Death at Daisy's Folly

by Robin Paige

  “Our brickworks, Your Highness,” the warden said nervously, glancing at the camera.

  “Capital idea,” exclaimed the Prince, looking around and apparently seeing, for the first time, something to admire. “You are to be congratulated upon the industry of your workers. I imagine your bricks fetch a pretty price.”

  “Quite so, sir,” Guardian Brocklehurst replied, as the warden seemed to relax. “We supply the local market and ship by railway as far as Colchester. It is a modestly profitable operation.”

  Charles, enshrouded in his black hood, thought the man was understating the situation. Brick-making on this scale, with no rent, low-cost supplies, and free labor—it was a recipe for enormous profits.

  “Brick-making is an ideal occupation for our inmates, sir,” Warden Holden explained, gathering courage from His Highness’s approval. “It requires limited skill, except for making the forms and laying the courses for firing. Two trained craftsmen supervise that work.”

  “And as you see,” the matron put in helpfully, “tasks may be found for all. Even small children can be set to work preparing the straw and grinding the clay. With such a ready labor supply, the brickworks operates the whole day around—two shifts.”

  That meant that the women and the children were working twelve-hour shifts, Charles thought sadly. No wonder they looked so worn and weary. His sadness turned to anger as he thought of the irony of the situation. Under the Factory Act that had been passed almost two decades before, children under ten could not be employed in a mill or a mine, and children under eighteen had to be given a Saturday half-holiday. But the managers of a workhouse, which was not regulated under the law, could employ children with impunity—and pocket the profit from their labor.

  “With half of your inmates always at work,” Daisy said, “you require only enough beds for the other half. Is that not so?”

  “Exactly,” Matron Kingsley replied triumphantly. “It is a great economy.”

  “You see, Lady Warwick?” the Prince asked, smiling. “Things are managed so that the workhouse is supported by the labor of the very people who depend upon its services. A tidy solution. By Jove, I like it!”

  Charles shook his head. It was a sentiment to which even the staunchest Conservative could have agreed. If Daisy had brought HRH here in the hope of turning him toward Socialism, it looked as if she had lost.

  But Daisy was undismayed. Without hesitation, she launched her counterattack. “And how much do you pay your workers, Warden?” she inquired icily.

  Warden Holden’s eyebrows shot up. “Inmates of a workhouse are not paid wages, as Your Ladyship knows very well.” His voice was huffy. “They labor for their beds and board, according to the provisions of the Poor Law Act of—”

  Daisy did not allow him to finish. “You require these men, women, and children to work at this backbreaking labor without wages?” She turned to the Prince, imploring. “Don’t you see, Your Highness? These wretched people are no better than slaves.”

  The mayor pulled himself up. “Oh, no, Your Ladyship!” he cried in horror.

  Lady Warwick whirled on him. “Your inmates are slaves! You pay no salaries, so your bricks can be sold for far more than they cost to produce. And to judge from the appalling conditions we saw today, only a fraction of these people’s earnings go to provide for their food and shelter. What happens to the rest?”

  Guardian Brocklehurst cleared his throat nervously. “I assure you, Your Ladyship, the Board of Guardians follows the most stringent accounting practices in apportioning its funds.”

  The Prince frowned. “I’m not sure I follow your argument, my dear Lady Warwick. The inmates are free to leave if they wish, are they not? No one confines them here. Ergo, they are not slaves.”

  “But where are they to go?” Daisy asked passionately. “They have come here because they could not find work, so where are they to turn?” She threw a dark glance at Guardian Brocklehurst. “Of course, if the workhouse were not in the business of brick-making, some local brick maker might employ them. Or if they were paid a fair wage for their labor here, they might be able to afford housing and food for themselves. But as it is, they are condemned to—”

  “Ahem.” The Prince coughed delicately. “This is all quite interesting, Lady Warwick. But I fear that my throat is growing raspy from the dust in the air, and the time for luncheon is rapidly approaching. We must let these good people go on with their work.”

