Chapter 10
Gladys opened the door. “I’m sorry, madam,” she said, “Mrs. Talmadge is not—Oh, it’s you, m’m. Lor, m’m, you’re ever so wet.”
“I’ve come for my umbrella,” Daisy explained. “I left it in the waiting room.”
“Oh dear, the pleece took away the keys. They maybe took your brolly, too, m’m, thinking it was a clue. Nurse might know. They was asking her about stuff in there. I’ll go ask her, m’m, if you’ll just step in. She’s upstairs with the mistress.”
“How is Mrs. Talmadge?” Daisy asked, stepping in.
“I’m s‘posed to say ‘As well as can be expected,’ m’m, when people call or ring up.
But you being here yesterday, well, I heard Nurse telling Cook the mistress slept right through till noon, what with the doctor’s med’cine and all.
And when she woke up, she felt sick and didn’t want no lunch.
Nurse made her eat some consommy and a bit of dry toast, just to keep up her strength, like. ”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“She didn’t have no breakfast, being asleep, nor dinner last night neither. The chief pleeceman—him that’s your husband, isn’t he, m’m?—he came this morning and wanted to see the mistress, but Nurse wouldn’t let him. I’ll go ask her about your brolly, m’m.”
“Thank you, Gladys. Tell her I enquired after her patient, and I’d be grateful for the latest news.”
The housemaid left Daisy standing in the hall, as no welltrained parlourmaid would have. The wilting daffodils in the vase on the half-moon table were another sign of a household at sixes and sevens. Hilda Kidd must be sleeping after watching over Daphne Talmadge all night.
Daisy badly wanted to talk to the cook—Mrs. Thorpe, if she recalled correctly—but she couldn’t think of an excuse to go to the kitchen.
Or rather, she came up with a couple that might satisfy the cook, but there wasn’t a chance they would pass muster with Alec.
Instead, she hurried into the study, telephoned Scotland Yard, and left a message about Gwen Walker.
She put a couple of pennies on the desk to pay for the call, then returned to the hall to wait for Gladys.
The silver tray on the table now held a large number of visiting cards, with written messages of sympathy visible on the top layer.
This morning, callers must have been practically queuing up to leave their condolences.
Daisy wasn’t sure whether she ought to add her own card to the heap.
What on earth was the proper etiquette when one had been present at the discovery by the bereaved of the murdered body of the deceased?
Even the Dowager Viscountess would be hard-pressed to come up with an answer to that conundrum.
Lady Dalrymple would certainly not approve of her daughter’s present appearance. Daisy regarded her droopily damp image in the looking-glass over the table, wondering whether her hat would ever recover. Thank heaven she had put on an old one to go out in the rain.
“The pleece took your brolly, m’m,” Gladys announced from halfway down the stairs.
Continuing down, she went on, “The mistress says to lend you one to go home, but she wants to see you first. Would you be so kind, m’m, she says, as to step up to her room.
Nurse says she’s too ill to see anyone, but she says she won’t take her med’cine till she’s seen you.
Miss Kidd says it smells ever so nasty. If you please, m’m. ”
“Of course I’ll go up.”
Daphne Talmadge was in bed, propped up on several frilly pillows.
Her starkly pale face rose from a froth of lace adorning a pink quilted satin bed-jacket.
Miss Hensted stood by the bed, a neat figure in her uniform dress and cap, a brown medicine bottle in one hand.
It occurred to Daisy that the nurse would already be looking for a new job if it weren’t for Daphne’s breakdown.
“Daisy, how good of you to c-come!” Daphne’s voice broke on a sob.
“There now, what did I say, you’re getting all upset again,” Nurse Hensted reproved her. “Better take your dose like the doctor said.”
“Not now. Later. I want to talk to Mrs. Fletcher. Go away, Nurse. I’ll ring when you can come back.”
The nurse set down the bottle with rather a thump on the bedside table beside a glass of white liquid, milk perhaps.
But she looked less annoyed than anxious. “Don’t let her keep you long, Mrs. Fletcher,” she said in a low voice as she passed Daisy. “Call me if she gets agitated.”
Daisy gave her a nod, and made sure the door was properly latched behind her. Whatever Daphne wanted to say, it was none of Miss Hensted’s business, and Daisy didn’t quite trust the nurse not to listen.
“She’s never liked me,” Daphne moaned. “I hate her hovering over me.”
“Dismiss her,” said Daisy, moving a chair to a convenient position near the bed. “If the doctor wants you to have a nurse for a few days, hire someone else.”
“I couldn’t. She … she knows things. If I send her away she might tell … people.”
“A nurse who spreads rumours about her employers isn’t likely to get any decent jobs. Has she threatened to talk if you don’t go on paying her? If so, that’s blackmail, and the police don’t like it at all.”
“Oh no, nothing like that,” Daphne gabbled. “It’s just a feeling, nothing the police would be interested in.”
