Chapter Eight #2
“Give me credit for a little nous, darling. If he’d popped off from a heart seizure or something, the captain would have stayed to wait for the doctor. If you stayed, it meant there was something suspicious about his death, and you didn’t trust the captain not to mess about with your clues.”
“Not my clues. I’m on holiday. I managed to stop Miles giving me away, so don’t you breathe a word of my profession. Where are the children?”
“I caught them sneaking out right after you left. I made them promise not to come this way, and Derek said they’d go up the hill to the Prospect Tower.
It’s to be a giant wigwam, I gather. They were both wearing the Red Indian costumes we brought them.
Bel’s adorable in the beaded jacket and the squaw feather, with her ginger braids!
Poor Nana was to be a buffalo, but she likes to be chased, and they won’t hurt her. How was he killed?”
“Stabbed with … Dash it, Daisy!”
“You might as well tell me, darling. It won’t be a secret once the local bobby arrives.”
“I hope we can keep it from Belinda and Derek. And I had hoped for a peaceful, if not merry, Christmas dinner before it’s generally known.”
“Well, I shan’t tell anyone. Especially Mother.
Oh heavens, she’s going to be simply livid!
Livider, I mean, if there is such a word.
Let’s put off telling everyone as long as possible.
We’ll persuade the bobby not to come up to the house till after dinner, so only—let’s see—four of us will know.
Besides the murderer. Who do you think stabbed him? ”
“I’m trying hard not to think about it,” Alec pointed out.
“No one was exactly keen on the poor chap,” Daisy mused. “I’m afraid no one will really mourn him. I wish I knew why Captain Norville invited him in the first place.”
“He said something odd,” Alec revealed reluctantly. “He said, ‘Then Mother will never be vindicated.’ And then he talked about her still mourning her husband.”
“But he wasn’t. Her husband, I mean. I knew you weren’t listening when I told you about Mother’s letter. Or was he?”
“Great Scott, Daisy, what the dickens are you talking about?”
Daisy held up her hand. “Hush a minute. Let me think. This does rather change things. Surely ‘vindicated’ in that context must mean … Darling, I rather think I know what Calloway was here for!”
“Must I beg for enlightenment?”
“No, why should you?” She wrinkled her nose at him. “You’re absolutely determined not to investigate so you have no reason to want to know. In any case, it’s all hearsay and guesswork, not evidence.”
“I give you fair warning, a second murder is about to be committed,” Alec growled.
“Keep your hair on, darling, I’m rather fond of that black thatch of yours. Right-oh, I’d better start from the beginning.” She narrated Lady Eva’s tale of the events leading up to the drowning of Albert and his eldest brother, Viscount Norville, the sixth earl’s heir.
“A sad story. Presumably they quarrelled because the viscount wouldn’t lend his support. But that leaves the native girl still in India. We’re talking about the old lady known as Mrs. Norville?”
“Yes. She arrived a few months later, with two babies. Can you imagine, darling? She came all that way to join him only to find him dead. Simply ghastly! She claimed to be married, though without proof I don’t suppose there was the slightest chance of the earl’s believing her. Or admitting to believing her, rather.”
“Not a chance, even if it were true. Yet all these years later, she’s living here in his house.”
“He gave her an allowance and let her live at Brockdene to keep her quiet. He even let her use the family name, but she was never acknowledged as part of the family, and Victor and Godfrey were considered illegitimate. Assuming they’re really Albert’s sons, they’re the present earl’s first cousins.
And I believe we can assume that they’re not only Albert’s sons, but legitimate sons. ”
“Very probably,” Alec said, “though their chance of proving it must have died with Calloway.”
“You agree then?” Daisy crowed. “Calloway was the clergyman who married Albert to his native girl, and the captain brought him home to swear to the marriage!”
“It’s a reasonable deduction. But whom does that leave with a motive for murdering the man? They should all have been as happy as larks at the prospect of being legitimized.”
“Unless Calloway changed his mind. He found a great deal to disapprove of—Mrs. Norville’s idols, and the carols, and the mistletoe—and I’m sure he was in two minds about the whole business.
That was why … Listen, there’s the Chapel clock chiming twelve.
The other chapel. I hope Miles gets back in time for Christmas dinner. I’d hate to miss it.”
