Styx and Stones Page 10

  And who would want to murder the vicar? Had he discovered who was writing the anonymous letters? He was—had been—in a good position to do so. Could the Poison Pen have killed to protect his identity? Did she know Daisy was on her trail? Was he lurking now behind a tombstone, waiting to pounce?

  With a shiver, Daisy looked around. She ought not to have embarked on this frightful investigation alone without Alec’s support! Standing up for a better view, she wished more people over the centuries had been satisfied with small, modest grave-markers. No one in sight.

  It must be an accident, she tried to persuade herself.

  Accident or murder, it was sudden, violent death. The police and a doctor must be summoned. The body ought not to be left unattended. Daisy was due at the WI meeting. Suppose someone came to look for her and found the dead vicar: In no time there would be a gaggle of nosy women trampling all over any clues. For the same reason she could not go to the Parish Hall for help. Yet she must not be away more than a few moments.

  Not the Vicarage. Mrs. Osborne was not there, and Daisy decided with a hysterical giggle that she didn’t feel capable of announcing to the professor that his brother had been squashed by an angel.

  Mrs. LeBeau, just the other side of the lane, would be calm and capable, and surely had a telephone.

  Daisy glanced up at the church clock. Only five to three. In her anxiety she had arrived early, anxiety which now seemed appallingly trivial. She had a few minutes’ grace before she was missed.

  Involuntarily, her gaze returned to the ghastly eyes. She found her handkerchief and stooped to cover the vicar’s face with the small, inadequate square. As she straightened, a corner of black cloth, protruding from beneath the angel’s wing, caught her attention. Black cloth with a slight sheen in the sunshine—black poplin. An academic gown.

  The professor?

  The Poison Pen had mistaken Professor Osborne, in his brother’s Panama, for the vicar. Daisy was shocked by the relief which flooded through her. She liked the vicar; she had not liked the professor. But neither deserved so horrible a death.

  The clock struck three. She was wasting time. Trying to step in the spots where her tread had already crushed the grass and dented the rain-softened ground, she returned to the path, then hurried along it and through the lych-gate.

  “Aunt Daisy!”

  Both the children were high up on the gate. The dog, sitting at the bottom, watched them with a solicitous, reproving eye, as if she was named for Nana in Peter Pan, not Tinker Bell. The tip of her tail swished back and forth as Daisy crossed the lane.

  “We took our gumboots off. We won’t get stuck,” Belinda assured her.

  “What were you looking at in the graveyard?” Derek asked curiously. “We saw you from up here, but we couldn’t make it out.”

  Thank heaven! “There’s been an accident, darlings. Come down quickly, both of you—and carefully!” Daisy added as they swarmed down the wrought-iron curlicues. Mrs. LeBeau might be out, she thought. Faster to dispatch the children for help. “I want you to run up to the house and send for the police and the doctor. You understand?”

  “Gosh, yes, Aunt Daisy.”

  As they pulled on their boots, Daisy impressed upon them, “Hurry. And stay up there, don’t come back.”

  “Why not?” said Derek. “Oh, all right. Come on, Bel. Come, Tinker.”

  Belinda, her grey-green eyes wide with alarm, dashed over to Daisy and gave her a quick, silent hug, then sped after Derek and Tinker Bell.

  Daisy returned to the churchyard. Now that she had nothing to do but wait for the police and the doctor, she felt rather sick. Actually, she felt altogether pretty wishy-washy. Though, being a modern woman, she naturally was not going to faint, she thought it might be quite a good idea if she sat down. Soon.

  Failing all else, she subsided on a sort of marble kerb outlining a grave just beyond the lych-gate. Her head soon stopped whirling when she stuck it between her knees.

  As long as she didn’t think about what was beneath the fallen angel, she’d be all right. She did have something to do, she remembered. Any minute someone would come out of the Parish Hall to see where she had got to. She had to stop them approaching the body … which she was not going to think about. To do that, she needed to be beyond it.

  A gravel path recently trodden by a horde of women seemed unlikely to provide much in the way of evidence, but just in case, Daisy circled round on the grass, among the tombstones. That route took her further, too, from the—from what she wasn’t thinking about.

