Chapter 17 #2
Montagu allowed a footman to serve him a large slice of tart with lashings of cream. Daisy wondered whether Rupert was sufficiently willing to be rude to his great-uncle to leave before the old man had finished his meal.
Sally had led the way through the door to the Long Gallery, followed by most of the others, but a few had gone through into the hall.
This was the way Angela took Daisy. The reason was apparent as soon as they stepped through the door.
Tiddler, banned from the dining room, dashed out from behind a pillar and launched himself at Angela’s knees with a squeak of relief and joy.
“Down!” she said hastily. “Don’t ruin my stockings, this is my only decent pair. Good boy. If you were just a bit bigger and a bit braver, you’d make a good watchdog.”
Daisy stooped to pet the little beast. “Alert, loyal, but not quite
fierce enough. You don’t really feel as if you need a watchdog, do you?”
“Don’t you?”
“No. Alec knows everything I know, so why should anyone attack me?”
“I told him everything, too, which was little enough. I didn’t see or hear anything to help him.
But after all, I was up and about last night and the murderer could think I might remember something significant.
Who knows? I think whoever did it is mad.
What could Uncle Aubrey have seen, tucked away in the family wing? ”
“Perhaps it wasn’t anything he could have seen last night but something he might have noticed before or after. We’ll never know, now. But there wouldn’t have been any point at all in killing him if other people might have had the same information.”
“I suppose not. Well, I’d better take Tiddler out for a few minutes. Coming?”
“Not just now. I’ll see you later.”
“Right-oh.” Angela turned towards the Long Gallery and the gardens beyond.
Daisy made for the lavatory in the downstairs cloakroom. After the vermouth before dinner she had stuck to water instead of wine, but an attentive maid had kept refilling her glass and these days it didn’t take much liquid to make her run.
As she approached, Lady Devenish came out, with that furtive look peculiar to the well-bred woman caught answering a call of nature. She ignored Daisy in a pointed way which could have been due to modesty or dislike or the two combined.
Emerging a couple of minutes later, Daisy glanced towards the library, wondering what Alec was up to.
A movement caught her eye. Someone—Lady Devenish?
—had hurriedly withdrawn into the shadows behind a pillar near the library door.
She must be waiting for her son, or perhaps nerving herself to interrupt his interrogation.
Though her dislike was mutual, Daisy couldn’t help pitying her. If
Teddy was still in there, Alec must have good reason to suspect him of killing his grandmother.
Grand-matricide? What was the Latin for grandmother? Daisy’s school had not considered Ancient Languages suitable for fragile female brains.
Sir James, though he had heeded his wife’s plea to leave the dining room with her, was not visibly present to protect her.
Daisy could think of several possible explanations.
He might believe her safe because he knew his son was the murderer; or he might know she was safe because he himself was the murderer; or he might not much care if she was murdered.
With a shiver down her spine, Daisy made for the drawing room. She didn’t want coffee, which had a tendency to keep her awake now that she was pregnant, but that was where Gerald would look for her. And there was a certain amount of comfort, if not safety, in numbers.
The numbers in the drawing room were not as great as she expected.
Several people were missing, including Sir James.
No sign of the Carletons, nor of Tim and Nancy.
John Walsdorf was absent, though Jennifer was pouring coffee from a Thermos bottle.
Apparently Sally had decided that this was a menial task unworthy of the lady of the house.
She was talking to her sister-in-law, Flora.
Judging by her gestures, they were discussing redecorating the old-fashioned crimson-and-gold room.
Flora looked less than enchanted at the prospect, hardly surprising when her father had been poisoned just a few hours earlier.
Sally might be trying to conciliate Flora after their earlier flare-up, but really, she had no sense of tact whatsoever.
