The Winter Garden Mystery (22 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: The Winter Garden Mystery
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“You flatter me, Lady Valeria,” she said sweetly. “No daughter of so strong-minded a mother could possibly possess such a weak character as to let me drive her where she didn't want to go.”
“Don't tell me you didn't encourage her to rebel with your independence piffle!”
“If I did, it was only by example.” Daisy tried to recall just what she had said to Bobbie. More sympathy than encouragement, she thought, but she didn't want to explain that to Lady Valeria. “I hadn't the foggiest Bobbie was looking for a job. Actually, when I saw she'd been reading
Town and Country,
I rather hoped she was admiring my article … .”
“Your article! You don't imagine I shall let you publish whatever rubbish you have been scribbling about Occles Hall, I hope!”
“Occles Hall belongs to Daddy,” Bobbie pointed out, speaking over her father's shoulder. Sir Reginald was simultaneously kissing her cheek and shaking Mr. Wilkinson's hand, after which Lady Valeria was going to find it difficult to complain that the poet hadn't asked his permission to marry his daughter.
“Good-night all,” said Sir Reginald, looking round with a vague smile, and he drifted out of the room.
In the momentary hiatus while his deserted wife glowered after him, Sebastian asked casually, “I say, old girl, wish you happy and all that, and have you eaten?” A sparkle in his deep blue eyes, he seemed to find the situation frightfully amusing.
Bobbie grinned at him. “Yes, thanks, Bastie, we stopped on the way.”
“Jolly good. Congratulations, my dear fellow,” he said as, following his father's example, he shook Mr. Wilkinson's hand, “you've already learnt the importance of keeping my sister well fed. Care for a brandy, or a spot of Scotch? Or shall I send Moody down to the cellar for a bottle of the bubbly, old dear?”
“No, poor old Moody's feet will be killing him by this time of night. Since Daddy's already gone to bed, let's save the bubbly for tomorrow lunchtime.”
“Champagne!” Lady Valeria snorted. “This is no time for celebration, Sebastian. Your sister has had a brain-storm.”
“By Jove, Mater, that's a bit strong!”
“Brought on, I don't doubt, by the distress of finding her family under investigation by Miss Dalrymple's friend Ferret from Scotland Yard.”
“Scotland Yard?” gasped Bobbie. “What on earth are you blethering about, Mummy?”
“I don't
blether,
Roberta. We shall discuss the matter in the morning, by which time I trust you will have come to your senses. Good-night, Sebastian.”
Her son dutifully kissed her cheek and, ignoring the other three, she swept out. Abandoning the fight, Daisy wondered, or retreating to regroup her forces? Either was uncharacteristic. Lady Valeria wasn't mellowing; were events beginning to overwhelm her?
Sebastian dropped into the nearest chair and burst out laughing. “Boadicea!” he crowed. “That's rich.”
“Don't be silly, Bastie. Daisy, what's this about Scotland Yard?”
Before Daisy could answer, Mr. Wilkinson said pensively, “You're right, not Boadicea. That ode will have to go. Atalanta, she's the one. A sonnet, perhaps. Golden apples … sunlight dapples … Or free verse? Hush!”
“Isn't he top-hole, Daisy?” Bobbie whispered. “Who was Atalanta?”
“I think she was a beautiful girl who kept winning foot races. I must say he seems to be quite soppy and sentimental about you.”
Bobbie blushed. “Usually he writes about steel mills and coal mines and things. Frightfully modern. Men earning a living by the sweat of their brow and that sort of stuff.”
“He doesn't mind living by the sweat of your brow?” Daisy asked, then hoped she didn't sound critical when she was only curious.
“Oh, he's had a book of poems published which brings in a few pounds. You wouldn't recognize his name; he writes as Fred Wilkes. They've asked him to teach an English Lit class at Waybrook, too. It looks good in the prospectus, having a published poet on the staff. So
we'll do quite well. Daisy, what's this rot about a friend of yours from Scotland Yard?”
