Chapter 10 #2
“To discuss something to do with the orchards. Something about planting pear trees, I think.”
“I meant, why should Miss Tyndall meet these men at a public house rather than having them come here to Edge Manor?”
“She . . . They . . . I suppose it was more convenient for them.”
Alec let her hesitation and the unlikely explanation pass—for the moment—while noting both as indicating a desire to protect her eldest sister. “Who suggested the rest of you going with Miss Tyndall?”
“I don’t know. Jack and Martin and Daisy had all agreed when I first heard about it.”
Miller looked as if he was about to speak. Alec frowned him down.
“You walked down to the village?”
“Jack drove Daisy, because of . . . because of the walk back up the hill.”
“They must have arrived first, then.”
“Only just. The footpath is much shorter than round by the road. In fact, Jack popped in to see if we had arrived already. He was just coming out when Babs and Martin and I got there.”
“Then you all went in together. What happened next?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to remember, when so much has happened since!”
“Was the taproom busy?”
“Fairly. Babs’s farmers were already there, and she went straight to their table.
I think Jack went over and offered them a drink, then came back to see what we wanted before he went up to the bar.
It’s not the sort of place that has waiters.
We sat by the fire. Daisy was a bit chilled from sitting in the open car.
She doesn’t seem to have taken any harm from it, though,” Gwen reassured Alec anxiously.
“She was wonderful tonight. I don’t know how we’d have managed without her. ”
From the corner of his eye, Alec saw Piper’s smirk, quickly hidden. To give Daisy her due, she did appear to have made herself useful, to both the family and the police. The trouble would start when his investigation began to step on the toes of people she liked.
“What brought the Gooches to your attention?”
“I didn’t notice them at all. I had my back to their table.
Mr. Gooch must have passed us when he went to the bar, but I didn’t notice him.
Then Jack brought our drinks and said something about meeting an Australian at the bar and wanting to assure the chap’s wife that they were welcome to watch the fireworks from the meadow.
And how I wish they had gone to the meadow!
Then Father wouldn’t have met her. None of this would have happened. ”
Alec let this pass. The longer the family and Miller and Gooch thought the police believed Sir Harold had shot Mrs. Gooch and himself, the better. Only the murderer would be on the defensive.
That was assuming one of them was the murderer.
If not, fifty or sixty people spread out across two counties would have to be investigated, quite apart from the possibility that someone not invited had taken advantage of the party to bump off the baronet.
The thought was daunting—and still left Mrs. Gooch to be explained.
“Did your brother go straight away to speak to the Gooches?”
“Not quite. Daisy wanted to meet them—she thought the opinions of Australian visitors about England might be useful for an article.” Gwen started to look at Miller, then changed her mind and went on, “So Jack invited them to join us.”
“Had he met them before?”
“No, of course not. They’d only been in England for a week or two, and they arrived in Didmarsh that day, yesterday, I gathered.
We none of us knew them from Adam. But Jack got on swimmingly with Mrs. Gooch, and Mr. Gooch was quite entertaining with his stories of the gold fields and the—what did he call the wilderness, Martin? ”
“The outback. We talked about flying also, the prospects for air travel. . . . Oh, sorry, you don’t want to hear that.”
“I do. I want to hear anything and everything about the Gooches. But not from you at the moment, if you don’t mind, Mr. Miller. Miss Gwendolyn—”
“Gwen, please. I’ve known Daisy forever.”
Daisy’s involvement in a case tended to lead to Alec’s being on Christian-name terms with a suspect or two, which made it difficult to keep a proper distance. He compromised.
“Miss Gwen, did you gather why the Gooches should have chosen to spend part of their holiday in England in this rather out-of-theway corner of the country?”
“Well, Mrs. Gooch did come from Evesham, and I dare say she has—had relatives there she wanted to visit. But now that you mention it, it is a bit odd. I mean, our Guy Fawkes celebration is a big event to us and to the villagers, but even if people in Evesham have heard of it, we don’t get crowds turning up in charabancs, or anything like that.
I can’t imagine why she should have remembered about it for twenty years and wanted to see the fireworks so badly that she’d put off seeing her family. ”
“Do you know that she had family in the district?”
“No, I don’t recall their mentioning any. But why else should they have come here? Surely not just for the fireworks. Oh, it’s all such a muddle!”
Since Gwen apparently had no facts to report, Alec dropped that unproductive line of conjecture. “You implied that Mrs. Gooch went out to Australia twenty years ago. Is that what she or her husband told you?”
“Not exactly. Something he said gave me that impression. Do you remember, Martin?”
Before replying, Miller looked to Alec, who nodded permission to speak. “Gooch said she arrived in Australia the year after the pipeline went in, in ’04. That’s twenty years ago, of course, but it wasn’t clear whether ’04 was the year the pipeline was completed or the year he met her.”
“That’s right. She had some money—a ‘stake,’ he called it—and she was looking for an investment, just when he needed capital for his business.”
“Ah, so it was a marriage of convenience?”
“It may have started that way. Who knows? But they seemed a very affectionate couple. That’s what makes it all so much worse! I shall never be able to forget his face when we told him.” Gwen’s eyes welled with tears. “It must have been an accident, Father shooting her!”
As Alec felt for a handkerchief, Miller produced one first.
“That’s enough for tonight,” he said angrily. “I’ll tell you anything else I can, Fletcher, but Gwen’s had enough.”
Alec let her go. He would get more impartial information about the Tyndalls from Daisy, perhaps even from Miller except where Gwen was concerned.
“I’ll go up with you to meet the rest of your family,” he said, standing up. “Mr. Miller, perhaps you wouldn’t mind staying down here so that I can have a word with you afterwards? It’s getting rather late, I know. . . .”
“That’s all right. It doesn’t look as if I’ll be dashing back to work tomorrow.”
“Martin, I hope you’ll stay, but won’t they be annoyed when you don’t turn up?”
“I’ll ring up in the morning. They won’t be pleased, but you needn’t worry that I’ll lose my job. They can’t do without me. Besides, I’ll tell them I’m on the brink of hiring Jack.”
A sudden stillness fell between the two.
Gwen looked horrified. Miller looked as if he devoutly wished those innocuous words un-said.
Alec hoped one or the other would say something to give him a clue to the significance of the moment, but after a pause laden with silent meaning, all Gwen said, in an unsteady voice, was, “Good night, then.”
Miller’s tone was wooden. “I’m sorry. Good night.”
Alec and Ernie Piper followed Gwen up the stairs. As they reached the landing, PC Blount came to attention and saluted. Alec sent him downstairs.
Gwen showed them to the door of Lady Tyndall’s sitting room. “You don’t mind introducing yourselves, do you? I don’t think I can cope. . . .”
“That’s quite all right. I hope you manage to get some sleep.”
“Thank you.” Gwen became the hostess. “That’s Daisy’s and your room, the last door on the right, with the bathroom et cetera opposite. I hope you have everything you need, you and your men. Good night.”
She returned down the three steps to the landing. Alec knocked on Lady Tyndall’s door.