Lady Ione was sitting alone near the window, sipping coffee in her self-contained, self-possessed way. Daisy had noticed her black frock earlier. If not a Paris model it was a copy, undoubtedly a new purchase. The glossy satin crepe, jet-beaded and fringed, was adequate
for mourning an unloved aunt but perhaps rather too decorative and lustrous for a beloved brother.
Daisy went over to her. “May I join you?”
“Of course. Don’t you want coffee?”
“No, thanks. What a beautiful evening it is.” The electric lights were on in the house but outside the rosy glow of sunset lingered in the dusk. “It seems frightfully inappropriate.”
“Yes. Poor Aubrey! I’m afraid I’m very selfish, I’ve been thinking of myself. You know, I don’t think I can bear to stay at Haverhill with Sally running rampant, but I can’t come up with any practical alternative. I’m far too old to start a career. I don’t suppose you have any ideas?”
“Not off the cuff, but I’ll put my mind to it.”
“On the other hand I can’t envision Rupert mouldering away here at Haverhill. He’ll probably live expensively in town and bring dashing house-parties down for long weekends to interrupt the quiet mouldering away of the rest of us. You know, you’re an extraordinary person, Daisy.”
“Me?” Daisy queried in ungrammatical astonishment.
“You. After my impulsive dash to London I was absolutely terrified of coming back to this house, to the family.”
“You didn’t show it.”
“I’d decided bright and breezy was the only way to carry it off.
Then I was faced with Aubrey’s death and a police interrogation.
Without your support, I suspect I’d have disintegrated entirely.
I’d have been a mass of sodden handkerchief by the time I had to deal with the family, quite unable to cope with their questions. You pulled me through.”
“Oh, rubbish.” Daisy felt her cheeks grow hot. Blast! she thought. Nearly a mother and still blushing like a Victorian debutante! “You’d have managed. And you’ll work out how to cope with Sally if you decide to stay, or how to get along on your own if you decide to leave.”
“That’s part of it. You have faith in people and they rise to your expectations.”
“I expect to like people, and usually they turn out to be quite nice. Not always,” she added, her eyes on Sally, whose condescending manner to Flora was obvious even from a distance.
Beyond the two, she saw Binkie—Gerald—stop in the hall doorway and look around for her.
She gave him a little wave. He nodded and left.
“There’s Lord Gerald,” she said, relieved at the excuse to quit this embarrassing conversation.
“Will you excuse me? I promised to try to explain Lucy to him, though it’s a hopeless case. ”
“That’s another part,” said Lady lone, with a trace of amusement. “You not only like people, you care.”
Already on her way, Daisy managed to pretend she had not heard.
Lucy’s mother intercepted her on the way to the door. “Daisy, I’ve heard you’re meeting Lord Gerald in the conservatory. Of course I know you mean nothing wrong by it, dear, but don’t you think it presents a rather odd appearance?”
“Sorry, Aunt Vickie, it can’t be helped.”
“If he has information for the police, why does he not go straight to your husband instead of using you as an intermediary?”
“But it’s nothing to do with the police. Nor is it exactly a clandestine assignation, since apparently the whole world knows, but we need privacy if I’m to persuade him to be patient with Lucy’s asininities.” Was there such a word? she wondered.
“My dear, it’s very kind of you to take so much trouble for Lucinda. But the conservatory! In my youth, a rendezvous in a conservatory bore such implications …”
“Not any longer.”
“I realize times have changed, but you don’t think your husband … ?”
“Good heavens, no! Alec won’t mind, since Lord Gerald has been crossed off his list.”
Mrs. Oliver looked blank.
“His list of suspects. He’d be furious if I went to meet someone who might be a murderer, naturally.
The thing is, the family isn’t likely to interrupt us there after Lord Fotheringay died there so recently.
Not that I’m frightfully happy about lingering there myself, but it was the first place that sprang to mind on the spur of the moment. ”
“I see,” said Mrs. Oliver doubtfully.
“I have to do all I can, Aunt Vickie, to sort Lucy and Gerald out. We can’t just let them fall apart.”
