Chapter 20 #2
“Pertwee? Welford?” Gotobed gaped at him, angry colour rising. “Poppycock!”
“Detective Constable Piper found the records at Somerset House and obtained certified copies. There was no divorce.”
Alec jumped up as every vestige of colour fled from Gotobed’s face. He seemed to crumple, looking old and ill. If it was a performance, it was a very convincing performance, Alec thought uneasily. Unless the shock was not the facts but having his motive discovered?
“Shall I fetch the doctor, sir?” As Gotobed shook his head, Alec went over to the small cabinet in the corner where his search of the suite had turned up a bottle of whisky. He poured half a tumbler, added a splash of water from a carafe, and took the glass to Gotobed.
“Thank you. Help yourself.” He took a gulp.
Alec hesitated, then poured himself a more modest drink and returned to his seat. He was no longer quite ready to arrest Gotobed. Yet what solution could there be other than that Gotobed had murdered Pertwee, Welford, and Wanda?
But that would not explain Denton’s dive. Suddenly, Alec was very keen to interview the Suffolk farmer. He ought to speak to the steward again, too, to see if more thorough questioning
brought to light any evidence that Gotobed had gone into the bedroom first. After all, Wanda might have been driven to suicide by the deaths of her husband and brother.
But if not Gotobed, who had killed those two?
“Not married!” Gotobed said in a tone of wonder.
To Alec’s relief, the Yorkshireman was reviving.
He sat up straighter and there was a trace of his usual vigour in his voice when he went on, “She deceived me, but happen I’ve been deceiving meself, too.
Wishful thinking is a grand persuader. I thowt I knew her through and through.
She had her little faults, to be sure, but which of us doesn’t? ”
“All too true, sir. I’ll have more questions for you later, but I think you should have a bit of a rest now. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to send Dr. Amboyne to see you?”
“No, no. But I believe I should like to consult Miss Oliphant, if she will be so kind. I suspect I may need one of her magic potions to help me sleep tonight.”
“I’ll ask her,” Alec promised, and headed back to the sick-bay.
Daisy was still in the waiting-room, sitting with the nurse, Miss Oliphant, and Mrs. Denton around the desk, drinking soup from mugs and eating sandwiches.
“Darling, have you eaten?” she cried, as Alec trudged in. “You must be starving! Come and join us. There’s plenty of sandwiches and half a jug of soup. You’ll have to share my mug.”
Between bites and sups, Alec passed on Gotobed’s message to Miss Oliphant. Uncharacteristically flustered, she went at once, taking with her some herbs from her medicine chest and a packet of sandwiches quickly wrapped by the nurse for Gotobed.
Daisy kept stuffing Alec with sandwiches until he swore he could not eat another crumb. “I’d like to talk to Mr. Denton,” he told the nurse. “Dr. Amboyne said he’s well enough.”
“That he is, sir,” affirmed Mrs. Denton, “long as you don’t
make him talk too long. He didn’t ought to get to coughing, Doctor says. But he were asleep when we come out. He needs his sleep, don’t he, Nurse?”
“Always napping, and the best thing for him, but he doesn’t usually sleep very long. I’ll just take a peek and see if he’s awake, Mr. Fletcher. If he is, you can go right in, but you won’t mind if I go too; it’s my bounden duty to see you don’t tire the poor lamb.”
If Nurse was going to be present at the interview, Daisy had no more intention of being left out than Mrs. Denton had of letting her husband be questioned without her at his side.
The four of them gathered around Denton’s hospital bed.
Wanda’s body had been removed. Daisy didn’t care to wonder where it was being stored for autopsy.
Denton’s breathing was laboured, his weathered face sallow without the ruddiness of health, but his eyes were bright enough.
Mrs. Denton took his calloused hand and said, “Well, Pa, here’s folks come to see you.
The gentleman wants to ask you some questions.
He’s a detective policeman from Scotland Yard. ”
“Mr. Denton, do you remember what happened? How you came to fall over the railing into the sea?”
