The unmitigated gall of the man! Waltzing in under Flagg's auspices as if he had not hurled horrible accusations against her not an hour ago! He ought to have whisked Belinda away by now, far from Daisy's baleful influence.
She would not show him she cared. Not looking at him, she handed her two lists to Inspector Flagg, who quickly scanned them.
“Thank you, Miss Dalrymple. I'd like to ask you one or two questions.”
“Of course. Do sit down,” she invited with a gesture Alec might interpret to include him if he chose. He did, but took a chair farther from her than Flagg's.
“Mrs. LeBeau, now,” said the inspector. “You mentioned her last night, and I had a word with Barton about her. She's the lady lives right at the bottom of the drive? The one Lord John ⦠er ⦠erred with, shall we say?”
“He told you? How ungentlemanly!”
“Oh no, ma'am, Lord John's too honourable a gentleman to give the lady's name. However, he did describe the circumstances, which, with what Barton told me, led to the fairly obvious conclusion you have just confirmed.” He gave her his bland smile. “Mrs. LeBeau's in a good position to blackmail him, yet you haven't listed her as a possible Poison Pen.”
“No,” Daisy said shortly, annoyed with him for tricking her, particularly in Alec's presence. But further explanation was called for, even if it led Alec to accuse her of “taking Mrs. LeBeau under her wing,” as she had others in past cases. “I realize getting letters could be camouflage for sending them, but she just isn't the sort to write such scurrilous stuff.”
She felt Alec's sceptical gaze upon her, but he didn't speak.
“Is she the sort to bump off the professor,” Flagg asked bluntly, “if he was the writer? She lives right across from the churchyard, with a good view of comings and goings.”
Daisy hesitated. It was much easier to imagine Wanda LeBeau calmly disposing of a menace than composing vulgar letters. “I don't see how she'd ever have found out it was Professor Osborne,” Daisy said. “She doesn't care for village gossip, and Mrs. Osborne strongly disapproves of her, so she wouldn't call socially at the Vicarage.”
“Any more questions about the lady, sir?” Flagg asked Alec.
From the corner of her eye, Daisy saw him shake his head. Under normal circumstances he would have pressed her for every little detail she knew about a suspect, so he must be feeling awkward, she was glad to note. Why was he staying? Did he find the case so fascinating, he would even sacrifice his
daughter's perceived welfare to his curiosity? If so, he had a nerve denouncing Daisy for bringing Bel with her!
“Right, Dr. Padgett next, Miss Dalrymple. He was out last night when I went to see him about his examination of the body.”
Daisy told about finding the envelope in the doctor's car.
“Did he realize you'd seen it?” Alec asked sharply.
“He'd have no reason to suppose I'd have the slightest idea what was in it, Mr. Fletcher,” Daisy pointed out, her tone frosty. Not for the world would she confess to her fears at the time, or later, in the churchyard.
“Brigadier Lomax?” Flagg read.
“I've no evidence, just Johnnie's guess from something the brigadier said. Which reminds me, I heard Sam Basin's mother talking about a letter he got which upset him no end. They're village people, but he's a mechanic at a garage in Ashford.”
“Sam-u-el Basin,” said Flagg, writing. “And Mrs. Burden? She's the village postmistress, sir, and the shopkeeper, too, if I'm not mistaken.”
“I had quite a chat with her,” Daisy said, “and I'm convinced she knows something. You'll see I put her on both lists. Her daughter probably hears all the gossip, too, come to think of it.”
“We'll bear that in mind, ma'am. And we'll ask Mrs. Burden about other possible victims, as you suggest.”
Daisy flashed a glance of triumph at Alec. The infuriating man was looking at his wrist-watch.
Flagg noticed, and consulted his own. “You're right, sir, we'd better get moving before people start going out for the day. We'll just go over this list of possible Poison Pens quickly, Miss Dalrymple, if you'd be so kind as to tell us briefly why you suspect each person. Professor Osborne we know about. Mrs. BurdenâI'll add her daughter. Miss Prothero?”
“She lives next door to Mrs. LeBeau, so could have seen Johnnie that once, and spied on Mrs. LeBeau in general. Besides, she's one of the Vicarage scandal circle, and she has a very sharp tongue.”
“Vicarage scandal circle?”
