by Carola Dunn
“Ah, Inspector Flagg, that’ll be,” the constable said with relief, putting his notebook away. “Well then, all that needs doing till the inspector arrives is to keep people away.”
“Exactly,” Daisy congratulated him, glad she was not going to have to try to stop him messing things up. “Lord John’s footman is guarding the far gate.”
“Arthur? Good thinking, miss. I suppose the deceased really is deceased? I see Dr. Padgett’s car’s here. Ah, here he comes now.”
“Dead as the proverbial doornail,” the doctor confirmed. “The broken neck would have killed him practically instantaneously. Also, I’m sure though I could not see, there must be massive injuries, both external and internal, which would be equally—Steady on, Miss Dalrymple!” He put his hand under her arm. “Absolutely asinine of me to talk about it, but you’ve held up so nobly—Here, come and sit down in the church porch.”
“Do that, miss. I’ll take over here, but if you wouldn’t mind staying, Inspector Flagg’ll be bound to want a word with you.”
“I’ll stay,” said Daisy faintly, once again struggling with nausea. She let Dr. Padgett support her to the porch and seat her on an ancient oak bench, polished by generations of bottoms.
“Are you sure you don’t want to lie down? All right, I’ll give you something to settle your head and your stomach.” He started to open his black bag.
Daisy hastily stopped him. “No, thanks, I’ll be fine in a minute. I’m not usually such a poor fish, but there’s something singularly beastly …” She shuddered.
“It was quick, poor devil. Fix your mind on that. Assuming it’s Professor Osborne, I take it no one has yet informed the vicar?”
“No,” Daisy admitted with reluctance. She didn’t want to be the one to break the news, yet she would have liked to see Mr. Osborne’s reaction. If he appeared to suspect his brother had been mistaken for him, it would suggest that he had indeed discovered the Poison Pen’s identity.
But Daisy didn’t dare mention the possibility to Dr. Padgett. She would have to tell the police, though, and the only way to make them take her seriously was to reveal Johnnie’s anonymous letters. Oh blast! she thought. How she wished Alec was here and in charge!
“I’d better pop over to the Vicarage,” the doctor was saying. “I suppose it really is the professor? That hat …”
“I’ve seen Professor Osborne in all sorts of peculiar headgear. I’m pretty sure. I do think you’d better ask the constable if it’s all right to tell the vicar,” she added doubtfully. “I hope the Ashford inspector gets here soon.”
“You can’t imagine the vicar murdered his brother!”
“Gosh, no! It’s just that you can’t tell what will upset a police investigation. So you agree that it looks like murder?”
With a grim look, Dr. Padgett nodded. “I’m afraid so. I can’t see how that statue could possibly have fallen without a good shove. You’ll be all right now? I have to be off on my afternoon rounds as soon as I’ve seen the vicar. I’ll have a word with Barton first.”
He went to speak to the constable, leaving Daisy more inclined to believe him innocent of this murder, no matter what his previous crimes or blunders. Surely he would have argued for an accident if he was guilty.
She was also the more convinced that the professor’s death was murder, and it would be too much of a coincidence for it to be unrelated to the anonymous letters. Either the writer had meant to kill the vicar, for fear of being unmasked; or Professor Osborne was the Poison Pen, and had been found out and done in by one of his victims who didn’t see the joke.
Had he discovered now for certain that Life’s a Jest? His death, at least, was a thoroughly macabre jest: the atheist killed by a fallen angel.
9
The Ashford police had not yet arrived when Daisy heard women’s voices from the direction of the Parish Hall, followed by the footman’s determined tones. She was going to have to face Mrs. Osborne without Inspector Flagg’s support.
At the same moment, Dr. Padgett returned along the churchyard path from the Vicarage.
“Osborne is out on his bicycle, making ‘pastural’ visits according to the maid. She has no idea where, or I’d go after him.”
“You’d better get on with your own rounds, Doctor. The WI meeting seems to be over, so Mrs. Osborne will be here any minute. She’s the best person to tell the vicar.”
“Mrs. Osborne?” The doctor visibly quailed. “Yes, I have patients waiting, I must go.”
