Chapter 11
Arriving panting on the upper landing, Daisy met Hilda coming out of the bathroom with a bowl of water and followed her into the bedroom. Carefully averting her eyes from the bed, though she couldn’t avoid hearing Daphne’s moans, she passed on Dr. Curtis’s instructions.
“Just what I’m doing,” said Miss Hensted complacently. “It might stop the bleeding, you never can tell. At least she’s vomited up the Paral, for a mercy.”
“Unless there’s something I can do to help,” said Daisy, feeling cowardly, “I’ll wait downstairs.”
The nurse gave her the cheerfully pitying glance of one to whom blood and vomit are nothing. “Off you go, then, dear,” she advised. “You might send up some tea, if you don’t mind.”
“I will,” Daisy promised, and once again fled, this time with an excuse to go and speak to Cook.
The kitchen smelt of fried onions—the servants had to eat regardless of their master’s death and their mistress’s lack of appetite. Daisy found Gladys there with Mrs.
Thorpe, and sent her to wait at the front door to admit the doctor. The cook was a short, thin woman with a face as dour as Hilda Kidd’s. She turned from a simmering pan on the stove to stand with her hands on her white-aproned hips waiting for Daisy to explain her presence.
“Nurse Hensted asked for a pot of tea to be sent up, please, Cook.”
“Oh aye? What kind? For that woman or t’mistress?”
Daisy didn’t know. Daphne was in no state to enjoy a drink of fragrant China tea, and the nurse surely had her hands too full to stop for a cuppa. Conceivably what was needed was a stimulant to counteract any of the sedative Daphne had absorbed before she … in which case the stronger the better.
“Indian. Strong. It’s medicinal.”
“And t’doctor?” said Mrs. Thorpe, putting on the kettle. “What’s gone wrong, that’s what I want to know?”
Daisy sat down at the table. “I’m not exactly sure. Miss Hensted seems to have everything in hand.”
“‘Tis not like Mrs. Talmadge were ever ill, not one to coddle herself. Not one o’ these gaumless ladies always fussing over their food and fancying themselves at death’s door. Hilda didn’t ought to have never let that woman get her hands on her.”
“After such a shock as she had yesterday, it’s hardly surprising that she’s not well. I know it was your day out, Mrs. Thorpe, but have you any ideas about what might have happened?”
“Ideas?” The cook looked blank, as if she’d never heard of such things. “I’m sure ‘tis not my place to have ideas, madam. I wasn’t here and I didn’t see nowt and that’s that.”
Her mouth set in an uncompromising line, she set about making the tea.
Daisy knew when she was beaten. It wasn’t often that even the most unlikely people failed to confide in her. She wondered whether Tom Tring had had better luck.
As long as she was here, though, there was a chance of learning something. Anyway, she couldn’t leave until she knew what was happening upstairs.
“Pour me a cup before it gets too strong, would you, please?”
Reluctantly Cook obliged. “I’ll have Gladys bring it to you in t’ drawing room, madam.”
“Oh no, I want her to stay at the door to admit Dr. Curtis, so there’s no delay. I’m quite comfortable here. Won’t you sit down and have a cup with me?”
“I couldn’t do that, madam.” Mrs. Thorpe was stiff with disapproval. “’Twouldn’t be proper.”
Another of those middle-class taboos, Daisy thought with a sigh.
Growing up at Fairacres she and Gervaise and even Violet, the best behaved of the three, had often gone to the kitchens for a snack, and Cook would join them if she wasn’t extra-busy.
And in Chelsea, before she married, Daisy had often sat down at the kitchen table with the daily help for elevenses and what Mrs. Potter called “a nice bit of chinwag.”
Muttering, “I only hope ‘tis for t’mistress,” Mrs. Thorpe spread an embroidered cloth on a tray.
She had made the tea in the Royal Doulton pot, and set out milk, sugar, and hot water in the matching jugs and basin.
Now she hesitated with the cup and saucer in her hand, as if the thought of Miss Hensted drinking from the good china appalled her.
“Why do you dislike the nurse so?” Daisy ventured.
“Dead chuffed wi’ herself, isn’t she? Right stuck-up, fancies herself as good as t’gentry and a sight too good for us servants.
Some people, you give ‘em an inch and they’ll take an ell.
If there’s anything I can’t abide, ’tis someone that doesn’t know her own place.
” She glared at Daisy, who decided not to offer to take the tray up, as she had intended.
Gladys came in. “The doctor’s come, madam.”
“Good, that was quick. Mrs. Thorpe, you’d better put out a cup for him.” And one for Hilda Kidd? No, it would only upset Cook still more to suggest the maid might drink with Mrs. Talmadge and the doctor. “Then Gladys can take it.”
With an air of triumph, the cook set out two Doulton cups and saucers and one of the white kitchen china. “That’ll show her,” she gloated, turning back to the stove as Gladys carried the tray out.
