Chapter 27 #2
“Alec and Ernest will get him inside where we can see. It’s no good fumbling in the dark.”
Geraldine looked up as they went through the French doors. She jumped up, dropping her knitting, as the men appeared on the threshold. “What now?” she asked, in a long-suffering voice. It must be very trying to have guests so prone to dramatic upsets.
“Vincent was attacked,” said Daisy. “He doesn’t seem to be badly hurt.”
Vincent sank limply into the nearest chair, with a slight moan. Laurette started chafing his hand, to what end Daisy wasn’t sure.
“Where are Sam and Crowley?” Alec asked sharply.
“Frank quietly sloped off,” Geraldine said. “I assumed to the public house.”
“I told him not to go there this evening,” Daisy put in. “I said it wouldn’t look good after Raymond’s demise. He’s probably in the billiard room.”
“Ernest, go and check, please. And Sam?”
“Martha felt unwell. Too much excitement, I expect. Naturally Samuel went with her to help her up the stairs.”
“Naturally.” Alec sighed. “Vincent, your injury must be examined. Can you make it upstairs?”
“I don’t think so,” Vincent said in a failing voice.
“We’ll take a look at once, right here.” Geraldine’s no-nonsense manner reduced them all to schoolchildren. She advanced on Vincent, who couldn’t repress an instinct to cower slightly. Holding out her hand to Alec, she said, “You have a clean handkerchief?”
He handed over a large white linen square. “I’ll help Vincent take off his jacket.”
“Unhurt side first,” Geraldine directed.
They bent over their reluctant patient, Laurette hovering with little cries of distress.
Frank Crowley came in, his face lighting with interest as he observed the scene. Behind him came Ernest.
“What happened?” Frank asked Daisy.
“Vincent’s hurt.”
“Badly?”
“I don’t know.” She turned to Ernest. “You’d better bring water and a couple of towels, and brandy. Sticking plaster, bandages, lint, I don’t know.…”
“There’s a slash in your jacket,” said Alec, “a clean cut. Must have been made by a pretty sharp blade.”
“How lucky that you turned quickly, Vincent!” Laurette’s English improved as her distress calmed.
“Very little blood on your shirt,” Geraldine assured him. “We can lengthen the slit, or cut the shirt off you, or just take it off if it’s not too painful.”
“Take it off carefully,” said Laurette, the thrifty Frenchwoman. “I shall wash and mend it.”
“Nonsense. One of the maids can do it, and we’ll replace both shirt and jacket as soon as possible.”
Alec, now with Frank’s assistance, eased Vincent out of his shirt.
“It’s barely a scratch.” Frank was a trifle contemptuous. “What happened?”
“Someone jumped out of the bush and attacked him,” Laurette snapped. “He suffers from the shock. I suffer from the shock. You are not sympathetic.” She stared at him suspiciously. “Where were you?”
“Playing billiards against myself.”
Lowecroft came in with a decanter of brandy, followed by Ernest, his arms laden with first-aid supplies. Alec and Frank moved back to let Geraldine and Laurette minister to the sufferer.
Alec had appropriated Vincent’s shirt and jacket. He handed them to Daisy. “Look after his clothes, will you, love? Don’t let anyone start laundering or mending. I must go and hunt for the weapon.” He raised his voice. “Ernest!”
“Yes, sir?” The footman joined them.
“Find me a torch, please. You’d better get one for yourself, too, and come and help me.”
“At once, sir.” Ernest’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Mr. Crowley was in the billiard room all right, sir, but there’s no knowing how long he’d been there before I saw him.” He hurried off.
“He’s willing enough—”
“Eager!” said Daisy.
“But I need Tom and Ernie.”
“Surely the Super will send them down now, after this.”
“I hope so. Daisy, I’d like to be sure Sam is with Martha.…”
“Right away, Chief. I’ll put Vincent’s clothes in our room and then pop in to see Martha.”
“You’d better take the papers as well.”
Coming in supporting Vincent, Alec had dumped the document case on a small table near the French windows. Frank had noticed it and stood contemplating the Worcester police insignia and CONFIDENTIAL stamp, eyebrows raised, hands in pockets, whistling softly, tunelessly, to himself.
“Excuse me,” said Daisy, “I have instructions to remove that.”
“Scotland Yard taking charge, eh? I must say it was a bit of a shock finding out we have a copper among us!”
