Die Laughing

by Carola Dunn

  “Do you think Talmadge had damaged his brain?”

  “I wouldn’t like to say. You’d have to ask a doctor. Not so you’d notice normally, but maybe enough to make him careless. It would explain this accident, wouldn’t it?”

  “Ah yes, you told Sergeant Mackinnon you were sure his death was an accident. Could you explain just how that could happen?”

  “I’ve been thinking, and there’s two ways it might happen. Maybe he just forgot to switch on the oxygen. You have to breathe oxygen along with the laughing gas, you know. Or maybe he was just going to take a quick whiff, so he didn’t bother with the oxygen, and then he breathed deeper than he meant to and got too happy to care.”

  “I see. You don’t think it could have been suicide, as Mrs. Talmadge assumed?”

  “Not likely,” said Miss Hensted scornfully. “She thought he was upset because of her carrying on with that Lord Henry Creighton, but I can tell you, he didn’t mind. You’ve got to care for someone a lot before you mind about stuff like that. He didn’t care two pins for her.”

  “For whom, then?” Alec enquired.

  The nurse laughed unconvincingly. “I’m sure I don’t know. Nobody, I suppose.”

  “Lord Henry Creighton …”

  “All I know about him is what that Hilda’s let drop. You’ll have to ask her about him.”

  “I shall. You left the surgery at twelve forty-five, I think Sergeant Mackinnon said?”

  “That’s right, sir,” the sergeant confirmed.

  “Yes. I went to the ABC in the High Street for a bite to eat, same as usual. I got back a bit late, about ten past two. In a bit of a fluster I was, after rushing. Mrs. Fletcher was already waiting.”

  “Thank you, Miss Hensted, you’ve been most helpful. I may need to see you again, but you’d better go and see to Mrs. Talmadge now. Send Miss Kidd down, will you? Tell her to find Sergeant Tring, who’ll have some questions for her.”

  Miss Hensted left, looking smug, which Daisy put down to her having been interviewed by a chief inspector while Hilda Kidd was going to have to make do with a mere sergeant.

  “Right-oh, Daisy, your turn. You had an appointment to see Talmadge.”

  “Yes, at two o’clock. I had a toothache,” Daisy explained for the record, as though her tossing and turning with pain had not kept him awake at night until he insisted that she see a dentist. “I arrived on time. The waiting-room door was unlocked so I went in, but no one was there.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “From the surgery? No, not a whisper. Of course, I didn’t listen at the door,” she said regretfully. Had Tom Tring or Piper been taking notes, instead of Mackinnon, she might have confessed that her tooth had stopped hurting and she’d nearly turned tail. Instead, she simply described what had happened and how her suspicions had been aroused.

  “Mrs. Talmadge was first into the surgery?” Alec asked. “I somehow had the impression it was the nurse. You’re sure of that?”

  “Quite sure. It was natural for her to lead the way in her own house, looking for her husband. Now I come to think of it, though, I was a bit surprised, when we found him, that she hadn’t asked me to wait in the hall.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, she obviously didn’t want me to see him indulging in his secret vice. It wouldn’t have done his reputation any good if I’d talked about it. I suppose it was wishful thinking: she wanted to believe he’d just gone through to the surgery a bit late.”

  “She told you she knew about his habit?”

  “Yes. No, actually, I don’t think she did.” Try as she might, Daisy couldn’t actually remember where the impression had come from. “Anyway, when she saw him, her immediate reaction was to block my view.”

  “And then, you say, she realized he was dead and claimed he had killed himself.”

  “‘Claimed’ is much too restrained a word. She fell into strong hysterics. Thank heaven the nurse was there to take charge.”

  “What happened exactly?”

  Daisy put almost as much effort into picturing the scene as she had previously put into evading the memory. “Miss Hensted slapped her face. No, first she—the nurse—turned off the gas and turned on the oxygen. She said something about knowing he’d make a mess of it sooner or later. Then she felt his wrist. Oh, I’d already done that. She said pure oxygen was the antidote but it was too late and that’s when Mrs. Talmadge had hysterics and Nurse Hensted hustled her away.”

  “And you left with them?”

