by Carola Dunn
“And suddenly you have both a Poison Pen and a murderer in the village,” Alec mused. “No connection between them does seem a bit much to swallow.”
“So we have to investigate Miss Dalrymple’s theory.”
“Yes. For a start, we’ll—you will want to ask the vicar if he knows who’s writing anonymous letters. If he doesn’t, the Poison Pen has no known reason for killing him, or his brother in mistake for him.”
“Yes, sir. I thought, while I’m up here at Oakhurst, I’d ask Lord John to tell me a bit more about those letters, give me something to go on, if you see what I mean. And I wondered if you’d be so kind as to join us, him being more likely to talk to you than to me.”
“I don’t know about that, Inspector.” Struggling with temptation, Alec spoke quite sharply. “He hardly knows me.”
“Who? Johnnie?” Daisy came in.
She looked pale and heavy-eyed, as if she had slept badly. Alec repulsed a pang of sympathy. It was her own fault for agreeing to help Frobisher. He was angry with her for getting herself into such a situation, and furious with her for involving Belinda.
A glimpse of his darkly lowering brows and Daisy was sure he and Flagg were at odds. Though her heart sank, she did her best to smile as she said, “Good morning, Inspector. Good morning, darling. Don’t get up. I’m ravenous. All night I kept dreaming of angels, and they weren’t the friendly guardian kind. Flaming swords and trumps of doom.” She went straight to the sideboard and helped herself to sausages and bacon. Arthur had promised to bring fresh toast and tea.
Flagg returned her greeting. “I was just saying I’m hoping Lord John will give me a bit more information about the letters,” he said.
“They’re written in pencil,” Daisy told him, “in block capitals, on cheap white notepaper. The envelopes match all round. All I know about were posted in the village and Johnnie’s have been coming for a couple of months—he can’t remember exactly when they started.” Turning to sit down at the table, she saw that he had taken out his official notebook to record her words.
“Contents?” he asked briefly.
“Filthy. Badly spelt, but my guess is that they were written by an educated person.” She explained why.
“Thank you, ma’am, that’s a help, but what I really meant was what did the Poison Pen write about?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” Alec grunted.
“Won’t,” Daisy said flatly. “You’ll have to ask Johnnie and the others. Ah, thanks, Arthur.”
“Toast in just a minute, miss,” said the footman, setting down teapot and hot water jug in front of her.
Flagg asked him where Lord John was, and decided to go himself to the stables to request an interview. “I’ll ask you to give me those names when you’ve finished your breakfast, Miss Dalrymple,” he said. “Chief Inspector, I hope you’ll join his lordship and me in the library shortly.”
Surprised by this evidence of concord, Daisy turned to Alec. He was scowling at her, the dark, thick eyebrows still frowning. His grey eyes, so capable of freezing a recalcitrant witness, an erring subordinate, or a wretched villain to the marrow with one icicle glance, were now hotly stormy.
“How could you bring Belinda down here,” he demanded harshly, “when you came expressly to meddle in a crime? Does her safety mean nothing to you?”
“Of course it does!” Daisy cried. “I didn’t know there was going to be a murder.”
“You knew about the Poison Pen’s activities—not a desirable environment for a child. And you might have guessed it could lead to violence, especially considering your propensity for falling over bodies.”
“I don’t choose to fall over bodies. Believe me, I most sincerely wish I hadn’t found this one!”
“You choose to meddle in what doesn’t concern you.”
“I just wanted to help Johnnie, for Vi’s sake,” Daisy said helplessly.
“And your sister’s welfare comes before Belinda’s!” he accused.
“If that’s what you think,” she retorted, seething with anger and hurt, “then obviously I’m not a fit mother for her, nor the right wife for you. You’d better take this back.” She wrenched off her sapphire engagement ring and dropped it in the middle of the table between them.
Alec flung back his chair and strode from the room.
12
One simply didn’t cry in front of the servants. Blinking hard, Daisy stared with loathing at the sparkling sapphire. All that bosh Alec had talked about it being the same colour as her eyes, when he obviously didn’t really care about her at all, only about his daughter.
