Chapter 2 #2
Gladys had probably made a pot and taken it upstairs by now.
Mrs. Talmadge was only a slight acquaintance so it would be frightfully improper to invade the upper reaches of the house.
To barge into the kitchen to make tea for oneself would be almost equally unacceptable.
Not quite, though, and she might get away without being caught: Cook’s day off,
Mrs. Talmadge had said. Daisy headed for the kitchen.
She had just reached the stairs when she remembered that the kitchen door was right opposite the door to the surgery. Feeling sick, chilled, and weak at the knees, she sat down on the next to bottom step and hugged herself.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Fletcher?” Miss Hensted’s voice came from behind her.
She looked back to see the nurse coming down the carpeted stairs. “Yes. Yes, quite all right.” She stood up to let the woman by. “How is Mrs. Talmadge?”
“In a bad way. If that Hilda Kidd, that’s her maid, thinks she can cope without my help,” she said resentfully, “well, all I can say is she’s got another think coming. All she is is a glorified parlourmaid, and the silly woman needs a doctor.”
The nurse, as a medical professional, should give a decent show of sympathy, Daisy felt. “She’s had a terrible shock,” she pointed out, “finding her husband dead.”
“It’s little enough she cared when he was alive, so she’s got no call now to carry on like the end of the world. And slandering him, saying he killed himself when it was obviously an accident! Dr. Curtis’ll have to give her something good and strong to calm her down.”
“Dr. Curtis was out. I left a message. I expect the police surgeon will be able to help Mrs. Talmadge when he arrives.”
“Police! Don’t say you called in the police?
” Miss Hensted looked quite put out. After a frowning moment she said, “That’ll do her a lot of good, that will, having them stirring things up, making a mountain out of a molehill.
It’s bound to convince her it actually was suicide.
Dr. Curtis could have given a certificate nice and quiet, kept it out of the papers.
She’ll have reporters hounding her and—”
“Accident or suicide, it had to be reported to the police,” said Daisy. “I’m sure Dr. Curtis would have insisted, in the circumstances.”
“Oh well, least said, soonest mended, and it’s no good crying over spilt milk.” She gave Daisy a critical appraisal. “You’re looking a bit seedy yourself. Better go and sit in the drawing room and I’ll make you a nice strong cuppa.”
“I’ll come with you,” Daisy said gratefully.
She sat down at the American-cloth covered table, while Miss Hensted filled a kettle, set it on the gas stove, and struck a match. At that moment a bell rang. They both looked up at the bell board over the kitchen door.
“Front door,” said Daisy.
“That’ll be the police.”
As the nurse made no move, Daisy stood up. “I’ll get it.”
“No need for that, Mrs. Fletcher. It’s Gladys’s job and if she doesn’t go it won’t hurt him to—Ouch!
” She dropped the match on the stovetop and rushed to stick her fingers under the tap.
For all her veneer of professional coolness, she was more upset than she wished to let anyone see, Daisy thought.
“Are you all right?” she asked, going over to light the gas under the kettle.
“Yes, it was nothing. I was just saying, it won’t hurt him to wait while I make the tea.”
The bell rang again.
“It looks as if Gladys is otherwise occupied.” Though the Dowager Lady Dalrymple would have strongly objected to either course, in the circs Daisy decided making tea was less infra dig than answering the door. “I think you should go and let him in. I’ll do the tea.”
Lips pursed, Nurse Hensted regarded Daisy with a slight frown. “Yes, perhaps I will,” she said, and went off, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking slightly on the linoleum in the passage.
Daisy found a big brown earthenware teapot and a pair of japanned canisters, one smelling of Earl Grey, the other of Darjeeling.
There was a packet of a cheap brand of tea, too, but she didn’t feel obliged to lower herself to that extent just because she would be drinking from a thick white china cup.
She set out cups and saucers for Miss Hensted and Detective Sergeant Mackinnon as well.
The kettle was steaming so she poured hot water into the teapot to warm it.
As she swirled the water in the pot, she heard voices approaching. She moved closer to the open door to listen.
“ … Mrs. Fletcher, she’s a patient who just happened to be here. Oh, and Gladys, the housemaid. I don’t know where the dratted girl has got to! But there was no need to call you out, Sergeant. It was an accident, for sure.”