  “I looked around. I didn’t touch anything, and I put on a glove to close and lock the door and take the key, because I suspected he’d been murdered.” Daisy suddenly felt as cold and clammy all over as his skin had felt to her probing fingers.

  “Sorry, love!” Alec sprang to her side. “Here, put your head down on the table for a moment.”

  “I must be out of practice,” she mumbled feebly.

  “You’d better have some tea, with plenty of sugar.” He reached for the pot. “Damn, it’s cold.”

  DS Mackinnon appeared on her other side, wielding a bottle. “Cooking sherry?” he offered. “It’s all I can find.”

  “Ugh,” said Daisy, who wasn’t frightfully keen on even the best sherry.

  However, Alec poured a dollop into the clean kitchen cup that Mackinnon produced, so she sipped it. It was just about as disgusting as she expected, but it did warm her.

  “I’m all right,” she said after a few more sips, pushing the cup away. “Thank you, Sergeant. But Nurse Hensted says alcohol for shock is outdated.”

  “It seems to have worked,” Alec pointed out. “Are you able to go on?”

  “Yes, darling, and I’ve told you every tiniest detail about the surgery, so we can drop the subject. After I spoke to Sergeant Mackinnon, I went up to see Daphne—Mrs. Talmadge.”

  Alec’s dark eyebrows met over steel grey eyes, but after casting a glance at Mackinnon, he didn’t tell her she was a meddlesome wretch.

  As if he had, she excused herself. “The Talmadges are neighbours, after all, as your mother reminded me before I came. I couldn’t just walk out without a word.”

  “Hmm.”

  “She repeated, more calmly, that her husband must have committed suicide. She told me he’d been depressed because he couldn’t afford to buy into a Harley Street practice, but I must say, she didn’t say it as if she believed it. Lord Henry Creighton is a much more likely reason, but I can’t tell you about him because it’s just hearsay, and anyway, Talmadge didn’t commit suicide, did he?” Daisy said, fixing Alec with what he persisted in calling her “misleadingly guileless” blue eyes.

  “No, he was killed all right,” he answered incautiously.

  “Then I was right!”

  “Dash it, Daisy, I shouldn’t have—”

  “Don’t worry, darling, it’s perfectly obvious. You wouldn’t be here asking me all these questions if it wasn’t murder.” From the corner of her eye, she noticed Mackinnon biting his lip. She could only hope he would prove as discreet as Ernie Piper as to how much he wrote down in his official notebook. She smiled at him, and went on, “It was Hilda Kidd who talked about Lord Henry, so you’ll have to ask her, until Daphne is fit to be interviewed.”

  “Mackinnon, go and find Sergeant Tring and tell him to ask the parlourmaid about Lord Henry Creighton.”

  “And he’d better ask what she meant by ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’”

  Mackinnon looked to Alec, who shrugged and nodded. “He’d better ’phone the Yard, too, and get hold of DC Piper, or leave him a message. Tell him to find out where Creighton lives and ring back.” Alec waited till the door closed, then said, “Off the record, because I shouldn’t be sharing speculations with a witness, am I to take it that Mrs. Talmadge was having an affair with Creighton?”

  “Quite likely. He was an old flame. Hilda said Daphne would meet him in town for lunch and a show, how often I don’t know.”

  “Why on earth
would Hilda give away a thing like that? I had the impression she’s devoted to her mistress.”

  “She is, darling, beyond the bounds of common sense, but she was too upset to be discreet. When she dropped Lord Henry’s name, she was actually trying to defend Daphne against Miss Hensted’s aspersions.”

  “No love lost there.”

  “No, I thought for a minute they were actually going to come to blows over who should look after her. I was never so glad to see you in my life.”

  “‘What, never?’”

  “‘No, never!’”

  “‘What, never?’”

  “‘Hardly ever!’” (They had recently taken Bel to see H.M.S. Pinafore.) “Seriously, though, Hilda blurted out that Daphne should have married Lord Henry, then felt obliged to explain it to me. I suppose the title—though it’s only a courtesy title, like mine—must be an attraction. Lord Henry hasn’t much else going for him.”

