Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
Detective Inspector Gant stared suspiciously at Daisy, smoothing the strands of hair carefully, if ineffectively, draped across his balding pate. In his late forties, at a guess, he had an incongruous round, babyish face, with a ridiculous little toothbrush moustache. “Fletcher?”
“It’s not an uncommon name.” Daisy had her fingers crossed in her lap.
In vain. He wasn’t going to be satisfied with “Daisy Fletcher.”
“Mrs. Fletcher. As you say, madam, it’s not an uncommon name. I’ll need it in full.”
Seeking a brainwave, Daisy let her gaze wander round the hotel writing room, commandeered by Gant for his interviews.
It was rather shabby, crammed with heavy Victorian furniture unwanted elsewhere.
In a corner, half hidden in an enormous armchair, lurked a stolid detective constable with a notebook.
She looked from Sakari to Melanie and back, but neither was inspired to interrupt with a timely comment or question. Did she dare tell the inspector her husband’s name was James, or William, or … No, the truth, if not the whole truth, as she had advised Mel.
“Mrs. Alec Fletcher.”
Gant stiffened. His baby-face reddened. “And you’re visiting from London?”
“All of us, just for the weekend.”
“We shall drive back to town tonight.” Too late, Sakari drew his fire.
“Oh no you won’t! I’ll have to ask you not to leave Saffron Walden for the present, until I’m satisfied that none of you had anything to do with the death of Harriman.”
“Inspector, you’ve obviously realised that my husband is DCI Fletcher of Scotland Yard. I wish you’d admit that he had no say in taking charge of the Epping Forest affair. He goes where he’s sent.”
“How do you know I had anything to do with that case? He must have told you!”
“Why on earth should he do that? I suppose I read it in the newspapers.”
“I don’t recall seeing my name in any newspaper.”
“It must have been.” Daisy appealed to her friends. “You two both knew Mr. Gant was on that case before I mentioned it just now, didn’t you?”
Of course they did. She had told them earlier. Both agreed, Melanie hesitantly, Sakari with a twinkle in her eye. She was enjoying the battle of wits.
Daisy turned back to Gant. “You see? You can’t possibly imagine that the wives of a chief inspector of the CID, a banker, and a high official in the civil service conspired to murder a schoolmaster!”
“Stranger things have happened,” he insisted. “From all I’ve heard, there’s some nasty business going on at some of these boarding schools.”
“I suspect you’re thinking of boys’ Public Schools. We all have daughters at the school. We’re talking about a school for both boys and girls—”
“If shutting ’em up together isn’t asking for trouble, I don’t know what is!”
Daisy, who had had her own qualms when the idea was first broached, ignored this. “And Harriman taught only the boys. What’s more, it’s run by the Quakers.”
“Some of these peculiar religious sects are downright dangerous. They ought to be banned. Quakers—I’ve heard of them. They’re pacifists, aren’t they? Encouraging war resisters! The lot of ’em should be in prison, or shot!”
“That’s beside the point, except that it shows they’re against violence and the least likely people to commit murder.”
“So if they didn’t kill this schoolmaster, who did?” Gant said sarcastically.
“That’s for you to find out, isn’t it. It wasn’t we three.”
The inspector eyed them with increasing doubt.
He could hardly deny that Daisy and Melanie looked like thoroughly ordinary, respectable middle-class matrons, as was indeed true of Melanie.
Daisy did her best to look just as middle-class and respectable.
Gant was the sort who very likely considered the aristocracy just as untrustworthy as the dregs of society.
However, as he already disliked her for being Alec’s wife, if he found out her father had been a lord it wouldn’t make much difference.
Inevitably, he singled out Sakari. “What’s this native woman doing here with you?” he demanded of Daisy.
“Mrs. Prasad is not a native,” she said coldly.
“Here in England, you and I are natives. She is a British citizen, however. She is our friend, Mrs. Germond’s and mine.
Her daughter, like ours, is a boarder at the school.
Her husband is in the upper ranks of the British civil service, a much more important gentleman than mine. ”
“And mine,” added Melanie.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Daisy thought, smiling at Mel.
She could see calculations racing through Gant’s mind. If Sakari’s husband was more important than a detective chief inspector of the Yard, where did that leave a mere county detective inspector? Certainly not in a position to insult the lady.
“No offence, madam.” He did at least attempt to sound conciliatory.
“None taken,” Sakari assured him, beaming—another English idiom mastered. She was not easily offended. Daisy noted that the twinkle had not vanished from her dark eyes. To her, Gant’s insult was doubtless just part of his amusing conflict with Daisy.
