Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
Felicity slumped against Daisy. For a few moments Daisy had her hands full preventing the girl from sliding off the sofa. By the time she was able to look around, everyone was reacting to Felicity’s faint, not Alec’s announcement.
Dora started forward anxiously with a cry, “Oh, my poor child!”
“Trust her,” Jemima muttered venomously. “She’s just trying to be interesting.”
“Brandy!” exclaimed the captain, heading for the wine cellar. Daisy was afraid he’d get stuck in the little doorway. “Or rather sherry, I suppose.”
“Sal volatile,” murmured Mrs. Norville. “I used to have some somewhere.”
Meanwhile Miles, the third on the sofa, had jumped to his feet.
He tried with his one arm to raise his sister’s legs onto the sofa, but he was off balance.
Ernie Piper sprang forward to assist. Tom Tring was diligently scanning faces.
Daisy guessed his moustache hid mild amusement.
Alec stood by the door, his thick, dark eyebrows raised in a sardonic appeal to heaven.
The door opened behind him, and Mrs. Pardon brought in the coffee.
By this time, Felicity was lying back uncomfortably against Daisy’s thighs. She started to rouse, one hand going to her forehead in the best cinema-heroine style. Daisy expected her to mumble, “Where am I?”
“I feel sick,” she croaked.
“Don’t say anything!” That was Tremayne being lawyerly, not Dora being motherly. “I knew I should have gone to telephone Butterwick, even with Cedric Norville in custody.”
“I’m going to be…”
In a couple of strides Alec reached her with the slop-basin from the coffee tray, as she leant forward retching. Mrs. Pardon gave one disgusted look at the scene and departed, nose in air.
“In my day,” observed Lady Dalrymple impartially, “one loosened a gal’s corsets. But these days, I gather, they don’t wear anything worthy of the name.”
“She didn’t come down to breakfast or lunch.” Dora wrung her hands. “No wonder she fainted, my poor child.”
“Sherry.” The captain’s large hand, holding a glass of amber liquid, thrust between the surrounding bodies.
“Not on an empty stomach,” said Daisy. “Nor coffee, I should think. Hot milk might help.”
Tom Tring had already poured a cup. He passed it through, but Felicity said, “No, please, all I want is peace and quiet and to lie down with my eyes closed.”
“I’ll carry you up to your room, my dear,” said her uncle, tossing down the sherry so as not to waste it. He lifted Felicity in his arms and started towards the door.
“Daisy?” Alec nodded towards them.
So Daisy followed them upstairs, taking the milk with her just in case.
The captain set Felicity down on her bed and patted her hand. “Don’t you fret, child. It’ll all come out in the wash, you’ll see.”
He left. Daisy managed to persuade Felicity to drink the milk, which brought a tinge of colour to her pale cheeks.
“Thanks, Daisy. That does make me feel a bit better. I just couldn’t bear to have everyone looking at me, when I’ve utterly humiliated myself. First falling in the blasted stream, then bursting into tears, then fainting! Isn’t it all too, too Victorian?”
“Too Victorian for words,” Daisy candidly agreed. “What made you faint?”
Felicity reflected. “Do you know, I think it was a shock of relief? I mean, obviously we’re all in trouble again, but all I could think of was that Ceddie’s safe.
He’s not a murderer after all. I suppose that must mean I really love him, doesn’t it?
” Her eyes turned dreamy and a small smile played on her lips.
“It sounds like the real thing.”
The dreamy look vanished and Felicity said soberly, “Unfortunately, the reality is that not only did I let him down by believing he had killed Calloway, but it seems there’s a murderer in my family, to add to all the other disadvantages.
Even if he still wants to, his parents will never in a million years let him marry me. ”
“This is 1923,” said Daisy. “What’s more, his father can’t disinherit him because they both depend on Lord Westmoor. It’s the earl Cedric’s going to have to talk round. I shouldn’t give up yet, if I were you.”
“But Lord Westmoor … Oh, come in!” she called as someone tapped on the door.
Jemima flounced in. “Mummy said I had to bring you these,” she said, depositing a plate of digestive biscuits on the bedside table. And she flounced out again, pulling the door to behind her.
“Horrid little brat,” said Felicity irritably. “Make sure the door’s closed, would you, Daisy?”
It wasn’t. Daisy shut it with a click. When she turned, Felicity was already nibbling a biscuit. “Mother knows best,” Daisy observed with a smile, though it was a maxim nothing could persuade her to believe, at least in her own case.
Felicity took a big bite, crunched twice, swallowed the crumbs, and said, avoiding Daisy’s eyes, “Do you think Mother knows who killed Calloway?”
“Do you think she might?”
