Chapter Twenty-One #2
“It’s only nine o’clock! And may I point out, I’d no intention of disturbing you.” He sat down. “You’re at liberty to leave!”
“Do you imagine I could rest easy,” Sakari said soulfully, “while you interrogate my dearest friend?”
Daisy frowned at her irrepressible friend. Sakari sighed and fell silent. The waiter came in with the liqueurs and poured out their coffee.
“Anything else, madam?”
Sakari opened her mouth. Daisy and Gant waited on tenterhooks, but all she said was, “No, thank you. That will be all. For now.”
Gant pursed his lips but managed to contain himself in the face of the final provocation. “Mrs. Fletcher, all I want is for you to go over again exactly what you saw and did when you found the body.”
“If you’re hoping I’ll remember some clue I didn’t mention before, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. But here goes.”
Once again, the way he had worded his request allowed her to leave the girls out of her story.
She began with the moment when she had turned the corner and seen Harriman lying there.
As far as she was aware, she didn’t add or alter any significant details.
Gant, checking her recital against the constable’s report and the notes his subordinate had taken first time round, was obviously as disappointed as Daisy had predicted.
Had he expected she would suddenly remember having come across a cudgel, nicely adorned with fingerprints, and tidied it out of the way, into the hedge?
“As soon as I’d made sure he was past needing help, I left. I’m afraid I didn’t notice any footprints or cigarette ends, or helpful scraps of cloth caught in the hedges as the gardener guided me out of the maze.”
“Ah yes, the gardener: Did he look at the body, examine it, touch it?”
“No, he refused to go round the corner. He couldn’t see it from where he was.
” Daisy hardly dared to breathe. Surely he must be wondering about the sequence of events, just when the gardener had come upon the scene, how she had summoned him if she was lost in the maze, all the questions she didn’t want him to ask.
Apparently not. “Fishy,” said Gant. “He wouldn’t look at it; he won’t talk about it; what has he got to hide?”
“You suspect the gardener?”
“He’s on the spot. His cottage is just off the footpath to the Garden, so he wouldn’t have to be traipsing all over town.
He can find his way about the maze. He’s strong enough—all that digging.
He has a shed full of tools, lots of ’em with handles that could have inflicted the blow.
Had, I should say. We’ve taken them away to be examined. ”
“But what motive could he possibly have had?”
Gant laid his finger against his nose with a sly look.
“From what I hear, the deceased had a nasty habit of insulting people. Bullying sort of a bloke, picked on them that couldn’t fight back.
The Garden’s open late on Saturday evenings in the summer.
Who’s to say he didn’t go there after this sports day affair and pick a quarrel with the gardener?
Threatened to report him for sitting down on the job. Insulted his marrows, maybe!”
“That’s awfully hard to believe.” Daisy hoped she wasn’t going to have to correct the inspector’s misapprehensions in order to save the gardener’s skin.
Actually, though, nothing he had said or done contradicted the theory.
He had been extremely unwilling to go to the maze, only agreeing when she told him the police had been sent for.
“It seems so unlikely that Harriman would have gone there after a very busy day.”
“He ended up there, didn’t he?” said Gant irrefutably.
“Is the gardener your only suspect?” Daisy asked, not really expecting an answer.
But he was in a chatty mood. “Like you said, there’s a lot of people we’ve got to sort out, what with teachers and visiting parents and the older boys. Half the parents don’t live in Essex. That’d really make things difficult, except that hardly any of ’em stayed in the town overnight.”
“Someone could have killed Harriman and then gone home. Do you know what time he died?”
“Not yet. Nor I wouldn’t tell you if I did. Once I know, that’ll narrow things down a lot, of course. No good asking people for alibis when you don’t know the time of death.”
“Very true,” said Daisy.
Mistaking her ironic comment for approval, he preened. “Mind you, there’s another one I’ve got my eyes on, besides the gardener. Good, solid motive. I just can’t see how he could’ve done it. Got no legs, you see. One of the teachers, name of Pencote. D’you know him?”
“Yes, he teaches my daughter English.” Cautiously, she asked, “What makes you think he would have liked to murder Harriman?”
