’t feel I could leave him, so I j
ust knelt by him, you know, and held his hand.’

  ‘What, you held ‘is hand while he died? Oh—my—oh Miss, you never!’ Janet looked at her in horror, then excused herself. Fighting a tendency to get upset, Dottie decided to take herself in hand, as prescribed by her mother, and she made herself sit up, straighten her shoulders and hold her head up, drink her tea and eat her toast and egg. Then she washed her face, brushed her hair and put on her emerald wool dress. A few more minutes of this and that in front of the mirror and she went downstairs, receiving a brief nod of approval from her mother, and a kiss on the cheek and a ‘Bearing up, kitten?’ from her father. He put his hand out to take hers. For a moment her resolution wavered but then she caught her mother’s gimlet eye, bit her lip and followed her mother to the door.

  *

  A maid, tall and ample in her proportions, showed Detective Sergeant Hardy into the drawing-room. He noticed that she appeared to have been weeping long and hard, and he felt a momentary annoyance that news of her master’s death had clearly already reached the household by some means or another—probably a servant from somewhere else had heard about it and rushed round to tell everyone here.

  He was annoyed because he’d wanted to observe Mrs Dunne’s face and behaviour when he broke the news to her. So often in cases like these, those closest to the victim had perpetrated the crime, and he had wanted to be alert to any signs of guilt in the face of Susan Dunne.

  Mrs Dunne was already there, seated in the drawing-room. She looked up from her sewing, showing him a composed though pale face, unburdened by any display of deep emotion. But the hand holding her needle trembled.

  ‘Do sit down, Sergeant. I believe you wished to see me?’