Gunpowder Plot

by Carola Dunn

  “Babs, I suppose, in a way. At least, she had arranged to meet a couple of tenant farmers.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “To discuss something to do with the orchards. Something about planting pear trees, I think.”

  “I meant, why should Miss Tyndall meet these men at a public house rather than having them come here to Edge Manor?”

  “She . . . They . . . I suppose it was more convenient for them.”

  Alec let her hesitation and the unlikely explanation pass—for the moment—while noting both as indicating a desire to protect her eldest sister. “Who suggested the rest of you going with Miss Tyndall?”

  “I don’t know. Jack and Martin and Daisy had all agreed when I first heard about it.”

  Miller looked as if he was about to speak. Alec frowned him down.

  “You walked down to the village?”

  “Jack drove Daisy, because of . . . because of the walk back up the hill.”

  “They must have arrived first, then.”

  “Only just. The footpath is much shorter than round by the road. In fact, Jack popped in to see if we had arrived already. He was just coming out when Babs and Martin and I got there.”

  “Then you all went in together. What happened next?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to remember, when so much has happened since!”

  “Was the taproom busy?”

  “Fairly. Babs’s farmers were already there, and she went straight to their table. I think Jack went over and offered them a drink, then came back to see what we wanted before he went up to the bar. It’s not the sort of place that has waiters. We sat by the fire. Daisy was a bit chilled from sitting in the open car. She doesn’t seem to have taken any harm from it, though,” Gwen reassured Alec anxiously. “She was wonderful tonight. I don’t know how we’d have managed without her.”

  From the corner of his eye, Alec saw Piper’s smirk, quickly hidden. To give Daisy her due, she did appear to have made herself useful, to both the family and the police. The trouble would start when his investigation began to step on the toes of people she liked.

  “What brought the Gooches to your attention?”

  “I didn’t notice them at all. I had my back to their table. Mr. Gooch must have passed us when he went to the bar, but I didn’t notice him. Then Jack brought our drinks and said something about meeting an Australian at the bar and wanting to assure the chap’s wife that they were welcome to watch the fireworks from the meadow. And how I wish they had gone to the meadow! Then Father wouldn’t have met her. None of this would have happened.”

  Alec let this pass. The longer the family and Miller and Gooch thought the police believed Sir Harold had shot Mrs. Gooch and himself, the better. Only the murderer would be on the defensive.

  That was assuming one of them was the murderer. If not, fifty or sixty people spread out across two counties would have to be investigated, quite apart from the possibility that someone not invited had taken advantage of the party to bump off the baronet. The thought was daunting—and still left Mrs. Gooch to be explained.

  “Did your brother go straight away to speak to the Gooches?”

  “Not quite. Daisy wanted to meet them—she thought the opinions of Australian visitors about England might be useful for an article.” Gwen started to look at Miller, then changed her mind and went on, “So Jack invited them to join us.”

  “Had he met them before?”

  “No, of course not. They’d only been in England for a week or two, and they arrived in Didmarsh that day, yesterday, I gathered. We none of us knew them from Adam. But Jack got on swimmingly with Mrs. Gooch, and Mr. Gooch was quite entertaining with his stories of the gold fields and the—what did he call the wilderness, Martin?”

  “The outback. We talked about flying also, the prospects for air travel. . . . Oh, sorry, you don’t want to hear that.”

  “I do. I want to hear anything and everything about the Gooches. But not from you at the moment, if you don’t mind, Mr. Miller. Miss Gwendolyn—”

  “Gwen, please. I’ve known Daisy forever.”

  Daisy’s involvement in a case tended to lead to Alec’s being on Christian-name terms with a suspect or two, which made it difficult to keep a proper distance. He compromised.

  “Miss Gwen, did you gather why the Gooches should have chosen to spend part of their holiday in England in this rather out-of-theway corner of the country?”

  “Well, Mrs. Gooch did come from Evesham, and I dare say she has—had relatives there she wanted to visit. But now that you mention it, it is a bit odd. I mean, our Guy Fawkes celebration is a big event to us and to the villagers, but even if people in Evesham have heard of it, we don’t get crowds turning up in charabancs, or anything like that. I can’t imagine why she should have remembered about it for twenty years and wanted to see the fireworks so badly that she’d put off seeing her family.”