Without enquiring as to whether Daisy felt well enough now to cope, without so much as pausing to speak to Constable Barton—who had his back turned, looking towards the commotion—Padgett set off at a rapid stride. He vaulted into the Humber, turned in the Oakhurst drive, and buzzed away into the village.
A procession of hats of varied shape and colour appeared above the churchyard wall as the WI members turned homeward. The wall was higher on that side, the ground on the graveyard side having built up over the centuries. Every now and then a woman taller than the rest peered over the top. Once someone even hopped up and down trying to see, but by Daisy’s reckoning the intervening tombstones hid the frightful sight from them. They ought to be glad.
Barton moved towards the lych-gate, his weighty tread suggesting consciousness of the majesty of the law. Daisy realized she didn’t know whether the doctor had told him who had been killed, or whether he had seen the Panama hat and guessed wrong, or whether he remained in blissful ignorance. She was tempted to let him deal with the vicar’s wife, but suppose he reported that her husband was dead? Besides, however inadvertently, Daisy had let the side down by not turning up for her talk. She owed an explanation.
Technically the explanation was owed to Mrs. Lomax, of course, but that wouldn’t cut any ice with Mrs. Osborne.
Daisy joined the constable. “Did Dr. Padgett tell you it’s Professor Osborne who was killed?” she asked hurriedly.
He received the news without surprise. “No, miss, nor I didn’t enquire, seeing that’s Inspector Flagg’s business. But I don’t say I didn’t guess, what with the perfessor being mighty taken with the angel.”
“Would you say most people knew of his passion for that particular monument?”
“Not to say most, miss. Not to say many, at all, at all, I told you I keeps me eyes and ears open. It’s me job.”
“So you did. Here comes Mrs. Osborne now. I must talk to her.”
“Rather you than me, miss, and that’s a fact.” As Daisy moved back, not wanting her forsaken audience to see her, he addressed the procession’s leaders: “Pass along, ladies, if you please. Nothing to see. Pass along, there, madam. Pass along, miss. Mrs. Osborne, ma’am, if you wouldn’t mind stepping through for a moment.”
Suddenly pale, the vicar’s wife stepped through the gate he opened for her. She put a shaking hand to her throat as if incapable of speech. Hurrying forward, Daisy took her other hand and said urgently, “It’s all right, it’s not Mr. Osborne.”
“N-not?” Mrs. Osborne said faintly.
“No. Come and sit down. I’m frightfully sorry you had such a shock.”
Daisy led her to the porch and made her sit down, though already her normal high colour was returning. So was the displeasure of an organizer whose arrangements had been overset without warning.
“We waited for you for quite a quarter of an hour, Miss Dalrymple,” she said severely, “before I was forced to step in with a little lecture on the importance of—”
“I do apologize,” Daisy interrupted, “but I was on my way when I discovered the … accident. I couldn’t possibly just walk on and give a talk as if nothing had happened.”
“I suppose not,” Mrs. Osborne conceded. “It’s most unfortunate, such a thing happening in our churchyard. Have the churchwardens been informed?”
“Not yet. Nor has the vicar. Dr. Padgett went to tell him but he wasn’t at home. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s best for you to break it to Mr. Osborne, not the police. You see, t
he accident victim is his brother, and I’m afraid he’s dead.”
Mrs. Osborne jumped up. “Good gracious, Osmund dead? Osbert will be fearfully distressed to have lost any further chance of leading him back to God before he went to his Judgement. You are right, Miss Dalrymple, I must tell him myself. You will excuse me if I hurry home at once.” And she dashed off.
Wilful blindness or genuine delusion? Daisy wondered. The Reverend Osbert Osborne was the last person to lead anyone to God. He had seemed to be on affectionate terms with his brother, though, so he would undoubtedly be dreadfully upset.
She felt a sudden qualm. Perhaps she should have suggested that Mrs. Osborne identify the body. It would be simply too frightful for words if it was in fact the vicar. Could that scrap of shiny black cloth have been attached to some sort of cassock? Might Mr. Osborne have tried to cheer himself up by contemplation of his brother’s favourite epitaph?
