Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Daisy was a trifle indignant that Detective Inspector Worrall insisted on her joining everyone else in the main hall. His wink did not mollify her. Not that she really wanted to be anywhere else.
“Everyone” did not include Sybil, who was being interrogated by Alec at that very moment; Ruby had not come down yet—Roger Knox was said to be with her; and Norman Birtwhistle had gone off somewhere on the farm, as usual.
So everyone, besides Daisy, was Simon, Lorna, Myra, Ilkton, and Carey, gathered by a blazing fire, with Betty and Etta huddled whispering as far as they could get from the rest. Ilkton’s servant stood near the maids, against the wall, hands folded in front of him, looking supercilious.
“There’ll be no lunch for anyone,” Lorna said ominously, “if I’m not allowed in the kitchen.”
“I’m sorry, madam,” Worrall said cheerfully, “but the Chief Inspector said everyone in here till our reinforcements arrive.”
Lorna pursed her lips but said no more.
“Reinforcements?” Simon laughed, rather wildly. “What did I say? A copper in every corner! Peering under the beds, digging through the flour canister, hiding behind the arras.”
“Exactly, sir.” The inspector beamed. His sharp eyes flitted from face to face. “You’ve got the idea down pat. Raking through the ashes, opening every drawer. Shouldn’t be surprised if you read detective stories.”
“Pah!” said Simon.
Neil laughed. “I’m afraid he regards that as an insult, Inspector. Though Poe has artistic merit, old chap, you must give him that.”
Whether or not it was Neil’s intention, he diverted his friend from outrage at the police presence to an argument about Edgar Allan Poe. He himself seemed as chipper as ever, taking the rough with the smooth, aided by an ever-ready quip.
Daisy’s gaze followed the inspector’s from face to face, lingering to analyse what she saw.
Simon, she thought, had not yet altogether come to grips with the fact of his father’s death, let alone his having been murdered. There was no telling how the mercurial young man would react when it finally sank in.
Lorna’s usual combination of sullenness and aggression was overlaid with disquiet. To one so limited in her outlook, so bound to “the trivial round, the common task,” the present upheaval must seem overwhelming. If she weren’t so phlegmatic by nature, she’d probably be in hysterics.
Myra’s beautiful, artfully rouged mouth had a tragic droop, and her mascaraed eyes were red-rimmed.
She was painting her fingernails carmine.
Daisy guessed that the familiar action took her mind off the distressing circumstances surrounding her.
She was wearing a tailored forest-green tweed costume, probably her church clothes—needed at some of the houses she visited—and the most sober she possessed.
Walter Ilkton hovered over her with his usual proprietary air.
Nonetheless, the glance he cast at DI Worrall was unmistakably edgy.
Here he was, a man of the world, not only compelled to hobnob with the minions of the law but to do so in a milieu not his own where his superiority was not obvious!
At home, the police would be more clearly distinguishable as his inferiors.
Perhaps, though, Daisy thought, he considered it preferable to suffer the indignity out of sight of his peers.
Ruby came in, followed by Roger Knox. Hollow-eyed and hollow-cheeked, she looked as if she hadn’t slept a wink all night.
“Aunt Ruby!” Myra jumped up, spilling nail varnish down her skirt. “Oh, blast! It’ll never come out. Aunt Ruby, are you all right? Come and sit down.” She was about to hug her aunt, then looked ruefully down her front and took her arm instead.
Ruby sank bonelessly onto a sofa. Simon tucked a cushion behind her and sat down beside her, taking her hand.
“Mother, you shouldn’t have come down. Do go away, Myra, that stuff stinks to high heaven. It’s going to make everyone sick.”
“I’ll go and change, but I haven’t got anything else that isn’t a bit on the bright side.”
Ruby reached up to squeeze her hand. “It’s all right, my dear. The colour of your clothes is the least of our worries.”
Myra stooped to kiss her cheek. Straightening, graceful as ever, she said, “It does smell rather foul. Oh, but the inspector doesn’t want us to leave the room.”
Worrall’s nose twitched as the smell reached him. “Mrs. Fletcher, would you mind escorting Miss Olney?”
Everyone looked at Daisy, that sidelong, wary glance she had become accustomed to, though not quite reconciled to, since marrying a detective.
In spite of it, she would have preferred to stay in the hall, watching and listening, but she couldn’t deny that it made more sense for Worrall to remain and her to go with Myra.
Myra was apparently immune to the others’ misgivings. As she and Daisy went up the stairs, she said, “Mrs. Fletcher, what am I going to do about this skirt? Do you know how to get out the stain?”