At the sound of footsteps behind her, she snatched the ring up.
“Your toast, miss.”
“Thank you, Arthur.” Her voice sounded unnaturally calm.
She could not have eaten a bite to save her life. The very thought choked her. While the footman cleared up the men’s dirty plates, she swallowed a few sips of tea. As soon as he left, she jumped up, intending to run to her room and cry her heart out.
But Inspector Flagg wanted to see her again. She had promised him information. She wasn’t going to withdraw her assistance just because Alec considered her an uncaring, untrustworthy busybody. If nothing else, pride would make her see it through.
Going to the drawing room, she sat down at a small writing table between the windows and took a couple of sheets of paper and an envelope from the drawer. She’d write down a list of suspects for Flagg, so that she did not forget any. But first she put the ring in the envelope, licked and sealed it, and wrote across the front—awkwardly because of the bulge of the ring—Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher.
Better deal with it right away, because the tears were gathering in her eyes again. Too maddening! She slipped out into the hall and put the envelope on the salver on the table.
Back at the desk, Daisy took a sheet of writing paper, fine cream bond, watermarked and imprinted with the Oakhurst address, and headed it Poison Pen. At the top of the second, she wrote Victims. That one was easier to compile. She listed Mrs. LeBeau and Dr. Padgett, then Brigadier Lomax and Mrs. Burden with a question mark each. After the brigadier’s name, she put Johnnie suspects, in brackets. After Mrs. Burden, she put postmistress, may be able to name others.
She hoped Inspector Flagg wouldn’t be insulted to be offered such an elementary suggestion.
Professor Osborne topped the Poison Pen list. Next came Mrs. Burden, because she was in Daisy’s mind, not because she was especially likely. Miss Prothero quickly followed. Mrs. Lomax, Mrs. Willoughby-Jones, Miss Hendricks, Mr. Paramount—except that he couldn’t be the murderer—and who else?
Mr. Paramount’s manservant. The Vicarage maid, Doris? Improbable, but put her down, and Mrs. Osborne, too. Mrs. Molesworth? Could her cheerful kindliness hide a bitter venom?
No, Daisy thought, revolted, and crossed out Mrs. Molesworth. She must not let herself be led into casting baseless aspersions in her effort to escape her misery.
After marching out of the breakfast room, Alec barged blindly across the hall and through the first door he came to. He didn’t care what room he was in, only that it was empty.
What the dickens had happened? All he’d wanted was to bring Daisy to a sense of responsibility towards Belinda. It was not much to ask. Great Scott, she was going to be Bel’s mother, after all!
Or rather, she wasn’t, he thought desolately, pacing.
He had had the unbelievable luck to find another woman he could love as much as Joan, and the still more incredible luck to win her—too incredible to be true. Now he had lost her. She had made it perfectly plain she no longer cared for him, if she ever had. Why should an adorable young woman with an Honourable before her name fall in love with a middle-class, middle-aged copper?
Acquitting her of deliberately making a fool of him, he supposed he ought to be glad she had discovered her true feelings before the wedding. But how could he live without her?
As
he started on a third or fourth circuit of the room, he realized he was in the library. Flagg and Frobisher would arrive any moment. He couldn’t stay here. In fact, he couldn’t stay in the house, her sister’s house. He no longer had any claim on the Frobishers’ hospitality, and no professional duty obliged him to assist Flagg. He and Belinda must leave at once.
The sooner Belinda was out of here the better. Daisy had been mad to bring her. Heading for the stairs to find her, he began to wonder just what Frobisher had done to make himself the target of an anonymous letter writer.
Alec found his daughter sooner than he expected. She was sitting on a step half way up the first flight, sobbing her heart out. Peter sat beside her, his round face doleful, patting her knee. The dog, Tinker, was trying to lick her face, and Derek hovered over her, shifting anxiously from foot to foot.
“Bel, don’t take on so,” he pleaded. “They’ll get it sorted out, honestly.”
Cursing himself for believing for a moment that she had forgotten the murder, Alec leapt up the stairs. How could Daisy have embroiled her in such a nightmare?