After donning an ecclesiastical garment? Bosh, Daisy admonished herself, hopefully.
A welcome distraction came in the shape of a black Model T Ford drawing up by the lych-gate. Out of the aging motor car a very tall, thin stranger unfolded himself. He wore a fawn soft hat and a droopy lounge suit in a curious shade of bronze-green, possibly the only off-the-peg suit he had been able to find that came near to fitting his gangling form. His sandy moustache also drooped. It gave his bony face a melancholy, lacklustre cast belied—as Daisy saw when she drew near—by alert, bright blue eyes.
Though his figure could not be more different from Tom Tring’s, something about him reminded her of Alec’s sergeant. She was not surprised when Constable Barton saluted the newcomer.
“Inspector Flagg?” she said. “I’m very glad you’re here.”
“Constable Barton, sir,” the local bobby announced. “This here’s the Honourable Miss Dalrymple, the lady as found the deceased. Lord John Frobisher’s sister-in-law, she is, staying up at Oakhurst.”
Apparently unimpressed by her pedigree, the inspector raised his hat, revealing a shock of sandy hair quite unlike Tring’s shining dome. “How do you do, Miss Dalrymple.” His tone was businesslike, with a marked local accent. “Chief Inspector Fletcher told me you were first on the scene.”
“You’ve spoken to Alec?” Daisy asked in astonishment.
“I understand the chief inspector’s daughter telephoned him at New Scotland Yard when she couldn’t reach Barton.”
“Oh dear! I told the children there had been an accident, that’s all.”
“Miss Fletcher didn’t see the deceased?”
“No, thank heaven, nor Derek, and I told them to stay away. Did you hope they were witnesses?”
“Certainly not, ma’am. I’ve girls of my own. But if you told her and the boy—”
“Young Master Frobisher,” put in Barton.
Flagg nodded acknowledgement. “If you informed them,” he continued to Daisy, “that there’d been an accident, I’d like to know just why the chief inspector hustled me over here under the impression it might be murder?”
“If you have daughters, you know what imaginations children have,” Daisy pointed out, annoyed to feel herself blushing. She had no intention of telling the inspector that Alec was more or less resigned to her falling over victims of violence wherever she went. “As it happens, I’m pretty sure it’s murder, and Dr. Padgett agrees. Do you want me to explain or do you prefer to go and see for yourself?”
“Barton?”
“I haven’t looked, sir. Didn’t want to risk destroying evidence when you was already on your way anyways.”
“All right, Miss Dalrymple,” Flagg sighed, “you’d better give me a quick account of the situation.”
Daisy explained about the granite angel, the Panama, the professor’s habit of wearing his academic gown and whatever headgear he happened to pick up, and his custom of meditating upon that particular tomb. Her Poison Pen theories she kept to herself, at least for the moment.
Inspector Flagg drew the constable aside. Watching them, Daisy guessed that Barton confirmed her story, and then Flagg issued some instructions. The bobby departed village-ward on his bicycle, pedalling hard, and the inspector returned to Daisy.
“I’ve sent for our police surgeon and my men, Miss Dalrymple, and an ambulance of course. I didn’t want to bring them out on a wild goose chase. I must thank you. You seem to have coped admirably. You’ll be wanting to cut along now, no doubt.”
“I could do with a cup of tea and a sit-down,” Daisy admitted. “Don’t you need someone to … Oh, Arthur doesn’t need to guard the other gate now, the Parish Hall is empty. Lord John’s footman, Inspector. He could come over here and fend people off for you till Barton comes back or your men arrive.”
Duly summoned, Arthur returned—by the roundabout route—to be thanked for his efforts to date and assigned to his new post.
“I’ll buzz off now, then,” said Daisy.
“Yes, I shan’t keep you,” Flagg assented, “though I’ll need to talk to you again, and take a statement. I suppose I can reach you at Oakhurst?”
“In general, yes, but I think I’ll pop along to the Vicarage now.” She had no intention of waiting tamely a good quarter mile away at Oakhurst to find out what was going on. “Maybe I can make myself useful to Mrs. Osborne, especially if it turns out to be the vicar after all.”
“If the reverend has come home—or the professor, of course—I wish you would let me know.”
