Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Thursday midday. Outside, a soft, steady drizzle fell.
Alec returned to Fairacres from Worcester, having taken his prisoners there the previous evening and stayed overnight.
He had spent the morning tying up his investigation before seeing off Tom and Ernie at the station.
Tommy Pearson came with him, having travelled from London by the ten-to-one train.
Bill Truscott had fetched both of them from Worcester.
At lunch, held back half an hour as a result of Tommy’s wire announcing his coming, the lawyer had excused himself for having failed to respond to Geraldine’s urgent summons.
“I was called to prepare a client’s deathbed will at the other end of nowhere,” he said.
“A country house in northern Lincolnshire—four trains, each slower than the one before, then ten miles in a pony trap. When at last I reached the place, the old gentleman had just breathed his last. By the time I returned to town and discovered your message, Lady Dalrymple, it was far too late to set out. A thoroughly unsatisfactory business. I can only present my apologies for my tardiness.”
“You are clearly not to blame, Mr. Pearson,” Geraldine assured him.
“Thank you. And now, perhaps, someone will explain to me just what was going on here that required my presence several days early.” He looked—rather accusingly, Daisy thought—at Alec. “Fletcher has given me the barest hint.”
“No no, my dear fellow,” said Edgar. “Bad for the digestion. After lunch, if you please, we’ll have a general disclosure. I’m sure I don’t know the half of it. Would you believe I saw a Peach Blossom this morning, before the rain started?”
There was a murmur of incredulity at this news.
“August is surely an odd time for peach blossom,” Tommy observed.
“Yes, indeed. They usually fly from May to July, and sometimes again in the autumn. They like blackberry brambles,” Edgar said pointedly.
“Ah, a butterfly!” said Tommy, enlightened.
“A moth, Mr. Pearson,” Edgar gently corrected him, “and a very attractive one. Pink spots. Thyatira batis.”
Conversation was desultory as everyone tried to avoid the forbidden topic. Alec alone knew the whole story.
Daisy looked round the table, as aware of those absent as of those present: Raymond deceased; Vincent and Laurette arrested; Martha still in bed on Dr. Hopcroft’s orders, though he had pronounced her and the unborn baby out of danger; Violet, who had nobly done her part for Martha and returned exhausted to the Dower House late last night; Belinda, Derek, and Ben, who had crowed over their triumph and then moved on to more interesting pursuits.
Peach blossom was out of season, but the ripe fruit provided a peach tart, which was consumed with appreciation. Then the adults also moved on to a more interesting pursuit. Settled in the drawing room, coffee served, they looked to Edgar to start the proceedings.
His lordship ceded the chair to Scotland Yard.
“Thank you, sir.” Alec had no need to wait for their attention.
“Let me begin by saying that this case has been one of the most confusing of my experience, if not the most confusing. Some of you know one part, some another, so you’ll forgive me if I tell you much that you already know.
I’ll try to follow chronological order. The first noteworthy incident was Vincent’s report—”
Several people interrupted: “But—”
Alec held up his hand. “Vincent’s tale, if you prefer, of being attacked while strolling in the woods on Sunday afternoon. He himself said it could have been an accident, a falling bough that caused him to trip in dodging it.”
“I’ve had my bailiff and my groundsman go through the woods,” Edgar said defensively, “checking for hazardous trees and dealing with them.”
“I’m glad to hear it, sir. A falling bough may in fact have given him the notion of claiming he had an impression of someone swinging a branch at him.
Misdirection figured largely in his plan.
At any rate, there was nothing concrete enough for me to act upon, and though he limped heavily for a couple of days, with the aid of his walking stick, there was little damage done. ”
“I’ve just remembered,” said Daisy, “I noticed he walked perfectly normally when carrying a tray in the refreshment tent at the fête. And he’d been limping just a minute earlier. I forgot all about it when Belinda fell off the donkey.”
Alec frowned at her and resumed his narration. “Belinda’s fall was the second incident.”
“But Bel has nothing to do with the inheritance,” Frank protested.
“True, which muddled the issue. But Daisy and I put together some odd facts.… Ben, with a cooperative donkey, was in the lead when he suddenly lost speed. This allowed Belinda to catch up, whereupon her donkey bucked her off.”
“It doesn’t sound like the kind of beast I’d let my girls ride,” said Sam, a trifle censorious. His torso wrapped like an Egyptian mummy, shirtless under a borrowed blazer two sizes too large, he moved gingerly, but agreed with Drs. Pardoe and Hopcroft that his wound was nothing serious.
