Gone West Page 14

  “Good,” said Alec, suppressing a yawn.

  “Yes, Doctor, please go ahead … Chloral hydrate? Would you mind spelling that, sir?… Thank you. It’s a poison?… Oh, a sedative. How much?… Yes, yes, quite, a matter of the proportion in the blood.… Yes, I understand. So you’re sure it killed the victim?… Ah … Yes, I see, enough to kill him but…” Worrall listened intently for a minute. “Right, Doctor. You’ll do the postmortem examination first thing … Yes, sleep well. Thank you for ringing up.” The inspector hung up.

  “Chloral?”

  “As full as he can hold. Not just a few drops from a phial, at least several teaspoons. It’s normally dispensed in a dark glass bottle like cough medicine, too big to be easily concealed. Isn’t that the stuff that’s sometimes used for doping racehorses?”

  “So I understand, though I’ve only been peripherally involved in any of those cases. It’s not an uncommon sedative for insomnia or agitation in humans, though. The victim could have taken an accidental overdose, or even intentional. We’ll have to see if it had been prescribed for him before we jump to any conclusions.”

  “Yes, of course. Besides, Dr. Jordan wouldn’t swear the stuff was the actual cause of death or just a prox—proximate, I think was the word.”

  “Proximate cause? That just means he won’t commit himself until he’s cut up the corpse. Doctors never will. Incidentally, I’m surprised a country doctor would be aware of the test for chloral. It’s a fairly new development, I believe.”

  “As to that, sir, Dr. Jordan is the county pathologist as well as the county police surgeon. Keen as mustard, and he likes to keep up with that sort of thing. Prefers dead bodies to live ones, he told me once.”

  Alec laughed. “Still, I wonder what suggested to him that he should test for it.”

  “As to that, sir, it was likely something Dr. Knox told him. They were talking medical language, throwing Latin about if you know what I mean, and I didn’t even try to follow it. I didn’t ask for a translation. Dr. Jordan’d’ve told me if there was anything I needed to know right away.”

  “I expect you’re right. What I didn’t gather from my wife’s chat with you, is whether Dr. Knox was at the farm last night solely to visit Mrs. Sutherby, sweetheart or not, or was he there in his medical capacity?”

  “He was Mr. Birtwhistle’s doctor.”

  “But not, apparently, treating him for anything that he considered might prove fatal.”

  “No, he told me that much in plain English. But he didn’t think it was proper to talk about his health history till he knew more about what killed him.”

  “Reasonable.”

  “I couldn’t very well insist, seeing I didn’t know but what his death was perfectly natural.”

  “Quite right. I can’t see that you could have done anything more last night. You didn’t even have any real justification for leaving an officer on the premises.”

  “That was my feeling, sir.”

  “Right, I’m going to sleep on it for a couple of hours, but I think we’d better get out to the farm early, rather than wait for the autopsy results, if that suits you?”

  “I’ll get everything sorted. And I’ll have someone take you to the hotel now.”

  “Thanks,” said Alec, profoundly grateful for Worrall’s cooperative spirit—and wondering how much of it was owed to the inspector’s having taken a fancy to Daisy.

  * * *

  From the bridge, the farmhouse looked like a haven of peace, nestled in its green bowl in the sunshine. The peace was illusory. At best, a man had taken an accidental overdose of a medicine. At worst, someone had deliberately administered a dangerous drug with intent to kill.

  Were the household mourning their loss, or had Birtwhistle’s death come as a relief to some? What sort of man had he been? Knowing the victim, in Alec’s experience, was the first step towards finding out why he had died.

  And Daisy, presumably, had known the victim.

  Hesitantly he asked Worrall, “Would you think it unreasonable of me to talk to my wife first? About Birtwhistle’s death, that is, not personal matters. Not that I necessarily consider her an impartial witness—in fact, I’m very sure she’s not. But I can allow for her biases, and she is a good observer. On the whole.”

  “Seeing I relied on her for most of what I know, I can’t hardly object, sir! Would you be wanting me to take notes, or should I have a go at the doctor? Find out what he was treating the deceased for.”

  “Won’t he have gone home?”