“Why don’t you go on back to the house, love?
” Alec suggested. “It might be a good idea to check on the children’s whereabouts.
I wouldn’t put it past them to start out in one direction and somehow end up here in the woods, without ever realizing where they were heading, of course! They could always blame it on Nana.”
“Yes, hunters must follow where the buffalo leads. Perhaps I ought to go and see what they’re up to. Are you going to present the local bobby with our deductions?”
“Based on hearsay, and possibly nothing to do with Calloway’s death?
If he’s got any gumption, he’ll find out for himself, or his superiors from county headquarters will.
Besides, I don’t want anyone wondering why I’m so keen on making deductions—which I was absolutely determined not to do. You witch, Daisy!”
“Don’t blame me, darling. Detection is not only your profession, it’s in your blood. Oh, here’s the key to the chapel. The captain asked me to bring it. He was very impressed by your anticipating the police wanting to lock up.” She went off, laughing, up the path.
Needless to say, before she was out of sight, Alec’s mind drifted back, willy-nilly, to what she had revealed of the Norvilles’ history, and to its bearing on the murder.
Unlike some of her wilder theories, her guess as to Calloway’s function in the scheme of things seemed pretty sound.
It would have to be confirmed, but that shouldn’t be difficult.
The captain could have no reason to deny it, rather the reverse, as it would tend to exculpate himself and his family.
Unless, as Daisy suggested, Calloway had changed his mind because of the many offences against his particular puritanical dogma. In that case, might not Captain Norville have lost his temper and assaulted him?
Alec remembered the captain’s fists clenching when Tremayne caught at his sleeve.
Fiery temper or the automatic defensive reaction of one whose life had taken him to dangerous parts of the world?
Even in a fury, the captain seemed more the sort to face his adversary and knock him down, clergyman or no, rather than stabbing him in the back.
On the other hand, those dangerous places included many where an insult to one’s honour or that of one’s family cried for retaliation in any possible shape or form.
Perhaps in the course of the captain’s travels, the code of the English gentleman had worn thin.
In any case, like a policeman, a merchant marine captain hardly qualified as a gentleman, to say nothing of his being a poor relation, presumed illegitimate—and the man was also half Indian.
What sort of oriental mores had Victor learnt at his mother’s knee?
Luckily, Alec reminded himself, it was not his business to delve into Captain Norville’s psyche. And here at last came Miles and not one but two policemen, pushing bicycles.
“Sergeant Tilton, sir, and Constable Redkin. This is Mr. Fletcher, Sergeant. He’s a guest at Brockdene.”
Tilton was a defeated-looking man not far shy of retirement age. Redkin, judging by the faint fuzz on his cheeks and his spick-and-span uniform, was a new recruit.
“A guest?” Tilton enquired suspiciously. “Might I ask, zir, what keeps you ’anging about ’ere at the zene of the crime?”
“I stayed to make sure no one entered the chapel, Sergeant. Are you in charge of the case?”
“Aye, for now I am. The gales brung down the telephone lines all around Bodmin. ’Tis on the edge o’ the moor, exposed like. Bessie at the exchange zays the lines east and down river are all right.”
“Then what about ’phoning Plymouth?”
The sergeant stared at him in outrage. “’Tis not my place, zir, to go a-letting the Devon police know what’s ’appening ’ereabouts. I’d zooner call in Scotland Yard, that I would.”
Alec and Miles carefully didn’t look at each other. The constable’s eyes widened. “Lor, Sergeant, you going to call in the Yard?”
“It’ll maybe come to that, lad. I bain’t a detective, and I don’t pretend to be a detective; and what with the ’olidays, no one’s going to be out repairing telephone lines for a couple o’ days.”
“What about a doctor?” Alec asked, professional instinct asserting itself again.
“My grandfather was right,” Miles told him. “Dr. Hennessy’s gone to relatives in Exeter for Christmas. Sergeant Tilton rang up Saltash and asked them to send Dr. Clay, but at best it’ll be a few hours before he can get here.”
“Aye, if zo be ’e’s at ’ome. Now I’ll thank you, zir, and Mr. Miles, to be leaving me and Redkin to take a look.”
