Chapter Twenty-Seven
TWENTY-SEVEN
Where was Sister? Daisy decided she had waited quite long enough—though admittedly the time had not been wasted—to justify ringing the bell again.
Ping!
Just as her hand touched the bell, Sister looked out of the door next to her office. “Mrs. Fletcher, I thought I heard your voice. And someone else was here?”
“Yes, Miss Bascombe, but she felt better and went to take a class.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been kept waiting. As you didn’t ring again immediately, I assumed it wasn’t urgent so I just finished up what I was doing.”
“Not at all urgent, Sister. I’d like to have a word with the girls, if I may.”
“Of course you—What’s that, Mr. Pencote?”
Daisy heard Pencote’s voice, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying except for her own name.
“Are you sure?” Sister asked doubtfully. “You—”
A vigorous affirmative came to Daisy’s ears.
“Very well, I’ll ask. Mrs. Fletcher, Mr. Pencote would like to have a word with you.
” As she spoke, she came out of the room and closed the door.
“I don’t know what bee he’s got in his bonnet,” she said in a low voice.
“He’s in quite a bit of pain. His legs, you know, and his shoulders from the crutches.
I’ve been putting a healing unguent on the sores.
He overdid things on sports day and ought to have rested yesterday, but didn’t.
Men! But it can’t hurt him to talk, if you don’t mind, and it’ll take his mind off the pain. ”
“I don’t mind a bit.” Daisy tried not to sound unnaturally eager.
Look where soothing Miss Bascombe’s headache had got her!
Still, it was too much to hope that Pencote was anxious to confide, and in her, of all people.
More likely he wanted to make sure she encouraged Belinda to keep up with her English lessons while she was in the San.
And did she really want him to confess to her, anyway? What on earth would she do about it?
“I’d better warn you,” Sister continued, “I’ve managed to persuade him to take a dose of laudanum, so he may wander a bit. Not but what it doesn’t usually take him that way, like it does some people. You never can tell.” She opened the door. “Are we decent, Mr. Pencote?”
“We are,” he growled.
“It’s my surgery, Mrs. Fletcher, so it’s not set up for visitors. I want him to lie down for a little while—No, don’t get up, Mr. Pencote! I’m sure Mrs. Fletcher will excuse you—”
“No, you mustn’t get up,” Daisy interrupted.
“I’ll tell the girls you’ll be with them very soon,” said Sister and went away at last, with a rustle of her starched apron.
Covered to the waist with a folded sheet, Pencote leant back on the chaise longue, which served as an examination couch. Beside it on the floor, within reach, lay his crutches. A pungent medicinal odour hung in the air.
“Excuse the smell, Mrs. Fletcher,” Pencote said wryly. “I’m sorry to inflict it on you.”
“That’s all right. Just don’t blame me if I sneeze.”
“I shan’t.” The grin looked odd on his drawn face. It quickly faded. “I beg your pardon for taking up your time. I heard you say you were talking to Miss Bascombe and I wondered whether she … unburdened herself to you. I know … something was weighing on her mind, you see.”
“She didn’t name any names, Mr. Pencote. Nor deeds, come to that.”
“Oh.” He was silent for a few moments. Daisy waited.
At last he went on: “My cursed temper! Belinda’s father’s a policeman, isn’t he?
Belinda talks about him. It’s you she’s especially proud of though, your writing.
I’ve read a couple of your articles, as I think I told you, and they’re very well written.
But you’re her stepmother, so I can’t say she’s inherited her writing ability. She shows real promise.”
Cut the cackle and get to the ’osses, Daisy thought. Aloud, she said, “I’m glad. Perhaps she’ll decide to teach English, like you.”
“As long as that’s the only way she imitates me! Mrs. Fletcher, you know about Harriman’s death. In fact, there’s a rumour that you found his body…?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“The girls did,” he guessed instantly. “You’re trying to protect them.
Perhaps you’ll be able to understand my situation, then.
I was too shocked—appalled!—at the time to see where the help of my friends would lead.
Now I realise I ought to admit my guilt and take my medicine, hoping a jury will conclude that I had no expectation, no intention, of …
such serious consequences. But no one would believe I’d be capable of moving him.
” He gestured at the place where his legs ought to be.
“If I speak up, they’ll be in almost as much trouble as I will. I can’t do that to them.”
“They must have foreseen the possibility.”
“I don’t know about that. Tes—One of them is rather unworldly, and the other perhaps a bit na?ve.