  By the time she rejoined the path, her good shoes were sopping, to match the hem of her skirt. Her stockings also were wet and uncomfortable down the front, from kneeling by—from kneeling. She glanced down to see if they were laddered, and was relieved to see them undamaged, though it seemed heartlessly petty when the professor …

  Oh blast! She was feeling wobbly again. Nowhere nearby to sit, so she leaned against the nearest upright stone slab. When she died, Daisy vowed, she would have a bench for a tombstone.

  It was odd that no one from the WI was looking for her yet. The Parish Hall’s windows were the high, narrow kind meant for illumination, not an exterior view, so no one could see her. She checked the time by the clock on the tower again. Ten past three. Perhaps Mrs. Osborne thought she had funked it. No doubt the vicar’s wife had a fund of rhetoric to fill in with when a speaker didn’t turn up.

  And how long was she going to have to wait for the doctor and the constable? Eleven minutes past three. It seemed like forever since she had sent the children off, but they had probably only just reached the telephone.

  Detective Sergeant Tom Tring turned back from the filing cabinet and regarded his empty desk with satisfaction. “That’s the last of the Islington arsonists, Chief,” he said. “Reckon you might get away for a day or two after all.”

  Alec quickly touched wood. “Don’t tempt fate, Tom. Saying something like that is an incitement to every crook in the Metropolitan area to—”

  The telephone shrilled. As Tom’s burly arm, chequered in robin’s-egg-blue and white, reached out for the apparatus on his desk, Alec groaned. He’d known a couple of days in Kent with Daisy and Bel was too much to hope for.

  “Who?” The sergeant’s luxuriant moustache quivered with astonishment, and his eyebrows climbed his boundless brow. “Yes, of course, put her through. It’s Miss Belinda, Chief. She never ’phones you at the Yard!”

  “She’d better have a good reason for doing it now,” said Alec ominously, reaching for his telephone as Tom pressed the button to tranfer the call. “Hello? Bel?”

  “Daddy! I’m awfully sorry to disturb you, but we didn’t know what else to do.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Derek. Derek and I,” Belinda amended scrupulously. “You see, there’s a body in the churchyard and …”

  “I imagine there are lots. Belinda, are you having me on? Because if Derek has put you up to—”

  “Daddy, listen! Aunt Daisy’s found a body in the churchyard.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Alec said flatly. It could not be true. Not another one!

  “Well, we’re not absolutely certain,” his daughter wavered, “but she said there’d been an accident, and she told us to get a doctor and the police, like on the train, ’member? When I found—”

  “I remember only too clearly.”

  “So we think—’cause I told Derek all about the train—we think it’s another murder. She did say police first, after all. And he rang up the doctor and he’s coming but the village bobby’s not at home and we didn’t know what to do. ’Cause Uncle Johnnie’s out riding and Aunt Violet’s asleep, and Aunt Daisy sounded urgent. She looked frightfully pale.”

  Alec’s heart twisted in his chest. The two beings he loved best in all the world mixed up with a murderer on the loose, and he was too far away to protect them.

  If Bel hadn’t misunderstood. She would not make up such a story, but she had a vivid imaginati
on.

  He could not risk it. “All right, Bel, you were quite right to ring me. Ask Derek what’s the nearest town.”

  Over the wire came the faint sound of the question being passed on. Then, “He says Ashford, Daddy.”

  “Hang on.” Alec put his hand over the mouthpiece and said to his sergeant, “Get hold of the police in Ashford, Kent, Tom. Criminal investigation, if they have such a thing.”

  “Right, Chief.”

  “Belinda, we’ll have a policeman on his way right away, but it may take a little while.” He felt helpless, knowing so little of the situation. “Let me talk to Derek, now, love.”

  An agitated colloquy, far away, mingled with Tom’s voice on the other telephone. Then a scared young voice, “This is Derek, sir.”

  “Derek, I need your advice and help.”

  “Yes, sir!” The voice swelled with pride.

  “Someone must take a message to your aunt.”

  “I’ll go.” Excitement, and more than a touch of trepidation.