“You didn't know? He arrived the evening before you left, and Mr. Wilkinson actually breakfasted in the same room, though he did look as if he was in the throes of composition at the time.”
“He wouldn't have noticed, then. This Ferret chap's here about Grace? But they arrested Owen Morgan.”
“Fletcher,” said Daisy severely. “Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher.” She explained the situation. “So, you see, your clearing out like that looked frightfully fishy.”
Bobbie roared with laughter. Sebastian, who had been teasing the oblivious Mr. Wilkinson with rhymes like
pies
for
prize, dinner
for
winner,
and
grapple
for
apple,
came over to join them. “What's the joke?” he asked.
“Daisy's Chief Inspector thinking I must have bashed poor Grace because I hopped it at the wrong moment.”
“It's not really funny, Bobbie. I mean, I'm glad you've come back so he'll stop suspecting you, but now things look even grimmer for the mater.”
“For Mummy?” said Bobbie, bewildered.
“She had the same motive as you, and then there's the way she loses her temper, and the worst of it is, she won't talk to Fletcher.”
“Oh blast! It's no use trying to persuade her to be reasonable.” An awful thought struck her. “Bastie, you don't think … ?”
Sebastian shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I don't know. I just don't know.”
“What can we
do?”
“All you can do,” said Daisy, “is tell Mr. Fletcher the truth and hope it was George Brown.”
 
“George Brown is in Carlisle,” Alec informed Tom Tring when the Yard at last telephoned with the news from the Clover Corset Company.
“Hundred and thirty, hundred and forty miles, Chief, if it's an inch,” said the sergeant, who had come from London equipped with a map. “And you know what them Lake District roads'll be like, after the winter.”
“Between your weight and the pot-holes, my springs wouldn't stand a chance. Fortunately, Brown's finished in the far north and he's driving down to Lancaster in the morning.”
“Not more'n seventy or eighty.” Tring's moustache quivered with satisfaction. “Nice and flat all the way.”
“All the same, Tom, I'm going to leave you here to have a shot at the Occles Hall servants. Ernie's done a good job but he hasn't your experience nor your way of getting around people. We'll drive up to the Hall first thing in the morning, and see if we can shock her ladyship into cooperating. Then, unless she confesses on the spot, Ernie and I will go on up to Lancaster. Come on, I'll buy you a pint to console you.”
“Ta, Chief, but later. I think I'll go have a natter with Mr. Chiver there. Landlords often see more'n they think they c'n remember, and likely he's the sort I c'n get around better nor you.”
“Very likely.” Laughing, Alec watched his vast sergeant cross the bar-parlour with his peculiarly soft tread and start a cosy chat with the innkeeper.
However, by the time they moved to the dining room for dinner, Tring was none the wiser. Afterwards he elected to join Piper in the public bar to try his luck there. Thus Alec, nursing a whisky in the bar-parlour, was surrounded by locals friendly and hostile when Phillip Petrie burst in.
“I say, Fletcher, have I got news for you!” Every head swung towards him. “Daisy asked me to tell you … .”
“Not here, old chap!” Forestalling the revelation in the nick of time, Alec took Petrie's arm and led him out to the lobby, followed by gazes burning with curiosity. He pulled the door to. “What's up?”
“Gosh, I nearly blurted it out in front of the plebs. Sorry to be such a chump. Brace up, Fletcher, Miss Parslow's back!”
“Miss Parslow? Dammit, there goes another perfectly good suspect.”
Petrie turned out to know no more than that the Morris Oxford had returned to Occles Hall. Alec decided it was too late to do anything about it that night. Tomorrow he'd see Miss Parslow first and hope that, witting or unwitting, she'd give him further ammunition against Lady Valeria.
In the morning, frost flowers bloomed on the bedroom window, sparkling in the rays of the rising sun. After breakfast—Mrs. Chiver delighted with Tom Tring's appetite—the three men motored up to the Hall.
