Chapter Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
After showing Mrs. Jessup out, Daisy decided not to change for dinner. If Alec came home in time, which she rather doubted, he wouldn’t want to change, and a man should be allowed to be comfortable in his own home, when there are no guests.
She went back to the sitting room, kicked off her shoes, and curled up in a chair, sipping the remaining half of her vermouth and soda.
She had a feeling Mrs. Jessup had said something important, but she simply could not pin it down.
She went back over their conversation. As far as she could recall, no new information had emerged.
The doorbell rang.
“Again!” she groaned aloud. “Who now, for pity’s sake?” It was too early for dinner guests, even if she had expected any, and much too late for anyone else.
She heard Elsie come through the baize door and tap-tap along the hall. The fire flickered in the draught under the sitting room door as the front door was opened.
Elsie’s voice came to her loud and clear, and firm. “Madam is not receiving.”
A murmur of voices. Reporters?
“No, there’s not a policeman in the house, neither. Not at the moment, there isn’t.”
Although the voices were slightly raised, Daisy couldn’t quite make out the words, nor recognise the voices.
“Well, really!” Elsie sounded thoroughly put out. “You can just wait right here and we’ll see what madam has to say about this!” The front door closed with a thud.
What on earth had ruffled the polite, well-trained parlour maid to the point of being rude?
As Elsie’s footsteps approached, Daisy stood up and started to go to meet her.
Then she changed her mind: Discretion was the better part of knowledge—or rather, vice versa.
Better to wait and find out what she was going to face before she went to face it.
“Oh, madam!” Elsie closed the door behind her.
“It’s them Bennetts. I said you’re not at home, but they up and pushed right past me.
Worse than that reporter they are, and that’s saying something.
They want to see the master. I told ’em he’s not here, but they won’t take no for an answer. I’m that sorry, madam.”
“Oh, BH! if you’ll pardon my language. I’ll go.”
“I left ’em in the hall, madam, but I wouldn’t put it past them to go into the drawing room without an invitation.”
This measure of the Bennetts’ iniquity proved all too accurate.
Daisy found them in the drawing room. They had turned on the electric light.
Miss Bennett was sitting by the unlit fire, and her brother stood with his back to it.
As Daisy entered, Miss Bennett said in a voice meant to be overheard, “Too penny-pinching for a fire in every room, I dare say.”
Since the room had not been in use—and, in any case, the radiators made it quite warm enough for comfort—the remark was quite uncalled-for. Daisy ignored it.
“I understand you hoped to see my husband,” she said. “I’m afraid he is not here and I don’t know when he’ll return.”
“Some men are so inconsiderate about letting their households know when they’re going to be late.”
That was a bit of cheek, in view of Mr. Bennett’s claim that she hadn’t told him when, or even whether, she’d be home tonight! Daisy nearly pointed out that it was inevitable in Alec’s job, but once again she decided not to rise to the bait.
“I presume you wish to see him in his professional capacity,” she said sweetly—was there such a word as saccharinely? “If you have a statement to make, may I suggest you either ring up the local police or go directly to Scotland Yard?”
“It’s not the local bobbies we want,” snapped Mr. Bennett, “and I should have thought you could see I can’t possibly be dragging myself down to Whitehall with my arthritis. We’ll tell you what we saw and you can pass it on to your husband.”
It dawned on Daisy that this was exactly what they had intended all along.
Doubtless they had watched through their binoculars until they were sure she was alone before they came.
Quite a few people found it more comfortable to avoid the official commitment of reporting to the police, by telling Daisy what they wanted the police to know.
Usually she was in sympathy with their concerns, but not this time.
Warren was still on duty by the telephone. She could call him in, but a mere detective constable, and one, moreover, without eyebrows, would neither appease the Bennetts nor be able to cope with them.
What would Alec want her to do? It was all very well thinking she ought to put the Bennetts off until he could talk to them, but suppose they refused to see him? On the other hand, did she really want to hear whatever slander they chose to promulgate?
