The Winter Garden Mystery (6 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: The Winter Garden Mystery
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“You had my note? Oh dear, you must think me horribly callous.”
“Miss Dalrymple!” Lady Valeria burst forth from the house. “I saw you from a window. I could not believe my eyes! How am I to explain it to your mother if you break your neck indulging in childish tricks while staying at Occles Hall?”
“My dear, I'm afraid we have far worse trouble to worry about. Perhaps you ought to come and sit down … .”
“Sit down? Nonsense, Reggie. What on earth are you blethering about now?”
“Miss Dalrymple informs me … .”
“Then she had better inform me too.”
Daisy sighed. So much for her efforts to avoid being the one to break the bad news. She had no high opinion of Lady Valeria's sensibility, but she couldn't bring herself to just blurt out the worst.
“One of your gardeners was showing me the Winter Garden,” she began. “I noticed a dying bush … .”
“Disgraceful. I shall speak to Bligh about it. But hardly worth all this fuss, Reginald.”
“Lady Valeria, listen, please! Mr. Bligh had his assistant dig up the plant and they found a body underneath. The body of Grace Moss.”
“Grace Moss!” Lady Valeria's choleric face paled. Then, as Daisy had half expected, she turned on the messenger. “This is all your fault! Coming here where you're not wanted, poking and prying, interfering … .”
“My dear!” For once Sir Reginald interrupted his wife. “You can't blame … .”
“I'll blame whomever I please. This is what comes of your issuing invitations without consulting me!”
“Inspector Dunnett, my lady,” announced Moody's ominous tones.
Lady Valeria swung round. “Police! I suppose I can guess whom I have to thank for this,” she added with a venomous glance at Daisy.
Cap in hand, the officer in his blue police uniform stood beside Moody in his butler's black. They could have been brothers. Inspector Dunnett's long, craggy face gazed out at the malevolent world
with an identical jaundiced expression; his shoulders slumped in the same defeated way. He looked perhaps ten years younger, about fifty, but the chief difference, Daisy thought, was that Moody had long ago ceased to let Lady Valeria's outbursts increase his general pessimism.
Inspector Dunnett appeared to regard her ladyship with misgivings amounting to dread.
She glared at him. “This matter is nothing to do with me, Doublet,” she proclaimed, “nor with my family. Miss Dalrymple seems to know all about it. You may deal with her. Come, Reginald.”
Not waiting for an answer, she swept past the policeman into the house. To Daisy's relief, Sir Reginald didn't follow her. As a support he might prove more reed than oaken staff, but she was glad to have him beside her anyway.
“In just a moment, Valeria,” he called after his wife. He patted Daisy's arm. “I shan't desert you, my dear. Inspector, I am Sir Reginald Parslow. I'm sorry such an unpleasant occurrence has brought you to Occles Hall.”
“I do my duty, sir,” he said stolidly. “With your permission, sir, I'll have the doctor examine the deceased and my men search the scene. They're waiting at the front of the house.”
“Yes, of course. But I don't actually know … .” He looked an appeal at Daisy and she remembered her note to him had not specified the place.
“The Winter Garden. I'm Daisy Dalrymple, Inspector.”
“Ah, Miss Dalrymple. You found the deceased.” His tone was accusing.
“I reported the discovery,” she corrected him. “The gardeners did the finding.”
“Yes, miss. All the same, I'll need a statement from you.”
“I'll take you there and tell you what happened on the way.”
“I'd better come along too, my dear,” Sir Reginald said anxiously. “Moody, direct the Inspector's men to the Winter Garden.”
“And put my camera somewhere safe, please.”
“Very good, sir.” The butler accepted his master's order with his
usual gloom. A body in the Winter Garden was no more than one might expect, his demeanour said. “Very good, miss.”
As they started down the terrace steps, Daisy began. “One of the under-gardeners was showing me around the Winter Garden.”
“Just a minute, please, miss. An under-gardener? You're a guest here?”
“As a matter of fact, I'm writing an article about Occles Hall.”
