Chapter 21 #2
biscuits besides Daisy’s favourite macaroons; a Dundee cake and a jam sponge. How was she supposed to resist?
The girls had their own spread in the dining room, and the leftovers from both would keep reappearing for days. The fashionable figure of her dreams receded ever further before her.
Once again Sakari picked up Melanie and fetched the three girls from school in her chauffeured car, so they all arrived together.
Greetings over and the children settled at the table, Daisy and her friends retired to the sitting room.
Daisy poured the tea, China with lemon for Melanie, Indian with milk for herself and Sakari, and passed the bread and butter.
“Thank you,” said Sakari, to whom she had hinted on the ’phone about her intention of pumping Mel for information. “Are we to pretend this is an ordinary social occasion? Shall we talk about the weather, or the children?”
“Has Alec discovered something new?” Mel asked, looking unhappy. “Something connecting … someone with Talmadge’s death, I mean.”
“Loads of things, I’m sure, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about, darling. Haven’t you heard about Major Walker?”
Mel gasped. “No! I’ve been busy all day.”
“I heard that the police were at the Walkers’ house this morning,” Sakari said, “but I was in town this afternoon. They are known to be suspects. Has the major been arrested?”
“No. If you two haven’t heard perhaps it isn’t generally known. You’d better not say anything unless someone else mentions it first.”
“I, for one, cannot say anything, Daisy, because you have told us nothing. Speak, before I expire from curiosity. What has happened?”
“Major Walker was found this morning with his head in the gas oven.”
“Dead?” whispered Melanie, very pale.
Sakari reached over and took her hand in a comforting clasp. “The major killed himself to escape prosecution for killing Talmadge?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Daisy admitted. “I haven’t seen or heard from Alec since he left this morning. But I do think, Mel, that he needs to know whatever it is that Robert told you about Gwen Walker.”
“I can’t see why. It can’t have anything to do with what’s happened.”
“You can’t be sure. Even if it’s just a contributing factor to his decision to commit suicide, Alec ought to know.”
“Surely having murdered Talmadge is reason enough for that!” Mel exclaimed.
“But I don’t know that he did kill Talmadge.”
“Daisy is correct,” said Sakari. “One must not withhold information from the police in a murder case, whether one sees its usefulness or not.”
“Robert told me in confidence.”
Daisy sighed. “Yes, you’re right, I shouldn’t press you. I’ll just tell Alec that Robert knows something about Mrs. Walker which he ought to know. I expect he’ll think of a way to ask Robert without letting him guess how he found out.”
“Oh no! He’s sure to work out that I must have told you.”
“It will be better,” Sakari said, “if you tell Daisy what is
this tantalizing tidbit, and she tells Alec, and Robert does not come into the picture at all.”
“At least, not if it’s not useful. And if it is useful in solving a murder,” Daisy pointed out, “then obviously it was right to tell Alec.”
“But Robert will still be furious,” Mel wailed.
“I don’t see that you need come into it at all, darling. Alec certainly wouldn’t tell Robert how he found out. If he has to go to him for confirmation, he’ll just say that he uncovered a clue to whatever it is in the course of his investigation.”
“So it is better if you tell Daisy the whole story, dear Melanie, rather than have Alec go to Robert in search of he knows not what.”
“Especially as in that case Robert, being a bank manager, might not tell him, so we’d be back to Alec lacking information which could prove vital to the case.
Although at this stage I bet I could make a good guess as to what it’s all about.
You wouldn’t be making all this fuss if Mrs. Walker had simply overdrawn her account, however vast the amount. ”
“And if she had held up a bank with a gun, as in the American films, she would now be in prison.”
Melanie yielded to force majeure. “All right, if you’re going to start guessing, I’d better tell you. But swear, both of you, that you won’t so much as breathe a word to anyone but Alec. It’s not just Robert being angry with me, he could lose his job if anyone found out he’d told me.”
Daisy and Sakari promised. Melanie swallowed the rest of her cup of tea as if to give herself courage, looked nervously over her shoulder, then leant forwards. The others leant towards her, all agog.
“She forged the major’s signature,” Mel whispered, “on a cheque for quite a large amount. Robert says it was a brilliant forgery. They never would have caught it if the major hadn’t come in and made a fuss. Of course, when they realized it was Mrs. Walker who’d done it, he wanted it hushed up.”
“It had to be something on those lines.”
“Thus speaks the expert sleuth,” Sakari proclaimed.
“You see, Daisy, it can’t possibly have any bearing on Talmadge’s death or the major’s suicide. It’s no earthly use to Alec.”
“That’s for him to decide,” Daisy said firmly. “More tea? And do have some cake.”