T
he walk with Angela and Tiddler had sparked Daisy's reappraisal of the murders, or rather Angela's comment when they reached the gazebo “ruins” and turned to look back at the house.
“It's so enormous. It must cost a fortune to run. Just think of all the animals I could save with all that money!”
Lucy had said something similar when Daisy arrived at Haverhill just two days ago. Rescuing dogs had not come into it, but she had mentioned her grandfather's enormous expenses and the “pots of money” which allowed him to pay for Lucy's wedding as well. Daisy was sure Lucy had said something else even more significant, but she couldn't quite pin it down.
“When Angela and I got back to the house,” she told Alec, “people were practically queuing up to talk to me. Everyone was sure I must know what you were up to and what you'd found out. I didn't have to go looking for people, honestly. All I did was sit in the sun in the Long Gallery and they came to me. I could do without the rest of the house, but I really do covet the Long Gallery. It's a wonderful room.”
“Great Scott, Daisy, if you have something to say, get on with it!”
“Sorry, darling. You haven't had a chance yet to appreciate it. Anyway,
people asked me what was going on, and of course I didn't tell them even what very little I know. But they also wanted to tell me their own ideas. Lucy was right, some of her relatives really are poisonous! The one thing that puzzled just about all of them was what Lord Fotheringay could have discovered that threatened Lady Eva's murderer.”
“I hope you weren't asking questions,” Alec said ominously.
“Oh no, darling. I may have just sort of nudged one or two people in that direction, but mostly I just looked at them.” Daisy widened what Alec persisted in referring to as her “misleadingly guileless” blue eyes. “And out it came.”
“Ah,” rumbled Tom, “so you see Lord F's murder as a stumbling block, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“The more I learn about him, the more it doesn't make sense. His only interest was his plants, and he went through life blissfully unaware of anything else. I started to wonder what other motive Lady Eva's murderer could have had for killing him. And that was when I started to think we'd got it all backwards.”
Alec, Tom and Ernie all sat up straight and looked at her. It was most satisfactory. “Go on,” said Alec.
“Suppose the original plan was to murder Lord Fotheringay and Lady Eva had information that would give away the murderer. After all, she was in the business of nosing about, so to speak. It's far more likely than the other way round. It would have to be some clue that was meaningless at the time but which would have become significant after Lord F's death. Yet it had to be something the person she saw knew she knewâSometimes the English language is most inadequate!”
“We know what you mean, Daisy. Get on with it!”
“Then I remembered that she went to the conservatory at tea-time the day before, the day I arrived. Incidentally, darling, may I have some tea in your cup? I'm parched.” While Alec passed his cup and saucer to Tom, who presided over the pot, she continued. “Lady
Eva realized Lord F hadn't turned up to tea on the terrace and she decided he ought to be more sociable on such a grand family occasion. She marched off around the side of the house to fetch him. Thanks.” Daisy took a long draught of tea.
“You think she sawâ” Alec started.
“Wait! Let me tell this in order or I'll get muddled and miss things out. Any detail could be significant,” she quoted him. “The thing is, Lord and Lady F came out together just a moment later, from the Long Gallery. He had left the conservatory before Lady Eva arrived. It was the perfect opportunity for someone to pick a few oleander leaves unobserved.”
“Which Lady Eva observed,” Piper put in. He had started taking notes.
“Which Lady Eva observed. My feeling is, if she had seen a family member, who ought to have known better, picking the stuff, she would have scolded and quite likely mentioned it when she came back. But if it was a relative by marriage who might never have been told about the poisonous plants, she'd just warn them and leave it at that.”
“Ah,” said Tom ruminatively. “Sounds reasonable.”
“Pure speculation,” Alec said, “but it doesn't really matter. If she saw this person, this person probably saw her. Assuming your theory has anything in it.”
“Well, I think it's logically consistent. This personâcan I call him or her X?”
“Do.”
“Right-oh, X has to dispose of Lady Eva before heâI can't go on saying he or she so I'll stick to heâbefore he can safely administer the oleander to Lord E So there's the motive for her murder, nothing to do with her collection of scandal.”
“And it also served very nicely to muddy the waters,” said Alec. “But we come back to the question of who had a motive for killing
Lord F? As far as I've gathered, he had very little at his disposal before succeeding to the estate on Lord Haverhill's death.”
“Precisely,” said Daisy triumphantly, “and that's where what Lucy said comes in. Death duties!”
“Great Scott!” Alec exclaimed, properly impressed. “You may have something there.”
Tom and Ernie looked puzzled. Death duties were not of compelling interest to anyone on the salary of a detective sergeant or constable.
Alec let Daisy explain. She thought it very noble of him, since he deplored anything which reinforced Ernie Piper's belief in her infallibility.
“Aubrey Fotheringay had had a weak heart for years. His father, on the contrary, was an exceptionally healthy, vigorous man. In the normal course of things, Lord Haverhill might have been expected to outlive his son. But Lord Haverhill reached the ripe old age of eighty and there was still no sign of Aubrey popping off. Instead, Lord Haverhill started to go downhill. It began to look as if he would be the first to go.”
“A very natural course of things,” Tom observed in a rather disapproving voice.
“Yes indeed, but very much more to the government's advantage than the estate's. Lord Haverhill dies, enormous death duties are levied on his enormous estate. What remains goes to his son, who becomes Earl of Haverhill. The new Lord Haverhill dies, somewhat less enormous death duties are levied on his no longer quite so enormous estate. The much reduced residue goes to his son in turn.”