“He was witnessed shouting at him and threatening him with one of his crutches, on the school field yesterday. The trouble is, I can’t for the life of me see how anybody as badly crippled as him could have managed it.”
“I quite agree, Inspector. He couldn’t possibly.”
Gant looked gratified. “We have to consider every possibility,” he said pompously, “but Mr. Pencote is an impossibility. If you happen to remember anything else, Mrs. Fletcher, anything at all, please telephone the local police station at any hour.”
“Are you going to work all night, Inspector?” asked Sakari.
Flushing, he said pettishly, “You can’t interview people in the middle of the night, madam. Besides, a man needs his sleep if he’s to outwit villains. The local police will take messages for me.”
“I’ll ring them right away,” Daisy said quickly, “if I think of anything I’ve forgotten to report.”
“Thank you, madam. I’ll say good-night, then.”
He brought the silent acolyte to heel with a crooked finger and departed.
“Well!” said Sakari. “I can’t believe he told you so much! Or anything at all. You must have learnt your interrogation technique from Alec.”
“That’s part of it. Mostly, it’s just that you were so obnoxious, darling, that in comparison, I was charming!”
“You have pulled the wool over his eyes nicely so far. Little does he know he ought to be enquiring not as to what you have forgotten to report but what you have chosen not to report.”
“We can but hope,” said Daisy, holding up crossed fingers. “Is there any coffee left in the pot? My throat’s dry after going through all that again.”
Sakari felt the coffee pot. “It is barely lukewarm. I shall order another pot, and you deserve another Drambuie as a reward for brilliant obfuscation. I should have asked the inspector to ring the bell before he left.”
“Shall we move to the lounge? It’s much more comfortable.”
“Privacy is more important at present than comfort. You have still to explain your theories, Daisy.”
So Daisy rang the bell, and once they were provided with hot coffee and another tiny glass of liqueur each, she expounded her reasoning.
Sakari listened to her speculations with interest, but frowned when she unravelled the case against Tesler and Miss Bascombe. “Are you certain you do not dismiss your suspicions because you like Mr. Tesler and admire his character?”
“How can I tell?” said Daisy crossly. “It’s true that I don’t want to think they’re guilty, but I truly don’t believe it, either.”
“What would Alec say?”
“That’s easy. He’d tell me it’s none of my business and I’m not to meddle in a police investigation.”
“In spite of his unfortunate experience with Detective Inspector Gant?”
“He does have a low opinion of Gant.”
“So perhaps he would not mind your meddling quite so much. However, this is not at all to the point. What would be his opinion of your basing your case, or your lack of a case, on your view of the suspect’s character?”
Daisy pondered. “I think he’d say, character can be a guide but not a determining factor, and to what extent it guides one should be based on how well one knows the suspect. I suppose I can’t claim to know Tesler well after talking to him a few times.”
“And hearing about him from Belinda, I am sure.”
“Yes,” said Daisy, brightening. “She really likes him, and not just because she’s keen on science. She loves English, too, but prefers Tesler to Pencote because unlike Pencote, who has quite a temper, he never gets ‘in a bate,’ as they say. Alec would take her opinion into account.”
“Unfortunately, one cannot expect the same of Gant. Do not look so downcast, Daisy. Fortunately there are plenty of other suspects.”
“With whom I’m even less familiar.”
“Did you not hear the headmaster speaking of his dislike of Harriman? When we were sitting on those abominably uncomfortable chairs on the field?”
Daisy burst out laughing. “Darling, you can’t suggest Mr. Rowntree might have killed Harriman because he was a rotten choice as a member of staff!”
“Suppose he cherishes the school as if it were his own child. What if Harriman were to ruin its reputation, so that parents no longer wish to entrust their children to it?”
“He’d give him the sack.”
“Perhaps he cannot. Do not teachers belong to unions? Everyone else seems to. But never mind. As you told Gant, there are a great many possible suspects of whom we know little or nothing.”
“Yes, and probably never will know much. My only reason for picking out Tesler and Miss Bascombe was that I do know them a little. But I must admit, I still wonder what they were so upset about today!”