“A reporter!” Inspector Dunnett clearly considered reporters among the lowest forms of life.
“A guest,” said Sir Reginald. “A welcome guest.”
“A magazine writer,” Daisy affirmed.
“A magazine writer? The
Honourable
Miss Dalrymple?” asked the policeman sceptically. “That's what you claimed, wasn't it?”
Once again Sir Reginald came to the rescue. “Daughter of the late Viscount Dalrymple of Fairacres.”
“If you say so, sir. Go on, miss. Please.”
Her employment had obviously reduced to vanishing point whatever status her title had given her in Dunnett's eyes. She remembered how Alec had dismissed her views while he thought her a mere society butterfly, but taken her seriously when he found out she was a working woman. She sighed.
“I noticed a dead bush,” she said tersely. “The head gardener told Owen to dig it up. I went back to the house to fetch my camera and when I returned they had found the body.”
“So you left these gardeners to guard the deceased and returned to the house to telephone?”
“No, by that time Mr. Goodman, Sir Reginald's secretary, had joined us. He asked me to telephone. The gardeners were naturally distressed at finding Grace Moss dead, so he sent them away and stayed himself.”
Inspector Dunnett pounced. “Grace Moss? You knew the deceased?”
“I didn't even see the body,” Daisy snapped. “I've never been here before and I wouldn't know her from Adam. Eve, rather.”
He gave her a wary look as if he suspected she was mocking him. “Then who identified the deceased? Who was Grace Moss?”
“Grace was our parlourmaid,” said Sir Reginald sadly. “A pretty, cheerful child.”
“Mr. Goodman, Bligh, and Owen Morgan all knew her. They told me.”
“So your evidence is nothing but hearsay,” Dunnett reproached her. “In that case, I've no need of you at present. My sergeant'll take a formal statement later, miss. Ah, here's Dr. Sedgwick and my men.”
He strode off to meet an approaching group of uniformed police led by a plump civilian with a black bag. Dismissed and ignored, Daisy tramped disconsolately back to the house.
Sir Reginald and Ben Goodman soon joined her. Sir Reginald enquired after his wife. He breathed a sigh of relief when Moody told him she had gone off in the Daimler to preside over a session of the Mothers' Meetings county committee.
“Then, if you'll excuse me, my dear,” he said to Daisy, “I'll be getting back to the dairy.”
Mr. Goodman offered to begin the historical tour of the Hall. “We can't do anything for poor Grace. We might as well have a look at the outside while it's fine. You can still see the marks of the Roundheads' cannonballs.”
So Daisy fetched her notebook and was soon scribbling away in her own idiosyncratic version of Pitman's shorthand. They reached the stables, now partly converted to garages, just as Sebastian rode in.
If possible, he looked even more stunning on the back of his roan gelding. The position lent him an air of strength, of masterful vigour, absent from his ordinary demeanour and belied by his subservience to his mother. He smiled down at Daisy and Ben Goodman, and Daisy beamed back.
“Let me tell him,” the secretary said softly to her, and with a shock she remembered Grace Moss.
“All right. I'll go and start transcribing my notes. Thanks for all the stuff.”
He nodded with a faint smile, but his face was troubled as he turned to Sebastian.
Slightly puzzled, Daisy headed for her room and her portable typewriter. She wondered if Ben was afraid Sebastian would go to pieces when he heard about the corpse. Was he trying to prevent such a revelation of weakness before a stranger? He was no relation of Sebastian's, but Daisy had cause to appreciate his sympathetic nature.
Bobbie had defended her brother against Daisy's implied criticism of his failure to escape his mother, and Lady Valeria guarded him against husband-hunting harpies. He seemed to bring out a protective instinct, which suggested an essential weakness of character. The news of Grace's demise might well shock him into an unbecoming emotional display.
No, that was hardly fair, Daisy chided herself. Ben Goodman, who had seen all the horrors of the Great War, had been shaken by the death of the innocent young girl. Sebastian was too young to have fought in the War—only natural for him to be shattered by the murder of a girl he knew.