  “No, absolutely not. You are not to go anywhere near the churchyard, nor to allow Belinda to go, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” Disappointment and relief. “Shall I send a servant?”

  “A manservant, not a maid. Do you have footmen?”

  “Just one. Arthur.”

  “Is he a sensible chap, Derek? And will he do what you say?”

  “Oh yes, sir, pretty much. Both, I mean.”

  “All right.” Catching Tom’s eye, Alec held up a finger and mouthed, “Just a minute.”

  He heard Tom saying, “This is Scotland Yard, sir. Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher wishes to speak to …”

  “Derek, tell the footman to tell Daisy the Ashford police will be there as soon as possible.” Alec hoped it was true. “And he’s to stay with her and help her in any way she asks. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir. Bel, ring that bell over there. That’s right. Arthur should come right away, sir.”

  “Good man. Remember, you and Belinda are absolutely not to go near the churchyard. Everything is under control. I must go now, Derek. Give Bel my love.” Feeling as if he were casting his daughter adrift in a storm, Alec pressed the hook to cut the connection. When he let it up again, Ashford was on the line.

  “Inspector Flagg, Chief,” Tom advised in an undertone. He listened in on his apparatus.

  “Inspector Flagg, this is Fletcher. We have received a report of …” Of what, for heaven’s sake? A body in a graveyard! “ … Of a sudden death, possibly by violence, in the village of Rotherden. That’s in your district?”

  “That it is,” said the Ashford inspector suspiciously, with a strong country accent. “Might I enquire, sir, why it was Scotland Yard was informed?”

  Alec couldn’t say the news had come from two nine-year-olds, one of them his daughter, who hadn’t even seen the body. “I gather the person who rang us up had tried to get hold of your local constable. He was out, and the informant apparently didn’t think to telephone Ashford. I thought less time would be wasted if I got in touch with you myself.”

  “You think it’s an urgent matter, then, sir?” Flagg sounded dubious in the extreme.

  “I think someone official ought to get there soon,” Alec said, trying to keep the irritation from his voice, “before half the village tramps over the scene of the crime. If any.” Which, knowing Daisy’s penchant for stumbling upon murder, was inevitable. “I understand a doctor is on the way already.”

  “Which doctor would that be, sir?”

  “I haven’t the first idea, Inspector! I suggest you take a police surgeon with you.”

  “Have you any idea, sir, whereabouts in the village I’d be taking him? Rotherden may not be a big city like London, but it’s spread out over a fair bit of countryside, so—”

  “The churchyard,” Alec interrupted. “Do you think you can find it?” He immediately regretted his sarcasm. If the man’s back was set up, Daisy and Belinda might suffer for it. He decided to come clean. “I beg your pardon, Inspector, that was uncalled for. The fact is, it was my fiancée who found the body, and my little girl who telephoned. I’m worried about them.”

  “Your little girl, eh? I’ve two myself. I’ll get over there right away, Chief Inspector.”

  Hanging up after telling what little else he knew, Alec sighed. “I wish I’d mentioned Belinda right away. I was afraid he’d take the report even less seriously.”

  “Never can tell, Chief,” Tom said soothingly. “Better get moving right away, afore something crops up here to keep you.”

  “What makes you think … Oh, all right, Tom! I am due a couple of days off.”

  “Make it official, and we’ll be down to join you on the next train, young Piper and me.”

  “That depends, at least initially, on Inspector Flagg, and I don’t think he’s keen on the Met butting in on his patch.”

  “He softened in the end there, Chief. Now off you go and soften up the Super while I check there’s nothing in that bumf on your desk can’t wait till Monday for a signature.”

  “Thanks, Tom.” Alec went off to tackle Superintendent Crane, secure in the certainty that the mere possibility of Daisy’s meddling in another criminal investigation would have his superiors rushing him down to Kent.

  Running footsteps crunched on gravel.

  “Stop!” Daisy cried.

