Chapter Eighteen #2
“Sarcasm does not become you, darling, as my old Nanny used to say. No, as it happens, Jemima was lurking nearby at the time, pouring cold water—scorn, that is—on the children’s clues. I was watching them, not her. I believe she recognized the mitten, which she herself had knitted, and pinched it.”
“You think Jemima killed Calloway?”
“It’s possible of course,” Daisy said slowly, “but no, I don’t think so. She made the mittens for her father. I think she was protecting him.”
“Very well,” said Alec, his scepticism slipping, “let’s hear your theory.”
“Right-oh,” said Daisy, pleased with her attentive audience. “It all goes back to when I arrived at Brockdene. Gosh, it feels like months ago, but it’s less than a week. Godfrey was actually the first of the Norvilles I met.”
She recalled following the boy with her bags under the entrance tower. When she had emerged into the Hall Court, he had disappeared and she had found herself faced with a plethora of doors.
“I went to the door of the old Hall by mistake,” she said.
“Godfrey opened it. Even before he introduced himself, he told me he had devoted his life to studying the history of the house and its contents. He seemed to think it natural that Westmoor’s staff should take care of the antiques while refusing to serve the residents.
When he rang the bell for the housekeeper to come and look after me, he had no expectation of its being heeded.
And when Mrs. Pardon did come, his first thought was to complain of some tarnish he’d detected on the suit of armour. ”
“Ah,” said Tom sagely. In Piper’s absence, he was making notes.
Daisy realized that she was not merely propounding a theory, she was giving direct evidence which might have to be given again in court. She didn’t have to explain her conclusions. Both Tom and Alec were obviously drawing their own.
Alec, his brows knit, nodded to her to go on.
“The mittens come next. I decided to take some photos of the exterior while the sun was shining. Godfrey agreed to go with me to tell me what I was looking at, but before he would set foot out of doors, he sent Jemima to fetch his coat and hat and gloves and galoshes. It was a mild, dry day and he was already wearing a woolly waistcoat and muffler. I was quite warm enough in my costume, without my coat, let alone gloves and a hat, and Jemima just had a light cardigan over her blouse. In fact, it was warmer out than in. Before Mother arrived, the fires were positively miserly.”
“Daisy, is this relevant?”
“Yes, darling, I’m not just reminiscing. You’ll see where it’s leading in a moment. Where was I?”
“The miserly fires,” he said dryly.
“Yes, well, that was a slight digression,” she admitted.
Tom, winking at her, ostentatiously ran a line through his last note.
“To resume: Jemima brought her father’s outdoor clothes, among which were a hand-knitted woollen pompon hat, striped in grey and blue, and matching mittens.
Felicity told me later that Jemima had knitted them for him, and his muffler, also grey and blue, and the waistcoat, which was green and clashed horribly. ”
Ignoring the irrelevant waistcoat, Alec said, “Yes, but anyone could have worn the mittens.”
“I’m aware of that,” Daisy retorted. “They’d have got in the way on most people though.
Look at it.” They all studied the mitten on the table in front of Alec.
He placed his hand beside it. It was half an inch longer.
“Godfrey has hands almost as big as Victor’s,” Daisy went on, “only you don’t notice them so much because they’re thin and sort of etiolated. ”
“My superior vocabulary doesn’t stretch to ‘etiolated,’” Tom confessed.
“Nor does mine, really,” she assured him, “but I remember it from having to look it up when I read Jane Eyre at school. It means pale and limp, doesn’t it, darling? Rather feeble-looking. Whereas the captain’s hands are brown and strong, and Miles’s are quite a bit smaller.”
“So the captain might have borrowed them.”
“He might, but if he killed on unplanned impulse, why should he wear gloves at all? Not to protect against leaving fingerprints, and he’s not the sort to worry about the cold.”
“That he’s not,” Tom agreed. “Seamen have a sight worse to put up with than a winter’s night in Cornwall. Come to think of it, I doubt he’d care much for mittens. They need the use of all their fingers aboard ship.”