  Daisy’s face registered disappointment and a sharp dismay. “But, Bertie,” she said, “I hoped that—”

  She didn’t get to finish her sentence. She was interrupted by a dour-faced woman who opened the door and stepped inside. The woman was followed, to Charles’s great surprise, by the lanky young man who had been sent to fetch the doctor yesterday—Tom, his name was. He whipped off his cap and bowed to the Prince, then turned to Lady Warwick.

  “Lord Warwick wants that Yer Ladyship an’ ‘Is ’Ighness come back t’ Easton as quick as ye kin, ma‘am. There ’as bin a misa’venture.”

  “Another accident?” The Prince frowned. “We haven’t untangled the last one yet. Who’s been hurt?”

  “It’s Lord Wallace, sir,” Tom said. He shifted his feet uncomfortably. “‘E’s dead, sir.”

  “Dead?” Lady Warwick asked. She had grown suddenly very white. “Was it a shooting accident? Did he take a fall? How—?”

  Tom twisted his cap in his hands. “No, ma‘am,” he said. “ ’E was murdered, ma‘am. Shot, ’e was. Right i’ th’ middle o’ ‘is for’ead.”

  With a little moan, the Countess sank to the ground.

  14

  Our rule was, No Scandal! ... Whenever there was a threat of proceedings, pressure would be brought to bear, sometimes from the highest quarters, and almost always successfully. We realized that publicity would bring us into disrepute, and as we had no intention of changing our mode of living, we saw to it that five out of every six scandals never reached the outside world.

  —FRANCES (DAISY) BROOKE, LADY WARWICK Discretions

  There was a metallic clatter in the lane beyond Stone Hall. “The Daimler, at last!” Lord Warwick exclaimed, rising from the carved wooden bench on which he and Friedrich Temple had been sitting for a good part of the morning. Kate rose, too, glad that the long wait was over.

  A few moments later, the Prince strode impatiently onto the scene. “What’s all this about a murder?” he demanded of Lord Warwick, who had stepped forward to meet him. “Do you have any idea how fast we drove to get back here?” He turned to Bradford Marsden, who, with Sir Charles and Andrew Kirk-Smythe, was at his heels. “How fast did we drive, Marsden?”

  “By my watch, sir,” Bradford said, “we covered the thirteen miles in fifty-two minutes.”

  “Astonishing,” the Prince said. He shook his head. “P‘rhaps you’re right, Marsden. P’rhaps this machine is the wave of the future.” He turned around, remembering why they had come. “I tell you, Brooke, if this murder business is someone’s idea of a practical joke, I will personally have his—”

  Wordlessly, Lord Warwick reached down and removed the horse blanket covering the dead man. The Prince stared down at Wallace’s unmoving body, which lay on the path in front of a low stone bench. Then he bent over and examined the hole in the center of the dead man’s forehead.

  “Jupiter!” he breathed. “So that’s why he didn’t appear for breakfast.” He straightened up. “Come here, Sheridan, and have a look!”

  “I did not think it right to move him until you arrived, Bertie,” Lord Warwick said. He looked down sadly. “Poor old Reggie. We had words occasionally, but he was a gentleman through. Absolutely fair, you know, and quite discreet. Could be trusted with any secret—”

  Kate’s nose tickled and she suddenly sneezed, startling Lord Warwick into an awareness of her presence. He closed his mouth firmly, just as she was wishing that she could hear what secrets had been entrusted to Lord Wallace. It did seem curious that a man would praise his w
ife’s former lover for his fairness and discretion. What a complicated web of relationships was woven by these affairs. Before her stood a husband and a current lover, conferring over the body of a former lover!

  “Miss Ardleigh?” Charles asked in surprise, apparently just noticing her.

  “It was Miss Ardleigh’s and my misfortune to discover the body,” Sir Friedrich said smoothly. He moved close to Kate. “We had come to have a look at the Folly—”

  Kate stepped away, conscious that Temple’s tone might be wrongly interpreted—and from Charles’s frown, she could see that it had been.