  The Frobishers’ young footman skidded to a halt a couple of yards short of the fallen angel. “Master Derek said to tell you, miss,” he panted, “as Dr. Padgett’s on his way and there’s a copper coming right away from Ashford acos our local chap’s not home, and I’m to do whatever you says. Golly, is that … ?” Goggle-eyed, he pointed.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s the vicar’s brother. We must keep people away until the police and the doctor arrive.” Daisy reflected for a moment. “You had better come over here, Arthur—No! Not by the path! That’s right, go round.”

  “Clues,” said the footman sagely as he tramped around through the grass. “I read detective stories, miss.”

  “Good for you. It’s probably an accident, but just in case, we mustn’t let anyone near. The WI’s meeting in the Hall, unfortunately. There’s another way into the lane, isn’t there?”

  “Yes, miss. Them as comes from the village generally cuts the corner coming along this here path, but them as lives out thataway just goes straight in.”

  “I thought so. Right-oh, I want you to stand here by the gate and stop anyone coming through. Tell them there’s been an accident. Oh, I suppose you’d better call me when Mrs. Osborne turns up.” The vicar’s wife had disliked the professor and presumably wouldn’t be devastated by his death, but after all, she was his sister-in-law and the best person to break the news to his brother. “Don’t allow her through, though.”

  “Mrs. Osborne?” Arthur blenched. “I’ll do me best, miss.”

  Daisy picked her way back in a wide circle. As she stepped onto the path near the lych-gate, the doctor’s blue Humber pulled up in the lane and Dr. Padgett jumped out. He turned and reached in for his black bag, then strode through the gate.

  “Miss Dalrymple! I came as quick as I could. I was napping,” he said with a wry grimace. He looked a bit rumpled. “One of my patients had a seizure at two o’clock this morning. An accident, young Derek said?”

  “I couldn’t tell the children, but he’s dead. I’m sure of it. Over there.” She waved, and Dr. Padgett started past her. She caught his sleeve. “Careful! It … it may not be an accident.”

  “Suicide?”

  “No.” Daisy shook her head. “Impossible.”

  He stared at her. “You’re not suggesting … murder?”

  “I don’t know!” She didn’t want him to find out she was aware of the anonymous letters, so she couldn’t tell him she suspected a link between the death and the Poison Pen. “But I do know the police will want to look for footprints on the path.”

  “I’ll go around. Where am I going? Over there?” Dr.
Padgett gazed in the direction she had waved. “And who—? That hat! Oh lord, not Osborne?” He sounded horrified, but Daisy couldn’t see his face as he stepped onto the grass.

  “Professor Osborne,” she informed his retreating back. “At least, I saw a bit of what seems to be an academic gown, and he was awfully absentminded about taking the first hat that comes to mind. Don’t touch or move anything you don’t have to.”

  “I’ll just make quite sure he’s beyond help, poor chap.”

  The doctor’s words struck Daisy with a sinister ring. Suppose the professor had been the Poison Pen, and Dr. Padgett had guessed. He might have pushed the angel over, then fled before he was sure his tormenter was dead. Now she had given him the perfect opportunity to finish him off.

  But the professor was already quite dead, she assured herself. The worst the doctor could do was destroy evidence. But he could have muddled any traces of his earlier presence just by continuing along the path against her advice, and he had not.

  All the same, Daisy was glad to see a policeman’s helmeted head and blue-clad shoulders sailing along above the churchyard wall towards the village. She ran to the lych-gate.

  “Officer!”

  “Yes, miss?” The Rotherden bobby descended ponderously from his bicycle and lumbered towards her, pushing it. He was a large young man, already showing signs of attaining Tom Tring’s bulk, if not the sergeant’s well-earned place in the detective branch of the Met. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Miss Dalrymple, Lord John’s sister-in-law.”

  “Bless your heart, miss, I knows that. Keeps me eyes and ears open, I do.”

  “Good for you, Constable. There’s been a fatal accident in the churchyard. A suspicious death.”

  “Well now, miss, which would that be?” he asked stolidly, propping his bicycle against the wall and taking out his notebook and pencil. “Accidental or suspicious, is it?”

  “I think it’s suspicious. I ought to tell you that as you weren’t at home, the Ashford police have been informed, and I gather they’re sending someone out.”