Chapter Twenty-Nine
TWENTY-NINE
Daisy drove down Hampstead Hill to St. John’s Wood.
Sakari was ready for her, bright eyed after her postprandial nap.
She was wearing a particularly fetching sari, turquoise figured with black and gold.
Daisy admired it as her friend struggled, with the aid of her turbaned footman, into a very English coat.
“Yes, is it not a pretty colour? It is new.” Sakari sighed. “My husband says it is the last new sari I may buy unless I lose some pounds. Fat is a sign of prosperity in India, but enough is enough, he says. The doctor also orders me to slim unless I wish to drop dead one of these days.”
“Darling, how grim! You must know all about slimming diets, though. Aren’t people forever giving lectures on the subject? And you go to a great many lectures.”
“However, I have always avoided those about dieting, Daisy.” She sighed as Kesin helped her into the car. “It is not a subject that appeals to me. Let us change it. How is Alec doing with the Crystal Palace case?”
“He tells me hardly anything. As a matter of fact, I’ve given him more information than he’s given me. You remember Mr. hyphen-Clark?”
“You have spoken of him.”
“I found out his name!” Daisy said triumphantly.
“Good gracious, how?”
“It was easy, actually. His brother is a lord, so I simply went and asked Lucy. She knows everyone who’s anyone, by repute if not in person.”
“But could not Alec have asked her?”
“Of course, but the police hate to bother the aristocracy if they don’t absolutely have to. They’re so apt to complain, and they know the right people to complain to.”
“Was Alec pleased?” Sakari asked with a twinkle in her eye.
“He couldn’t possibly object to my talking to Lucy! As it happens, he wasn’t at the Yard. I spoke to DI Mackinnon, and he was delighted.”
“Did you suggest that he did not need to reveal his source to Alec?”
“No. I can do that with Ernie Piper, but I don’t know Mackinnon half well enough.”
“He seems to be a pleasant and competent officer.”
“Oh yes, I like him. But I wouldn’t want to put him in the position of withholding information from his superior. Ernie Piper and Tom Tring know what Alec will put up with—if he finds out! And they know me, of course. I’m so very glad we had Tom with us when I discovered Teddy’s body.”
“Indeed. Mr. Tring’s presence was a great comfort.”
“How long ago that seems! I know Alec and his crew have been working non stop but if they’re any nearer an arrest I haven’t heard about it. I wonder if the Zverevs are still suspects.”
“Perhaps we ought not to go there, Daisy.”
“Alec knows they’re doing some work for me and he hasn’t told me to stay away. Besides, they have no reason to want to harm us. By now the police must know much more about them and their connection with Teddy than we do.”
Sakari sighed. “I suppose so. Well, here we are,” she added as Kesin turned into the narrow passage and stopped before the jeweller’s.
“You’re very pessimistic this afternoon.”
“I will tell you why. I am thinking that after your business we will go to that nice little coffee room round the corner and we shall have a nice cup of tea, but I, for one, will not have a nice pastry to go with it.”
“Too frightful, darling! I’d forgotten.”
“You may have one. It is not your waistline. Or rather, lack thereof.”
“I do still have a waistline,” Daisy agreed, “though I daresay by the time fashions allow one to display it, it will have vanished.”
Sakari sent Kesin to run an errand. “I have told him to return in twenty minutes, Daisy. It should be enough time, and if not he will wait.”
They went into the shop, jangling the bell on the door. Sakari sat down immediately.
“They are right, my husband and my doctor. It is possible to look too prosperous.”
Daisy went to the counter and stood there watching the curtain in the corner. It didn’t stir. Perhaps the door behind the curtain had been shut accidentally so that the bell on the front door couldn’t be heard. If so, rapping on the counter with her knuckles would only serve to damage her knuckles.
“Jiggle the street door,” Sakari suggested. “‘Jiggle’ is a good word. I learned it only recently and I have been dying to use it.”
Laughing, Daisy jiggled the door. The bell obligingly clanged again, and she kept it going for longer than its usual course. There was no response from the curtain.
Impatient, she went over and lifted the curtain a little. The door behind stood open. She stepped just across the threshold and glanced round the room.
“No one here,” she reported to Sakari. Raising her voice, she called, “Hello?”
Hurried footsteps on the stairs presaged the arrival of a maidservant.
She stopped on the landing, peered down at Daisy, and said, “Oh, I’m awf’ly sorry to keep you waiting, ma’am.
The master’s ill and everything’s at sixes and sevens.
I’ll just run up and tell miss you’re ’ere and I’m sure she’ll be down in ’alf a tick. What name?”
“Mrs. Fletcher. I’ll wait in the shop,” she called after the girl as she scampered upward.