“Tea and gossip with the vicar's wife. Mrs. Lomax, Miss Hendricks, Mrs. Willoughby-Jonesâbut she has no qualms about attacking people head on, so why write letters? Likewise, Mrs. Osborne herself. She had every chance to observe Johnnie and Mrs. LeBeau, and to hear all the Rotherden gossip, but she practically runs the village single-handed. I'd think she was too busy and too much in control already to bother with anonymous letters. And if she did, and her husband found out, I doubt she'd have anything to fear from him. Who else did I list?”
“Mr. Paramount,” Flagg read.
“Oh, yes, Johnnie's disgruntled uncle, lives in the gatehouse, but far too frail to have committed the murder. I really put him and his servant down because they could have seen Johnnie at Mrs. LeBeau's gate, and the daily help actually told me she retails all the village gossip to the old man.”
“Might have seen something in the graveyard yesterday afternoon, too. We'll talk to them.”
“But lord knows how many other people get all the gossip from their servants,” Daisy sighed. “There could be dozens of possible suspects I've never even heard of.”
“I'd say you've done a pretty thorough job, considering, Miss Dalrymple. Wouldn't you agree, Chief Inspector?”
“Miss Dalrymple's gift for getting to know people constantly amazes me,” Alec said in a noncommittal voice. Daisy could not quite find anything in his comment to take exception to.
“Just two more here,” said Flagg. “Doris, the maid at the Vicarage.”
“Cross her out. She's virtually illiterate.”
“And one you've already crossed out.”
“Oh, Mrs. Molesworth. She seems to frequent the Vicarage, but she's far too good-natured to write that filth. You know, Inspector, the trouble with all of them is that even if the professor avoided them, as I believe he did, they all know the vicar too well to misidentify him.”
“I shouldn't worry, maâam. You'd be surprised, I dare say, how many people are too vain to wear glasses when they need 'em. It's easily tested for. Now, sir, we'll see the vicar first, as you suggested, shall we?”
“Yes,” said Alec, jumping energetically to his feet, “and, if he can't help us, Mrs. LeBeau next as she lives opposite. I think, Inspector, it would be a good idea to take Miss Dalrymple with us to see Mrs. LeBeau, as she has already won the lady's confidence.”
Daisy stared at him, astounded, as Flagg said dubiously, “If you say so, sir.”
“I do, assuming Mrs. LeBeau agrees. You don't need me to go with you to see Osborne, though. You drive down, so as not to waste time, and Miss Dalrymple and I will walk down to meet you.”
“If you say so, sir,” Flagg repeated with an air of enlightenment, “I'll be on my way.”
The inspector departed, and Daisy rounded on Alec. “But you're always trying to
stop
me getting involved,” she said suspiciously. “What are you up to?”
“Flagg's so keen to involve
me
, it was the only way I could think of to grab a moment to talk to you privately.”
“I knew you didn't really want me to join in the interview. There's nothing to talk about.” She turned her back and pretended to busy herself at the desk.
“Daisy, please, give me a chance.” He sounded desperate.
“How can I make you understand if you won't listen?”
“All right. But come on or Flagg might not wait for us.”
She stood up as she spoke, pushing back her chair and turning. He was disconcertingly close behind her. She stumbled. He caught her in his arms. Her resistance crumbled instantly.
After all, she thought when conscious thought returned a few minutes later, what more could one ask by way of an apology?
But it wouldn't do to let him get away with anything. She gave him a last, quick kiss and said, “Come on, darling, we can talk on the way down the avenue.”
“Hoist by my own petard,” he said with a rueful grimace, but he followed her to the door. “I'm afraid Flagg's opinion of Scotland Yard took a nose-dive when I proposed including you in the interview with Mrs. LeBeau. Daisy, it's obvious you've taken a liking to the woman, but don't, please, let itâ”
He stopped as three small figures confronted them. Belinda seized Daisy's left hand. Her face crumpled.
“You haven't put the ring back on!” she grieved.
“Only because I haven't had time,” Daisy assured her as Alec hastily retrieved the torn envelope from his pocket.
He took out the ring, slipped it onto her finger, and kept hold of her hand.
“That's better,” said Derek. “Now you can jolly well stop crying, Bel. Uncle Alec, when will you play cricket with us?”
“I'm not sure, old man, and I don't want to promise what I can't perform. We'll manage it sometime, but your aunt and I have to go out now.”
“Walking?” Bel asked. “We'll go with you to the gates.”
