by Carola Dunn
He glanced at the long-case clock standing against the wall. Nearly one o’clock. They weren’t going to get much more done tonight anyway. Even Piper was beginning to flag.
The two of them sat down on a well-cushioned Jacobean bench beside the clock. A small table with an ashtray stood at Piper’s elbow; he took out his packet of Woodbines and raised questioning eyebrows. Alec nodded. He’d give Tom the time it took Ernie to smoke one cigarette, then they’d go down. Fortunately, since he hadn’t yet scraped out the dottle from his last smoke, he had no craving to light his pipe at this chilly hour of the night.
As the clock struck one, Ernie stubbed out his cigarette. They were halfway down the stairs when Tom spotted them and stood up.
“Just having a chat with Mr. Miller, sir. He tells me he designs aeroplanes at Armstrong Whitworth in Coventry. You’ll excuse me a moment, sir, while I report to the Chief Inspector.” He came to meet Alec and Piper.
“Has he told you what the deuce he’s doing here at Edge Manor, Tom?”
“Trying to persuade the old man to let the young chappie go and work with him. Seems young Jack is a very promising engineer. Keen, too. Sir Harold didn’t like the idea. It’s not like it’s Miller’s own company, though, that might be going broke and desperate for talent. It don’t sound to me like a motive for murder.”
“You never can tell,” Piper observed sagely.
“Too true, laddie. He wasn’t shy of talking about it, but there’s something he’s holding back, Chief.”
“I’ve a good idea what it may be. Did you get anything else out of him, anything about the family?”
“I’ve only had a few minutes. Took forever to get a line to London, and you know what the Yard is like this time of night. Then I had a word with the butler while Sir Nigel rang up Evesham about a doctor and a mortuary van, and you know what a country-town copper shop is like this time of night.”
“Don’t I just!”
“The CC pushed off after he’d talked to ’em. Nice bloke—offered Blount a lift, so I sent him home, told him to get a good night’s sleep because he’ll be needed tomorrow. I gave him a note to push through the letterbox at the inn, telling Mr. Gooch we’ll expect him around nine o’clock to make formal identification of the deceased. That all right, Chief?”
“Excellent.” What a joy to have a sergeant who read his mind! “Right-oh, I’ll have a word with Miller now, and then you can give me the gist of what the butler saw.”
Tom’s moustache twitched as he grinned. “You’d be surprised.”
“I doubt it.”
Alec walked over to the engineer. “Mr. Miller, I appreciate your waiting up for me.”
“You’ve got your job to do. But so have I. They’re expecting me back at work tomorrow.”
“That’s in Coventry, correct? Not too far if we need to get hold of you again.”
“No, but . . . The fact is, I’ll feel like a rat if I go off and leave them in this bloody awful situation.”
An interesting statement, Alec thought, one tending to confirm the hints he had picked up that Martin Miller’s interest in the Tyndalls was not confined to hiring a bright young engineer. “It would certainly be more convenient for us if your employers could see their way to letting you stay on here for a day or two.”
“That should do the trick. I’ll telephone in the morning and tell the boss the situation with regard to young Jack’s employment has changed and the police want me to stay on for a bit.”
“Keep it brief. Don’t give them any details.”
“I don’t know any details. When I showed Sir Nigel and the doctor the way to the study, I glanced in. All I saw was what Jack told us, that Sir Harold had shot Mrs. Gooch and himself.” He grimaced. “I assure you I didn’t linger.”
“Appearances can be misleading. It’s conceivable, though unlikely, that Sir Harold shot Mrs. Gooch. He did not shoot himself.”
For a moment, Miller was very still. He could have been wondering where he’d gone wrong in staging a murder-suicide, but Alec was inclined to think that sharp, logical brain was swiftly assessing the situation.
“You’re sure, of course,” he said coolly.
“As sure as you are of your equations. Armstrong Whitworth designed the BE2, didn’t they?”
“Yes. I had a hand in that design. Mrs. Fletcher told me you flew recce.”
