Gunpowder Plot

by Carola Dunn

  “Would you object to passing on what he told you?”

  “Not at all. It tends to do away with his motive for murder, so I don’t suppose you’ll believe it, but you might as well hear it.” She explained how Jack had come to terms with the possibility of his illegitimacy. “Though I can’t believe he won’t be pleased if it turns out to be untrue,” she added.

  “That would be unnatural,” Alec agreed. “I hope Ernie has found proof one way or the other.”

  A few minutes later, Tom Tring came in. He carried a black calfcovered case, about fifteen inches by a foot, and four inches deep, with a monogram on the lid.

  “Her jewellery,” Daisy guessed.

  “That’s right, Mrs. Fletcher.” Tom set it on the table and fumbled with the tiny key. “I’m no expert, Chief, but if half of this is what it looks like, the Gooches had no need to be resorting to blackmail.” He lifted the lid to reveal little cushions of black velvet.

  Daisy lifted the cushions and gasped at the gleam and glitter within. “Heavens above!” She folded out the two side pieces. “I’m no expert, either, alas, but it looks good to me. Look at the lustre of those pearls. They must be real, and worth a fortune on their own.”

  “I wouldn’t care to bet against them,” said Alec. “Was the case in a safe place, Tom?”

  “Down in the inn’s cellar, in a stout cupboard the landlord keeps his spirits locked up in, on account of a tramp breaking in a few years back and smashing what he didn’t drink. I gave him a receipt.”

  “Fair enough. It’ll all have to be checked against the list, but I’m prepared to believe it’s the real thing, honestly come by.”

  “ ‘The list’?” Daisy queried.

  “Stolen property, Mrs. Fletcher. By the stamp in the passport, they haven’t been in the country long enough to have set up a theft this big, but they could’ve bought the lot off a fence for a fraction of the actual value.”

  “It’s funny, she didn’t strike me as the kind of woman to enjoy wearing a lot of jewellery. I didn’t see at the party, but at the Ravens she just had a brooch, besides her wedding ring. It’s not here.”

  “Gold and opal? She was wearing it,” said Alec.

  “It must have been a favourite. A souvenir from the gold fields perhaps. I bet Mr. Gooch just liked to buy her good stuff. He must have loved her a lot.”

  “The more reason to be jealous,” Tom pointed out, “if he reckoned she was taking up again with her old lover. By the by, Chief, PC Blount came by the Ravens to report. He’d talked to some of the local people and two or three remembered Lady Tyndall going abroad for her health and coming back with the baby boy.”

  “Yes, she’s confirmed herself that Jack was born abroad. I must bring you up-to-date on what little she told me. Daisy . . .” He stopped on the point of dismissing her as Piper came in with a sheaf of papers. “What have you got there, Ernie?”

  “Blimey, Chief, the old doctor wrote everything down and never threw anything out. I’m surprised the attic floor hasn’t collapsed. I found the Tyndalls’ records in the end, and I brought her ladyship’s.” He laid the papers in front of Alec with the triumphant air of a dog presenting a ball to its master. “Seems like after Miss Gwendolyn was born, Dr. Gunnicott was pretty sure Lady Tyndall couldn’t have any more children, and if she could, she shouldn’t.”

  “ ‘Pretty sure’! That’s a fat lot of use,” grumbled Tom.

  “He did say it’d prob’ly kill her, Sarge. Sorry, Mrs. Fletcher, I didn’t ought to be talking about it in front of you.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Piper. You wouldn’t believe the horror stories women who’ve had children think suitable for the ears of one about to have a go for the first time. It does look as if Jack isn’t her son, doesn’t it?”

  “Medicine is not an exact science,” said Alec.

  “There’s a bit more, Chief. I found all the records of the three daughters’ births. Dr. Gunnicott attended the lot, along with a midwife, and her ladyship had a hard time of it every time. But there’s nothing for the son, though Gunnicott was still the family’s doctor. Not even a note that she was in the family way again, no referral to a Harley Street specialist, like you might expect, considering.”

  “Any mention of advising her to go abroad for her health?”

