The Bloody Tower

by Carola Dunn

  “Nonsense,” said Sakari briskly. “You do not suffer from nerves, nor from an excess of inhibitions!”

  “I did leave a note,” Daisy pleaded in exculpation, “and I apologized profusely when I returned, once I’d recovered a bit from the shock. They almost drowned me in tea. Another cup of coffee?”

  As she poured, Melanie asked, “You don’t think Miss Carradine and Miss Fay are suspected, do you? I should hate to be responsible for introducing someone suspected of murder to my friends, especially the young people at the tennis club.”

  “Alec has to start by suspecting everyone. Even me, so perhaps you ought not—”

  “Daisy, you must not tease Melanie. Her concern is natural. Whatever Alec may say for form’s sake, he cannot really suspect you, but this does not hold true for the young ladies.”

  “No, but can you honestly imagine, Mel, either Fay or Brenda, or even the two together, creeping out of the house in the middle of the night to stab a man with a halberd and push him down a flight of steps?”

  Mel gasped. “No! Is that what happened?”

  More worldly, or more cynical, Sakari said, “To meet a young man, perhaps, with whom she did not wish to be seen.”

  Daisy shook her head. “On a fine night, yes, but last night down by the river we had a foul, clammy fog. Not at all inviting for lovers.”

  “Who else is available to be suspected? The general, of course, and the Tebbits.”

  “The Tebbits! Oh, surely not!”

  “Now who’s teasing?” Daisy reproved Sakari. “Mel, darling, you’re an angel to put up with us. But I don’t suspect the Tebbits, though they’ll be on Alec’s list, along with everyone else at the Tower. Several hundred people. No one outside could get in after ten o’clock, though come to think of it, someone could have come in earlier and hidden.”

  “My dear Daisy, this is altogether too many. We shall not consider any possible outsiders.”

  “We can eliminate those in the Outer Ward, too, which is where most of the Yeoman Warders live. There are only three ways through the inner wall, and all have sentries posted who would take note of anyone going through.”

  “Excellent.”

  “But there are still several hundred.”

  Sakari groaned. “I give up. We shall have to leave the investigation to Alec and his excellent men.”

  “I’m sure we should,” Melanie said hopefully.

  Daisy was still pondering the question. “It seems to me unlikely that the murderer should be one of the garrison. The Hotspur Guards, that is. They don’t on the whole have much to do with the yeomen.”

  “And the yeomen, you say, live outside the wall,” said Sakari triumphantly, “so we are left with the inhabitants of the King’s House. And since we have eliminated the Tebbits and the young ladies, we are left with the general. That was easy.”

  “No, no, I said most of the yeomen live between the outer and inner walls, not all of them. Besides, there’s Mr. Webster, General Carradine’s secretary, in the King’s House, too. He’s quite peculiar. I don’t think I’m letting his appearance influence me, am I, Mel?”

  “Not entirely. He is a bit odd.”

  “And he’s obsessed with the Crown Jewels. Suppose Crabtree came across evidence that he was plotting to steal them.” Daisy reflected on the extensive display of gold and precious gems. “Well, some of them.”

  “Surely not,” Mel protested. “They must be well guarded.”

  “Yes, but presumably they were thought to be well secured when Colonel Blood tried to run off with them. He was only stopped by a lucky chance.”

  “Colonel Blood!” Sakari was all agog. “You are inventing this, Daisy! Or your guide was having you on.” Occasionally, Sakari’s precise speech blossomed into unexpected idiom.

  “No, I’ve read about it, too.”

  “Tell us.”

  “It was soon after the Restoration, after they’d remade all the crowns Cromwell destroyed—”

  “Not a history lesson!” Mel moaned.

  “But yes, a history lesson,” said Sakari. “How else am I to understand? Don’t look so dismayed, Melanie. It is all right. I have learnt about your Commonwealth and cutting off the head of Charles the First, although I was not aware of the Lord Protector’s destruction of the Regalia. You may continue without the history lesson, Daisy.”