  “It is more accurate to say that I was returning to the Lodge from a brief walk through the garden, accompanied by Sir Friedrich,” she amended tartly.

  “In any case, gentlemen,” Sir Friedrich said with a slight smile, “I must report that Miss Ardleigh has been reading detective stories. She forbade me to touch the body and insisted that I send one of the gardeners in search of Brooke.” He glanced at Charles. “She was most emphatic that you be summoned, Sheridan. She said, and I quote, ‘We must not disturb the crime scene until Sir Charles has arrived.’ ” His tone became patronizing. “We should congratulate the lady for her knowledge of police procedures, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Quite right,” the Prince said briskly. “Good girl, Kate.” He turned to Charles. “Well, Charles, it looks as if you have another corpse on your hands.”

  “Forgive me, sir,” Charles said. “This is clearly not a case of accidental death. The investigation is a task for the police.”

  “It might be suicide, of course,” Kirk-Smythe said thoughtfully.

  “Suicide?” Kate asked. “But there is no weapon. At least,” she added less eagerly, sensible that the men had all turned to stare at her, “there is none in sight.” While she had been sitting on the bench, Kate (or rather the irrepressible Beryl Bardwell, she of the avid interest) had been searching with her eyes and had detected no gun. She had seen one or two other things, however.

  “It is possible, Miss Ardleigh,” Charles said, “that someone else might have happened on the body before you discovered it, and taken the weapon.” He turned to the Prince. “But suicide or murder, the fact remains that the investigation is police business. Brooke must summon the local constable at once.”

  Lord Warwick shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of the police.” He looked at the Prince and Sir Friedrich. “Gentlemen, perhaps we should discuss—”

  While the three men drew together to talk, and Bradford and Kirk-Smythe were bending over the body, Kate went to Sir Charles. “Charles,” she said in a low voice, “there’s something I must tell you.”

  He pressed his lips together. “If it is about you and Temple,” he said, “I don’t want to hear it. What you do is your own private—”

  “Fiddlesticks,” Kate retorted smartly. “You know me better than to think I would allow myself to be compromised by a man like Temple. What I have to tell you concerns the handkerchief and the—”

  “What handkerchief?”

  “The one about eighteen inches to the right of your left foot, caught on that rosebush.” She saw his eyes go to the small scrap of white. “I didn’t want to call Lord Warwick’s or Sir Friedrich’s attention to it, since they would most certainly feel compelled to take it up and I knew that you wouldn’t want the crime scene disturbed.” She glanced over her shoulder. “No one is looking. You have the opportunity of retrieving it.”

  “No,” Charles said. “I would rather first photograph it in place.”

  Bradford straightened. “Clever of you to stow the camera in the motorcar,” he remarked. “Shall I fetch it?”

  “Please,” Sir Charles said. He turned back to Kate. “No one has moved the body, then?”

  “Not while I have been on the scene,” she said. She consulted the watch pinned to her lapel. “Sir Friedrich and I stumbled onto the corpse at a moment or two past nine. It is now just past noon.”

  Charles gave her a brief smile. “I must compliment you. If the police manage to solve this, their success will largely be due to your insistence that the scene remain undisturbed.”

  “But I am afraid I did disturb the scene,” she said ruefully. “When I first saw the body, I observed a piece of paper protruding rather obviously from the breast pocket. I asked Sir Friedrich to step away and send a nearby gardener for Lord Warwick. While he was thus occupied, I took the paper out of the pocket, only because I feared that someone might see it and become curious about it before you arrived.” She reached into her reticule, took out a folded piece of paper, and pressed it into his hand. “Here it is. I have not had the opportunity to read it.”

  There was no opportunity for Charles to read it, either. The three men had completed their consultation.

