Chapter Four
FOUR
Daisy and Sakari stepped out of the Byzantine Court into the nave.
“My favourite so far,” said Daisy. “Though the Alhambra Court is wonderful too. I love all that intricate decoration, and so colourful. All so different from anything one sees in this country, or in museums. I’m looking forward to the Indian displays.”
“They are very skimpy, Daisy. What there is, we will see after lunch. At present we should go to the rendezvous. I see your nursery maid and the twins by the fountain.”
Miranda and Oliver leaned on the rim, dabbling their hands in the water, apparently unaware of the abundant bosoms looming over their curly heads, one dark, one as red as Belinda’s.
“Don’t splash, Miss Miranda,” said Bertha. “It’s cold outside. You won’t like having wet clothes.” She cast an anxious look backwards and saw Daisy. “Oh, madam, I’m that glad you’ve come. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You seem to me to be doing very well. Where’s Nurse?”
“That’s just it, madam. I don’t know where she’s got to, I’m sure.”
“She didn’t tell you where she was going?”
“Oh yes, madam. Master Oliver, there’s no need for you to copy your sister. You can’t reach the farthings you threw in, not anyhow. Come away from the water now.”
The children obeyed, at last noticing and succumbing to the rival charms of their mother. “Hello, chickies!” They embraced her legs as she asked, “Well, Bertha, where? Where did Mrs. Gilpin go?”
Turning pink, Bertha glanced round and whispered, “To the ladies’ convenience, madam. Ever such a long time ago.”
“I daresay she’s not feeling well.”
“She didn’t say, madam. I thought she was just going to spend a penny.”
Daisy frowned. “I’d better go and see. Sakari—”
“But of course, Daisy, I will stay with the little ones.”
“It’s over there, madam, behind the heathen place, Mrs. Gilpin said.”
“The heathen…? Oh, the Alhambra Court. Thank you, Bertha. You stay here with Mrs. Prasad and the twins. I’ll send for you if I need your help. Miss Belinda and the boys should be along any minute, and Mr. and Mrs. Tring.”
Daisy hurried off, taking a quick detour through the splendours of the Mohammedan palace.
In contrast, the ladies’ room—or rather rooms—were frightfully Victorian.
The anteroom, doubtless known in its heyday as the retiring chamber, had flocked wallpaper in a pink that was obviously faded from crimson.
Plush, overstuffed horsehair chairs and sofas with sagging seats no longer offered weary sightseers a comfortable repose.
Daisy wasn’t surprised to see no one had taken advantage of their invitation.
A faint but pervasive odour of Jeyes Fluid was an additional deterrent.
But if not resting with her feet up, where was Nurse Gilpin? It wasn’t at all like her to entrust the twins to Bertha’s sole supervision for so long. She was nothing if not reliable.
Between the outer room and the inner was a sort of cubbyhole or closet.
There lurked an attendant, ready to pop out with an offer of a clean towel for sixpence for anyone who looked askance at the common roller towel.
Such at least was the usual practice. Daisy found an aged crone in a shapeless black dress and cardigan, nodding on her stool, who started awake when addressed.
“Towel, madam?” She peered through bleary eyes.
“No, thank you. Did you notice a nanny in here this morning? A nursery nurse?”
“Nannies? There was a bunch of ’em come in. Odd, I thought. We don’t get many ’ere, not in uniforms, anyways. Not many of anyone. They mostly go the other end, near the restrongs.”
“A bunch? How many?”
“I dunno, madam. Three or four mebbe.”
“And did they all leave again?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say. It’s not my job to count people in and out. Though why anyone’d want to stop in there longer’n they need—”
“No, I suppose not.” Daisy didn’t bother to explain. “I’ll just check.”
The “ladies’ conveniences” were a reminder that high society as well as hoi polloi had once frequented the Crystal Palace.
The walls were hygienic white tile but the hand basins were marble and the screen concealing the lavatories was mahogany.
The doors to the cubicles, wide enough to accommodate crinolines and bustles, were also mahogany, with frosted glass panels.
They swung inwards, a luxurious waste of space the average modern public convenience couldn’t afford.
Daisy walked along the row at a distance that allowed her to read the VACANT/ENGAGED signs without, she hoped, looking nosy if anyone came in.
All read VACANT except the farthest from the entrance. She moved closer and said in a low but urgent voice, “Mrs. Gilpin? Are you there?”
