by Carola Dunn
“But Daisy—”
But Daisy pressed the hook and hung up. She wasn’t going to get involved in explanations with Vi when a discussion of the case was at hand. Not to mention sandwiches.
Mrs. Barton, a young woman who bade fair to rival her hefty husband in figure, brought a glass of orange squash and two mugs of beer into the front parlour which served as Rotherden’s police station. Beaming at their enthusiastic thanks, she bobbed a curtsy—she had been in service with the Lympnes before marrying—and left them to their business.
Daisy reached for a ham-and-cheese and said, “Does the county constabulary reimburse the Bartons for this?”
Mouth full of cheese-and-pickle, Flagg shook his head. Alec fished his wallet from his pocket, and half-a-crown from his wallet. “Will that do?” he asked. Daisy nodded, her mouth being full by now. But for the odd crunch, silence reigned for several minutes.
Flagg’s appetite being as meagre as his frame, he finished first. He set down his empty mug, wiped his drooping moustache with his handkerchief, and said portentously, “I’ve been thinking.” In response to Daisy and Alec’s raised eyebrows, he continued, “You remember, sir, what Brigadier Lomax said about Professor Osborne having found out who wrote the letters?”
“But we know the vicar wrote them,” said Daisy. “Oh gosh, you don’t honestly think he killed his brother?”
“Do you, Miss Dalrymple? If the professor discovered the vicar was the Poison Pen, would he have spread the word? Could Mr. Osborne have relied on him to keep quiet about it? Or would he have killed his own brother to protect himself?”
“Daisy hardly knew them,” Alec protested.
“Better than either of us, sir.”
“I’m afraid,” Daisy said slowly, “the professor would have thought it a very good joke, possibly worth sharing. And though I don’t believe Mr. Osborne would have killed to protect himself, for his family’s sake he just might … No, I can’t believe it!”
“Just because he’s a vicar?” Flagg asked shrewdly. “He’s an avowed atheist, remember.”
“It seemed to me it was a relief to him to avow it openly, and a relief to confess to writing the letters. We didn’t have the slightest suspicion it was him till he told us. At least I didn’t.” Her querying look won rather sheepish shakes of the head from both men. “Even though I knew he’d lost his faith.”
“Daisy, you knew?” Alec demanded, at the same moment as Flagg exclaimed, “You never told us!”
“I didn’t have much chance,” Daisy said guiltily. “We were always rushing somewhere and talking about someone else. Besides, he told me in confidence, and it didn’t seem relevant.”
“How many times have I told you that you can’t judge what may or may not turn out to be relevant?”
“Dozens, darling. But one can’t just go around spilling people’s inmost secrets on the off chance.”
“In a murder investigation one can,” Alec said grimly. “What else did Osborne tell you?”
Daisy cast her mind back to that rainy afternoon when the Reverend Osbert Osborne had walked with her up the Oakhurst drive. Only three days ago!
“He’s been offered a position at Canterbury Cathedral. Mrs. Osborne can’t decide whether she’d rather be a small fish at the heart of the Church or a big fish in Rotherden, but he can’t accept because he’d be unable to hide his atheism—he’d managed it till then, for her sake and their children’s. It was becoming more and more of a strain, though. He hated the hypocrisy. What he really wants to do is teach in the East End, or one of the big industrial cities, but Mrs. Osborne is used to a comfortable life …”
“Why on earth did he tell you all this?” Flagg enquired, bemused.
“He said I looked sympathetic.” Daisy frowned at Alec, daring him to mention her “guileless blue eyes.” “He was desperate to talk to someone, and his brother didn’t understand because his atheism had a logical basis, whereas he—the vicar—had revolted against religion on purely emotional grounds.”
“So he was desperate,” Alec said thoughtfully, “and his brother was unsympathetic.”
“But killing his brother would leave him with exactly the same problems,” Daisy pointed out, “with the guilt and danger of murder added, whereas being exposed as the Poison Pen would solve the worst, or what he perceived as the worst. You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if he wrote those letters hoping to be caught. Unconsciously, at least,” she added defensively when they stared at her.
