The Corpse at the Crystal Palace

by Carola Dunn

  “Let me know when you’re going to walk and I may come too.” She went down to the bedroom now occupied by Mrs. Gilpin and tapped on the door.

  Mrs. Tring called, “Come in.”

  Mrs. Gilpin was sitting up in bed, leaning against plumped pillows, with a breakfast tray on her lap. Pale and heavy-eyed, she glanced round as Daisy entered, then winced and put a hand to her head.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Gilpin. I hope you slept well.”

  “Yes, thank you, Mummy—madam,” she said listlessly.

  “Do you—” Daisy hesitated, glancing at Mrs. Tring, who guessed her question and nodded permission. “Do you remember anything more? Why you chased after the other nanny?”

  “I shouldn’t’ve done it, madam! Leaving the babies alone in a place like that!”

  “They weren’t alone. Bertha’s perfectly capable of looking after them.” To her dismay, far from being comforted, the poor woman pushed away her tray and burst into tears. “I’m sure you had a good reason for going, even if you can’t recall what it was.”

  Mrs. Tring bustled her out and she was only too glad to leave.

  She went downstairs to breakfast, to find that Belinda and the boys had almost finished theirs. After an exchange of greetings, Daisy asked Elsie for scrambled eggs and toast, poured herself a cup of coffee, and enquired what their plans were for the day.

  “The zoo,” said Bel.

  “I’m going to ride an elephant, Aunt Daisy,” Charlie proclaimed, “and a camel and in a llama carriage.”

  “If it’s not too expensive,” Ben reminded him. “You already spent almost all your pocket money.”

  “I should think I might find some spare change in my handbag. Bel, when you’ve finished eating, go and fetch it from my bedroom and I’ll see if I can contribute to the exchequer.”

  “Gosh, thanks, Aunt Daisy.”

  “May we take sandwiches, Mummy, so we don’t have to come back to lunch? The rides aren’t till the afternoon.”

  “Yes, but make them yourselves if Mrs. Dobson is busy. Without getting in her way.”

  Three or four letters lay by her place at table, and the newspaper, which she was making a conscientious effort to read regularly now that she was allowed to vote. She left them until the children had excused themselves and dashed off.

  Nothing from Alec: Elsie would have put it on top. The top letter was the weekly screed from her sister, Violet. She set it aside for later. Under it was a scribbled note from Lucy: Having got over the morning sickness, she was constantly hungry; could Daisy meet her for lunch?

  Daisy could, Bel and the boys having obligingly taken themselves off for the day. Unless she ought to stay in and wait for DI Mackinnon … No, if he didn’t telephone to make an appointment, he’d just have to risk her being out. Mrs. Gilpin and Mrs. Tring wouldn’t miss her for a couple of hours.

  The next envelope was addressed in untidy handwriting she didn’t recognise at once, though there was something familiar about it. On the back flap was the discreetly embossed insignia of the Ritz Hotel.

  Inside, as well as a folded sheet of Ritz notepaper, was a second envelope, with just her name written on it.

  “Gloria!” she said aloud in surprise.

  Her American friend, meticulous about Christmas and her birthday, rarely wrote at other times. And of course the outer envelope had Phillip’s scrawl. Phillip Petrie had been her dead brother’s best friend. Having promised Gervaise to take care of his little sister if he were killed in the war, he had done his best to marry Daisy when she failed to find herself a husband. She had refused him at least a dozen times, she thought affectionately. It had been a great relief when he fell in love with the daughter of an American millionaire whose passion, like his, was automobiles.

  Setting aside Gloria’s thick letter with Vi’s, for later, Daisy unfolded the notepaper. As she had already guessed, Phillip was in London on business and looking forward to seeing her. “And Alec,” he had inserted as an afterthought. Though horrified at her marrying a policeman, he had come round in the end.

  The last letter, atop a pile of bills and circulars, was from Alec’s mother. The usual litany of complaints, no doubt, leavened by a list of errands the elder Mrs. Fletcher hoped the younger would spare a few minutes to perform for her in London. “Leavened” was the wrong word. Not only would the errands certainly take several hours, but Daisy would earn no expression of gratitude for their performance.