“Not this time, darling,” said Daisy, giving her a hug. “We still have some talking to do.”
“Well,” Belinda said severely, “next time you squabble with Daddy, don't give him back the ring!”
Â
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Inspector Flagg's black police Ford was parked in the lane near the lych-gate. The inspector stood on the doorstep of the lodge, just inside the Oakhurst gates, talking to a small, aged man with the wrinkled face of a monkey.
As Daisy and Alec approached, they heard Flagg say, “Here's the people I'm waiting for, Mr. Popper, so I'll be thanking you for your assistance and bidding you good-day.”
Mr. Popper squeaked something and popped back into the house like a startled rabbit. The door closed, but did not click shut. Daisy felt eyes upon her through the crack.
“No luck,” said Flagg. “Mr. Paramount sleeps afternoons, and Popper takes his chance to nap. Ancient as the blooming hills, both of âem.” Noticing Daisy and Alec's still-linked hands, he nodded with his blandest smile.
Alec promptly dropped Daisy's hand. “Er ⦠ah ⦠and what about the vicar?” he asked.
“Out. Parish visits. A clergyman can't take a day off just because of a family tragedy, or so Mrs. Osborne informs me. She seems pretty shaken still, so I didn't try to find out if she'd come across any evidence which might link the professor with the letters. Are you all right, Miss Dalrymple? Sure you want to see Mrs. LeBeau with us?”
“Yes, it's not that,” Daisy said as Alec turned to her with concern. She must look as pale as she felt. “I just thought, suppose the murderer for some reason suspected Professor Osborne of being the Poison Pen but was wrong?”
The men glanced at each other. “Then heâor sheâmight try again,” said Alec.
“Specially if a new lot of letters turn up,” Flagg agreed uneasily. “We'd better get a move on!”
M
rs. LeBeau received Daisy and the two detectives in her rose arbour. She apologized for the informality of the setting.
“I was reading out here,” she said, gesturing to the Michael Arlen novel lying on the table. “I hate to waste a fine day indoors, but we can go in to the drawing room, if you prefer. I realize you're here on business, gentlemen. And you, Miss Dalrymple?”
“I'm only here if you'd like me to stay. Since I already know pretty much what you have to tell them, the chief inspector thought you might be more comfortable if I came with them.”
“I don't need my hand held,” said Mrs. LeBeau with a laugh, “but it was a kind thought and by all means stay.”
Alec and Flagg opted to stay out in the garden, sunny but still fresh. They refused coffee, pleading haste. Daisy began to regret missing breakfast, but she too felt the increased sense of urgency caused by her latest conjecture. She didn't want to delay the men, even if they consented to wait for herâwhich they wouldn't. Now that she had a toe in the door, with both Alec's and the inspector's concurrence, she wasn't going to let herself be shut out of the investigation without a fight.
“All I've told them,” she said, “is that you've had anonymous letters, but they know about ⦠you and Johnnie, too.” As Mrs. LeBeau's flawlessly plucked arches drew together in surprised disapprobation, Daisy quickly added, “
He
didn't tell them, either. They're detectives, after all.”
“Have you any idea, ma'am,” Flagg broke in, taking out his notebook, “who wrote the letters?”
“Not the least notion.”
“You couldn't guess from the contents? May I ask what they said?”
Colour darkened Mrs. LeBeau's face, though she was well made-up, perhaps in anticipation of the police visit. “As a police officer investigating a murder,” she said tartly, “you may ask what you please, I suppose. The letters accuse me, in the vilest language, of promiscuity. It's not true, incidentally, in the strict sense of the wordâthe definition reads something like: indefinite polyandry joined with polygyny, as among some races of low civilization.”
“Which naturally excludes the English,” Daisy put in dryly.
“Naturally. However, I'm afraid that is the reputation I bear in the village, so anyone could have written the letters.”
“Have you tried to find out who it was?” Flagg asked, his tone a trifle sharp to Daisy's ears.
“No. I don't much care.” Glancing from the open incredulity on Flagg's long face to Alec's polite interest, she sighed and explained. “The letters are unpleasant, but so far there has been nothing like blackmail or threats of exposure. If it came to that, I might find it more comfortable to move away. I'd be sorry to go, to leave my roses, my little house, and some pleasant acquaintances, but nothing ties me here. I wasn't brought up in this area; no family connections.”