She went back and told Sakari what the maid had said.
“Miss Zvereva will not want to discuss your jewelry if her father is ill.”
“No, I won’t press her.”
“She may not come down, whatever the maid told you.”
“But as she may, we can’t just leave. I hope she’s not too long.” Daisy perched on a stool and leaned back against the counter.
They had been waiting a couple of minutes when the street door was flung open with a jangle and a man rushed in.
“Zinochka—Ach! I beg your pardon. Where is Zina?da Stepanovna?”
“Miss Zvereva?” Daisy queried, recognising the goldsmith, though he was wearing a dark suit and white shirt, not the Russian blouse she had seen him in before. “The maid went to tell her we’re here.”
“Now is not good time for— Zina!” He burst into Russian as Miss Zvereva came through from the rear. Daisy picked out the word “taxi,” though it might mean something quite different in Russian.
The woman answered briefly, then turned to Daisy. Dressed for outdoors, she looked excited and anxious. “Excuse, please, Mrs. Fletcher. Here are your designs.” She handed over a large envelope. “One minute, please.” Another flood of Russian ensued.
The goldsmith replied, shaking his head vigorously.
Daisy was dying to examine the designs, but she hesitated to remove them from the envelope when Miss Zvereva appeared to be about to go out.
“Let us look at them, Daisy,” said Sakari, heaving herself to her feet.
“I think Miss Zvereva—”
“Mrs. Fletcher, Mrs. Prasad, I ask of you now great favour. Will you come with us?”
“Go with you? Where? Why?”
“Is urgent.” She cast a harried glance back at the curtained door, and a pleading one at the goldsmith, who stood silent, his face grim. “Hired car waits. Is not far, will not take long. An hour, maybe little more. I will explain, but please! Come now!”
Curiosity overcame common sense. Daisy allowed herself to be herded outside, with Sakari following close behind, protesting, “Daisy, do you think it wise to go?”
But the car had backed in and stood right at the door.
Daisy found herself inside it before she could reconsider.
The goldsmith handed Sakari in beside her and Miss Zvereva joined them, while the goldsmith—Daisy didn’t think she’d ever heard his name—got in beside the driver.
He spoke in Russian to the driver, who answered in the same language, and they were off.
* * *
After a stop for a bite to eat, Alec and Piper reached the Yard in mid afternoon. Leaving it to Piper to brief Mackinnon on their visit to Saxonfield, Alec started reading through the reports that had come in during their absence.
“Clarke! Alaric Wrexham-Clarke—what a mouthful! And his brother is Lord Ledborough? Mac, how the devil did you get hold of this?”
The inspector avoided his eyes and said to thin air, “Mrs. Fletcher telephoned, sir. She said she asked Lady Gerald Bincombe.”
“I was certain Lady Gerald would know.”
“Pity Mrs. Fletcher got there first.” Ernie sounded sympathetic but looked as if he were suppressing a grin. “What next, Chief?”
“I suppose we still don’t know where to find him, Mac?”
“No, sir. I was waiting for your authorisation to set enquiries in train, seeing he’s ain brother to a laird. But if he’s gone to earth in London using a false name, it’s going to be verra difficult to find him, and knowing his full name won’t help, either.”
“Where’s the family seat?” Alec glanced back at the page in front of him. “Marsh Abbey, near Shrewsbury. He may be there, or they may know where he is. Ernie, put through a call to Lord Ledborough. Mac, get busy with those enquiries. Hotels, clubs, you know the routine.”
“Ye’re thinking he’s oor man, sir?”
“I’m thinking, first catch your hare. He’s the only person we’ve wanted to talk to that we haven’t been able to find. We’ll worry about whether he’s the one we want when we’ve got him.”
At the back of his mind, insistent, was the possibility that, if Alaric Wrexham-Clarke had killed Teddy, his brother might well be in deadly peril. He knew all too well that once the taboo against murder is broken, it is never wholly restored.
It was much too soon though to write off the rest of the names on his list. He went back to ploughing through the new reports, making occasional notes but not finding anything of much interest.
As he turned the last but one face-down on the pile, the telephone rang.
Ernie answered it. “DS Piper.” He listened for a moment. “Let me ask.” Handing over the mouthpiece, he announced, “Lord Ledborough is not at home, Chief. D’you want to speak to his butler?”
“Yes!”
“Yes, we’ll take the call. Hello?… Right, Mr. Maxwell, hold on just a minute while I transfer you to the Chief Inspector.”
“Mr. Maxwell, Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher here. This is a matter of considerable urgency. Is his lordship unwilling to take the call, too ill, or actually away from home?”