“That’s right. When I took off in one of those machines, I trusted that it would fly. You’re going to have to trust me now, because I’m not going to explain our reasoning.”
“You want to know if I saw anyone enter the house during the fireworks, I take it. I didn’t, not Sir Harold, nor Mrs. Gooch, nor anyone else. I was watching the show. I helped set it up, you know, and I was interested to see how it worked out.”
“Are you familiar with firearms, Mr. Miller?”
“Not at all. I was exempt. They had plenty of poor sods to be Tommies and never enough aircraft designers. We didn’t have time for mucking about with the Volunteer Force, either, I can tell you. That was another strike against me as far as Sir Harold was concerned.”
“You didn’t get on with Sir Harold.”
“We rubbed each other the wrong way.” Miller smiled wryly. “It was no skin off my nose. My notions didn’t suit him any better than his suited me. He did his best to make me lose my temper, but you don’t persuade a man by quarrelling with him.”
“Very true.”
“In any case, it was no skin off my nose. Jack’s a promising lad and I like him, but he has to make the decision for himself, whether to join the firm or stick with being just another in a long line of squires. Had he chosen the latter, it would have been solely to please his father, I believe. I dare say the police are bound to suspect the heir in this sort of case, but I assure you, Jack doesn’t care for the title or the land. His heart is set on building aeroplanes. Besides, he was very taken with Mrs. Gooch. He would never have harmed her.”
“Suppose he came upon the scene after Sir Harold had shot the woman, might he not have wreaked vengeance?”
“Hardly! Much as he liked her, he had only just met her. I’ll tell you what’s much more probable: Suppose Sir Harold shot Mrs. Gooch and her husband came upon the scene. If you’re talking vengeance, he’s the one with the motive.”
13
A thin line of light beneath the bedroom door showed that Daisy had left a light on for him. Alec took off his shoes in the passage and opened the door with infinite care. She needed her sleep.
Despite his effort, a hinge squeaked.
“Darling, at last!” She turned from the writing desk, pencil in hand, bundled up in his dressing gown over her own, with a blue counterpane draped about her lower half. “I slept for a couple of hours, then woke up and simply couldn’t go back to sleep, so I thought I might as well do some work to take my mind off things. Are they—the bodies—still next door?” She hitched a thumb at the wall separating the bedroom from Sir Harold’s study.
“I’m afraid so, love. The mortuary van will be here in the morning. Later this morning, I should say. Do you feel like talking? Much as I hate to admit it, I’ve been saying to myself all evening, I wish I knew Daisy’s opinion of these people.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “You must be desperate, to admit that.”
“We haven’t got far, but far enough to know that Sir Harold didn’t kill himself.”
“What! You mean he shot Mrs. Gooch and then someone else shot him, or someone else shot both of them?”
“Could be either. We can’t be sure. Why don’t you give me my dressing gown and hop into bed. Maybe talking will help you sleep.”
“All right, here you are. I’d better just pop to the lav. Being pregnant is getting rather tiresome.”
“Only another three months.”
“That’s easy for you to say!” she retorted.
When she returned, they squeezed into her bed together, with all available pillows stuffed behind them. Alec laid hi
s hand on the swell of her belly and felt the baby moving within.
“Lively little chap. Or girl, as the case may be.”
“If it’s a boy, he’d better not behave like Adelaide’s pair, or I’ll disown him! What do you want to know about the Tyndalls? Hasn’t Tom found out everything from the servants by now?”
“The maids went to bed before he had a chance, except for Lady Tyndall’s personal maid, and she’s been occupied with her mistress. The butler seems to be the only manservant who lives in. He was in his pantry, but comatose, according to Tom. He appears to sleep there, in a striped nightshirt and nightcap. Didn’t twitch an eyebrow while Tom was telephoning right beside him. Wookleigh’s voice roused him, to a degree. However, all Tom got out of him was that Sir Harold didn’t like people using the telephone at all hours and they wouldn’t half catch it if he came in.”
“Oh dear, Jennings is about ninety and has been with the family forever. He doesn’t want to be pensioned off, and Sir Harold wouldn’t force him, which is something to his credit.”