“Aye, I mind well!” wheezed the farmer. He continued with frequent pauses to catch his breath. “’Tis not the sort o’ thing a chap’d forget. There were I, leaning on the rail and a-smoking of me pipe, peaceable like. Moonlight ’twere, pretty as a picture. You should’ve bin there, Ma.”
“I wish I were!” lamented Mrs. Denton.
“I were just wond’ring if our Albert was done planting the winter wheat, when I feels someone a-grabbing of me ankles and he gives a great heave, and over I goes, clean as a whistle.”
“Brenda was right,” Daisy mouthed at Alec.
“And I lost me pipe and the cap Ma got at the church jumbly sale,” Denton added in an aggrieved voice.
“’Twere his fav’rite pipe,” Mrs. Denton explained, “and a fancy cap wi’ ear flaps to keep out the cold wind, as was Squire’s father’s in the old days.”
Daisy held her breath as Alec asked, with what she considered unnatural calmness, “Not a fore-and-aft cap? Did it have peaks both in front and at the back?”
Mrs. Denton nodded. “That’s right, sir.”
“Kep’ me neck warm.” Denton’s voice was failing.
“That’s enough now,” said Nurse. “Time for your medicine and a nice nap, Mr. Denton. I can’t let you ask the poor lamb any more tonight, Mr. Fletcher, he’s had enough. It’d be as much as my job’s worth.”
“One more question. Mrs. Denton can answer it. Would you please describe your husband’s overcoat, ma’am?”
“His coat?” Mrs. Denton asked, surprised. “’Tis quite ordin’ ry, brown what they call tweed, with a cape to keep off the rain. That were Old Squire’s, too, from the bazaar. ’Twon’t never be the same again after that sea-water ducking,” she added sadly.
“Thank you,” said Alec. “Please accept my best wishes for your swift recovery, Mr. Denton.” He headed for the door.
Daisy followed, bursting with excitement. As soon as the sick-bay door closed behind them, she exclaimed, “Someone took him for Gotobed!”
Alec smiled, but said, “Gotobed’s coat is grey.”
“It was moonlight. Colours don’t show. Someone tried to kill Gotobed. I bet it was Pertwee, and he was going to try again, only that cross-wave threw him over.”
“Try again in broad daylight, with people about?” Alec asked sceptically.
“Darling, you don’t still think Gotobed’s the villain?”
“Let’s say my mind is considerably more open than it was a quarter of an hour ago, but we still have Wanda’s death to account for. I must talk to the steward again.”
In spite of that “we,” he refused to let Daisy go with him and forbade her to go and see Gotobed lest she unwarrantably raise his hopes.
Disconsolate, she went along to Arbuckle’s suite.
Arbuckle had gone to see Gotobed, but she found Phillip trying to teach a card game—Racing Demon—to Gloria, Brenda, Riddman, and a young Italian couple.
After Daisy’s somewhat clearer explanation and a demonstration, they started playing.
Several hilarious games kept Daisy from trying to work out what Denton’s revelations led to and what Alec hoped to find out from the steward.
Arbuckle returned, looking puzzled. “Fletcher wants us all to meet in Gotobed’s suite tomorrow after breakfast,” he announced.
“What for, Poppa?”
“I’ll be darned if I rightly know, honey.”
“Us too, sir?” Riddman asked. “Birdie and I, that is.”
“Yes, both of you, but not our Eyetalian guests, of course. Do you know the low-down, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Not exactly,” Daisy temporized. “And if I did, I shouldn’t dare tell you. I’d better be getting along.”
She found Alec in their cabin, preparing for bed. Lucia Croce had not returned.
“Thank heaven,” Alec said.
“I dare say she’ll stay with her husband.”
“I hope so. If she turns up in the middle of the night, I suppose as a gentleman I’ll have to give up my berth to her and sleep on the floor. I’m much too tired.” He climbed into bed.
“It’s been an endless day. Darling, what’s this about a meeting in Gotobed’s suite tomorrow morning?”
“You’ll find out tomorrow morning. Come here.”
“You’re much too tired,” Daisy teased.
“Not for some things. Come here.”