No answer. No sound but the gurgling of plumbing.
The doors were pretty solid, made to muffle indelicate sounds emitted by Victorian ladies.
Daisy took another step forward. She was about to speak when she noticed that the door wasn’t properly closed.
Though the latch was turned to “occupied,” the bolt was resting against the jamb, not in its socket, leaving the door just a crack ajar.
“Mrs. Gilpin?” Pause. “Is anyone there?” Still no response.
Daisy’s suppressed irritation gave way to alarm. Slowly she pushed the door a few inches, till she saw a corner of striped skirt.
“Nanny!”
No indignant squawk followed her intrusion so she swung the door all the way open.
The figure sat on the old-fashioned bench seat, slumped against the wall in the corner of the cubicle, her cape crumpled about her.
Her face was half-hidden by her hat, and the light was poor, just what the mirrors in the room beyond reflected through the doorway.
Daisy could see, however, that the hat was not Mrs. Gilpin’s.
It appeared to have been knocked forwards when she fell backwards, disarranging her hair.
Or rather, the poor woman appeared to be wearing a wig.
The hat was attached by a pearl-headed hat pin, so when the hat slipped it took the wig with it, exposing her ear and the side of her neck above the collar of her dress.
And that was the best place to check her pulse, as she was wearing tight gloves that looked difficult to take off. Daisy stripped off her own right glove and pressed two fingers to a likely spot on the nurse’s pale neck.
The skin was warm, but she couldn’t find a pulse. Either the woman was dead, or Daisy was touching the wrong place. She was not very good at finding pulses, even her own. She shifted her fingertips. Still nothing.
Whether the nurse was dead or just ill, she would have to be moved. She was too hefty for Daisy to shift her singlehanded, not to mention that the floor of the ladies’ room hardly seemed a suitable place to lay her. The dim attendant wouldn’t be much help. Tom Tring was the person she needed.
Especially if the nurse was dead. She hadn’t stirred since Daisy’s arrival on the scene.
In the meantime, where was Nanny Gilpin? If she hadn’t gone astray, Daisy wouldn’t have found herself unwillingly involved with this stranger.
In which case the unfortunate woman might have remained undiscovered for hours.
Stepping out of the cubicle, Daisy sighed.
On the whole, she couldn’t regret having turned up, since her arrival might save a life.
However, she could imagine all too easily what Alec would say if she once again inadvertently got herself mixed up in a suspicious death. And as for Superintendent Crane …
But he was on the brink of retirement, and Alec was quite likely to step into his shoes.
In any case it didn’t make any difference to what she had to do.
“Towel, madam?” offered the attendant as she approached.
“No, thanks.”
“Oh, it’s you, deary. Find the nanny, did you?”
“Not the one I was looking for, but a different one. I’m afraid she’s very ill.”
“Deary me!”
“I have to go and get help, and you must keep everyone out. Have you got a key to this door?”
“That I don’t. Never been no need to lock it,” the old woman said, puzzled.
“Don’t you want to keep people out when you mop the floor?”
“I just puts out me sign, WET FLOOR KEEP OUT.”
“Oh, well, that will do. Put it out now, please.”
“Is the floor wet, then?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“The police will be coming.”
“The perlice? What for?”
Obtuse, not argumentative, Daisy decided. In her most authoritative voice she said, “Put the sign up now, Mrs.… I don’t know your name?”
“Mrs. ’Atch, and ’as bin these fifty year.”
“All right, Mrs. Hatch. I’ll be back in just a minute with the police.” Looking back from the door to the passage, she saw the attendant struggling with a folding wooden notice board.
She hurried on to the fountain. The Trings had joined Sakari, Bertha, and the twins, but there was no sign of the older children. Belinda was usually very punctual. She had the boys to shepherd, of course, but this was a bad moment to go missing. Someone would have to wait here for them.
No sign of Mrs. Gilpin, either. It was too bad of her!
Truscott would arrive any minute to chauffeur the twins back to Hampstead.
Miranda and Oliver were tired and growing fractious, splashing water at each other despite Bertha’s admonitions.
They ought to go home, not to wait about for their nurse.
Though the nursery maid could manage them in the car, a responsible adult ought to see that they reached the car and got into it.
Tom Tring came to meet her. “Trouble, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“I’m afraid so, Tom.”
“In the ladies’ room? Could be ticklish. I’m not on the force anymore, remember.”