  “Do you know that she had family in the district?”

  “No, I don’t recall their mentioning any. But why else should they have come here? Surely not just for the fireworks. Oh, it’s all such a muddle!”

  Since Gwen apparently had no facts to report, Alec dropped that unproductive line of conjecture. “You implied that Mrs. Gooch went out to Australia twenty years ago. Is that what she or her husband told you?”

  “Not exactly. Something he said gave me that impression. Do you remember, Martin?”

  Before replying, Miller looked to Alec, who nodded permission to speak. “Gooch said she arrived in Australia the year after the pipeline went in, in ’04. That’s twenty years ago, of course, but it wasn’t clear whether ’04 was the year the pipeline was completed or the year he met her.”

  “That’s right. She had some money—a ‘stake,’ he called it—and she was looking for an investment, just when he needed capital for his business.”

  “Ah, so it was a marriage of convenience?”

  “It may have started that way. Who knows? But they seemed a very affectionate couple. That’s what makes it all so much worse! I shall never be able to forget his face when we told him.” Gwen’s eyes welled with tears. “It must have been an accident, Father shooting her!”

  As Alec felt for a handkerchief, Miller produced one first.

  “That’s enough for tonight,” he said angrily. “I’ll tell you anything else I can, Fletcher, but Gwen’s had enough.”

  Alec let her go. He would get more impartial information about the Tyndalls from Daisy, perhaps even from Miller except where Gwen was concerned.

  “I’ll go up with you to meet the rest of your family,” he said, standing up. “Mr. Miller, perhaps you wouldn’t mind staying down here so that I can have a word with you afterwards? It’s getting rather late, I know. . . .”

  “That’s all right. It doesn’t look as if I’ll be dashing back to work tomorrow.”

  “Martin, I hope you’ll stay, but won’t they be annoyed when you don’t turn up?”

  “I’ll ring up in the morning. They won’t be pleased, but you needn’t worry that I’ll lose my job. They can’t do without me. Besides, I’ll tell them I’m on the brink of hiring Jack.”

  A sudden stillness fell between the two. Gwen looked horrified. Miller looked as if he devoutly wished those innocuous words un-said. Alec hoped one or the other would say something to give him a clue to the significance of the moment, but after a pause laden with silent meaning, all Gwen said, in an unsteady voice, was, “Good night, then.”

  Miller’s tone was wooden. “I’m sorry. Good night.”

  Alec and Ernie Piper followed Gwen up the stairs. As they reached the landing, PC Blount came to attention and saluted. Alec sent him downstairs.

  Gwen showed them to the door of Lady Tyndall’s sitting room. “You don’t mind introducing yourselves, do you? I don’t think I can cope. . . .”

  “That’s quite all right. I hope you manage to get some sleep.”

  “Thank you.” Gwen became the hostess. “That’s
Daisy’s and your room, the last door on the right, with the bathroom et cetera opposite. I hope you have everything you need, you and your men. Good night.”

  She returned down the three steps to the landing. Alec knocked on Lady Tyndall’s door.

  11

  Miss Tyndall?”

  “Yes.” The woman who opened the sitting room door regarded Alec with mixed hostility and resignation. Even at this time of night, a restless energy emanated from her, an intensity sharpened by her mannish crop—and her reputation as a good shot. Her face showed no signs of having wept. “I take it you’re Daisy’s Chief Inspector.”

  Alec heard a muffled snicker behind him. With an effort, he managed not to turn and glare at Piper. “I’m sorry to intrude at such a time, but I’m afraid I have a few questions to put to you all.”

  “Need you pester my mother tonight? She’s stayed up to see you, but she’s in no condition to answer a lot of questions.”

  “I’ll disturb Lady Tyndall as little as I possibly can, I promise you.”

  “All right, I suppose you’d better come in. Mother, Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher.”