“It’s possible,” Alec admitted, “but that just adds to the proof that he’s been in a highly unstable frame of mind.”
“Suicidal?” said Flagg, and the two detectives rose as one.
“You’re not coming, Daisy,” said Alec, as they strode out.
Daisy made no move to follow. She refused to believe the kindly gentleman who had rescued Derek from the Oakhurst gate had killed his brother. On the other hand, he had no dearth of other reasons for killing himself. If he had been driven to that point, she did not want to be one of those who found his body.
She wasn’t going to bow out of the investigation, though. Finishing her orange squash, she carried plates and glasses out to Mrs. Barton, thanked her again, and asked, “Where does Miss Hendricks live?”
“Third house on the left going down the green, miss. Or is it the fourth? Mafeking, she calls it. There’s a silver birch in the front garden.”
“Thanks, I’ll find it.”
Mafeking, Daisy thought as she walked across the corner of the green. Had Miss Hendricks lost her secret lover in the Boer War? Was she what Daisy might have become if she had not found Alec?
Daisy had not been pregnant when Michael drove his Quaker ambulance over a landmine, but all the same, there but for the grace of God …
With more sympathy for the discontented, querulous woman than she had expected to feel, Daisy approached her garden gate.
Constable Barton puffed up the hill from the inn on his bicycle and came to a halt beside Daisy. “Mr. and Mrs. Edgbaston swear Mr. Catterick was with them,” he said, “from ten to one till round about five. Reckon he’s out of it, miss.”
“Sounds like it,” she agreed, and told him the detectives had returned to the Vicarage. Then she went on to knock on Miss Hendricks’ door.
She had not readied an excuse for calling, but Miss Hendricks did not require one. Opening the door herself, she invited Daisy into a tiny hall, and thence into a small sitting room overcrowded with furniture and knick-knacks. The furniture was good, though. Her circumstances might not be easy, but they were more comfortable than her complaints suggested.
“I’ve seen you motoring about with the detectives, Miss Dalrymple,” she said. “The chief inspector is your fiancé, I hear.”
“Yes, actually. They have been interviewing people. Mostly those who received those horrid anonymous letters.”
“I suppose I’m not important enough for a Scotland Yard detective to come himself,” said Miss Hendricks resentfully.
“Oh, I’m not here officially. They didn’t want me along on their present errand,” Daisy explained with a rueful moue. “I expect they’ll want to talk to you later. It must have been a beastly shock when someone started raking up that old trouble.”
“Old trouble?” snapped Miss Hendricks. “What old trouble?”
“Sorry! Someone said … But they must have been mistaken.”
“Who was it? Mrs. Lomax? She’s a fine one to talk, with a husband who drinks like a fish and knocks her about.”
“You know about that?”
“No quantity of powder altogether hides a black eye,” Miss Hendricks informed Daisy with a sort of spiteful satisfaction. “Or was it Miss Prothero? That letter-writer has a nerve, lambasting me for malice and evil-speaking when Mabel Prothero is a ten times worse backbiter than anyone else! Or did she write them?” she asked eagerly.
“I believe not.”
“No, I’m sure it’s Mrs. Willoughby-Jones. She doesn’t care w
hom she hurts. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s written to her own husband, taking him to task for his dishonesty—except that he makes a very good thing of it, so she would suffer if he stopped. I wonder …”
“Gosh, is that the time?” With feigned dismay, Daisy stared at the dainty, flowered porcelain clock on the mantelpiece. She was pretty certain Miss Hendricks hadn’t the faintest idea the vicar was the Poison Pen. “I must be getting back, in case they’re looking for me.”
Disappointed, Miss Hendricks showed her out. “You can tell the chief inspector there’s no truth in that story,” she said, adding complainingly, “It’s dreadful the things people say about people.”
“Isn’t it?” said Daisy.
Miss Prothero was next on her mental list. To get there she had to pass Mrs. Molesworth’s cottage, so she decided to drop in for the sake of thoroughness, although she did not suspect that peaceable, good-natured lady of angel-shoving.