Alec sent his officers straight round to the servants' entrance. He'd have preferred to have Piper take notes and Tring add his massive presence to the weight of the law, but he had promised to keep Goodman and Parslow's relationship from them if possible.
When Moody opened the front door to him, he asked to see Daisy. He wanted to get what information she had about Miss Parslow's absence before he tackled the young lady.
Muttering dourly about Sunday being a day of rest, the butler showed Alec to the Red Saloon. Daisy came in a few minutes later, carrying a cup of tea.
“Did I interrupt your breakfast?” he asked. “Sorry.”
“No, I'd just finished except for my second cup, unless it's my third, I'm not sure. You're not going to interview Lady Valeria in here, are you? Talk about showing a red flag to a bull, and there's that picture, too, to put bloodthirsty notions into her head!”
Alec looked around at the burgundy walls and the gory battle scene. He grimaced. “I don't know that it'll make much difference. If you ask me, the difficulty's going to be getting her to see me at all.”
“D
aisy, do you mind taking notes for me this morning?”
“Mind!
Don't be an ass. Are you actually asking me to?” She could hardly believe it, after all the rot he talked about her meddling. “You want me to protect you against Lady Valeria?”
“Don't
you
be an ass,” Alec retorted. “Because of young Parslow and Goodman. I did say I'd try to keep it hushed up.”
“Oh yes. But you won't need to break it to Bobbie, will you? She has no idea, and I told Sebastian that though confession might be good for his soul, she'd be happier kept in ignorance.”
“I'll see what I can do. No promises, it depends on how cooperative she is. Don't you think she's bound to find out sooner or later, anyway?”
“No,” said Daisy smugly. “For one thing, she won't be living here much longer.”
Heaving a sigh, he asked resignedly, “All right, what have you done?”
“I can't really take the credit—or, from her mother's point of view, the blame—but my brilliant career convinced Bobbie that working for a living isn't the end of the world. She's already found a job, and what's more, she's getting married. You remember the rather Bohemian chap at the Cheshire Cheese?”
“I do indeed. I was just wondering whether to send out a police bulletin on him when Petrie told me Miss Parslow was back. Come on, give me the dope.”
She told Bobbie's story, leaving the poet's inspiration till last. Alec laughed. “Boadicea or Atalanta, I can't wait to meet your friend,” he said. “From what I've seen and heard of Wilkinson, the arrival of the Met may well have passed right over his head.” He rang the bell.
While Moody came and went, Daisy seated herself at the desk with the notebook and pencils Alec had brought for her. Bobbie came in, rather more Boadicea than Atalanta despite her Sunday flowered blue silk. She marched up to Alec and shook his hand.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Fletcher,” she said gruffly. “Daisy's been telling me about you.”
Daisy almost laughed at the look on Alec's face. This wasn't how a suspect was supposed to behave. Bobbie did utter a snort of laughter as she sat down in a chair facing the fire.
“Don't worry, only what a jolly good detective you are. I'm fearfully sorry about buzzing off like that but I thought the police had holed out. I didn't realize the local laddies had come a cropper. If I'd known the ball was in Scotland Yard's court, I'd have gone anyway, but I might have let you know the score first,” she added candidly.
“Miss Dalrymple has explained your absence to me,” Alec said dryly. “We need not go over that again. She'll be taking notes for me, incidentally.”
“Jolly good. Daisy's frightfully clever, isn't she? All this writing stuff. I suppose you want to know what I was doing the night Grace disappeared.”
“We'll start a bit earlier, Miss Parslow, with your brother's affair with Grace.”
“I didn't know about it, not until he told me. I'm not awfully good at noticing that sort of thing,” said Bobbie apologetically. “Besides, being five years older I tend to think of him as my little brother. I hadn't even realized he was interested in girls.”
Daisy studiously avoided Alec's eye.
“I see. Go on.”
“Well, it was pretty obvious poor Bastie was like a cat on hot bricks. Even I could see that. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me Grace was pregnant and insisted on marrying him. You could have knocked me down with a feather. I told him I'd take care of things and he wasn't to worry.”