“Willingly. Here’s the key,” said Alec, wondering how much evidence they would manage to destroy between them. He and Miles set off up the path. “Thank you for preserving my incognito, under what must have been considerable temptation.”
“It was difficult when Tilton started talking about calling in Scotland Yard. Will you really not take a hand, sir? I can’t believe those two oafs have the slightest idea what they’re doing.
They’re used to miners fighting outside the pubs on a Saturday night, and the odd tinker stealing a hen.
You don’t suppose it was a tinker did it, or some passing tramp? ” Miles finished hopefully.
Alec wondered how good a look the young man had taken at the knife hilt protruding from Calloway’s back. Considering the effect on him of finding the body, he had probably not examined the weapon closely enough to recognize it, if, indeed, he had ever been shown the children’s discovery.
“I refuse to speculate,” Alec said. “I’m on holiday. Let’s try to put the whole thing out of our minds for the moment and enjoy our Christmas dinner.”
Dinner was more festive than might have been expected in the circumstances.
The children, including Jemima, had not been told of Calloway’s death.
Bel and Derek, chattering about their Red Indian adventures, didn’t seem inclined to question his absence.
Jemima, caught in that awkward space between childhood and adulthood, made some gloating remark about the clergyman missing the turkey and was firmly put in her place by her mother.
For the children’s sake, most of the adults tried to be bright and cheery. In this they were aided by the wine, which Godfrey, reminded by Dora, produced from behind the four-foot door in the library.
Daisy was too busy keeping an eye—between forkfuls—on Belinda and Derek to pay as much attention as she would have liked to the rest of the company.
She wished she had watched everyone that morning, instead of concentrating on children and presents.
Surely the murderer, awaiting discovery of his crime, must have behaved differently from normal?
Now, as far as she could see, Felicity and Miles seemed pretty much unaffected—she lively with an ironic edge, he more good-natured, though equally quick-witted. Jemima was sulking, but that was nothing new.
Their mother was jolly, the doggedness behind the enthusiasm more evident than usual.
Godfrey Norville could not at the best of times have been accused of conviviality.
His mind appeared to be elsewhere, his thoughts of a distressing nature, natural in the circumstances.
Victor Norville did a better job of hiding his chagrin at the wreck of his plans, but now and then a shadow of gloom overcame even his genial nature.
Old Mrs. Norville, always quiet, was perhaps a shade quieter.
After so many years of ostracism, the sudden raising and then dashing of her hopes must be hard to deal with.
Mr. Tremayne was preoccupied. Daisy didn’t know whether he had been let in on the secret purpose behind Calloway’s advent, but as a lawyer he must be well aware that the clergyman’s death could mean nothing but trouble for the Norvilles.
The prospect spoiled no one’s appetite. Turkey, chestnut stuffing, parsley-thyme-and-onion stuffing, sausage forcemeat, bread sauce, brussels sprouts and peas, roast potatoes and gravy were followed by trifle and a Christmas pudding flickering with blue flame.
The captain served the pudding. He made sure Belinda and Derek each got a sixpence in the tiny helpings they each had in the hope of just that.
Nor would he let Daisy make them eat what they had taken.
“After all, it’s Christmas,” he exclaimed. “Now where’s that gigantic box of crackers Master Derek brought with him?”
There were enough crackers for everyone. Captain Norville persuaded even Lady Dalrymple to pull one with him, and to put on the paper hat and blow the tiny silver whistle she found in hers. The sharp snap and the faint smell of gunpowder gave way to the reading of mottoes.
By the time all had been read, the children were restless. Daisy sent them out to play, reminding them to stay away from the woods. The adults retired to the library for coffee.
It was there that Sergeant Tilton found them. He sidled into the room, cap in hand, looking distinctly sorry for himself. “Beg pardon, ladies and gents,” he said, “for int’rupting on zuch a day as this; but I ’as to ask a few questions, zeeing this do be a case o’ murder.”
“Murder?” Lady Dalrymple raised her eyebrows in displeasure. “This is quite the most badly regulated household it has ever been my misfortune to encounter.”
“Zorry, ma’am,” said the miserable sergeant.
“Alec,” said her ladyship commandingly, “presumably you can deal with this person. If one must have a police detective in the family, the least he can do is to make himself useful!”