Chapter 30 #2
“Thanks, Daisy. I’ll probably be asking you to go back over your impressions of the other incidents, but Raymond’s being the only death—”
“So far.”
“The only death, I trust. We’re concentrating on it for the moment.” Alec stood up and the others followed suit, so Daisy reluctantly accepted her dismissal and left them to their cogitations.
The all-knowing Ernest told her the kids had set up a badminton net on the lawn. Bel and Derek were teaching Ben and Frank to play. Daisy went upstairs to tell Martha that Dr. Hopcroft would call after lunch.
Sam was in their bedroom, reading poetry to Martha. She looked a bit brighter, whether because of the poems or the attention.
“John Masefield,” Sam announced cheerfully. “Lady Dalrymple recommended him. Do you know Sea Fever? It’s a cracking good poem.”
“Does it begin, ‘I must go down to the sea again’?”
“Seas, with an s.”
“Very appropriate for you, Sam. How clever of Geraldine to think of it. I always liked that one.”
“It’s pretty,” said Martha, clutching Sam’s hand, “but I don’t want you to go to sea again till the baby’s born.”
“I can’t promise, sweetheart, but I’ll do my best.”
Daisy told them about the doctor, which made Sam look anxious. He went with her to the door and whispered, “Do you think she’s really ill?”
“No, not for a minute. I just think it won’t hurt to have him take a look. Perhaps she needs a tonic or something like that.”
Satisfied, he returned to Martha’s side. Daisy went down to the garden. She waved to the badminton players, but went straight on down the lawn to the river. The comparative coolness of the air near the water made her realise how hot the day was growing.
Though the river was well below the banks, swirls and eddies in the brown torrent made it too dangerous for a small rowing boat with kids at the oars.
A narrow boat was barely making way upstream, the boatman standing in the bow with a boat hook to fend off floating branches, while his wife steered.
She waved to Daisy. The superstructure was painted with the usual cheerful, colourful roses and castles, but Daisy thought it must be a hard life.
She couldn’t imagine living in such a tiny space.
She returned to the house via the backwater. The skiff looked spruce, either undamaged or repaired earlier. Clouds of midges danced about Daisy. She fanned her face with her hand to keep them away.
The winding path through the wood, along the little stream, was shady.
Daisy peered into the brambles and nettle beds as she passed, not that she expected to spot a blade where Alec and his minions had failed.
All the same, she walked a few yards along some of the narrow paths made by rabbits and foxes and badgers, hoping to see a glint of metal.
The soft leaf mould underfoot changed to gravel when she reached the laburnum alley.
Dappled sunlight filtered through the close-woven, well-leaved vines overhead, with their dangling pods full of poisonous seeds.
She must remind Nurse never to bring the little ones here in search of a shaded place to run.
Coming to the break in the alley, with the footpath leading across the park on her left and the lawn on her right, Daisy paused before stepping out into the full sun.
This was where Vincent had been stabbed. As he left the deep gloom under the laburnums for the sunset twilight, or as he moved back into the shadowy continuation of the alley? Laurette had babbled about it but Daisy couldn’t remember.
It was really an odd place to choose for a stroll at dusk. Very little light would have penetrated the dense foliage above.
She looked about, trying to envisage exactly what had happened.
The attack must have occurred as Vincent and Laurette moved out of the shelter, as Daisy was about to now, because if the attacker had been lurking ahead, outside the laburnums, they might well have spotted him.
Vincent had been on Laurette’s left, because the cut had been on his left side.
The attacker would not risk waiting on the right, the lawn side.
At the time, Alec and Daisy had been walking there, where the kids and Frank were still busy with shuttlecock and battledore.
So Vincent was on Laurette’s left. He had heard a sound and turned towards it.…
No, he had been stabbed from behind, not from the side, not in the shoulder or upper arm. It only made sense if he had mistaken the direction of the sound and swung to his right.
Unless, perhaps, the crunch of the couple’s footsteps on the gravel had covered the sound of the attacker’s steps, and Vincent had just happened to turn slightly towards Laurette at the moment he was struck.
It wouldn’t be surprising if they had been flustered enough to persuade themselves they had heard the attacker.
The attacker was certainly not a very effective murderer. Frank? Sam? Daisy had been almost convinced of Raymond’s guilt until he became a victim. That demonstrated the peril Alec was always warning her about, of assuming someone one liked could not possibly be a villain, and vice versa.
Now the list of suspects had shortened to Sam and Frank.