Shock, rather than mere surprise, Daisy noted. But he smiled when he said it. She smiled in return and picked up the case. It was heavier than she expected.
“Let me carry that for you. I want to go up and make sure Ben hasn’t been attacked by a homicidal maniac. An incompetent one.”
Not being in the running to inherit Fairacres, Daisy had no qualms about her personal safety. She caught Alec’s eye and waved to him, so that Frank was aware that pinching the reports from her would immediately make him the focus of suspicion.
“I assume I’m a suspect,” he said as they crossed the hall.
“I’m afraid so.”
“I can’t say it wouldn’t be nice to have a rich stepson, or even just to have the kids off my hands without having to worry about them. But not nice enough to risk the gallows for.”
“Alec will take that into account, of course.”
“So he’s officially investigating the poor old b—fellow’s death? Raymond’s, I mean?”
“He was unofficially looking into that. It may well turn out to have been an accident. But now that Vincent has been attacked…”
“For the second time?”
“I don’t know. And I’d better not talk about all this or I’ll say something Alec wants kept quiet. Ben’s in the nurseries, according to Ernest. The three of them are playing cards.”
Frank grinned. “That sounds safe enough, as Ben hasn’t got a penny to gamble with. Not to mention Mrs. Gilpin’s eagle eye.”
“You’ve fallen afoul of Nurse Gilpin, have you?”
“She didn’t like me calling Belinda Bel. ‘That’s Miss Belinda to you,’ she said, very toffee-nosed.”
“Oh dear, I’m sorry.”
“Not to worry. I’m careful to call her Miss Belinda in the nursery. And Bel elsewhere. She and young Derek have been absolute bricks, as Derek would say, to Ben. Almost everyone here has been very kind and accepting—”
“Almost?”
“Except Vincent and Mrs. Vincent, who are just snooty, and the late, unlamented Raymond, who passed some nasty remarks about the horror of being related to a kaffir. I was angry, but things are different in South Africa from at home, and I wouldn’t kill him for being an ignorant bigot.
Do you or your husband think Ben is in danger? ”
“It’s possible. I was on my way up to check on them when Alec lumbered me with this stuff. I wonder how many people know he has a brother at home?”
“I see what you mean,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t recall talking about Jacques to anyone. Maybe mentioning more young ’uns at home but nothing more specific. You reckon it’d be a good idea to make sure everyone hears about him?”
“It can’t hurt. If we can come up with a way to encourage Ben and the others to talk about him, without alarming them … His name is Jack?”
“Jacques, the French name. We’re a mixed bunch in Trinidad.”
They reached Daisy’s room. Frank handed over the documents and went on.
Daisy bunged Vincent’s slashed clothes into the bottom of the wardrobe, pushing them to the back, and stuffed the case of papers into one of Alec’s drawers, under his socks, vests, and pants.
Then she went to Martha’s room. Knocking, she hoped she wasn’t interrupting an intimate reunion.
To her relief, Geraldine’s maid came to the door.
“Oh, it’s you, madam. I’m just helping Mrs. Samuel get herself to bed. She’s fair exhausted what with all the excitement.”
“Mr. Samuel isn’t here?”
“No, madam. He stopped while she drank her tea—not that it’s what I’d call tea, that nasty stuff Mrs. Warden sent up.
When I came along according to her ladyship’s instructions, to see if Mrs. Samuel could do with a helping hand, Mr. Samuel said he was going to look for the nurseries to meet the rest of his new relations.
So I told him how to get there, seeing it’s confusing what with all the passages and stairs and whatnot. I’m sure I hope I did right, madam.”
Having reassured her and sent a “sweet dreams” message to Martha, Daisy followed in Sam and Frank’s footsteps up to the nursery.
Had Sam gone straight there after leaving Martha, or had he sneaked out and stuck a knife into Vincent, then dashed back?
It would be hard to do without someone noticing, at least hearing hurried footsteps on the stairs, even in this solidly built house.
How long had the maid been with Martha? Small chance of either having noticed the time!
Frank, alone in the billiard room on the ground floor, would have found it much easier to manage the attack unseen and unheard. The attack on Raymond also would have been much more difficult for Sam than for Frank.
If Raymond had been attacked …
Alec badly needed competent colleagues to help him find out who was where when.