The Corpse at the Crystal Palace

by Carola Dunn

  “Charlie, you shouldn’t come in here!”

  “Mrs. Aunt Sakari said to. Make the old witch let me go!” He aimed a kick at the attendant’s skinny ankle.

  Mrs. Hatch dodged with surprising agility, keeping a hold on his ear and screeching an unprintable comment about heathen brats.

  “Let go of him,” said Daisy in the grande dame voice she’d learned from her mother. “Charlie, apologise for being rude.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “But, Aunt Daisy, it’s urgent. We found Mrs. Gilpin in the water with the monsters and she’s not moving and Ben and Bel went in to try and pull her out and Bel told me to fetch Mr. Uncle Tom Tring. So will you come, please, sir, quick!”

  FIVE

  Ex–Detective Sergeant Tring took charge. After a piercing look at Charlie—and Tom could do piercing looks with the best of them despite his usual geniality—he said, “Calm down, young shaver. I’m coming. Just hold your horses a minute. Mrs. Hatch, you’ve done a good job and I’m going to have to ask you to hold the fort again. Can I rely on you?”

  “Don’t ’ave much choice, do I.”

  “Mrs. Fletcher, you’re going to have to find a doctor and … Ah. Here comes Mrs. Prasad.”

  “Sakari!” Daisy hurried to meet her friend. “Good timing.”

  “I thought you might need assistance, Daisy. What can I do?”

  “Mrs. Prasad, Mrs. Fletcher must find a doctor. Have you any idea—?”

  “There is an office at the far end of the Palace. If they have no doctor employed here, they must at least have a telephone.”

  “Thank you. And a copper, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “I’m on my way.” She noticed that Charlie looked anxious. “Charlie, you’ve done well. Mr. Tring will take care of you, just do what he tells you.”

  At the door, glancing back, she heard Tom say, “Mrs. Prasad, I’d take it kindly if you’d stay here and help Mrs. Hatch keep everyone out.”

  “Willingly, Mr. Tring. I am more than ready put up my feet.”

  Glancing back, Daisy saw Tom and Charlie following her as Sakari sank into one of the sagging sofas.

  Tom said, “All right, lad, tell me the whole story. Monsters, eh?”

  Then the door swung closed behind Daisy. Not knowing which way they would go, she didn’t wait for them.

  Monsters indeed, she thought. The prehistoric creatures were somewhere in the park, she was sure. What on earth had taken Nanny Gilpin into the park? And what had taken the children after her?

  No doubt she’d find out sooner or later. In the meantime, she ought to plan what she was going to say to the police. She was torn between ringing Scotland Yard and asking for Detective Sergeant Piper—who had probably gone to Bristol with Alec, come to think of it—or talking directly to the local division like any ordinary citizen.

  If the division were in charge, perhaps Superintendent Crane would never find out she was responsible for the discovery of the corpse in the Crystal Palace, though she could hardly keep it from Alec. The Super would be even less pleased than Alec. Honestly, anyone would think she did it on purpose!

  The nave was quite crowded now. Coming to the central aisle, Daisy spotted Mrs. Tring between people, statues, and greenery and managed to catch her attention. They both altered course to meet.

  “Did the twins get off all right, Mrs. Tring?”

  “Yes indeed. Mr. Truscott was waiting. They hopped right into the car, such good poppets. I gave them each a lollipop.”

  “That was very kind of you.” How lucky Mrs. Gilpin wasn’t there to object! Whatever had happened to Mrs. Gilpin?

  “I hope my Tom sorted out your trouble, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “He’s been very helpful but it’s still a work in progress. I’m on my way to ring for the police.”

  “I hope your nanny is all right?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. But I’d better not stop to explain. If you go to the ladies’ room, Mrs. Prasad will tell you what’s going on.”

  Daisy hurried on along the nave. It seemed endless, being even longer than the one she had come from, since the end of that had burned down long ago and never been rebuilt. When she came to the Crystal Fountain, she spared it hardly a glance in passing. Somewhere beyond it was the office—Ah, there was a sign.

  The restaurant was nearby and appetising smells wafted to her nostrils. If not for Mrs. Gilpin’s strange behaviour, they would all by now be sitting at a table ordering lunch. What had possessed the woman to go traipsing out to the park and fall into a lake?

