The Bloody Tower

by Carola Dunn

“And Mr. Crabtree in particular. Oh, botheration!”

  This latter exclamation was caused by the sight of a large man, a very large man, up on Ralegh’s Walk, standing on tiptoe to peer over the parapet.

  Daisy instantly recognized the suit, maroon-and-green check, one of Tom’s less obtrusive. In fact, amid the glories of the yeomen’s Tudor costume and the Hotspurs’ red and white, it wouldn’t be in the least conspicuous.

  “It’s Detective Sergeant Tring, my husband’s right-hand man. You haven’t met him?”

  “No.”

  “We couldn’t forget him if we had!”

  “What on earth is he doing?”

  “I’ve no idea. Perhaps he’ll tell us.”

  She led the way up the steps. Tom turned and saw her. After a moment’s startlement, he grinned so broadly, his moustache couldn’t hide it. In fact, he seemed to be shaking with silent laughter, an impressive sight.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “Good morning, Tom.”

  “We weren’t expecting you here today.”

  “I wasn’t intending to come,” Daisy retorted. “I was invited. Girls, Mr. Tring. Tom, this is Miss Carradine, and Miss Fay Carradine.”

  Brenda said, “How do you do?”

  Fay was much too curious to bother with the formalities. “What on earth were you peering over the wall for, Mr. Tring?”

  “Ah.” He regarded the pair with bright, considering eyes. “That would be telling. On the other hand, maybe one of you young ladies could help me.”

  Fay’s eyes widened. “With your investigation? I will. How?”

  “You see, there’s something I need to check just the other side of this wall, and it’s too high to see over properly.”

  “I don’t think even all three of us could lift you,” Brenda said dubiously.

  “Bless your heart, I don’t imagine you could. But I could lift one of you. You see, I’ve spread a newspaper. . . .” As he spoke, a sudden gust of wind threatened to fly away with his newspaper. One large hand clamped it in place. “So you wouldn’t dirty your clothes. Now, suppose I was to brace my knee against the wall, like so.” He raised a leg like a tree trunk and pressed his knee to the stone so that his thigh was horizontal. “Do you think you could climb up, Miss Fay, and look over?”

  “Of course.” She took his hand and placed one foot on the step formed by his leg.

  “Brenda, hold her ankles!” Daisy ordered.

  Balanced on high, Fay looked back down at them. “What am I to look for, Mr. Tring?”

  “That there vine, miss, growing up t’other side of the wall. What I want to know is, is it sturdy enough up here for someone to use it to climb down?”

  Fay leant against the wall and craned over the top.

  “Be careful!” Brenda begged.

  “No,” said Fay. “That is, Mr. Tring, the stems aren’t anywhere near strong enough to bear a climber. They’re not much more than tendrils, for several feet down.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He helped her down. “Thank you very much, miss. I’m much obliged.”

  “Why do you need to know?”

  “Ah,” said Tom, “now that’s what I can’t tell you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” asked Fay pertly.

  “Didn’t ought. The Chief Inspector’d have my guts for garters.”

  The girls hooted with laughter at this expression, which hadn’t previously come their way. Tom smiled indulgently.

  “I bet, if we weren’t here, you’d tell Mrs. Fletcher,” said Brenda.

  “I might. Then again, I might not. And now I must be on my way. Does the Chief know you’re here, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “No. I suppose you’ll have to tell him.”

  “I might. Then again, I might not.”

  “Thanks, Tom, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s sure to find out one way or another.”

  Tom went off. At the bottom of the steps, he looked up, and the Carradine girls waved to him.

  “Is he a friend of yours, Mrs. Fletcher?” Fay asked.

  “A very good friend.”

  “But he’s not . . . you know . . .”

  “His suit!” Brenda giggled.

  “He’s a dear, and my son’s godfather,” Daisy said firmly. She didn’t want to get involved in a protracted discussion. The gust that had tried to steal Tom’s newspaper now proved to be the forerunner of a cold, persistent wind. “Now let’s please get on with whatever it is you wanted to tell me, before I freeze to death.”

  “Oh dear, are you cold?”