The tiny row-cottage had no front garden and no entrance hall. Stepping from the street into the only downstairs room, Daisy saw that it hadn’t much in the way of furniture, either. Everything was shabby but colourful and comfortable. Stairs to the upper room started in one back corner; beneath them a door led to the kitchen in the rear. Through this Mrs. Molesworth vanished with a cheerful: “Tea! Shan’t be a minute, it’s on the boil.”
Daisy went to look at a photograph in an ornate silver frame, which stood on a bookcase crammed with cheap editions of Dickens, Hardy, Trollope and the like. The plump, pretty bride in the photo was obviously Mrs. Molesworth, wearing an elaborate Victorian wedding dress and pearls, and beaming in a most unVictorian way. The solemn young man at her side was togged out in morning coat and grey topper, a gardenia in his buttonhole.
“Choccy biccies,” said Mrs. Molesworth, bringing in a tray. “I try to save them for visitors. Chocolate is my downfall, I’m afraid.”
Manfully resisting temptation, Daisy waved away the chocolate biscuits. “Thanks, but I’ve just had lunch. Do please regard me as an excuse, and indulge. I’d love a cup of tea, though. Would you mind frightfully if I asked you a few questions, about the anonymous letters?”
The stream of amber liquid pouring from the teapot in Mrs. Molesworth’s steady hand flowed smoothly on. “Not at all,” she said. “I only received one. These days, I dare say, even a churchman can’t work up much enthusiasm for damning the deadly sin of gluttony.” She passed Daisy’s cup, took a biscuit and crunched with unapologetic enjoyment.
“So you guessed the vicar was the Poison Pen?”
Mrs. Molesworth laughed. “I couldn’t think of anyone else who might regard overeating as worse than a venial weakness. Except the doctor, of course, but he’d write about heart disease, not the body as a temple for the Holy Ghost.”
“Did you speak to Mr. Osborne about it?” Daisy asked.
“Good Lord, no. The poor man has troubles enough, even before his brother met such an unpleasant end. The letter did me no harm—unlike others, I suspect.”
“Some people are very upset,” Daisy admitted, “and afraid their secrets will come out.”
“No secrets here!” Mrs. Molesworth glanced down at her substantial self, which shook again with laughter. “I carry the evidence of my failing for all to see.”
“One thing you may be able to tell me: Is there anything, besides her evident … er … failings, which the vicar might have written about to Miss Prothero? I’m not asking for details,” she added quickly, “just whether you know of something.”
Mrs. Molesworth shook her head. “If Mabel Prothero has a skeleton in her cupboard, she’s a great deal cleverer at keeping the cupboard closed than most people. But I don’t want to suggest she has something to hide. I expect her only failings are … er … the evident ones.”
“Believing the worst of people and talking about it,” said Daisy. “Thank you, Mrs. Molesworth. I don’t expect the police will want to see you, but they may. I’m not official, you see.”
“Presuming on your fiancé’s position?” Mrs. Molesworth’s limpid brown eyes twinkled. “Be careful, my dear, curiosity killed the cat.”
“My chief failing is all too evident,” said Daisy, laughing.
A frown creased her forehead, however, as she stood on Mrs. Molesworth’s doorstep, gazing across the street at Miss Prothero’s ugly bungalow. Apparently the vicar was the only person in the village who knew about the poverty-stricken sister, except, possibly, for Mrs. Osborne. Miss Prothero could easily have guessed that he was the Poison Pen.
On the other hand, meanness towards an indigent relative didn’t seem a secret worth killing to keep. It was like Dr. Padgett’s worming pills, uncomfortable but not disastrous.
Perhaps whatever the sister had done to earn Miss Prothero’s enmity was the real secret. A well-bred lady of her vintage might feel herself utterly disgraced by—Daisy gave her imagination free rein—a sister who ran off to be a model in a Parisian atelier, for example; or who married a man drummed out of his regiment, blackballed at his club, perhaps actually convicted of a crime.
Daisy could practically hear Miss Prothero’s sharp voice: “She made her bed. Now she must lie in it.”
But murder? Was the old lady even physically capable of pushing over several hundredweight of granite, however top-heavy?
