Chapter 4
FOUR
Daisy, feeling rather green, sat at the kitchen table with Willie and Vera. Isabel had gone back to stirring her gravy. The savoury smell helped banish the sweet, sickly stink of death from Daisy’s nostrils.
“Could a badger have burrowed in?” Daisy asked. “Or a fox, perhaps?”
“Don’t think so,” said Isabel. “I only had a glimpse when the agent and Mrs. Gray showed me round the house, but I’m pretty sure the walls are bricked and the floor is stone.”
“Besides,” Vera pointed out, “if an animal could get in, it could get out by the same hole.”
Willie, her face as green as Daisy’s felt, shuddered. “Thank goodness we invited your Alec, Daisy. He’ll know what to do.”
“I suppose no one’s going to feel like sitting down to roast beef,” Isabel said regretfully.
“Oh well, it can be eaten cold, and the gravy will reheat. I can rescue the potatoes, too, and the carrots, but the Yorkshire pudding’ll be a dead loss.
Tea, everyone?” She filled and plugged in an electric kettle.
“So, let’s face it,” said Vera, her eyes filled with horror, “it’s a person. But who on earth—?”
Alec came in, opening the door as little as possible to squeeze through and closing it sharply behind him. In spite of these precautions, a nauseating whiff accompanied him. His clothes were probably permeated, Daisy thought in dismay.
“I’ve opened the side and front doors and all the downstairs windows to air the place out. I checked that all the doors upstairs are shut. I suggest you stay in here for the moment, all together. Are you on the telephone?”
“No, we’re waiting for them to connect it,” Isabel told him. “There’s a phone box just round the corner in Station Road, outside the post office. Three minutes’ walk.”
“Where’s the police station?”
“I think it’s in the Old Town.”
“Yes,” Vera confirmed. “Wycombe End, practically next door to your hotel.”
“I’ll ring, then, unless I meet your beat bobby on the way. Not rats, as you’ll have guessed.”
“Would you like one of us to go and phone?” Willie asked reluctantly.
“No, thanks, I’d better. There’s nothing to be done until the local force takes over. I haven’t attempted to relock the cellar door. I assume none of you is likely to open it.”
“No fear!” they chorussed.
“Darling, are you going to tell them you’re from Scotland Yard?”
Alec grimaced. “I’d rather not. They won’t like it.
But on the other hand, they’re pretty well bound to find out and then they’ll be offended.
Best policy is to reveal all up front.” He looked round the table.
“And that goes for you ladies, equally. They’re going to be asking you a lot of questions.
For pity’s sake, don’t hold anything back. I’m off.”
“Turn right at the gate,” Isabel directed him, “then left on Station Road and it’s on your right.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank you! And thank goodness you’re here.”
With a wave, he departed, once again letting in the horrible stench of death.
“Damn and blast!” said Daisy. Only Vera appeared slightly shocked.
“Why?” asked Isabel, making tea. “We’re the ones who are going to be interrogated. At least, I imagine it must have been there since before you even came to Beaconsfield.”
“Probably. It’s not a subject I’ve studied intensively, but considering the cool, dry conditions in the cellar, I should think it must have been there quite a while.”
“Ugh!” Willie shivered.
“But Alec found the body, so he’s a witness. He can’t possibly keep it from his superintendent, and Mr. Crane will blame me, as usual.”
“Blame you for what?” Vera demanded. “He has no reason to blame you for anything!”
“He doesn’t need a reason. Whenever I’m within a hundred miles of a case Alec’s involved with, he’s convinced I’m interfering.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fairer than you might suppose,” Willie put in a trifle maliciously.
“But never mind,” Daisy said hurriedly, to forestall any questions from the other two on the fairness or otherwise of Superintendent Crane’s strictures.
“It’s not likely Alec will have anything to do with the case, apart from giving a statement about finding the body.
The local police almost always want to run things themselves, and he can’t just butt in without being invited.
Their first question’s going to be: Who is it?
They won’t get very far without identification. Any ideas?”
“Except you, Daisy, we haven’t had any visitors since we moved in.” Isabel had been stowing away the unwanted meal in the larder. Now she came to sit with the others, pouring herself a cup of tea. “Not even the vicar, though Vera goes to church.”
