Chapter 23
The robust yeoman waiting for Daisy was clad in Tudor blouse and bonnet but carried no partizan.
“Parkinson, madam,” he introduced himself.
“Terrible business this. Mr. Rumford wasn’t the most popular bloke in the world, but who’d’ve thought he’d go berserk and start doing people in?
It’s a disgrace to us all, that’s what it is. ”
“I shouldn’t worry about that. No one’s going to blame the Yeoman Warders as a body for the misdeeds of one.”
“You’d be surprised, madam,” he said darkly. “I’m afraid we’ll have to go down these steps here, though I’ll never tread them again but what I’ll think of poor Mr. Crabtree, foully done to death. Did you know his ghost’s been seen already?”
“No,” said Daisy, “but it doesn’t surprise me a bit.” Obviously, Crabtree was destined to join the legion of haunting spirits for the edification of visitors to the Tower. He would be a kindly ghost, she didn’t doubt, as he had been a kindly man.
“Only after dark. We won’t be seeing him this time of day.”
Stepping out from under the arch at the foot of the steps, Daisy kept her face resolutely turned from those other steps.
She tried not to wonder how long it would be before Dr. Macleod’s ghost was spotted there.
Still, it couldn’t be expected to haunt in broad daylight, and perhaps the nightly Ceremony of the Keys would drive it thence.
An addict and a thief! Still, she thought of him with pity.
They went down the cobbled slope and under the Bloody Tower, passing beneath the vicious-toothed portcullis. The Hotspur sentries, backs turned to Wellington’s Armchairs, stood as rigid and blank-faced as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened that afternoon.
“Here comes the motor-car,” said Parkinson, pointing along Water Street to their left. “The chauffeur went to turn it while I was fetching you.”
Daisy saw brass headlamps gleam in the sun as the familiar dark red Sunbeam tourer emerged from under the bridge between St. Thomas’s and the Wakefield towers.
The hood was folded down and from the backseat Sakari waved madly, her round, dark, beaming face encircled with a diaphanous gold-embroidered scarf.
Beyond her sat Melanie, peering anxiously from beneath the brim of a conventional brown cloche.
Lost in thought, Daisy hardly noticed. People kept saying Rumford was the murderer. He was a murderer, to be sure, but according to Alec, he had been in the hospital when Crabtree was killed. Surely Crabtree’s murderer was still at large!
The Indian chauffeur, Kesin, pulled up so that the back door of the car was precisely opposite Daisy. Parkinson escorted her across Water Street, opened the door, and handed her in.
As the car set off at a stately pace, Sakari enveloped her in a scented embrace. “Daisy dear, you do lead an adventurous life!”
“Whatever’s happened now?” asked Mel. “Miss Tebbit didn’t say, only that you’d had a shock. Another shock.”
All the odds and ends that had been teasing Daisy came together in her mind.
“I’ll tell you in a minute.” She pulled her notebook from her handbag.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell Alec for simply hours, and we’re always interrupted.
I’ll have to leave him a note. Sakari, tell Kesin to stop at the next gateway, please. ”
She wrote as she spoke, then tore out the leaf, folded it in three and then in three again, tucked the ends into each other, and printed “DCI Fletcher” on the outside.
She wished she had some way to seal it, but just because one yeoman was a murderous blackmailer, it didn’t mean the rest couldn’t be trusted to deliver a letter unread, especially one addressed to a police officer.
The Byward Tower gate had been shut again after Sakari’s car passed through on arrival. Two yeomen opened it as they approached, and when the car didn’t move on, one came over.
“What can I do for you, madam?”
Daisy handed him the note. “Please see that this is delivered to Chief Inspector Fletcher at once. It’s urgent.”
“I’ll see to it, madam, never fear.”
Saluting, he stepped back, and Kesin drove on over the moat.
“Now . . .” said Sakari.
“Wait till we’re past the Middle Tower,” said Daisy. “All I want is to get outside this terrible place.”
Alec, Tom, and Piper spent several hours dealing with the immediate aftermath of the murder of Dr. Macleod. At last, Alec sent the others to the Guard House to write up their reports while he went to make verbal reports to Lieutenant Colonel Duggan and the Resident Governor.
He went first to the barracks, only to find that Duggan had just gone home. Wearily, he trudged over to the Officers’ Quarters. Mrs. Duggan greeted him with much clucking and tutting, asked after Daisy, and pressed him to take the most comfortable chair while she called her husband and made tea.
