The Winter Garden Mystery

by Carola Dunn

  Wearily Daisy went up to her room, to find that Gregg—on instructions from Lady Valeria—had already packed her bags. She took off her shoes and lay down on top of the counterpane. The next thing she knew was Bobbie gently shaking her shoulder.

  “Daisy, it’s lunchtime. Do you want it on a tray? I looked in earlier but you were out for the count. Mr. Petrie rang to say Mr. Fletcher’s arm and shoulder are just badly bruised.”

  “Thank heaven!” Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, Daisy leaned down to put on her shoes and hide the tears in her eyes. “Oh Bobbie, I was so afraid he might be crippled for life.”

  “Jolly good news, isn’t it?” Bobbie moved on to her own concerns. “Mr. Petrie didn’t know anything about official permission to leave, but he said he’d find out before he comes for you. We’re all hoping to follow you down the drive. Bastie went down to the dairy to tell Daddy and he’s going to tell Mummy at lunch. Rather short notice, but who can blame the poor pet? Are you all right? I’d better go and brush my hair.”

  Though almost all Daisy’s hairpins had come out, she managed to find enough to make a reasonable job of her coiffure. Should she have accepted Bobbie’s offer of a tray in her room? Lunch was bound to be an uncomfortable meal. Nonetheless, she hurried down, sharing as she did with Kipling’s Elephant’s Child the curse of “’satiable curtiosity.”

  Or perhaps it was a gift, after all. Without it, Alec might be lying dead.

  When she reached the dining room, Sebastian was just finishing telling his parents the tale of Stan Moss’s confession. Lady Valeria’s obvious relief changed to a look of malevolence as Daisy entered.

  “So, Miss Dalrymple, it was all a storm in a teacup,” she said, taking her place at the head of the table. “You and your Inspector Flincher making a mountain out of a molehill. I hope you’re satisfied with all the distress you’ve caused for nothing.”

  “Hardly for nothing, Lady Valeria,” Daisy retorted as Moody and the dithery parlourmaid served the soup. “Without the investigation, Chief Inspector Fletcher would not have come to suspect Moss and he might have got away with it. Besides, clearing Owen Morgan was as important as anything.”

  “Morgan! I trust he doesn’t expect to return to Occles Hall after being incarcerated for murder.”

  “Now, my dear,” Sir Reginald protested, “that’s hardly fair to the poor lad.”

  “Don’t worry, Sir Reginald,” said Daisy blandly. “I’ve persuaded my mother to hire him.”

  “Maud Dalrymple always was a namby-pamby nonentity,” snorted Lady Valeria.

  “Oh, I say, Mater,” Sebastian objected.

  Smiling at him, Daisy shook her head. To Lady Valeria, most of the world consisted of easily steamrollered nonentities so it was pointless to be offended. Besides, Daisy was leaving Occles Hall in less than an hour and for Sebastian’s sake she didn’t want his mother to come to a boil before he even disclosed his plans.

  Lady Valeria would blow her safety-valve then, without fail. Was Sebastian capable of standing firm and emerging uncrushed?

  For the moment he held his tongue while her ladyship congratulated herself at length on being able to rid Occleswich of its eyesore at last. In passing, she squashed Mr. Wilkinson when he ventured to suggest that to ban a petrol station was to stand in the way of progress and to compromise England’s industrial might. The poet’s subsequent abstraction was accompanied by a gleam in his eye which made Daisy decide to beg for a copy of his forthcoming verse on his mother-in-law.

  Sebastian waited until Lady Valeria was temporarily silenced by a mouthful of roly-poly pudding and custard. “Since Chief Inspector Fletcher’s investigation is finished,” he said, “we’re all presumably free to go.”

  “Dodo and I are ready to leave the moment we get official word,” said Bobbie in loyal support.

  Lady Valeria swallowed her mouthful. “I have not considered myself bound by Fetter’s preposterous demands. Did you want to go up to town for a day or two, Sebastian? I’ll check my calendar. I expect I can fit it in.”