“He’s a rector, not a vicar,” Vera said. “He did drop by once, one evening when you two had gone to the cinema. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t think you’d be interested. And you were so busy telling me about the films … I gave him a cup of tea. He didn’t go anywhere near the cellar door.”
“Anyway, he hasn’t gone missing,” said Willie.
“No one else has called,” Isabel continued. “I’m here most of the time.”
“Do you lock all the doors when you go out?”
“Well, no, not if I just pop round to the shops. But why would anyone come into the house uninvited?”
“To snoop,” Vera suggested. “Or burglars, of course.”
“In daylight? When I might return any moment?”
“You ought to get a watchdog,” said Daisy.
“Anyway, nothing’s gone missing and no bag of swag found lying about the house.”
“Not to mention,” said Willie, “that to get into the cellar a burglar would have to have a key—”
“Not if he had a lock pick,” Daisy pointed out, “or a picklock, or whatever it’s called. Alec easily managed with a coat hanger.”
“He’d have to have locked the door again behind him, barring his own escape route, then fallen down the stairs and broken his neck.”
“I remember the stairs being steep,” said Isabel, “but we don’t know that that’s what happened. Maybe he had a heart attack or something.”
“He’d still have had to lock the door behind himself. It doesn’t sound likely.”
“Suppose he heard me coming home,” Isabel mused, “he might have thought he could hide there until the coast was clear. Oh dear, you don’t suppose he died of asphyxiation, do you? The cellar’s supposed to be nearly airtight.”
They were all silent for a moment. A slow death from asphyxiation was much more horrible than a quick one from a broken neck or a heart attack.
Daisy broke the silence. “Do you think a burglar would try a locked cellar before ransacking the house? It doesn’t sound likely to me. If he’d collected the loot first—”
“We would have noticed stuff missing,” said Willie, “not that any of us has anything of real value.”
“There’s Vera’s grandmother’s pearls.”
“But I wear them practically every evening,” Vera pointed out. “They say pearls lose their lustre if they’re not worn. And Isabel’s silver.”
“It’s all present and correct. Besides polishing twice since we moved in, I’ve been checking it now and then to make sure none of it has wandered off with Mrs. Hedger. So far so good. She has her faults, but dishonesty doesn’t seem to be one of them.”
“And she hasn’t got a key to the cellar?” Daisy checked.
“She said Mrs. Gray never gave her one. Her duties didn’t include dusting or sweeping down there. Never set foot in it, she said, and she wouldn’t have if asked, being TT.”
“I never realised taking the pledge included refusing to dust bottles!” The others laughed, halfheartedly. Daisy went on, “It certainly sounds as if it must have happened before you moved in. How long was the house empty, do you know?”
Isabel frowned. “I’m not sure. Mrs. Hedger went on coming in to dust, so I couldn’t tell by that.
Just a few days, I think. As we bought it furnished, moving wasn’t a major upheaval for either Mrs. Gray or us.
Once Willie had everything sorted out with the solicitor, the house agent, Mr. Vaughn, told us we could move in anytime after the first.”
“You dealt with the lawyer, Willie?”
“Most of the business. We all had to sign the papers, of course. But I learnt a bit of law in my last job, some of it relating to conveyancing.”
“I hope he treated you professional to professional.”
“He wasn’t too bad.”
“What about Vaughn? Was he properly respectful of your eminence?”
“I had very little to do with him,” said Willie, tight-lipped. Daisy had a feeling she had wanted to say, “as little as possible.”
Isabel said, “Not my cup of tea but he was all right. A bit too polite, if anything; smarmy, especially towards Mrs. Gray.”
“Well, presumably she was paying him a commission,” Daisy pointed out. “And he hoped to sell you a house. I expect it’s a job that calls for a bit of smarm.”
Isabel and Vera laughed, then Vera said guiltily, “We shouldn’t be laughing. What if the police arrived and heard us?”
“I wish they’d hurry,” said Willie.
* * *
Meanwhile, as Alec hurried up Orchard Road and crossed Station Road to the telephone box, he was in two minds as to whether to ring the Beaconsfield police, probably a sergeant and a couple of bobbies, or county HQ.
Also, since sooner or later he’d have to reveal his credentials, should he do so at once, on the telephone, or wait until he spoke in person to a detective?
It wouldn’t make much difference in the end. Some local coppers were happy to have help from Scotland Yard, official or unofficial. Some bitterly resented the implication that they couldn’t cope on their own. Might as well tell them right away.