“Heavens, no. As it is, I simply can’t think what I’m going to say to Lady Tiverton. I’m sure the Tivertons have never had a murder in the family.”
“Most people haven’t,” said Daisy. “They can hardly blame you or Lucy.”
“I wish I could be certain of that.” Aunt Vickie went on for a while longer about the respectability of the Bincombe family before she said, “But I’m keeping you, Daisy. Do your best to bring Lucinda and Gerald back together, and I’ll worry about Lady Tiverton later.”
“That’s the spirit, Aunt Vickie.”
Daisy went on towards the door but this time was headed off by Sally.
She seemed to be in a conciliatory mood, for she said, “You haven’t had coffee, Mrs. Fletcher.
I’m afraid it’s very remiss of me not to have made sure you were given a cup.
I’ll have to have a word with Jennifer. Come along now and we’ll get you some. ”
“Thanks, but I didn’t actually want any this evening. It doesn’t agree with me in the evenings at present.”
“Oh, I do understand! When I was carrying Dickie, I couldn’t bear coffee. But there’s no reason you shouldn’t have a cup of tea, or cocoa if you prefer. Jennifer ought to have asked what you would care for. Would you like her to squeeze some orange juice for you?”
“No, truly, I don’t want anything.”
“I hope your husband drinks coffee. I told Jennifer to have some sent in for him and his men.” The blasted woman seemed to be obsessed
with making sure Daisy understood that Jennifer Walsdorf was an inferior in spite of being Rupert’s first cousin.
“I expect they’ll be glad of it,” Daisy said. “They’ve had a long day and it will help keep them awake and alert.”
“Oh, but surely they’re arresting Teddy Devenish?”
“I couldn’t say. But even if they do, there’s all sorts of things still to be done, getting an arrest warrant and charging him and carting him off to prison. Alec couldn’t leave all that stuff to Tom and Ernie.”
Sally’s eyebrows rose. “Tom and Ernie?”
“Detective Sergeant Tring and Detective Constable Piper. They’re friends of mine.”
While Sally was absorbing this facer, Daisy escaped.
She hurried across the hall, careful not to glance towards the library in case poor Lady Devenish was still anguishing there over her son’s detention.
The dining room was in darkness but for a shadowy area by the windows at the far end.
Why hadn’t Gerald left the lights on for her?
Daisy felt for light-switches on the wall just inside the door, found a row and flipped one.
Crystals sparkled as one of the elaborate gasoliers, converted to electricity, burst into life.
On the far side of the room, the glass doors to the conservatory reflected the light, the table and chairs, and Daisy as she approached, circling the table.
Beyond the glass panes, the conservatory looked dark.
Daisy was afraid she had been too long delayed and Gerald had given up waiting, but when she came closer she saw a dim yellow light, half obscured by foliage.
She remembered that Lord Fotheringay had mentioned using only oil lamps.
The brightness of electricity upset the plants’ growth patterns, he had said.
She pushed open the door. “Gerald?”
Silence.
The atmosphere was muggy, full of exotic fragrances. He had probably stepped out for a breath of fresh air. Daisy made her way along the winding path between the bushes and trees, some grouped
in beds, some in individual pots: plain clay pots, decorative Chinese pots, hideous Victorian pots. The tap of her heels on the slates rang loud in her ears.
Ahead, the lamp burned steadily, in the open space where Lord Fotheringay had sat down to drink his cup of tea and never arisen.
Her memory full of the sight of that innocuous gardener dead on the slate floor with Gerald bending over him, she did not for a moment recognize what now lay before her eyes.
The crumpled black heap was Gerald. A palm tree lay across his shoulders. Daisy’s eyes, flicking away from the sight she didn’t want to see, followed the dark, hairy palm trunk to the shattered pot and spilled soil, dark and rich.
She made herself look at Gerald. On either side of his head was a pool of bright red liquid, spreading, spreading.