And there it was again, the word she'd been avoiding.
Murder
. Those who died a natural death, those who succumbed to an accident, did not end up under eighteen inches of earth in a flowerbed.
Grace Moss had been murdered.
D
aisy deciphered the last curlicue of shorthand, typed the last word, and stacked her papers neatly. The seventeenth-century siege of Occles Hall was a bit of a wash-out. She couldn't blame the inhabitants for their rapid surrender to Oliver Cromwell's men. The moat, though it had then surrounded the house, was no protection against a cannon; had they fought on, there'd be nothing left today for her to write about. Still, she needed lots more to make her article interesting.
Unfortunately,
Town and Country
was not the sort of publication to revel in murdered parlourmaids.
She went downstairs. No one was about. From her window she had watched the solemn procession of police bearing the covered stretcher out to their motor-van, then driving away. Presumably the sergeant had been left behind to take statements, but there was no sign of him.
She went out to the terrace, and thence her steps inevitably turned towards the Winter Garden. Not that she expected to find any clues. Even a police search would be lucky to turn anything up after so long.
At least, she assumed Grace had been there since her disappearance. Long enough, anyway, for the bush to expire after its mistreatment. Daisy thought she recalled Ted Roper saying the blacksmith's
daughter ran off two months ago, and Bobbie had certainly mentioned three unsatisfactory parlourmaids in two months.
The murderer had had plenty of time to miss a lost glove or scarf and return for it. In that time, even in that sheltered spot, rain and snow, frost and wind would obliterate signs of a struggle, wash away footprints and blood … . Ugh!
All the same, it was odd no one had noticed the dying bush and missing irises sooner. The gardeners might have had no reason to go to the Winter Garden, since thoroughly weeded beds would not put out a significant new crop of weeds in January. But the garden was in full bloom. Had none of the family bothered to go and look at it?
Reaching the door in the wall, she opened it and glanced around. Amidst such a profusion of colour, she conceded, a deficiency in that particular corner might be overlooked by anyone who didn't walk around closely studying the plants. She herself hadn't noticed it until she and Owen reached the spot. Inclement weather, everyone busy elsewhere; no, it wasn't really so surprising.
So for two months everyone thought Grace ran away, when all the time she was dead and the evidence leading to her murderer … .
Heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel behind Daisy.
Her heart thudding, she swung round. “Oh, Bobbie, it's you!”
“Yes. I … er … I came back through the village.” Bobbie sounded oddly evasive and her face was even pinker than her usual healthy colour. She was dressed in a golfing costume but she didn't have her clubs with her. “Isn't Ben with you? I didn't mean to hop it and leave you alone.”
“I almost wish I had gone to play golf with you. I'm afraid something dreadful has happened.”
“To Ben?” Bobbie asked anxiously. “Sebastian?”
“No. The gardeners found a body in the Winter Garden. Your parlourmaid, Grace Moss.”
Bobbie turned white as a sheet. “Grace Moss?” she faltered in a faint voice.
“Here, come and sit down.” Daisy pulled her towards the old
mounting block that stood beside the door. “Put your head down between your knees. That's it. I'm frightfully sorry, Bobbie. It was absolutely asinine to tell you so suddenly.”
“No, I'm all right. Honestly. I … It was just a bit of a shock. So Grace came back.”
“She wasn't just lying there, she was buried. It seems to me she probably never went away, but I don't know what the police think.”
“Police! Oh hell! I must talk to Bastie.” She jumped up, apparently quite recovered. Nonetheless, Daisy went with her, almost trotting to keep up with her swift stride. “That must be what the police were doing at the smithy when I passed—telling her father. The way he was carrying on, I thought Mummy had sent them round again. I must say he sounded livid with rage, not grief, but that's the way Stan Moss reacts to everything.”
As they came to the end of the walk and were about to turn right into the knot garden, a policeman appeared from the left, around the corner of the Winter Garden wall.