  “That,” said Ernie portentously, “was Sir Harold’s idea. The doc wrote down that he advised against it ’cause the stress of the journey was likely to do more harm than a rest cure in the most sal-salyew—”

  “Salubrious, laddie.” Tom’s vast vocabulary, as extensive as his girth but rarely displayed, always came as a bit of a surprise.

  Ernie was catching up but had some way to go, though he had the advantage of being able to write down practically anything in shorthand, whether he understood it or not. “Cor, ta, Sarge. How d’you guess?”

  “Guess! It’ll be a sorry day when I don’t know what’s in your mind before you do, my boy.”

  “The most salubrious climate,” Alec said, “or something of the sort. Sir Harold went against the doctor’s advice, then. That lends a good deal of credibility to Mrs. Gooch’s story.”

  “If Lady Tyndall hadn’t survived the journey,” Daisy said indignantly, “no doubt he would have come home with the baby and told everyone she died in childbirth.”

  “Quite likely. He seems to have had no scruples where securing the succession was concerned. We’ll never know how serious he was about changing his will. You knew him, Daisy—”

  “Slightly.”

  “Is it possible he spoke in a temper and would have changed his mind by the morning?”

  “Darling, I didn’t know him anywhere near well enough to predict. I expect he said things when he was in a passion that he wouldn’t have said in calmer moments, but whether he had the strength of mind to recant when he came to his senses, I haven’t the foggiest. The family are the ones to ask. . . . No, of course they’ll say yes, and you won’t be able to believe them. The servants? Neighbours? The lawyer?”

  “Lewin said Sir Harold had never before threatened to change his will, remember. He made an appointment for today, and the lawyer was certainly under the impression that he intended to do it.”

  “And Babs said she was sure he wouldn’t. We’re going round in circles.”

  “My fault,” Alec acknowledged. “I shouldn’t start speculating about things we’ll never know.”

  “It must be contagious,” said Daisy.

  Unfortunately, Alec was reminded that she shouldn’t be there, which he was apt to forget in the heat of discussion. At least he remembered that she hadn’t butted in uninvited, that he had requested her help. As she left, he was telling Tom and Piper what she had said about the light in the billiard room.

  In the passage, she met a maid.

  “Oh, madam! Nurse sent me to fetch the ’tective gentleman. Mr. Gooch is come to his senses an’ he can say a few words, but he’s in dreadful pain an’ she’s going to give him a ’jection the doctor left to make him sleep, so please to come quick.”

  “Chief Inspector Fletcher is in the billiard room.” If she hurried, she could get there before him. She’d just say she was enquiring after Gooch. No, better not. Alec was sure to guess the maid had told her the news.

  She considered going to see Lady Tyndall. But meeting her was going to be a bit awkward, given the near certainty that she had lied about Jack’s birth. Dinnertime, with others present, would be more comfortable.

  A glance into the drawing room showed only Miller and Gwen, talking quietly by the fire. They didn’t notice her. She went up to her room and started to work on her article, but she couldn’t concentrate. Inevitably, her mind turned to the Tyndalls’ affairs. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, she reflected. As a threat from God, she had always thought it most unfair, but there was no denying it did seem to happen all too often.

  Alec entered the sickroom with misgivings. An interview with a sick or injured man was always dif
ficult. Besides his own natural reluctance to disturb the patient, perhaps to set back his recovery, he was sure to be cut short by the intervention of a nurse or doctor.

  Following Alec, Ernie Piper gently closed the door and whipped out his notebook and one of his perpetual supply of well-sharpened pencils.

  The nurse stood at the foot of the bed, watchful. Alec sat down at the bedside, leaned forward. Gooch stared at him with a blurry, outof-focus gaze.

  “You’re the copper.” His voice was soft, slow, and slurred. “It’s true, ain’t it? Ellie’s dead?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  “I keep hoping it’s a nightmare, hoping I’ll wake up. I told her we shouldn’t come. I told her it was asking for trouble. She wanted to see her boy, just to see him. Ought to’ve put me foot down, but I never could say no to Ellie.” Tears oozed from under his lids and trickled down, dampening the bandages. “Then we met him, a nice lad, friendly as you please, and nothing would do for her but to tell him she was his mum.”

  “You knew that before you came here?”

