Chapter 17 #2
Sir Harold couldn’t possibly have introduced his love child into Edge Manor with only his wife’s knowledge.
The notion was preposterous. For a start, why would Lady Tyndall have agreed to the deception?
But supposing he had persuaded her, too many people would have had to be in the secret: doctor, midwife, monthly nurse, vicar, registrar, lady’s maid, and other servants—and what the servants knew, the village knew.
If Sir Harold had actually pulled it off, though, the arrival of the Gooches had set off an explosion greater than anything Babs’s boys had so far accomplished. Like a Catherine wheel throwing off glittering sparks, Daisy’s brain whirled with multiplying motives.
At the luciferous centre, one fact stood out: Jack had by far the most to lose from a revelation of his illegitimacy.
But it couldn’t be true!
“Prognosis?” Alec asked.
“I believe he’ll live,” Dr. Prentice told him, “but severe head injuries are the very devil to predict. He may have permanent brain damage. He may not be able to speak.”
“Or write?”
“Or write. But he may recover fully, soon, or in time.”
“Poor chap! All right, what about your examination of the murder victims?”
Prentice’s brief oral report confirmed Tom’s, Alec’s, and the police surgeon’s conclusions.
Tucking the written report into his pocket, Alec said, “Thank you, Doctor, that’s admirably clear.
If you should ever want a position as police surgeon, I’d be happy to recommend you.
You realize, I’m sure, this is as confidential as your relations with your patients. ”
“Of course.”
“And what I have to ask you now is equally confidential. Am I right in assuming you were not in practice in this area twenty-one years ago?”
“Nor anywhere,” Prentice agreed with a touch of amusement. “I would guess we are much of an age, you and I.”
“I don’t suppose you can put me in touch with your predecessor?”
“Unless you believe in table turning, no. I bought the practice on Dr. Gunnicott’s death.
But my attic is full of his records. Apparently he never discarded anything.
I haven’t found time to go through any but the most recent of those applicable to patients I took over, and I hate to throw them out wholesale. ”
“Good! I’ll send DC Piper to go through them.”
“Just a minute, Chief Inspector. It was you who brought up the subject of patient confidentiality.”
Alec grinned. “Oh well, it’s always worth a try, to save time. You live in Gloucestershire?”
“In Chipping Campden, just up the road.”
“Then Dryden-Jones will no doubt be delighted to make himself useful in obtaining a warrant.”
“Send your man with a warrant and he may ransack my attic to his heart’s content.”
They shook hands cordially, and Prentice went to the telephone cubby under the stairs to ring up a nursing agency.
While they were talking, Piper had come down from Gooch’s room.
Alec quickly brought him up-to-date, then sent him after the doctor.
As soon as the line was free, he was to go to the telephone in the butler’s pantry to start the process of applying for a search warrant, and then to get in touch with the county officers in charge of questioning all last night’s guests.
Adelaide Yarborough and Martin Miller were both still hanging about in the hall, not speaking to each other. She sat flipping through a copy of Vogue; he stood staring out of a window. When Piper left, they converged on Alec.
The engineer reached him first. “I don’t think I’m doing a lot of good staying—”
“Mr. Fletcher,” Mrs. Yarborough interrupted impatiently, “how much longer do you expect me to wait? I do have more important things to do with my time, you know.”
Miller stared at her with undisguised astonishment.
Alec raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? More important than helping us discover who killed your father?”
“I can’t honestly see that it matters who did it.
That stupid Australian, I expect. The fact is, Father’s gone, so there’s no chance now of Reggie inheriting more than a paltry amount.
I don’t see how Babs expects me to send them away to a good school when I’ve got hardly anything to live on as it is. Jack will have to pay the fees.”
Alec wondered who would be the residuary legatee if Jack were convicted of his father’s murder (and his mother’s?).
He ought to have asked the solicitor. Whoever, he or she would undoubtedly have to deal with the young malefactors.
If Prentice was mistaken and Gooch died, the police would be drawn into the matter, though Alec doubted there was a provable case against the boys.
Mrs. Yarborough started to fidget under Alec’s icy gaze. “How much longer?” she repeated.
“I’ll be with you in a moment, to escort you to Sergeant Tring.”
“There’s no one else here. I haven’t anything to tell you, but I don’t see why you can’t interview me yourself.”
“I have more important things to do with my time.” A police officer ought not to resort to frivolous sarcasm, however true, but Mrs. Yarborough didn’t seem to recognize the echo of her own words.
She was cross but not offended. Turning to Miller, however, Alec surprised a quickly hidden grin.
He ignored it, beckoning the engineer aside.
“I think you’re wrong,” he said. “You may be at a loose end just now, but I think your presence will be a comfort and support to more than one of the family.”
Miller gave him a probing look. “Does this mean I’m no longer under suspicion?”
“I wouldn’t go quite so far as that. But new information has come to light which changes the entire tenor of this enquiry. I can’t justify telling you about it, but if young Tyndall chooses to confide in you, I have no objection.”
“Does this mysterious information tend to implicate him?”