  Daisy laughed. “It doesn’t really matter when it happened, I suppose. Colonel Blood dressed up as a parson and brought his supposed wife to see the crown. The Keeper showed it to her, and she pretended to faint. Being a kindly man, the Keeper let them into his private quarters. That led to a developing acquaintance with the Keeper’s family, and eventually to Colonel Blood offering to marry his nephew, a young man of means—or so he claimed—to the Keeper’s daughter. Naturally, the Keeper and his wife were delighted.”

  “Some things never change,” Sakari observed.

  “The wedding day arrived. In those days, people didn’t get married in church, so Colonel Blood brought his nephew and friends to the Tower. His wife, he said, had been delayed but would join them shortly. While they waited for her, he suggested, they might pass the time looking at the jewels. So the Keeper unlocked the room and took them in. As soon as he closed the door, they hit him on the head with a mallet and gagged him. They started breaking up the treasures and stuffing them into pockets and down their breeches.”

  Sakari chuckled. “This scheme could not have been attempted in the time of the doublet and hose, nor that of skintight pantaloons.”

  “No, they needed baggy breeches and cloaks to carry it off. But as it happened, the Keeper’s son came looking for his father. Seeing him unconscious on the floor, he raised a cry of ‘Treason! The crown is stolen!’ The ruffians made a break for it, but they were all captured.”

  “And had their heads chopped off?”

  “No, that’s the oddest thing. Colonel Blood’s sheer cheek amused Charles the Second, and he became a favourite at court.”

  “How extraordinary,” said Melanie. “But Daisy, I simply can’t imagine Mr. Webster doing anything so outrageous.”

  “Nor can I. If he’s plotting, his plot will be much more subtle. Anyway, the jewels are kept in a sort of cage now, with guards all over the place, not just one man. In fact, I don’t think the present Keeper has much to do with them, at least on a daily basis. It’s more of a ceremonial post. I did wonder . . .” Daisy hesitated. “Sir Patrick—that’s General Sir Patrick Heald, the Keeper of the Regalia—did appear to regard Webster with suspicion.”

  “There you are, then.” Sakari was delighted. “The sinister Webster is the murderer.”

  “I can’t see how Crabtree could have found him out, though, and if he did, I’d expect him to have taken the information straight to General Carradine, not to tackle Webster himself. There are the servants living in the King’s House to be considered, too. I don’t know anything about them. And it could be one of the Guards, however unlikely.”

  “What about the Yeoman Gaoler?” Melanie asked. “Where does he live?”

  “In the Inner Ward, next door to the King’s House. It all keeps coming back to him, doesn’t it? Perhaps Alec has already arrested him and all our speculations are futile.”

  “You are feeling better, are you not, Daisy? Discussing it has calmed you, so it is not futile. But now I must be on my way.” Sakari rose with her customary majestic grace. “May I offer you a lift, Melanie?”

  “No, thanks. The rain seems to be slackening, and I must talk to Daisy about this wretched tennis party. I wish I’d held my tongue!”

  “Daisy, may I look in on the twins before I leave?”

  “Oh, yes, I’d love to see them, too,” said Melanie. “Is Nanny still giving satisfaction?” She had recommended the nurse. “And coping with two babies at once?”

  “Yes, but she’s making ominous noises about needing a nursery-maid when they start to crawl.” Leading the way upstairs, Daisy laughed. “We’re hoping for an unex
pected legacy, because we’re going to have to move to a bigger house.”

  As Miranda and Oliver were both awake, Nanny permitted a few minutes of cooing and clucking. Then she declared that it was time to change their nappies and the ladies would not care to be present. Her manner made their dismissal more an order than a suggestion.

  “English nurses are very fierce,” Sakari commented as they returned downstairs. “My ayah would not dare to speak so to me.”

  “I suppose we’ve all been brought up on ‘Nanny knows best,’ ” said Daisy. “It carries over into adulthood. Thank you for rushing to succour me, darling. I do feel much better.”

  Sakari left. Daisy and Melanie returned to the sitting room.

  “More coffee?” offered Daisy, who had heard Mrs. Dobson come in and wanted an excuse for biscuits.

  “No, thanks. I do wish I could invite Sakari and her husband to the tennis club.”