All three stopped abruptly. Bobbie clutched Daisy's arm.
Saluting, the policeman looked interrogatively from one to the other. “Miss Dalrymple?”
“I'm Miss Dalrymple. This is Miss Parslow, who lives here. You must be the sergeant Inspector Dunnett said would take my statement?”
“That's it, miss. Sergeant Shaw. I've been taking statements from the gardeners. If I might 'ave a word with you now, miss, and I'll be needing to see the secretary gentleman.”
“I'll find him for you. Daisy, tell Moody to show you to the Red Saloon.” With that, Bobbie hurried on towards the house.
Daisy and the sergeant followed more slowly. He was a heavyset man, though not as stout as Alec's sergeant, Tring, but Tom Tring walked as soft-footed as a cat whereas Sergeant Shaw lumbered along at Daisy's side like a hippopotamus. On the other hand, Shaw's uniform was a definite improvement over Tring's deplorable taste in loud checks.
Daisy liked Tom Tring, and she was prepared to like Sergeant Shaw, despite his charmless superior. At least he began on a more amiable note than Inspector Dunnett.
“Nasty business, this, miss. Murder's bad enough, but murdering young girls is what I don't 'old with.”
“It was murder, then?”
“Looks like it, miss. Dr. Sedgwick says she were ‘it on the 'ead with a blunt instrument. ‘It from be'ind ‘ard enough to crush 'er skull.”
Daisy shuddered, feeling sick. “She would have died at once?”
“Died instant, miss. Never knew a thing.”
“I'm glad.” At least not buried alive, thank heaven. One nightmare receded.
“It's that young furriner I'm sorry for, miss.”
“Foreigner?”
“The gardener, Owen Morgan. It's knocked ‘im for six all right. Seems 'e was walking out with ‘er.” Sergeant Shaw puffed up the steps to the terrace. “'Course, it could be they ‘as a tiff and 'e up and biffs 'er one.”
“Surely not!” Her heart sank. From the first she had felt a deep sympathy for the unhappy Welshman. “He was fearfully upset when he found her.”
“Well, ‘e would be, miss, wouldn't 'e, ‘aving to dig 'er up and all. Stands to reason. There's more murders is done for love nor money, mark my words, miss.”
Moody awaited them, and directed them to the Red Saloon with an air of such reproachful despair that Daisy actually felt guilty. By now all the servants must know what had happened. Moody, like Lady Valeria, seemed to hold her responsible. She hoped the rest of the staff were more reasonable.
As a change from panelling, the small room was papered in a dark red, with a thin gold stripe that did nothing to lessen the oppressive feel. Over the mantelpiece hung a grim Victorian painting of a battle scene dripping with gore. Daisy hurriedly turned her back on it.
Bobbie must have chosen the room because of the convenience for the policeman of the elegant antique writing-table under the window—if, indeed, she had been
compos mentis
enough at that moment for a logical choice, which Daisy wasn't at all sure of.
Suddenly weary, she sank onto the chair Sergeant Shaw placed by the desk for her.
“You won't mind if I takes the weight off me feet, miss? It's easier for writing.” Sitting down with a sigh of relief, he took his notebook from his jacket pocket. His tone became fatherly. “Now, not to worry, miss. It's all a matter of routine. Just tell me what you told the Inspector. I'll write it down; summun at the station'll type it up; then you'll be asked to sign that we got it down right what you said. If you'd spell your name for me first, please, miss.”
Laboriously he wrote it down. Daisy repeated her brief story, pausing between phrases as the sergeant's pencil crawled over the paper. Mr. Goodman had told Owen to show her the garden; she had noticed the dead bush; Bligh had told Owen to dig it up; she had returned from the house just as Owen uncovered the girl's face and identified her as Grace Moss.
“And 'e was upset, would you say, this Owen Morgan?”
“Dreadfully.” She didn't want to recall the young gardener's terrible grief. “Mr. Goodman arrived then and asked me to telephone the police, so I came away. After I spoke to Inspector Dunnett, I sent a note to Sir Reginald … .”