Piper was quick to grasp the implication. “But if Lord Fotheringay dies first, he has no estate, so no death duties. So when the present Lord Haverhill dies and death duties are paid, the estate is still pretty enormous.”
“And it goes to Rupert,” said Tom. “He wasn't here.”
“No,” Daisy agreed. “But his wife was.”
Â
Alec let Daisy stay while they discussed her new theory, which was only fair, she considered. She was quite surprised, though, that he didn't even once remind her it was pure speculation.
“We didn't even consider them,” he said in self-disgust. “The Lieutenant Colonel was vouched for by his senior officer. We didn't find anything in Lady Eva's papers that suggested he or Sally had anything to hide.”
“I don't think they did,” Daisy said. “I heard that he was expensive and she had to scrape and save ⦔
“She wears artificial silk stockings,” Tom put in. “That's what Lady Eva was strangled with.”
“There you are, then. I bet her pearls are artificial too.”
“But whenever Rupert wanted anything his pay and his allowance wouldn't cover,” Alec said, “he came to Haverhill and his grandfather shelled out. Who told us that?”
“Mr. Montagu,” said Ernie.
“Flora told me the same,” Daisy observed. “Lucy said Rupert found it humiliating to beg from Lord Haverhill. He's bored with the Army. Lady Haverhill told me that.”
“Why on earth ⦠? Why
do
people tell you these things, Daisy?”
Daisy fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I didn't ask, I promise you. I had no interest in Rupert whatsoever then. She also said he doesn't want to come and live here at Haverhill either, to help run the estate. And I think it was Lady Ione who told me he wants to live a life of expensive, luxurious idleness in town, just bringing house-parties down for the odd weekend to his country place. It wouldn't be half so luxurious after two lots of death duties, if he could even afford to run Haverhill.”
“And Mrs. Rupert wants real silk stockings,” said Tom. “Not to mention real pearls. Do you think it was all her doing?”
“She couldn't have attacked Gerald,” Daisy reminded him.
“No, but she could have done the others and talked him into that, to protect her.”
“I don't think so. I don't see her as a Lady Macbeth. I think he's firmly in command and he told her to poison his father while he had a perfect alibi, just in case anyone suspected it wasn't a natural death. Which would have been unlikely if she hadn't murdered Lady Eva first. I think she panicked when Lady Eva saw her pick the oleander.”
“It certainly couldn't have been part of the original plan,” Alec agreed. “They might well have got away with just Lord Fotheringay's death.”
“Sally was in a dreadful state this morning,” Daisy went on. “Everyone thought she was being rather feeble, affected more strongly than was quite decent by Lady Eva's death, but it makes much more sense if she was the one who killed her. And remember, she'd hoped for a nice, quiet suffocation with a pillow and then had to strangle her after a fight.”
“She must have taken the stocking with her in case,” said Piper. Then he blushed. “Or what d'you think, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“It could have been in her pocket. Assuming she was wearing a dressing gown, it's quite possible she stuffed her stockings in her pocket for some reason when she took them off at bedtime. I've done it on occasion.”
Piper's face was scarlet, his gaze glued to his notebook. As far as he was concerned, discussing a lady's stockings with her was far less decent than throwing a fit at the murder of one's husband's great-aunt.
“So Sally is in a state,” said Alec. “So much so that Lord Haverhill sends for Rupert. In spite of which she goes ahead and poisons her father-in-law?”
“I wouldn't be surprised if she was afraid he'd be frightfully angry if he arrived and found she hadn't done it. Bang goes his alibi, or they have to postpone the real murder until he goes back to the Army, risking Lord Haverhill dying in the meantime.”
“Possible,” Alec conceded, more grudgingly than Daisy considered quite decent.
“He must have been frightfully angry anyway, when he arrived and found out she'd botched it. And then she tells him she's afraid Gerald saw her ⦠.”
“If he did see her, it'll be a big help. Which reminds me,” said Alec, standing up, “I'd better go ask him before he falls asleep again.”
“Darling, I'm coming too.”
“No, you're not. What if someone saw you going in?”
“No one will. They're all at tea and I bet you
everyone
is there, giving themselves an alibi in case someone else is poisoned, if you see what I mean. If there's anyone in the hall, I'll pretend I was on my way to the cloakroom. Let me see him, darling. I have to tell him Lucy's worried sick.”
Alec gave in. “Tom, Ernie, go over the notes again. See if there's anything to confirm or contradict Daisy's fantasy.”
“Fantasy, ho!” said Ernie not quite sotto voce.
Tom winked at her as she rose to follow Alec.
They found Gerald not only awake but sitting up. He was drinking lemonade.
“Dying of thirst, poor lamb,” said the nurse with proprietory pride. “Making up for loss of blood, you see.”
“No one was to know he's awake!” Alec exclaimed in annoyance.
“I asked for it for myself,” the nurse explained placidly.
Gerald set down his empty glass on the bedside table, beside a nearly empty pitcher. “That's better! Daisy, how's Lucy?”
“Desperately worried. Alec won't let me tell her you're recovering. Are you really well enough to sit up?”
“Nothing wrong with me bar a bit of a headache. To tell the truth, I feel just as if I went on a bit of a bender last night. I promised the doctor I wouldn't get up till tomorrow, though. Fletcher, can't Lucy be told I'm all right? She's not going to spread it around, any more than my parents will.”
“Have you talked to them?”
“No, but Miss Robbins here told me they came when I was sleeping.”
“The fewer who know, the safer you are.”
“You still don't know who it was? Who killed Lady Eva and Lucy's uncle and hit me?”