Sheer Folly Read online

  SHEER FOLLY

  Also by Carola Dunn

  THE DAISY DALRYMPLE MYSTERIES

  Death at Wentwater Court

  The Winter Garden Mystery

  Requiem for a Mezzo

  Murder on the Flying Scotsman

  Damsel in Distress

  Dead in the Water

  Styx and Stones

  Rattle His Bones

  To Davy Jones Below

  The Case of the Murdered Muckraker

  Mistletoe and Murder

  Die Laughing

  A Mourning Wedding

  Fall of a Philanderer

  Gunpowder Plot

  The Bloody Tower

  Black Ship

  SHEER FOLLY

  A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery

  CAROLA DUNN

  MINOTAUR BOOKS

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  SHEER FOLLY. Copyright © 2009 by Carola Dunn. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dunn, Carola.

  Sheer folly : a Daisy Dalrymple mystery / Carola Dunn.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-312-38775-4

  1. Dalrymple, Daisy (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women journalists— Fiction. 3. Manors—Fiction. 4. Nineteen twenties—Fiction. 5. England— Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6054.U537S54 2009

  823′.914—dc22

  2009012723

  First Edition: September 2009

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  When lovely woman stoops to folly,

  And finds too late that men betray,

  What charm can soothe her melancholy?

  What art can wash her guilt away?

  The only art her guilt to cover,

  To hide her shame from every eye,

  To give repentance to her lover,

  And wring his bosom is—to die.

  —Oliver Goldsmith, “When Lovely

  Woman Stoops to Folly”

  SHEER FOLLY

  ONE

  “Daisy, do you really need to stay away over the weekend?” Alec asked plaintively, folding the News Chronicle and pushing back his chair from the table. “There’s just a chance I may actually get a couple of days off. You’ve got egg on your chin.”

  “No! How careless.” Daisy dabbed with a napkin. “As far as my work is concerned, I could easily manage the writing part for the book in a couple of days, though I do hope I might get an article out of it as well. Lucy’s photographs are the trouble. She has to hope the weather will cooperate, and one can’t exactly count on it in March. Three or four days gives her a better chance of getting decent conditions.”

  “Surely you don’t have to stay to hold her hand!”

  “But you see, darling, in this case I rather do.”

  “Are we talking about the same Lucy? Lady Gerald?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I don’t believe Lucy ever needed her hand held in her life!”

  “The trouble is,” Daisy explained with a sigh, “she doesn’t care for the man who presently owns Appsworth Hall and its folly.”

  “What’s wrong with him? I don’t know that I want to let you go and stay with—”

  “Darling, you’ve gone all medieval again. Victorian, at least. This is 1926! You don’t let me do things, remember? Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with the poor man except that he’s a manufacturer of bathroom fixtures.”

  Alec burst out laughing. “I can’t see how you persuaded her to visit him in the first place! Not that she has any justification for such an attitude. Didn’t you tell me her great-grandfather was a manufacturer of umbrella silk?”

  “Great-great, I think. I suspect that’s why she’s so touchy,” said Daisy, the origin of whose family’s title was lost in the mists of time.

  Lucy, granddaughter of an earl and Daisy’s closest friend, had been very difficult when Daisy first started going about with a middle-class policeman, albeit a Detective Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard. In fact she had disapproved quite as strongly as had Daisy’s mother, the Dowager Lady Dalrymple. Unlike the viscountess, she had revised her opinion and given a qualified approval when he promised to support Daisy’s writing career even after they married. Lucy, too, was a career-woman, continuing her photography studio since marrying the easy-going Lord Gerald Bincombe.

  But writing, photography, and even detecting were one thing. Manufacturing bathroom fixtures was another, quite beyond the pale.

  “It wasn’t easy to get her to agree,” Daisy admitted.

  “Haven’t you collected enough follies for your book to skip this one?”