  “She told me before we got married. Fair dinkum she was, my Ellie. But it was me said she ought to talk to his old man first, just to warn him what she was going to do. If I hadn’t . . .” His voice faded, and the nurse made a motion towards Alec, but then Gooch started again, fainter, but determined to tell the story. “It was all his doing, the bastard. Made his lady take the boy for her own. Ellie wouldn’t give him up—the baby—till she heard her ladyship’s own promise to be a good mother to him. Which she was, by all accounts. Him, though. Crook, he was, too right, and he killed my Ellie!”

  “We think not, sir, and—”

  “He killed her!” In his fury, Gooch raised his bandaged head, then sank back with a moan. Eyes closed, he mumbled, “Let me go home to my boys. . . .”

  “That’s enough now, Chief Inspector,” said the nurse adamantly, picking up a hypodermic needle and a vial of colourless liquid.

  Alec and Piper left.

  “Seems to me, Chief, he wasn’t in any state to make stuff up.”

  “You’re right. I think he honestly believes Sir Harold shot his wife. That still leaves the possibility of Gooch himself having shot Sir Harold in revenge—if it is a possibility.” Alec sighed. “We’d better go over our notes on the scene in the study and make sure that theory won’t wash. If we still can’t make it work, Jack Tyndall looks like our man.”

  23

  If Edge Manor had worn an air of gloom on Thursday, on Friday the atmosphere was thick with doom. No matter what Daisy said about “helping the police with their enquiries,” she was unable to convince the Tyndalls that Jack had not been arrested.

  Immediately after breakfast, the detectives from Scotland Yard had taken him off to the village police station. Martin Miller, having adjured him not to say anything without a lawyer present, had then taken it upon himself to ring up Mr. Lewin to request the name of a local solicitor who handled criminal matters.

  Lady Tyndall was deathly pale but would not go to bed, even at the behest of Dr. Prentice, who came to see Gooch (and pronounced him out of danger). Babs muttered about a thaw and rain coming and jobs that needed doing. She went off to the farm but came back half an hour later to mope about in the hall with the rest. Adelaide turned up, without her sons, to complain that the whole family was bound to be ostracized. Babs and Gwen turned on her, and she flounced away again in a miff.

  Daisy found the situation extremely uncomfortable. She decided to leave after lunch by train, without waiting for Alec. But Gwen, when asked for a lift to the station, begged her to stay.

  By mid-morning, Daisy was in desperate need of a breath of fresh air. The cloud banks of last night’s sunset had solidified to a thick grey pall, but no rain yet fell. She fetched her coat and slipped out. No one appeared to notice her going.

  The wind that brought the clouds had subsided to a breeze, warm in comparison to the past few days’ frosts. She stood for a few minutes on the terrace, gazing down at the meadow and the village. The last of the autumn leaves had been torn from the skeletal trees, revealing the roofs of houses and shops.

  Daisy didn’t know which was the police house, but she picked out the inn. There in the cosy taproom of the Three Ravens, the machinery of tragedy, created more than twenty years ago, had been set in motion. The meadow where children had danced around the bonfire was empty but for a bull, pastured there to keep unwanted visitors at bay. The only sign of the celebration was a black circle in the middle. The fireworks apparatus was gone from the lowest terrace, the chattering crowds from the top terrace. Would the Tyndalls ever again celebrate the Gunpowder Plot with their friends and neighbours?

  In a melancholy mood, Daisy walked along the terrace and into the shrubbery, murkier than ever beneath the overcast sky.

  “Daisy!”

  She swung round. Lady Tyndall, enveloped in her loden cloak, came towards her with short, quick steps. The cloak was done up to the chin and her hands were buried in the pockets, but she had forgotten her hat. She looked cold, with an inner chill nothing could ever warm.

  “Daisy, I’m sorry, I expect you wanted to get away from . . .from us all.” She paused, but Daisy was far too well brought up to agree. “I have to talk to you.”

  “Right-oh.” Daisy gave her an expectant look but walked on slowly.

  Lady Tyndall kept pace. “You must tell your husband that Jack didn’t shoot his father and that woman!”

  “I’m afraid Alec can’t accept my unsupported assertion any more than anyone else’s,” Daisy said with all the patience she could muster. “He has to have evidence.”