  “That would set the cat among the pigeons! One would be almost tempted to do it, if only it wouldn’t be so unpleasant for the Prasads. Take comfort in the fact that Sakari hasn’t the least desire to play tennis. Not to mention its being largely your doing that they’ve found as much acceptance in St. John’s Wood society as they have.”

  “I hardly did anything.”

  “That’s not what Sakari has told me.”

  “I’m glad I was able to help, and I’ve grown very fond of Sakari. But initially, it was Robert’s doing,” Mel confessed.

  Daisy did her best to hide her amusement. To a banker, naturally, what mattered was not the colour of a person’s skin but the colour of his money. Still, it was to Robert Germond’s credit that he had supported his dutiful wife in introducing the Prasads to their neighbours, not merely entertaining them in the way of business.

  Daisy had her own criteria for judging people. On the whole, she expected to like people she met, and on the whole, she did. It seemed to her a much pleasanter way to live than to go about looking for superficial defects such as the wrong class, or a brown face, thus eliminating a lot of delightful people from one’s acquaintance. If she had felt that way, had remained true to her upbringing, she would have let Alec pass out of her life without a second thought. No Alec, no twins: The very idea was unbearable.

  “Whoever gets the credit, it was a very good deed,” she said to Melanie. “No doubt you want me to come to your tennis party? As long as you don’t insist on my playing!”

  “I certainly expect you to come and support me. What I wanted to ask you is whether you think it’s proper for the Carradine girls to go to a party in the circumstances.”

  “Why not? It wasn’t a death in the family.”

  “No, but . . . You said they’re under suspicion.”

  “So am I, Mel, strictly speaking. I don’t think it matters a hoot, but if it makes you uncomfortable, just postpone the party. Fay and Brenda shouldn’t be too disappointed. They have quite enough excitement in their lives at present.”

  “They do, don’t they?” said Melanie with relief. “How can a mere tennis party compete with a murder case? I do hope you won’t get drawn into Alec’s investigation.”

  “There isn’t much hope of that.” Daisy sighed. “I can’t think of any excuse to return to the Tower.”

  11

  Melanie left and Daisy returned to her typewriter, determined to finish off her article before lunch. “Finish off” was an unfortunate choice of phrase. Someone had brutally finished off the man she had to write about. Once again unable to concentrate, she gazed out of the window at the now-sunny day and decided to take the dog out.

  Poor Nana had been having a thin time of it since Belinda’s departure for boarding school and the twins’ subsequent arrival. Now that she was old enough not to chew anything and everything she came across, she was allowed to wander freely in the house. When Daisy was working, she’d lie patiently under the desk, submitting to the occasional use as a footstool, ignoring the chatter of the typewriter keys and the ping at the end of each line.

  Not that the keys were doing much chattering at present.

  Nana’s overwhelming joy when she heard her mistress say “Walk!” made Daisy feel frightfully guilty. As they strolled along Prince Albert Road towards Primrose Hill, she made up her mind to put the Tower entirely out of her mind for the moment, to enjoy the fresh air washed clean by the morning’s rain and the capers of the little dog at her heels.

  Turning onto a grassy path, she let Nana off the lead. With forays after rabbits, squirrels, and other enticing smells, Nana covered four or five times the crow’s-flight distance to the top of the hill, but Daisy’s legs were in good shape after all those steps at the Tower and they soon reached the summit.

  And she wasn’t going to think about the Tower.

  She turned about to admire the view. As usual when she came up here, Wordsworth’s sonnet floated through her head: “Earth has not anything to show more fair . . .” There was the Crystal Palace, and over there, almost lost in the haze raised by the sun from damp streets and roofs, was the Tower, which she was not going to think about.

  Nana was making friends with a large shaggy dog of breeding as indeterminate as her own, belonging to an elderly man seated on a bench. Daisy sat down. The big dog, assuming this to be a friendly overture, came over to sniff her fingers.

  “Off, Rummy!” He doffed his hat. His dog gave Daisy’s hand a lick and went back to Nana. “Sorry about that. Beautiful day.”