  What’s more, she’d be unable to complete at least one task in a satisfactory manner, so it would be the subject of the next letter’s complaints, and proof, besides, that her aristocratic upbringing had made her unfit to be a middle-class housewife.

  Daisy poured another cup of coffee and spread another slice of toast thickly with butter and marmalade. Thus fortified, she slit open her mother-in-law’s letter. Best to get it over with.

  It was every bit as sticky as she expected, even without the marmalade fingerprints acquired in the reading.

  Dealing with its demands would have to wait until Belinda went back to school. On the way to her office, Daisy dropped off on the hall table Mrs. Fletcher senior’s enclosed notes to Bel and Alec. She rang up and left a message for Lucy, then Mrs. Dobson came in for their daily consultation. They were discussing the vagaries of the coal merchant and whether to try a different firm when the telephone rang.

  “Good day, Mrs. Fletcher. Mackinnon here. How is the patient this morning?”

  “Much better. She doesn’t seem to remember anything more, though.”

  “Aweel, that’s a pity. Perhaps I can jog her memory. Would it be convenient if I dropped by in about half an hour?”

  “Yes, that’s all right. Did you want to talk to the children, too? I’m afraid I let them go to the zoo.”

  “Never mind. I’ll catch up with them later. Will you be at home?”

  “Until about noon. I doubt I can help you. I must have imagined his face was familiar.”

  “I’ll bring a photograph looking more like his normal appearance—”

  “Except that he’s dead.”

  “It’s not obvious, I promise. They do wonders these days. You won’t find it too upsetting.”

  “Less upsetting than finding the body, I daresay!”

  “I daresay, although if I’ve learnt anything in this job it’s that you never can be sure how people will react. I’ll be with you shortly, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  Before Mackinnon arrived, Tom Tring turned up, ostensibly to see his wife. Daisy heard Elsie admitting him and went out to the hall to greet him.

  “How is Mrs. Gilpin?” he asked.

  “Not too bad, I gather. Mrs. Tring is better able to tell you. You’re in luck,” Daisy continued as she walked with him down to the kitchen where, according to the parlourmaid, Mrs. Tring was taking a cup of tea with Mrs. Dobson. “D.I. Mackinnon will be here in a few minutes.”

  He grinned. “Far be it from me to seek out the inspector. As the missus keeps telling me, I’ve got to learn to mind my own business.”

  “I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told that.”

  “Didn’t work, did it?”

  “No. I’m so very glad and grateful it didn’t work on you yesterday. I don’t know what I’d have done without your help, Tom.”

  “You’d have managed, you and Mrs. Prasad between you.” They reached the kitchen. “Good morning, Mrs. Dobson. How’s it going, ducks?”

  Daisy left them and went back to the office. As she finished the letter she’d been writing, the front doorbell rang again.

  Elsie came in. “It’s the police, madam. That nice detective, the Scottish one, that came when we had that nasty business in the garden, remember?”

  “Show him into the drawing room—no, make that the sitting room, please, Elsie. Ask if he’d like tea or coffee.”

  “There’s two of them, madam. A DC Potter.”

  “All right. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  After combing her hair,
powdering her nose, and putting on a bit of lipstick, Daisy joined the detectives in the small sitting room at the back of the house, a less formal place than the drawing room. Elsie followed her in with a tray of coffee and biscuits.

  Mackinnon took out his pocketbook, extracted a photograph, and handed it to Daisy. “Ring any bells?”

  As he had promised, it didn’t look too terribly like the face of a corpse. Definitely male; young—mid-twenties, at a guess; fair hair, cut short, as she had already noted, so it fit under the wig, and close-shaven, showing no shadow of a beard; his eyes were closed, thank goodness. Perhaps that was why he seemed to have no expression whatsoever, nor any signs of his character in his face.

  “Definitely familiar. I haven’t the foggiest who he is or where I met him.”

  “He’s barely medium height; slender. Manicured hands and expensive linen. No laundry marks so possibly new, bought specially for this—I suppose it was a bet or a dare, though he looks too old for such shenanigans. They usually grow out of pranks like this in their teens.”

