Chapter 13 #2
“Which way did you ride?”
“I didn’t go back into town. I took—let me see—” He puzzled over the map for a minute, keeping his arm around Cecily’s waist. “I’m not too good at reading a map, but it must have been this lane here, to Malborough.
Then this lane, it’s not much more’n a farm track.
After that, you can see, it gets a bit muddlesome.
There are several ways you can get to the village, to South Huish, but I didn’t go there anyway.
He doesn’t live actually in the village and I can’t quite make out from the map … .”
“I see, sir. What time did you get to your friend’s house?”
“I wasn’t wearing my watch, but it must have been about three.”
“No doubt your friend can confirm that.”
“He wasn’t there,” Anstruther admitted.
“Is that so? A servant?”
“He has a daily woman from the village, who wasn’t there on a Sunday, of course. At least, he used to. I haven’t seen him since my last leave.”
“Name and address, please.”
“Paul Pritchard. Sea View Cottage, South Huish. Don’t go bothering him if you don’t have to, Inspector. He was rather badly shot up at Jutland. What’s this all about, anyway? I’ve told you I didn’t see him today, so I can’t see you need trouble him at all.”
“That’s not for me to say, sir. Finding your friend out, you came straight home, I take it?”
“No, as a matter of fact I went up to the old camp.”
“Camp?”
“Fort, or whatever you want to call it. It’s Iron Age or Bronze Age or something. We used to go up there when I was a boy, to play Ancient Britons fighting the Roman invasion.”
“But you wouldn’t be playing soldiers today, sir.”
“Of course not. I just wanted somewhere quiet to sit and think.”
“And where exactly is this old fort?”
Anstruther stared perplexedly at the map. “I couldn’t rightly say.”
“Here,” said Baskin, pointing. “Where it says ‘Camp.’ I went there the other day to take a look. Nothing left but a few mounds.”
“No one about to see you, I suppose, Mr. Anstruther?”
“Not a soul. That’s why I went there.”
“Pity.” Mallow bent over the map. “Now, Mr. Baskin, I expect you can show me on this whereabouts George Enderby went over the cliff.”
“What the devil?” Anstruther gasped. “Cecily!”
Pale as a ghost, Cecily Anstruther drooped against her husband’s shoulder. As he supported her to the sofa, Daisy jumped to her feet.
“Brandy?” she queried.
“In the larder. Ceci, whatever he’s talking about, I had nothing to do with it, I swear it.”
Hurrying to the door, Daisy noted that Inspector Mallow, having dropped his bomb, was watching the Anstruthers with the same benign air with which he had arrived.
The Marsh Mallow, she recalled from youthful adventures on the banks of the upper Severn, is a pretty, innocuous-appearing flower that tempts one into the bog.
She found the brandy and a tumbler. Shock—tea and hot-water bottles, she decided, and she paused to fill the kettle and set it on the hot plate of the big black-iron range before speeding back to the sitting room.
The inspector was peering at the map, but Daisy could practically see his ears cocked like a dog’s to catch any words uttered by the Anstruthers.
Peter knelt on the floor beside his wife, holding her hands.
She lay back against a cushion, still horridly pale and limp.
Without rising, Peter took the glass Daisy held out, with half an inch of brandy in it.
“Thanks, Mrs. Fletcher. Ceci, my dear, take a sip. There, that’s better. And a little more,” he urged.
A faint colour tinged Cecily’s cheeks. “Peter, is he dead?” she whispered.
“That rather depends on whereabouts he fell, which Baskin seems to know.”
Baskin came over. “I happened to be passing as the lifeboat was taking off the body—yes, he’s dead. I stopped to watch and met Fletcher when he came up the cliff.”
“Alec discovered the body,” said Daisy. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but it was rather an awkward subject to broach after …”
“After last night,” said Anstruther sombrely. “I don’t blame you. But I didn’t push him. I wasn’t anywhere near the cliffs.”
“It looks to me,” said Inspector Mallow, appearing among them map in hand, “as if this here lane goes within a couple of hundred yards of the cliff path. And even if you was to set out on the other lane, the one you so kindly showed me, Mr. Anstruther, and went all round about this-a-way, on your bicycle, you could easily have reached the cliff-top in plenty of time to meet the deceased.”
“Dammit, why should I go through all that rigmarole when I had no idea the bast—blackguard would be walking up there?”
“You might’ve seen him when he passed the house on his way, now, mightn’t you?”
“That’s quite a hill, Inspector,” Baskin put in, looking at the map
over the inspector’s shoulder. “Here, the way you’re suggesting Anstruther went round, I mean. Unless the bike he borrowed has excellent gears, he’d be pushing it up.”
