Chapter 3
Daisy scrambled out of bed, reaching for her dressing-gown. A crumb went down the wrong way and the subsequent choking cough brought tears to her eyes. Unable to locate her slippers, she hurried out to the passage barefoot.
The housemaid who had brought her tea stood in a doorway further down the hall, facing into the room. Her hands were clapped over her ears as if to drown out her own shrill screams.
Daisy had been quick off the mark, but now doors started opening and heads popping out.
Several people emerged a few steps from the safety of their rooms. From one room came another housemaid, an older woman.
She marched up to the screaming girl, swung her around and slapped her face. The girl started sobbing.
“She’s dead!” she gasped. “Murdered!”
The head housemaid glanced into the room, turned pale, and swayed. As Daisy hurried towards them, the elder visibly pulled herself together. She shook the younger by the shoulders.
“Go and tell Mr. Baines,” she ordered, giving the girl a shove towards the back stairs. “Get along with you, right this minute.” Head averted, she fumbled behind her for the doorknob and pulled the door to, scraping shards of broken china into the corridor.
Montagu Fotheringay, massive in a crimson silk dressing-gown, advanced from the opposite direction. “What the deuce is going on?” he demanded. “That’s Eva’s room.”
Lady Eva! Of course, Daisy thought, if anyone in this house was going to be murdered, it would have to be Lady Eva Devenish, the collector of secrets. But perhaps the maid was mistaken. Perhaps the old lady was merely ill.
“Who screamed?” That was Nancy, Lucy’s sister-in-law, pattering down the stairs from the second floor. “Is someone hurt, Daisy? I was a VAD nurse in the War.”
“It’s Lady Eva. I don’t know … . The maid seemed to think she’s dead.”
“Her ladyship’s dead,” the elder maid confirmed grimly, still very pale. “And if you’ll excuse me, madam, I’m going to sit down for a minute.” She sank to the floor beside the table where a tray of tea things awaited distribution to the bedrooms.
Nancy knelt beside her and forced her head between her knees. “Breathe deeply, Merton,” she advised.
Montagu, frowning, reached for the doorknob. “I’m going to—”
“No.” Stopping him was rather like tackling a tank but Daisy managed to hold him back.
“You mustn’t go in there, Mr. Fotheringay.
Nancy, would you take a look at Lady Eva and make sure there’s nothing we can do for her?
No, Mr. Fotheringay, you really must not.
I’m afraid the girl spoke of … of murder. ”
“M … m …” Montagu’s mouth opened and closed but he couldn’t get the word out.
Stepping over the smashed tea things, Nancy Fotheringay slipped past him into the room. She came out again after a few seconds, very white about the mouth. “No question of it. Daisy, the police will have to be sent for.”
Obviously Lucy had told at least some of her family about Daisy’s involvement with several of Alec’s cases, Daisy realized with resignation. Now she was going to be expected to deal with the police. Well,
she wasn’t going to ring them up without being sure of her facts. It was too late to worry about fingerprints after the two maids and Nancy had all touched the handle. She opened the door Nancy had shut and peeked in.
For a moment all she saw was a snowstorm.
A pillow had been ripped and feathers were all over the place, a few floating in the draught between the door and the open window.
Amid the drifts, Lady Eva sprawled on her back, head and shoulders hanging over the side of the bed.
Her face was purple, her tongue sticking out, eyes glaring.
One hand was at her throat, as if plucking at something tied around it.
Feeling sick, Daisy turned her back on the dreadful sight.
What she wanted to do was sit down beside the maid and put her head between her knees, but she knew from unhappy experience that action was the best antidote.
She took the key from the inside of the door, closed the door again, and locked it.
“I’ll ring the police. Absolutely no one must go in there till they come. ”
She was not prepared to trust the stricken Montagu with the key, but several more people had arrived by now.
Among them she saw Nancy’s husband, the Reverend Timothy Fotheringay, in a brown flannel dressing-gown over blue-and-white pyjamas.
His arm around his wife’s shoulders, he was listening gravely to her quiet explanation.
Daisy had always thought of him as stodgy; surely he would be reliable.
“Tim!” Her voice cut through the growing clamour of questions. “Timothy, will you look after the key?”
“I think you should keep it, Daisy.”
“Oh no! People will say I’m taking altogether too much upon myself, and rightly so. I’m not family, after all.”
“Precisely.”