“You would get rid of Grace for him.”
“If you mean murder her, I might have, for Bastie,” said Bobbie aggressively, “but it didn't even cross my mind. The girl couldn't force him to the altar. He was scared to death of Mummy finding out, so I told him to use his own money to pay Grace off. I even offered to be go-between because he didn't want to see Grace. Then Mummy came in and accused me of ragging him. Well, I didn't care for that. Just let it wash over me. Bastie wouldn't stand for it, though. He told her everything, and after that I left it to her to sort things out, till … .” She hesitated.
Alec pounced. “Till?”
“Till that night. The night before she and Bastie left for Antibes. Bastie was still in a tizzy. Grace had told him Stan Moss was going to make her sue for breach of promise, and Mummy didn't seem to have done anything. When she announced they were leaving a week early, I thought she'd decided it would all blow over. With Moss involved, I knew it wouldn't. So I tackled her after dinner and we had a row.”
“What time?”
“Tennish, I suppose. She'd been in the library with Ben. Daddy had just gone up to bed.”
“What did she tell you?”
“She said she'd made arrangements, everything was settled, and I wasn't to stick my oar in.”
“She didn't tell you what her arrangements were?”
“No. Mummy never explains anything.”
“You didn't make a guess at what she had done—or intended to do?”
“I certainly didn't imagine she was going to hit Grace on the head! Mummy can be a pain in the neck but she's not a murderer.”
“Yet you said you yourself might contemplate murder in defence of your brother.” Alec was relentless. “You consider Lady Valeria less dedicated to his welfare?”
Glancing up, Daisy saw Bobbie's square, ruddy face pale. “No,” she said uneasily, then burst out, “but murder! I mean, it's not playing the game, is it?”
She looked appealingly at Daisy, who hurriedly returned to her shorthand, afraid Alec might suspect her of interfering.
“All right, Miss Parslow,” he said, “excluding murder, for the moment, weren't you surprised your mother didn't at least dismiss Grace?”
“Yes, I was rather. I suppose at least she controlled her to some degree while she was employed here. It upset Bastie, of course, her being here, but then they were going away anyway. I thought Stan Moss couldn't do much while Bastie was gone, so I'd leave things till he came back and see if it really was settled.”
“How long did your argument with Lady Valeria last?”
Bobbie shrugged her shoulders. “A few minutes. Five or ten. It's pointless arguing with Mummy, I should have known better. She always knows best, and as I said, she never explains anything.”
“What did you do after that?”
“Well, I was pretty fed up, so I went for a walk.”
Daisy silently groaned. Not only had Bobbie no alibi, she actually admitted being out and about at the time when Grace had probably met her end.
“In which direction?” Alec asked with apparent casualness.
“Down past the dairy and across the fields towards Fox Green. There are lots of footpaths and not too many trees, so it's easy to see your way at night. There was a bit of moon shining between the clouds now and then, and I took a pocket-torch, too.”
“You didn't go anywhere near the village?”
“Fox Green?” Bobbie sounded puzzled. “No. It's a tiny place, just a few houses around a village green, and anyway I wanted exercise, not company.”
“I meant Occleswich.” He sighed. “I hoped you might have seen something useful. What time did you get home?”
“I heard the church clock strike midnight just as I reached the house.”
“You didn't go anywhere near the Winter Garden?”
“No, I came up past the dairy, the way I went. Golly, is that when Grace was killed? Or buried?”
“We don't know, Miss Parslow. After two months it's difficult to be certain of anything.”
“I suppose so. Jolly hard lines for you,” Bobbie said sympathetically.
Alec asked her a few more questions, then said, “Thank you for your help, Miss Parslow. May I be permitted to congratulate you on your job and to wish you every happiness?”
She beamed at him. “Thank you, Mr. Fletcher, that's jolly decent of you. Do you want to see my fiancé next?”
“He wasn't in the area on December 13th?”