“Sweetheart, it’s all right, we’re going home. Once we’re far away, you’ll forget all about it, you’ll see. Come on, let’s go and ask Nurse to pack your things.”
Belinda glared at him with red-rimmed, tear-swollen eyes and wailed, “But I don’t want to go! If we go, I’ll maybe never see her again, and I want her to be my mummy!”
“Good lord!” Alec groaned. Running his hand through his hair, he looked down at her, then firmly moved the dog, sat down, and put his arm around her. Tinker licked his cheek.
Before he could gather his thoughts, Belinda said accusingly, “Derek says you quarrelled with Aunt Daisy, and you’re not going to marry her.”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Derek defended himself. “I was going to ask when you’d like to play cricket and I couldn’t help hearing. Aunt Daisy said ‘You’d better take this back,’ and then you came out—I don’t think you saw me—and I peeked in and saw her blue ring on the table, which she never takes off. So I thought Bel ought to know,” he finished in a self-righteous tone.
“Daddy, can’t you tell her you’re sorry?” Bel asked urgently.
Alec sighed, feeling like an absolute ass. The loss of Daisy would be far more damaging to Belinda than proximity to any number of murders, he realized. She had been too young when Joan died in the great influenza pandemic to remember much of her mother, but she remembered enough to know something was missing. Her grandmother did her best, but she was elderly and old-fashioned, with a Victorian fear of spoiling the child by too great a display of affection. No wonder Bel adored Daisy.
Almost as much as Alec did. Infuriating, yes, impulsive and sometimes imprudent in her loyalties, inclined to interfere in matters which were none of her affair, but always warmhearted …
“Ahem!” The butlerian cough emanated from Mitchell, who stood at the foot of the stairs, a silver salver in his hand. “A … hm … a communication for you, sir. It was on the hall table.”
“I’ll get it, Uncle Alec.” Derek bounded down and returned to hand over an envelope.
The bulge gave away the contents. The superscription, Alec’s official title in full, gave away the sender’s frame of mind.
“It’s Aunt Daisy’s ring, isn’t it,” Belinda said, and bit her lip, fresh tears beginning to trickle down her freckled cheeks.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart, I’ll see what I can do.” Alec ripped open the envelope, his heart sinking as he saw there was no note enclosed, no hint as to the best way to approach a reconciliation. “Mitchell, do you know where Miss Dalrymple is?”
“In the drawing room, I believe, sir.”
Alec kissed Belinda and commended her into Derek’s care. Starting down the stairs, he felt rather as if he were back in his fragile canvas and piano-wire observation plane, crossing the front line into dangerous territory.
As he set foot on the bottom step, he was hailed.
“Hullo, Fletcher,” Frobisher said with a distinctly apprehensive glance back at Flagg, a pace behind. “The inspector says you’re taking a hand in this ticklish business.”
“Not officially.” Alec cursed silently. Another thirty seconds and he’d have been with Daisy. But she wouldn’t be pleased if he abandoned her brother-in-law in his hour of need. “And only if you want me.”
“Well, yes, I think so.” Noticing the listening children, Frobisher told them to run along, and turned back to Alec. “Yes, please do. After all, I’ve told Daisy everything, and you know the form, old man.”
The latter phrase, Alec presumed, meant Frobisher trusted him, unlike Flagg, to comport himself as a gentleman. That was encouraging—if Daisy would take back the ring. He wanted to go to her, but instead he accompanied the others into the library.
Having made up his mind to take the bull by the horns, Frobisher—to mix a metaphor—did not beat about the bush. “Though I’m a magistrate,” he said with dignity, “I don’t know much about police methods in this sort of case. Flagg assures me the information I provide may help to catch a murderer. I need hardly say I’m sure you will do your utmost to keep it confidential.”
“No guarantees,” Alec warned, “but we certainly won’t pass on anything unless it becomes absolutely necessary.”
“Well, I can’t see why it should. Right-ho, here goes. The fact is, I had a … Oh lord, I don’t know what to call it. Affair, liaison—they imply too much.” He explained, tersely, not naming the lady who had led him astray. Alec understood why Daisy had forgiven his brief unfaithfulness to her sister, and he wondered whether she knew the woman involved.