“I will, though if the professor had turned up, Mrs. Osborne would surely have come running back.”
“She might be distraught, poor lady. As may Miss Belinda …” Flagg added with a meaning look.
Daisy smiled at him. “I’ll telephone Oakhurst and let Bel know I’m all right,” she promised.
At the gate from the churchyard into the Vicarage garden, she glanced back. Inspector Flagg was picking his way across the grass, amongst the gravestones, towards the fallen angel.
She rather liked him and would not mind working with him, though naturally she would rather have Alec. There didn’t seem to be any excuse for suggesting that Scotland Yard should be called in. Rotherden wasn’t even anywhere near a county boundary, except that which separated Kent from the English Channel. France was as close as London, or closer.
At least Flagg appeared to take her seriously. Sooner or later she had to tell him about the anonymous letters. Johnnie was not going to be at all happy about that.
About to knock on the Vicarage door, she became aware of a buzz of voices from the open drawing-room window. Naturally every WI member who dared had dropped in to find out what was happening. Daisy almost retreated. She had no new information to offer, and Mrs. Osborne had plenty of comforters if such were needed.
But some of her suspects were bound to be in there—Miss Prothero and Mrs. Lomax for a start. Squaring her shoulders, Daisy sent up a prayer that Mrs. Osborne had passed on her apology and explanation for her non-appearance, and knocked.
Behind her, a motor-car pulled up in the street. She turned to see Brigadier Lomax heaving himself out of a Crossley touring car.
Tramping down the garden path towards her, he hailed her testily; “Miss Dalrymple, do you know what the deuce all this fuss is about? My butler says Rosa rang up from here to say I was needed urgently. Silly woman didn’t say why. I got in from my afternoon constitutional just after she rang off, but the line was engaged when I telephoned back.”
“There has been a fatal accident in the churchyard.” Daisy watched him closely as she spoke. He had been out walking, and as a probable recipient of an anonymous letter, he was a suspect in the murder. All she detected in his face was irritable impatience. “Mrs. Osborne felt the churchwardens should be informed.”
“Pah! What am I supposed to do about it? Pick up the pieces, hah?”
The question was presumably rhetorical. Before Daisy was called upon to produce a response, the door opened. “Just a moment, Doris,” she said, and advised the brigadier, “There’s a poli
ceman over there, an Inspector Flagg. Perhaps you should have a word with him.”
“Might as well, now I’m here,” he said in an exasperated tone, and stalked off.
Daisy regretted sending him to see Flagg without a chance to warn the inspector that he was a suspect. Still, the policeman was no fool and he would have to treat everyone as suspect until he had time to start sorting things out.
Stepping across the threshold, Daisy asked the maid, “Is Mr. Osborne home yet?”
“No, miss.” Doris’s sullen stolidity had cracked enough to allow a gleam of excitement. “Miss, is it true what they’re saying, the professor’s been killed stone dead?”
An appropriate way of putting it! “I’m afraid so,” Daisy said. “At least—what was the vicar wearing when he went out?”
“I dunno, miss. Same as always, I ‘spect. I di’n’t see neither of ’em leave. Just after lunch it was, and I had to clear the table and help Cook with the washing up. ’S going to be dull around here without the professor,” she sighed. “Livened things up a bit, he did.”
“I’m sure he must have. Do you think Mrs. Osborne would mind if I made a telephone call before I go in there?” Daisy gestured towards the drawing room. “My sister will be wondering where I am.”
“Oh, yes, miss, might as well get the use from it. The master says it’s just an unn’essary expense when most people in the parish don’t have one, but the mistress says a vicar did ought to be on the telephone. All right by me, saves me legs, running with messages. Here you are, miss.”
As she spoke, she led the way past the stairs to the rear of the hall, to a nook beneath the landing. A straight chair stood beside a small table bearing the telephone apparatus and a notepad and pencil. The pad looked to Daisy exactly like the paper Johnnie’s letters were written on.
Unfortunately, it was a sort that anyone could buy at any Woolworth’s, sold by the hundred thousands, if not millions. No help there—until she noticed the indentation of the previous message, written in capital letters.