“You sound as if you can’t say much to his credit.”
“I suppose he wasn’t such a bad old stick, as long as he wasn’t crossed. He had a filthy temper, and he had frightfully Victorian notions about the lower orders keeping to their place, just like Mother. But Jack said his father let him do more or less whatever he wanted as he was growing up. He’d just never before particularly wanted to do anything Sir Harold didn’t approve of.”
“Such as getting a job as an engineer.”
“Exactly.”
“And introducing a member of the ‘lower orders’ into the household.”
“That was part of the same thing,” Daisy said cautiously.
“Except that your friend Gwen then fell for said member of the lower orders. Don’t try to deny it, Daisy. It’s pretty obvious.”
“I wasn’t going to deny it!”
“Just conceal it?”
“There isn’t really anything to conceal. They like each other. Given the right circumstances, something might come of it, or it might just fade away.”
“But Sir Harold was the wrong circumstances, I assume.”
“Sort of. He’d certainly never have given his blessing to Gwen marrying a pleb, and it didn’t help that Miller was trying to entice Jack into embracing a career wholly unsuitable for the son of a gentleman. But it’s not as if Gwen were an heiress. She’s not expecting more than a thousand or two, and I gather Miller makes a respectable salary.”
“Did Gwen in general stand up to her father?”
“I don’t think I ever heard her argue with him. She’s more like her mother, falling in with his wishes for the sake of avoiding rows.”
“What about her sisters?”
“As far as I could see, Babs pretty much went her own way. She was a Land Girl during the War, and when her fiancé was killed, she threw all her energies into agriculture. She didn’t look for squabbles, just kept on running the place. In principle, Sir Harold didn’t approve of a female in charge, but I suspect he wasn’t much interested and was perfectly happy to let her get on with it until Jack came down from Cambridge to take over. Only Jack wasn’t interested, either, so Babs kept on keeping on.”
“And Mrs. Stephen Yarborough?”
“Adelaide?” Producing an enormous yawn, Daisy rested her head on Alec’s shoulder. “She’d have been out on her ear if the others hadn’t conspired to keep her children’s misdeeds from Sir Harold. Not because they’re fond of the boys, or Addie, for that matter, who’s completely self-centred, but because they’ve grown up in the habit of not upsetting him. Reggie and Adrian counted on it. They were too frightened of Sir Harold to misbehave in his presence.”
“Are the boys really so bad?”
“Truly awful, darling.” Another yawn. “When I arrived, they . . .” Her voice trailed away. She was fast asleep.
Alec eased her down beneath the covers, kissed her forehead, filched a pillow, and retired to his own bed.
He hadn’t learnt a great deal, but he felt he had a better understanding of the family. He’d have to take what Daisy said about Gwen with a pinch of salt. Her partiality for her old school friend was obvious, and natural, and it had to be allowed for. But all in all, he had two main suspects: Jack Tyndall and James Gooch.
“Jack Tyndall and Gooch,” Alec said to Tom and Piper early the next morning, after far too few hours of sleep. The sky was light, but the hill still cast its shadow like a pall over the house and gardens and the village below. Standing at the French windows of the billiard room, Alec saw the weather vane on the church spire, projecting above the trees, gilded by the first touch of the rising sun.
“Jack Tyndall,” he repeated, turning to face the room. “However keen on engineering, he could hardly be indifferent to the prospect of becoming a baronet and a landowner.”
“Wouldn’t he get those in the end anyway, Chief?” Tom, sitting at the gun-cleaning table, helped himself to a couple more sausages and spread butter and marmalade thickly on a triangle of toast. The staff of Edge Manor had been generous with breakfast for the detectives. “I can’t see why he’d be in a hurry.”
“The baronetcy is presumably his by law. The estate is probably, but not necessarily, entailed on the eldest direct male heir. If not, Sir Harold was free to will it to whomever he chose. More than likely he had money and investments, too, which Jack risked losing by alienating his father. A will is easily changed.”
