Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“I wouldn’t mind,” said Deva. “It was fun, till … There are so many dead-ends, and all the hedges look just the same—you’d never know if you happened to go to the same place.”
“That’s what’s so creepy.” Lizzie shivered. “Not knowing.”
“What about the other part of the Garden, the one with all the winding paths and the look-out?” Bel asked. “Would you—”
“Girls!” Sister popped out of her office. “Sorry, Mrs. Fletcher, but I can’t have all this racket going on.”
“Sorry, Sister. I didn’t realise we were getting louder.”
“Sorry, Sister,” echoed the girls.
“Is there somewhere out of the way outside where we could sit and talk?”
“I think the girls ought to be getting back to their lessons,” Sister said severely. “It’s most irregular to have parents visiting on a Monday, specially during school hours. I only permitted it because of the unusual situation.”
“My—” Deva stopped as Daisy put a finger to her lips. Forewarned, Sister might forbid Sakari’s visit this afternoon, but if she turned up without advance notice, Daisy would bet on Sakari over Sister any day.
“Back to lessons you go,” Daisy said. “You don’t want to find you’ve fallen behind when you get back to school.”
“Are you staying in Saffron Walden, Mummy?”
“Yes, darling. We won’t go back to town without saying good-bye, I promise.” She gave each of them a kiss.
Walking back down the hill, she thought about her conversations with Pencote and Miss Bascombe. Had she been out of her mind to tell Pencote she wouldn’t report him to the police?
She repeated to herself the arguments she had offered him.
She didn’t actually have any facts to go on.
Nothing specific had been said about any specific person committing a specific crime.
As far as she was concerned, the stories were no better founded than idle rumour, even considering her sources.
Rumour from third parties, thoroughly mixed with her own speculation: detectives in general objected vigorously and vociferously to the speculations of anyone but themselves, and heavily discounted rumours not backed by solid evidence.
Coppers weren’t keen on confessions, either.
All sorts of eccentrics were liable to confess to crimes for a variety of peculiar reasons, from a desire for notoriety to vague and general feelings of guilt.
Weeding them out just wasted valuable police time.
What they wanted was for criminals to confess after they had been arrested on good, solid evidence.
Daisy had no evidence whatsoever. Moreover, she wasn’t a police officer, and a confession made to her had no value in the eyes of the law. Nor had there been any witnesses to back up her story.
She might have decided differently if Ghastly Gant were not in charge of the case.
She couldn’t possibly go to him with such a vague tale.
If it had been Alec, or even the Hampshire policeman she had encountered a few months ago, who had at least been intelligent.
… But no, she wouldn’t have told either of them what she had heard from Miss Bascombe and Pencote.
The whole affair was all too likely to end in disaster for the two of them, and for Tesler, with or without her interference.
She reached the Rose and Crown in dire need of a cup of coffee.
“Do you know where Mrs. Prasad is?” she asked the receptionist.
“In the writing room, madam. With Inspector Gant.”
“Not again!”
“I’m afraid so, madam. The management would be very happy to find a legal way of excluding the inspector from the premises, from troubling our guests. So far they have failed to find one.” She gave Daisy an interrogative look.
Daisy sighed. “It’s no good asking me.”
“The inspector’s instructions were to tell you to join him when you returned, madam. I said that I would convey his request. I’m extremely sorry that you should be inconvenienced. The management wishes me to convey their apologies—”
“Don’t worry, I don’t hold the hotel responsible.”
“Such a thing has never happened on our premises before, I assure you, madam.”
“And probably never will again. Just send lots of coffee and lots of cakes to the writing room, will you, please? Two cups will be sufficient.”
“Very good, madam.” The receptionist almost smiled. “Two cups. There will be no charge for any refreshments you or Mrs. Prasad choose to order for yourselves as long as the inspector is on the premises.”
“Thank you.” If that wasn’t an invitation to overindulgence, Daisy didn’t know what was.
She went to the cloakroom to powder her nose, comb her ruffled curls, and calm her ruffled temper.
How many times was Gant going to make her repeat her story?
Sooner or later, she’d slip and reveal that Lizzie had found the body.
It had no relevance whatever to his enquiry but was bound to cause trouble all round.
Would Alec accept the excuse that Gant simply hadn’t asked the right questions and hadn’t given her a chance to tell him? Having himself suffered from Gant’s incompetence, he might. Daisy began to feel more cheerful.
She met a waiter with the coffee in the passage and preceded him into the writing room.
“Sakari, darling, I’ve brought elevenses. I don’t know about you, but I’m in need of sustenance.”
“Excellent, Daisy.” Casting a glance over the supplies the waiter unloaded from the tray on the table in front of her, Sakari tipped him. “I, too, am parched. I have been telling Inspector Gant for half an hour that I did not hear the gardener speak one single word.”