  A lanky youth jumped up and came forward eagerly. “Mr. Fletcher! You’ll sort it out in no time, I know. I’m Jack Tyndall, by the way. I can’t begin to tell you how terrible I feel about having invited the Gooches to the house, but if I at least knew why—”

  “Jack, you can bare your soul later. Let Mother have her say and get to bed.”

  “Sorry, Mother!” Jack turned back to the woman lying on the daybed beside the chair he had just left. He stooped to kiss her cheek with obvious affection. “You go first.”

  Lady Tyndall smiled up at him, all his affection returned, and more. “Thank you, darling. Your turn will come.” The smile disappeared as she held out her hand to Alec. “How do you do, Mr. Fletcher. I wish we might have made your acquaintance under happier circumstances.”

  Faced with an unanswerable statement and a hand that looked far too fragile to shake, Alec bowed and took refuge in the well-tried formula: “I must apologize for troubling you at such a time, Lady Tyndall. I’ll make it as short as possible tonight, though there will undoubtedly be more questions tomorrow, when the situation becomes clearer. First of all, I must clarify the position of Mr. and Mrs. Gooch. Had you ever met either of them?”

  She gazed down at her hands, now tightly clasped in her lap, as she replied, her voice low but steady. “Harold and I greeted them at the door when they arrived, of course. It was a little awkward, as we hadn’t invited them and they were obviously—to be honest—not our kind of people, not the sort of people we would ever have known well enough to invite. But Jack explained that they were visiting from Australia, just for a short time, and he’d wanted to offer them a treat. Young people today seem to see things differently from the way I was brought up, don’t they?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but Alec nodded agreement, deeply grateful that Daisy was one of those who saw things differently. “Did your son’s explanation alter the way you and Sir Harold felt about the Gooches?” he asked.

  “As far as I was concerned, Jack was at liberty to invite anyone he chose. I have to admit that his father clearly didn’t see it in quite that light, but I couldn’t possibly have guessed he was so furious as to . . . to vent his anger on the poor woman.” She buried her face in her trembling hands.

  “That’s enough,” Miss Tyndall said roughly. “Jack, take Mr. Fletcher downstairs, or up to the schoolroom or somewhere. I’ll come and find you in a few minutes.”

  “Right-oh. Mother . . .” At a loss for words of comfort, Jack touched Lady Tyndall’s shoulder, then turned to Alec. He looked like an overgrown schoolboy summoned to his headmaster’s office and unsure as to whether or not his offence merited six of the best.

  “Upstairs.” Alec preferred to talk to the new baronet without the complicating presence of Miller or the Chief Constable. “Take your time, Miss Tyndall.”

  Already at the door to the bedroom, summoning a maid, she gave Alec an abrupt nod of acknowledgement. In silence, Jack led the way out to the passage, down the three intrusive steps to the landing, and up the stairs to the second floor. He opened the nearest door, clicked on the electric light, and ushered Alec and Piper through.

  “It’s a bit ratty,” he said apologetically, “but it’s our own. Except when my sister Addie’s hell-born babes are here, and they prefer raising Cain out of doors, thank heaven. This is where we did our lessons until we all went away to school. The children who came for the fireworks tonight had their supper up here, so mind you don’t sit in spilled jelly or cake crumbs. The servants won’t have had a chance to clean properly.”

  The large room was over the entrance hall, to judge by curtained windows to the south and west. It was furnished with a battered, inkstained table surrounded with battered ladder-back chairs, as well as a massive Victorian sofa and several easy chairs in crimson plush worn thin on seats and arms. Jack went over to the fireplace and poked disconsolately at the moribund embers.

  “I feel as if the whole world has gone mad,” he confided. “Or perhaps just my father? I simply cannot see that inviting the Gooches was such a terrible thing to do, and if it was, why blame her for it? He must have run mad!”

  “Come and sit down, Mr. Tyndall.” Alec took the chair at the head of the table, Piper having tipped it and brushed crumbs off the seat. “Or should it be Sir John?”

  “Not until after the funeral, Mother said. As though I wanted the bloody title! I suppose you’re going to ask whether I saw or heard anything. Isn’t that the form? Well, I can tell you, even if it hadn’t been for the dark and the fireworks exploding, I wouldn’t have noticed. I was trying to keep an eye on Reggie and Adrian—Addie’s boys. They were obviously ripe for mischief. When aren’t they? But they gave me the slip, and I’ll swear they pinched the missing rockets.”

