Chapter 13
Leigh, recalled, was pretty sure he’d have noticed if Bott had been wearing gloves with his flannels and college blazer when he crossed the river that morning.
“He does get things wrong, but not quite that wrong. He’d have looked abso-bally-lutely Victorian setting off for a picnic on a hot day in gloves. I’d remember.”
Thanking him grimly, Alec saw his likeliest suspect fading before his eyes. Was the oar a red herring? Was he on the wrong track altogether, unable to see the wood for the trees? Had Basil DeLancey in fact been drunk enough to fall down twice?
The abrasion on his head and the blood on the floor in the boat-house argued against it. A man might skid along the ground if he fell while running, but one doesn’t run in a boat-house.
Alec decided he needed to inspect the boat-house and to consult Dr. Dewhurst. But first he’d finish the interviews. He had kept people waiting long enough.
“Fetch Miss Carrick, please, Piper.”
Dorothy Carrick had changed into a navy-blue linen skirt
and pale blue blouse which suited her much better than her flowery dress.
She wasn’t over plump, just sturdily built, and Alec, who vastly preferred Daisy’s curves to the fashionable boyish flatness, saw nothing much amiss with her figure.
To be sure, her face would never launch a thousand ships, but she had a charming smile, with perfect teeth.
Add intelligence, and the kindness she had shown to her distraught friend on the river-bank, and Cheringham’s choice was not to be cavilled at.
And then there was that marvellous voice: “I’m afraid your weekend has been ruined, Mr. Fletcher. Daisy was so thrilled that you’d escaped from Scotland Yard for a whole two days. Rotten luck!”
“Rather rotten luck for Basil DeLancey, too,” Alec said dryly.
“I shan’t pretend I’m sorry he’s gone. I’m only sorry the Erinyes caught up with him now, involving us. It was bound to happen some day.”
“The Furies were on his trail? Wouldn’t you say death is too severe a punishment for what, as far as I can gather, was little more than a thoroughly unpleasant tongue?”
“He made Horace Bott ill, assaulted him, and publicly humiliated him. The Furies had worse punishments for what we might consider lesser sins. Daisy mentioned that you’re a student of Georgian history. Wasn’t the death penalty applied then to what we’d call misdemeanours?”
“For shop-lifting goods worth five shillings,” Alec admitted. “So you think Bott hit DeLancey?”
“Mr. Fletcher,” said Miss Carrick earnestly, “Horace Bott has a brilliant mind. He’s a mathematician and a scientist, which requires a logical mind. In the heat of the moment he
threatened vengeance. Once he cooled down, he could not but come to his senses and see the illogic of damaging the boat, which would penalise Cherry and Rollo as much as DeLancey. He had no quarrel with them.”
According to Daisy, Bott’s feelings towards his fellow collegians in general were none too kindly—though hadn’t she said something about Rollo Frieth sticking up for him? Where was she? Shouldn’t she be back by now? Alec wanted to talk to her.
She wouldn’t make the mistake of believing Bott’s brilliance at applying logic to numbers meant he would do the same to life. Alec reminded himself that, for all Dottie Carrick’s knowledge of ancient Greece, she was very young, not more than twenty, with little experience of the world.
“What did Cheringham and Frieth make of Bott’s threats?” he asked her.
“They both thought it was bravado. They have a rather low opinion of him, I’m afraid.”
“And what was their opinion of DeLancey’s concern over the boat?”
“Sheer rubbish,” said Miss Carrick decidedly. “Cherry said DeLancey didn’t really believe it himself, he was just getting at Bott again, trying to turn everyone else against him.”
“They both disliked DeLancey.”
“Who didn’t? But as Rollo said, we never had to see him again after this weekend, so why worry?”
“An eminently sane point of view.” Alec asked Miss Carrick a few more questions, but she merely confirmed what he had already learnt. He ushered her out, and Piper fetched Frieth.
As the crew’s captain dropped wearily into the chair Alec
indicated, Ernie Piper announced, “Lord DeLancey’s here, sir.”
Alec groaned. “He’ll have to wait.”
“He doesn’t want to see you, sir. I asked. He said he came for his brother’s stuff, and I told him he couldn’t take it yet. Right?”
“Right.”
“He seems to want to talk about his brother,” said Frieth.
He was more mature than the others Alec had interviewed, a combination of years and War experience.
With the light from the window on his face, he looked anxious, discouraged, and just plain tired.