  Pushing open the door of the office, Daisy came upon a young girl almost in tears. In her hands was a spool of typewriter ribbon, one end of which disappeared into the bowels of her machine. Her fingers were liberally splotched with ink, some of which had transferred to her face.

  “Having trouble?” Daisy said sympathetically.

  “It’s a different make from the one I learned on!” she wailed, then cast a hunted look at a door into an inner office. “I’ve only just started, and now I’m bound to get the sack.”

  “I expect I can sort it out for you, but first, I need to use your telephone.”

  “Oh, but I’m not allowed to let anyone use it. There are public telephones—”

  “I’ve got to call the police. It’s urgent. I haven’t time to go hunting for a public phone.”

  “Why, what’s happened?”

  “Listen and you’ll know as much as I do.” Daisy sat down on a chair beside the desk, pulled the phone towards her, and lifted the receiver. The girl cast another glance at the connecting door but didn’t object again. “Hello, operator. Give me the police, please.” She covered the receiver with her hand. “Have you got a doctor here?”

  “It’s my first week. I don’t know.”

  “Go and ask him.” She gestured at the door.

  “I daren’t!”

  “Go. I’ll deal with him. Hello?”

  “Sydenham Police Station, Sergeant Wimbish.”

  “Hello, Sergeant. My name is Fletcher, Mrs. Fletcher. I’m reporting a dead body in the ladies retiring room at the Crystal Palace.”

  The girl squawked and fled to the inner office.

  “A body?” said the sergeant in the gruff voice of sceptical officialdom. “Dead?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You’re having me on. Wasting police time is an offence—”

  “This is not a hoax. Ex–Detective Sergeant Tring of the Yard told me to telephone.”

  “Sergeant Tring? He’s there? Let me speak to him.”

  “He’s here at the Palace, but not here with me in the Palace office.”

  “Oh?” Scepticism became suspicion.

  “He’s seen the body. But he couldn’t come with me.” Should she mention Nanny’s plight? Better not, until and unless it turned out to be relevant. “Someone had to stay there to keep people away,” she added, truthfully if misleadingly.

  Nothing but heavy breathing came to Daisy’s ear for a moment, then the sergeant said, “Please hold the line a moment, madam.”

  Daisy agreed to hold. She looked up to see a small, fat man, crimson in the face, breathing stertorously at her, his eyes popping. The girl hovered behind him.

  “Madam, this is a private telephone!”

  She raised her eyebrows. “So I was informed. I assumed you wouldn’t care to obstruct police business.”

  His small mouth pursed. “Are you claiming there really is a body?”

  “Do I look like a practical joker? I assure you—”

  “Mrs. Fletcher?” That was the phone.

  “Excuse me. Hello?”

  “Mrs. Alec Fletcher?”

  “Ye-es,” Daisy admitted.

  “This is Detective Inspector Mackinnon.”

  “Mr. Mackinnon? What a relief! I mean—”

  “Never mind, Mrs. Fletcher.” The redheaded Scot’s amusement was all too obvious over the wire. “I know what you mean. Now tell me what you’ve got yourself into this time.”


  “I…” She remembered just in time that she had listeners. The man had edged closer, his head cocked. “I’m in the Palace office—Sergeant Wimbish told you I’m at the Crystal Palace?—and I’m not alone. Can’t you just take my word for it that you need to come? Or send someone?”

  “Willingly, but my superiors like their i’s dotted and their t’s crossed.”

  “Oh, of course, I don’t want to land you in hot water. Just a minute. Please, Mr.…?”

  “Ledbetter. I must protest—”

  “Will you please go into the other room, and close the door behind you?” She knew she was being high-handed but she had taken an instant dislike to the man, a rarity for her. “This is a private matter.”

  “This is a private office,” he stormed.

  “Yes, I’m sorry to trouble you, but—”

  “Let me speak to him.” He grabbed the receiver from her hand. “Who is this? I wish to protest in the strongest terms the invasion of my private office.”

