Gone West Page 15

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Inspector.” Alec aimed his formidable frown at the inspector for a change, but only for a moment. “All right, Daisy, we’ll postpone the question of why Mrs. Sutherby brought you into the picture. Humphrey Birtwhistle has been ill for three years?”

  “He has occasional good days. Comparatively good. He has a burst of energy, but it runs out quickly. That’s what happened yesterday and the day before.”

  “Has his health been improving, or deteriorating?”

  “Darling, I’ve only been here a couple of days! But it sounds to me as if he’s been getting weaker. Less because of whatever’s wrong with him, or being done to him, than because he spends so much time lying down that his muscles have gradually atrophied. That’s hearsay, too. I mean, I’ve seen how weak he is. The deterioration is hearsay.”

  “He’s weak and pretty much bedridden,” said Worrall, “yet he’s managed to go on writing his books?”

  “You’ll have to ask Sybil—Mrs. Sutherby—about that. Unless, of course, this is a murder enquiry. I’m aware that any information may be pertinent in a murder enquiry.”

  Alec and Worrall exchanged glances again.

  “We’re not sure yet,” Alec said resignedly. “It may be. Your answer may help us to decide whether it was murder or not.”

  Daisy hesitated. Others were in the secret, she reminded herself: Ruby and Simon, almost certainly Lorna and Norman, not to mention Roger Knox. “If it turns out not to be murder, or not to be relevant … Never mind, I know you can’t promise anything.”

  “I won’t write it down,” offered the inspector. “That way, it needn’t go into my report unless—”

  “That’s kind of you, Mr. Worrall.” Daisy sighed. “Come to think of it, quite possibly it really doesn’t matter any longer who knows, now that Humphrey’s dead.”

  “In that case,” Alec pointed out stringently, “it’s extremely likely to be relevant to his death! Come on, Daisy, what is this terrible secret?”

  “Humphrey hasn’t … hadn’t actually written a book since he fell ill. At least, if I understood correctly, he’s thought up the plots. Sybil has done all the actual writing.”

  “I don’t know the lingo,” said Worrall, “but isn’t the plot the same as the story? And isn’t that what a secretary’s for, to write everything down?”

  Daisy did her best to explain the division of labour. Worrall was clearly unconvinced that Sybil’s part in the business was far beyond the merely secretarial. Alec understood, of course. Perhaps Scotland Yard’s being called in was a blessing after all—in disguise, as far as Daisy was concerned, but it was just as well to have someone in charge who had a firm grasp of the issues.

  “It sounds like a useful collaboration,” he said, “one benefiting both sides. Assuming Sybil’s increased rôle was recognised in financial terms?”

  “Oh yes. She was happy with the increase in her salary. You see, the books started bringing in more money. They had much better sales once Sybil took over the writing.”

  “So she felt she was fairly compensated for her contribution, as far as money was concerned? What about recognition of her talent?”

  “Impossible. Publicly, at any rate. Readers want books written by … uh, under Humphrey’s pen-name, and they don’t care who wrote them. I dare say most of them don’t even realise it’s a pen-name. On the other hand, Humphrey signs the contracts with the publisher. There’s no knowing how they might react if they found out they were written by a woman.”

  “Shouldn’t think they’d care,” Worrall commented, “as long as the sales were up.”

  “That’s my feeling,” Daisy conceded, “but I presume the Birtwhistles didn’t want to risk killing the goose that was laying the golden eggs. Sybil certainly didn’t. She relied on Humphrey for the plots. She— Someone’s knocking on the door.”

  “Who’s there?” Alec called irritably.

  The response was an indistiguishable mumble. He jumped up and went to fling the door open. Etta, the maid in dark blue, stood there looking scared half out of her wits.

  “Well? What is it?”

  “Please sir, I’m sorry, sir, I’m sure, but Miss Lorna said to come and tell you Dr. Jordan’s on the telephone.”

  “Thank you, Miss…?”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “Your name?”

  “Please, sir, it’s Etta.”

  “Thank you, Etta. I don’t bite, you know.”

  “Oh no, sir, I never thought…”

  He gave up. “Would you be so kind as to light a fire in here?”