  The inspector explained that Dr. Knox had announced his intention of staying the night at the farm, because of his concern for Mrs. Birtwhistle.

  “Hmm. No, unless the doctor’s in a rush to get to his surgery or another patient, I think we’d best tackle him after we see what Daisy can add to what she’s already told you. I’ll be glad to have you take notes.”

  Worrall’s knocking on the front door was answered by a young woman in an orange-flowered overall with her hair tied up in a purple-flowered scarf, wielding a broom.

  “You’ll be the police, I dare say,” she greeted them with an air of satisfaction on her round, rosy face. “Didn’t I tell Etta, poor Mr. Birtwhistle were ’orribly done to death in his bed, mark my words, weltering in his own blood.”

  Alec let the local man take the lead.

  “I’ll thank you not to be spreading such nonsense, miss,” he said severely. He took out his notebook. “I’m Detective Inspector Worrall, and you’ll be…?”

  “Miss Hendred, to you,” said the maid.

  “Given name?” the inspector enquired, unimpressed.

  “Betty. Elizabeth, properly speaking, but no one ever calls me—”

  “Thank you, Miss Hendred. I expect Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher will want to talk to you later, but for the present, be a good girl and inform the master or mistress of the house—”

  “Now isn’t that just the trouble? Who is the master, I’d like to know? Mr. Humphrey it was, him being the older brother, but now he’s gone is it Mr. Norman or Mr. Simon? I can’t think of either of ’em as ‘the master,’ try as I may. Mr. Norman never opens his mouth, saving to eat, and Mr. Simon—well, he’s only a lad yet. As for my mistress, that’d still be Mrs. Humphrey, and nobody can make me say otherwise. If Miss Lorna thinks she can lord it—”

  “Betty!” The shocked voice came from the rear of the murky hall, into which little of the sunlight outside penetrated through the small windows in thick walls. Alec made out another figure in an overall, plain dark blue, presumably another maid. “If Miss Lorna hears you!” she added.

  “What’s she going to do? She’ll never find anyone else fool enough to—”

  “Miss Hendred, if you please,” Worrall interrupted. “The Chief Inspector is anxious to speak to Mrs. Fletcher. At once. I don’t care how you get hold of her, but do it now.”

  Offended, Betty Hendred drew herself up and put her hands on her hips. “Well, really, I must say!”

  Alec wished he had Tom Tring with him. Tom, though devoted to his almost equally massive wife, had a way with servants and with female servants in particular. He would have had the girl eating out of his hand, rushing to do his bidding. Talkative servants were often a fruitful source of information.

  Meanwhile, the second maid squeaked in alarm, “Oh, sir, Mrs. Fletcher’s still at breakfast. I’ll tell her you’re here to talk to her.” She scuttled out.

  “I s’pose you’d best come in,” Betty snapped.

  “Miss Hendred,” Alec said mildly, “is Dr. Knox also at breakfast?”

  “Him! No, he’s not. At least he had the decency to get up early for his surgery in town.” Turning her back, she moved away from them and went on with her sweeping.

  Worrall grimaced as he stood aside to let Alec enter. “Sorry, sir,” he said in a low voice. “She set my back up with her gabbling, but I should have handled it better.”

  A sharp retort sprang to Alec’s lips but he swallowed it. A coopera
tive local detective was more important than an uncooperative servant. “Pity the doctor left already,” he said. “I wonder who is the master here now.”

  “Mrs. Fletcher said the two brothers and the sister were joint owners.”

  “She wasn’t sure of it.”

  “Maybe she’s found out a bit more by now. Good morning, Mrs. Fletcher,” he went on as she came into the hall, followed by a stocky woman whose reddish, puffy eyes Alec discerned through the gloom.

  “Good morning, Inspector.” Daisy’s smile wavered. “Alec, darling, I’m so glad you’re here!”

  SEVENTEEN

  Daisy was so flooded with relief at the sight of Alec that she momentarily forgot all the reasons she had hoped he wouldn’t come. She had just enough presence of mind not to alarm the inspector by flinging her arms about the chief inspector’s neck.