“The donkey man said it was very docile,” Daisy assured him, “only it was afraid of flashing lights. He didn’t expect any trouble in broad daylight.
Then Ben said a light had flashed in his eyes and startled him, making him unintentionally rein in his mount.
We guessed it must have been a reflection of the sun’s rays, from a mirror, perhaps.
When Ben slowed down and Bel moved ahead, it flashed in her donkey’s eyes. ”
“Again, it could well have been an accident,” Alec resumed, “though Ben’s involvement made us wonder. In a sense it was an accident, as it was not the intended victim who got the bloody nose.”
“Ben likely wouldn’t have come to much harm,” said Frank, “if he had been the one to fall.”
“Another reason for us to dismiss it as an accident. The third incident could not be so regarded, though it had the same slapdash quality. Edgar’s butterfly net was arranged near the bottom of the spiral steps to the boys’ turret room, where Derek was as likely to be tripped as Ben, and again no one was likely to be badly hurt.
What’s more, in daylight the boys would probably have spotted it before falling over it.
If not for the thunderbolt that scared them in the middle of the night, nothing at all might have come of it. ”
“I don’t understand,” Edgar said plaintively. “What did Vincent hope to gain from all this?”
“Confusion,” said Alec. “And he succeeded there. Your butterfly net couldn’t have placed itself in position, so at that point I had to start wondering seriously what was going on. And I couldn’t make sense of it.”
“I’m not surprised. What was next?”
“Raymond’s death,” Geraldine said flatly.
“You’ll find this hard to credit, but Raymond’s death was not intended. Vincent and Laurette both insist on that. Vincent claims he pushed Raymond with his stick so that he would stumble towards the tramlines, not hard enough to make him fall.”
“But he fell?” Sam asked.
“He did. A quick-thinking, quick-moving citizen helped him up but didn’t hang about to be thanked.
Vincent had already left in a hurry, of course, for fear of being recognised.
He claims Raymond had plenty of time to get out of the way of the trams, which were moving slowly.
As a matter of fact, the policeman on point duty bears him out, as does one of the tram drivers. ”
“Then what killed him?”
“A stroke—not to get into medicalese—brought on by shock.”
“Then does it count as murder?” Frank wanted to know.
“That’s not for me to decide, thank goodness. Assault, yes. Manslaughter, probably. Murder, I don’t know. It’s up to a coroner’s jury, at least initially.”
“What I still don’t get is what was all this in aid of?”
“Misdirection,” said Geraldine. “I’ve known a few boys in my time who were experts at it. The spurious stabbing of Vincent was the ultimate attempt at misdirection, I assume?”
“Yes, the fifth incident. It wasn’t until after tea yesterday that Daisy brought to my attention a number of inconsistencies that ruled it out as a real attack.
To do myself justice, I must say that I had my suspicions much earlier, but I couldn’t yet discount Sam or Frank.
I still haven’t heard from Sam’s ship, though while you were all taking tea on the terrace yesterday, I received responses at last to my enquiries in Scarborough and Paris. ”
Tommy Pearson was defensive. “I myself made extensive enquiries in both places.”
“But not, I think, of the police. The criminal propensities, if any, of prospective heirs were not your concern, nor their material circumstances, which were also of interest to me.”
“True.”
“We had just begun to study the letters from the S?reté and the Scarborough police when Dr. Pardoe, the local police surgeon, called to discuss his findings on Raymond’s death; also, truth be told, in hope of getting the whole story.
DS Piper continued reading the documents while I talked to the doctor.
In the meantime, the footman let us know that Mr. Crowley had declared his intention of walking over to the pub, so I sent one of the local constables to keep an eye on him. ”
Frank grinned. “Nice chap. He stood me a pint.”
“Then Daisy came in,” Alec continued, “with the evidence that the attack on Vincent was spurious. We had scarcely time to examine that before she rushed in again calling for Dr. Pardoe’s assistance for Mrs. Samuel.”
“Bless him!” said Sam with fervour.
“When the doctor rushed off, Piper reported to me the information from Scarborough and Paris. We—”
“What did they have to say?” Geraldine asked.
“We’ll get to that in a minute, if you don’t mind.”
“Or if I do, no doubt,” she said tartly.
Alec smiled at her. “My two sergeants and I went up to the Vincent Dalrymples’ room. On the way, acting on information from Dr. Pardoe, I sent DS Tring on an errand.”