Chapter Sixteen #2
“Then why don’t you tell us about your encounter with the police,” Daisy suggested. “I’ve got to eat fast, because I’m sure I’m going to have to talk to the bobby as soon as he’s seen Harriman. Have a drink, though. You look hot and parched.”
“Here’s some lemonade, Mrs. Germond,” Belinda offered, holding out a pewter tankard. Apparently the Rose and Crown didn’t trust picnickers with their glassware.
“Thank you, dear.” Melanie sipped, then gulped, and looked much better for it. “I must say, Daisy, I do think you might have told me it was Lizzie who found the body!”
“She doesn’t seem any the worse for it, darling. Would you have gone to report it if I had?”
“Certainly not! I would have gone straight to the maze to comfort her.”
“Well, there you are. What was needed was the gardener to get her out. A fat lot of good it would’ve done if you’d got lost in there, too, while I was running off to the police station. Tell us about it.”
While Daisy devoured a leg of cold chicken, a hard-boiled egg, a buttered roll, and an orange, peeled for her by Belinda, Mel talked.
“I’ve never been in a police station before, let alone reported a dead body! It’s quite an impressive building for a small town, brick, with inlaid patterns, and bigger than you’d expect.”
“It could have living quarters for an officer or two,” Daisy said.
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. I—I was a bit nervous, so I had Kesin come in with me.”
The Indian chauffeur smiled and nodded.
“The man I talked to was a sergeant in uniform, Sergeant Weaver. You didn’t say, Daisy, whether I ought to ask for a detective.”
Her mouth full of a rather chewy roll, Daisy shook her head.
Sakari laughed. “No, you did not say, or no, Melanie did not need to ask for a detective?”
Daisy, still chewing, nodded agreement to both alternatives, then shook her head to indicate that Mel had not needed to speak to a detective at that point, then seeing the others look confused, nodded again.
“Well, it’s too late to change,” said Melanie with a touch of asperity. “Sergeant Weaver was very polite, but I decided not to tell him it was a child who found the body.”
Nodding vigorously, Daisy managed to swallow at last. “Quite right. The police are sceptical by nature. It wouldn’t have done at all to tell them no adult had actually seen him.”
“I hope you didn’t expect me to claim I’d seen it myself.”
“Of course not, Mel. It’s much better to tell the police the truth—though not always all of the truth.”
“I said I thought he was dead but I wasn’t absolutely sure.
He rang up the hospital at once and asked the matron to send along any doctor she happened to have about the place, or to dig one up elsewhere.
That’s exactly how he put it. I must have looked surprised, because he explained that she’s his cousin. ”
“Here he comes now,” said Deva.
A short, tubby man carrying a black bag was approaching them across the lawn at a near trot. Suddenly he altered course. The constable and the gardener had just come out of the Walled Garden and he hurried to join them. All three disappeared through the gate to the maze.
“Would you like some cherries, Mummy?” Belinda delved into the hamper.
“Yes, please, darling. I’m afraid it’s much too late for a doctor to help Harriman. I hope he realises he has to be careful not to disturb things before the detectives arrive.”
“Was Mr. Harriman murdered, Mummy?” Bel asked, wide-eyed. Lizzie’s face lost the colour it had regained.
Daisy wished her words unuttered. “That’s not what I said.
When someone dies unexpectedly, the police always have to find out how it happened, even if they died of illness or an accident.
That’s what detectives do, find out what happened.
You know that, darling. Daddy doesn’t spend all his time hunting murderers. ”
“Mr. Harriman didn’t come to breakfast, remember?” said Deva. “Perhaps he felt ill and thought some fresh air would make him feel better. He was always going on about fresh air.”
“Apparently there aren’t any detectives in Saffron Walden,” said Melanie.
“Sergeant Weaver was going to telephone the county headquarters, so that they’d be ready to send a detective if necessary, depending on the constable’s and the doctor’s reports.
I offered to bring the constable back here in your car, Sakari. ”
“Very proper, Melanie. The quicker the better.”
“The sergeant was grateful. So was the constable.”
“Look, they’re coming back already.” Deva seemed to have appointed herself as look-out. “The gardener’s closed the gate to the maze. I think he locked it.”
They all looked that way. The gardener stumped off back into the Walled Garden, to resume his dinner-break, presumably. The policeman and the doctor exchanged a few words, then the doctor departed towards the entrance gates and the bobby came towards the picnickers.
“Here goes!” said Daisy. She swallowed a last gulp of lemonade and went to meet him. “I’m the one who saw the body, Constable.” An accurate statement if slightly misleading. She hoped the taciturn gardener hadn’t already reported that she had seen it only after he had led her to Lizzie and Belinda.
“But it wasn’t you as reported it, madam.”
“No. I was rather upset.”
“Very understandable,” he said soothingly. “It’s a nasty shock finding a dead body.”
“Especially when it’s someone you know.”
She could almost see his ears prick up. The notebook came out.
“Friend of yours, was he, madam?”
“Heavens no! He’s—he was a teacher at the Friends’ School. The girls are all boarders there, and we three adults are their mothers.”
“His name, madam?”
“Harriman. I’ve no idea what his given name was. He was the games master, so the girls didn’t have much to do with him.”
“But you knew him?”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever actually spoken to him. I’ve seen him about, particularly yesterday, which was sports day, and I’ve heard him addressed as Harriman.”
“Ah, that would explain it. You ladies are visiting for the school sports day.”
“That’s right.” Daisy gave him an encouraging smile. “We’ve come down from London. We’re staying at the Rose and Crown.”
“You won’t know much about the deceased, then. I don’t suppose either of the other ladies has a son at the school?”
“No, or he’d be picnicking with us.”
“The young ladies’d likely know more than you do, though.”
She put as much doubt into her voice as she could.
“A little bit more, I dare say, but I’m afraid it would upset them frightfully to be questioned by the police.
Once young girls start crying, it’s awfully difficult to turn them off.
Besides, you’d find out much more by talking to the other teachers at the school, and even the boys he taught. ”
“To be sure. That won’t be up to me to decide. The doctor’s going to ring up the station, and Sergeant Weaver’s sure to call in the detectives from county headquarters.”
“Detectives from headquarters? Oh dear, does that mean you think Mr. Harriman was murdered?”
“That’s for the coroner’s jury to decide. All I know is, we agree, me and the doctor, that it looks very fishy! No doubt about it, there’ll be a detective inspector coming over from Chelmsford.”
“From Chelmsford!”
The constable gave her a rather odd look.
Oh blast! Daisy thought, wasn’t that where the detective came from who had behaved so abominably to Alec?
Suppose they should happen to send DI Gant?
He was probably still seething at having the triple murder investigation taken out of his hands.
He would not have forgotten the name of the man who took it from him.
If Gant took charge, he was bound to ferret out Daisy’s connection with Scotland Yard. And in that case, she wouldn’t have a hope in Hades of concealing from Alec her involvement in the murder in the maze.