Chapter 31 #2
And while on the subject of comfort, it was past time she changed out of the skirt and blouse she had been wearing all day.
She had a sleeveless linen frock, a pretty blue-and-green pattern, that would be cool and suitable for dinner, as they weren’t dressing.
It was sure to be creased, though. Changing course, she made for her and Alec’s room, to get it out and ring for a maid to iron it.
The frock was at the back of the wardrobe. As she reached down the coat hanger, she noticed in the corner below it Vincent’s slashed shirt and jacket, roughly folded, where she had deposited them.
Had Alec forgotten them, amidst the flood of information he was collecting?
Abandoning the frock, she took them out and draped them over the back of a cane chair.
In his haste to go and look for the weapon, he had given them only a cursory examination.
Perhaps she could find something significant about them and worm her way back into the case.
She fetched a matching chair and set it side by side with the first, then dressed them, one in the shirt, one in the jacket. She looked. She frowned.
It was no good saying it couldn’t have happened, because clearly it had happened.
Therefore it was not impossible. But she couldn’t understand how a single blow could have caused both cuts.
The one in the jacket was just under the armpit, barely missing the seam.
The rent in the shirt, spotted with blood that Daisy carefully avoided touching, was considerably longer, lower down, and further back, matching the graze on Vincent’s back.
Daisy tried to picture the sequence of events that could have produced this result, and failed. It just wasn’t possible.
She had to tell Alec at once. It was not just a ploy to insinuate herself into the investigation.
She took the jacket off the chair—and in doing so noticed a nick in the artificial silk lining, high up inside the front of the sleeve, just where a blade entering from the back would catch it—if no arm was in the way.
With the shirt folded inside the jacket, cuts hidden, down the stairs she trudged again. After all this exercise, she ought to be slim enough to please even Lucy. In the hall she met the ubiquitous Ernest.
“Is Mr. Fletcher still in the study?” she asked. “Is anyone with him at present?”
“Yes, madam, and no, not if you mean any of them you might call suspects. There’s a Dr. Pardoe, him that came to take a look at Mr. Raymond in the garage.” He gave Vincent’s jacket a knowing glance but didn’t comment.
Daisy knocked on the study door and went in without waiting to be invited. Alec, sitting at the desk as usual, looked up in annoyance. Tom, Ernie, and the doctor stood up.
Alec rose likewise, saying, “Daisy, what—”
“Look!” She held up the clothes. “Vincent’s, that he was wearing when—”
“All right, I’d forgotten them,” he admitted. He took the bundle from her. “Tom and Ernie haven’t seen them. We’ll take a look,” he said dismissively. “Thanks.”
“Alec, it simply can’t have happened they way they told us. In fact, it can’t have happened at all. The attack on Vincent, I mean. Their story was cut out of whole cloth, in more senses than one.”
He exchanged glances with Tom and Ernie. “Daisy, I said we’d take care of it. Leave it to us, will you? And don’t for pity’s sake talk about it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” As an exit line, it could have been bettered, but it would do. Daisy duly made her exit. If they needed her to explain the evidence to them, they could jolly well come and find her.
She still hadn’t dealt with the frock she wanted to wear. Hot and sticky, she plodded up the stairs yet again.
On her way to the bedroom, she had to pass Martha’s room. She decided to pop in to say hello to Violet and see how things were going. When she knocked, to her surprise she heard rapid footsteps coming towards the door.
“Come in!” Vi sounded desperate. She flung the door open before Daisy could turn the knob.
“At last—Oh, Daisy! I rang for a maid. Thank heaven you’re here.
Martha’s bleeding and having cramps.” She laid her hand on her abdomen.
“Like contractions. I’m afraid.… Please, please, go and ring the doctor! ”
“Of course, darling. Right away.”
“I want Sammy!” Martha’s wail followed Daisy.
This time she ran, sliding her hand down the banisters to keep her balance.
Halfway down the second flight, she remembered Dr. Pardoe’s presence.
A doctor in the house was worth two in Upton, she thought, slightly hysterical.
Dr. Pardoe was the police surgeon and pathologist, but presumably he knew a bit about difficult pregnancies as well as dead bodies.
She sped to Edgar’s den and burst in without knocking. “Dr. Pardoe, I’m afraid my cousin Martha is having a miscarriage. Will you please come quickly!”
“I’m not really … But of course I’ll come. Have someone fetch my bag from my car, and you’d better ring up her GP. Symptoms?” he queried, following Daisy from the room.
“Bleeding and cramps. I don’t know how bad. My sister is with her.”
When they reached the entrance hall, a maid was scurrying down the stairs, looking frightened. Daisy told her to show Dr. Pardoe to Mrs. Samuel’s room.
By then Ernest had appeared. “Go and get the doctor’s bag from his car,” Daisy directed, “and take it to him.”
“At once, madam.”
“Half a mo, do you know where Mr. Samuel is?”
“He said just a minute ago he was going down to the river, madam, to try for a breath of cooler air.”
“Thanks. Be quick now.”
He dashed off.
The operator put Daisy through to Dr. Hopcroft right away.
He was in the middle of his evening surgery, but he said he had only a couple of patients waiting, neither of whom he expected to occupy him for more than a few minutes.
“Then I’ll come straight to Fairacres,” he promised, “though I have every confidence in Dr. Pardoe.”
Hoping that was true, not just professional courtesy, Daisy went to look for Sam.
No one in the drawing room, no one on the terrace. Entering the alley, she could see all the way to the end: no sign of Sam. As she entered the wood the path curved and at last, through the trees, she glimpsed movement.
“Sam!” she called. There was no response, but she was breathless and the trees and undergrowth were in between. Sam—or whoever it was—might not have heard her.
Panting, she rounded the bend. Ahead, just about to disappear round the next bend, was a man’s back.
Daisy drew a deep breath so that this time he’d hear her. Before she could shout, a figure darted out of the bushes. From the woods came a yell: “Uncle Sam!”
A stray ray of sun glinted on a knife blade as it rose and fell. The second man plunged back into the bushes. The first man cried out and fell, face down.
Sam—villain or victim? Daisy ran.