Still staring at the bungalow, Daisy saw a lace curtain twitch. She was dying to go over and talk to Miss Prothero, to study her with an eye to her height and strength. But Alec would be furious if she called alone on someone she strongly suspected of murder.
She didn’t want to quarrel with him again, not so soon, though making up was very sweet. And curiosity killed the cat, Mrs. Molesworth had warned her. Yet her besetting sin tugged her towards that twitching curtain.
Daisy dithered.
16
Alec was too well brought up to yell after Daisy, when he came out of the police house, glanced to his right, and spotted her crossing the street from the row of cottages. He was too conscious of the necessary dignity of a Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector to race after her. He merely set off at a very fast stride, muttering, “What the dickens is she up to now?”
Inspector Flagg had no such inhibitions. Catching up with Alec, he shouted, “Hi, Miss Dalrymple!”
Daisy looked round, stopping with her hand on the gate of the bungalow next door to Mrs. LeBeau’s house. It was one of the houses she had pointed out earlier, Alec remembered.
“Miss Prothero’s?”
“That’s the name, sir. Do you think Miss Dalrymple’s found out something about her?”
“If she hasn’t, she’s trying to,” Alec said tersely.
“The vicar doesn’t care for the way she treats her penniless sister. Nice place she has.” As they approached, Flagg regarded the city-park-like garden with approval for its gaudy precision, mingled with disapproval for its owner’s living in comfort while her sister starved.
“Oh, Alec, and Mr. Flagg, I’m so glad you’ve come,” Daisy said softly.
Her smile of welcome set Alec’s heart somersaulting, but he made his face and voice stern. “What are you up to, Daisy?”
“Hush! She’s watching from behind the curtains. The windows are open, she’ll hear you.”
“We’d better go back to Barton’s,” Flagg whispered. “You can tell us there.”
“She’d think it was frightfully fishy if we all arrived at her gate and then dashed off again. All I’ve discovered is that she seems to be the only person whose secret is known only to the vicar. By the way, I take it you didn’t find him trying to kill himself?”
“No,” said Flagg, “and he’s given us an alibi. He was visiting the old chap whose seizure kept Dr. Padgett up the night before. Barton’s gone to check.”
Alec broke in impatiently. “So you think Miss Prothero has a good motive for the murder, Daisy? And you were going to question her on your own? Sometimes I wonder if you’re stark, staring mad!”
“I wasn’t
going to question her,” said Daisy, injured. “I’ve been jolly careful not even to mention the murder, let alone ask for alibis or anything like that. Just gossiping about the letters, which everyone’s dying to talk about. But we can’t stand here arguing with her watching. Since you’re here, let’s go in.” She opened the gate and started up the path.
Alec and Flagg looked at each other, shrugged, and followed.
A neat young maid opened the door, and showed them into a sitting room full of highly glazed chintzes in flowery patterns. The wallpaper was flowered, too. At first sight, Miss Prothero fitted well into this daintily old-fashioned setting, so at odds with the modern exterior of the bungalow. She took Alec by surprise. He hadn’t expected the hard-hearted, malicious scandalmonger of report to look like the epitome of a sweet old dear, with softly waved white hair, bright eyes, pink cheeks.
She was not, however, either short or frail-looking. Alec reckoned that under the impetus of strong emotion she might have been able to topple the angel.
From a rocking chair, a large tabby with a tattered ear fixed the intruders with a disdainful stare, and flexed sharp claws.
Unprepared for this interview, Flagg came straight to the point. “We have reason to believe, ma‘am, that you have received one or more anonymous letters. Do you know who wrote them?”
“I suppose Mrs. Burden gave you a list of people,” said Miss Prothero censoriously. “Really, the woman is quite unreliable! She is a civil servant, and she has no business disclosing what passes through her hands. I’ve a very good mind to write to the Post Office.”
“Have you any idea who wrote the anonymous letters, ma’am?” Flagg reiterated patiently.
“Mrs. Osborne, I assume,” Miss Prothero announced with apparently sincere resentment. “She must have a finger in every pie, and she expects people always to conduct themselves according to her notions. There was a certain matter raised in the letters—I have no intention of telling you what—which I was once persuaded unwisely to confide in her. No one else knows of it.”
