“No. I take it you don't remember seeing whoever hit you, nor whoever poisoned Lord Fotheringay's tea?”
“Not a thing. I don't think it's that I don't remember, I just didn't see.”
“I've been thinking, darling.” Daisy ignored Alec's groan. “Surely the oleander must have been put in the teapot soon enough to give it time to steep. Gerald only just got there when he drank it, so he couldn't possibly see who did it.”
“Then why the deuce did he hit me?” Gerald demanded.
“We didn't tell anyone exactly when you arrived,” Alec said. “For all the murderer knew you could have arrived in time to see herâor himâleave the conservatory and then waited around for your appointment with Lucy until he drank the tea. You see the importance of not revealing more information than absolutely necessary.”
“Except,” Daisy pointed out, “in that case it led to Gerald being hit on the head.”
Alec turned his most fearsome frown on her, but before he could speak, Gerald said, “Listen. I have an idea.”
Alec turned the frown on him. Daisy could read his mind: Wasn't it bad enough her coming up with ideas without someone else starting?
Needless to say, Gerald was uncowed. “You're afraid the murderer will have another go at me. Why not let him?”
Â
Daisy burst into the drawing room in a manner her mother would have stigmatized as thoroughly unladylike. “Lucy? Oh, there you are, darling. Alec says Gerald's not going to die after all!”
Already pale, Lucy turned white. Fortunately she was seated, with
her parents and Tim and Nancy. Daisy forced herself not to glance at Rupert or Sally, keen though she was to see how the news affected them.
Nancy beamed. “He's going to be all right?”
“Well,” Daisy temporized, a little more loudly than was strictly necessary as she had by now crossed the room to the group, “the doctor came to see him. He's still unconscious but Dr. Philpotts is pretty sure he'll come round within the next twenty-four hours.”
Giving her a surprised look, Nancy opened her mouth. Daisy sent her a desperate if silent appeal and hurried on, “He'll have a frightful headache and he may not remember what happened, but there's a chance he will be able to say who attacked him. Then everything will be cleared up and we can all go home.”
“Daisy, dear, do the Tivertons know?” Lucy's mother asked anxiously.
“I think Alec was going to tell them, Aunt Vickie. But I expect they'd be happy to see you.”
“Yes, of course. Come along, Lucy.”
“Not me,” Lucy said grimly. “You forget, Mother, I'm not going to marry him.”
Several people gathered around. Daisy managed to slip away. Lucy joined her before she reached the door.
“Did you have to tell me in front of everyone?” she demanded irritably as they went out into the hall. “Of course I'm glad he's going to be all right, but it's really nothing to do with me now.”
“No, I'm sorry,” Daisy said in her most soothing tone. “I was so pleased I just didn't think. Isn't it wonderful news?”
Lucy's mouth trembled. “Yes. Yes, of course it is. I'm so glad for his parents.” She turned away towards the stairs and Daisy let her go.
Nancy caught up with her. “Daisy, the doctorâ”
“Sshh!” Daisy drew her farther from the drawing-room door, into the middle of the hall where no one could possibly listen without being seen.
“The doctor couldn't possibly be certain Lord Gerald will recover consciousness, let alone within a given period. You must have misunderstood, and it's a great pity you told Lucy.”
“Oh, blast! I shouldn't have told her with a trained nurse sitting beside her! Alec will be furious. I think you'd better come to the library and talk to him.”
Alec managed to obfuscate the issue so that Nancy went away confused but reluctantly willing not to contradict Daisy's story.
When Alec returned to the desk from escorting Nancy to the door, Tom said, “I don't want to be a wet blanket, Chief, but all this isn't what you might call according to Hoyle.”
“Nothing ever is once Daisy gets involved.”
“Darling, that's unfair! It's entirely Gerald's idea.”
“Yes, and that's our excuse: the police surgeon himself told us not to agitate the patient, so we dared not contradict him. All the same, Piper, make a note of Tom's objection, please. If anything goes wrong, it's my responsibility. You two are following orders.”