  “Oh, yes, sir, of course, sir.”

  “Thank you,” said Alec as she scurried away. He turned to Worrall. “Dr. Jordan already. Keen as mustard is right. You’d better take the call. He doesn’t know me from Adam.”

  “The only phone’s in the front hall,” Daisy advised the inspector. “And I was warned that the operator is liable to listen in.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Fletcher. I’ll have a stern word with her concerning unauthorised dissemination of police business.” He went out, closing the door.

  Daisy decided it was past time to give Alec a proper welcome. She went to give him a kiss. It lasted an agreeable length of time, then she laid her head on his chest with a sigh. He kept his arms around her, warming her. She could hear his heart beat.

  “Ker-thump, ker-thump.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your heart. It sounds very strong and dependable. Determined. Alec, I know I shouldn’t have come without telling you.”

  “If you’d told me, you wouldn’t have come.”

  For once she let him enjoy the delusion that he could have stopped her. “I really am very glad you’re here. I can’t believe Humphrey was murdered, though. It must have been a mistake. Someone really was dosing him regularly and accidentally gave him too much.”

  “Whether by accident or on purpose, the coroner would almost certainly advise his jury to bring it in as murder, because the drug wasn’t being administered by a doctor as part of a course of treatment. At least, could Dr. Knox—?”

  “No. Absolutely not. He was extremely concerned about being unable to diagnose Humphrey’s condition. He would never have prescribed a sedative when he was already dopy all the time.”

  “For Mrs. Sutherby’s sake? So that she could continue to write the books and reap the rewards?”

  “Darling, it was his doing that the police were called in at all, remember. He could have just signed the death certificate. Humphrey would have been buried and that would have been the end of it.”

  “Unless he was afraid someone might question it. He told Worrall he had Birtwhistle taking nux vomica, a dangerous drug. Presumably Mrs. Birtwhistle, at least, knew that. There was always the possibility she’d question whether the doctor had set the dosage too high, high enough to kill him.”

  “I suppose so,” Daisy said doubtfully. “Though—”

  The door opened. Once more, Etta stood there with her mouth open, this time apparently aghast at the sight of the Fletchers’ chaste marital embrace. She bore a coal scuttle, which she almost dropped. Of course, she very likely didn’t know they were married.

  “I was so cold,” Daisy explained with a smile, stepping away from Alec. He, too, stepped back hurriedly, smoothing his hair, though it was the crisp kind that never looked ruffled. “My husband was trying to keep me warm till you get a fire going. Come in, do.”

  Daisy’s mother, the dowager viscountess, would have been horrified to hear her daughter condescending to explain her actions to a housemaid, or even simply to notice her presence. Alec’s mother, the bank manager’s widow, would have been horrified that they had indulged in such behaviour where a servant might come upon them. Both would have been appalled that Alec took the heavy scuttle from Etta and carried it to the fireplace.

  Daisy suspected he was trying to put the girl at her ease in case he had to question her later.

  In the quiet
while Etta built the fire, the sound of Sybil’s typewriter next door was faintly audible. Alec went over to the desk, where Worrall had left his notebook, and looked through it.

  “Can you read it?” Daisy asked softly.

  “Oh yes. He doesn’t use shorthand. It means his notes are somewhat sketchy. I suspect he relies a good deal on his memory.”

  “I bet you wish Ernie Piper was here.” DC Piper was an excellent shorthand writer, with a supply of well-sharpened pencils always at the ready and a memory to match. “I’ll take notes if you like.”

  “I’m hoping Dr. Jordan’s report will mean no interviews and I can go straight back to town.”

  “In that case, I think I’ll leave with you. If you coppers have no reason to make us stay, the family won’t want guests at a time like this. We can drive back together.”

  Alec grinned at her. “Now there’s a pleasant prospect! Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

  DI Worrall returned shortly thereafter. The omens did not look good. He was obviously bursting with news, and that could only mean Humphrey Birtwhistle had not died a natural death.

  EIGHTEEN

  Barely concealing his impatience, Detective Inspector Worrall watched Etta light the fire and sweep up the dust. The moment she rose from her knees, he thanked her punctiliously—with a glance at Alec—then escorted her and her dustpan to the door and shut it firmly behind her.