  “I am Detective Inspectorr Mackinnon of the Metrropolitan Police, P Division.” His voice was loud enough for Daisy to hear, and very Scottish now. “To whom am I speaking, sirr?”

  “My name is Ledbetter. I’m the manager of the Crystal Palace. This young woman—” He quailed at Daisy’s glare. “This young lady barged into my office with a cock-and-bull story about—”

  “Mr. Ledbetterr, let me get this strraight. Arre you saying you do not wish the prrroper authorrities to investigate the rreport of a possibly crrriminal incident in the establishment you manage?”

  “Of course not!”

  “I beg your pardon. Then you would have preferred that Mrs. Fletcher telephone from a public box, where anyone could have overheard her and spread the story through the crowd—”

  Ledbetter ran his finger round inside his collar. “Well, no.”

  “Of course not. In my opeenion, Mrs. Fletcher has acted verra prroperly. Now I require further details, such as are not to be bandied before the public, being in this case your good self. Therefore I officially request, sir, that you provide for Mrs. Fletcher a telephone and a place of privacy to use it.”

  “Oh, if it’s official, that’s another matter. Come along, Miss Carr. Don’t dawdle.” As he handed the receiver back to Daisy, with a scowl, he noticed the devastated typewriter ribbon and transferred the scowl to his secretary. “You’ve already wrecked the machine!”

  As the door to the inner office closed behind them, Daisy heard the girl attempting to excuse her contretemps with the ribbon.

  “Mrs. Fletcher? Do I gather that Mr. Tring is with you?”

  “With me at the Crystal Palace, but not with me at this moment. He checked that the woman is really dead.”

  “He’s making sure no one goes near, I assume.”

  Daisy was happy to let him assume. She told him the whole story, omitting only that Mrs. Gilpin had not rejoined the twins and the nursery maid, and that Tom had gone looking for her. That had nothing to do with the dead nanny. She hoped.

  “You’ll send someone?” she asked when the tale was told.

  “I’ll come myself, and bring the divisional surgeon, or another doctor if he’s unavailable. It’ll take a while—they patched me in from Peckham—but I’ll send a couple of local officers, with instructions to put themselves under Mr. Tring’s command. Should they ask for the Palace office?”

  “No fear! Tell them to go straight to the north end ladies’ room. I’m persona non grata here.”

  Mackinnon laughed. “Right you are. I’ll see you as soon as I can make it. Let me have a word with the irate gentleman.”

  “Don’t mention my husband!”

  “I won’t,” he promised, laughing again.

  “‘A source of innocent merriment,’” Daisy quoted silently as she fetched Ledbetter to the telephone. If only Superintendent Crane viewed her propensity for finding bodies in the same light.

  She hurried back along the endless nave, the size of the building now more an irritant than a source of wonder. Just after crossing the central aisle, she heard Belinda’s voice behind her.

  “Mummy, wait!”

  “Darling! What’s going on? Is Mrs. Gilpin all right?”

  “No. Oh, Mummy, it’s awful. Ben and I pulled her out of the water, but she’s awfully cold. She’s all muzzy in her head, too, and she can’t remember what happened. Uncle Tom says she probably hit her head on the snake-neck monster. Her face is sort of greeny white. I expect she was sick after I left.”

  “Poor Mrs. Gilpin! Did she say why she went out into the park instead of going home with the twins?”

  “No. We saw her following the other nanny, but we don’t know why. Mummy, Uncle Tom said to get hold of a doctor and someone to help carry her.”

  “All right.” Daisy contemplated returning to the Palace office and decided discretion was the better part of valour. “Have you noticed a public telephone?”

  “Yes, by the entrance where we came in.”

  “Good. There’s an attendant there, too. We can ask for help. Come along. You’ll have to explain where to find them. By the way, darling, I’m proud of you for going to the rescue.”

  “And Ben.”

  “And Ben, of course. And Charlie for coming on his own to tell us.”

  The attendant at the gate, an Australian by his accent, was a different kettle of fish from his superior at the office. He not only gave Daisy the name—Merriam—of a local doctor who was occasionally called in when a visitor needed attention, he lent her change for the telephone, taking it from his till.

  “And don’t you worry, madam. While you ring up, I’ll organise a couple of chaps with a stretcher.”