“Nothing's going to go wrong, Chief,” said Ernie, “not with Mrs. Fletcher involved.”
“Ah, but this is where she ceases to be involved. Daisyâ”
“Wait, I've got an idea. Stebbins!”
“Stebbins?”
“If you have a bright young officer on duty, like the chap who's been guarding Gerald's room all day, it's going to look a bit fishy if he drowses off. If it's Constable Stebbins with his creaky feet, no one will wonder at it if he snores his head off.”
“You've got a point there, Mrs. Fletcher,” said Tom.
“Yes.” Alec sighed. “Ernie, ring them up and say we want Stebbins for night duty.”
“They're not going to believe it, Chief!” Ernie reached for the telephone.
“Fortunately, it doesn't matter what
they
believe.”
“Stebbins is perfectly all right,” Daisy said indignantly, “as long as
you don't make him walk too much. This is the perfect job for him and I bet he doesn't really fall asleep. He'll be there to help if you need him. And I might have another bright idea, Alec, so you'd better let me stay.”
“For the planning, all right,” Alec conceded, “but you are to be tucked up cosily in bed when the lights go out.”
N
ot according to Hoyle, Alec thought ruefully as he sneaked down the back stairs. Tom was all too correct, he was breaking rules written and unwritten. He would never have suggested such a course of action, but when Bincombe urged the plan upon him, he had not resisted very hard.
The investigation was at an impasse. Bincombe didn't know who had attacked him or poisoned Lord Fotheringay. He hadn't seen where Rupert went after dinner since he himself waited in the Long Gallery for the servants to finish clearing. He did recall Rupert saying he was going up to the nurseries to look in on his little boy. So late in the evening, the child would have been asleep, the nurserymaid on duty within call but not within sight.
That Lady Devenish said she had not seen Rupert in the hall proved nothing. While she was watching Montagu go up the main stairs, Rupert could have cut through behind the pillars to the very service staircase Alec was now making use of, which debouched in the corridor between conservatory and library. Or he could claim to have done so while actually going to the conservatory.
Daisy's theory was attractive, more so than the other possibilities,
but they had no proof, only possibilities. An attempt by the murdererâor one of the murderersâto eliminate Gerald tonight would settle the matter. If no attempt took place, they would be no worse off.
At the bottom of the stairs, Alec turned off his electric torch. Feeling his way along the dark corridor was easy and his rubbersoled shoes made no sound on the parquet floor.
The first step he took on the hall's marble squeaked. He froze. Not a sound reached his ears. Across the hall, a dim light was visible near the door to Gerald's room, and there was another at the head of the main stairs, but they only made the great space seem darker. Shoes in hand, Alec crept around behind the pillars and into the blackness under the stairs, where he stopped again to listen.
Tom and Ernie had had it easy. Baines gave Tom the key to the servants' wing door, close to Gerald's door. They had only to wait until all the residents had gone upstairs to nip around the corner. Alec had to pretend to retire with Daisy and come down again, hoping the murderer had not preceded him, was not already lurking, watching for an opportunity. Tom suggested leaving the ambush to him and young Piper, but Alec wouldn't let his men break the rules unless he was there breaking them too.
The murderer wouldn't go down until Stebbins had had time to drift off to sleep, Alec reassured himself. He went on from pillar to pillar, approaching that dim electric light.
One last glance around, and he slipped past the elderly constable into the room. Stebbins, alert at present though seated on a hard chair, winked at Alec as he turned to close the door gently behind him.
Here a light glowed behind the screen sheltering the bed from the entrance, where the night nurse, persuaded into cooperation, was waiting anxiously. The electric lamp was turned away from Gerald, who lay on his back, arms laid neatly at his sides on top of the bedclothes. With his eyes closed he would look as if he was still unconscious, if it weren't for the fresh colour in his cheeks. As it was, he
looked fit enough to tackle any number of murderers, especially when he grinned at Alec.
“Have you any white face-powder?” Alec whispered to the nurse.