  “We have towers, temples, cloisters, pillars, and fake medieval ruins aplenty, even a campanile, but not a single grotto. Appsworth has the best grotto in the country. There are a couple of others, but they’ve rather been let go to rack and ruin. Mr. Pritchard—”

  “Of Pritchard’s Plumbing Products?” Alec laughed again. “The man behind the blue PPP insignia in half the wash-basins and lavatories in the country? Instigator of a million vulgar jokes?”

  “Lucy seems to think it makes it worse that it’s one of the biggest concerns in the country. Our Mr. Pritchard is semi-retired and Chairman of the Board—or something of the kind—I believe. But if he weren’t so successful, he wouldn’t be rich enough to have bought Appsworth Hall and done a marvellous job of restoring the grotto. Or so we’ve heard.”

  “All modern plumbing?”

  His teasing grin made Daisy’s lips twitch, but she said, “It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. There’s a stream running through it, and it’s chalk and limestone country, the Marlborough Downs, where streams tend to appear and disappear whenever they feel like it.”

  “Do you have to go this week?”

  “March isn’t the best time of year for outdoor photography, but our publisher is baying at our heels. Besides, we’re invited for this week, for the long weekend, and having accepted, one can’t simply say, ‘Oh, sorry, it’s rather inconvenient, may we come next week?’ That’s another reason it wouldn’t be at all the thing to duck out and come home for the weekend.”

  “I could ring up, when I know whether I’m really getting time off, and claim a family emergency.”

  “Darling, I’m shocked!” she told him severely. “A policeman inventing an alibi? Well, not an alibi, exactly, but I call it disgraceful. What is the world coming to? I’ll tell you what, though: When I get down there, I’ll see if I can cadge an invitation for you to join us.”

  “All I wanted,” he said mournfully, “is a quiet day at home with you and the babies.”

  “Oh dear, I can’t very well expect the poor man to invite the twins and Nurse Gilpin, too.”

  “No, that would be a bit much. How on earth did you manage to wangle an invitation from Pritchard’s Plumbing in the first place?”

  “It’s a long story, involving a cousin of Gerald’s in the Ministry of Health, an old school friend, Mr. Pritchard’s fondness for titles, and . . . But you’re going to be late, darling. In spite of her reluctance, it’s Lucy’s doing. I’m not sure I’ve got it all straight, and you wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

  Alec came round the table and kissed her. “I wouldn’t believe it from anyone but you, love. You’re leaving this afternoon?”

  “Yes, Lucy’s coming to lunch, then we’re driving down.”

  “Lucy’s driving?” At her nod, he groaned.

  “You may need our car.”

  “Tr
ue. Ring up this evening to tell me you got there safely, will you? Leave a message if I’m not home yet.”

  “Right-oh, darling.” Daisy stood up and gave him a hug. “I’ll probably see you Sunday evening. We can stretch the weekend till Monday if necessary, but Lucy’s not likely to want to, as long as we have decent weather for her shots. Unless you’ll come to join us?”

  “I’ll leave it to you to assess the situation. It’s up to you to decide whether I want to meet the Bathroom King, work permitting, and whether he wants to meet me.”

  Alec went off to catch criminals, and Daisy went up to the nursery.

  Mrs. Gilpin ruled the nursery, but she had long since been induced to concede that Daisy and Alec might visit Miranda and Oliver whenever they chose. They were even allowed to take their own children out for a walk without Nurse tagging along, though the nurserymaid, Bertha, usually acted as her deputy. Nonetheless, Nurse Gilpin was always cock-a-hoop when Daisy went out of town for a few days, as her work sometimes required, leaving the twins in their nanny’s sole charge.

  This led Daisy to put off informing her of an impending absence till the last minute. Of course she always gave the housekeeper, Mrs. Dobson, plenty of warning. From Mrs. Dobson to the parlourmaid, Elsie, was no distance; from Elsie to Bertha, little further; and whatever Bertha knew, Nurse Gilpin knew.

