Chapter 22 #2
“The most salubrious climate,” Alec said, “or something of the sort. Sir Harold went against the doctor’s advice, then. That lends a good deal of credibility to Mrs. Gooch’s story.”
“If Lady Tyndall hadn’t survived the journey,” Daisy said indignantly, “no doubt he would have come home with the baby and told everyone she died in childbirth.”
“Quite likely. He seems to have had no scruples where securing the succession was concerned. We’ll never know how serious he was about changing his will. You knew him, Daisy—”
“Slightly.”
“Is it possible he spoke in a temper and would have changed his mind by the morning?”
“Darling, I didn’t know him anywhere near well enough to predict.
I expect he said things when he was in a passion that he wouldn’t have said in calmer moments, but whether he had the strength of mind to recant when he came to his senses, I haven’t the foggiest. The family are the ones to ask.
. . . No, of course they’ll say yes, and you won’t be able to believe them. The servants? Neighbours? The lawyer?”
“Lewin said Sir Harold had never before threatened to change his will, remember. He made an appointment for today, and the lawyer was certainly under the impression that he intended to do it.”
“And Babs said she was sure he wouldn’t. We’re going round in circles.”
“My fault,” Alec acknowledged. “I shouldn’t start speculating about things we’ll never know.”
“It must be contagious,” said Daisy.
Unfortunately, Alec was reminded that she shouldn’t be there, which he was apt to forget in the heat of discussion.
At least he remembered that she hadn’t butted in uninvited, that he had requested her help.
As she left, he was telling Tom and Piper what she had said about the light in the billiard room.
In the passage, she met a maid.
“Oh, madam! Nurse sent me to fetch the ’tective gentleman. Mr. Gooch is come to his senses an’ he can say a few words, but he’s in dreadful pain an’ she’s going to give him a ’jection the doctor left to make him sleep, so please to come quick.”
“Chief Inspector Fletcher is in the billiard room.” If she hurried, she could get there before him. She’d just say she was enquiring after Gooch. No, better not. Alec was sure to guess the maid had told her the news.
She considered going to see Lady Tyndall. But meeting her was going to be a bit awkward, given the near certainty that she had lied about Jack’s birth. Dinnertime, with others present, would be more comfortable.
A glance into the drawing room showed only Miller and Gwen, talking quietly by the fire.
They didn’t notice her. She went up to her room and started to work on her article, but she couldn’t concentrate.
Inevitably, her mind turned to the Tyndalls’ affairs.
The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, she reflected.
As a threat from God, she had always thought it most unfair, but there was no denying it did seem to happen all too often.
Alec entered the sickroom with misgivings. An interview with a sick or injured man was always difficult. Besides his own natural reluctance to disturb the patient, perhaps to set back his recovery, he was sure to be cut short by the intervention of a nurse or doctor.
Following Alec, Ernie Piper gently closed the door and whipped out his notebook and one of his perpetual supply of well-sharpened pencils.
The nurse stood at the foot of the bed, watchful. Alec sat down at the bedside, leaned forward. Gooch stared at him with a blurry, outof-focus gaze.
“You’re the copper.” His voice was soft, slow, and slurred. “It’s true, ain’t it? Ellie’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“I keep hoping it’s a nightmare, hoping I’ll wake up.
I told her we shouldn’t come. I told her it was asking for trouble.
She wanted to see her boy, just to see him.
Ought to’ve put me foot down, but I never could say no to Ellie.
” Tears oozed from under his lids and trickled down, dampening the bandages.
“Then we met him, a nice lad, friendly as you please, and nothing would do for her but to tell him she was his mum.”
“You knew that before you came here?”
“She told me before we got married. Fair dinkum she was, my Ellie. But it was me said she ought to talk to his old man first, just to warn him what she was going to do. If I hadn’t .
. .” His voice faded, and the nurse made a motion towards Alec, but then Gooch started again, fainter, but determined to tell the story.
“It was all his doing, the bastard. Made his lady take the boy for her own. Ellie wouldn’t give him up—the baby—till she heard her ladyship’s own promise to be a good mother to him.
Which she was, by all accounts. Him, though.
Crook, he was, too right, and he killed my Ellie! ”
“We think not, sir, and—”
“He killed her!” In his fury, Gooch raised his bandaged head, then sank back with a moan. Eyes closed, he mumbled, “Let me go home to my boys. . . .”
“That’s enough now, Chief Inspector,” said the nurse adamantly, picking up a hypodermic needle and a vial of colourless liquid.
Alec and Piper left.
“Seems to me, Chief, he wasn’t in any state to make stuff up.”
“You’re right. I think he honestly believes Sir Harold shot his wife.
That still leaves the possibility of Gooch himself having shot Sir Harold in revenge—if it is a possibility.
” Alec sighed. “We’d better go over our notes on the scene in the study and make sure that theory won’t wash.
If we still can’t make it work, Jack Tyndall looks like our man. ”