Almost simultaneously three bells rang: the side door, the telephone, and Daphne Talmadge’s bedroom. Gladys, already on her way, could take care of the last.
“That’ll be t‘butcher’s boy,” said Cook. “He’s late again, t’ good-for-nowt.”
Daisy would have liked to ask the butcher’s boy whether he had noticed anything the day before, but Mrs. Thorpe was already on her way to the door. No doubt Tom had taken the names of all deliverymen and interviewed them by now—that might even be why the boy was late.
“I’ll get the ’phone,” Daisy offered.
“Let it ring. ’Twill stop. Just some Nosey Parker, think on.”
A reporter, maybe, but it could be another emergency for the doctor. Daisy hurried to the study, picked up the apparatus, and gave the number.
“Daisy?”
“Alec!”
“What the dickens are you doing there?”
“I came to get my umbrella, darling. I didn’t know you had impounded it as a clue.”
“So Mother said. But she expected you home long ago.”
“Well, once here I couldn’t very well leave without asking after Daphne, and she wanted to see me, so—”
“What’s this message you left for me?” he interrupted. “Something about Mrs. Walker being the missing factor.”
“I didn’t want to be too explicit, darling, because it’s only a rumour and you never know who’s listening.
In fact, hold on while I close the door.
” She did so. “There. It was at the ghastly luncheon your mother and I went to today. I’m inclined to think Mrs. Grantchester set it up just so that her mouthpiece, Miss Cobb, could enlighten me. ”
“About what, for pity’s sake?”
“Gwen Walker was seen dining in Soho with Raymond Talmadge.”
“Mrs. Major Walker? Well I’ll be … dashed. I have to admit you’ve beaten us to it there. We had no leads so far.”
“Maybe, but it’s just High Street salon gossip. Miss Cobb didn’t even know who was supposed to have seen them. Something much more significant is going on here right now.”
“More significant than discovering Talmadge’s lover? Do stop being so mysterious, Daisy!”
“Stop interrupting and give me a chance. It looks as if Daphne’s having a miscarriage.”
“A mis—Great Scott, she’s pregnant?”
“Is or was. The doctor’s with her now, poor thing.”
Alec snorted. “Poor thing! Tom’s pretty sure after talking to the servants that she and Talmadge hadn’t slept together for at least a couple of years. It’s Lord Henry’s baby, and I can’t think offhand of a better motive for either or both to do in her husband. Assuming she knew.”
“She knew,” said Daisy. “Which doesn’t mean she’d told him.”
“How do you know she knew?”
“Ummm. I’m not sure, darling, but I definitely have that impression.”
“An impression’s not evidence, Daisy.”
“It must have been something she said. I expect I’ll remember if I just think through the scene again—which I’d far rather not. It was dreadful.”
“Poor love, but you do rather let yourself in for these things when you start meddling,” Alec said callously. “All right, I’ll accept your impression for the moment. I wonder if she consulted Curtis? Or some other practitioner? I must talk to her as soon as possible. Is she still under sedation?”
“No, but she’s in the middle of a medical emergency!”
“Oh, right-oh. I’ll send Mackinnon over to keep an eye on the situation, and I’ll have another go at Lord Henry.”
“He doesn’t have an alibi?”
“Not one that’s easy to check. Ernie’s working on it now. Didn’t I tell you about it?”
“By the time you came in last night, you were dog-tired and only said you’d seen him before you fell asleep.”
“Strictly speaking I shouldn’t even have said that. And I’d better ring off before I say any more. You go home.”
“Darling, I can’t possibly. I’d feel as if I was deserting a sinking ship. I must at least wait to find out if she lost the baby. What about Gwen Walker? Do you think she’s a red herring?”
“I’ve no idea. Daisy, don’t you dare go and call on her next.”
“I can’t go running about the neighborhood without an umbrella. Try and bring mine home with you, will you? Do you think you’ll make it for the Randalls’ dinner tonight?”
“The Randalls?”
“I did tell you, but I suppose you were already half asleep.”
“In the unlikely event that I get home for dinner,” Alec said grimly, “I’ll be damned if I turn out again before morning.”
“Right-oh, darling. Toodle-oo, then,” said Daisy, and rang off, her own red herrings having succeeded admirably. She rang Marianne Randall and left a message with a maid, then, with a sigh, rang home.
“Still looking for your umbrella?” enquired her mother-in-law waspishly.
“Alec’s men impounded it. I hope he’ll be able to get it back for me, or I’ll have to buy another. I’m still at the Talmadges’, though. I’m going to be here a while yet, I’m afraid. There’s a bit of an emergency and—”
“Not another murder!”
“Gosh, no! A medical emergency. I can’t in good conscience leave till I find out how Mrs. Talmadge is doing.”
A muted “Conscience? Pshaw!” came over the wire.