  As Daisy opened the nursery door, five pairs of eyes turned her way. Three small bodies launched themselves towards her. Naturally the dog, Nana, arrived first, her cold wet nose bumping Daisy’s knee in greeting. The twins toddled in her wake; Oliver in such a hurry that he sat down unexpectedly and completed the course crawling, still a faster means of locomotion as far as he was concerned. Single-minded, he beat Miranda, who put much of her effort into shouting, “Ma-ma-ma-ma!” as she came. Daisy, as usual, ended up sitting on the floor so as to accommodate everyone in her arms.

  “You’ll spoil them, Mummy,” said Mrs. Gilpin disapprovingly.

  Bertha bobbed a curtsy and went on ironing nappies. The twins used positive mountains of nappies. How on earth, Daisy wondered, did mothers manage who couldn’t afford to pay nannies and nurserymaids and laundrymen? Presumably their babies survived without beautifully pressed, crease-free nappies. Ironing them seemed an unnecessary expenditure of time and energy, but Mrs. Gilpin certainly wouldn’t tolerate such a suggestion. Daisy decided to save her energies for the battles that were sure to arise as Oliver and Miranda grew older.

  “I’m going to be away for a few days, Mrs. Gilpin,” she said. “I’ll leave a telephone number, of course, in case you need to reach me.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” said Nurse with a smug smile.

  And there—as Hamlet would no doubt have said had he taken any interest in child-care—was the rub. It was nice to know the babies would be very well taken care of while she was out of town, but depressing in a way that they didn’t really need her.

  “Will you miss me?” she whispered in Miranda’s little pink ear, half hidden by her froth of dark curls.

  Miranda giggled. Oliver stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry, an act so screamingly funny that he roared with laughter and then repeated it.

  “All right, Master Oliver,” Mrs. Gilpin commanded, “that’s quite enough of that!”

  But Daisy couldn’t help giggling, too, especially when Miranda tried to copy her brother, with indifferent success.

  Perhaps it was just as well that Nurse Gilpin ruled the nursery, Daisy thought as she stood up half an hour later. Otherwise the children might grow up to be horrid undisciplined brats. Or perhaps, like Daisy herself, they had the best of both worlds: Nurse to make them mind their p’s and q’s, and Mummy to indulge and laugh with them. All one could do was love them and hope for the best.

  “I’ll only be gone a few days,” she assured Oliver, and stooped to tickle his tummy one more time. “I’m going to stay with a plumber,” she said to Miranda, who regarded her solemnly. “It should be interesting, as long as your godmother controls the bees in her bonnet and isn’t rude to the poor man.”

  TWO

  Lucy braked her Lea-Francis two-seater in a swirl of gravel, having exceeded the speed limit practically every inch of the drive from town.

  “Gates welcomingly closed,” she said sarcastically, glaring at the ornate ironwork two inches beyond the bonnet. On either side, a stone pillar topped with a Triton guarded the gate. She leant on the horn.

  “There are deer in the park,” Daisy pointed out as soon as she could hear herself think. “Look, over there. Darling, I do hope you’re not going to spend the next four days finding fault. The sun is shining, the lambs are gambolling on the hillside”—she waved at the surrounding chalk hills, their short-cropped grass scattered with sheep busily cropping—“and it’s really too kind of Mr. Pritchard to invite complete strangers to stay and to photograph his grotto.”

  Lucy was determined to take a gloomy view. “He’ll probably expect me to let him use the photos to advertise his beastly bathroom stuff.”

  “Keep your hair on till he asks you, which he may very well not. Here comes the gatekeeper.”

  A boy of ten or eleven, wearing grey-flannel shorts and a school jersey, came out of the neat stone lodge. “Sorry, miss,” he called, swinging the gates open without difficulty. Well-oiled, Daisy noted. “I were eating me tea.”

  “Miss” rather than “ma’am” worked its wonders: Lucy gave him a gracious nod and sixpence. To Daisy’s relief, she didn’t then shower the lad with gravel but proceeded in a stately manner—as stately as a sports car could attain—up the curving avenue of chestnuts. On the trees, brilliant green leaves were just beginning to unfold from the sticky brown buds. They moved slowly enough to see clumps of primroses and violets blooming on the verge. Fallow deer, including antlered males and a few spotted fawns, lifted their heads to watch the intruders.