  “Thank you. My daughter here can describe exactly where to find the vict—the patient.”

  “Good on you, young lady.”

  “Oh, I nearly forgot, Uncle Tom said blankets and hot drinks, too.”

  The man nodded to her. “I’ll get ahold of a thermos of something. Alf! Alf, come over here a minute! There’s blankets go with the stretcher, right?”

  Daisy left them to it. The telephone operator knew Dr. Merriam’s number and put her through right away. The doctor’s wife answered the phone and said crossly that her husband had just sat down to his lunch. Daisy persuaded her to at least pass on a message. Counting her pennies, she found she had enough for another six minutes, but he came on the line before the first three were up. She explained the situation.

  “Well, that’s a change,” he said cheerfully. “It’s usually children who go climbing those prehistoric beasts and fall in the lake. They’re bringing her up to the Palace, you said. To one of the ladies’ retiring rooms?”

  “I imagine so. The north end, I expect, as it’s already closed off. The man at the entrance should be able to direct you.” Besides, the police would want to talk to Mrs. Gilpin, as she must have been there about the time of the other nanny’s death.

  “Oh? What—”

  “Sorry, I mustn’t talk about it. And I really must run.”

  When Daisy found Belinda, she was with the gatekeeper, Alf, and a third attendant, poring over a map of the park. The gatekeeper had identified her “snake-neck monster” as a plesiosaur. As Daisy reached them, Bel triumphantly put her fingertip on the map. “Here it is. Next to this island. We waded across.”

  Daisy hadn’t noticed Belinda’s dampness before but the hem of her skirt was still dripping.

  The gatekeeper marked the spot with a cross and gave the map to Alf.

  “Right you are, miss. We’ll find it easy without troubling you to lead the way. We’re off.” He picked up a folded stretcher and the pair departed.

  Daisy thanked the gatekeeper. “We’ll go back to the ladies’ room,” she said to Belinda. “Sakari and Mrs. Tring will be dying to know what’s going on.”

  “I wanted to go with them.”

  “I want you to stay with me, darling. One less to worry about. What a morning!”

  SIX


  Daisy and Belinda found Sakari and Mrs. Tring chatting comfortably on a sofa. Mrs. Tring was knitting. She never went anywhere—even the pub, Tom had once revealed—without her knitting.

  “Did anyone go in there?” Daisy asked.

  “Only the two of us,” said Sakari. “It was necessary.”

  “We didn’t poke about.”

  “Mrs. Tring would not let me.”

  “Good.”

  “I might have noticed something of interest.”

  “And you might have mucked up evidence. Not that there’s any reason to suppose it wasn’t a natural death.” Daisy frowned. “Except … I only had a brief glimpse, but she seemed awfully young to drop dead unexpectedly.”

  “Daisy, the child!” Sakari protested.

  “I don’t mind,” said Belinda earnestly. “When your father is a detective, you hear all sorts of things. Besides, Aunt Sakari, remember when Deva and I, and Lizzie, found—”

  “All too well. I hope the local police here are less obnoxious than the ones we faced at that time.”

  “He was frightful, wasn’t he?” said Daisy. “DI Mackinnon is on the way. I know him, and he’s altogether a different kettle of fish. He’s coming from Peckham, though. A couple of men from the Sydenham Station should get here first. If one is the sergeant I spoke to, he’ll be sticky, unless Mackinnon gave him what-for.”

  “Well,” Sakari observed comfortably, “you and I did not quail before Detective Inspector Gant—was that not his name?—and I expect we can hold our own with this sergeant fellow. However, I am sorely in need of fortification. If Belinda will go with me to help, I shall obtain sandwiches for everyone and bring them back here.”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea!”

  Belinda looked as if she’d rather stay, but she was a well-mannered child. “Of course I’ll help, Aunt Sakari.”

  They went off together. Though Daisy was hungry, she was sorry to lose her friend’s support in the face of Sergeant Wimbish’s hostility. Sakari on her high horse was an awe-inspiring phenomenon.

  “Don’t you worry your head about that sergeant, deary,” said Mrs. Tring, patting her hand. “I never met a copper yet I couldn’t put in his place.”