  The door opened and Tom looked in. “Sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Fletcher, Inspector. The missus asked me to say, Mr. Mackinnon, being as she’s nursing the nurse, so to speak, if you want to talk to her patient, she wants to be present. Or at least nearby, in case of need.”

  “By all means, Mr. Tring. Since you just happen to be here, would you care to take a peek at the photograph of the deceased?”

  “I don’t mind if I do. You never know your luck, and I did think—Well, blow me down! Mrs. Fletcher, I don’t want to put anything in your mind, but if you think back a couple of years to an affair you got mixed up in, in the country, a chum—”

  “Let me look.” Daisy took the photo from his hand. “Teddy Devenish!”

  “Miss Lucy’s—Lady Gerald’s, I should say—cousin, wasn’t he? And a royal pain in the neck, if my memory serves me.”

  “He sneaked into the house the night his grandmother was murdered. Oh blast, I suppose I’ll have to break it to Lucy, not that she’ll be heartbroken. And Angela!” Daisy groaned.

  “Now hold on,” exclaimed Mackinnon. “You’ll have to break it to me before you talk to anyone else. You both identify the deceased as Teddy Devenish? That’s Edward?”

  “Yes, and Devenish with two Es. I don’t know his middle name. He’s heir to a baronet.”

  “Lucy?”

  “Lady Gerald Bincombe.”

  “Nobs,” muttered D.C. Potter. “We got trouble.”

  “She’s some sort of cousin of Teddy,” Daisy continued. “We were—”

  “In a minute, please. Angela?”

  “Miss Angela Devenish. His sister, or one of them.”

  “His parents?”

  “Sir Somebody and Lady Devenish.”

  “Sir James,” Tom put in.

  “Got that, Potter? He’s the one will have to make the formal identification. At least, was the deceased married, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “Not that I know of. Not that Lucy mentioned.” Daisy recalled what Lucy had said. “Oh, no, not married.”

  “Do you happen to know his parents’ address?”

  “No idea. Somewhere in the country. He’s a huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ squire. Lucy might know. Or I could write and ask Angela. We aren’t exactly close, but we correspond occasionally and I sometimes see her when she comes up to town. She’d wonder why on earth I was asking. I’d have to tell her.”

  “Never mind. It’ll be in the Baronetage. You don’t happen to know the victim’s address?”

  “So he was murdered!”

  “Yes, Mrs. Fletcher, he was murdered.”

  “Ah,” said Tom. “Like the Empress of Austria.” He sketched a wink at Daisy.

  Mackinnon gave him a repressive look, to which Tom returned a bland smile.

  “Please keep that under your hat, both of you. Thank you for your help. Knowing who he is, we can get on with the job. Mr. Tring, would you let your good lady know I’d like to see Mrs. Gilpin now?”

  Tom went out.

  “I’m desperately trying to think how the Empress of Austria was killed,” Daisy confessed. “Not an ‘infernal device’—that was the Archduke and Archduchess, wasn’t it?”

  “Don’t expect me to enlighten you, Mrs. Fletcher. The ex-sergeant shouldn’t have told you.”

  “I suppose not. I won’t pass it on, I promise.” Except to Alec, possibly.

  Mackinnon read her mind. “Don’t worry. Given the prevalance of nobs, I’ll be asking the Yard for help. If Mr. Fletcher isn’t assigned to the case, I’ll eat my glengarry.”

  “Do you have one?” she asked with interest.

  “I do indeed. It went through the war with me, so it’s a wee bit shabby. Now, you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Fletcher. I must talk to your nurse.”

  “I feel I ought to be present.”

  “But you don’t want to,” he said shrewdly. “Mrs. Tring will protect her from our persecution.”

  Daisy smiled, a bit guilty for her reluctance, and nodded as they went out. She heard D.C. Potter enquire, “What’s a glengarry, sir?”

  “A rrelic of the brraw old days of Scots independence, laddie.” He closed the door.

  She hadn’t got round to telling him she was lunching with Lucy. No doubt he would have views on exactly what she was permitted to tell her friend. She’d have to make clear that she couldn’t possibly fail to inform her of her cousin’s death. Lucy would never forgive her.

  Though tempted just to fail to inform Mackinnon of her luncheon date, Daisy realised he’d be justifiably annoyed. Which was all very well, but if Alec took over the case …

  She heard the tramp of police feet on the stairs. She’d catch the inspector when he came down.