  “Darling, I’m so happy to see you. How are the twins?”

  “You’ve only been away two days, love. They’re blooming.”

  “Good. When something like this happens, one starts imagining…” She had awakened earlier to a fresh sense of shock at Humphrey Birtwhistle’s dying so unexpectedly. It seemed not to have sunk in properly the night before. She had made his acquaintance just two days ago, but she had liked him, enjoyed his dry wit, and admired his fortitude in trying circumstances. Worse still, though she knew it was irrational, she felt guilty. Sybil had invited her to Eyrie Farm to find out whether someone was deliberately harming him, and she had failed to prevent his death.

  But what did Alec’s arrival mean? Even if Superintendent Crane had made him head for Derby, at the chief constable’s request, surely he wouldn’t have bothered to come all the way to the farm if Humphrey’s death had been proved natural?

  “Has Dr. Jordan found out—?”

  “Not here, Daisy. Is there somewhere we can go to be private?”

  “Humphrey’s study, I should think. Sybil’s the one to ask. That part of the house is none of Lorna’s business, and Ruby hasn’t put in an appearance yet.” Turning, she saw her friend lingering at the back of the hall, called her forward, and introduced Alec to her.

  “I’m sorry we’re meeting in such unhappy circumstances, Mrs. Sutherby.”

  “Does it mean … Was Humphrey…?”

  “I’m afraid we haven’t a final answer yet. We were wondering—Daisy suggested we might use the late Mr. Birtwhistle’s study for a private discussion, if it won’t inconvenience you.”

  “As long as you won’t mind that I’ll be … typing in the next room. Though it’s not really for me to say. Ruby—Mrs. Birtwhistle—hasn’t come down, but Simon, their son, might want to look through his father’s papers. Though I can’t think why he should. He’s never taken the slightest interest in Humphrey’s work. Besides, it’s much too soon after…”

  “In any case, we can’t allow it. We have enough information to justify limiting access to Humphrey Birtwhistle’s rooms for the present.”

  “I locked ’em last night,” said the inspector, clinking keys in his pocket.

  Sybil gasped. “There was something wrong about it! What—?”

  “Not now, please, Mrs. Sutherby.” Alec nodded in warning towards Betty, who was dusting the mantelpiece with assiduous care. “We’ll talk to you later, when we have a better idea of what we’re talking about.”

  “When Daisy has told you all about us.”

  “I hardly think she can know all about you after one day.”

  “Perhaps not, but I’m not the only one who’s found her easy to confide in.”

  Alec raised his eyebrows at Daisy, who did her best to look as if she hadn’t the foggiest idea what Sybil meant. Presumably she was talking about Myra. No one else had confided in her as far as she could remember. Except for Simon, and he had talked about Myra’s admirers, not himself.

  All the same, she did know enough about the household to be useful to Alec, if only to give him a foundation to build on.

  They all went through to the east wing. Sybil went into her office and closed the door. DI Worrall took a ring with a couple of labelled keys from his trouser pocket, unlocked the door of Humphrey’s study, and stood back. Alec ushered Daisy in and the men followed.

  “That door connects with Sybil’s room, obviously,” said Daisy.

  “Locked?” Alec asked Worrall.

  “Yes, sir, though the keys to these three rooms are the same. They weren’t usually kept locked. I’ve got two, but I dare say there are others floating about. For that matter, they’re just ordinary household keys and it wouldn’t surprise me if they worked for every door in the house.”

  “Very likely. And that door?”

  “The bedroom of the deceased.”

  “Where he died? I’ll take a look later. He and his wife had separate bedrooms? Suppose we start there, Daisy. Inspector, you take the desk.”

  As in Sybil’s office, a couple of easy chairs flanked the fireplace. The grate, however, was empty of all but ashes. The coal scuttle was empty of all but coal-dust and a few splinters from kindling.

  “It’s freezing in here,” said Daisy, shivering as she buttoned her cardigan and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Ring the bell,” Alec said impatiently. “We’ll get a fire built in here.” He turned the two armchairs to face the desk.

