Chapter Seventeen #2
She told him about taking the girls out for an early meal, sending them back to school in time for their curfew, and dining at the Rose and Crown. “And then we had coffee in the residents’ lounge. We stayed there chatting until we retired for the night.”
“Did you, for any reason, leave the hotel again after that?”
“Certainly not!” Melanie exclaimed, astonished. “What reason could I possibly have for wandering about in the dark?”
“Perhaps, Melanie, the inspector suspects you of having a secret tryst with Mr. Harriman.”
“Really, Sakari, that’s not in the least funny!”
“It’s not a joke, Mel,” said Daisy, frowning at Sakari. “It’s his job to suspect everyone.”
Melanie turned her outrage on Gant. “You suspect me of arranging a secret tryst with a man? You must be mad!”
“Th-that isn’t what I said, madam!”
“It isn’t, darling. He suspects all of us of murder. Along with everyone else who’s ever come into contact with Harriman. Recently, at least. Hundreds of people. He just doesn’t know their names yet, and he has us close to hand.”
“Hundreds?” said the inspector, appalled.
“There are nearly two hundred pupils at the school, I believe, not to mention the other teachers. Yesterday scores of parents attended sports day. I haven’t the faintest idea whether he’s married or not, or what other family he might have.
For all I know he goes to pubs, where he quarrels with other patrons, or barmen, or insults barmaids.
Perhaps he gambles and owes a lot of money to a bookmaker.
Quakers frown on drinking and gambling, but Harriman wasn’t the shy, retiring sort.
Don’t worry, Mel. We’ve got plenty of company. ”
“Hundreds!” Gant repeated despairingly. “Er … You’re free to go, Mrs. Germond.”
“Do you wish to leave at once, Melanie?”
“Yes, please. If you’re quite sure you don’t mind, Daisy?”
“Absolutely certain. You’d better go and pack.”
“Yes. Sakari, would it be all right if Kesin took me up to the school first, to say good-bye to Lizzie?”
“I shall instruct him to do so. Be so kind as to ring the bell, Inspector,” said Sakari regally. “It is over there, by the mantelpiece, I see. I will answer your questions when I have given my chauffeur his orders.”
Meekly, Gant obeyed. He was obviously out of his depth. No wonder he had been taken off the “Epping Forest Massacre”; the wonder was that he had ever risen to the rank of inspector.
In answer to the bell, the Rose and Crown’s manager came in. Sakari asked him to send Kesin to her. As he started to leave, the inspector stopped him to question him about night porters and what time the hotel’s exterior doors were locked.
“Naturally we have a porter on duty all night,” the manager said stiffly.
“However, he is not expected to watch any comings and goings. He has a cubbyhole near the front door and the door-bell is switched to ring in there, as well as all the room bells. Even if he dozes off, they cannot help but wake him. He locks the front and back doors at eleven—there is not a great deal of activity in Saffron Walden late at night, nor any trains arriving. He unlocks them at six in the morning.”
“What about keys? Do you issue front-door keys to residents?”
“Upon request. None of these ladies has asked for one. Now you must excuse me, Inspector. Mrs. Prasad is waiting for her chauffeur.” He marched out, his back eloquent of his disdain for anyone who dared to doubt the uprightness of guests at his hotel.
Gant was disconsolate. Daisy didn’t think he honestly suspected her of having murdered Harriman, but he would dearly have liked to catch her wrong-footed in some way, to justify persecuting her.
She wouldn’t have minded half so much if he had any real cause for resentment against her.
It wasn’t fair to vent his spleen on her innocent—fairly innocent—head because he was angry with Alec, especially as Alec himself was innocent of any desire to be landed with a triple murder.
“Sakari, I must let Alec know what’s going on. I don’t want to send a cable, that anyone can read, or telephone from the lobby. Could Kesin deliver a note to my house?”
“But of course, Daisy. I, too, ought to write to my husband.”
They took a couple of sheets of the hotel note-paper and retrieved their fountain pens from their handbags. At that point, Sakari started writing. Daisy, after dating the sheet and opening with “Darling…” came to a halt.
Alec was not going to be pleased that she was once again mixed up in murder. Nor would he take it kindly that her opponent—or rather, the investigating officer—was the ghastly Gant. How was she to phrase her letter so as to vex him least? Would it be best to omit Gant’s name altogether?
“What are you telling him?” she asked Sakari.
“Only that you must stay in Saffron Walden, so I shall stay with you. I see no need to trouble him with details.” Calmly, Sakari signed her note, sealed it in an envelope, and wrote her husband’s name on the front, in both English and Hindi. Kesin came in. She gave him the envelope and his orders.
Rushed, Daisy hastily scribbled that the police were investigating the unexpected death of Harriman, the games master at Belinda’s school.
They wanted to talk to visitors to the school.
Though she had never exchanged a word with Harriman (true enough, though he had spoken to her), the detectives had requested that she stay on for a day or two.
Adding lots of love, and hugs and kisses for the twins, she folded it, stuck it in an envelope, wrote Alec’s name on the front, and handed it to Kesin.
Kesin bowed. “I shall deliver it to your house today, madam.”
In spite of his excellent—though strongly accented—English, Inspector Gant showed no sign of wanting to question him.
He had been looking on with strong disapproval as Daisy and Sakari wrote, but he could hardly object to their notifying their husbands, both outranking him, that they would not be home when expected.
“When you’re quite ready, madam,” he said as Kesin went out.
Sakari smiled at him. “I am quite ready, Inspector. Fire away!”
He consulted his notes. “You and Mrs. Germond stayed behind when Mrs. Fletcher took your girls to the maze. Why was that?”
“As Mrs. Germond mentioned, I do not enjoy walking. Many English ladies take pleasure in exercise, to a most fatiguing excess. I never developed the habit, because in India, ladies of high caste do not walk when they can be carried.”
The “high caste” rocked Gant. He became almost obsequious. “I understand, madam. So, when Mrs. Fletcher came back and told you about the dead body in the maze, you stayed sitting on the bench, while Mrs. Germond reported to the police and Mrs. Fletcher returned to the maze with the gardener.”
“I should certainly have moved had there been anything useful for me to do.”
“Of course, madam.”
“Mrs. Fletcher suggested that I stay to provide a meeting place where all might find me and each other.”
“Very sensi—” The inspector stopped himself just in time, before he uttered a word in praise of Daisy. He fell back on: “Of course, madam.”
“I stayed put until that charming bobby gave us leave to leave. English is a very strange language at times. Do you not find it so, Inspector?”
“I—er—well, I…”
“Perhaps you do not, as speaking it is natural to you. But only consider the idiom, ‘Fire away.’ Anyone might have reasonably assumed I was inviting you to shoot with a gun, whereas I merely gave you leave, or permission, to ask me questions. Very odd!”
“Yes, madam. I—Just one more question, if you please, madam. Did you see Harriman alive at any time after the end of the events at the school?”
“I did not. Nor dead. In India, only Untouchables have any contact with the dead. Now, before you have your little chat with Mrs. Fletcher, she and I will drink tea. You will join us, perhaps, Inspector? Will you be so kind as to ring the bell?”
With a hopeless shrug, Gant went to ring the bell.
While his back was turned, Daisy met Sakari’s eyes. They were brimful with wicked mirth. She had routed the inspector. Which was all very well, but it wouldn’t leave him any more kindly disposed towards Daisy.