  “I can’t think of anywhere both indoors and private.”

  “How about the Bloody Tower?”

  “Won’t it be locked?” asked Daisy.

  “It might not be. There’s not much in there worth pinching.”

  “Just Ralegh’s History, and who’d want that?”

  “People pay to go in just because the Little Princes were murdered there.”

  “Ghouls!”

  As they talked, they moved along the wall towards the Bloody Tower. Brenda tried the door, and a moment later they entered the room where the princes were said to have been smothered by Sir James Tyrrell, on the orders of Richard Crookback. Though draughty, it was considerably warmer than out on the wall. If the ghosts of the boys were about, they didn’t make themselves evident. Daisy wondered how long it would be before reports of a Yeoman Warder haunting the steps where Crabtree died started to circulate.

  “Right-oh, tell me all.”

  Between the two of them, Daisy could practically see the scene at the King’s House breakfast table that morning.

  When Brenda and Fay went down to breakfast, their father and Mr. Webster were ensconced behind their newspapers, the Morning Post and the Times, respectively. Both grunted in response to the girls’ greetings. They were undismayed. The general was always grumpy at breakfast, and Mr. Webster was always grumpy, full stop.

  Having filled their plates at the buffet, they sat down.

  “Is there anything about our murder in the paper, Daddy?” Fay asked.

  “Our murder! It’s not our murder.”

  “I’m afraid, sir,” Webster remarked in his bland way, “in a sense it is ours. The Tower is your domain, the victim—”

  “I won’t have another word about it at the breakfast table!” the general shouted.

  Miss Tebbit arrived in time to receive the full force of the shout, without having any notion what it was about. “I’m so sorry, Cousin Arthur,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I didn’t mean to . . . I’m not certain just what . . .”

  “My dear cousin,” said General Carradine irritably, “I beg your pardon for raising my voice. It was in no way your fault.”

  “Oh dear, I can’t help feeling . . . I do apologize. . . .”

  Webster, who had stood up to hold a chair for her, said in a soothing tone, “The general was disturbed by something I said, dear lady. Won’t you sit down and let me get you something to eat?”

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Webster. That’s very kind of you. Just tea and toast, thank you. Weak tea, if it’s not too much trouble, with just a dash of milk. Cousin Arthur, I hope—”

  “My dear lady, I was just saying that I don’t want to hear another word about . . . about the police investigation at the breakfast table.”

  “Oh dear, I’m sure I can’t stop her. Mother is so very determined once she’s made up her mind.”

  “But Aunt Alice never comes down to breakfast,” Brenda pointed out.

  “So Daddy may eat in peace,” added Fay.

  “Oh, but . . . well, she says she’s been thinking,” Miss Tebbit quavered, “and she’s coming down this morning.”

  In tight-lipped silence, the general folded his newspaper, folded his napkin, and stood up. “I hope you’ll excuse me, Cousin Myrtle. I have work to do.”

  He’d left his escape too late. Mrs. Tebbit marched into the room, took her place at the other end of the table, fixed him with a gimlet eye,
and said, “Sit down, Arthur. I’ve been thinking.”

  Meekly, the general sat.

  “It’s plain as a pikestaff,” the terrible old lady continued—the very word made her cousin wince—“that the murderer’s intended target was Rumford. Dreadful man! I advise you to ‘come clean,’ Arthur, as the modern expression would have it, I believe would it not, Brenda?”

  “Yes, Aunt Alice.” She exchanged a glance with her sister, both agog and aghast.

  “Otherwise you, Major General and Resident Governor of the Tower of London, will be impeding the Law. Obstructing the police in the course of their duties is the technical term, I understand. I don’t for a moment suppose that you potted the unfortunate Crabtree, but how will Mr. Fletcher ever find out who did if those who could set him right as to the intended victim remain silent? And if the murderer is not caught, I daresay he may have another go at Rumford, in which case you will have that man’s death on your conscience. Extortionist though he be, I can hardly suppose—”

  “And then Daddy made us leave the room,” said Brenda.

  “So we don’t know if he agreed to come clean.”