She produced a compact from her handbag and, lips pursed, toned down Gerald's bloom while Alec moved the lamp to a table further off, beside a sofa. He looked down behind the sofa to see Ernie lounging on a couple of cushions.
“Don't you dare fall asleep.”
“I wouldn't, Chief!”
Tom was seated behind the second screen, intended to shield the patient from the window's daylight and draughts. Beside him a chair awaited Alec.
“Most comfortable vigil I've ever kept,” Tom whispered.
“Better than a street corner in Whitechapel,” Alec agreed.
Settling down to wait, he wondered who was lurking out there in the shadowy hall hoping for a chance to find Bincombe unattended. Daisy's latest theory was credible, but Alec still favoured the Devenishes, one, two, or all of them in league, though for Daisy's sake he hoped Angela was not involved. Or would John Walsdorf creep through the door, bent on murder? Somehow he couldn't picture Montagu either lurking or creepingâthere was simply too much of him.
Alec looked at his watch. An hour to go before Stebbins was to start snoring, and another quarter before the nurse would hurry to the cloakroom, clutching her belly as if she had eaten something that disagreed with her. With luck, the watching murderer would expect her to stay there for a while.
The whole thing depended entirely on luck. But then, one way or another, most investigations did.
Â
Daisy undressed but she was wakeful. It was useless trying to go to sleep while Alec and Gerald and Tom and Ernie were downstairs waiting for a murderous attack. Not to mention Constable Stebbins with his tortured feet.
She put on her dressing gown, went to the writing table and started a letter to Belinda, telling her about Angela's Tiddler. Then she wrote to her mother, who would be furious if she found out from Daisy's sister, Violet, that Daisy was staying at Haverhill. She wouldn't write to Alec's mother until she got home, in case Mrs. Fletcher decided to return to St. John's Wood to look after poor, deserted Bel.
The article she had hoped to offer her American editor, describing an aristocratic English wedding, had gone down the drain, but she could make a start on planning one about Angela's work. That kept her occupied for some time, until her eyelids began to droop. Maybe she would sleep after all.
She went to brush her teeth. Indistinct sounds from Lucy's room suggested she hadn't been able to fall asleep either.
Then a door clicked shut.
Daisy dropped her toothbrush, spat foam into the basin, and flung open the connecting door. The bedside lamp was on. No Lucy.
Had she got it all wrong? Was the murderer for some obscure reason aiming at Lucy and Gerald all along? Heart in mouth, Daisy looked behind the bed, under the bed, in the wardrobe.
No Lucy.
There seemed no conceivable reason to remove her body. Perhaps she had been stunned and carried away to be murdered at leisure. Daisy hurried to the door and cautiously peered out. She was just in time to see Lucy's peacock kimono turning the corner of the passage towards the stairs.
Lucy was on her way to where her erstwhile fiancé lay supposedly helpless. She didn't want to marry him. Her family were pressing her to relent. In her state of mental disturbance, could some aberration have made her believe her only way out was to kill him? What if she had killed Lady Eva for the money which would enable her to live comfortably without him?
Creeping barefoot along the passage after her dearest friend, Daisy tried to bring logic to bear. Lucy couldn't have poisoned Lord Fotheringay. Someone else had done that. But her great-aunt? She could have pretended to swallow the powder her mother gave her that night. Aunt Vickie was not difficult to deceive. And Lucy had not been in the drawing room after dinner last night, when Gerald was attacked.
Lucy strangling Lady Eva and whacking Gerald over the headâthe idea was ludicrous! Wasn't it?
Daisy peeked around the corner. Lucy was standing at the balustrade separating the gallery from the vast, murky gulf of the hall, gazing down. From below came the hurried tap-tap of heels on marble. The nurse must be on her way to the cloakroom, as arranged.
The tapping ended with the firm closing of a door. For a couple of minutes, Lucy stood still. Daisy hoped she had come to her senses and would go no farther, but, soundless in soft slippers, she moved to the head of the stairs and paused again, staring down. Then she started to descend.