“No gears.”
“Is that so? Well, you’d better give me the name of the chap you borrowed it from. No doubt the chief inspector will be wanting to go into all that.”
“You’re not in charge of the case?” asked Baskin.
“Not me. We’ve got a detective chief inspector from Scotland Yard right here on the spot and I can tell you, it’s a proper treat seeing how he works, that’s what it is.” As he spoke, Mallow was looking at Daisy with a gentle, ironic smile.
At least, she now saw irony in it where before she had seen only kindliness.
He wasn’t leaving her much choice: If she didn’t confess to Baskin and the Anstruthers now, they would have every right to be furious when they found out.
“Alec’s a Scotland Yard man,” she revealed.
“There was no reason to mention it before, and I didn’t know he’d been put in charge till just now.
Oh, is that the kettle whistling? I was going to make tea. It’s supposed to be good for shock.”
As she fled, she heard Mallow say, “Well, now, Mr. Baskin, would you be so good as to show me on this here map just where you went this afternoon?”
In the slate-shelved larder, Daisy found a canister of tea. As she turned back to the kitchen, Cecily Anstruther entered from the hall. Still pale and a bit shaky, she sat down at the table.
“I’m sorry,” said Daisy, busying herself with the teapot so that she didn’t have to meet Cecily’s eyes. “Do you want us to leave?”
“Good heavens, no! It’s not your fault we’re in trouble. I’d rather have Mr. Fletcher investigating than that awful inspector.” She shuddered. “Isn’t there something in Shakespeare about a man who smiles all the time?”
“‘One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.’ Othello, I think, or is it Macbeth? No, not Macbeth, no one ever smiles in Macbeth. Maybe Julius Caesar? Anyway, I know what you mean. He does rather give
one the creeps, though I don’t suppose he’s actually a villain. Only, I bet he wouldn’t have looked any further than your husband, once he heard about last night.”
“Peter didn’t do it. Didn’t push George over. I was awfully afraid, just for a moment. But he says he didn’t and I know he’s telling the truth. Will … will Mr. Fletcher believe him?”
“I’m afraid Alec can’t just go about believing people,” Daisy said regretfully.
“He’ll have to look for clues and things.
Evidence. But at least he will look very thoroughly.
I doubt Mallow would be questioning Baskin, for instance, if it wasn’t that I’d told Alec about all the questions he asked about Enderby.
Would you like lots of sugar in your tea? I think it’s good for shock.”
“No, thanks.” She managed a smile. “Just one teaspoon. I’m all right, really. It’s just that he took me by surprise.”
“The rotten beast! No, that’s not fair, he has his job to do and he might have learnt something useful that way. Milk?”
“We’re out, till the milkman comes in the morning. That’s lovely, thank you so much. It’s awfully kind of you, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“I do think you might call me Daisy, if you’re sure your husband doesn’t want to throw us all out into the street.”
“Of course not. That would look suspicious, as though he had something to hide, which he doesn’t. I wonder why Mr. Baskin was so interested in George.”
“Alec will find out.” Daisy sat down at the table with her cup of tea.
“I suppose it’s bound to be something to do with a woman. I can’t imagine why I fell for his line, but in some ways it’s a consolation to know that I wasn’t the only one he fooled.”
“Do you know who else was taken in?”
“Well, Nancy Pinner as was, for one. He must have told her she was the woman of his dreams, the one he’d been searching for all his life, mustn’t he? Or she wouldn’t have married him. I know who he moved on to after me, but I wouldn’t want to tell tales on her.”
“Once the police get involved, it’s not telling tales, Cecily. Suppose it was … your successor or someone close to her who pushed
Enderby off the cliff? You may think whoever did it is a public benefactor, but suppose it was her husband and he gets away with it, he might decide murder’s easy and do her in next.”
Cecily looked horrified. “Do you really think so?” she asked uncertainly.
“It happens. Besides, isn’t it better if your husband is one of a host of suspects instead of the obvious scapegoat?
Not so much from the point of view of the police, because Alec doesn’t jump to conclusions, but as far as local people are concerned.
If they don’t catch the murderer, and can’t prove for certain that your husband is innocent, there will always be people in the village who believe it was him. ”
“In the Navy, too, I expect. All right, I’ll tell what I know. To Mr. Fletcher, not that horrible inspector.”
Daisy had rather hoped that she would be the recipient of any confidences, but at least she could tell Alec she had persuaded Cecily to spill the beans. She would also tell him that she strongly disapproved of Inspector Mallow’s sneaky, underhanded tactics.