“All the same, you’ll all have to stay. At the very least, the coroner will want you as witnesses to the discovery of the victim’s body.”
“Mrs. Prasad and Mrs. Germond didn’t discover the body.
” Nor did Daisy, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her, nor allow this dreadful man to pester poor Lizzie.
Thank goodness the constable had allowed Kesin to take all three girls back to school, with strict instructions to tell no one what had happened.
If Gant had gathered the impression that Daisy was the one who had stumbled upon Harriman, that was his look-out. She continued, “They never even saw the body. They didn’t go anywhere near the maze. They’re of no conceivable use as witnesses.”
Gant glanced at his notes. “It was Mrs. Germond who reported the discovery to the local police station,” he pointed out accusingly.
Melanie looked apprehensive, but left it to Daisy to respond.
“Because I asked her to. The children were still lost in the maze. I had promised them I’d go back and help them find the way out.”
Once again, all depended upon the taciturnity of the gardener. Daisy couldn’t imagine him actually volunteering any information.
The inspector glared at her. “Very well,” he snapped, “Mrs. Prasad and Mrs. Germond can leave. After I’ve questioned—” He glanced at Sakari and changed his choice of words. “After I’ve talked to them. But you’ll have to stay, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“I shall stay with you, Daisy,” said Sakari, “to support you in this ordeal.”
“Oh, Daisy,” Melanie cried, distressed, “you won’t think I’m deserting you and Elizabeth if I go home?
It’s just that Robert, and the younger children …
Robert expects me back. He’ll be quite upset if …
My housekeeper gets in such a muddle, you see, if I’m not there to keep things running smoothly. ”
“Of course you must go, Mel. I’m sure Sakari will be a more than adequate support for me, and we’ll both make sure the girls are all right.”
Judging by his face, Gant had changed his mind and would much prefer Sakari’s departure to her presence at—and on—Daisy’s side.
“Kesin shall drive you home, Melanie.”
“Oh, but, you don’t like to walk.…”
“If it is necessary to go any distance, I shall summon a taxi. Besides, my husband may have need of the motor-car during the week.”
“All the same, it’s very kind of—”
“If you’ve quite finished?” Gant interrupted Melanie’s thanks. He asked for her address, apparently not trusting the local constable’s notes. “Mrs. Germond, did you ever talk to the deceased?”
“Talk to Mr. Harriman? Oh no. I had no reason to. As Mrs. Fletcher explained, he taught only boys. My eldest son is at a different school. All boys.”
He glowered at her, as if he suspected she was being ironic at his expense because of his exchange with Daisy about boys’ schools.
Mel looked dismayed, recognising his animosity but not understanding the reason for it.
Daisy, who knew her friend incapable of irony, was about to jump to her defence when she realised her intervention was more likely to foment trouble than to help.
“You would have recognised Harriman, though,” Gant barked at Melanie.
“Certainly. I had seen him about the school, on previous visits but especially yesterday.”
“Why yesterday?”
“He’s—he was the games master, so he was organising the sports, as Mrs. Fletcher explained.”
This time he glowered at Daisy. She wished she could warn Mel not to mention her name if she could possibly help it.
“Did you see or hear him quarrelling with anyone?”
“I wasn’t watching him, Inspector. I was watching my daughter and chatting with Mrs. Prasad and Mrs. Fletcher. I had no interest whatsoever in Mr. Harriman.”
“I suppose you couldn’t know he was going to be murdered,” Gant admitted grudgingly.
“It was murder, then?” Sakari asked.
Her turn to be on the receiving end of the glower. “I’m asking the questions,” he reminded her, then as an afterthought added, “madam.”
Daisy had heard the phrase more than once before. She had come to the conclusion that it was often a sign of a detective who had lost control of an interview and didn’t know where he was going.
“Mrs. Germond, you were familiar enough with Harriman, I take it, to recognise him when you saw his body.”
“I didn’t see it,” Melanie explained patiently. “Of the three of us, only Mrs. Fletcher saw it.”
Gant gritted his teeth. “When was the last time you saw him alive?”
“Yesterday afternoon. It was impossible to miss him, because he was shouting through a megaphone, starting the races. I suppose the last time I actually noticed him was when the last race began. We left when it ended. I’m afraid I don’t know what time that was, but I dare say someone at the school will be able to tell you. ”
“How did you spend the rest of the afternoon and evening?”