  The Prince turned, grim-faced. “Charles,” he said, “I don’t need to tell you what will happen when the police arrive, with the press hot on their heels. The Tranby Croft nasco—which involved merely a bit of gaming, not murder—will be as nothing compared to the stink that will be raised about the two deaths that have occurred this weekend. To exclude the press, we must exclude the police.” He paused for emphasis. “Do you take my point?”

  Charles shifted his weight uneasily. “I understand the difficulty of dealing with an inquisitive press, sir. But anyone who conceals a murder may be judged an accessory to it. Have you considered that?”

  “Indeed I have,” the Prince replied severely. “Which is why you have just been commissioned an officer of the law.”

  If His Highness had not been so serious, Kate would have smiled. Sir Charles Sheridan, about to become the fifth baron of something-or-other, an officer of the law?

  Charles’s jaw tightened. “Forgive me, sir,” he said, “but I am not—”

  “Oh, yes, you are,” the Prince replied. He raised his walking stick. “I hereby appoint you, Sir Charles Sheridan, as temporary captain in the Household Police of His Highness the Prince of Wales, and invest you with the authority to investigate this conspiracy.”

  Charles tried one last time. “But I must point out, sir, that the local authorities have jurisdiction—”

  “Sheridan,” the Prince thundered, “this investigation is your duty!”

  Kate flinched. Charles straightened and looked the Prince in the eye. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Forgive me, sir, but you mentioned a conspiracy. Might I ask—”

  “It also involves the death of the boy. I don’t for a minute believe the horse had anything to do with it.”

  “A conspiracy, Bertie?” Lord Warwick looked uneasy. “You mean, you think there’s a link between your stableboy’s getting a knock on the head and somebody doing in poor Reggie?”

  “It’s possible,” the Prince said. “What if Harry saw or heard something he shouldn’t have—something that made him dangerous?”

  “Entirely correct, sir,” Kirk-Smythe put in. “The lad might have eavesdropped on some sort of plot, and then—”

  “—and then was killed to keep him from revealing his suspicions to me. Ah, yes, of course!” The Prince, pleased, turned to Charles. “There, you see, Charles? Half of your work—the logical half—has been done for you. All you have to do is find the evidence. What do you say?”

  Charles said the only thing he could say, under the circumstances, Kate thought. He said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent,” the Prince exclaimed. “And one more thing. Since this matter so obviously involves the security of the realm, I must instruct you to maintain the strictest secrecy in your investigation. No word of this is to get through to the outside world.”

  “I fail to see,” Charles said carefully, “how the security of the realm got into the matter.”

  The Prince assumed a patient expression. “I am now compelled to believe, Charles, that this crime and the other are part of a plot. Your investigation must be kept secret in order to ensure that no word of it disturbs the populace or alerts Anarchists who might use it to seize some villain
ous advantage.”

  Charles was stroking his brown beard. “Suppose for a moment, sir, that this is not an Anarchist plot but a simple case of murder. Suppose—hypothetically, of course—that my investigation reveals that the murderer is one of the servants, or perhaps one of our party. What then? Will that person be turned over to the proper authorities?”

  “In this matter,” the Prince said decidedly, “I am the proper authority. Now, get to it, Charles. Question whom you will, investigate as you must. No holds barred, as it were. We must have the truth of this matter. I shall want your first report in an hour.” He pulled out his heavy gold pocket watch and frowned at it. “No, make that two hours. We are abominably late for luncheon as it is.”

  From his half-audible sigh, Kate understood that Charles had unwillingly resigned himself to the task. “Perhaps, sir, I should consult with you when I have something to report. It may be two hours, or—”

  “Oh, very good,” the Prince said impatiently. “Now, shall we—”

  “Speaking of luncheon,” Charles went on, “it might be a good idea if you announced the murder and requested the cooperation of the guests and their servants. The Easton servants, as well.”

  “The guests?” Sir Friedrich asked with a small laugh. “Surely you don’t for a moment imagine that one of us would—”