Chapter 9 #2
Alec pondered as they entered the house by a side-passage.
He didn’t see how Bott could possibly have learnt of DeLancey’s death, so there was no reason for him to attempt to flee.
It would not hurt to have more information before confronting him.
Things looked black for the cox. Alec could imagine Frieth or young Fosdyke or Cheringham letting fly with his fists, but to attack someone from behind with a weapon would go against the instincts of a gentleman.
All the same, he should not have let Cheringham return to the house with the girls. He had had every opportunity to destroy evidence.
“Alec!” Daisy came up to him as he crossed the hall towards the library. “I was coming to find you.”
“Ah, Daisy, Bott is expected back here, isn’t he?”
A lover-like greeting! she thought, practically trotting to
keep up with his stride. “Yes. He was worried that Aunt Cynthia would expect him to leave once the eight was knocked out of the Thames Cup, but of course she didn’t.”
“Good.”
“He wanted to stay on because of Miss Hopgood, of course, and it’s impossible to get a room in town.
When she goes back to London tomorrow evening, he’s going off on a walking tour, camping at night, but he left all his stuff here, I know.
Leigh rowed him across the river—the towpath’s a shorter walk than by road—and they went off straight from breakfast. Alec, I … ”
“Just a minute, darling. Henley Police are expecting me to ring back.”
Daisy glanced at her wrist-watch. She had a few minutes to spare still. Unabashedly she listened as Alec told the officer on duty it was not necessary to track down Horace Bott.
“But have the beat bobby keep an eye on Miss Hopgood’s lodgings, please, and report to me when they come in.” He listened, his face relaxing. “At the railway station? Good. I’ll fetch them myself. Can you give me directions and the telephone number?”
“Tring and Piper?” Daisy mouthed at him and he nodded. She waited as he wrote down the number and cut the connection, then she said, “If you’re going to drive into the town, you could give me a lift.”
“A lift?” he asked, already dialling again.
“I have an appointment …”
“Hullo. This is Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher.”
“ … to meet my friend who …”
“That’s right. Please tell them I’ll pick them up in a quarter of an hour.”
“ …is going to present me …”
“Yes, thank you.”
“ … to Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester.”
“What’s that, Daisy? The Duke of Gloucester?”
“For my article. If I have to walk, I must leave right away or I’ll have to hurry and get all hot and sticky. Rollo said he’d drive me, but I imagine you don’t want him to leave. It’s all right for me to go, isn’t it? I’m not a suspect.”
“No?” Alec asked with a grin.
“No,” Daisy said firmly, leading the way back to the front hall. “DeLancey never insulted me. After all, I’m as Honourable as he was.”
“Rather more so, I hope.”
“Idiot. Will you take me as far as the bridge?”
“Yes, love. Are you ready? Go on out to the car while I make my apologies to the gentlemen for keeping them waiting. Not that I’m particularly sorry.
In this case, letting them stew for a while won’t hurt and might help, and I want Tring and Piper here when I start asking questions. Where are they all?”
“In the drawing-room and on the terrace. Trying to pretend nothing’s happened, not easy with a bobby on watch. Dottie’s with them, with Cherry, but Tish is in bed.”
“Yes, Mr. Fosdyke said he had prescribed a bromide. I’m sorry she’s taken it so hard, and glad you have more backbone, my love. Be with you in a minute.”
Glowing from the rare compliment, Daisy went out to the yellow Austin. She didn’t mind any more that he hadn’t noticed how smart she was in the new amber silk-georgette frock. Even Lucy said the narrow pleats all the way from shoulders to hem made her look almost slim. They had also
made it frightfully expensive, but after all, she was going to meet Prince Henry, and spruced up with a scarf it would do as a dinner dress afterwards.
The Chummy was standing in the shade, fortunately, or the seats would have been too hot to sit on. It would be unbearably stuffy with the hood up, but the road into Henley, the main road to Marlow, was metalled so she shouldn’t get too dusty. She checked in her handbag for her comb.
Alec did not keep her waiting. “Actually,” he said as he sat down behind the wheel and pressed the self-starter, “you aren’t a suspect. It looks as if the assailant was at least as tall as DeLancey. The blow was struck from above.”
“It wasn’t Bott, then.”
“He’s short?” Alec did not sound pleased.
“He’s a cox. All coxes are small, because of the extra weight in the boat. You were thinking it must be him?”
“Leaning that way,” he grunted, turning left out of the drive into a road between hedges wreathed with traveller’s joy and fragrant honeysuckle.
“It seemed to me improbable that anyone raised as a gentleman would strike someone from behind with a weapon, rather than a fist to the face. Not without a more serious motive than a fit of anger, anyway. I suppose I’m being na?ve. ”
“Gentlemen born and bred don’t always behave like gentlemen. Just consider DeLancey!” Daisy pointed out. “But the rest of the fellows are the real thing. Couldn’t someone short have hit him with something long?”
“Hm, that’s possible. Which means you are a suspect after all.”