  “But he had no reason to! He didn’t know she was—she claimed to be his mother. He wasn’t there, so he didn’t hear Harold say he didn’t care what she told his ‘damned underbred, misbegotten son.’ And even if he had . . .” Her voice trailed away as she met Daisy’s eyes.

  And Daisy knew who had shot Sir Harold and Lady Gooch, and she saw Lady Tyndall realize that she knew.

  “ ‘He wasn’t there.’ Outside the study, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were.”

  “Yes. I saw them go off together. I followed. Harold didn’t close the study door properly, and I heard every word. They were conspiring to drive my boy away from me!” The words came out as a cry of anguish. “I went down and took a gun from the cabinet. Harold insisted I learn to shoot, during the War. I hoped . . . but I can’t let Jack be blamed. I’ve written—”

  An explosion made both their heads turn. It came from the direction of the potting shed and was followed by shrill screams.

  “Reggie and Adrian!” Lady Tyndall started running through the bushes towards the shed.

  Daisy was not supposed to run, but she followed at a fast walk. Approaching the wooden building, she heard more explosions, and a rocket smashed through the small cobwebbed window, scattering shards of glass and glowing balls of silver, blue, and green fire. Behind the broken panes, flames flickered.

  Lady Tyndall flung open the door and plunged into the shed. She emerged, coughing, with a limp grandson in her arms, just as Daisy arrived. “Get him away from here!”

  As Daisy took the child from her, she rushed into the shed again. Staggering under the boy’s weight, Daisy carried him a few paces away and laid him down. His hair was frizzled on one side and his face, hands, and clothes were smudged with soot, but he was breathing, thank heaven. After a moment, his body convulsed with a racking series of coughs, the sound vying with the continuing explosions and the crackle of the fire.

  Daisy hurried back towards the shed. Now flames shot from the window and the collapsing roof. A final flurry of bangs announced the demise of the last rocket.

  Through thick smoke, Lady Tyndall tottered out with the second boy. Her face was black, her eyes red and staring. She sank to her knees, her burden slipping to the ground. It was the elder brother, too heavy for Daisy to lift. She grabbed him under the shoulders and dragg
ed him over to the other, then turned to help Lady Tyndall.

  The elderly woman had somehow risen to her feet. She seemed to be struggling to take an object from her pocket. As Daisy started forward, she saw Lady Tyndall whirl around and dart back into the burning building.

  The shed was engulfed in a roaring inferno, clouds of smoke billowing into the sky. And then came one final crack.

  Her legs suddenly weak, Daisy sat down on the ground, watching aghast.

  “Mrs. Fletcher!” Constable Blount came pounding towards her, the gardener, Biddle, close at his heels. “What’s happened?”

  Only then did Daisy realize that all along she had been shouting, screaming for help. She pointed at the boys. “Stolen rockets,” she gasped hoarsely, and surrendered to tears.

  24

  I told them she was confused by the flames and smoke,” Daisy said sombrely. “They were too busy getting Reggie breathing to ask questions. There wasn’t the slightest chance of saving her, even if she hadn’t shot herself.”

  “You’re quite certain of that?” said Alec. “That she shot herself, I mean.”

  “Oh yes. I saw her take the gun from her pocket. You’ll find it when the embers cool.”

  They were sitting with Tom, Piper, Sir Nigel Wookleigh, and an unusually silent Dryden-Jones in the billiard room. Piper had his notebook and pencils at the ready, but at Daisy’s insistence, he was not taking notes.

  They all looked at the gun cabinet. Two Webley & Scott automatics were missing.

  “She went back in deliberately?”

  “Yes. She knew exactly what she was doing. I’m sure she brought the pistol because she intended to commit suicide. The fire gave her a chance both to heroically save the children and to make her death appear an accident.”

  “And you say you found a confession in her bedroom?” Sir Nigel put in. “No, no, I don’t want to read it.”

  “You realize, sir, that in a case like this, we can’t accept a confession, or even suicide, as proof of guilt. However, Lady Tyndall mentioned details only the murderer could have known. Besides, our interview with Mr. Tyndall was leading us in the same direction. I did, in fact, send PC Blount up to the house to request that her ladyship come down to the police station.”