  Daisy pulled the bell-rope by the mantel, but she said, “I doubt if it’ll bring anyone running. There’s just the two girls, and they’re busy about the house, not in the kitchen waiting for the bell to ring.”

  “Then you’ll just have to put up with it, love. It won’t be for long.”

  “That’s what you think.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “When you’ve finished interrogating me, I’ll send one of them to light a fire before you call in your next victim, otherwise you and Mr. Worrall will turn into icicles before you’re through.”

  Worrall beamed at her. “That would be kindly done, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “Separate bedrooms,” Alec said firmly as they all sat down and the inspector took out his notebook. “They weren’t on good terms, Mr. and Mrs. Birtwhistle?”

  “That has nothing to do with it. Humphrey was a writer. You knew that much?”

  “Only because you told me, before you came, that your friend was secretary to an author.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, apparently he sometimes used to stay up till all hours writing. Many years ago they made that room into a bedroom, so he needn’t disturb Ruby in the middle of the night. Then, about three years ago, he fell desperately ill.”

  “Aha.”

  “There’s no aha about it. He had bronchitis and developed a severe case of pneumonia. As I’m liable to do, freezing in here.”

  “Daisy…”

  “Sir, I happened to notice a woollen shawl in the chest-of-drawers in the bedroom next door when I was looking about a bit last night.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Oh, all right!”

  Half a minute later, Daisy draped about her shoulders a large, warm, but plain shawl, suitable for a male invalid, very likely knitted by Ruby. It was a pleasant shade of blue, more or less matching the colour of her eyes, she thought, those eyes that Alec frequently described as “misleadingly guileless.” Perhaps it might make him take a more lenient view of her coming revelation. Or it might remind him of the “misleading” part and make him less forgiving.

  “Pneumonia,” he prompted, not visibly affected. So far.

  “Obviously it was easier to care for him downstairs. He was very ill, and afterwards very run down. I don’t know if he ever really moved back upstairs—”

  “Something you don’t know!” Alec said in a marvelling tone.

  “Darling, don’t be beastly. There’s lots I don’t know.”

  “Sorry.” He directed his apologetic glance at Worrall, rather than Daisy.

  She forgave him. After all, he had resisted reproaching her the moment he saw her, for her involvement in yet another suspicious death, which had no doubt
brought down the Super’s wrath upon his innocent head.

  She went on quickly, “Humphrey seems never to have recovered. At least, as far as I’ve gathered, his chest wasn’t permanently affected, but ever since his illness he’s been weak and lethargic and abnormally sleepy. Dr. Knox couldn’t see any reason for it—well, it’s for him to tell you.”

  “Come on, Daisy,” said Alec, “out with it. What was Mrs. Sutherby worried about?”

  “She had an awful feeling someone could be dosing him regularly with sedatives.”

  Both Alec and Worrall sat up straighter and looked at each other—evidence enough to convince Daisy that Humphrey had probably died of an overdose of a sedative.

  “Who?” asked Worrall, pencil poised.

  “She had only the vaguest of suspicions—some, I’m quite certain, unwarranted. I don’t think it would be fair to tell you. It would just be a mixture of hearsay and rumour. Not even rumour; one person’s surmise as told to me.”

  “And why,” Alec demanded, “did Mrs. Sutherby tell you?”

  Daisy had realised she would have to confess, but that didn’t make it any easier. “Well, actually, as a matter of fact, you see, she sort of wanted my advice. She didn’t explain till after I got here that she was afraid Humphrey was being poisoned. She just said she had a feeling something unpleasant was ‘going on,’ so I couldn’t possibly guess it might be something criminal, could I? In fact, when Lucy said I’d saved a couple of friends from the hangman, Sybil specifically denied that it was anything on those lines.”

  “Lucy! Don’t tell me she’s mixed up in this, too!”

  “Not at all. We just happened to be having lunch together when Sybil asked me to investigate. Not investigate,” Daisy corrected herself hurriedly as Alec’s face grew still more thunderous, “just to come and stay and … Well, what she really wanted was for me to tell her she was imagining things. And I did.”

  “But she wasn’t,” put in Worrall, who appeared to be enjoying himself. “Or so it would seem. And in the end—”