Daisy decided she had better hear them out. She didn’t have to pass on to Alec anything she considered gratuitous twaddle.
“You won’t mind if I write down what you tell me,” she said, with an inward smile at their obvious dismay. “It wouldn’t do to get it wrong when I report to Alec.”
Without waiting for a response, she went off—not hurrying—to fetch her notebook from the office.
Returning through the hall, she met Elsie, breathless and chilled. “Oh madam, I hope as I haven’t done wrong. I dashed over to my sister and told her to go right away and tell that Sergeant Tring the Bennetts are here pestering you. I know he’s a friend of yours, ‘sides being a policeman.”
Bother! thought Daisy. If she didn’t get a move on, there would be an official witness to their mischief making, if Tom Tring’s arrival didn’t shut them up altogether.
“That was very thoughtful of you, Elsie. If he comes, show him right in, won’t you?”
“I’m sure he’ll come, madam,” said the parlour maid, shocked.
“He wouldn’t leave you alone with the likes of them.
Why, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if it was them as done that American in.
Nasty, they are. Me and Enid don’t believe it was the Jessups, not if it was ever so.
I’ll wait right here to let Mr. Tring in quick as can be, madam, so if you need me, just call out. ”
“Thank you, Elsie.” Daisy was touched by the Bristow sisters’ loyalty.
She hurried into the drawing room. Mr. Bennett had taken his seat opposite his sister.
He made no attempt to rise when Daisy came in, tapping his knee as if to remind her of his rheumatics.
She was not impressed. She knew plenty of elderly gentlemen far more rickety who would die rather than not stand up when a lady entered the room.
She sat down, notebook and pencil at the ready. “All right, let’s have your statement. Then I’ll type it up and you can sign it.”
They exchanged a glance. “We’re not signing anything,” said Miss Bennett belligerently.
“That’s for you to decide. Of course, the police won’t take anything you say very seriously if you’re not willing to put your names to it.” Daisy hoped to make them think twice before letting their unpleasant imaginations run riot. “Go ahead.”
“We saw him!” Miss Bennett was eager now.
“Who? When? Where?”
“Patrick Jessup, of course.”
“Everyone knows he came home yesterday,” Daisy said dampeningly.
“We were the first to see him,” Mr. Bennett claimed. “He came out of the passage, right beside our house, a few minutes after half past five.”
“That’s right!”
That’s torn it! Daisy thought. “How can you be sure it was Patrick? It was dusk on a gloomy evening. He must have been wearing a hat, and very likely a muffler.”
“No muffler. Patrick Jessup has always claimed he doesn’t feel the cold. He goes around without an overcoat in midwinter. Just wait till he starts getting arthritis; that’ll put a stop to him.”
“He had a hat on, one of those newfangled soft felts, a trilby or a homburg, or whatever they’re called. What’s wrong with a bowler, I say. But he always wears his hat on the back of his head.”
“Makes him look like a racecourse tout.”
“Lowers the tone of the neighbourhood.”
“But one can see his face.”
“And he turned his head towards us, speaking to the man with him. It looked as if he was pointing out the Jessups’ house.”
“There was someone with him?” Daisy asked sharply. Did Alec know Patrick had a companion?
“He was wearing an overcoat, and had his hat pulled down over his ears. One of those soft felts, like Patrick’s. If he’d been wearing a nice hard bowler, it wouldn’t have been so easy to knock him out, would it?”
“You saw Patrick hit him over the head?”
“Well, not to say ‘saw.’ I had to go and pack for a night away from home, to be ready to meet my friend Emmeline Lagerquist for the theatre. My brother’s eyesight is not as keen as mine.”
“I had the glasses. I watched them walk up the path. They stopped near the fountain. Aidan—” He stopped, glancing resentfully at Daisy’s pencil and pad.
She allowed herself a smug feeling that she had stymied the worst of his venom—if that was what one did to venom.
“There ought to be a lamppost by the fountain. It’s much too dark for safety in the middle of the garden.
Someone else came down the slope to meet them. I can’t be sure who it was.”