“That’s for the Coroner’s jury to decide, miss.”
“You see, I’m afraid Mr. Talmadge was in the habit of taking a little sniff of laughing gas when we’d had a run of difficult patients, just to relax.
No harm in that!” The nurse gave a forced laugh.
“I never thought anything of it, but looking back, I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, that he’d forget to switch on the oxygen.
There’s no reason to think he did it on purpose. ”
“That’ll be for the Coroner to decide, miss.” The rolling Scottish r confirmed the speaker to be Mackinnon. “In here, is he?”
“That’s right.” Miss Hensted’s hand came into view, reaching
for the doorknob. The plainclothes detective officer gripped her white-cuffed wrist.
“Don’t touch, please, miss. It’ll have to be done for fingerprints.”
“Why on earth … ?”
“Standard procedure, miss, in any unexpected death. Did you touch this handle when you found the deceased?”
“Yes, I—”
“No,” said Daisy. “Mrs. Talmadge opened the door and I closed it, when you had to help her upstairs.”
“Oh yes, that’s right.”
Sergeant Mackinnon, a tall, rawboned redhead who looked even more Scots than he sounded, eyed Daisy and her teapot askance. “And you are … ?”
“Mrs. Fletcher. I telephoned.”
“Ah yes.” He took out his notebook. “I have a few questions to ask you, madam”—he pronounced the last word dubiously, with another look at the teapot—“before I take a look at—”
“Miss Hensted!” Gladys came tearing along from the front hall. “Miss Hensted, Miss Kidd says if the doctor’s not come yet will you come and see to the mistress. She’s fallen into a fit!”
“What did I say? I told her she couldn’t manage without me.” Miss Hensted hurried off.
The maid hesitated, obviously agog with curiosity over the stranger downstairs while not wanting to miss any of the excitement upstairs.
“This is Gladys, the housemaid, Sergeant,” said Daisy.
“A pleeceman?” Gladys squeaked.
“Yes, and I’ll want to have a word with you later, my girl, but you can take yourself off now. You listen out for the doorbell, mind. There’ll be more people coming.”
With another inarticulate squeak, Gladys scuttled away.
“I think you ought to go and look at … him first, Sergeant,” Daisy suggested. “The signs I saw may fade. I’ll explain what to look for.”
Mackinnon cast an uneasy glance behind him at the surgery door. “That can wait till the doctor comes,” he said.
“But—”
“I’ll just do things my own way, if you don’t mind.”
Daisy sighed. “Then you’d better come into the kitchen and sit down. The kettle’s boiling and I really do need a cup of tea. Will you have one?”
“Not just now, thank you, madam.” He closed the kitchen door and sat down at the table, the notebook before him. “Your full name, please.”
“Daisy Fletcher.”
“Mrs. Fletcher, please describe in your own words what occurred leading to your telephone call.”
So while Daisy made tea, she quickly explained how the dentist had not turned up for her appointment and she and the nurse had gone to look for him.
“We found him lying in his reclining chair, with the laughing-gas mask on. His hands were cold and he wasn’t breathing, and Miss Hensted couldn’t find a pulse.
She turned the gas off and the oxygen on, just in case. ”
“The gas off and the oxygen on?”
“She said oxygen was the only remedy, but she was pretty sure it was too late. Then Mrs. Talmadge went into strong hysterics and Miss Hensted had to deal with that. She and
Gladys took her upstairs. That was when I noticed the things that made me wonder if it really was either an accident or suicide. There was a sort of pinkish patch around his—”
“Pinkish patch,” Sergeant Mackinnon said sceptically, not writing it down.
“Yes, squarish, around—”
“No doubt the police doctor will take note of anything significant in the appearance of the deceased.”
“But if he doesn’t come soon—”
“Thank you for your statement, Mrs. Fletcher. It will be transcribed for you to sign, and there may be further questions. Where may I get hold of you?”
As Daisy gave her address, she was trying to decide what to do next. The sergeant obviously wasn’t going to listen to her. Should she phone the Yard again, or just give up and let some maniac run loose hither and yon murdering dentists?
The notion was undeniably attractive.