Inspector Flagg, who had probably spent his entire life in
Ashford and environs, looked nonplussed. Alec took over.
“Then I take it your ⦠uh ⦠non-family connection doesn't reside in the neighbourhood?”
Mrs. LeBeau smiled appreciation of his tact. “No, Chief Inspector. He is in London all week. I have a flat in town, and he often comes down here for weekends, alone or with friends, though he has a country house elsewhere.”
“Am I right in supposing he would suffer a great deal more than you from exposure of your liaison?”
“Yes. Therefore, if the letters started to make that kind of threat, I should inform him and let him deal with it. We are ⦠fond of each other, but I certainly shouldn't murder to protect him, even if I knew who wrote them. Was it Professor Osborne?”
“Sorry, I can't answer that,” said Alec, truthfully if misleadingly. “May we see your letters?”
“I destroyed them.” At Alec's request, she described the letters' physical appearance. As far as she could recall, the longer words were misspelt, the rest correct, as in Johnnie's. “Deliberate mistakes?” she asked.
“Another question I can't answer,” Alec said, smiling. He looked at Flagg.
“Deliberate mistakes such as you yourself would make,” Flagg suggested stolidly, “to divert suspicion if you wrote such letters?”
“If I did, I might, I suppose, but I assure you I've never had the least desire to express myself in that way.”
“Then you won't object if we take a look through your desk?”
Mrs. LeBeau frowned. “I object in the sense that I thoroughly dislike it, but not in the sense that I refuse permission.”
“I dare say we'll find there the name and address of your gentleman friend.”
“Certainly not. I keep nothing with his full name on it.”
“Then I'll ask you to oblige me with the information now.” Flagg's pencil poised over his notebook.
“That's one
/
can't answer,” Mrs. LeBeau said adamantly, “or won't, rather. His position is extremely sensitive. You must allow ladies the same sense of honour you expect of gentlemen.”
As Flagg opened his mouth to insist, Alec intervened. “I think we can manage without for the present, Inspector.” He met Flagg's annoyed gaze with a slight shake of the head. “But I must warn you, ma'am, we may ask again at a later date.”
“And require an answer,” said Flagg, tight-lipped. “Where were you between two and three-thirty yesterday afternoon, Mrs. LeBeau?”
“Until about three, out here, cutting off spent blooms. They stop flowering if one doesn't.”
“Alone?”
“Yes,” Mrs. LeBeau said soberly. “My gardener only comes mornings. But shortly after three, my maid called me in to take a telephone call. I was talking to a friend for the next half hour or so. I'll willingly give you her name and address.”
But the professor was dead by five to three. The Merry Widow had no alibi.
On the way out, Flagg asked the maid, Alice, whether she had seen her mistress in the garden between two and three. She had not, being busy with some mending upstairs at the frontâtoo busy, also, to have looked out into the lane or the churchyard opposite. On the other hand, having no cause to speak to Mrs. LeBeau before the telephone rang at three, Alice had not searched and failed to find her in the garden. Nor were cheap white envelopes and writing paper unearthed in the desk.
“Pity,” grunted the inspector as he and Alec and Daisy went out to the lane. “We might have nabbed her.”
“Why don't you like her?” Daisy asked, settling on her curls the straw hat Mrs. LeBeau had insisted on lending to cover her bare head. She hadn't been thinking about hats when she and Alec left Oakhurst.
“I don't hold with that sort of carrying-on.” Glancing back, Flagg added sourly, “The wages of sin is a nice house in the country and a flat in London.”
“Actually, she inherited money from her husband,” Daisy informed him. “And I bet you didn't turn up your nose at Johnnie becauseâ”
“Daisy!” Alec warned. “Flagg, I owe you an apology. I had the impression that her lover is very likely a genuinely important man, and in my view his name won't help us, at least as yet. However, it's your case, and if you want to send me to Jericho, I'll go quietly.”
“You can't say fairer than that.” Flagg pondered for a moment. “No, on the whole I'll be glad of your assistance, sir. Do you want to make it official?”
“Heaven forbid!” said Alec. Daisy guessed he had in mind the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner for Crime whose hairâaccording to Alecâstood on end at the thought of Daisy mixed up in a case. “Unless it seems a good idea later on,” Alec qualified his response. “Who do you want to see next?”