  Turning, he announced, “Birtwhistle died of chloral hydrate poisoning. No question about it, Dr. Jordan says. A certain amount of alcohol in his system, but not excessive. He definitely didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke, and there were no symptoms of nux vomica poisoning.”

  “Did Jordan say how fast he would have reacted to a large dose?”

  “Normally within half an hour, but you know how doctors are—they always hedge things about. Some react slower, some quicker. Whichever, he’d have gone to sleep, drifted gradually into a coma, and then just stopped breathing.”

  “So the first thing we need to know now is whether Dr. Knox prescribed chloral.”

  “I rang up Dr. Knox, sir. His housekeeper says he had very few patients this morning and he’s on his way back here. Should be here shortly.”

  “Excellent.”

  Worrall looked gratified. “Then I rang HQ to report. You’re not going to believe this, sir. Leastways, you haven’t mentioned it: Seems a couple more blokes from the Yard just turned up to join you.”

  “Tom and Ernie!” Daisy guessed.

  “DS Tring and DC Piper.”

  “Alec, why on earth did you bring them all this way when you didn’t even know there was anything to investigate?”

  “I didn’t,” Alec said grimly. “The Super told me I could send for them if I found I needed them. He must have changed his mind and sent them helter-skelter after me.”

  “But why?”

  “When he rang me up at home, he sounded worried about you. I assume he considered three of us would be better able to protect you than one.”

  “But Mr. Crane loathes me! I always thought he rather hoped I’d be the next victim of murder, or else get arrested for it. He must be suffering from softening of the brain.”

  Noticing Worrall’s amused interest in this interchange, Alec said repressively, “Nonsense.”

  “Not to worry,” Worrall said. “Probably just our Mr. Oakenshawe on the fidgets. He’s the deputy chief constable, Mrs. Fletcher, and hardly dare blink in case the Colonel damns his eyes— Beg pardon! Tells him off for it when he comes back from the Highlands. I wouldn’t put it past him to have rung up your Mr. Crane again and asked for more men.”

  “Not my Mr. Crane,” said Daisy. “But I’m glad Tom Tring and Piper are on their way.”

  “They’ve been put on the train to Matlock. One of our chaps there is going to bring them up here. In the meantime, Superintendent Aves—the Matlock super—will have a man go round all the chemists in Matlock, asking about recent prescriptions for chloral.”

  “Thank you,” Alec said with a sigh. “You’ve got things well under way. Depending on what Dr. Knox has to tell us, we may well need more men. In the meantime, Daisy, would you add a bit more detail to your picture of the household? Tell us about Mrs. Birtwhistle.”

  “You know she’s American? By birth, at least. She may be a naturalised citizen. She and Humphrey met when he was in America. They married and he brought her back here to his childhood home, in the mid-Nineties, I think. She was devoted to him, I’d swear to it.”

  “Hmm.” Alec looked sceptical. “Their son? Simon, isn’t it? How did he get on with his father?”

  “Not particularly well, but I’d say it was just typical father-son conflict. He’s a would-be intellectual and he despised Humphrey’s books.”

  “Oh? Why was that?”

  “I suppose you have to know, but it’s something else that really mustn’t come out in public if it doesn’t absolutely have to. Humphrey wrote Wild West novels.”

  “I like a good cowboy story meself,” Worrall admitted, “but I don’t recall any written by a Birtwhistle. Oh, that’s right. You said he used a pen-name.”

  “Eli Hawke.”

  “Hawke! Tells a good tale, he does. Or she does, should I say? Seeing it’s Mrs. Sutherby writes ’em.”

  “They collaborated.”

  “Just fancy! Never met an author before in my life, and here I’ve got two I like, one dead and one alive and kicking. So to speak.”

  Not exactly felicitously phrased, Daisy thought but didn’t say. “Simon fancies a literary life,” she continued, “which so far equates pretty much to a life of leisure. The extra money Sybil’s increased earnings has brought in helped to support him. In fact, she suspected he might be dosing his father to keep him in the background.”