“Mr. Dunnett says there's no cause to trouble the family,” said Sergeant Shaw hastily. “This ‘ere Mr. Goodman can tell us all we need 'bout the deceased. Right, miss, that's it.”
“Will I have to give evidence at the inquest?”
“Prob‘ly not, miss, seeing you didn't know the deceased and there's other witnesses saw the same as what you did. And 'ere's the last of 'em now,” he added as Ben Goodman opened the door and looked in. “Come on in, sir. Thank you, miss, that'll be all.”
Dismissed again, Daisy departed. Holding the door for her, Mr. Goodman smiled, but he looked grey with fatigue. She hoped her
tour of the outside of the house had not made him ill.
She hesitated outside the room, not sure what to do next. Though she shied away from thinking about the gruesome murder, curiosity gnawed at her. She didn't want to believe Owen Morgan had killed the girl he loved, but who else could it have been?
Money as a motive made no sense at all, parlourmaids not being noted for affluence. Nor did Grace sound like the sort of girl to make people hate her. Ted Roper, who surely had no axe to grind, had described Grace as fun-loving, and Sir Reginald had called her a cheerful child. Daisy wondered what her fellow-servants had thought of her.
Perhaps among them Owen had had a rival for Grace's affections.
If Daisy were investigating, she'd start by talking to the servants. Inspector Dunnett didn't appear to have any intention of doing so. No doubt he was afraid of calling down Lady Valeria's wrath on his head.
If
Daisy were investigating … . Alec's voice sounded inside her head: “Stay out of it, Daisy.”
The warning voice was drowned by her rumbling stomach. She had missed morning coffee and she was ravenous. It must be nearly lunchtime. She'd go up to her room to wash her hands, and if she just happened to meet the ladies' maid, Gregg—well, it would be unfriendly not to have a word with her about the sad end of Grace Moss.
A few minutes later she sat at the dressing-table in her bedroom brushing, re-coiling, and pinning up her hair. She had noticed it loosening when she climbed down from the urn on the terrace, but then she'd forgotten about it and it must have been drooping ever since. No wonder Inspector Dunnett had looked at her askance. Perhaps she really would have it bobbed when she went back to town. Short hair was much more practical, especially for a photographer.
She hadn't bothered with powder or lipstick this morning and she decided not to now. Bobbie hadn't for dinner last night. Quite likely she didn't even own any. The trouble was, Daisy thought, wrinkling her nose at herself in the glass, those freckles made her look so frightfully
young
. And there was the tiny mole by her mouth, but then powder never covered that properly anyway.
“Miss?” Gregg came in. “Is there anything I can do for you?” The maid's eyes were red and her face blotchy.
“Not at present, thanks. You've heard about Grace Moss, I take it? I'm so sorry. You must have known her well.”
“Yes, miss, she was at school with my sister, and then working here at the Hall. A merry creature, she was, always looking on the bright side of things. There wasn't an ounce of harm in Gracie, for all Mr. Moody says she was a flighty piece and he wasn't surprised when she run off.”
“Flighty? I know she was walking out with Owen Morgan, but she didn't run off after all.”
“To think she was lying dead all this time!” Gregg sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“So you can't very well call her flighty.”
“Well, it's true she had an eye to the young master. I'm not saying there was anything in it, mind.”
“A girl would have to be blind not to have an eye to Mr. Sebastian,” said Daisy uneasily. Did Owen have still another rival? Had Sebastian been a passive object of admiration, or had he played a more active part?
“He's handsomer than any film actor, isn't he, miss? And him going to be Sir Sebastian one day. No wonder if poor Gracie had her head turned. Oh, there's the lunch gong, miss. Shall I show you the way?”
“I think I can find it now, thank you, Gregg.” As the distant vibrations died away, Daisy gave her hair a last pat, smoothed her skirt, and set out for the dining room with a hollow feeling inside that was not entirely hunger.

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