  “Lovely,” Daisy replied, but her attention was drifting. “Nice dog.”

  Rummy. Rumford. Somehow he was the key. At first sight, or on a foggy night, it would be easy to mistake Crabtree for Rumford, both red-cloaked and bushy-bearded. But surely anyone with a deadly grudge against Rumford would know they looked alike and make jolly sure he got the right man.

  The murderer must have expected Rumford to be there at the top of the steps at whatever time Crabtree had been killed—which suggested an appointment.

  Why had Crabtree been there instead? Had he for some reason kept the appointment in Rumford’s place? Or had the two arranged to meet there for some inscrutable purpose, something that could not be carried out indoors, in their next-door houses? What had Rumford said to Crabtree earlier, when he waited for him at the top of those same steps? If only Daisy had overheard, she would probably know now exactly what had happened later, and why!

  Or if they had not met by appointment, then one knew the other would be there, for whatever equally inscrutable purpose, and sought him out. Perhaps Rumford had deliberately set out to kill Crabtree. Perhaps they had quarrelled and Rumford had accidentally pushed Crabtree down the steps—though that didn’t explain the partizan. Or perhaps Crabtree had set out to kill Rumford and Rumford had fought back.

  There was a whiff of blackmail about Rumford, the man who could see through walls. How many Tower residents might he be blackmailing?

  Daisy wondered whether she ought to telephone Alec to suggest he take a close look at Rumford. But even if she could get hold of him, when he might be anywhere in the Tower, he would only say she was speculating wildly.

  She sighed.

  “Troubles?” said the old man sympathetically. “A pretty young lady like you didn’t ought to have troubles. Now when you get to my age . . .” He proceeded to tell her all about his grandson, who had been killed in the War, his difficult daughter-in-law, who didn’t want the dog in the house, and his rheumatism.

  When he began on his hernia operation, Daisy excused herself, called Nana, and headed for home. She wasn’t quite sure what a hernia was, but she was quite sure she didn’t want to hear about his. Being the sort of person complete strangers chose to confide in was often interesting and even useful, but it had its drawbacks.

  It was a pity Mrs. Tebbit had not felt that urge to confide, Daisy thought, walking down the path towards the street. What little the old lady had said suggested she knew Rumford was blackmailing General Carradine. As Resident Governor, the general could presumably
send his yeomen hither and yon as he wished, as long as he didn’t contravene the traditions of the Tower. He could easily have ordered the Yeoman Gaoler to perform some task that would have taken him to the steps at a certain time.

  Yet Crabtree had turned up instead. Of course, any blackmailer worth his salt would be suspicious of being sent on a midnight errand by one of his victims. Had he found some excuse to persuade the Chief Warder to take his place?

  Daisy found herself at the bottom of the hill with no Nana frisking around her ankles. She put two fingers in her mouth and uttered a piercing whistle.

  Instantly horrified at her own disgraceful behaviour, she watched with mingled pride and dismay as half a dozen dogs raced towards her. Gervaise had taught her to whistle, but she had never made the attempt in anyone’s company but his. Having grown up into a rather proper young man—at least where his sisters were concerned—he would probably have been as shocked by her exploit as anyone. A lady simply did not whistle in public. She hadn’t really expected to remember how.

  But as the unknown dogs veered off and the truant came to sit at her mistress’s feet, panting and wagging, Daisy was on the whole almost as pleased with herself as Nana. She sent a silent “Thank you” heavenward, whither she hoped Gervaise had proceeded from the Flanders trenches.

  Lead attached, they set off along Prince Albert Street.

  All the same, it was very naughty of her, and she hoped no one she knew had witnessed her performance. How could she presume to teach Brenda and Fay proper behaviour when she, at her advanced age, was still at heart a tomboy?

  The Carradine girls would be devastated if their father was arrested for murder. Daisy’s case against him was very tenuous, not worth mentioning to Alec.

  On the other hand, if General Carradine was the murderer and Daisy hadn’t mentioned her suspicion, Alec would rightly accuse her of sheltering Fay and Brenda. One way or t’other, she couldn’t win.