Chapter Twenty-Eight
TWENTY-EIGHT
Daisy drove straight from Liverpool Street to Lucy’s. Her ladyship was expecting her and she was ushered directly to her ladyship’s boudoir.
“I’m out to anyone else, Galloway,” she told the butler. “Sit down, darling, have a cup of coffee, and tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Whatever it is you’re being mysterious about,” Lucy said impatiently.
“I wasn’t being mysterious! I haven’t even spoken to you today.”
“You’ve been mysterious for a week, darling, and Galloway said you sounded positively urgent when you rang up earlier.”
“I did not sound urgent! So unladylike.”
“As if you ever cared about that, Daisy. It has to be something about Teddy. Come on, you came here to tell me so tell me.”
Daisy laughed. “It is, but a question not a report.”
“I told you I’ve steered clear of Teddy for years.”
“It’s not so much about him as one of Alec’s suspects—”
“Did Alec send you?”
“Heavens no. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“No. I would have had to explain and he’d have insisted on asking you himself, and you’d have been difficult and set his back up. It seemed easier just to come and ask you myself.”
“You’re not still expecting me to go to an artsy party with you, I trust.”
“No,” Daisy said regretfully. “It’s too late for that.”
“Ask away, then, though I can’t imagine what you think I might know.”
“Darling, you have the peerage at your fingertips.”
“So does Debrett’s. Why doesn’t Alec look it up?”
“I knew you were going to be difficult. He hasn’t got the whole name, nor the rank, so looking it up in an alphabet-based book would take forever and a day.
What’s known is the second part of the hyphenated family name, which is Clark, with or without an E, and the nickname of a younger son, Ricky, who’s not much above twenty. ”
“Honestly, darling, you can’t expect me to know all the nicknames of all the younger offshoots!”
“I don’t. Stick to hyphen-Clark.”
“Pour me another cup, will you. Hyphen-Clark? That would be Wrexham-Clarke with an E, Lord Ledborough. He’s about our age, I think, crocked up in the war and never seen in town.
I can’t remember his christian name and I don’t know the younger brother’s, though Richard would be the obvious answer.
Gerald has a Peerage in his study. Shall I send Galloway for it? ”
“Don’t bother. The names you’ve given me will be enough for Alec. I’m sure they have Debrett’s at the Yard.” Daisy glanced round the room. “You haven’t got a copy here? Your favourite reading material?”
“Don’t be sarky, darling, it doesn’t suit you. My knowledge comes from people, not books. Mostly. Do you want to ring Alec and tell him? There’s a phone on my desk.”
“Yes, I’d better. When he’s not telling me off for acquiring information, he’s castigating me for not passing it on immediately.”
The desk was an eighteenth-century drop-front, inlaid with beautiful marquetry in a lighter wood. A very modern telephone perched incongruously on top. Daisy asked for Scotland Yard and was put through at once.
Alec was out. Mackinnon took her call.
“Good morning, Mrs. Fletcher. What can I do for you?”
“Good morning, Inspector. You’re back from Yorkshire.”
“Aye. I came back yesterday but I had division business to catch up with, so now I’m catching up with the reports here.”
In view of his unexpected chattiness, doubtless prompted by boredom with endless reports, Daisy ventured to say, “May I enquire…?”
“Miss Angela Devenish?”
“Yes.”
“She’s off the hook. Her presence at the kennels all that day is vouched for by her assistant, her volunteer helpers, and the dogs.”
Daisy laughed. “Thank goodness.”
“If that’s all—”
“It’s not actually what I rang about. I don’t know if you’ve got to the report about Ricky hyphen-Clark yet?”
“I have.”
“Good. I’ve discovered his complete last name. It’s—”
“Just a moment, let me find my notebook among all these papers. All right, go ahead, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“It’s Wrexham-Clarke.” She spelled the first part. “And Clarke with an E. My informant doesn’t know his christian name, but that will be easy to find now. His brother is Lord Ledborough.”
“Thank you. Your informant was Lady Gerald Bincombe?”
“Yes, how did you guess?”
“The Chief Inspector was going to consult her ladyship if we hadn’t found the information by other means before tomorrow.”
So she had spared Lucy and Alec an interview that would certainly have brought out the caustic side of each. She had also been spared a lecture from Alec for meddling.
She said good-bye to Mackinnon and hung up. “Alec was bracing himself to tackle you about Wrexham-Clarke, darling. Now he doesn’t need to.”
“He’ll probably find some other reason to harass me.”