  They rounded a beech copse, and Appsworth Hall rose before them, spread across the hillside. Built of the local limestone, the northwest front took on a rosy cast in the slanting light of the sinking sun. Though large, in size it was more comparable to Daisy’s childhood home, Fairacres, than to Lucy’s family’s vast nineteenth-century mock-Gothic mansion, Haverhill.

  With any luck, Daisy hoped, the comparative modesty of Appsworth Hall would avert another outburst from her friend. In that respect, at least, Mr. Pritchard could not compete with the Earl of Haverhill.

  Daisy had a chance to admire the house because Lucy was sufficiently struck by the sight to stop the car. In fact, she jumped out to get her tripod and camera from the dicky. In style, Appsworth Hall was similar to neither Haverhill’s fantastic elaboration nor Fairacres, which had grown haphazardly over centuries rather than being planned. The Hall was pure neo-Classical, with symmetrical wings on either side of a central block marked by a portico with a pair of Doric columns on each side. The pediment was adorned with a simple laurel wreath.

  In the quiet with the motor turned off, Daisy heard the first cuckoo of spring. The first she had heard, anyway.

  “Blast,” said Lucy, “I’ll have to walk across the grass to get a good shot. Look at the way those shadows make every feature stand out! The light’s perfect but it’s going to change in just a moment. Bring the plates, would you, darling? That satchel there.”

  “I’m wearing new shoes, and it rained yesterday!”

  Intent on finding exactly the right spot, Lucy ignored Daisy’s protest. Somehow she managed to look stylish even while tramping heavily laden across the park.

  It had been a beautiful day, though it was chilly now, threatening a frost tonight. Fortunately for Daisy’s shoes, the chalky soil had dried quickly. The shoes survived unscathed, a matter of some importance as Lucy’s equipment had left little space in the dicky for luggage. True, anticipating this situation, they had each sent ahead a suitcase to the nearest station, Ogbourne St. George. However, one could never be certain that the Great Western Railway would regard the matter wi
th quite one’s own degree of urgency.

  Daisy was wondering whether their host would mind sending for the bags or if they’d have to go and fetch them themselves, when a large open touring car sped round the spinney. With a blare of the horn, it stopped behind the Lea-Francis, abandoned by Lucy in the middle of the drive. It dwarfed the sports car.

  “Darling, be an angel and move it for me?” Lucy begged. “Just a couple more shots.”

  “All right, but you can jolly well carry the plates back yourself. They’re heavy.”

  Daisy waved to let the newcomer know his plea had been noted. He climbed from the Bentley as she approached, and took out a cigarette case that glinted gold in the last of the sun. Fitting a cigarette into an ebony holder, he lit it with a gold pocket lighter.

  He looked vaguely familiar. His admirably cut suit of country tweeds could not disguise the bulky figure and heavy shoulders. When he raised his hat to her, she saw that his neck was as thick as his head was wide. He had small eyes set close together on either side of a pedigree nose perfected over centuries by his noble family.

  He was unmistakable. She had met him a couple of times, and remembered hearing about him from her brother, Gervaise, who had attended the same public school. His distinctive appearance had led an unkind schoolfellow to nickname him “Rhino.”

  It would have been easier to sympathise had Rhino not been an exceedingly rich earl.

  “Hello, Lord Rydal,” she called. “Sorry to be in your way. Half a tick and I’ll move it.”

  “Please do so . . . er . . .” His voice had a singularly irritating timbre, rather like a well-bred crow.

  Or like a rhinoceros, perhaps, Daisy thought, suppressing a giggle. But she had no idea what sort of sound a rhino was likely to produce.

  “Mrs. Fletcher,” she prompted him. “Daisy Fletcher. We met quite a long time ago, I can’t recall where or when.”

  “Fletcher? I haven’t the slightest recollection—”