“I’ll go through the desk as soon as they come and take the bodies,” said Tom. “His lawyer’s name’ll be there, if not a copy of the will.”
“I just can’t see it,” said Piper. “A nice, gentlemanly young chap like that might shoot his pa, but I just can’t see him doing in Mrs. Gooch.”
“In the heat of the moment, laddie, her being a witness. But Gooch looks more likely to me, Chief. For all we know, he’d been planning all along to get rid of his wife and seized the chance to make it look like Sir Harold did it.”
“What about what Mr. Miller said, Chief? About maybe Mr. Gooch shot Sir Harold because Sir Harold shot Mrs. Gooch? Vengeance, he said.”
“I don’t know, Ernie. Vengeance is not a common motive for murder in this country. Your average Englishman who arrived on the scene of his wife’s murder would knock the assailant down, if possible, and squawk for the coppers. But after all, he’s from the wilder parts of Australia, where, for all I know, men are accustomed to take justice into their own hands.”
“Like the Wild West in America.”
“Either way, we’re left with the question of why Sir Harold invited Mrs. Gooch to his study.”
Piper perked up. “Hey, Chief, one thing we haven’t thought about. Suppose she went up there looking for something to pinch, and he followed her?”
“And invited her to sit down and make herself comf’table?” Tom said sceptically.
Alec glanced at the wall clock. “Still an hour and a half before we can expect Gooch here. We should have a better idea of the possibilities when we’ve talked to him.”
“Maybe he’ll confess when he sees her,” said Piper.
“It happens. You never know your luck. You going to have him take a look before the questions, Chief?”
“If the the police surgeon arrives in time to tidy things up. Tom, if you’ve finished guzzling, you’d better go and talk to the servants. With a bit of luck, you may even find the butler awake and compos mentis at this hour.”
“Right, Chief.”
“Ernie, you stay here and turn your shorthand into a report I can read. I’m going up to the study to take a look in daylight.”
Reluctantly he climbed the stairs and unlocked the door at the top.
Before leaving the study the night before, they had drawn back the heavy curtains and opened the windows on the north and west sides to let in the icy night air and let out the reek of sudden death. Standing on the threshold, Alec sniffed cautiously. The atmosphere was no longer unbearably
fetid.
To his left was the door to the bedroom passage. Beyond the door, against the wall behind which, he sincerely hoped, Daisy was sound asleep, stood Sir Harold’s massive walnut kneehole desk. It faced the north windows, and daylight from the west windows would make artificial light unnecessary for writing except on the darkest days. Seated there, the lord of the manor had before him a view of extensive shrubberies and sheep grazing the hillside, while with a turn of the head he could look out over the Vale of Evesham where his richest acres lay. Far in the distance the slate-blue mountains of Wales shaped the horizon.
At present, the sheet-wrapped form of the lord of the manor reclined on the Turkish carpet beside his fellow victim. Alec had been reluctant to move the bodies before seeing them in situ in daylight, but had they stiffened in place, the mortuary men would have had a devil of a time getting them down the stairs.
Sir Harold had been sprawled across the desk as if falling from a half-standing position. Mrs. Gooch had slumped against the arm and back of a Windsor chair set at an angle to the desk, half facing it, at the end farthest from the door. One of the questions Tom intended to ask the servants was whether this was the usual position of the chair. If so, she might have sat down uninvited, but if Sir Harold had moved it into place for his visitor, the meeting must have been comparatively amicable.
What on earth had he been going to write? The blood-soaked paper now stowed away in the Murder Bag was not a printed cheque, but it could have been used for an order to his banker.
To Alec’s right lay the brass cartridge cases ejected by the automatic. It looked as if the murderer had entered the study, taken several steps forward, fired twice at one victim, then turned and fired twice at the other. In neither case could the range have been much more than ten feet, though the police surgeon would have to pronounce on that question. For anyone but a complete tyro, it would have been hard to miss.
Gwen brought Daisy her breakfast in bed. She looked exhausted, with dark rings beneath her eyes.