  “You know him?”

  “Slightly, but I wouldn’t dream of prejudicing you for or against him. I assume you’re going to see him?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Alec. “The lover doing away with the husband is the oldest tale in the book.”

  “As old,” Daisy asked, “as the husband doing away with the lover?”

  6

  Mackinnon returned to the kitchen and took up his notebook again. “DS Tring will ask about Lord Henry and about the goose and gander, sir,” he reported.

  Alec had a feeling the sergeant was having a hard time keeping a straight face. That was always the way when Daisy got involved in a case. Either other police officers concerned strongly objected to her meddling, or they fell for her, hook, line, and sinker. Just as well it was usually the latter, he thought with a sigh.

  Mackinnon was also obviously bursting with curiosity. Alec asked the question for him.

  “Daisy, what’s this about sauce for the goose and gander?”

  “It was a bit confusing at the time, because what Hilda really meant was ‘what’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose.’ She was excusing Daphne’s carrying-on by hinting that she was getting back at her husband for his own peccadillos. Who sinned first I can’t guess, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a mistress.”

  “Why not?” Alec asked, resigned to venturing into the dangerous territory of Daisy’s speculations.

  “Well, he really was devastatingly handsome, wasn’t he? I heard—at some of those local parties we’ve been to—that women swoon when he bends over them with that intent look on his face, even though what he’s intent on is their rotting teeth.”

  Alec momentarily forgot Mackinnon’s presence. “Is that why you made your appointment with him?” he asked, with more interest than jealousy, he hoped.

  “Darling, he’s … he was your dentist, Belinda’s dentist, and yet more important, your mother’s dentist. I wouldn’t have dared go to anyone else. Besides, I’m far too frightened of dentists to care about their looks. And everyone said he was a very good dentist.”

  “He was.”

  “I was just making the point that any man so attractive would have to beat off the applicants for the position of mistress. Which is a shockingly vulgar thing to say and I hope you’re not writing it down, Sergeant.”

  “Not me, ma’am.”

  “Good. Incidentally, as an additional indication, I think you’ll find the Talmadges have … had separate bedrooms.”

  “I suppose we’ll have to go through all his records and pick out the eligible patients,” Alec groaned.

  “Yes. What fun for you, darling. Now I really think I’ve told you everything I can remember—”

  “And a good deal else besides!”

  She wrinkled her nose at him in the way that begged for a kiss, but this time he remembered Mackinnon’s presence. “I’d rather like to go home now. Bel’s bringing a couple of school friends home for tea and I promised I’d be there. If I think of anything else, I’ll write it down so I don’t forget.”

  “Right-oh, love, off you go. Do you want a taxi?”

  “No, I’d rather walk. I shall contemplate the daffodils and put everything that’s happened this afternoon out of my mind for a while.”

  Alec wondered momentarily why she needed to be home when Belinda brought her friends home from school. His straitlaced mother had not been an ideal person to bring up his daughter after Joan’s death, but that was one thing she had never cavilled at.

  What, never?

  Hardly ever.

  That one time had driven Belinda to run away. If this was the same child visiting again, he was glad to have Daisy to sort out the situation. He dismissed it from his mind and returned to the case before him.

  By that time, the dead dentist, daffodils, and her mother-in-law had already ceased to claim Daisy’s immediate attention. When she reached the Talmadges’ front hall, she saw Gladys peering out through the coloured glass panel beside the front door. The housemaid swung round.

  “Are you leaving, m’m? You don’t want to go this way. A reporter come knocking on the door, bold as you please, and Constable Atkinson, he come running after and says he’s trespassing. Seems he climbed over the wall! Did you ever? Mr. A shooed him back to the street and he’s closed the gates, m’m, and there’s more people there now, too, so if I was you I’d go out the back way.”

  “Thank you, Gladys, I will, if you’ll explain how to get there.”

  “It’s easy, m’m. Just go out the back door by the kitchen and down the drive and past the garridge. You’ll see a gate. There’s an old alley or lane, not much more’n a footpath. A ginnel Cook calls it, that’s from Yorkshire.”

  “I’ll try it. Thank you.”