They thought only of me. I wish they hadn’t been with me when it happened!
Come to that, of course I wish it hadn’t happened.
But it did. What I wondered is, you being somewhat familiar with police procedures, I assume, you might be able to advise me.
Is there any way I can confess without implicating them? ”
“Not that I can see,” Daisy said frankly.
“The officer in charge is astoundingly incompetent and seems to have a genius for omitting to ask the right questions, but even he worked out quite quickly that you couldn’t have done it.
If you told him you did, even he would realise you must have had help. ”
“I could refuse to tell him who helped me.”
“An awful lot of people know the three of you are good friends, Mr. Pencote.”
“Yes.”
“Well, on present form, I rather doubt Inspector Gant will solve the case. Solve it correctly, I mean. He may arrest someone who had nothing to do with it.”
“That would solve my problem,” Pencote said emphatically. “I couldn’t stand by and let an innocent person suffer, and I’m quite sure Tesler wouldn’t.”
Daisy pretended she hadn’t heard the name. “It’s possible, however, that the other two people involved might continue to try to protect you. In fact, I’m pretty sure some such thought is in the mind of one of them.”
“If you mean they’d take responsibility for the whole business, I couldn’t allow that, either.”
“No. The only alternative I can see is that Gant will admit he’s beaten and Scotland Yard will be called in.”
“They’d hardly fail to come up with a conspiracy theory! We might as well just confess at once and be finished with it.”
“Don’t do anything precipitate. You’ll have to talk to the others first, anyway, and I wouldn’t advise confessing to Gant if you can avoid it.”
“Then I take it you don’t intend to give us away?”
“What do I know? I’ve had a couple of decidedly ambiguous conversations.
If they happen to accord with any theories I may have developed, I have no duty to present Gant with my theories.
If he’d been a different sort of person …
Well, I don’t know what I might have done.
Or if you three were different sorts of people.
But that’s the way it is. Besides, I doubt he’d be willing to listen to me.
He happens to have a grudge against my husband. ”
That surprised a laugh from Pencote, a rather feeble one. “Somehow one thinks of the police as a united body of men. If your husband were in charge, would you tell him?”
“I can’t be sure. Probably not. He tends to pooh-pooh my theories. In any case, I don’t know how it all happened so I don’t actually have any facts to offer.”
“Would you like to know how it happened?”
“I can guess. What I can’t quite picture is where. I may suffer from ‘satiable curtiosity,’ but that’s no reason for you to tell me.”
“It was on the school field, where you witnessed my inexcusable exhibition earlier. A beautiful evening—we were sitting on the bench against the wall of the swimming pool, after the children went to bed. Harriman was running laps, round and round the track. He altered course to come and offer his usual insults. I took it for granted he’d keep moving, as he usually did, but he stopped.
I can’t imagine why he should have wanted to prolong the ‘conversation,’ if such it can be called.
In fact, he stooped—perhaps he had a stone in his plimsoll—”
“That’s enough,” Daisy said firmly. “You’ve satisfied my curiosity and I don’t want to hear any more. It was an accident, as I presumed. Now I really must go and talk to the girls.”
“Amidst all the rest, I’m extremely sorry that an action of mine should have troubled them.”
“That’s one apology I shan’t be passing on! Good-bye, Mr. Pencote, and good luck.”
Daisy found the three girls sitting in a row on the chairs in the hall, whispering to one another.
Belinda jumped up and came to hug her, saying in a voice barely louder than a whisper, “Sister said if we make any noise she’ll send us back upstairs to get on with our lessons. We’re doing them sitting on our beds!”
The other two gathered round.
“Where’s my mother, Mrs. Fletcher?” asked Deva.
“She had some letters that had to be written, darling. She’ll come and see you later. Lizzie, my dear, how are you holding up?”
“All right, thank you, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“She had a bad dream last night, though, Mummy. I woke her up.”
“Oh, Lizzie, I am sorry.” Daisy hugged her, and then had to hug Deva to make it fair. “Do you want to talk about it? Would it help?”
“I told Bel and Deva all about it, what he looked like and everything. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not, darling, if it made you feel better.”
“I didn’t have any more nightmares afterwards.”
“Bel and I didn’t, either, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Hearing about it is not the same as seeing it,” said Belinda. “I’m glad it wasn’t a teacher we liked. It spoilt the Garden, though. Not what Lizzie said, just that it happened there. I don’t ever want to go back into that maze.”