“No, he was at home in Derbyshire.”
“We may have to check on that, but I doubt it. I must see Lady Valeria now. Do you know whereabouts in the house she is?”
“She's usually in the library between breakfast and church. She was brought up reading sermons on Sundays and the habit stuck. On the way down to church she tells us all about the absolute idiots who have managed to get their sermons published. Shall I tell her you want to see her?”
“Thank you, no. We'll go to her.”
“Rather you than me,” said Bobbie cheerfully, and departed.
“You don't think she did it,” said Daisy, collecting up her notebook and pencils.
“No. Not that I'm sure she's incapable of it, but she's not devious
enough to try to put me off the scent by freely admitting to rambling about the countryside at the relevant time.”
“I don't think Bobbie rambles. She hikes. I suppose she's still on your list of suspects, even though you believe her.”
“‘You know my methods, Watson.'” He followed her out of the room. “This is your last chance to back out of facing the dragon, Daisy.”
“I'm not afraid of Lady Valeria. If she objects, which she will, will you let me explain why I'm there rather than another policeman? She'll think me impertinent, but you'd sound threatening, which would only set her back up.”
“All right, though I expect her back will already be as high as it can go!” Alec opened the library door.
Lady Valeria sat in a Windsor chair by the window, a sombre figure in navy blue, frowning down at the book in her lap. She transferred the frown to Daisy and Alec as they entered. “Well, Miss Dalrymple?” she said coldly.
“You remember Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher, Lady Valeria. He has a few questions to ask you.”
“I've heard that before and my answer is the same. I shan't dignify your iniquitous inquisition with a response, Fritter.”
“That is, of course, your right, ma'am,” said Alec, ignoring her massacre of his name, “but in view of what I have learned since we last spoke, I shall have to ask you to accompany me to a police station.” It was sheer bluff. He had no more against her—motive and opportunity—than Dunnett had against Morgan.
“What you have learned! And just what have you learned with your underhanded enquiries?”
The bluff had worked, at least in part. She was no longer trying to dismiss him out of hand. “I ask questions, Lady Valeria,” he said. “I don't answer them.”
Weakening, she turned on Daisy. “You may be a prying police person masquerading as a guest, Miss Dalrymple, or vice versa, but I
have nothing to say which is any conceivable business of yours.”
“At present, Lady Valeria, I'm masquerading as a police stenographer.” Her voice was admirably calm. “Mr.
Fletcher
needs a record of the interview. His constable can easily be summoned, but we assumed you'd prefer someone who already knows all there is to know about Sebastian.”
Her ladyship's brick red complexion faded. “All?” she croaked.
“All,” said Daisy inexorably.
“I see no need to make anything public,” said Alec, doing his best to sound conciliatory. He couldn't help feeling sorry for the woman and, more important, he hoped she'd stop regarding him as a demon. Caution made him add, “So far, that is. My officers are very discreet, but the fewer people who know … .”
“Sit down, sit down, my good man,” she interrupted with forced impatience, neatly forestalling the words he hadn't been going to pronounce. “I can't be craning my neck at you. I don't know what you think you've discovered. I admit my son had an affair with the scheming slut and made her pregnant, but young men will sow their wild oats.”
Already scribbling in shorthand, Daisy slipped away and sat down at the long library table. Lady Valeria ignored her.
Despite her denial, it was obvious she suspected her son's inclination and had hoped the girl's pregnancy disproved it. Alec decided nothing was to be gained by asking whether she had encouraged Grace to seduce Parslow. He'd try for essentials before she rebelled.
“Mr. Parslow told you he had promised, under threat, to marry Grace. You promised him—in his words—to ‘deal with Grace.' What did you have in mind?”
“Naturally my first thought was to give her the sack. Unfortunately I was unable to force her to leave the district, besides which she made it clear her father would go to the Press if she was dismissed. I assume, since you spoke of threats, you are aware that Moss claimed he'd bring an action for breach of promise if Sebastian failed to marry his daughter.”

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