Chapter Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
“So he wants me to help him unofficially,” Alec said grumpily, sitting on his dust-sheet on the bed. “The worst of all possible worlds.”
“No, it’s not, darling.” Daisy, in the adjacent bathroom, raised her voice to be heard over the rush of tap-water. “You’d hate to be treated like an ordinary witness. This way, you can poke your nose in without being actually responsible for finding out who did it.”
“Poke my nose in!”
“What about me?”
“I’m quite sure he doesn’t want you poking your nose in. Isn’t that bath full yet? I hope the hot water isn’t going to run out.”
“The house belongs to a plumber, remember. No stingy boiler; Mr. Pritchard put modern gas geysers in every bathroom. Endless hot water, regulated by thermostat.”
“Gas. You did light the thing, didn’t you?”
“Of course. I’d be dead from the fumes by now if I hadn’t. Can’t you see steam billowing?” She turned off the tap. “There you are. Be careful, it’s really hot. I hope the stuff you wash off doesn’t solidify to cement in the pipes.”
“It’s plaster, not cement.” Alec picked his way across the carpet, trying to keep the sheet wrapped round him so as to deposit as little debris as possible on the floor.
“Same difference. They both go solid.”
“My coat of plaster is as solid as it’s going to get. This house belongs to a plumber. I’m sure he can deal with blocked pipes.”
“Do you want me to stay and scrub your back?”
“No, that’s all right, if that’s a loofah I see through the steam. I’m certain you’re dying to go and poke your nose in.”
“I’ll take that as permission,” Daisy retorted, and left before he could deny it.
She was halfway down the stairs when a maid caught up with her. “Madam!” It was the same young girl who had summoned her to speak to Pritchard earlier, still—or again—both excited and anxious. “The inspector wants to see you. In the den, madam, right away, he said.”
“Thank you. It’s Rita, isn’t it? Who else has the inspector talked to so far, Rita?”
“Just Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Pritchard, madam.”
“Really! Are you sure?”
“Yes, ’m. ’Lessn you count Len Endicott, our bobby from the village.”
Clearly Rita did not count PC Endicott.
“Is Constable Endicott still with the inspector?”
“No, ’m. He was sent out to guard the ’splosion.
” This was said with such satisfaction that Daisy gathered Endicott was not merely of no account, but had somehow offended Rita.
“There’s just ’Tective Inspector Boyle and ’Tective Sergeant Thomkin.
Sir Desmond wanted to see them, madam, but Mr. Boyle said he’d have to wait his turn. ”
“Odd! I wonder why he wants to see me first.” Daisy didn’t expect an answer, far less the one she got.
“It was Mr. Pritchard, madam. He told the inspector he ought to talk to you before anyone else.”
Daisy didn’t know whether to be flattered, affronted, or dismayed. She felt rather as if Pritchard had thrown her to the wolves, but why?
She thanked the girl and proceeded to the den, wishing it was interrogation by Alec she was going to face.
Without knocking, she went straight in and announced baldly, “I’m Mrs. Fletcher. You wanted to see me?”
“Ah, yes, Mrs Fletcher.” The man behind the desk rose and came round to offer her a chair.
His face gave away nothing of his thoughts, neither irritation at having been told by Pritchard what to do, nor gratitude for her compliance, but he said, “Thank you for coming. I’m Detective Inspector Boyle of the Wiltshire police, and this is Detective Sergeant Thomkin. ”
“How do you do?” Daisy sat down. “What exactly makes you think I’m the best person to help you get started?”
“Mr. Pritchard told me you’re a straightforward sort of person, madam. I’d say his judgement in that is already borne out. He also said he believes you to be observant, clear-sighted and unbiassed.”
Even as Daisy stored up these compliments to relay to Alec, she felt herself blushing as she made a couple of mental reservations: She was not so unbiassed as to credit for a moment that Lucy or Julia could have anything to do with the explosion. “That’s a lot to live up to,” she said guardedly.
“We shan’t hold his words against you, if he was—ah—exaggerating a little,” said Boyle with apparent solemnity.
“I should hope not! What is it you want to know?”
“I gather you and Lady Gerald have been here several days. Tell me about the people who were here when you arrived. Let’s keep it simple: make it in order as you encountered them. I’ll probably interrupt with questions.”
“Right-oh. The first person we met was Lord Rydal, the victim. He had fetched our suitcases from the station, as no one else was available.”
“He was a friend of yours?”
“Lucy—Lady Gerald—knew him slightly, just because they both move in the same circles of society. I’d never met him before. I’d heard of him, but only because my brother was at school with him.”