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Once the nurse had left, the dimly lit room was so still that Alec could hear Stebbins snoring on his chair outside the door. The constable was a willing, not to say overenthusiastic, conspirator.
Most of the bed was visible through chinks in the rattan screen Alec was hiding behind, though the door was hidden by the other screen. He had only to turn his head to see Bincombe's bandaged head, calm, relaxed face and closed eyes. His nearer hand lay open, palm up, fingers slightly curled, on top of the blue blanket. His feet beneath the bedclothes lolled slackly to either side. He was the very picture of an unconscious patient neatly arranged by his nurse.
Though Alec neither heard nor saw the door open, he was instantly aware when it happened: Tom Tring, who had a view of an
upper corner, stiffened. The soft click of the closing latch was only audible because Alec was expecting it.
Someone had entered the room stealthily. Someone was standing just inside, straining every sense. But if accosted now, that someone could say he had just come to see how Bincombe was doing, very quietly so as not to disturb him. They had to wait until the murderer's intent was clear beyond questionâyet not allow him to further harm his victim.
A dark figure approached the bed, silhouetted against the shaded lamplight. A man, tall, with a pillow in his hands â¦
⦠come to make sure Bincombe was well taken care of, had every comfort the house could supply â¦
With startling swiftness the pillow descended on Bincombe's face. Alec and Tom sprang forward, flattening the screen. Piper erupted from behind the sofa. Quicker than any of them Lord Gerald's fist flew up and connected with the intruder's chin.
Rupert Fotheringay flew backwards, toppling the other screen, landing heavily on his back in its ruins, dazed.
As Piper pounced with jingling handcuffs, the door was flung open.
“Gerald!” cried Lucy.
“Hello, old thing,” said Bincombe sheepishly, sitting up in bed and massaging his knuckles.
Lucy took in the scene at a glance and turned into an avenging Fury. “How dare you!” she yelled at Alec. “How dare you use Gerald as bait in your filthy trap!”
“It was his own idea,” Alec said mildly.
“Lucy, you will marry me, won't you?” Bincombe pleaded.
“No, I ⦔
“Don't be an ass, Lucy.” Daisy's barefooted arrival on the threshold, with Constable Stebbins looming behind her, added the crowning touch to turn drama into farce. “After lashing out at Alec like
that because he put Gerald in danger, you can't pretend you don't love him.”
“I
can't
go through all this again!” Lucy wailed.
“Darling, if you're talking about the family wedding, just follow our example and tie the knot at a registry office while the family is looking the other way.”
“Which they will be for some time,” Alec said grimly, standing over the handcuffed Lieutenant Colonel. Tom and Piper had sat him up against the wall, where he leaned groggily. “The trial for murder of the heir to the earldom is liable to keep the Fotheringays' attention occupied for the foreseeable future.”
“Murder!” Rupert sat up straight. “I haven't killed anyone. It wasâ”
“It is my duty to inform you,” Tom intoned as Piper whipped out his notebook and a pencil, “that you are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence.”
“I haven't killed anyone,” Rupert repeated urgently. “It was my wife, and she was never supposed to do in Aunt Eva. And then to bungle it and have to strangle her, so no one could possibly believe it was a natural death! Just like a womanâshe couldn't even manage to pick a few leaves without being seen and then she panics and ⦔
Alec bundled Lucy and Daisy out of the room and closed the door firmly behind them.
Â
“What a revolting specimen!” said Lucy in disgust.
“I hope you're referring to your cousin, not to Alec.”
“Rupert always was a bit of a cad but I never thought he was such an out-and-out rotter, trying to blame the whole thing on Sally. He won't get away with attempted murder, will he?”
“I shouldn't think so. He seemed to be anxious to implicate himself
as a co-conspirator or accessory to murder or something. Lucy, you are going to marry Gerald, aren't you?”
Lucy sighed. “I suppose so. I really do love him, but I don't know what sort of wife I'll make. A shrewish one, I expect. If we settle for a registrar, will you and Alec be our witnesses?”
“Then all is forgiven?” said Daisy. “We'll be delighted!”