Chapter 16
Alec and Tom Tring stood in the passage with a stethoscope-garlanded doctor, the hospital’s Matron, and the Sister on duty, with Piper hovering on the edge of the group. They all turned at the sound of Daisy and Susan’s footsteps on the tile floor.
Matron, a short, thin, grey-haired woman with rather severe features, stepped forward to meet them. With one glance at Susan’s now tear-stained face, she said kindly, “My dear, did my wretched porter tell you to abandon hope? He says the same for everything from a broken leg to a bleeding ulcer.”
“Get rid of that Job’s comforter,” grunted the doctor.
“As you know quite well, Doctor,” she said, giving him an exasperated look, “the Chairman of the Board of Trustees … Well, never mind. There’s no reason to suppose that your young man won’t make a good recovery, child, given the best of care, which he will have, will he not, Sister?”
“Of course, Matron.” Sister was large, plump, and motherly-looking, though Daisy, having worked in a hospital office during the War, was sure she and Matron could both be frightful Tartars to their staff. “It’s Miss Hopgood, isn’t it,
dear? You’ll want to see Mr. Bott, I expect. Is that all right, Chief Inspector?”
“Yes,” Alec said unenthusiastically. “Detective Sergeant Tring will be in charge, Miss Hopgood. If he asks you to leave the room, please do so at once.”
“Oh yes, sir. Please, can Miss Dalrymple stay with me?”
Alec raised his eyes to heaven. “I suppose so,” he said with even less enthusiasm, “but the same goes for her as far as obeying Sergeant Tring is concerned.”
“Naturally, Chief Inspector,” Daisy said demurely, catching Tom’s twinkling eye.
Sister ushered them into a small room, spotlessly white from walls to night-stand to bed to the patient in it, and his bandaged head.
At least, Horace Bott spent too much time out of doors for his face to be white, strictly speaking, but beneath the suntan his pallor was obvious. Susan gasped in dismay.
Daisy tried to listen to both the nurse’s account of Bott’s condition and the murmur of voices beyond the door, left ajar.
“—pulse and heartbeat are both strong, and lungs …”
“Good idea, Sergeant. Do that, but don’t forget …”
“—always a risk of pneumonia and …”
“Thank you, Doctor. I promise Sergeant Tring will …”
“—head injury appears superficial, but they’re always liable to …”
“Don’t let her interfere, Tom, for pity’s sake. She’s …”
Incensed, Daisy transferred her attention to Sister.
“ … haven’t got an X-ray machine here in Henley. It would mean moving him to Reading and the doctor says it’s more important to keep him still than to take pictures of his skull. It’s a bit worrying that he hasn’t come round yet. You sit yourself down here beside him, dear. Hold his hand if you
want, but don’t sit on the bed or try to fluff up his pillows or anything like that. And you can talk, but keep your voices down, please.”
“Oh yes, Sister. Thanks ever so.”
The nurse glanced around the room. “I’ll have Porter bring another chair for Sergeant Tring.”
“A large one,” said Daisy, and Susan managed a smile.
“Large and strong,” Sister agreed. “And don’t you go listening to a word Porter says, dear. I’ll tell him to hold his tongue.”
She went out. Daisy heard her voice, and Tom Tring’s bass in answer, as Susan said in a whisper, “He’s so awfully still! Oh, Miss Dalrymple, what’ll I do about telling Auntie Flo? They’ll be ever so upset. I ought to go and send a telegram, but I don’t want to leave Horace.”
“We’ll ask Sergeant Tring to arrange something.”
“I wish he wasn’t going to stay.”
“Don’t worry, Tom Tring’s really frightfully nice.”
“What do the police want with Horace, anyway? It’s something to do with that man who died, isn’t it? The man in his crew.”
Before Daisy was forced to find an answer, Tring came in, carrying his own chair. “Have you had your breakfast, Miss Hopgood?” he asked benevolently. “I haven’t, and I know Miss Dalrymple hasn’t, so I asked Sister to see what she could send along.”
“Bless you, Mr. Tring!” said Daisy, suddenly aware of ravening hunger.
“I was just starting mine,” Susan said, “when … But I couldn’t eat, reelly.”
“Ah well, I dare say a cuppa’d do you good, though. The
missus always says a nice hot cuppa’s the best cure there is for the mopes. Gives you a good breakfast, does she, your landlady?”
“Oh yes, bacon and eggs and everything.”
“I bet she put up a nice picnic for you, too. Nothing like fresh air to give you an appetite, is there? Me and the missus take a picnic out to Epping Forest now and then. Ever been there? It’s a pretty place, but I ’spect the river-bank’s prettier.
Have a good time, did you?” He gave Daisy a warning glance.