  “Aha!”

  “But he was only a schoolboy when Humphrey fell ill. I told her I couldn’t believe he was sophisticated enough to think up such a complicated plot, far less carry it out.”

  “I dunno,” said Worrall, “I’ve known a few pretty nasty schoolboys, and crafty with it.”

  “In fact, now I come to think of it, he’s been away at university, so it was impossible.”

  “That’s a point,” the inspector conceded, “far as the long-term sedation goes, but it doesn’t mean he wasn’t the one poisoned Mr. Birtwhistle in the end.”

  “Thus, as I said before, killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. With his father dead, if Sybil managed to continue writing and selling the books, she’d have had no reason to give the Birtwhistles any of the proceeds.”

  “For the use of the pen-name,” Alec suggested, “but you’re right, it would be a chancy business.”

  Worrall wasn’t going to let Simon go so easily. “Inheritance,” he said darkly.

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Never mind, we’ll find out.”

  “Who else did Mrs. Sutherby suspect?” asked Alec.

  “Myra. For much the same reason as Simon. I told you she’s some sort of cousin?”

  “Of Birtwhistle? That is to say, not on the American side.”

  “Of the Birtwhistles. Though she didn’t benefit so directly from the increased royalties, as she has a trust fund, she tends to go through her income gadding about, well before the quarter. She’s in the habit of coming back to the farm till her next payment is due, so she has been taking advantage of their willingness to support her somewhat lengthy visits. Or so I gather. On the other hand, she can’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen when Humphrey fell ill, and, frankly, she hasn’t the brains to have worked out about Sybil taking over the writing, or how it affected her, or what she might do about it.”

  “Bit thick, eh?”

  “That’s one way of putting it, Inspector. Light-minded would be more accurate. As far as Sybil was concerned, part of the reason she was troubled was that she likes both Simon and Myra.”

  “And Mrs. Birtwhistle?” Alec queried.

  “She
likes her and had no suspicions of her.”

  “Ah,” said Worrall, “that’s worth noting that is, considering.”

  Alec moved on. “Humphrey Birtwhistle’s brother and sister? Norman and Lorna?”

  “Did Sybil like them? No, she did not. It’s hard to imagine anyone liking them. Did she suspect them? She didn’t say so.”

  “I take it you don’t much care for them, either. Why not?”

  “Bad-tempered, discourteous, grudging, and grudge-holding. Enough?”

  “Enough to be going on with. Are you aware of any specific grudge?”

  “Neither of them has yet got over Humphrey coming home, thirty years ago, to claim his inheritance. They’d settled in cosily together after their father died. Humphrey had run away ten years earlier to America. He told me he wasn’t much of a letter writer. He led a fairly wild life in the Wild West.”

  “Ah,” said the inspector. “That’d explain the books.”

  “That’s right. Meanwhile, Norman and Lorna had no reason to suppose he was still alive, let alone that he’d ever come home to demand his share. It must have been a shock, but still to be muttering about it after three decades…!”

  “Ah,” said Worrall again. Daisy tried to imagine him and Tom meeting and ah-ing at each other. Tom would win as far as the expressive content of his favourite monosyllable was concerned, she decided. “All the same,” the inspector went on, “it don’t make sense for them to decide after all this time to do away with him. I can’t see they’d gain much from it, him with a wife and son.”

  Alec said a trifle irritably, “I hope we’re not going to have to wait for lawyers to produce wills and bankers to produce accounts. Daisy, you say Sybil didn’t suspect either Norman or Lorna of doping their brother, but can you think of any motive for either?”

  “Darling, don’t tell me you’re asking for wild speculation?” she teased. He frowned again. “Oh, all right. Let’s see. The trouble is, I know practically nothing about how the household finances were allotted, and neither does Sybil. Norman provides much, if not most, of the food, from the farms, which he’s in charge of. Ruby and Lorna apparently share the housekeeping duties that aren’t performed by Betta and Etty. I mean, Etta and Betty, who just come in by the day. No, I really haven’t the foggiest about expenses or inheritances. Ruby’s probably the person to ask, though talking about finances when her husband just died … Rather you than me.”