“No!” Did he not realize that his great-aunt’s prying extended far beyond her family? As soon as the local police heard about Lady
Eva’s proclivity, Daisy was going to be as much a suspect as anyone else. “Oh, here’s Baines. I’ll give the key to him.”
The butler surveyed the scene with unmistakable disapproval.
He himself, not expecting to be on public display at this hour of the morning, was in his shirtsleeves and baize apron.
The head housemaid was seated on the floor, surrounded by a gabbling crowd of ladies and gentlemen who ought to know better.
“The key, madam?” he enquired austerely.
“To Lady Eva’s room.” Daisy handed it to him. “Didn’t the maid tell you?”
“I gathered through the girl’s hysterics, madam, that something untoward had occurred. As you see, I came with all due haste.”
“Good for you. Lady Eva has been … has met with an accident. I’m going to telephone the police but until they come the room must remain undisturbed.”
“The police, madam!” Baines was aghast.
“Yes, and I’d better ring up the local doctor, too, though I’m afraid it’s too late for his help. What’s his name?”
“Dr. Arbuthnot, madam.”
“You understand that absolutely no one is to go in?”
“Indeed, madam.” The butler pocketed the key. “I’ll send a footman to stand at the door.”
“Good idea.” With one last glance around the assembled relatives, Daisy fled.
Let the Reverend Timothy deal with them.
Perhaps she ought to stay and watch the effect on them and on later arrivals on the scene, but the local police were unlikely to be interested in her impressions. How she wished Alec had come with her!
Not till she reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped onto the cold marble floor of the hall did she realize that she was still barefoot. She hesitated, then went on to the library, where she knew there was a telephone.
To her surprise, she found John Walsdorf there, already fully
dressed at this early hour and busy at his desk at the far end of the long room.
He stared at her in astonishment and dismay, not unnaturally, considering her half-clad, dishevelled state.
Slipping the paper he had been writing on under the blotter, he rose courteously, and said, “Good morning, Mrs. Fletcher. You wish a novel to read? May I be of assistance?”
“No, thanks. Sorry to disturb you but something dreadful’s happened and I have to ring the police.”
“The police! This is not for a lady to do.” As he spoke, Walsdorf moved a chair to the desk for her. “Tell me what is to be reported and I will telephone.”
“Will you really?” Daisy dropped into the chair. “I’d far rather not.”
“If there is urgency, I must warn you, the village is nearly two miles distant and Constable Fritch bicycles very slowly.”
“Then we had better get in touch with the Cambridgeshire police directly.” What Daisy really wanted was a good excuse to ’phone Scotland Yard and talk to Alec. None came to mind. “It’s murder.”
“Murder!” Paling, Walsdorf hesitated as if afraid to ask. “Who … ?”
“Lady Eva.”
A flicker of relief crossed his face. Daisy wondered whether he had something discreditable in his past—or present—that Lady Eva might have discovered.
“How?” He picked up the telephone.
“Strangulation.”
For a moment his command of English faltered. “Please? Strangu … Ah, she was strangled?” Unhooking the receiver, he clicked the hook up and down to summon the operator. “Put me through to the county police headquarters, miss. It is urgent.”
Daisy listened with one ear to Walsdorf’s half of the ensuing conversation. She was trying to picture the group who had gathered in the hallway when the maid’s screams shattered the morning peace.
Montagu Fotheringay had been there of course, apparently stunned by his sister’s death; Lucy’s brother Tim and his level-headed wife, thank heavens; Lucy’s parents? Just her father, Daisy thought.
The rest were a blur of four or five faces, but she was fairly certain the Haverhills had not turned up, nor Lord and Lady Fotheringay.
Fortunately their rooms were in another wing of the house.
Daisy didn’t want to contemplate the effect of murder in the family on the aged earl and countess and their weak-hearted son, but at least it could be broken to them gently—by someone other than herself.
Other guests were sleeping in distant parts of the house, but one person who should have put in an appearance was missing: Lucy. Her room was closer than Daisy’s to Lady Eva’s, so she must have heard the commotion. Why … ?
“Mrs. Fletcher, it is quite certainly murder I am reporting?”
She nodded. “I saw her,” she said reluctantly.
One glance at Lady Eva’s face would be enough to convince the most hardened sceptic.
At least Daisy didn’t have to waffle about unnatural death and try to persuade the police there had been foul play.
Of that there is no manner of doubt, No probable, possible shadow of doubt, No possible doubt whatever—the tune from The Gondoliers ran through her head, almost obliterating the awful sight from her mind’s eye.