“All right, Daisy, it’s unlikely—but not impossible—that Captain Norville borrowed his brother’s mittens. What’s next?”
“I’ll have to jump back a few hours now, because it was the boatman who brought me up the Tamar who mentioned the chapel in the woods. While I was outside with Godfrey, I asked about it and he told me the story of the first baronet’s escape.”
“What’s that, Mrs. Fletcher?” Tom asked.
“Didn’t you notice the sign over the chapel door?”
“Can’t say I did. Too high for dabs,” he pointed out.
“Nor did I,” said Alec.
Daisy glanced at him. “It’s not strictly relevant.”
“Never mind, let’s have it,” he said resignedly.
She told them about the cap thrown into the river to make Sir Richard’s enemies think he had drowned.
“He hid in the bushes nearby till they went off. Anyway, it’s a good story and I decided to put it in my article, so I thought I might take a picture of the chapel.
I asked Godfrey to show me the way, but he was absolutely horrified at the idea of walking in the woods in winter.
He said it was damp and I’d catch my death of cold.
He refused to go, said he never went near the place in the winter. ”
“Sounds to me like that knocks him right out of the running,” said Tom.
“Yes, Daisy, that’s evidence for the defence.”
“It may be, of course. But if you were to find leaf-mould on his shoes or galoshes…”
“He’ll have cleaned them,” said Tom.
“I doubt it. He doesn’t strike me as the sort to clean his own shoes. I bet Dora or Jemima usually does them. If he worried about the leaf-mould at all, he wouldn’t want them to see it, so he’d probably just quietly put them away and try to forget them.”
“If he’s hidden them in the old house,” said Alec grimly, “we’d never find them.”
“But the servants would, and that would really set the cat among the pigeons. I’d try the back of the coat cupboard in the entrance hall, or his wardrobe.”
“It’s possible. Tom?” Alec gestured with his head towards the door. “And keep your eyes open for the other mitten.”
“No search warrant, Chief. Mr. Tremayne’ll jump on it.”
“I took the precaution of asking Lord Westmoor’s permission to make any necessary searches when I spoke to him on the telephone. It’ll have to do. We haven’t a hope of getting a warrant today.”
“Right, Chief. What about the second mitten?”
“That, if I’m not altogether mistaken,” said Daisy, “you’ll find under the mattress of Jemima’s camp cot, in Felicity’s room.”
“Right, Mrs. Fletcher.” The sergeant went out.
Alec regarded Daisy in silence, shaking his head.
“What is it, darling?” she asked anxiously. “Do you think I’m altogether mistaken?”
“No, love, or I wouldn’t have wasted Tom’s time. One factor we haven’t gone into is that Godfrey has been the most fidgety of the lot of them since the murder.”
“He’s really upset that Miles didn’t tell him about West-moor’s heir being killed,” said Daisy, trying to be fair.
“Why?”
“Why? Because his son … Oh, I see what you mean. Because if he was going to be earl some day, then even if he was chucked out now, some day Brockdene would actually belong to him. If he’d known, he would never have killed Calloway.”
“Exactly. Though it’s all circumstantial, your theory makes more sense than most. Even if Tom finds the shoes, it’s not proof, but it’s more than enough to tackle Godfrey with some hard questions.
The motive has always been the sticking point in this case, and you’ve provided one that’s believable.
” Alec stood up. “I must try and get corroboration from the captain that that’s what they quarrelled about. ”
“I never told you that’s what they quarrelled about,” Daisy said virtuously.
“It’s pure speculation, which you’re always exhorting me to avoid.
But all the same, assuming your guess is the same as mine, I bet we’re right.
What are you going to do with the mitten?
You can’t leave it here for anyone to pinch. ”
“Would you mind dealing with it, love? We don’t want the servants speculating about it, so put it in Nana’s scullery, out of her reach, while you get hold of some brown paper or whatever they use in the kitchen. Then make a parcel and lock it in one of our suitcases.”
“Ugh! It can go in your suitcase. Right-oh. What about the cami-knickers?”
“Those,” said Alec, “can go in the dustbin.”