“Not exactly. I can only say that his position is precarious.”
“I shan’t advise him to confess,” Miller said bluntly.
Maybe not, though Alec suspected the engineer was a conventional, law-abiding soul. If Jack confided anything suggesting guilt, whatever advice Miller gave, the relationship between the two was bound to change. Alec might learn a lot simply by observing them.
“I shouldn’t dream of asking you to do so,” he said. “My hope is that your common sense will prevent his doing anything foolish. You’ll stay?”
“For the present.”
“Good. Mrs. Yarborough, come with me, please.”
In the passage, they found the ancient butler perched on a stool outside the door to his pantry.
“Young whippersnapper,” he muttered resentfully, “has to use my telephone, says he, in private, says he. What’s a man to do when a whippersnapper of a policeman can turf him unceremonious out of the place that’s his by right?”
“Oh, do stop fussing, Jennings,” snapped Mrs. Yarborough. “It’s not as if he’s going to pinch the silver. Nor as if you were doing anything useful in there, or have for a hundred years.”
Dignity injured, the butler drew himself up as straight as his bent back allowed. “I do my best, Miss Adelaide, and it’s not for you to criticize if others are satisfied.”
Alec forestalled Mrs. Yarborough’s retort. “Mr. Jennings, I’m Chief Inspector Fletcher. I’m sorry my man has disturbed you, but I’m afraid it’s unavoidable.” He kept his tone more incisive than apologetic. “I’d like a few words with you, in a couple of minutes.”
“I’ll be here,” Jennings said morosely.
In general, Tom Tring got along almost as well with butlers as with female servants, but the old man might respond better to authority than chumminess. If he really had a secret to tell, maybe Alec could extract it from him.
Mrs. Yarborough proceeded towards the billiard room, her stiff back expressive of her outrage that the Chief Inspector chose to question the butler rather than herself.
As she and Alec entered the room, Tom Tring and Jack Tyndall looked around and rose from their seats at the gun table. Light gleamed on Tom’s shining dome as he gave Alec a barely perceptible shake of the head: Jack had revealed nothing new, or at least nothing useful.
Jack jumped up. “Mr. Fletcher, where’s my mother?”
“She went out to get some fresh air. And to pick some flowers, I gathered.”
“To pick flowers?” Jack was stunned. “You told her everything?”
“Just a moment, Mr. Tyndall, please. Mrs. Yarborough, Detective Sergeant Tring has a few questions for you. Mrs. Yarborough was Miss Adelaide Tyndall, Sergeant.”
“Do sit down, madam,” offered Tom in his best fatherly manner. “I’m sure this won’t take long.”
Alec took Jack through the other door into the dining room, where the table was already laid for luncheon.
Fortunately no one was there. “Lady Tyndall knows about the letter and its contents,” he said, “though she hasn’t actually read it.
She denied Mrs. Gooch’s claim, as no doubt she will tell you. ”
“I knew it couldn’t be true! But Mother must have been upset, all the same.”
“She was distressed, more on your account than her own. We were interrupted before we could discuss it, but I believe she wanted time to reflect before speaking to you about it.” Alec suppressed the fact that her ladyship had invited Daisy to go with her.
“Ought I to go after her?”
“Best let her decide when she’s ready.”
“Yes, of course.” Jack paused, then continued with dread in his voice. “I say, sir, you don’t think she’s denying it to protect me?”
“From what?”
“From the knowledge that I’m illegitimate? From suspicion of having killed my . . . my natural mother to protect the secret?”
“I have no idea. Do you feel in need of protection?”
“From the knowledge, no. If it’s true, it has to be faced. But obviously it must look awfully fishy to the police. To you.”
“It’s not a possibility we can ignore. Did you shoot her?”
“No! Nor my father.”
“Then I shouldn’t worry. We generally get the right person in the end. We’ll get there faster if you tell us everything, without reservation.”
“I have, everything I can remember and more than I ever thought I could remember. Sergeant Tring’s pretty good, isn’t he?
Looking at him, you wouldn’t think he’s so sharp.
But obviously you can’t take my word for it.
I can’t believe this is happening! I suppose my sisters will have to know.
Is it cowardly not to want to tell them myself? ”
“Not at all.”
“But I have to talk to someone.”
“How about Mr. Miller? He has a good head on his shoulders, and an outsider’s perspective. And I’d say he’s far less interested in your birth than your engineering ability.”
As Alec had rather expected, Jack clung to the thought of Miller as a point of sanity in a world gone insane.
Watching the lad go off in search of his friend, some of the resilience of youth restored to his bearing, Alec chided himself for feeling so much sympathy for his chief suspect.
Was Jack Tyndall an innocent caught up in a nightmare, or a patricide, a matricide, and a superb actor?
Daisy said he had kept his engineering studies secret from his family for a couple of years, leading his father to believe he was indulging in the frivolities expected of aristocratic undergrads at Oxford and Cambridge.
That must have taken some acting ability.
The heir to Edge Manor remained at the top of Alec’s list.