  In the meantime, what was it she ought to know about the assassination of the Empress of Austria? Unlike the Archduke’s, it had taken place before she was born, a couple of decades earlier, she was pretty sure, and in Switzerland. Time to consult the encyclopaedia in her office.

  But Nelson’s failed her. The only Empress of Austria she recalled from history at school was Maria Theresa, who was too long ago and hadn’t been assassinated. Skimming the article on Austria’s history since 1850, she found no mention of any assassination. Lucy would know. Lucy possessed much more enthusiasm for things royal and aristocratic than Daisy had ever been able to summon up.

  She went up to see the twins, nobly resisting the urge to listen at Mrs. Gilpin’s door as she passed.

  NINE

  Whenever Lucy invited Daisy to meet her, she chose the most fashionable restaurants. Entering the Café de Paris, Daisy hoped last year’s spring costume was not impossibly dowdy.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t the money for a new costume. Since inheriting Alec’s long-lost great-uncle’s estate, the Fletchers had been very comfortably off. But Daisy hadn’t the figure required for modern styles. As a result, she found visits to her dressmaker frightfully depressing and therefore simply couldn’t find the time.

  She asked the maître d’hôtel for Lady Gerald Bincombe and was led at once to a table in a discreet corner. However flamboyantly modish Lucy might be, at least she never insisted on flaunting the latest acquisition in the most public spot in the room.

  Daisy sat down, hoping Lucy wouldn’t be late.

  “Today’s menu, madam. May I recommend the coquilles St. Jacques? The sole bonne femme is also particularly good today.”

  “Thank you.”

  The wine waiter appeared at her elbow.

  “Would madame care to order a cocktail?”

  “I’ll have a half and half vermouth with soda, please.”

  “Certainly, madame. Ah, here is Lady Gerald.”

  Lucy being Lucy, the maître d’hôtel and the wine waiter vied to take her furs and seat her. She was wearing a black and sunshine-yellow costume, the jacket longer and the waist lower than any Daisy had seen before. A little black cap, fitted close to her head and flaunting a topaz aigrette, supplanted the
cloche hat that had been ubiquitous for several years.

  “Evian with a dash of bitters, Alphonse,” she ordered.

  “Tout de suite, milady,” he promised with a look of commiseration as he hurried away.

  “He thinks I’m liverish,” Lucy said crossly, her high, fluting voice lowered for once. “I promised Gerald to go easy on the cocktails, because of you know what. Honestly, anyone would think I’m a confirmed toper!”

  “Darling, no one looking at your complexion could think anything of the sort. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  “I’m dying of hunger all the time. And I have a craving for asparagus. If they haven’t got fresh asparagus I shall scream.”

  “Please don’t. Cousin Edgar sent us some from Fairacres and it’s even reached High Street, Hampstead. Covent Garden must be bursting with the stuff.”

  They settled on their lunch, including asparagus, and Lucy leaned back. “How is it going with the horde of visiting relatives?”

  “We only have two. I’ve hardly seen anything of Cousin Geraldine and the girls. The boys are delightful—on the whole—and keep Belinda busy. She’s taken them to the zoo today.”

  “The most delightful children are those one seldom sees. Which reminds me, have you decided yet whether you’re going to let me have your nanny?”

  Alec and Daisy had decided that they wanted the twins to attend the local Montessori school. More accurately, Daisy had decided and convinced Alec. However, when last she talked to Lucy on the subject, she hadn’t been certain whether they would still need Mrs. Gilpin’s care. After seeing them settle happily with Bertha in charge, she was satisfied.

  Yet she hesitated to tell Lucy that Nurse Gilpin would be free to accept an offer in a few months. After her strange behaviour, it was impossible to give her an unqualified recommendation. That business must be sorted out first.

  “I don’t want to rush you, Daisy, but I’m going to have to look about for someone else if you’re keeping her.”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

  The arrival of the soup distracted Lucy from the subject. It was some time before Daisy found an opening to ask about the assassinated empress.

  “Elisabeth? Yes, of course I know about the Empress Elisabeth. She was Rudolf’s mother.”