“Mr. Fletcher’ll want a whisky, my dear,” said Duggan, coming in. “I’ll hear no nonsense about not drinking on duty.”
Alec gratefully accepted. Mrs. Duggan tactfully removed herself. Duggan poured a good-size tot, handed it over, and poured himself another.
“Well, now,” he said, sitting down, “I hope my lads haven’t rendered themselves liable to civil prosecution?”
“That’s for the coroner to say, sir, but I doubt it. They were attempting to prevent a murder, after all.”
“I’m sorry they didn’t succeed.”
“It wasn’t a failure of marksmanship. Damn good shots.
One in the leg, one in the shoulder, and one furrowed his scalp.
He’ll live to hang. But even if they’d killed him instantly, the axe would have done for Macleod.
” Alec suppressed a shudder. It was one of the most gruesome scenes he’d ever had to witness.
But at least there was no question about who was responsible, no dearth of eyewitnesses.
“Damn shame about the medic. Speak no ill of the dead, but I can tell you now, he’s been worrying me. Not under my command, I’m thankful to say. He answers—answered to the Resident Governor and the RAMC.”
“His troubles are over. I hope your niece by marriage doesn’t take his death too hard.”
“That’s right, potty about him, wasn’t she? I expect the wife’ll have young Fay weeping on her shoulder. It was all a lot of nonsense, if you ask me. A spot more?”
“Thank you, sir, but I’d better go and let General Carradine know what’s going on. My superintendent will no doubt send you a copy of my report, or at least such parts of it as pertain to your men. I appreciate your cooperation throughout.”
“Anything more we can do for you, just let me know.”
They shook hands, and Duggan showed Alec out.
Devereux, no longer in dress uniform, was lounging on the steps, smoking. “Good evening, Chief Inspector,” he said.
“Good evening, Captain. I must thank you for removing my wife from the scene.”
“A remarkable lady. To tell the truth, I was happy to remove myself. I’d thought I was hardened to anything, but time passes. . . . I was honoured to be entrusted with Mrs. Fletcher’s care. Dare I hope that I have been removed from your list of suspects for the Chief Warder’s murder?”
“I wish I could say so. The best I can say is, it would seem my instinct is to trust you in an emergency. Congratulations, by the way, on recognizing that the second murder doesn’t solve the first.”
“People do jump to conclusions.”
“They do. I sincerely hope General Carradine is not so deluded, or I’m going to have to disabuse him of the notion.”
Alec went on his way. The air was growing chilly, but the evening light of the sun shone golden on the ancient walls of the White Tower, belying their bloody history.
The steps had been washed clean. Only the huddled groups of Yeoman Warders, no longer patrolling singly, suggested the horror of the past two days.
One of their own had been murdered, and one of their own had committed murder.
The Resident Governor was in his study. When the maid ushered Alec in, he was on the telephone, saying, “Yes, I expect to be able to tell you more very shortly. The Chief Inspector has just arrived. . . . Yes, I’ll ring you back immediately .
. . . Of course, my lord.” He hung up the receiver and handed the apparatus to his secretary to set on a side table.
“The Constable of the Tower,” he said gloomily.
“I hope you have some good news, Fletcher, however little. You’d better take notes, Jeremy. ”
“Well, we know who killed whom and how, which in some investigations is a big step forward.”
“I doubt if I can make much of that, since half the population of the Tower seems to have witnessed the murder. Sit down, man. Whisky?”
Alec accepted a seat but refused the drink. “We also know why Rumford killed the doctor.”
“That’s good going. It’s usually the other way round, isn’t it? The victim kills the blackmailer.”
“Yes, as in the mistaken murder of Crabtree. But Macleod appears not to have been a victim of extortion. Our theory is that Rumford had the sense not to blackmail the doctor who held his life in his hands every time he was ill.”
“Macleod did a good job, kept him going, so why kill him?”
“Acting on information received—from my wife, as a matter of fact—my DC searched Macleod’s quarters.
He found a satchel stuffed to bursting with banknotes, Treasury notes, and silver.
We believe it to be the proceeds of Rumford’s blackmailing, taken from the Yeoman Gaoler’s House while he was in hospital, under sedation. ”
“Good Lord, you’re saying Macleod stole Rumford’s hoard? But how the devil did he know it was there?”
“The nurses at the hospital say Rumford used to talk about it under the influence of morphia. They’re trained to take no notice of what patients say under the influence of drugs, which is nonsense more often than not.
But Macleod obviously thought it was worth a try, since he had free access to Rumford’s keys and was able to keep him out of the way for as long as he wished. ”