“May we see the letters, please?” he said. “Oh, sorry, Inspector, your call.”
“If you please, sir,” Flagg said to Frobisher.
“Yes, of course, I just wanted to tell you first what actually happened, so that you wouldn’t assume something worse.” He unlocked a drawer in his desk and handed Alec several sheets of paper.
Alec passed them to Flagg, accepting them back from the inspector one by one as he finished studying them.
“Just as Miss Dalrymple described them,” grunted Flagg. “Nasty bit of work.”
“Thoroughly nasty,” Alec agreed shortly. How could Frobisher have let Daisy read such filth?
All the same, he had to agree with the conclusions Daisy had drawn from the letters, as reported by Flagg. She did have a certain flair for the detection business, for drawing reasonable conclusions, whether logical or intuitive, from the evidence. And that was quite apart from her extraordinary talent for drawing out confidences.
He recalled her interference in previous cases, meddlesome, certainly, but not infrequently helpful, he had to admit. If only she would submit to some sort of discipline while she exercised her abilities! It was a pity there was no worthwhile place for women in the police, let alone in the criminal investigation branch.
Folding the anonymous letters, Alec gave them back to Flagg, who picked out one, returned it to Frobisher, and tucked the rest into his inside pocket. “Here’s the ‘magistrate’ one, sir. The rest—there’s no way to connect them to you—we’ll hang on to for evidence.”
“If you don’t need this, I’ll burn it. I’m heartily glad to be rid of them,” Frobisher said with obvious relief. “I’m sorry I can’t remember just when I received the first.”
“A pity, but thank you for your cooperation, my lord.” Flagg moved towards the library door.
Alec started to follow, but Frobisher held him back.
“Not a bad chap,” he said in a low voice. “I’m afraid you must think me a frightful bounder, Fletcher, what with one thing and another.”
“I could wish you hadn’t invited Daisy to investigate,” Alec said candidly, “but we all make mistakes and lord knows I’m in no position to cast stones.”
“Things were so much simpler in the trenches.” Frobisher was wistful, almost nostalgic. “One knew where one was, even if it was hell. W
ell, I’d better burn this right away.”
He turned back to the fireplace and Alec went after Flagg.
The inspector was waiting for him just outside the library door. “Not a bad chap,” he said, in an unconscious echo of Frobisher’s judgement of him. “I told you the bailiff cleared him of the murder. We’ll get those names from Miss Dalrymple now.”
Alec froze. This was his punishment for letting Frobisher believe they were soon to be related! He could not decently back out of the investigation now. Still more impossible to explain to Flagg that he and Daisy were no longer on speaking terms. What the dickens was she going to think if he went in and started talking about the Poison Pen, casually, as if she had not just kicked him out of her life?
Too late. Flagg, about to enter the drawing room, glanced back to see what was keeping Alec. Joining the inspector, he waved him first through the door.
Daisy looked round. “I have your lists, Inspector,” she said brightly, before she saw Alec behind him.
The unmitigated gall of the man! Waltzing in under Flagg’s auspices as if he had not hurled horrible accusations against her not an hour ago! He ought to have whisked Belinda away by now, far from Daisy’s baleful influence.
She would not show him she cared. Not looking at him, she handed her two lists to Inspector Flagg, who quickly scanned them.
“Thank you, Miss Dalrymple. I’d like to ask you one or two questions.”
“Of course. Do sit down,” she invited with a gesture Alec might interpret to include him if he chose. He did, but took a chair farther from her than Flagg’s.
“Mrs. LeBeau, now,” said the inspector. “You mentioned her last night, and I had a word with Barton about her. She’s the lady lives right at the bottom of the drive? The one Lord John … er … erred with, shall we say?”
“He told you? How ungentlemanly!”
“Oh no, ma’am, Lord John’s too honourable a gentleman to give the lady’s name. However, he did describe the circumstances, which, with what Barton told me, led to the fairly obvious conclusion you have just confirmed.” He gave her his bland smile. “Mrs. LeBeau’s in a good position to blackmail him, yet you haven’t listed her as a possible Poison Pen.”