“Deucedly awkward, when no one has a good word for him except for his rowing. I’m afraid some of the fellows have been rather going on about Bott and the boat-house, for want of anything else to say. ”
“It can’t be helped, I suppose,” Alec said with a grimace. “I thought they were going to watch the rest of the Regatta.”
“They decided it was too much bother, what with the heat and … everything. They’re playing croquet on the front lawn. They’ll have another chance to be part of the Regatta next year.”
“And you won’t?”
“No. I didn’t pass the final exams, and if I decide to go back and try again, I’ll have to concentrate on swotting, not rowing.”
“So winning this year was important to you?”
“It would have been nice to have a trophy to take back to Ambrose, but it all seems pretty unimportant compared to a man’s life, even a swine like DeLancey.” Frieth dropped his head in his hands. “Oh God, why did I let him row?” he groaned.
“Why did you?” That was a question Alec ought to have explored with the others. With his War service, Frieth must have some understanding of head injuries. Hitting DeLancey was one thing, seeing his symptoms and still permitting him to exert himself was quite another.
Frieth raised his head. “I never guessed for a moment it was anything but a hangover.”
“Weren’t you afraid his rowing would be affected? You could have substituted one of the others.”
“DeLancey was both stroke and steersman, not just an oarsman. I could have taken his position and put Meredith or Wells in at bow, but DeLancey was absolutely determined to race. It would have meant a hell of a row if I’d kicked him out.
Besides, he’d turned up with a bit of a head before and always been all right on the water.
In fact, he had no trouble rowing up to the start this morning.
He’d eaten well at breakfast, too. How could I guess anything was seriously wrong? ”
Reasonable, and easy enough to check, Alec thought. “You didn’t hear his carrying on in the middle of the night?”
“Not a whisper. Poor Tish! I wish she’d come to me.”
“What would you have done?”
Frieth looked taken aback. “Well, actually, I couldn’t have done much that Fosdyke didn’t do—making a big fuss of it, then or later, would only have upset Tish even more.
She’s just had too much to cope with, what with one thing and another.
At least I could have comforted her, assured her I didn’t for a moment suppose she’d given that bastard any encouragement, if I’d woken up. ”
“You slept soundly throughout the night?”
“As a matter of fact, no. DeLancey can’t have made much noise or I would have heard, because I had a rotten night.
Tossing and turning all night, or that’s what it felt like. It’s a good job Cherry insisted on taking the camp-bed. I’d have overturned it.”
“He didn’t wake?”
“Didn’t stir, and how I detested him for his oblivion!” Frieth said wryly. “You know how it is: misery loves company.”
If that was an attempt to provide his friend with an alibi, Frieth was a lot more subtle than he appeared. Alec was inclined to take his words at face value. “What were you miserable about?” he enquired.
“Oh, well, miserable’s a bit too strong.
I was a bit pipped over DeLancey’s mistreating Bott.
As captain, I ought to have been able to put a stop to it, especially as it led to us being knocked out of the Thames Cup.
And then there’s general sort of worry about the future, trying to decide whether to stick out another year at Oxford or to try to get any old job paying enough to support Tish. I’m not getting any younger.”
“You’re what, twenty-five?” Alec said with some asperity.
“You have thirty or forty working years ahead of you. Do you want to spend them in a job you don’t care about?
” Great Scott, sorting out people’s private lives was Daisy’s forte—it must be catching!
He shrugged. “It’s your choice. You weren’t worrying over whether Bott would sabotage the boat? ”
“That was DeLancey’s fantasy,” Frieth snorted, “whatever the others are saying now. As I told Tish, if Bott had done anything of the sort, everyone would have known exactly who was to blame. Admittedly, he’s not exactly popular, but his name would have been mud, and not only at Oxford.
There are plenty of Cambridge crews at the Regatta. ”
Making his public humiliation at DeLancey’s hands that
much bitterer, Alec reflected. “What did you think of DeLancey’s plan to guard the boat?” he asked.
“It looks as if he did, didn’t he? When his brother laid down the law, we assumed that was the end of it. After all, Lord DeLancey had somehow forced Basil to apologise, to us if not to Bott. Come to that, I don’t suppose the notion of begging Bott’s pardon so much as crossed Lord DeLancey’s mind.”
“I’d say it was highly unlikely,” Alec agreed.
He found himself liking Frieth; just as well if they were to be cousins-in-law.
Was it influencing his judgement? He could not see the young man as a liar, nor as quick to violence, let alone as a cold-blooded murderer.
“You fell asleep in the end, I imagine,” he said.
“Have you any idea what time?” Glancing at his wrist-watch, he was dismayed to see how late it was.