Chapter 14
Black as a carrion crow, the mortuary van drew up beside the wrecked car.
“Blimey,” said the white-coated driver, climbing out. “What the bloody hell were that? Looked like something out of The War of the Worlds!”
“You read too much of that rubbidge. It were a flipping Guy Fawkes rocket, idjit,” said his mate, jumping down from the other side. “You better hop it, ladies, afore the motor goes up in flames. We’ll get the poor chap out.”
Distantly, as the world whirled before her eyes, Daisy heard Babs asking the men if they knew what they were doing.
Willing herself not to faint—not for nothing had she chosen to work in the military hospital’s office during the War rather than volunteering as a nurse with the VAD—she clambered out of the ditch.
Babs scrambled up beside her, looking over her shoulder. “They claim to be hospital porters and St. John’s Ambulance men.” She glanced at Daisy. “Oh Lord, you’re pale as whey. Sit down, for heaven’s sake, and put your head between your knees.”
“I’m all right,” said Daisy, but she lowered herself to the ground, facing away from the accident. The others didn’t need a second emergency on their hands. “He’s not dead, is he?”
“I don’t think so. I hope not! If he is, the police may never find out what happened and we’ll all be suspected forever.
They’ll have to bring him back to the house.
The nearest nursing home is half an hour’s drive—three-quarters going carefully as they’d need to.
I wonder if there’s a spare stretcher in the van.
” She went to the back doors and reached for the handle, then shuddered and let her hand drop. “I can’t!”
Daisy’s mind was working again. “Babs, you’d better get to the house and ring up for a doctor. You’ll go quicker than I could.”
“Yes.” She stood for an indecisive moment before saying fiercely, “So help me, I’ll scalp those boys!” and setting off towards the manor at a swinging lope.
Refraining from looking behind her, Daisy levered herself off the cold ground and approached the back of the van.
The doors opened easily. Inside were two stretchers covered with white sheets and strapped down.
The poles and canvas of a third stretcher lay on the floor between them. She hauled them out.
By that time, the men had carried Gooch up to the drive. Gently, they laid him down on the chalky surface and started to put the stretcher together.
“Bashed his forrid,” one told Daisy, who was taking care not to look at the injured man’s face.
“Broke an arm and a leg, and likely there’s other injuries we can’t see—ribs, I ’spect, for one.
But he ain’t bust his neck, far as we can tell, and he ain’t lost much blood. He may pull through. You never know.”
“Miss Tyndall said to take him to the house. She’s gone to telephone for a—”
The sound of a motor-car engine straining up the hill came to their ears. A runabout turned in at the gate and came to a sudden halt. Daisy recognized the youngish man who bounded out, black bag in hand.
“Dr. Prentice! But Babs only just—”
“Mrs. Fletcher!” He glanced at her abdominal bulge. “Go and sit in my car, please.” He was already on his knees beside the injured man.
“Miss Tyndall said to take him to the house,” she repeated before, not too reluctantly, she obeyed.
Peering through the dusty windscreen, she watched the doctor examining Gooch.
She was far enough away not to see the details.
He said something to the van driver, who shook his head.
The two men went to the back of the van, and a moment later, one of the murder victims was lifted out and set unceremoniously by the side of the road. The other followed.
Daisy assumed they were making space inside for Gooch, and possibly for Dr. Prentice to travel with him. She hoped she was not going to be left to stand watch over the bodies.
Behind her a motor-horn blared. A huge gleaming silver Lanchester had stopped half through the gateway, bumper-to-bumper with the doctor’s little car. A uniformed chauffeur climbed out and came round to Daisy’s side of the car.
His gaze turning from the crashed Vauxhall to the scene on the drive ahead, he raised his cap and said, “Mr. Dryden-Jones’s compliments, madam, and what seems to be the trouble?”
Dryden-Jones? . . . Oh, Struwwelpeter, the fiery Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire. The last person Alec needed poking his nose into the investigation! Glancing back, she saw his head bobbing about in the back of the Lanchester, ginger hair sticking out on both sides from under his trilby.
“Everything is under control, thank you,” she said, “but it’s going to be some time before the way is cleared. Please convey my thanks to Mr. Dryden-Jones—I’m Mrs. Fletcher—and tell him I hardly think it will be worth his while to wait.”
“Very good, madam.”