  “No, Mater,” Sebastian said gently. “Ben and I are going to Greece.”

  Unfortunately, his mother’s mouth was full again. She choked and turned purple, her eyes bulging—though actually, Daisy thought, she didn’t look very different from when she was in a rage. However, her son thumped her on the back and pushed a glass of water into her hand. She gasped for breath.

  “Don’t be silly, Sebastian,” she said, recovering. “I told you I’d take you to Corfu next winter. Perhaps we could manage it this spring since you’re so keen.”

  “Sorry, Mater, it’s not a holiday on Corfu I’m keen on. Ben and I are going to live in Greece. We’ll go up to London as soon as the Chief Inspector gives the word. It will take a few days to see my solicitor and make arrangements, and then we’re off, train to Marseilles, ship to Piraeus.”

  Lady Valeria forced a laugh. “What a child you are, dear boy, with your impractical daydreams. I suppose you imagine life will be one long holiday.”

  “That’s what it is at home! I want to try some serious archaeology—and Ben will never have to survive another English winter. We can live cheaply there; I have enough for both of us.”

  She turned on Ben, spitting out the words. “You scheming sponger! Of course this is your idea, taking advantage of a naïve … .”

  “Not at all,” said Daisy sharply. “It was my suggestion. If you think about it, you’ll see it solves a great many problems.”

  Lady Valeria gaped at her. Daisy was about to excuse herself to go and put on her coat when Moody came in and announced, “Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher is here, my lady.”

  Bobbie jumped up. “Good-oh! Come on, Dodo. Excuse us, Mummy.”

  She dashed out, followed by her fiance, Sebastian, Daisy, and Ben. Alec, his arm in a sling, was in the Long Hall, sitting on one of the chairs with painfully knobby carved backs. To Daisy he looked awfully pale.

  As Bobbie rushed up to him, he stood up with a slight smile. “Miss Parslow, Mr. Parslow, Mr. Goodman, I’ve no doubt you’ve heard the whole story. I came to tell you Moss has been arrested for his daughter’s murder.”

  “Topping!” said Bobbie. “Daisy said he’d more or less confessed.”

  “Yes, and he’s done a bit more ranting. Grace went home and told him she was going to London. The fury which made him strike her seems to have been chiefly because her departure would ruin his chances of forcing Lady Valeria to let him put up a petrol pump.”

  “How frightful!” said Daisy with a shudder. “He was obsessed.”

  “So was the mater,” Sebastian said soberly.

  “In its way, a classical tragedy,” Ben observed.

  Mr. Wilkinson was inspired. “I shall write a verse play!” he cried.

  “Right-oh,” said Bobbie with a fond glance. “I take it we may leave, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “You’re all at liberty to go where you will, with my apologies for intruding in your lives.”

  Bobbie promptly invited him to call in at the school cottage if he was in the neighborhood. Sebastian shook his good hand.

  “You did rather put me through the wringer,” he said, “but no hard feelings. Has Daisy told you Ben and I are following her advice and going to live in Greece?”

  “So that’s it! I knew she was up to something.” Alec sighed and shook his head at Daisy, his lips twitching. “Miss Dalrymple has a finger in every pie.”

  “Fortunately for the rest of us,” said Ben, grinning.

  “I just try to help,” she said with dignity. “Alec … Mr. Fletcher,” she amended as Lady Valeria and Sir Reginald appeared, “are you all right? Will your arm be all right?”

  “A week or two in a sling, then gradually decreasing agony for a few weeks. That’s just from the weight of the axle. If he’d actually hit me on the head … . Well, they say he probably used something considerably lighter on poor Grace, yet she ended up dead.”

  “Don’t!” Daisy shivered
, suddenly very anxious to get away from Occles Hall. “Phillip didn’t arrive with you?” she asked, reaching for the coat, hat, gloves, and scarf she’d left on a nearby chair.

