Chapter 15
The spring evening was drawing towards dusk when Alec stopped the Baby Austin outside the Walkers’ house.
Major and Mrs. Francis Walker lived in a street not far from and very similar to Gardenia Grove.
The semi-detached houses were slightly smaller and newer, with smaller gardens, but attractive enough.
A military pension would hardly stretch to so desirable a residence, so the major must have a private source of income, unless it was his wife’s money.
In that case, if rumour spoke true, the Walkers matched the Talmadges as an advertisement against men marrying for money.
But that was jumping the gun. Alec had no real evidence that the Walkers’ marriage was less than perfect, and none at all that the money came from the distaff side of the family.
He had met them socially, quite a few times over the past few years, he supposed, but he could not say he knew them. The major, an irascible man, played bridge and golf. Gwen Walker was a fashionable beauty some fifteen years younger than her husband. Goodness only knew what her interests
and pastimes were if they did not include Raymond Talmadge.
Very likely Alec’s mother could tell him a good deal about the couple, but she wouldn’t appreciate being asked, not for such a reason. No doubt she was already furious because Daisy had got herself involved in the present case.
Cravenly, Alec prayed he would not have to intervene between the two Mrs. Fletchers. He’d far rather face the major, even with such a thin excuse for questioning him.
He rang the doorbell and was not surprised to be left standing on the step for a few minutes.
Like the Fletchers, the Walkers probably had just one live-in servant, who would be busy in the kitchen at this hour.
In fact, the elderly cook-housekeeper came to the door wiping her hands on her apron, looking harassed.
In case he didn’t cotton on, she glowered at him to remind him that this was neither a conventional nor a convenient hour for an unexpected visitor.
“I’m sorry to call at such an awkward time,” he said. “I was hoping for a word with Mrs. Walker. Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher.”
“I’ll see.”
The door shut in his face. A couple of minutes later, Mrs. Walker herself reopened it.
“So sorry, Mr. Fletcher.” Her scarlet smile was bright but her blue eyes were wary. “Very naughty of Bates to shut you out, and in the rain, too! She’s a frightful grouch but her cooking is divine, and it’s terribly hard to find good servants these days, isn’t it? Do come in.”
Only one possible reason for such a warm welcome sprang to mind: Gwen Walker had some more than ordinary cause for interest in Talmadge’s death.
“Thank you.” Alec hung his damp hat on the hat rack and followed her into the front room.
Her black hair was unbobbed, pinned up behind in a complicated chignon.
She was wearing a chiffon tea gown, green and gold, which made the most of her fashionably boyish figure.
The wide sash around her hips swayed enticingly as she moved, but not, he thought, with deliberate provocation. It was her natural walk.
The sitting room they entered was furnished in post-War modernist style, with a good deal of glass, tubular steel, and black leather.
The starkness of the decor was offset by the room’s untidiness.
Tea things, for three people, had not been cleared and a half-empty cocktail glass had joined them on the glass-topped table.
Beside one chair, a stack of fashion magazines sprawled across the white carpet while a copy of Vogue, open and facedown, crowned the chair’s arm.
A partly smoked cigar, cold and dead, balanced on the rim of an ashtray heaped with ash and cigarette ends, most of them lipstick-stained.
She turned to face him. “I assume this is a business, not a social visit, Mr. Fletcher? I’ve heard about …
what happened, of course. But I hardly knew poor Mr. Talmadge.
” The slightest of tremors shook her cool voice as she pronounced the name.
“Just the usual dinner parties and so on. He wasn’t even my dentist.”
“We often glean useful details from the merest acquaintances, Mrs. Walker. You don’t mind if I ask a few questions?”
“No, of course not. Do you care for a cocktail?”
“Thanks, not on duty.”
She picked up the half-full glass. “Won’t you sit down?”
The awkward-looking chair of woven leather strips slung between bent pipes was surprisingly comfortable.
So comfortable, in fact, that Alec found it impossible to sit straight with the formality proper to an interview.
He doubted it mattered. Mrs. Walker’s tension was clear in the way her fingers turned the glass around and around.
No stiffness on his part was necessary to establish the gravity of the situation, though she might not acknowledge it openly.
“I expect you want to know where I was at the crucial time?” She managed to laugh. “I’ve read a few detective novels.”
“That’s the first question we have to ask everyone. Where were you between, say, noon and two-thirty yesterday?”