“DI Mackinnon says your cousin Angela is in the clear.”
“They thought Angela might have bumped off her brother?” Lucy said incredulously.
“They had to consider it. She gets all Teddy’s money. Which I’m sure I shouldn’t have told you so keep quiet about it. May I give Sakari a quick ring?”
“Of course.”
Sakari suggested half past three to go to the jeweller’s and Daisy agreed. Ringing off, she told Lucy about having her aquamarines reset by the Zverevs. She didn’t mention their connection with Teddy, but Lucy was interested in the quality of their work.
“I had a Victorian ruby ring reset and I wasn’t at all happy with the result. You must show me your necklace when it’s done and perhaps I’ll see what they make of the ring.”
“Miss Zvereva wears a lot of rings. You can probably look at them and know whether you want to try the firm. The goldsmith himself worked for Fabergé.”
“That’s promising, if it’s true.”
“Oh! I hadn’t considered that it might not be, though I did wonder if her father is really a prince.”
“Darling, how na?ve, and you an amateur detective!”
“Don’t let Alec hear you say that,” Daisy retorted absently.
Was she na?ve, as she had accused Phillip of being? If the Zverevs were lying about the princely title and about the goldsmith’s credentials, what else might they be lying about?
* * *
With Ernie Piper as his navigator and good roads all the way, Alec reached Saxonfield, the Devenish estate near Market Harborough, just before noon.
He turned in between the two wrought-iron gates, standing open.
The gravelled drive ran slightly uphill between an avenue of lime trees with pale new leaves.
The park on either side was beautifully kept, grazed by recently sheared sheep, fat despite their near nakedness, and woolly lambs.
At the top of the rise stood a large, foursquare Georgian house, its red brick almost hidden by the fresh foliage of Virginia creeper.
Sir James’s ancestors had not indulged in the expensive frivolity of a pillared portico.
To all appearances, generations of squires had husbanded the land on which they no doubt hunted, shot, and fished, as did their present descendant.
In fact, Saxonfield shouted a worthy prosperity. Whatever their problems in the way of rebellious offspring, in spite of death duties and income taxes, the Devenishes were very well-off.
Alec parked the Austin Twelve on the sweep in front of the house. As soon as he turned off the motor, a chorus of bays could be heard from somewhere behind a screen of evergreens off to the right.
“Foxhounds,” said Piper with a shudder. He was a townsman through and through. “I’m glad I’m not a fox.”
“You’d rather be a lamb? A clean but certain death at a young age or the chance of a grisly death when you can’t run and dodge as fast as you used to.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to choose. There’s Sir James, Chief, coming round the corner.”
They both recognised the baronet from a previous case.
A large man, red-faced and bristly moustached, at sixty or thereabouts he was running a little to fat about the midriff but still vigorous, as his stride attested.
He wore boots, breeches, and an old tweed jacket, with an ancient cap of a different tweed.
The sheepdog at his side barked once, alerting him to strangers.
“Down, Shep.” Shep lay down and fixed his commanding gaze on Alec and Piper, clearly ready to herd them if they strayed. “Mr. Fletcher?” The squire’s gaze was equally commanding. “Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher? They told me you were coming. We’ve met before, I believe.”
“On another distressing occasion, I’m afraid, sir.”
“A pretty idea of my family you must have!” he said bitterly. “I won’t ask— But come indoors. We can’t talk here. Come, Shep.”
He led them into the house, straight across a high-ceilinged hall, along a passage, down a few steps, to a room obviously in use as an estate office.
The window looked out to a cobbled yard with stables on two sides, one side in use as garages in this age of internal combustion, the other still occupied by horses.
On one wall hung a map of the estate and detailed plans of three farms to a larger scale.
Sir James motioned them to chairs, backs to the window, and sat behind his desk. Having demanded Alec’s presence, he sat in silence, staring down at his brown, sinewy hands, laid flat on the scratched and battered desktop.
“Sir, you said outside you wouldn’t ask … something. Do you care to complete the sentence?”
The hands clenched. “I wasn’t going to ask what my son did to provoke someone to kill him. But I need to know. Was it—one of his stupid practical jokes taken too far?”
“We don’t know for sure. When we find out who, we’ll find out why.
Sometimes it’s the other way round, but in this case we have a large number of people whom Mr. Devenish had offended in one way or another.
Often trivial-seeming, but what looks trivial to an outsider can be of desperate significance to the person concerned. ”
“I see,” the baronet said heavily.