“I didn’t hear more than a dozen or so.” Daisy chose a chocolate éclair from the plate of cakes. She had, after all, walked all the way up and back down the hill. Besides, each sticky bite, even eaten with a fork, would allow her time to think.
The inspector’s silent acolyte looked hopefully at the table. His face fell as he saw there were only two cups and plates. Daisy felt guilty, but she was determined not to feed Gant.
“He must have said more than you’ve told me,” Gant said peevishly.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why must he have said more than I’ve told you?”
“Because … Because nobody says so little!”
“He’s a very uncommunicative individual.”
“I found that out for myself! But we’ll go back over it all again and hope you remember something more.”
Daisy quickly took a bite of éclair. Masticating the glutinous mouthful, she thought furiously.
To “go back over it all” would be dangerous and might lead to questions she had avoided so far.
She swallowed. “That would be an awful waste of your time, Inspector. You’re a very busy man, I know.
Suppose you read to me what I’ve already told you about the gardener and I’ll see if I can add to it. ”
“All right,” Gant said grudgingly, and he gestured at his acolyte, who flipped through his notebook then started reading in a monotone.
“Inspector Gant: ‘When you spoke to the gardener requesting his help to get the children out was he reluctant to enter the maze.’
“Mrs. Fletcher: ‘Very.’
“Inspector Gant: ‘Aha.’”
“You can cut that out, Constable.”
“What, sir?”
“The last remark of mine that you read. Erase it.”
“I can’t do that, sir. It’d show.”
“Then cross it out,” Gant snarled. “Get on with it!”
Daisy helped herself to another cup of coffee and a Bakewell tart as the monotone resumed.
“Mrs. Fletcher: ‘Don’t let that mislead you Inspector he would have been equally reluctant to show me the way to the poet’s corner or the rose garden all he wanted was his dinner in his opinion it wouldn’t hurt the girls to wait till he was ready to return to work. ’
“Inspector Gant: ‘By that time, they’d probably have found their own way out so he wouldn’t have to go near the scene of the crime.’
“Mrs. Fletcher: ‘I wasn’t about to allow any delay if they’d gone on wandering just imagine the shock for a young girl of stumbling upon the corpse of someone she knew.’
“Inspector Gant: ‘I suppose you offered a big enough tip to change his mind made it worth his while to risk.’
“Mrs. Fletcher: ‘I didn’t offer him a penny though naturally I tipped him afterwards I just told him about the body.’
“Inspector Gant: ‘You hadn’t told him right away.’
“Mrs. Fletcher: ‘I thought the fewer people knew about it the better but it was more important to get the girls out quickly and I hoped he’d understand realise they mustn’t wander about at random in there as he did.’
“Inspector Gant: ‘Did he seem surprised to hear about the body what did he say.’
“Mrs. Fletcher: ‘Nothing he was walking towards the walled garden as I spoke and he just changed direction towards the maze without opening his mouth I’m sure you’ve discovered he’s a man of few words.’
“Inspector Gant: ‘That’s one way of putting it.’”
“You can cross that out, too. And leave it out when you type your report.”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Fletcher: ‘He also has a remarkably inexpressive face I can only hazard a guess as to what he was thinking by his actions he didn’t hesitate before heading for the maze when I told him there was a body in there with them oh wait a minute that’s not quite right.’
“Inspector Gant: ‘Hah.’ Do you want me to cross that out, sir?”
Gant just glared at him.
“Mrs. Fletcher: ‘I’d forgotten he stopped walking and looked at me as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe me or not so I told him my friend had gone for the police at that he well he spat on the grass not at me.’
“Inspector Gant: ‘He doesn’t like the police.’ That’s the end of the bit about the gardener, sir.”
“After that,” said Daisy, “after he spat when I mentioned the police, I don’t recall his saying anything but ‘Aye,’ when I asked if he could lead them—you—back to the body.”
“Must’ve reckoned you lot tramping about the place had wiped out any marks he’d left.” He stood up and addressed the constable. “Right, we’ll have to pull him into the station for questioning. Come along.”
Daisy and Sakari looked at each other. It would take a better man than Inspector Gant to get the gardener to talk, Daisy was certain. But what really concerned her was what Pencote, Tesler, and Miss Bascombe would decide to do when they heard he’d been taken in for questioning.
His hand on the door handle, Gant turned. “I almost forgot. Mrs. Fletcher, I’ve been wondering how you managed to find your way out of the maze after discovering the deceased. I sent four men in to make a thorough search, and every single one of the fools got lost.”
Oh help! Daisy thought. Unless she could come up with a viable explanation, the inspector was about to find out that she had misled him.
Obstruction of an officer in the course of his duties, at the very least, but given Gant’s animosity towards Alec, might he make a charge of accessory after the fact?