  “Or if Aunt Alice will tell Mr. Fletcher if Daddy doesn’t.”

  “Or what it is he has to come clean about!”

  “We’re not even sure if she thinks he killed Mr. Crabtree.”

  “Which he didn’t, of course.”

  “But it does sound as if he did something he shouldn’t have.”

  “And we don’t know if it was something truly awful.”

  “Or just embarrassing if people found out.”

  “So we don’t know what to do.”

  Two pairs of eyes as blue as Daisy’s own fixed her with an appealing gaze.

  “Oh dear,” said Daisy. “You really don’t have any idea what the secret might be?”

  “We think it must have happened in Mesopotamia.”

  “Because he won’t talk about Mesopotamia.”

  “Though he tells us stories about India and his other campaigns.”

  “Did Rumford serve in Mesopotamia? Under your father?”

  “He was in the Service Corps.”

  “They went all over the place.”

  “Do you know,” Daisy said thoughtfully, “I can’t see why it much matters what Rumford was blackmailing General Carradine about. Alec doesn’t really need to know. What he needs is evidence that Rumford is in fact a blackmailer. He might not be able to do anything about him, but at least he can be fairly certain that the murderer was after him, not Crabtree. With that, instead of trying to find out who might have had it in for Crabtree, he can concentrate on looking for evidence against Rumford’s victims.”

  “Such as Daddy!” Fay wailed.

  “It’s only fair to tell you,” said Daisy, “I’m pretty sure Alec already suspects your father—”

  “Of murder?” Brenda gasped.

  “No, no, of being blackmailed by Rumford.”

  “How did he find out?” Fay asked.

  “He’s a detective,” Brenda pointed out. “That’s his job.”

  Fay accepted this rationale, to Daisy’s relief. She didn’t want to admit to having passed on Mrs. Tebbit’s comment about Rumford making a nuisance of himself to the general.

  “Mrs. Fletcher,” Brenda went on, “I was just wondering, if Daddy owned up to Mr. Fletcher about Rumford before he was asked, would it count in his favour?”

  “I expect so. Alec couldn’t cross him off the list of suspects, but obviously he’s bound to look with more favour on someone who’s not trying to conceal a secret.”

  Brenda and Fay consulted each other with a glance.

  “We’d better get back to the house quickly.”

  “Before Mr. Fletcher arrives.”

  “And tell Daddy to come clean.”

  “Aunt Alice was right.”

  “Will you come with us, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “Yes, please do.”

  “Daddy’s more likely to take us seriously—”

  “If you’re there, too.”

  What Alec would say if he found her at the King’s House didn’t bear thinking of. But she couldn’t let the girls down by backing out now, even if she wanted to, which, to be honest, she did not. She wasn’t meddling, she assured herself. It was just that having reluctantly accepted the rôle of mentor to the Carradine sisters, she simply couldn’t abandon them at such a critical moment.

  As they left the Bloody Tower, she glanced out of the slit window overlooking Water Street. Opposite was Traitors’ Gate, with St. Thomas’s Tower above. Sir Patrick Heald was coming out from his lodgings in the tower. Daisy shivered. Somehow Traitors’ Gate held more sinister significance than any other part of the Tower, even the site of the block. She felt that those who had arrived by water, including Princess Elizabeth, must have found it even more terrifying than being driven through the streets and across the moat. What was it the young Elizabeth had said to her gaolers? Poor Crabtree had told her, in his flat voice:

  “ ‘Oh Lord, I never thought to have come in here as a prisoner. I pray you all, good friends and fellows, bear me witness that I come in no traitor. . . .’”

  Queen Mary had imprisoned her. How could anyone treat her own sister so? Daisy wondered, thinking of her own sister, Violet, as she watched Brenda and Fay emerge onto Ralegh’s Walk ahead of her, their blond bobbed heads close together. Yet Elizabeth had long outlived Bloody Mary and gone on to reign for glorious decades.

  Outside, the sharp wind was blowing harder than ever, but it was driving the clouds from the sky. In the west, enough blue was visible to make a sailor a pair of trousers. Perhaps the day would turn out fine in the end.