He’d better not disgruntle the local bobby by going over his head, he decided. He asked the operator for the Beaconsfield police station.
“Inspector Neal’s on holiday, sir. Sergeant Harris is in charge. He’ll be at home, this time of day.”
“This is urgent. If he’s on duty, or even if he’s off, come to that, I don’t care where he is.”
“Yes, sir.”
A woman answered the phone. Alec asked for Sergeant Harris.
“He’s just sat down to his dinner,” she said crossly.
“I’m afraid it’s urgent, madam.”
The next sound that came to Alec’s ear was a repressed belch. His own stomach rumbled sympathetically and he thought with longing of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
“Now then,” Harris grumbled, “what’s so urgent a man can’t be let to eat his dinner in peace?”
“A body, Sergeant.”
The ensuing pause somehow conveyed disbelief rather than shock. After a few seconds the voice came laden with suspicion. “And who might this be as I’m speaking to?”
“My name is Fletcher, Alec Fletcher. As it happens, I’m a … an officer with the Metropolitan Police.” No need to announce his rank nor to mention Scotland Yard. “Let me make it clear: I’m not on duty. My wife and I are visiting friends. It’s pure chance that it was I who discovered the deceased.”
“Pure chance, was it, sir? Just where exactly was you when pure chance led you to this dead man?”
“Woman.” Alec was beginning to feel as if he’d swapped r?les with Daisy. She had more than once complained of scepticism on the part of authorities when she dutifully reported having happened upon a body.
“Ho, a woman, eh? And I s’pose you’re going to tell me you’ve never seen her before in your life.”
“I think it extremely unlikely that I’ve ever seen her before, far less made her acquaintance. But in the circumstances, it’s impossible to make a positive statement either way. Perhaps you’d better come and see for yourself.”
“I’ll do that, sir, and you just stay put till I get there, if you please.”
“That wouldn’t be much use to you, Sergeant. I’m in a telephone box on Station Road.”
Heavy breathing. “And where, sir,” said Harris, “if so be you don’t mind me asking, did you leave the corpse?”
“Where I found it. In the wine cellar at Cherry Tree House—no, just plain Cherry Trees. Orchard Road.”
“Cherry Trees. New people. Three old maids, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think they’d appreciate that description. I’m going back to the house now. I’ll see you there shortly.”
Striding back up Orchard Road, he hoped the foul stink had cleared from the house.
It would inevitably return when Sergeant Harris opened the cellar door, but with all the room doors in the house closed, and side and front doors left open, the worst of its impact should be avoided.
Alec was quite looking forward to the moment when the stench hit the nostrils of the obnoxious sergeant.
Still, as Alec would have been quick to point out to Daisy, the man was just doing his job. And he’d been called out in the middle of his Sunday dinner, not a bad excuse for grumpiness.
A whiff of rotting flesh reached Alec when he was halfway up the garden path. Emanating from the open front door, it was unpleasant but bearable. No doubt it was worse in the house still. He didn’t want to ask the women to open the kitchen door.
He stopped and studied the house. The kitchen was on the northwest corner. He walked over to the small, wide-open window framed by blue gingham curtains.
The odour coming from it was mostly roast beef. His stomach rumbled again.
Voices cut off as he tapped on the glass. He heard a clink of china, as if someone had set down a cup on a saucer with a shaky hand.
“Hello?”
“Alec?” Daisy came to the window and peered out, holding back the curtain. “You gave us a shock! Aren’t you coming in?”
“I’ll wait in front for Sergeant Harris and bring him round to the side door. You ladies can stay put in the kitchen with the door closed, for the present.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we all left now, darling? Presumably the sergeant will open the cellar door again, and that foul smell will return to full strength.”
“He’s going to want to talk to you.”
“Of course. Which will mean opening the kitchen door to the stink, unless we decamp to the Saracen. He can talk to us there. Here, we’d be gagging and choking.”
“It’s a point. You’d better hurry, he should be here any minute. Take the car and go round by Station Road, and with a bit of luck you’ll miss him. He won’t be happy, but I’ll make your excuses.”
“Unless he has the most appalling case of catarrh, he’ll be as happy to get out of here as we will.” She turned away. “Come along, girls, we’re hopping it.”