The chauffeur looked as if he doubted his employer would be so easily diverted, but he bowed slightly and turned to go. At that moment came a polite toot from beyond the gates. The rear of the Lan-chester must be blocking the narrow lane, Daisy supposed.
Then above the wall rose a tweed motoring cap, followed by a narrow head adorned with white side-whiskers. “I say, Dryden-Jones, what the deuce do you mean by—By Jove!”
Sir Nigel Wookleigh disappeared momentarily as he stepped down from his motor-car. His hat reappeared, bobbing along, and then the whole of him, striding through the gateway.
“Don’t sit there, man, like a stuffed orangutan. Come along and lend a hand! By Jove, Mrs. Fletcher! What’s to do?”
“Mr. Gooch drove off the road, Sir Nigel.” Best not to confuse matters with the rocket for the present, Daisy decided.
It would come out soon enough. “He’s . .
. he’s quite badly hurt, I’m afraid. But Dr. Prentice turned up and is taking care of him, and there are two ambulance men who were driving the van.
You can ask the doctor, but I’d say the best way to help would be to remove Mr—Hello, Mr. Dryden-Jones. ”
“What’s going on, Mrs. Fletcher?” The orangutan pointedly ignored Wookleigh.
“I was just telling Sir Nigel—there’s been an accident but the doctor has everything well in hand. It would be best if you’d just keep out of the way and let him get on with it.”
But the Chief Constable had gone ahead to speak to Dr. Prentice. Dryden-Jones followed with an irritable “Hi! This is my county!”
Dr. Prentice looked up and said angrily, quite loud enough for Daisy to hear, “What is this circus? Get those cars out of the way! We have to turn the van around.”
Wookleigh seized Dryden-Jones’s arm and steered him back towards the gates.
“Yes, yes, my dear fellow,” he was saying as they came level with Daisy, “no one’s disputing that it’s your county, but even chief constables and lords lieutenant don’t interfere with the medicos.
Let’s get our motors out of the way. By Jove, now here’s a lawyer.
Doctor chappie’s right, just like Piccadilly Circus.
They say you’ll meet the whole world if you hang about long enough in Piccadilly Circus. Morning, Lewin.”
“Good morning, Sir Nigel, Mr. Dryden-Jones.” A small, nondescript man in a black frock coat, striped trousers, bowler hat, and gold-rimmed spectacles joined them.
“I tried and tried to ring up last night,” he said plaintively.
“After due consideration, I thought it my duty. But the number was constantly engaged.”
“I was obliged to spend quite some time on the telephone last evening,” said Dryden-Jones. “Assisting the police, you know.”
“Then it is still . . . er . . . a police matter? I am shocked! I was calling upon a client in the neighbourhood, and after due consideration I thought it my duty to come to Edge Manor in case the police required my evidence. We guests were informed of an accident, but the circumstances were odd, very odd. I am Sir Harold’s solicitor, you know. ”
“Was, my dear chap,” said Sir Nigel. “Or perhaps I should say ‘were.’ You were Tyndall’s solicitor. He is no longer among us.”
“As I feared! There is mischief afoot. But you err, sir, in saying I am no longer Sir Harold’s solicitor.
My duty to him as his executor continues.
And if a . . . er . . . crime has been committed, I must see the police at once.
What is holding us up? If I cannot reach the house instantly, perhaps I should report to you, sir, as Chief Constable. ”
“Not of this county!” Dryden-Jones howled.
Though dying to find out what the lawyer knew, Daisy decided it was time to intervene.
“Dr. Prentice asked you to move your vehicles, gentlemen” she said with a touch of her mother’s grande dame manner.
“There is a seriously injured man to be considered. Mr. Lewin, we didn’t meet last night.
My name is Fletcher. I’m a guest at Edge Manor and my husband is the police officer in charge here.
I believe your motor-car must be blocking Sir Nigel’s.
If you would be so kind as to back down the hill, then the others can do likewise. ”
Lewin and Dryden-Jones looked ready to take offence at being directed by a mere female, but Wookleigh said firmly, “Quite right, dear lady; come on, chaps,” and herded them away.
The lawyer started to object. Sir Nigel, his voice lowered but quite audible to Daisy, told him, “The Dowager Lady Dalrymple’s daughter, my dear chap.”
There were no further protests. But they left Daisy to the humiliating realization that she was sitting in one of the cars blocking the drive, and she didn’t know how to move it.