  Daisy remembered Fay bringing her up here the day she and Melanie had come to lunch at Mrs. Tebbit’s invitation. She turned to Fay.

  “You know, if you think your father ought to admit to Alec that Rumford’s blackmailing him, then it’s only fair for you to tell Alec that Rumford had his eye on your smoking.”

  Fay stared at her in horror. “But he never asked me for money!”

  “You gave him cigarettes,” said Brenda.

  “Only because he . . .Well, all right, he said things like ‘Does the Governor know you smoke?’ And I’d make a sort of joke of it and tell him I was giving it up so he could have my gaspers. And I’d give him what was left of the packet. I didn’t get nasty little notes threatening to tell, or anything like that. He never even said he’d tell.”

  “Does that count as blackmail?” Brenda asked Daisy.

  Daisy had been half-joking, but now she decided it was a serious matter. “I think so. It’d be practically impossible to prove, just your word against his, but if that’s the way he works, if he doesn’t write letters, just makes sly hints, then the more people willing to testify against him, the better. In any case, I do think you should tell Alec he extorted cigarettes from you. Even if it only gives him a hint as to Rumford’s methods, it would be worth it.”

  “Worth it for Mr. Fletcher, but what about me?”

  “You’re not going to be arrested for smoking.”

  “No,” said Brenda, “but she still doesn’t want Daddy to know she smokes. The poor man already puts up with so much from us, it really would be the last straw. And on the whole, he’s actually quite a decent old stick.”

  “I expect I could arrange for you to talk to Alec without your father present.”

  “I knew it was a good idea to ask you to come,” said Brenda. They went on down the steps from the wall and round the corner to Tower Green. Just before they reached the King’s House sentry, Fay glanced back.

  “Oh bother! Here comes Sir Patrick.”

  “Oh no! We won’t be able to talk to Daddy.”

  “He may be going somewhere else,” Daisy suggested. She looked round, prepared to greet the Keeper of the Regalia should she find him close at their heels. He was still some distance behind them, coming slowly along the wall, having obviously taken the long way round rather
than ascend the fatal steps.

  “There isn’t anywhere else for him to go.”

  “Not that he’d consider worthy of his attention.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “He’s smarmy,” said Fay decidedly.

  “But he’s a knighted general and a member of the King’s Household,” Daisy reminded her, “and very well dressed.”

  “I don’t care, he’s smarmy.”

  “Mr. Tring is much nicer,” said Brenda, quicker than her sister to grasp Daisy’s point. “Bother, I suppose we can’t very well go in and close the door in his face.”

  “Can’t we, Mrs. Fletcher?” Fay appealed.

  “Certainly not, however smarmy he is. It would be a direct snub. He’s given you no cause for that, and your father has to work with him, remember. Turn round and smile politely.”

  So all three turned, smiled politely, and said “Good morning.”

  Sir Patrick looked unwell. His usually rosy face was pale, with patches of hectic red on the cheekbones and dark smudges beneath his eyes, as if he’d slept badly. Even generals were entitled to be upset by the proximity of murder, Daisy thought, trying to be charitable. After all, some generals managed to stay far away from the slaughter at the front lines.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he said with a smile as unconvincing as theirs. “Do you happen to know whether the Resident Governor is available?”

  “We’ve been out, Sir Patrick.”

  “So we don’t know what our father is doing just now.”

  “Won’t you come in?” invited Brenda, managing to sound gracious. “We’ll ask if he’s free to see you.”

  She rang the doorbell as they entered. The maid who answered its summons was sent to find out if the master would see Sir Patrick. Awaiting her return, they stood awkwardly in the hall, exchanging remarks about the weather. Daisy thought the girls could, without discourtesy, excuse themselves to go upstairs and doff their coats, taking her with them, but she couldn’t very well prompt them.

  And when the maid returned to show Sir Patrick up to the study, she found Brenda and Fay determined to go with him. As he followed the maid, they followed him, and Daisy followed them.

  Fay whispered an explanation: “We don’t want to give Daddy a chance to say he hasn’t time to talk to us.”