“A friend of your brother’s, then.”
“I don’t think he ever was, but in any case, not for the past several years. Gervaise was killed in the War. I rather doubt Lord Rydal had any real friends. One way or another, he managed to insult practically everyone.”
“Including you, Mrs. Fletcher?”
Daisy frowned in thought. “To tell the truth, I can’t remember any specific incident.
He was just so generally objectionable, there was no point in taking it personally.
Half the time he didn’t even realise he was upsetting people, perhaps didn’t realise other people have feelings to be hurt.
I think—I have children, you know. Do you, Inspector?
” Boyle nodded, and she went on, “I think little children have to be taught to consider the feelings of others, and perhaps Rhino never was. He went through life like a blind bull—or rhinoceros—in a china shop, never noticing the destruction he wreaked.”
Boyle nodded again, but gave no other sign that he understood what she had tried to explain. “Rhino was his nickname?”
“Thick-skinned, and pots of money.”
“Who’s his heir?”
“Good heavens, I haven’t the foggiest! Do you suppose his heir could have followed him here and somehow found out he was going to—”
“I don’t know enough yet to suppose anything. He made enemies of everyone in the house?”
“ ‘Enemies’ is a bit strong. Umm …” She reflected on the past couple of days. “I can’t actually name anyone he wasn’t rude to at some point,” she confessed. “But people don’t go about murdering people just because they were rude.”
“It’s not unknown,” Boyle said dryly. “Let’s continue with your arrival. What induced Lord Rydal, not a personal friend and so generally disobliging, to fetch your and Lady Gerald’s bags for you?”
Daisy hesitated. But if she didn’t tell him, plenty of others would. “Julia. Miss Beaufort. He believed himself madly in love with her.” No need to explain that Julia had more or less invented the errand to get rid of him for a while.
“Miss Beaufort told you Lord Rydal was in love with her?”
“Gosh, no. Julia isn’t the sort to boast of something like that.”
“Boast?”
“Well, however appalling he is—was—there’s no denying he was an earl and a very well off one. She would have been a rich countess.”
“So Miss Beaufort was eager to marry Lord Rydal?”
“On the contrary, she couldn’t stick him at any price. It was her mother who thought he was a great catch.”
“Her mother.” Boyle consulted a list. “Lady Beaufort was pressing Miss Beaufort to accept the suitor she hated, and lo and behold! The suitor is murdered.”
“Bosh! Nowadays girls don’t let their mothers choose husbands for them. Besides, Lady Beaufort changed her mind. I heard her say so.”
“To her daughter?”
“Who else would she tell?” Daisy hoped he wouldn’t notice the evasion, but his next question suggested he was well aware of it.
“Miss Beaufort is an old—let me rephrase that—a friend of yours of long standing.”
“She was at school with Lucy and me, but I hadn’t seen her in years before we came here. Let’s see, who did we meet next? It must have been Barker, the butler. A very superior sort of butler. And then Mr. Pritchard.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Neither of us had ever met him before. He invited us because he liked the idea of his grotto being in our book.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever had much to do with house-parties,” the inspector said severely, “but this seems to me a very odd one.”
“It is,” Daisy agreed. “You have to remember that Lucy and I are here on business, and Sir Desmond, too, and our being here is the only reason Alec and Gerald and Lady Ottaline came.”
“Business?”
“Sir Desmond’s on government business. Something to do with slum clearance, I believe, but you’ll have to ask him.”
“And you and—uh—Lady Gerald? What’s your business?”
“I told you, our book. Nothing to do with plumbing or gas or explosions. It’s about follies and—. Oh, gosh, I’ve just thought. Perhaps our publisher won’t want to include the Appsworth grotto now it’s in ruins and someone’s been killed in it! I wonder if Lucy—”
“Mrs. Fletcher, could we please get back to my business?”
“Do you want to go back to the order in which I met people? Because Sir Desmond didn’t come into it till much later.”
“He didn’t?”
“No, he and Lady Ottaline—”
“Never mind! We’ll get to them in their proper place. Let’s see, you’d reached Mr. Pritchard, who you’d never met before.”
“That’s right. He came out to the hall to greet us. He took us into the drawing room, where Lady Beaufort and Julia—”
“Half a mo. Didn’t you tell me about them already?”
“Only because you asked about the baggage.” Daisy was beginning to feel as confused as Boyle sounded. “This always happens when Alec wants everything in order from the beginning. It’s all interconnected, but more like a web than a chain.”
“Always?”
“Always?”
“You said ‘This always happens …’ ”