“If you’re worried about what the police might find out, I think it’s too late for that.”
“You mean they know? About Harry? Lord Henry?”
Daisy was a bit disappointed. Was the illicit liaison the only misdeed Miss Hensted might have discovered? “Alec went to see Lord Henry last night,” she said. Arriving home very late and dog-tired, he had told her no more than that before falling asleep.
“But he hasn’t been arrested?”
“Did you expect him to be?”
“No! He didn’t kill Raymond!” Daphne buried her face in her hands and started to cry in great, gasping sobs.
“There, what did I say?” Hilda Kidd rushed in, in a buttercup yellow dressing gown and carpet slippers, Nurse Hensted at her heels. “You’re a fine one to be taking care of her, I don’t think! Good job I came down to check. Letting people in to bully her!”
“Rubbish,” Miss Hensted retorted angrily. “She’s just overwrought, which isn’t surprising, considering. It’s time she took her medicine.”
“Oh yes, give it to me. I’ll take it now. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to think!”
“Stands to reason you don’t. That’s why Dr. Curtis left the Paral.” Picking up the bottle from the bedside table, the nurse unscrewed the top and picked up a measuring spoon.
Daisy had moved out of the way, but made no move to leave. Hilda rounded on her.
“See what you’ve done? I hope you’re—”
“Hilda, that will do! Daisy, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get so weepy. It’s just—” Daphne choked up.
“Altogether too much.”
“Yes. Will you … Would you mind staying till I go to sleep?”
“Of course.” At least she could stop the nurse and the maid squabbling, Daisy thought.
Hilda scowled. Miss Hensted, her nose wrinkling slightly, measured a spoonful of liquid and stirred it into the milk. She handed it to Daphne, who gulped down the mixture with a grimace.
“Horrid stuff.” Leaning back against the pillows with a little sigh, she closed her eyes.
Daisy was wondering how she would know when to leave, when Daphne grimaced again.
“My stomach hurts,” she mumbled.
Then suddenly she sat bolt upright, clutched her abdomen, and with a cry of pain doubled over.
“You witch, you’ve poisoned her!” Hilda screeched, rushing at the nurse. “I’ll kill you!”
As Daisy jumped to grab the maid, from the corner of her eye she saw Miss Hensted wrench the bedcovers off Daphne.
She didn’t for a moment believe the nurse would commit murder in front of two witnesses, so she averted her gaze.
Not for nothing had she chosen to work in a hospital office during the War, rather than as a VAD nurse.
Anyway, she had no attention to spare for what was going on elsewhere. She had Hilda around the waist. For what seemed like forever, the maid clawed at her hands, still screeching imprecations.
The nurse’s cold, businesslike voice cut through the shrieks. “You’re bleeding. It looks like a miscarriage to me. Are you—?”
“My baby!” wailed Daphne.
“Lie down flat. I don’t care if it hurts, it just may save the poor little beggar and stop you bleeding to death. Miss Kidd, I need clean linen and a basin of cold water. Mrs. Fletcher, please go and telephone for the doctor. If you can’t get Dr. Curtis, find someone else. Lie flat, I tell you!”
Daisy fled. She had to assume Hilda would come to her senses and help Miss Hensted instead of attacking her. At least no screams followed her as she raced down the stairs.
With any luck, that also meant the drug Daphne had taken was dulling her pain.
Could the drug have caused the miscarriage? Although her sister had had one, Daisy didn’t know much about the subject. She did know her brother-in-law had worried that any emotional upset might lead to another, and what Daphne had gone through was a huge emotional upset.
The doctor’s telephone was engaged. Daisy told the operator it was an emergency, and the girl broke in on the call. Mrs. Curtis, sounding a bit cross, said her husband was just setting out on his rounds.
“Oh, please try to catch him! It’s Mrs. Talmadge. The nurse thinks she’s having a miscarriage.”
“My dear, I’ll run. Hold the line.”
Daisy held on. She heard quick footsteps, a motor-car engine, a shout. The engine noise subsided to an idle. It sounded as if Mrs. Curtis had managed to stop the doctor as he drove down the drive.
A minute later she was on the line again. “He’s on his way,” she panted. “Just a moment while I catch my breath.”
“Thank you so much.”
“I’m getting too old for these emergencies! He says to keep her lying flat on her back with cold compresses to the abdomen. She mustn’t take any more of the Paral he prescribed. And keep her calm, though I know that’s a tall order in the circumstances.”
“I’ll tell Nurse Hensted. Thanks, Mrs. Curtis.”
“I do hope she doesn’t lose her baby. Or perhaps, in the circumstances … Oh dear!” Unable to decide what to hope for, the doctor’s wife rang off.
In the circumstances—How long since Daphne had
shared a bed with her murdered husband? The baby was almost certainly her lover’s. Their motive for doing away with the inconvenient dentist was doubled with a vengeance.