“Dr. Padgett, I think, sir, before Mrs. Burden. Miss Dalrymple's certain he had at least one letter, and it's about time I got his report on his inspection of the body. Also, it's his surgery hours, so we'll find him at home. He lives down the bottom of the green. We'll drive so as not to waste time. I'll run you up to the house first, Miss Dalrymple,” he added, crossing the lane to the Ford.
“Thank you, Inspector, but I'll drop in at the Vicarage to see if there's anything I can do to help.” As he stooped to crank
the engine, she added innocently, “If you're quite sure you don't need the rest of my information about the doctor and Mrs. Burden, and the other people on the lists?”
Alec raised laughing grey eyes to heaven, but forbore to intervene. Flagg cranked the engine to life, then straightened with a sigh. He glanced from Daisy, who smiled sweetly, to Alec and back.
Sighing again, he opened the car door and said, “All right, hop in.”
Daisy hopped.
On the way, she pointed out the dwellings of Miss Prothero, Sam Basin, and Mrs. Molesworth. Turning right down the near side of the village green, Flagg asked impatiently, “But what about Dr. Padgett? What's this vital information I need before talking to him?”
“Actually, I was thinking more of Mrs. Burden,” Daisy admitted. “The doctor is a charming gentleman, with a practice which includes the best peopleâbest meaning superior in birth and fortune, not necessarily in character, of course. My sister says he also does a great deal of panel work, though.”
“Sounds like an exemplary character,” said Alec, ironically.
“Been getting anonymous letters,” Flagg pointed out. “Maybe he's a wife-beater or a secret toper.”
“Or he wasn't always so exemplary,” Daisy suggested. “A doctor's in a delicate position. If he loses his patients' trust, he loses his livelihood.”
The Ford stopped opposite the duck pond on the lower corner of the green, in front of a large Georgian house veiled with neatly trimmed Virginia creeper. A gleaming brass plate on one brick gatepost announced Old Well House; a second, on the other post, gave the doctor's name and surgery hours.
“You'll wait here, Daisy,” Alec decreed in his no-nonsense voice. “You're the only one who can swear to Padgett's having
received a letter, and I don't want him to have the least inkling of where we got our information.”
Though Daisy felt quite safe now that he was here, the memory of her former fears stopped the protest on her tongue. She even tilted her hat forward and turned away her head, feigning fascination with a pair of white ducks and a plump grey goose on the pond, while Alec and Flagg walked up the short drive.
They were back in a couple of minutes. “Padgett's been called out to an emergency,” said Alec, getting back into the car.
Flagg cranked again. “Tell us about Mrs. Burden, Miss Dalrymple,” he invited when he took his place behind the wheel.
As they drove around the bottom of the green, past the station road and the Hop-Picker, and up the other side, Daisy described her chat with the postmistress. She became more and more convinced the woman was hiding something. “It could be that she felt she ought not to have talked about Post Office business, but she got jolly nervous and cut me off pretty sharply in the end.”
“You led her on to say more than she meant to,” said Flagg with a hint of admiration, “and quite neatly.”
“She must hear loads of gossip in the shop,” Daisy pointed out, “so she'd have the material to write the letters. I should think she must be well enough educated to write correctly, or she couldn't run the business, but I don't know that it would occur to her to deliberately spell wrong.”
“No, that's rather a sophisticated touch,” Alec agreed.
“And the way she talked wasn't really as if she'd written them herself. So more likely she's been getting them. Either that, or her daughter has, unless she suspects her daughter wrote them. Winifred's the sulky, grudge-against-the-world sort who might, and she runs the telephone exchange so she must hear all sorts of things, if she listens in.”
“As most of 'em do,” said Flagg cynically. “Amazing what folks'll say on the telephone, knowing perfectly well there's a pair of ears in the circuit.”
“All very true,” Alec said dryly, “but could either of them have left the shop for long enough to murder Professor Osborne? When's early closing?”
“Today,” said Daisy, vexed with herself for missing the obvious. “The exchange doesn't close down, of course.”
Flagg was unruffled. “Well, that's as may be, and two suspects the fewer's all to the good. But Mrs. Burden told you she'd noticed those envelopes, and with any luck she'll remember at least some of the people they were addressed to.” He drew up in front of the shop.
“Shall I come in?” Daisy asked, dying to but not wanting to press her luck. “Unlike Mrs. LeBeau, Mrs. Burden didn't unbosom herself to me. She isn't exactly going to fall on my neck.”