“I went to lunch with a friend in Denham, an old schoolfriend.”
“Is she on the telephone?”
“No, she lives with her aged mother in rather poor circumstances, I’m afraid. I try to get down to see her as often as I can.”
“I’ll have to have her name and address, but we shan’t bother her unnecessarily.”
“Jennifer Crouch, Five Station Row. I arrived about half past twelve. I can’t remember the exact time of the train. What …” She moistened her lips. “What time did he die?”
“The medical evidence is never precise. How long have you known Raymond Talmadge, Mrs. Walker?”
“Four or five years, I suppose. Francis and I came to live here when we were married, in 1919, after he was demobbed. I can’t recall whether I met Daphne Talmadge at some hen party or Francis met … him, at the golf club, perhaps. Francis might remember. That must be him now.”
From the hall came sounds of the arrival of the master of the house. Alec cursed silently as the sitting-room door swung open.
“Hello, darling!”
“What the devil’s going on here?” Major Walker was the very pattern of a retired army officer, ramrod straight, brusque, his greying toothbrush moustache as bushy as his en-brosse hair.
He wore damp plus fours in a greenish herringbone tweed, and a matching Norfolk jacket open over a Fair Isle pullover.
His face, ruddy from hours on the golf links rain or shine, tended to empurple under the stress of annoyance.
“Oh, it’s you, Fletcher. What d’ye want? ”
Alec heaved himself from his chair. “Good evening, Major. I’m making enquiries with regard to the death of Raymond Talmadge. We have to talk to everyone who knew him.”
“Barely acquainted with the fellow. Daresay Gwen’s sat next to him at dinner a couple of times. Sorry, we can’t help you.”
“Just for the record, I must ask you where you were yesterday at lunchtime.”
“Yesterday? Lunched at my club. Army and Navy, Pall Mall. Now if you’ll excuse us, Fletcher, we’re dining out tonight. Got to change.”
At least he had a couple of alibis to check, Alec thought, accepting his dismissal. Time enough for more persistent questioning if they didn’t pan out.
Mrs. Walker had produced her alibi with the air of one who had planned it beforehand, though that did not mean it was not true. Alec decided he’d better run down to Denham himself to speak to Miss Crouch. If he had learnt anything
at all, it was that Gwen Walker was badly disturbed by the dentist’s death.
The rain had stopped at last. He drove home. Nana, in exile in the hall, greeted him ecstatically and her yip brought Belinda from the sitting room.
“Daddy! Mummy said you were going to be late home today. Nana, be quiet or Gran will never let you in the sitting room again.”
“What’s she done now?”
“Nothing. Nothing much. She just saw a cat in the garden and shouted at it a bit, but she didn’t try very hard to get out or she would have broken the glass, wouldn’t she? Daddy, are you going out to dinner with Mummy, or staying with Gran and me?”
“I have to go on to the Yard later, pet. I’ll have supper with you first, though, if it’s soon. Daisy’s not left yet?”
“No, she’s primping. That’s what Gran calls it when she puts on powder and lip rouge and stuff. She said I could watch but Gran said I have to do my homework before supper. I’ve nearly finished. Will you look at it, Daddy? I wrote a story about Nana.”
“I’ll read it before I go. Ask Dobson to have something on the table for me within ten minutes, will you? Even if it’s just bread and cheese. I must have a word with Daisy now.”
Daisy was in their bedroom, seated at the dressing table, scowling at her image in the looking glass.
“What’s wrong, love?” He kissed the back of her neck, nuzzling the feathery curls.
She waved an eyebrow pencil at him. “Just wondering whether the result can possibly be worth all the trouble.”
“It’s no good asking me. You look wonderful to me with
or without all the trouble. You’re not still worrying over that little mole by your mouth, are you?”
“No, not for ages, not since you told me about the ‘Kissing’ patch eighteenth-century ladies used to wear just there. How lucky you specialized in the Georgians at university! Don’t kiss me like that, Alec, or I’ll drag you to bed here and now.
Are you finished for the day? Shall I ring up Mrs. Randall and say I’ve broken my leg and can’t come to dinner? ”
“No, alas, I’m due at the Yard shortly.”
“Darling, don’t tell me you’ve solved the case without me?”
“No such luck. Nowhere near.”
“Good. Because the only reason I’m going to the Randalls’ is to see if I can get some definite information about Gwen Walker for you.”