“Fortunately, I hadn’t quite got around to writing down any name,” Daisy said in that saccharine tone.
Then a dismaying memory struck her: Mrs. Jessup saying that neither Patrick nor Aidan had seen Castellano before.
Before what? She couldn’t think about it now.
She had the Bennetts to be put in their place.
Firmly, she went on: “I believe juries are awarding quite tremendous damages for slander these days.”
Mr. Bennett blenched and repeated hurriedly, “I can’t be sure who it was.”
Miss Bennett gave him a scornful look but didn’t actually contradict him. “You saw what happened next, though.”
“Not clearly, not clearly at all. It’s shockingly dark in the middle of the garden, and then, my eyes are not what they were. That vulgar statue—”
“Barely half-clothed!”
“It complicates things, too. One can’t be sure how many people one is seeing, when they’re moving about in front of it, and one keeps catching glimpses—”
“You should have called me! I would have gone upstairs and had a much better view.”
“It was over very quickly.”
“What was?” Daisy demanded.
“I saw … what appeared to be … what might have been a struggle. Someone fell down. I’m fairly certain someone fell down. Then suddenly there was no one standing, no one at all.”
“What!” Daisy frowned at him. She couldn’t begin to guess what the police, let alone a coroner, prosecutor, or jury, would make of this farrago. It didn’t make sense.
“It started to rain,” Mr. Bennett said querulously. “I really couldn’t see much at all after that.”
“That’s not what you told me!” his sister snapped.
“You weren’t writing down every word to throw up against me in a court of law. Besides, with you badgering him, how is a man to think straight? What I saw isn’t necessarily what you’d have liked me to see.”
What he had seen was bad enough, Daisy thought.
She was glad she had taken notes, and not only because of the dampening effect.
If she could quote to Alec their exact words, then any tall story Miss Bennett might persuade her brother to tell, or come up with on her own account, would be belied before uttered.
“Detective Sergeant Tring, madam.”
The Bennetts’ quarrel had covered the sound of Tom’s arrival. Daisy jumped up and went to meet him. Brown eyes twinkling, he raised his eyebrows questioningly at her, with an effect like a pair of woolly bear caterpillars crawling up an egg.
“Mr. Tring! How lucky that you happened to drop in.” She waved her notebook at him and turned back towards the couple by the fireplace. “I believe you haven’t met Mr. and Miss Bennett?”
“I have not had the pleasure.”
Daisy wished she were not far too well brought up to inform him that it was no pleasure.
“They came looking for the police. Since you’d all left, they’ve been telling me how the disgracefully bad lighting in the garden prevented their seeing anything much last night.
You’ll be glad to hear I wrote down their statements verbatim, so there can’t be any disagreement about what they’ve said. ”
His moustache twitched. “Very good, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said gravely. “If you would be so good as to type your notes, the lady and gentleman can sign them immediately and we shan’t have to trouble them again this evening.”
Miss Bennett gave him an affronted glare. “We cannot possibly wait.”
“It won’t take me more than a few minutes.”
“We dine precisely at eight. It is now twelve minutes before the hour.”
“We have to go round by the street,” Mr. Bennett explained, levering himself out of his seat, “what with the steps and my arthritis, and the lighting so poor in the garden.”
“We wouldn’t have come out at all, but unpleasant as it is to have anything to do with the police, we know our duty as citizens, I hope.”
“Very obliging of you,” said Tom as Daisy rang for Elsie, who must have been listening at the door, since she arrived instantly to show the Bennetts out.
They departed, noses in the air.
“Paint themselves into a corner, did they?” Tom enquired.
“Not at all. I painted them into a corner.”
“You didn’t go putting words into their mouths, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Of course not! I just made pointed remarks about slander and huge damages, and made sure they realised I was taking down every word they said. Oh Tom, aren’t they awful?
And the worst is, the one unshakable thing they agree on is that they both saw Patrick Jessup coming into the Circle at half past five with a companion who sounds just like Castellano. ”