“She might guess, I suppose. She wouldn’t give him away, though.”
“Who do you think did it?”
“It’s my family, too! If I knew I wouldn’t tell. But as it happens, I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Daisy believed her.
“You believed her?” Alec asked.
Daisy had joined him and Tom and Ernie Piper in the dining room.
Tom had reported on his interviews with the servants, who had seen and heard nothing useful.
When Daisy arrived, Alec had just begun to review the notes on his first interviews with the suspects.
That morning he had only had time to give Tom and Ernie a brief sketch of the situation and the people involved.
With more detail, he hoped, they might pick up something he’d missed.
Also he was refreshing his memory before tackling them all again.
Felicity had been the first, with her confession of her secret lover—forced from her because Jemima had let the cat out of the bag.
“Yes, I believed her,” Daisy said. “She’s a rotten liar. It was perfectly obvious, remember, when she lied about whether Cedric was coming over last night.”
“True,” Alec agreed, “though she did manage to deceive her family for quite some time.”
Daisy frowned. “Yes, I’d overlooked that.
I told her you’d want to speak to her anyway, that even if she hadn’t the foggiest who did it, she might be able to give you a piece of the puzzle.
She was all set to be sticky about helping you to pin the deed on one of the family.
I pointed out that if the culprit wasn’t found, all the family would be under suspicion for the rest of their lives. ”
“Well done. That’s a line I can take with anyone else who has qualms.”
“I take it, Mrs. Fletcher,” Tom rumbled, “you don’t think Miss Norville did it herself.”
“No. I know she had a sort of motive—making sure Cedric would inherit the title—but she’s been so confused about her feelings for him, I simply can’t see her doing anything so drastic.”
“Cedric is equally confused about her feelings for him,” Alec said. “He’s by no means counting on her agreeing to marry him. And he’s an even less competent liar than she is.”
“Though he did manage to deceive his family about knowing Felicity,” Daisy said dryly.
Alec grinned at her. “Your point. Still, I agree that her motive is thin.”
“But, Chief,” Piper protested, “most of ’em haven’t got even that much motive for doing the old chap in, have they? Seems more like they’d do just about anything to keep him alive. I mean, seeing he could prove they’re not born the wrong side of the blanket.”
“Exactly, Ernie. Don’t worry, Miss Norville’s still high on the list. I’ll have to see if I can squeeze anything more out of Jemima, who’s sharing her room.”
“If Jemima knows anything to Felicity’s detriment,” said Daisy, “you won’t have to do much squeezing.”
“Unless she’s holding it in reserve, which seems to be another unpleasant little habit of hers. But we’ll come to her in a moment.” He looked down at the notes Daisy had taken for him and typed out from her incomprehensible shorthand. “Miles next. He shared his room with his grandfather.”
“That’s Mr. Tremayne, right, Chief?” Tom queried. “He give Mr. Miles an alibi?”
“No. Apparently he takes a draught for his rheumatism which makes him sleep heavily. Though come to think of it, he seems spry enough and doesn’t think twice about walking to and from Calstock.”
“It’s prob’ly lying still makes him stiff and achy,” said Tom. “Moving about helps. That’s the way it strikes me old dutch, anyway.”
“I expect that’s it, then. Which begs the question, did Tremayne perhaps not take his medicine that night and wake up feeling the need to move about? To walk over to the chapel, for instance.”
“Miles can’t give him an alibi, either?” Daisy asked.
“No, he says he generally sleeps soundly. So it could be either of them. Miles has the stronger motive for keeping Calloway alive, since it’s his father who is otherwise the bastard. Tremayne might feel almost as strongly about his daughter’s husband, but he did, after all, let her marry him.”
“And they both knew of George Norville’s death,” Daisy said, “so they knew legitimation meant Victor inheriting the earldom, and thereafter probably Godfrey and then Miles.”
“Which gives neither the slightest hint of a motive for murdering Calloway.”
“Now wait a minute, Chief,” said Tom, “does this mean not everyone knew Lord Westmoor’s son died? You didn’t tell us that.”
“Didn’t I? Sorry! Tremayne and Miles knew, and Miss Norville, and Lady Dalrymple, who was the one to break the news to the rest, including me.”
“Miss Norville knew her uncle, then her dad, then her brother would be earl?” Tom shook his head.
“Then I can’t see her bumping off Calloway so’s Mr. Cedric’d get the title instead.
Mind you, I’ve known blokes bump off other blokes for some pretty silly reasons, but that doesn’t make any kind of sense. ”
Daisy nodded agreement. “Especially as she had already told Cedric she didn’t want to see him again, so she couldn’t count on marrying him.”