  Sebastian helped her into her coat as Alec said, “No, Petrie drove Morgan over to the gardener’s cottage to fetch his belongings. They’ll be here any moment.”

  Daisy embarked upon farewells and thanks and wishes for happiness, Lady Valeria responding to her coolly polite good-bye with a tight-lipped snort. Everyone accompanied her and Alec to the little room by the front door, which was piled high with luggage.

  The doorbell pealed. Sebastian opened the door and there was Phillip. Moody appeared, looking almost cheerful, to help him carry out Daisy’s traps. Daisy decided the butler was anticipating a life of ease for his aching feet with everyone gone.

  A last round of good-byes, then they were outside and the massive door began to close behind them. Daisy heard Bobbie say, “Come on, Dodo, time to pack our toothbrushes.”

  “Us, too, Ben,” said Sebastian.

  “Reginald, stop them!” Lady Valeria’s voice was harsh, but Daisy, glancing back, saw her white, desperate face and for the first time pitied her.

  “It’s time I was getting back to the dairy, my dear,” said Sir Reginald vaguely.

  The door thudded shut. Daisy breathed a sigh of relief.

  In the dim light under the tunnel, Owen huddled in the Swift’s dickey, half submerged beneath tripod, camera, typewriter, and his own meagre possessions. The poor chap seemed to be in a bit of a daze. Outside, beyond the moat, Tring and Piper waited in Alec’s Austin.

  Phillip opened the passenger-side door of his motor-car. He was dashed relieved to be getting Daisy away from Occles Hall, even though, as it turned out, none of its inhabitants was a murderer.

  Daisy pulled her hat down more securely and tied the scarf over it and beneath her chin. “I’m glad I’m going to see Mother one last time before I bob my hair,” she said, climbing into the Swift.

  “You’re going to do it?” Phillip was horrified. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Phil, it was you who said … . Alec, what do you think? Don’t you think it’ll suit me?”

  “I shouldn’t dream of jumping to a conclusion without evidence,” said the detective. “I’ll wait till I see it.”

  “See it!” Phillip exclaimed in dismay. It was all very well palling around with a policeman here in the middle of nowhere, but never say the bally copper intended to pursue her in town!

  “I shall be calling on Miss Dalrymple in London,” said Fletcher smoothly, but Phillip had a nasty feeling he was amused. “To bring her news of the case, of course. She’ll be a witness, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, spiffing!” Daisy cried. “A real trial, not just … .”

  The door opened and they all turned. Sir Reginald emerged, a large, round, paper-wrapped object in his arms. “I nearly forgot,” he said apologetically, “I promised you a cheese, Miss Dalrymple. Good-bye, my dear, and thank you for all you’ve done.”

  Phillip reluctantly relieved him of his burden and he pottered off through the tunnel towards his dairy. Depositing the cheese on Morgan’s lap, Phillip slithered in behind the wheel and reached for the self-starter.

  Fletcher, his good hand holding on to the top of the windscreen, leaned down. “Petrie, you’ll be getting a letter of thanks from the Met,” he said. Well, he really wasn’t such a bad chap, after all. “And you, Miss Dalrymple, will receive an official citation for bravery. And an unofficial warning against … .”

  “I know,” said Daisy, grinning up at him in a confoundedly intimate way. “Against meddling!”

  Also by Carola Dunn:

  Death at Wentwater Court

  THE WINTER GARDEN MYSTERY. Copyright © 1995 by Carola Dunn. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  Production Editor: David Stanford Burr

  Design: Junie Lee

  eISBN 9781466820623

  First eBook Edition : April 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dunn, Carola.

  The winter garden mystery: a Daisy Dalrymple mystery / Carola Dunn.

  p. cm.

  I. Title.

  PR6054.U537W56 1995

  823’.914—dc20

  95-5225

  CIP

  First Edition: May 1995