“No, I’m not,” Daisy said indignantly. “If anything, I insulted him, not the other way around.”
“Darling, did you really?”
“I refused—rather curtly—to go dancing with him, and I as good as told him his manners were worse than Bott’s.”
“Great Scott, I’m lucky he didn’t biff you over the head!”
Daisy blew him a kiss. “Aren’t you? Alec, could DeLancey have been biffed with an oar? There’s a rack for oars in the boat-house. As far as I could see they were all in place when I looked, but …”
“When you looked? Daisy, is there something you haven’t told me?”
“Look, that’s Crowswood, where Lord DeLancey is staying.”
Though Alec gave the open gates and the lodge a thoughtful glance, as a diversionary tactic it was a failure. “What were you doing in the boat-house at a time when an oar used as a weapon might have been out of place?” he demanded.
“Looking for Bott, as a matter of fact.”
“Looking for Bott? Don’t tell me you were so concerned about sabotage …”
“Gosh no. I was concerned about Bott. I thought, if DeLancey was on guard and Bott really did go down there, DeLancey might have hit him and left him badly hurt, if not dead. I thought it might explain why DeLancey was in such a state. Shock, you know.”
“So you went down to the boat-house in the middle of the night. Alone, I take it?”
“Everyone was asleep, and I couldn’t let Bott just lie there badly hurt, could I? Especially after I found the French windows open, proving someone—Look, there’s the entrance to Phyllis Court. I told you we’re invited there this evening?”
“You did. I can’t promise …”
“I know. But I expect you’ll have solved it by then.”
“Your faith is flattering, love.” Alec smiled at her, hastily turning back as the Marlow Road met the main street through Henley.
“But it’s equally possible I may be stymied by then and needing to get away from the case for a while.
Don’t cancel yet, at any rate. You didn’t find Bott in the boat-house. What did you find?”
“Absolutely nothing. It was horridly eerie,” she confessed with a reminiscent shudder, though nothing could have been less eerie than the shops and pubs of Bell Street on a sunny afternoon.
“I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t lying drowned at the bottom of the water, but if he was, it was too late to help him.
You can’t imagine how glad I was when he came down to breakfast.”
“I can. How did you see? Is electricity laid on?”
“No, I took the electric torch from the landing. I was very careful not to mess up any fingerprints,” Daisy said proudly.
“Tom Tring will be proud of you. Unfortunately, by now anyone could have wiped it, if the housemaid doesn’t polish it daily,” Alec observed with callous masculine logic. “Still, we don’t know that the boat-house was the scene of the crime.”
“Anyone going before me might not have needed a torch, anyway. I didn’t need it outside—the moon was just setting—and earlier …
Oh, here, this is Hart Street. Turn left here, then right at the bridge, and drop me there.
Then you can go straight on along the river, turn right at the end, and there’s the station. ”
“Right-oh. The boat-house has windows?”
“Actually, I didn’t notice,” Daisy admitted sheepishly. “If not, the brightest moon wouldn’t help inside, of course.”
Alec turned right and stopped. He couldn’t pull the
Chummy over to the kerb because of all the motors, some with boat-trailers hitched behind, parked along the street, so Daisy quickly hopped out. She turned to say good-bye as a harassed-looking bobby advanced on them.
“That’s a very fetching frock,” said Alec. “Should I be jealous of Prince Henry?”
“It’s all right, he’s too young for me. See you later, darling.”
The Austin zipped off just ahead of the constable’s reprimand. Daisy turned back towards the bridge.
So Alec had noticed her new dress after all. He had been joking about the Prince, of course, but his words reminded Daisy of Rollo’s possible motive for getting hot under the collar where DeLancey was concerned.
Rollo had jumped to the conclusion that Tish was upset about DeLancey’s death because she was fond of him.
Could he be right? Was Tish prostrated because she feared for Rollo and Cherry, or because, though she repulsed DeLancey, she was attracted to him?
His obvious lack of serious intent might have led her to reject him with a show of pique, whatever her feelings.
If Rollo had real cause for jealousy, or believed so, he had a much stronger motive for violence than if he was just angry because of DeLancey’s persistent pestering.
Bosh! Daisy told herself, nipping across the road between an ancient governess-cart and a royal blue Napier driven by a chauffeur in matching uniform. Alec was right—even the peaceable Rollo might strike out with his fists but he wouldn’t biff someone over the head from behind with an oar.
Horace Bott was another kettle of fish. Daisy stopped in the middle of the bridge, gazing down at the bustle of the Regatta
on the river and the bank, as she had yesterday with Bott and his girl after his ducking.
Bott had far greater cause for resentment than Rollo or Cherry.
Grossly outweighed by DeLancey and, as he said himself, without the instincts of a gentleman, he might well have resorted to a weapon if attacked when bent on sabotage.
But if DeLancey was on the attack, how did he manage to get hit from behind?
Shaking her head in puzzlement, Daisy walked on.