“Oh dear, I don’t. If it was just a little dab, you could use remover, or petrol perhaps. But I don’t think it’d be healthy to use the amount you’d need for that streak, breathing all those fumes.”
“I’ve got a wonderful dry-cleaner in London, but I’m afraid by the time I get it there, it’ll be too late.”
The conversation continued on the same lines while Myra changed into an emerald-green woollen frock. She donned the dark green jacket over it, “To tone it down a bit. Poor Aunt Ruby! Isn’t it too awful for her?”
“Dreadful,” Daisy agreed as they returned towards the stairs. “And for Simon, too.”
“Simon? Oh. Yes, I suppose so. I must try to be kinder to him, but he can be such a pain in the neck.”
“I know what you mean. Be patient. I don’t think he’s yet quite made up his mind who he wants to be.”
Myra looked baffled. The concept obviously meant nothing to her: She had never suffered any doubts about who she was, or what she wanted to do.
In her way, she was as sure of herself as Walter Ilkton.
Daisy couldn’t see the pair as a happily married couple.
Walter would expect her to conform; Myra would go her own sweet way, quite likely not even noticing his efforts.
The hall was so quiet that their footsteps on the stairs sounded loud. Even the maids had fallen silent. The effect was more of lethargy than of tension, as if everyone had already said everything there could possibly be to say, at least in the presence of the police.
Worrall, slightly apart from the group about the fire, was inconspicuous, unthreatening, but unmistakably present.
Ilkton came across to meet Myra and Daisy.
“My skirt’s a dead loss, darling,” Myra told him mournfully. She looked up at him through her darkened eyelashes. “Unless your man could do something with petrol…?”
Ilkton looked startled. Doubtless his mind had been on worse calamities than Myra’s spoilt clothes.
“The inspector wouldn’t let him go,” Daisy reminded her.
Myra’s eyes rounded. “Does the … Does Mr. Fletcher think Walter’s servant killed Uncle Humphrey?”
“Highly unlikely, but he has to apply the same rules to everyone.”
“Oh yes, that’s only fair.”
“Daisy!” Sybil came in behind them, from the passage beneath the stairs.
“Alec said to tell you he needs you. But just a jiffy—” She went on towards the fireplace.
“Ruby, Mr. Fletcher wants to talk to you, in a couple of minutes, and he’s wondering whether it would distress you to go to Humphrey’s study, whether you’d rather see him in a different room. ”
Ruby shook her head. “No. It doesn’t really make any difference. He’s gone.” She dabbed at her eyes with a hankie.
Myra sat down beside her and patted her arm.
Sybil nodded to Daisy, who dashed off to find out what Alec wanted.
She was fairly sure he needed her to take notes for him, as DI Worrall was employed in watching all the suspects.
She was also fairly sure he’d be annoyed about it.
His instinct—not to mention his training—was always to keep her as far away from his investigations as possible, but he wasn’t very successful at it.
One way or another, once she was involved, she stayed involved.
And however much he’d like to deny it, she was more often than not a help to him.
He was sitting at the desk, frowning at the notes she had typed for him and given to Worrall to pass on.
“You didn’t remember much about last night,” he greeted her.
“Darling, I was taking notes on your interrogation of Roger, which you have in front of you. Do you want me to start thinking about it again?”
“What the doctor said didn’t jog your memory?”
“’Fraid not. It’s all mixed up in my mind with the evening before.”
“And getting more mixed up as time passes, I’m sure. Perhaps Mrs. Birtwhistle will remember more clearly.”
“She’ll be here any moment. Sybil said you wanted her in a couple of minutes. I assume you want me to take notes again?”
He pulled a wry face. “Yes, please, love. I can’t wait till reinforcements arrive, and I can’t risk one of that lot suddenly recalling some vital bit of evidence he failed to destroy.
They had all night as it is. Even after I arrived, we hadn’t any authority until we knew for sure there had been dirty work at the crossroads.
Sit at the desk, will you? Mrs. Birtwhistle will be more comfortable by the fire. ”
“I’m glad you’re thinking of her comfort. She’s pretty fragile.”
Hearing footsteps in the passage, Daisy said no more. She sat down at the desk.
Ruby came in. Introducing himself, Alec steered her to an armchair and took his seat opposite.
He offered his condolences. He had to do it quite often, usually to people he didn’t know and more than likely suspected, for the unnatural deaths of people he didn’t know.
Daisy admired the way he always managed to sound sincere.
In fact, he really was sincere. No policeman she’d ever met was reconciled to the seemingly inevitable occurrence of murder.