  “That was the cause of your argument with Mrs. Yarborough on returning to the house after the fireworks?”

  “With Addie, yes, and that’s why I went to look for Father. My God, I wish I hadn’t found him!”

  “Tell me, please, just exactly how it all happened.”

  “Right-oh, I’ll try. It was all because of those blasted nephews of mine. As soon as I discovered some of the rockets were missing, I knew they’d pinched them. They—”

  “Just a minute. How did you know the rockets were missing? Were you lighting the fuses?”

  “No, I had to stay on the top terrace, doing the polite, asking old ladies if they were warm enough, that sort of thing. We can’t just stop inviting people when they get on in years, and there’re always a few who don’t have the sense—But you don’t want to hear about that. Biddle, our gardener, did the setting off, but Father and Miller and I spent most of the day setting them up. Reggie and Adrian hung about—supposed to be making themselves useful. That’s when I caught them trying to sneak off with a couple of Roman candles.”

  “Which is why you suspected them in the theft of the rockets.”

  “Good-enough reason, don’t you think? I took the Roman candles off them, but I didn’t let Father find out, because he was in a good mood at that point and I didn’t want to spoil it. The point is, I knew exactly what was meant to be fired off when. So when the beginning of the grand finale turned out to be less than grand, I dashed down to the bottom terrace to see what was going on. I assumed Biddle had mucked it up and I was afraid he’d bungle the rest.”

  “Did anyone see you go?”

  Jack grinned. “Yes, Mrs. Fletcher, actually. I was talking to her when things went wrong.” He sobered. “Not that it seems frightfully important, considering what happened afterwards.”

  “Did you speak to the gardener?”

  “Yes, he said—I say, is this what you call an alibi? But that means . . .” In some ways still a boy, Sir John Tyndall was nevertheless no fool. Shaken, he stared at Alec. “Oh Lord, you don’t believe my father shot Mrs. Gooch and then himself,
do you? What happened?”

  “We can’t be sure. It’s still possible Sir Harold shot Mrs. Gooch, but we do know that he didn’t shoot himself.”

  “Then why did you let Mother assume he did?” He jumped up. “I’m going to tell her!”

  “I can’t stop you, but please reconsider. Lady Tyndall has had a severe shock. Do you really want to present her with another so soon by telling her Sir Harold was himself murdered?” Alec paused. “And there’s still the question, you know, of why he was in his study with Mrs. Gooch.”

  Jack slumped back on to his chair. “Yes. You’re right, of course.”

  “Let’s go back to Tuesday. What made you decide to visit the Three Ravens that evening?”

  “It wasn’t so much a decision, more of an invitation. You see, Miller doesn’t care much for sherry or cocktails, and if I’d got hold of a bottle of beer for him, Father would have taken it as yet another reason to sneer at him. So I suggested going to the Ravens after dinner for a pint. Well, just then Mrs. Fletcher came in and heard me, so it seemed only polite to invite her to go with us. Babs was going down anyway, to meet some chaps, and I knew Gwen would go along if Mrs. Fletcher cared to come.”

  “I understand I have to thank you for giving my wife a lift in your car while the others walked.”

  “Oh, it was nothing. She wasn’t sure about walking back up the hill because of . . . you know.” Blushing, Jack hurried on. “We got there just a minute or two before the others.”

  “And you went straight into the pub.”

  “I did. To see if the rest had arrived. Perhaps I shouldn’t have left Mrs. Fletcher alone outside? I thought she might feel uncomfortable being the only woman inside. The Ravens isn’t a haunt of vice or anything, but it’s usually just men in the tap. And she agreed. I say, she is a brick, isn’t she? There we all were, falling to pieces, and she kept her head and told us all what to do.”

  “I’m glad she was able to help.” Alec avoided looking at Piper, sure he was grinning, hoping he had the grace to hide his grin behind his notebook. At least he could be relied upon not to write down the suspect’s adulation of Daisy.