That was when she realised the soothing rumble had a purpose. No doubt the “good idea” Alec had approved was to seize the chance to interrogate the unsuspecting Miss Hopgood.
“It was lovely,” said Susan. “I told Horace straight out, I didn’t want to hear any more grousing about how they all picked on him. Once he stopped talking about it, he stopped thinking about it, and he soon cheered up.”
“Not another word about his troubles, eh?”
“No, he was talking about what he’s going to do at Cambridge next year. I didn’t understand all the science stuff, but I don’t mind just listening to him when he’s happy. We had a lovely day.”
“Hot enough for you?” Tring asked, a trifle roguishly.
Susan blushed. “It was hot in the sun. Horace wished he was wearing his shorts, like the day before.”
“Blimey—if you’ll pardon the expression, ladies—he went around in rowing shorts all day?”
“No one minds in Henley, do they, Miss Dalrymple?”
“Not in Regatta time, at least.”
“It would have taken hours if he’d walked back to change. He’d’ve had to go round by the road, seeing he couldn’t be
sure there’d be a boat to take him across. I must say, people looked at him kind of funny at the fair.”
“The fair?”
“There’s a fun-fair by the river,” Daisy explained. “Coconut shies and merry-go-rounds and a Ferris wheel, that sort of thing.”
“It doesn’t start till after the racing’s over for the day,” Susan said, “’cause of the noise.”
“You must’ve had a late night then, eh?”
“Oh no, we went early. We had tea at my digs—high tea, it was extra, like the picnic, but I told Horace it was my treat and no harm in splurging once in a while.”
“None at all,” Tring agreed heartily.
“So we went to the fair after tea, and we didn’t stay late, what with Horace having to walk by the road all the way back to the Cheringhams’ house.”
“How silly!” said Daisy. “He could have come back with the rest of us. Why didn’t he say something when we met at the fair?”
“He didn’t want to ask any favours,” Susan said with dignity, “besides wanting to see me home first. He was always very particular about walking me home. Oh Horace!” Tears welled in her eyes as she turned to the still figure on the bed.
“And many a time to come he’ll be walking you home, miss,” Tom assured her, with more hope than certainty, Daisy felt.
The arrival of a nurse-probationer with the breakfast-trolley came as a relief to both of them.
Meanwhile, Alec drove back towards Crowswood Place. He was beginning to resign himself to the way Daisy managed to
make it impossible for him to object to her doing anything she was really determined to do. It was lucky he had a modern view of marriage as a partnership, he thought a trifle sourly. A Victorian paterfamilias faced with Daisy as a wife might have been driven to choose between lunacy and murder.
The truly maddening thing was that he had to admit she was occasionally helpful in the murder investigations she insisted on meddling in. Had she not kept her wits about her when abandoned by both her escorts in mid-river, he would not have had the first idea of where to look for Bott’s assailant.
It was a pity she had not actually recognised Lord DeLancey. Still, the chances of anyone else at Crowswood being interested in Bott seemed minimal.
On the other hand, Daisy’s reasoning about the dawn meeting was sound. DeLancey might want revenge, but why should Bott agree to a rendezvous? Bott might want to try to convince DeLancey of his innocence, but why on an island at dawn? Could cross purposes have brought them together?
The first order of business, Alec decided, was to persuade Lord DeLancey to admit to having been on Temple Island.
“Ernie, make sure your notes of this interview are very accurate.”
“They always are, Chief,” said Piper, injured.
“Take extra care. I want my exact words on paper so that no lawyer can accuse me of lying to Lord DeLancey. If he chooses to misinterpret what I say, that’s his problem.”
Piper grinned. “Like that, is it, Chief? Don’t you worry about my notes. Even if you was to have a slip of the tongue, like, it wouldn’t need to go down in my notebook.”
“Don’t let’s start fudging,” Alec said mildly. “We’ll play it
straight and hope for other evidence if I can’t get a confession. Here we are.”
The gates of Crowswood Place stood closed this morning. Alec had no difficulty identifying the two sinister characters lurking nearby as members of the Fourth Estate. In fact, he recognised one as a reporter for the Daily Graphic. Unfortunately, recognition was mutual.
Before the Austin had quite come to a halt, Dugden was there.
“Well, well, Chief Inspector Fletcher of the Yard,” he said cheerfully, snapping a photograph, as the other man hurried over to join him.
“Any progress to report, Chief Inspector? Come to tell his lordship who did his brother in, are you?”
“If so, his lordship will be the first to know. Be a good fellow, Dugden, and knock up the gatekeeper for … Ah, here she comes.”
The woman who came out of the lodge examined Alec’s warrant card, which he had automatically dropped in his pocket when he hurriedly dressed to go out in the garden at dawn. She went to open the gates.