  As Daisy turned back, the rumble of Tom Tring’s voice came from the dining room. Gladys giggled.

  “He’s a caution, that Sergeant Tring. Ever so nice, really. I don’t mind telling you, m’m, I was shaking in my shoes when Miss Kidd said he wanted to see me, but he wasn’t a bit scary. He was even nice when I had to say I don’t know nothing. I wish I could’ve helped him,” she added regretfully, “but Miss Kidd, she never tells me nothing. Cook and her stop talking when I come in.”

  “Where were you around midday?”

  “Me and Miss Kidd had our dinner around noon, in the kitchen, and I laid Mr. Talmadge’s lunch in the dining room, then we went up to the sewing room. It’s up on the second floor by our bedrooms, and it’s only got one window, the opposite side from the drive. We didn’t hear nothing nor see nobody.”

  “What a pity.”

  Daisy returned down the hall to the back door. Passing the kitchen door, she nearly went in to tell Alec about the alley, and also that Cook might be privy to any secrets known to Hilda Kidd. But a glance at her watch made her hurry on. She didn’t know how far out of her way the alley would take her, and no doubt Alec would find out about it for himself.

  The back garden was bright with tulips, hyacinths, and pansies, growing in ranks in formal beds surrounded by low box hedges. It reminded Daisy of the formal, comfortless drawing room, though pansies are incapable of real formality. The whole added up to a show place, not a home, suggesting the residents’ emotional needs were satisfied elsewhere—if at all.

  When she reached the garage, she saw that the gravel continued in a narrower path around the side. Until she came to the rear corner of the small building, it hid the wooden gate in the garden wall. In the narrow space between the garage and the wall lurked a compost heap and a rubbish incinerator, which emitted a trickle of noisome smoke.

  The bandages and sticking plaster which had killed Talmadge might even now be smouldering there. She hesitated, wondering if she ought to take a look.

  A choking wisp of smoke reached her nostrils and dissuaded her. If she went back to Alec, she’d only find that Mackinnon already knew all about it. In any case, it was a very slow fire. Anything not already consumed could wait another ten minutes. She’d ring up from home and ask Alec whether anyone had looked in there.


  The wooden gate in the wall had a bolt, but it was held firm in the open position by rust. The latch worked easily, though, and the gate swung on its hinges without a squeak. Before she stepped through, Daisy checked that there were no footprints approaching the gate for her to spoil.

  The alley was about six feet wide, between walls, fences, and hedges separating it from the gardens on either side. It was cobbled, the mortar between the stones long crumbled away. Grass and dandelions grew along the sides, but the centre was clear, so presumably used regularly. The cobbles showed no footprints, and a patch of gravel from the path, spreading in a fan beyond the gate, was equally unhelpful.

  As she approached the end of the alley, a whistling errand boy on a bicycle turned in from the street. Seeing her, he stopped and backed out again to leave room for her to pass.

  “Afternoon, miss,” he called, touching his cap. “Beautiful day, eh?”

  “Lovely. Do you often ride this way?”

  “Now an’ then. It’s a good shortcut, see, ’cause of them dead-end streets.”

  “Most convenient,” Daisy agreed, taking note of the shop name on the packages in his basket: J. Witherbee, Chemist. Alec might want to ask J. Witherbee’s boy if he’d seen anyone unusual in the alley earlier today.

  She hurried on. Halfway home, the beautiful day dissolved in another shower. At that point she remembered that her umbrella was waiting for her in the waiting room—always supposing it hadn’t been impounded by the police as a valuable clue. Far from providing shelter, the plane trees lining the streets simply gathered the rain and deposited it in great splotches instead of small drops.

  Feeling damp, Daisy turned into Gardenia Grove. A dark red Sunbeam tourer with gleaming brass and a dark-skinned chauffeur passed her and pulled up before the Fletchers’ garden gate. Before the chauffeur could get out to open the doors, three little girls in navy blue school uniforms scrambled out of the rear. After them, at a more leisurely pace, came a flamboyant figure in a yellow sari embroidered with green leaves, a shawl covering her glossy black hair. The chauffeur raised a large black umbrella over her.